Putting Your Words to Work - Part 4 - Pastor Michelle Steele - August 30th, 2026

Romans chapter four.

Let's begin here.

And in the times that I have been privileged to be with you, we've been covering some ground, haven't we?

We've been shining some light on some specific areas, and I want to revisit that because faith comes by hearing and hearing.

And so the repetition and the establishing of truth, he said it's line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little.

So it's not all one main download, and then we've got to figure out, you know, how to apply all that.

We get a download of understanding, and then we come back and he opens us up to a greater concept of that, a greater understanding of that concept.

Romans chapter 4, let's look at verse 17.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 4 says, as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations before him whom he believed, even God who quickens the dead, who quickens the dead, and calls those things which be not as though they were.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

God calls those things which be not as though they were.

That's the phrase I want us to give a little bit of attention to today because we've been talking about how we can put our words to work.

And this is part four of that.

You can go on the YouTube channel and go back and listen to some of them again or watch them or listen to them on the podcast or watch them on the YouTube channel.

But we want to look at that responsibility that we have.

It's an ability, but it comes with a responsibility, the ability to speak words, choosing specific words, and releasing faith in our words.

So when this phrase here says God calls things which be not, the uh I think it may be the amplified says non-existent things that he has foretold or promised, God calls non-existent things as if they already existed.

God calls things as if they already existed.

Why?

Because they exist in the spirit.

Now, if you remember, Isaiah 55 says, God talking about his word, he said, My word won't return to me empty, it will accomplish what I please.

In other words, the will of God is in the word.

What he wants, what he wants, his will, what he wants is in his word, and his word is the agent to bring it to manifestation.

God uses his words, and we have we have the script of the words God used to create everything that exists.

Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

In the beginning, God created, and God said, and it was.

And then God called.

So we looked at that in our first session.

We looked at the fact that the first mention and the law of first mention when we're understanding Bible is this.

The law of first mention is a tool that we use in Bible colleges to explain the first time we see it in the Bible, sets the standard, sets the course for how that should be interpreted and how it should be applied.

And so the first mention of the use of words is there in Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

And in the use of words, it was not communication first.

Generally, the human race makes communication the higher emphasis.

But God didn't.

So the very first mention of the use of words was to create, and the second was to set things in order.

The third was to communicate.

We see the first thing he said to create it, then he called it to set things in order, right?

And then the third thing we see him do is communicating with Adam, and in that communication he imparted the blessing to him.

So that first use of words, we are created in his image and in his likeness.

We're his children.

And he's made us speaking spirits.

We're not parrots who mimic.

We are spirits who have the ability to put words in our heart and bring them forth out of our mouth and have the same results that God has in our life, to the point that He established our salvation, our eternal destiny to be determined by what we believe in our heart and speak out of our mouth.

For with the heart man believes, Romans chapter 10, unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

So to establish my decision to accept Jesus as Lord and to accept the eternal life that God has made available through that sacrifice, I have to use my heart and I have to use my mouth because the mouth is the establishing witness.

The mouth is the testimony that's on spiritual record.

Hallelujah.

And so do you know that your voice, they have discovered ways to make your voice unlock a door?

That you can set that door to be locked or unlocked by your voice because your voice has a specific signature that's unlike anybody else's voice.

Hallelujah.

Well, God knew that long ago, didn't He?

And so when it comes out of your mouth, it's on spiritual record.

Words never die.

Hallelujah.

And so that's why if we're if we speak a lot of unbelief, we've got to override it, because the only way to overcome evil is with good, right?

And so we've got to we've got to out talk the evil that we've said, we've got to out talk the doubt, we've got to out talk the lack that we let out of our mouth by overriding it with a stronger substance of faith.

Praise God.

So the first thing that we see here is God calls things that be not as though they were.

And I like how we could add to that until they are.

Because when God first started saying it, it was not manifest to the eye, it's not manifest to the touch, but because he spoke it, his word began to bring substance to what he desired, what he was hoping for, and we see the process of faith.

Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.

And that word framed means to be put in order, to be established, to be to be set on course.

So our words can direct the course of our life.

Our words are spiritual evidences in the realm of the spirit, spiritual evidence that can bring acquittal or find us guilty.

So we want to look at that again.

Matthew 12.

Let's look at verses 36 and 37.

Matthew 12, 36.

And I want to, if you'll just go right on to the amplified with verse 36 when you pull it up on the screen for us.

Matthew 12, 36 and the amplified.

It says, But I tell you, on the day of judgment, men will have to give an account for every idle, inoperative, non-working word they speak.

Have mercy.

Jesus is the one talking here.

And Jesus is pointing out something that we need to take account of.

