The Fear of You - Kingdom Battles

Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message podcast

from St. Augustine, FL.

Now enjoy this message. Well, it's good to be home.

Sorry, my voice didn't want to come home with me, apparently,

so you'll just bear with my raspy.

Voice tonight. I appreciate it.

I had a little bit of. Sinus starting to.

Drain a little bit when I was in Albania and it kind of got

caught in my lung, so here I am. I feel.

Good. I just sound horrible.

So that's kind of how this is y'all doing.

All right. I just want to thank our team

who went to India. I know y'all have already seen a

video with that, but you know, we did a phenomenal thing over

there and flipped everything pretty quick and the team was

amazing. We're already making plans for

next year to be able to go back and do some leadership training

and while we're doing that, we want to be able to remodel the

children's home. So another opportunity to be

able to go over and do some construction to be available as

well. We'll figure out when those

dates will be. But now that we have an

aggravated church in India, we'll be traveling there

annually now. Hallelujah.

So the Lord's good. Well, if you have any bibles.

Turn to Deuteronomy Chapter 2. Deuteronomy Chapter 2.

Deuteronomy 2 · chapter mention Deuteronomy 2 · chapter mention

Y'all doing all right. Yeah, I know.

Praise the Lord. I kind of like the Deep Boys,

but I don't like the coffin that's been with it.

That's the problem. Anyway, everybody's been trying

to give me honey and tea and all that and it's not working, so

I'm sure I'll be all good come Sunday.

If not, I'll have Pastor Marcy preach so it won't matter.

Anyway, Deuteronomy. Chapter 2 verse 24 to 25 it says

Deuteronomy 2:24–25

this arise. Set out and pass.

Through the valley and. Look, I've given you.

This. King of Amorites and.

His land into your hand, begin to take possession, and contend

with him in battle. This day I will begin to put the

dread and fear of you upon the peoples everywhere under

heavens, under the heavens, who, when they hear.

The report of you. Will tremble.

And be in anguish. Because of you.

Now this is really. Important because.

A lot of times. We don't want to get in a

battle. But the reality is, God needs us

to. Get in a battle.

Because God wants the fear of you in the land.

That you're supposed to influence and.

So sometimes, you know, we're going to have to go and jump

into some battles. Here.

That may seem uncomfortable, but again, it's the Lord that's with

you, right? If we went ahead and read the

rest of this particular passage, you would see that Moses

actually said, look, we just want to pass through your land.

You know, we're not going to turn to the left or to the.

Right. Just like we've done in another

part, we just stay straight on the King's Road.

If we get anything anywhere, we'll pay for it.

In essence, it was like great plan.

Super nice walking in peace, but the king was like, you're not

coming. And then he came out with a

battle to try to stop him again. A lot of times we find the path

of least resistance when we're moving forward in things of God

and we're like, man, it's just common sense why.

But sometimes the Lord is positioning things because he

needs something bigger than you just passing through in peace.

Are you hearing me? It's not that peace doesn't come

with you and go with you. The fact of the matter is, is

that God needs to do more through you or let it be known

to those in the land whose God you serve.

Are you hearing me? And so in order for us to have

influence in the land, we must face the battle.

It's just going to have to happen.

And as we continue to grow in our influence to ignite the

city, impact the nation, and influence the world, there will

be different things that we will face along the way.

You will face some things personally.

We'll face things as a church here and there.

But those things are only so that the fear of you will show

up in the community. In essence, they'll come to the

point like not sure I want to engage them.

Because God's with them. Are you hearing me?

Because you know, in these last days when there's going to be

difficult times, as tough as it's going to get, as as, as the

scripture line lays out, the reality is, no matter how much

the enemy yells, you are still in the position of power.

You're in the position of power. So we should never want to run

from a battle. Come on, stay in.

We should never want to run from one.

We will always want to be able to be always engaging.