We need to take seriously.

He said, every idle, inoperative, non-working, and I like to, we we ask the question, are your words employed or unemployed?

Because if you've got a lot of unemployed words, I mean, what if you had everybody, you had 15 people in your house who didn't have a job?

Who's paying the bills?

The one who does have the job, right?

Who's buying the clothes?

The one who does have a job, right?

So the unemployed words aren't working for your good, but they're sucking resources out of your life.

They're taking up space and using up energy that should be used for the purpose at hand.

So he says that our words, our words can be idle, inoperative, or non-working, and I like to to bring the antonym of idle in there, or they could be operative, working, and functional.

Are your words working for you?

Are the words coming out of your mouth working for you or against you?

And if they're if they're just idle, they're really working against you.

If you say, well, that doesn't matter.

It matters if it's taking up energy that should be used on something else.

That's like saying, well, I just blew$50 on a 15-minute game.

Well, it matters if that$50 should have been going or you know, towards something that was going to benefit or something that was going to have a long-lasting effect, right?

And so, are your words working for you?

God does not own an empty word, an idle word.

God's never spoken an idle word.

Every word of God is full of power.

Glory to God.

Hebrews 4 12.

Every word of God, he says, He says, the words of God, the word that God speaks, the amplified says, it's alive and full of power.

The word that God speaks is alive and full of power.

Well, he wants you to be able to say that.

The words Regina speaks are alive and full of power.

Hallelujah.

When you read Isaiah 55, where it's talking about the words, that's the standard God wants us to have.

That's what Jesus was saying in Mark 11.

When he said, If you will say to this mountain, be thou removed, be thou cast in the sea, and do not doubt in your heart, but believe that the things you say will come to pass.

That's where so many people fall short.

So many people who love Jesus don't believe the things they say because they have spent half of their day saying things they don't mean.

When I was first learning to read Spanish, I would get Christian books by authors that I want to feed on to practice my reading in Spanish.

And so one of the first things I got was God's creative power in Spanish.

And I was reading this translation of God's now, I've read the English many times, right?

I've heard him preach it many times.

And I'm reading through it, and I get to the what one of the most important outlines that he gives in there.

He says, the reason Jesus' words had so much power, and he begins to list off.

And one of them is number one, Jesus never used twisted words, twisted speech.

He never said that that that cute little baby dog, and it was a big Rott Waller.

He never said that tickles me to death.

He never said, I laughed till I thought I'd die.

You know, he never used twisted words.

Well, the translation of this person who had translated it, it said Jesus never lied.

And I came up out of the chair.

I thought, well, of course he never lied, but that's not what Brother Cap said.

But they translated it, Jesus never lied.

But that doesn't bring the point home that Jesus never used his words in a way that weren't, that wasn't an exact, aimed, targeted, at the bullseye.

I'm saying what I mean, and I mean what I say.

And that's how I know Sister Annette today, because I contacted their ministry and I said, I just need you to know whoever translated that did not know what Brother Cap said.

And she said, Will you help us?

And so we helped retranslate it.

And so, praise God.

But but that is one of the most important things that changed my life.

I had to learn how to believe what I say comes to pass.

I had to learn how to be responsible with my words.

And so idle, inoperative, non-working, unemployed words are causing people to not hit the faith mark, and they think faith didn't work.

Or they think God didn't do it when their words had not been filled with faith.

Glory to God.

So in verse 37, Matthew 12 and verse 37, and again from the amplified, he said, By your words you will be justified and acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned and sentenced.

The complete English Bible says, by your words, you'll be judged innocent or condemned as guilty.

By your words.

So if you go to God, you've left this earth, you've entered into heaven, you're in his presence, and you say, Lord, you failed me.

You didn't do what you said you were going to do because and then you began to bring up something specific.

And let me just, what was the example I used last?

Let me see what a good example would be.

Lord, you said that I'd be blessed going in and blessed coming out, that I'd be blessed in the field, the city in the basket.

But Lord, I struggled financially all my life.

I struggled with that.

And then God hits the record play or the the play button on the tape recorder.

And you hear your voice saying, too much month at the end of the money.

Too much month.

I never I'm always a day late and a dollar short.

And and and it just seems like when I get just one step forward, I get pushed three steps back, and I'm just trying to pay up, and I'm we're never gonna pay this bill off, and we're never gonna be out of debt.

And God said, You said it.

I've got it on record by your words.

You cannot condemn God and say, God, you failed because He's got it on record that you authorized it.

Because if you're saying it, if you're believing it and speaking it, you're authorizing it.

That's why we've got to train ourselves not to speak in line with what we see in the natural situation.