In fact, we fight the good fight of faith, and when we fight the

good fight of faith, that means there's going to be some

challenges. We're going to see some things

that you know are seen. That's contrary to what we're

believing for. But we must continue the process

now, because they did this and they routed them, they destroyed

them. Look what it says in Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 11 · chapter mention

Chapter 11. We'll jump over to verse 22,

Deuteronomy 1122 to 25. It says, For if you are careful

to keep all this commandment which I'm commanding you to do,

to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways and hold him,

hold fast to him, then the Lord will drive out all these nations

before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and

mightier than you. Every place on which the sole of

your foot tread shall be yours, your border will be from the

wilderness to Lebanon, and from the river, the river Euphrates,

as far as the western sea. No man say no man, no man will

be able to stand before you. The Lord your God will lay the

dread of you and the fear of you on all the land on which you set

foot. As he has spoken to you, so

obviously there's a condition here, and the condition is that

you got to obey the commands of God.

At the end of the day, if you're going to obey the commands of

God, and you're going to obey him with all your heart, with

all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength,

then God will allow you to do great exploits, even though the

things that you're conquering are greater and mightier than

you. Because there are a lot of

things in our world systems you understand, that are extremely

large and powerful and you almost would would think to

yourself, well, how could the church even compete?

Well, the church is the most powerful thing on the planet,

period. I mean it is the the most

powerful thing in the earth today is still the Church of

Jesus Christ from the scene realm.

It doesn't always look like that.

But from God's perspective, it is always that way.

And what he says here, he says, because you will keep my word,

right? Because you're going to obey me,

because you're going to do as I say.

Well then, no matter what you face, I'll get rid of.

I'll help you conquer it. Now when I say I'll help, that

doesn't mean God doesn't independent of you or without

you. I mean these guys went in and

they actually had to conquer. In fact, when they went and

conquered this first king before they ever crossed the Jordan

River, they had to actually do the battle.

But God allowed their strategies to win and the strategies of the

enemy to fall apart. He puts the the enemies camping

to confusion and allows you to advance in the battle.

And you understand when even though we don't fight with

swords today, as far as natural swords, that is we ourselves,

because we have the word of God, we can really confound people in

the world because of the wisdom that we possess by the Holy

Ghost. So he says he wants to put the

dread or fear of you before the whole land.

In our city, people, when they hear Anchor Faith Church, if

they're not right with God, it should have a fear of there

should be a fear of us towards them.

What I mean by that is you don't want to cross that, you don't

want to come against that. Because anyone who's ever tried

to come against that church, there's a problem.

Are you hearing me? Because, again, it's not about

me. It's about him anyway.

But God will cause the fear of you to be seen in the land

because he's working through you.

Are you hearing me? So that when you walk into a

place of business or you walk somewhere and people know who

you're associated with, they'll say, ah, they're with that

church. And no matter what we're facing

our community, we can show up. This is why Pastor Angie's

message was so important on Sunday.

Is because God did not place us in this in this city so that we

could sing Kumbaya inside his building and then hold hands

until Jesus takes us up, you know, and then we go let people

in on it when they walk through our doors.

Now the reason he put us in this community is because he needs us

to conquer territories. And in order for you to conquer

territories, you actually got to go into the land, you got to go

in these places of business, you got to go into those

governments, you got to go into the sports arena.

You have to go into those different areas.

And in doing so, it allows you then not because of who you are,

but because of who he is and whom you're serving.

Then all of a sudden you can win major battles for the Lord.

And then the community themselves says we need Anchor

Faith Church to be on our side. Because we sure don't want to be

against them. Are you hearing me?

So we want to be people that don't want to go in and take

possession and territory and take the land to do some fairly

phenomenal things because we're able to fight the good fight of

faith. Again, God is dealing with this

nation that's already been rebellious and stiff necked.

In fact, this was the first king they conquered.

If you go to Deuteronomy 3, they conquer another one, who happens

to be a giant in the 1st place. And so the ones that complained

that we couldn't defeat the giants, God made them defeat a

giant on the other side. Now think about that.

Now you're living 40 years knowing you could have conquered

a giant. That's where God was with on

this thing. Oh, you're not going to go in?

Fine, but watch. I'll conquer a giant with you on

this side. So because of these exploits, of

what God has done with them is created a reputation.

And you want to have the reputation that you have been

with God. Amen.

And that you're always obeying him.

You're keeping his command. Joshua's message on Sunday about

honor. I mean, the highest thing he

values is his word. And if you're going to honor

God, then you have to keep His word.

If you're not keeping his word, there's no honor.

None. And so we want to keep him

because God will honor you when you honor him by keeping His

word, he said. If you'll keep my commands when

you get up in there, then I'll help you dispossess all these

individuals and the fear of you wherever you go, wherever you

go. Well, let's see what happened in

Joshua chapter two. Was it true what God said in

Joshua chapter 2, starting in verse 9 to 12, Joshua says, and

Joshua 2 · chapter mention

he said to the men, I know that the Lord has given you the land

and that or actually they had gone into this where they're

spying out the land and so they've gone to Rahab's house.

OK. And so this is what she's saying

to him. She says Now I, she said to the

men. I know that the Lord has given

you the land. And that the terror of you has

fallen on us. So they're in the most fortified

city. Nobody supposedly impenetrable

can't be breached yet instead of them looking like a from the

outside, they look like a strong city.

But really, what are they? They're a city full of fearful

people. And the problem is a lot of

times when we see the big obstacle.

We think it's taunting us when the reality is it's actually

afraid of us and don't want us coming around.

Because when you keep the word of God, then whatever opposes

God is actually afraid of you. Which then tells me the devil is

actually afraid of you because he opposes the word of God.

And if you do the word of God, then He's in fear of you because

he knows there's nothing He can do to stop you.

So she goes on and says the terror of you have fallen on us,

and that all the inhabitants of the land, all the inhabitants of

the land have melted away before you.

For we've heard what do they hear, how the Lord dried up the

water of the Red Sea before when you came out of Egypt.

I mean, that was 40 years ago. And what you did to the 2 Kings.

So not only did he do something 40 years when he brought you

out, but then you conquered on the other side.

And we've heard about it. I mean, people need to hear

about your wins. You need to get some faith

battles underneath your belt so that people know that's right,

that you've heard from God and you can conquer.

Are you hearing me? Now we know what this is about.

We'll talk about it here in a minute.

It says. It says the 2 kings says that

you whom you utterly destroyed when we heard it, when we heard

what of the two kings you utterly destroyed, our hearts

melted, and no courage remained in any man any longer because of

you. For the Lord your God He is gone

in heaven above and on earth beneath.

Now, therefore, please swear to me by God.

Since I've dealt kindly with you, that you also would deal

kindly with me and my father's household and give me a pledge

of truth. So here we see.

Because they were willing to face a battle, even though it

seemed like they were bigger, tougher, stronger, because they

were willing to, it actually created a reputation for them

that when they went into another battle, in fact the the law, the

most fortified one in the promised land.

That they were afraid of them. I mean, it should be that when

we come somewhere on assignment from God that it would strike

fear in them, that man, these people get what they say.

Because Church was never designed for you to just hear a

message that didn't change you, nor was it designed for you not

to go out and fight the good fight of faith.

These are not nice little stories to lull you asleep until

you die and go to heaven or till Jesus returns.

They're here to empower you to conquer.

Because God has given us dominion, and because He's given

us dominion, then we need to take dominion cause the devil

has stolen a lot of territory and God wants to dispossess

things. Because, you know, there's a

whole transfer of wealth that wants to come to the church, for

the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the for the righteous.

Well, you're not going to get into those things unless you're

willing to face the battle. Are you hearing me?

That's why it's not uncommon for us in some of our combined

battles as a church, that God has done some pretty significant

things. One of the first battles we had

was when we were over at the our 312 location and the inspector

came in and said we couldn't be there.

Well, now you got the whole county telling you you're in the

wrong spot and then they're telling you how they interpret

their zoning. But what did we do?

We went to battle. I mean, we were like, no, this

is where we're supposed to be. I didn't miss God on that.

So you're going to have to change.

And so when they read me, you know why they interpreted it

that way, I said, well, according to this, you can

interpret it a different way. And they said, well, we never

done it that way. Well, I'm in the business of

changing people's thinking. That's what we do.