We've got to see the word and speak in line with what the word says.

Now, listen, it was not comfortable for me to open up my Bible to Deuteronomy 28 and start reading off all this description of the blessing.

I'm blessed going in, I'm blessed coming out, I'm blessed in the field, I'm blessed in the city, I'm blessed in my basket.

He's blessing my going out and my coming in.

And then I go into the kitchen to make lunch for my family, and I pull out that ham you can see through.

And I hold up my my one little slice of carl budding ham, that 69 cent ham that's got to last all week long.

And I give each child one slice of transparent ham on their sandwich.

I did not feel like I was blessed coming in, and I wasn't even blessed in my ham sandwich.

But I wasn't saying it because I was seeing it, I was I was seeing it in the word, and I was overriding what I was seeing in the natural because God calls things which be not in manifestation as though they were in manifestation until they are in manifestation.

God calls those things.

Why?

Because that's how you bring it in.

You've got to bring it in from the spirit realm and override what's in the natural realm.

And the only way to do that is taking the spiritual action of believing and speaking.

When I first said Jesus is Lord of my life, up until that moment he wasn't.

But the moment I said it, I authorized it, and he became the Lord of my life.

All that time before his blood was available, his sacrifice had been made.

The only thing stopping me from experiencing the manifestation was it of it was I had not believed and said.

I had not believed and with my mouth made that connection.

Hallelujah.

But the moment I believed it, and out of my heart, my words spoke.

Why?

Because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

So it's not coming from my head, it's coming from my heart.

If my heart is full of the word, if my heart has received the word.

So, so what we see then is our words are legal evidence in the spirit realm.

Legal evidence in the spirit realm.

It's on record.

The angels know what's on record, and the enemy knows what's on record.

He knows what you've said.

Listen, Jesus is the high priest of our confession.

Jesus is waiting on you to say and bring out of your mouth what agrees with his word because he is right there to work with it.

He is the high priest of our confession.

But the enemy is also interested in what's coming out of your mouth.

He cannot read your mind.

He is not all-knowing.

There are things Satan doesn't know until you open up your mouth and let him know by complaining or murmuring or or or and that's why we've got to guard our mouth.

Amen.

And so your words are legal evidence in the spirit realm that will justify you.

That's why we want to gain this proficiency with our words.

Revelation chapter 12 is a preview.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

Verse 11, Revelation 12, 11 is a preview of your victory.

A preview.

So you already know I'm not a loser ever.

Why?

Because I overcome.

It's already in the book.

I overcame him.

Past tense.

He's written it so that you can know.

Oh, I do win.

I win in him.

And how do we overcome?

It says, they overcame him.

Who?

The accuser of the brethren.

In that previous verse 10, it referred to the accuser of the brethren.

What's he doing?

He's trying to bring legal spiritual evidence against you.

But how do you overcome him?

By the blood and your words.

By the blood and the word of your testimony.

Your words have authority.

Your words have legal, spiritual, binding authority.

Glory to God.

And Jesus said it this way: He said, I'm giving you the power to bind and to loose.

Matthew 16 and verse 19.

So Jesus said, He called it keys.

How the kingdom operates.

I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.

And whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Hallelujah.

Whatever you bind, whatever you loose.

There's a lot that God is not doing for us because He's already delegated the authority for us to do it.

It's hard to get a prayer answered if it's a prayer asking God to do something He delegated for you to do.

He gave you the power to do it.

He put it in your power.

Hallelujah.

So binding and loosing is in your power.

My power, our power, whatever you bind.

Chapter 18 and verse 18 says the similar thing.

Verily I say unto you, whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Hallelujah.

Whatever you shall bind, whatever you shall loose.

What have you been binding?

Have you been binding anything?

Have there been any things that have tried to encroach upon your liberties, upon your benefits that you've been exercising authority over and saying, no, no, no, no, you don't do that.

Uh-uh-uh.

Back off here, lack.

Back off here, not enough.

No, no.

My joints move without hindrance.

Thank you very much.

I bind that from operating in my life.

And I loose the power of God.

I loose the liberty of God into my joints.

Amen?

Binding and loosing.

If we don't do it, the angels aren't going to do it for us.

God's not doing it for us.

We've got to, and here's the great thing.

If you'll ask the Holy Spirit, show me what I need to be binding.

He'll take you to it in the scripture.

He'll bring it up to you in your spirit.

He'll give you the prompting and the understandings that you need so that you know how to exercise the right authority.

And so I love how Lynn Hammond says it.

She says, I spend more time praying about how to pray before I pray.

She'll have a situation come up and she's learned, and what a great teacher on prayer, but she's learned how to say, Lord, how do you want me to pray about that?