Well, it didn't just, they didn't just lay down.

They continue to push an agenda. But we just kept showing up and

just kept showing up and just kept showing up.

And we continue to keep building.

We kept meeting because why if God be for us, right?

What's the psalmist say in Psalms 118 verse six?

It says the Lord is for me. I will not fear.

What can man do to me? This is why it's so important

that this key here is that when I obey God at his word and I'm

doing exactly what he's called me to do, then I have No Fear.

And what can man do to me? He can't stop me.

He can't, cannot stop me. Now very significant thing took

place during that first little battle.

Is that when we went up, you know, had to go before the Board

of county commissioners and then we had to go before the planning

and zoning agency. All ten of those said you

should, you know, get added to the list.

And then we came back to the county commissioners. 4 out of

five said we should be added to the list, although it didn't

have to be added to the list anyway.

It was all semantics, you understand.

But with that being said, the one.

That voted against us being in that location six months later,

went to jail for embezzlement. Well, he didn't realize he can.

He wasn't coming against me. He was coming against the

church. And you don't want to come

against the church. You don't want to do it.

I mean, I've seen more people fall into calamity because they

come against the church. Are you hearing me?

And so we won that battle and that from then on, every time I

engage the county, all of a sudden they knew who I was.

Now that worked in my favor because when I needed permits to

build stuff, I didn't get a big run around.

They could help the process. So I didn't.

You got to understand, sometimes the battles you're in is bigger

than you and it sets you up for something later so that what

you're going to have later, you can move through a little

easier. Because now all of a sudden, and

I'll never forget, I walked in there one time.

I had to get a little clearance sheet or something, so I went by

this one particular desk. And the lady, you know, when I

sat down to start filling out, she says you're Pastor Earl.

I said, yeah, she goes, man, I remember the first time you came

in here and that Interesting. I'm like, you got y'all see a

lot of people coming through the county.

Why you going to Remember Me? Right?

Well, because of how I handled the situation.

According to what I heard God say to do, it's in a shockwave

through the whole county system because all of a sudden

someone's not just eating the runaround.

Now you know there's two ways to go through the county fast.

The 1st way is have money. Just I'm telling you like it is.

I'm not telling you that our county's crooked.

I'm just saying money gets things moving.

That's all I'm saying, OK? I mean, if you're dropping

millions into this county, they're going to help move you

along. But then there's another way to

get through the county, and that's be on a God agenda.

Are you hearing me? Now they initially will try to

slow it down, but once you win, once the Lord gets the battle

for you, well, then you can continue to navigate and it sets

you up for future events. For me, it set me up for all

kinds of things, especially with the Fire Marshall.

Thank God for it. In hindsight, I'm like I I'm

glad it went this way because of the interaction I ended up

having with the Fire Marshall office based upon different

things. It allowed me to be at the top

of my game, man, whenever I was engaged, were engaged by them

and they knew who I was. So it gave me favor to be able

to navigate certain situations. Are you hearing me?

It says this in Isaiah 4054. Verse 17 says no weapon that is

formed against you will prosper in every tongue that accuses you

in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the

servants of the Lord and their vindication is from me, declares

the Lord. Aren't you glad God is with you

Now you can always know that God's with you because you're

always doing His word. At the end of the day, that is

the key. The key is I'm a keeper of the

word because I'm a keeper of the word.

I'm talking about. I ain't talking about partial.

I'm talking about the whole thing.

Everything you know in Revelation, you keep it.

Now, there may be some things you don't know to keep yet, but

I'm talking about what you do know.

To keep your keeper of that word.

And you keep that word. And when you do, then God will,

you can go into places of battle and not be afraid of whatever is

in front of you. I mean, This is why David had no

issue with Goliath. Doesn't matter.

It looks bigger. Doesn't matter.

It's irrelevant. Again, there was another king

who went against a million man army and they routed them

because they trusted in the Lord.

Later on that king didn't trust in God like that and ended up

hiring another army. And the Lord got upset with him

and said seriously, you had nothing.

You had a million people coming against you.

You cried out to me and did I not deliver you?

And now you're going to go to natural.

Are you hearing me? The point is, is that you don't

have a battle that you win and then you get in pride thinking

you did it. Because at the end of the day,

anything, any victories we have is because God was with us and

you want God with you. You don't want to get out ahead

of him. You don't want to be trying to

do it in your own strength. You want to be in a be in

lockstep with God, because, again, when you're in lockstep

with God, he will fight with you.

Jeremiah 119 says it this way. And they will fight against you,

but they will not overcome you. For I am with you to deliver

you, declares the Lord. Now, I'm going to be honest with

you as a God in the realm of natural fighting.

I was not that God. I didn't care to get in fights

at all. Number one, I was small anyway,

OK? And then I didn't take any.

Unlike David, who, you know, Mackie, he was small, but he

beat everybody up. So it's really relevant.

Size doesn't matter. Ain't that right, David?

I get him. The point is, is I didn't train

myself to be that. So I avoided those conflicts as

much as I could. Period.

OK, Because I didn't trust myself.

And besides, it would hurt to get hit.

Let's just be honest. I mean, I don't look good.

I can't get this thing get messed up anymore.

I mean that's. I mean, I know I'm married up.

I mean, I get that, but at the end of the day, but when it

comes to battles with the Lord, I'm a terror.

Yeah, I mean, I'm like, in it. I mean, I'm, you're almost

picking. You almost want to pick a fight

because, you know, you realize I should get this, you know, God's

talking to me. So God picked some fights

because even in this account of Deuteronomy chapter two, he says

to him, Now you go in there and I've given you this guy, the

land. Now Moses went in with a peace

treaty. We're.

Just going to pass through. We ain't going to look to the

left or right, We're going to just stay on the road.

But the Lord knew that guy's heart and God picked a fight

because he knew he's not going to let you do anything.

Now typically they wouldn't even mess with Amorites because the

Moabites and Amorites came out a lot and the Lord wouldn't let

them mess with them boys anyway. But when it came to this guy

whose name was Warrior, he said you're going to take this guy

out and you're going to take his land.

So God went and picked a fight. OK, now God will use us to pick

fights with the world so that he can show us glory.

Or hear me, Because God sure picked a fight with Pharaoh,

right? Pharaoh put all of his trust in

all these other gods, definitely were oppressing his people.

And so God said, I'm going to show you who your gods are.

So he says one guy on a peace treaty, Same guy, right?

Just let my people go. But God knew he was going to say

no. And so in essence, you want you

want a piece of me, I'm going to give you some.

And boy, God can give it. I said God can give it.

Are you hearing me again? When we came to purchase the

mall, at the end of the day we're just a church, right?

But yet we heard we're supposed to possess this land.

So we have to now contend with an ownership that has 26 at the

time we bought 31 malls. I mean, in one sense, it's out

of your league, right? I mean, you start talking to

them concerning how to revitalize something.

You're like, if anybody knows how to revitalize, I'd be the

people that's running 31 malls. Are you hearing me?

But we revitalizing some stuff right now.

Hallelujah. The point is, God wanted us to

have it, and so we just had to here engage.

And no matter what took place, you don't yield to the left or

to the right. You just stay with the battle

because you know God's going to deliver you on the other side.

Always. And you know, in these last days

we got to not be. How can I say this?

We don't want to be timid, OK? Because first of all, God did

not give us the spirit of fear, but of power, love and of sound

mind. We don't have a spirit of

timidity. I mean, we know how to go and

conquer. We have to be able to have the

audacity to drain big. And if God tells us to do

something that's beyond ourselves, we're able to say,

fine, let's go to war. And for some of you, some of

your greatest victories that'll be ahead of you are after this

first one. Because at the end of the day,

not all of you've been here as long as some, and some of you

are just engaging in some battles.

And again, don't look at them as negative.

In fact, Paul said, consider it all joy when you get into these

tests, these trials, these types of conflicts.

Why? Because it's only going to make

you stronger. But then it'll show the world

you're strong and then they ain't going to want to cross

you. That's right.