Not just jumping right in in Jesus' name and just praying out of you know what comes to the mind first, but she's seeking the help of the one who knows the ins and the outs of that whole situation and saying, show me how to pray about this.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

And he will bring specifics to you that make your prayers targeted, that make your prayers effective prayers.

Hallelujah.

He'll bring specifics that make your declarations targeted declarations.

Hallelujah.

This is not just a word of faith ism.

Not just a word of faith.

We call those things to be not as it's not just something that fits into a specific.

This is a kingdom principle.

This is how the kingdom works.

This is how God works.

That we've got to align our words with his words, and we've got to exercise our authority through those words.

But you know, last week we saw something interesting.

We saw that it's possible to bind or restrain God with our words.

We looked at Matthew 3 in verse 13, and uh he said, Your words have been stout against me.

And that word stout means to bind or restrain.

He said, Your words have bound me.

And we looked at an example from Brother Katz's life.

Charles Capz, he said, uh, I had turned negative because I had prayed, Lord, if it's you, make certain things happen, and those certain things happen because he had put out this fleece.

And so he made a decision and went millions of dollars in the hole.

And he said, I worked for two years and never made enough money in two years to pay to renew my driver's license.

He was making just enough to pay the bank back and have to go to the bank and borrow it again.

And so he said, I had been a successful farmer all my life.

I had used uh the things that I'd been raised on the farm and knew about farming, I knew about it, but I had begun to use my words and say things like, it doesn't matter what I do, I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna plant it, and I'll probably plant it shallow and it'll come a big rain, or I'll plant it too deep, and it'll come a cold spell.

And he said, My words weren't as much affecting the weather as they were my decision.

My words were blocking the wisdom of God that had always led me, and the even natural wisdom that I had as a farmer.

He said, My words were working against me, and so he gets this book that somebody who is passing by says, Hey, I've got some books, I've already read them.

Do you want to look through them and take some of them?

And one of them was Right and Wrong Thinking by Kenneth Hagan.

Right and wrong thinking.

And so he's reading, it's just a little book.

I mean a 20-minute read, right?

He's looking through this book and he said, That's exactly what I'm doing.

It says, if you think wrong, you're gonna believe wrong, you're gonna act wrong.

And he saw his mistake in that book, and so he begins to go through, and the Lord said, I want you to get scripture.

And so he's there one day praying, and he said, Lord, it's just not working.

I'm doing everything you tell me, and it's just not working.

And he said, But by then I had enough of the word in me that the Lord could speak to me.

The Lord said, Who told you it's not working?

And he said, I backed up and thought, Well, I guess the devil told me that because you do you wouldn't tell me that, would you?

And so the Lord said, Your words have loosed the power of the enemy in your life.

And I read it to you last week.

And so, but I just your words have loosed the power of the enemy, and I can't do anything about it.

And God said, You're gonna, I want you to go to the word and and let the word of God get in you.

And it took him, he said, a year of quoting the word, re-establishing the word.

He'd been raised in church all his life, attended church, taught in the boys' Sunday school, taught the taught Sunday school every Sunday.

But he didn't know how to work the word.

And so within a year, he had developed his faith, and in one decision, God brought into his hands, with and it's a longer story than that, but he came out of that millions of dollars of debt.

Glory to God.

But God said, I want you to work the word in you so that it'll work for you in the long run.

In other words, that's not exactly how the wording was, but that's basically what he was saying.

He said, You've opened the door for the enemy through the words that you've spoken, all those negative things.

So we can loose the power of the enemy by our words, or we can loose the power of God by our words.

We can bind the power of the enemy by our words, or we can bind the power of God's by our words.

So we want to make sure that our words are working with God, that our words are words God can work with.

Glory to God.

Psalm 91 is a good example, isn't it?

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge.

He is my fortress, my God, in Him do I trust.

And that's where the saying part stops and the benefits start.

Because you have made the Lord your who is your refuge, your your habitation.

He begins from verse 3 to the rest to the end.

It's it's the there's two voices in that.

Look at Psalm 91, verse 3.

Psalms 91:3

It's as if three people are standing here in this Psalm.

Verse 2 is what we say.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge.

I'm believing it, and I'm authorizing God to be my protector.

And verse 3 says, Surely he shall deliver you.

Well, that's not me anymore.

I use it, I take this and I adapt it so that I say, Surely he shall deliver me from the snare of the fowl or the noise and pestilence.

He will cover me with his.

But in the text, it's not me.

It's someone talking to me because of what I said.

He's my high priest.

Jesus, the high priest of my confession, has accepted my declaration that I trust God.