Because at the end of the day, they know that God's with you.

Are you hearing me? Which brings me this last verse

I'm going to say today, which is Romans Chapter 8, verse 31.

Romans 8:31

Excuse me. What then shall we say to these

things? If God is for us, who's against

us? Who's against us?

I don't care who it is, period. Now how do I know if God's for

me? I mean, because again, there's a

if there that's not like God is For you see, this is the

challenge that I have with some of our worship songs is because

there's too much implication. The good news about preaching,

you know, Pastor Marcus and I, I said, you know this, the

congregation hears 2 messages, the one that you sing and the

one that I preach. The problem with the ones that

he sings is he's constrained in the lyrics.

I'm not constrained. I can explain.

OK, so again, there's a lot of songs out there that say God is

for us. Well, do you meet the if

condition? Because if the if condition was

not a factor, then why did the Holy Ghost put it in?

And this is a new covenant. This is Paul's writing who wrote

to, you know, over half of the New Testament, and he's writing

this under the unction of the Holy Ghost to let them.

Now, if God is for you, then who can be against you?

But you got to be the if. And the Bible is very consistent

in how you know that God is for you.

It's 'cause you keep His word. It's very easy.

I mean, it's simple. Yet it's amazing how many people

struggle with keeping His word, because keeping his word is just

something you do, period. That's your response.

It's your proof to God that you love Him.

You keep His word. Because again, Jesus says if you

love me, then what? You'll keep my word.

That's how Jesus defined you loved him.

It's not how you know. Many Christians try to define

it. Well, I love God.

I have a personal relationship with him, you know.

Well, are you keeping his word? Because that's how he defined

it. And if you're not keeping his

word, then you're not loving him.

You're definitely not honoring him because he loves his word,

and he exalted his word above even his name, right.

And so if God is forced because we're keepers of the word and

says we're keepers of the word, we know he is forced, then who?

Doesn't matter. Now who's who now?

Who could be your friend? That's right.

But you think you could take them out anyway?

Who could be your government? Who could be a major

corporation? Who could be the most powerful,

influential person on the planet?

But it doesn't matter. That's right.

So there's no nothing that should create fear in you unless

you're not keeping a word right. So what God was trying to do

here is God's saying, listen, you're going to have battles,

and we have them in the New Covenant.

We fight the good fight of faith.

We call those things that be not as though they were.

We're going to have to engage people that don't want anything

to do with what we're doing. And actually we'll try to stop

it. It happens.

It can even happen from within, and it does at times.

It happens from within. But at the end of the day, if

you're always maintaining your righteousness by keeping the

Word, then you know, you know without a shadow of a doubt

God's going to vindicate me. There it is.

I said God to vindicate me. He will vindicate me.

He will vindicate me. Because God's working with me.

He's working for me because I'm working His Word.

Yes. Amen.

And we're doing this thing together.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Do you believe that? So God wants to place the fear

of you in spheres of influence that you have.

Meaning where people are knowing that you're with God and they

don't want to cross that, they don't want to cross that.

Now that don't mean they won't try to battle.

Because again, Rahab said, we all are afraid of you, But it

doesn't mean we're not going to go down without a fight.

She was just smart enough to know I ain't fighting.

You see, she had Wisdom Man take care of my household.

He said We'll get them all in this house and we'll leave them

alone because she's like, it's stupid to fight you.

So fearful people will fight. Just because someone's fighting

doesn't mean that they're brave, because fearful people will

fight because self preservation kicks in.

But again, if you're fighting with the Lord, then you're

guaranteed you're going to win. Amen.

Amen. So no matter what we face, no

matter what opportunities come our way, let's don't run from

the battle, let's run towards it.

Because God is doing something great in your life.

Some of you man with your parents.

You just need to go ahead and fight that good fight of faith,

period. Because they are not well with

how you're living for God right now.

And they don't understand that they're really getting against

God when they get against you. But you need to stay with the

Lord because they may have birthed you or brought you into

natural but God saved your life and he's your Lord.

Amen. Thank you so much for listening

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