I make the Lord my refuge.

And so now my high priest is saying, because of that, surely he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, the noisome pestilence.

He will cover you with his feathers.

Under his wings you shall trust.

Uh, you'll not be afraid for the terror by night.

Verse six, that pestilence that walks in darkness, uh, the destruction that wastes at noonday.

A thousand shall fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you.

Only with your eyes shall you behold and see the reward of the wicked, because you have made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, your habitation.

There shall no evil befall you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling, for he will give his angels charge over you to keep you in all of your ways.

They will bear you up in their hands lest you dash your foot against a stone.

You shall tread upon the lion and the out, or the young lion and the dragon shall you trample, trample under feet.

Stop right there, because it's about to change the voice again.

The speaker is changing again.

Because he set his love upon me.

So our high priest has made the declaration.

Jesus has received our declaration that I trust God, right?

God is my keeper, my protector.

And he has made these declarations, these covenant announcements of what belongs to me.

And then the Father steps up to the microphone and says, Because you've set your love upon me, therefore I will deliver him.

Speaking to my high priest, because he has set his love upon me, I will deliver him, Michelle.

I will set Michelle on high because Michelle has known my name.

Michelle will call upon me and I will answer her.

I will be with her in trouble.

I will deliver her and honor her.

With long life, I will side.

That's covenant talk.

Hallelujah.

Why?

And what started it all?

My words.

My words authorized.

He wants to do it already, but he's not always authorized because people have said, well, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen to me.

Well, if anybody gets laid off, it's gonna be me.

Right?

Why even say that?

You know why?

It's because usually people say it because they think it sounds funny.

Aw ha ha.

And they're trying to be lighthearted.

Well, there we go back to the throeward speech, the the crooked contrary speech.

It's it's in mischief.

Remember, we read that from Proverbs 4 in the last two weeks.

Proverbs 4 says, guard your heart.

If you want to guard your heart, put away from your mouth crooked speech.

Don't use your words to say things you don't mean.

Why?

Because it's going to affect your heart.

And James says that if we have an undisciplined tongue, we'll deceive the heart.

A believer who loves God can deceive their heart by using their words without restraint, just saying whatever they feel, saying whatever they see, saying whatever they mean.

And when you think about the report of the children of Israel, we be not able.

We are like grasshoppers in our own sight.

What were they saying?

They were saying what they saw.

They were saying what they felt.

They were saying what it looked like.

Well, I'm just saying it how it is.

How are we going to pay this?

My God shall supply all my needs according to His, I've given and it shall be given unto me.

Hallelujah.

I'm blessed going in and blessed coming out.

He's multiplying the seed that I've sown and increasing the fruits of my righteousness.

I'm being enriched to all bountifulness which causes through me a thanksgiving unto God.

What am I losing there?

But if I if I say and and listen, I know how in the moment it feels the pressure that the enemy uses against the mind, against the flesh.

Pressure just to open your mouth and say what it feels like.

And you just think, I just need to get it off my chest.

I just need to unload.

And you think you're gonna feel better.

But you've got too much light to feel better after opening your mouth and letting all that out of your mouth.

Because the minute you get done and the pressure's off your flesh, then you're like, oh, Jesus, forgive me.

According to your word, and then you're gonna have to spend unnecessary spiritual energy out talking the doubt you just released, when it would be so much simpler just to put the bit in your mouth, restrain your tongue, and say, according to God's word, I am the head and not the tail, above and not beneath.

I'm always going over, never going under.

According to God's word, he is near who justifies me, who will condemn me.

Let us stand together.

Who is mine adversary?

Let him come near to me.

According to God's word, I am more than a conqueror through him that love me.

Hallelujah.

Your flesh will shut up after a few minutes of that.

Your flesh will quit that whining and that pressure to give in to what you feel.

And the more you train yourself to respond spiritually and deny the flesh its opportunity at the microphone, the easier it gets.

The easier it will become.

Hallelujah.

So this loosing and binding is in our power.

Let's look at James chapter 3.

James 3 · chapter mention

And that was all review.

We've covered everything in these last three, but but review is a great thing.

James chapter 3, and let's look at I want to I want to read verse 2 through 12, and let me see if I can go through it uninterrupted because I want you to see the the panoramic view of this text here.

James 3 · chapter mention

Says, in many things we offend all.

For in many things we offend, and that word offend means to stumble or cause to stumble.

In many things we stumble.

If any man stumble not in words, offend not in words, stumble not in words, the same as a perfect man.

The word perfect is not talking about without error.

It is a word that means mature, well developed.

So when it's talking about our love being brought to perfection, it's talking about maturity.

It's talking about being developed.

He said, if we can not stumble in our words, we are mature, well developed.

And able also to bridle the whole body.

The whole body.

That's God's design.

That's keeping not just your flesh, keeping your flesh under, but your body is listening to your words.

And so I tell my body, as I increase in years, my mobility, my youth is renewed as the eagles.

Glory to God.

Why?

Because I want a harvest of that.

I don't want a harvest of over the hill.

I don't want a harvest of uh not having mobility and not having strength in my bones.

I listen, under the old covenant, Moses climbed the mountain.

Glory to God.

He wasn't under that obligation to yield his body to the natural flow of the curse.

And you are not either.

But it's not going to happen without your words.

You're going to have to tell, you're going to have to sow that mobility in your words and tell yourself, my youth is renewed as the eagle's.

So it says you're able to bridle the whole body.

So that means you can speak to your blood sugars.

You can speak to your immune system.

Hallelujah.

Glory to God.

Behold, we put bits in the horse's mouth that they may obey us.

Why do we put a bit in their mouth?

So they'll obey us.

And we turn about their whole body.

Behold also the ships, which, though they be so great and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm wherever the governor desires or turns it.

Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things, the same way that a bit is a small thing, and the rudder in comparison to the size of the ship, it's a small thing.

The tongue is a small thing, but it has great potential.

Behold how great a matter a little fire kindles.

If you want a big fire, you need kindling to start it, right?

If you want a big fire, if you want the greatness of the blessing, you're gonna have to start talking, kindling the blessing in your talk.

If you want great health, you're gonna Have to use the kindling of speaking those words of health to your body.

Hallelujah.

It says, You can kindle a fire until it grows very great.

And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, so is the tongue among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature and is set on fire of hell.

If it's not tamed.

Because we saw in verse 2 that it's possible to tame it.

Right?

He said, If you can not stumble in your words, well, then it's possible for me to not stumble in my words.

Right?

It says the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.

It defiles the whole body.

It's talking about the tongue hooked up to the flesh, the tongue that's not being governed by the born-again you, the tongue that's not got the bit of the word of God in your mouth.

That tongue defiles, that tongue sets on fire and is used by Satan to destroy.

But not your tongue, because you're the verse two believer.

You're the verse two believer.

Say it with me.

I'm the verse two believer.

I control my tongue.

I got the word of God in my mouth.

So my mouth is not being used by the enemy.

My mouth is not setting on fire the course of hell.

It is not defiling, but my words are producing.

So let's just compare that because I think we need to bring that into the right perception.

Proverbs 15:4.

Proverbs 15:4

Proverbs 15.4 says a wholesome tongue is a tree of life.

You've been brought back into the garden in Christ.

You can eat of the tree of life.

Why?

Keep God's word in your mouth.

That's how you eat of the tree of life.

A wholesome tongue is a tree of life.

But perverseness therein in the tongue is a breach or a broken, an entryway, a broken place in the spirit.

Perverse.

What do we do to breaches?

We stand in them.

We shore them up.

Standing in the gap, that's what it's talking about.

Is there anybody who'll stand in the gap?

It's talking about a breach in the wall that the enemy uses to gain entrance.

Words that are twisted, words that are against the word of God, words that don't align with truth, become entry points for the enemy.

So if I keep my mouth wholesome with the word of God, I'm eating of the tree of life.

The tree of life.

Proverbs 16, 23 says, the heart of the wise teaches his mouth.

So my mouth needs to learn a lesson or two, right?

My mouth is is teachable.

The heart of the wise teaches his mouth and adds learning to his lips.

Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health.

Words make your body well.

You can speak right words and healing flow.

Healing isn't coming from the outside in.

Healing is from the spirit.

You're pulling it out of the well of salvation.

You're pulling it out of the eternal life that's deposited in you.

You're pulling that healing power that's available in your spirit and bringing it into your body with words.

With words.

So healing, it says, is health to the bones.

Health to the bones.

Pleasant words.

The heart teaches the mouth.

The heart teaches the mouth.

Glory to God.

So this born-again person that we're seeing has the access to the tree of life, has access to words that bring health, not defile.

Right?

Words that are accessing the life of God, not losing the power of the enemy.

Glory to God.

Proverbs 12, 18, there is that speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is health.

The tongue of the wise is health.

So what we're seeing in James chapter 5 is not a description of a tongue that has the bit of the truth of God's word in its mouth.

James 5 · chapter mention

This description is a tongue that is an unrestrained tongue, a tongue that is used for words that are not in line with the word of God.

So the tongue, if we're just letting it say whatever is seen, whatever is felt, if we just with no restraint, just open our mouth and just speak out of the moment, the pressure of the situation, then we're not going to have that same result.

But if we will teach our mouth, Jesus, he said in Isaiah, he said, I believe Jesus was quoting Isaiah, and it says, He has given me the tongue of the learned.

Jesus said, I only say what my I've heard my father say.

Why?

The tongue of the learned is a prophetic verse in Isaiah 50.

The tongue of the learned.

So we can train our tongue and bring it into this maturity.

Verse 7 for every kind of beast and of birds and of serpents of things in the sea is tamed and has been tamed of mankind.

But the tongue can no man tame.

No man can tame it, but God in me can.

His word in my mouth can.

So it's not me, it's not my ability, not my power, but God in me, his eternal life, his presence in me.

So no man can tame the tongue, but but you can, because greater is he who is in you.

It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison.

Therewith bless we God, even the Father, and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.

Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing.

My brethren, these things ought not so to be.

Does a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?

Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries, either a vine figs?

So can no fountain yield both salt water and fresh.

So what is he saying?

You can't mix it.

You can't mix it.

If you put, if you take a cup full of drinking water and a cup full of water from the ocean and you mix them together, and you say, Well, it's got drinking water in it.

Yeah, but it's got salt, it's got poison in it now.

It's got salt water in it, which would be poisonous to my body.

I can't drink that.

Right?

It mixes together.

And that's why you've got to take out the vial.

That's what God said to Jeremiah.

You've got to take the vial out from the precious.

Can I show you that before we go?

Genesis.

Jeremiah 15.

Oh, I got time.

Jeremiah 15.

And I know that we have spent most of this series thus far emphasizing this point.

And I'm not going to apologize for it.

Because it helps us all.

All of us need to know the responsibility that we have where our words are concerned, because he said we're all going to give an account.

Nobody is exempt.

If I've been speaking unemployed, idle, inoperative words, I'm going to answer for that.

So I want to repent now and get my words to work for me.

Jeremiah 17, I'm sorry, 15, 17.

I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced.

I sat alone because of, oh my goodness.

I sat alone because of your hand, God.

You have filled me with indignation.

Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable?

Who called it incurable?

He did, which refuses to be healed.

Will you be altogether unto me as a liar and as waters that fail?

And you see the little stop point right there?

Therefore, thus says the Lord, if you return, if you'll make a turn, if you'll get back, get back to what?

Y'all remember what happened in chapter 1?

Jeremiah chapter 1?

Jeremiah 1 · chapter mention

God said, I'm going to put my words in your mouth, Jeremiah.

So if he says return, what is he supposed to return to?

God started this relationship with Jeremiah by saying, My words in your mouth is what's going to build and plant and destroy and tear down.

What the it's going to build and establish things.

My words in your mouth, if you will return, then I will bring you again and you will stand before me.

And if you take forth the precious from the vial, you shall be as my mouth.

If you'll speak good words rather than worthless words.

The easy translation says, speak valuable words instead of useless words.

The complete English Bible, if you utter what is worthwhile, not what is worthless.

What was he saying?

Gloom, despair, agony on me, deep dark depression, excessive misery.

If it were for bad luck, we need to.

Do you see what he's doing?

He's singing the hee-haw blues.

Perpetual wound that just will not heal.

He's singing this song and it does not glorify God.

He's praying this prayer and it doesn't agree with anything God has said.

God said, You need to go back to what the word I put in your mouth.

You need to go back to my word.

Return.

Take forth the vial.

He called what Jeremiah said vile.

He called it vile.

And I could imagine that's the same kind of conversation that Brother Caps had when he said, Lord, it's not working.

I did what you said, and it's not.

What is he saying?

Your word's not working.

You are failing.

Me, God.

He didn't mean it that way.

That wasn't his intent.

But what he was saying was, I did what you said, so I'm right.

I'm justified, but your word's not working.

And God said, Really?

Is that so?

The children of Israel in the wilderness?

You brought us out here to die.

We're gonna starve out here in the wilderness.

Manna every day.

Quail flying through up to their waist and quail.

God brought us out here to die.

And God said, You can have what you say.

And he gave them what they said, it wasn't what he wanted.

It wasn't what he chose, it wasn't his design.

But they had a they had a blueprint, they had an image, they had what they were saying out of their that's that that consistent uh declaration out of their mouth.

God gave them opportunity after opportunity after opportunity, ten times he showed himself mighty despite their infidelity, despite their lack of faithfulness to him.

God stayed faithful to them, but then he finally said, I'll let you have what you say.

Okay, he could not bring them into the land because of their unbelief, not because he was mad at them.

God is long suffering, he's long-suffering with us.

It's not God being angry as much as it is our words pile up.

Glory to God.

Aren't you glad that we have the ability to get forgiven?

He we can repent.

That's what he says to Jeremiah.

Return.

That's repent.

Turn back around and get in my word and start saying what I said, and I'll put you back on the right path, and you can be as my mouth.

If you'll get, and so that's what happens when we get in line with our words in line with his words, we become as his mouth in that situation.

Glory to God.

Glory to God.

And that's that's the intent that we we need to see.

Let's look at Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

He said to Jeremiah, if you'll return, return to the word, return to what I said, then I'm gonna set you back up, and you will be as my mouth.

Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

We see the armor of God.

I want to look specifically at verse 17.

It says, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

So he said to Jeremiah, I've put my words in your mouth.

He says to the New Testament believer, take the word.

That's our part.

We've got to take it.

We've got to take it.

And we've got to put it to work for us.

God's word is ours by inheritance.

We have access to every promise, every declaration of who God says you are.

More than a conqueror.

You are victorious.

He always causes you to triumph.

You've got all of this that's available, but it's not automatic.

Without our participation, there has to be a spiritual interaction, a spiritual participation.

And the spiritual participation, there's no drive-through, there's no microwave.

It's heart and mouth, mouth and heart, heart and mouth, mouth and heart, mouth, heart, heart, mouth, mouth, heart, heart, mouth.

That's the it it there's no way to get around it.

There's no no avoidance of it.

You've got to have it in your heart.

The word of faith which we preach, it is in your heart and in your mouth.

Did you notice in Romans 10 it said, it's in your mouth and in your heart?

Because there's a way to get it in your heart.

Put it in your mouth.

It'll get in your heart.

So, but you've got to take it.

You've got to take it and you've got to take it like what it is.

This is God's word.

It is the sword that He has supplied me.

The only defense, the only groundtaking weapon available here.

All the rest of them are protective devices.

The shield, the helmet, the shoes of peace, the loins girt about with the belt of truth.

All of those protect my organs, protect my life.

But when I take the word of God, I've got now an ability to move the plan forward.

I've got something in my mouth that is able to back the enemy off of the ground that he's standing on, that he's trying to trespass in my life.

I've got to take the word and I've got to move forward with that word.

I've got to take it and I've got to move forward with it.

Hallelujah.

He says, take the word, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

Take the Word.

Second Corinthians four, thirteen.

You have this.

Now, we having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken.

We also believe and therefore speak.

We believe and therefore.

Therefore means based on what I believe, in light of what I believe, because of what I believe, I say, I speak.

So believing isn't the completion of faith.

Believing isn't the completion of the process or the equation.

If you have an equation on the board, two plus two equals four, you have all those components necessary.

Right?

Believing plus speaking equals faith.

The spirit of faith is believing, and then out of my mouth I speak forth what I believe.

Glory to God.

If we will do what we've been learning in these past three weeks, and we will remove the things out of our daily speech, remove those unemployed, non-working, idle words out of our vocabulary.

And we'll begin with an intent to deposit God's word in our heart and get our heart so ingrained in seeing it the way God said it and understanding his word in my mouth is as powerful as his word in his mouth.

If I say it, it's his word.

It will not return empty.

And I've got my words disciplined, I've got my words fine tuned so that I believe those things I say come to pass.

Glory to God.

That's how we get faith in our words.

A number of years ago, all my Kids were little, my uh grown adult kids were all little, and um I was babysitting during the day, Pastor Steele was working at Blue Cross Blue Shield at the insurance company.

We were so financially in difficulty.

Y'all remember my bread?

You could see through my you could see through my ham, and you only got one slice of that transparent ham.

And um the Lord gave us a plan.

He said, I want you for the next 40 days not to listen to anything except for what my my word says about your finances.

So we turned off the TV.

The kids didn't even get to watch TV.

It was summer, thank goodness.

It was summer, and we sent them out to play on the trampoline.

Uh, but we turned the TV off.

I put I put blankets over all the TVs in the house, except for I would record uh certain certain programs.

Uh brother Brother Creslow Dollar was preaching at that time about the finance convention.

Uh uh and so we had had that that I would record, and so we would listen to that.

We didn't even listen to to songs, we just only preaching that had the answer to what we were dealing with in that moment.

And so during that time, I began to collect my list of my scriptures, and and I would take these scriptures in the morning, and I had children that I was babysitting, so I had my kids and then babysitting kids, and I had babysitting kids going and coming.

I mean, they I had them, I had people who worked at night, and I would they were leaving their kids, and so they would pick them up after they'd already gone to sleep, and so I was up and down.

And so I had to set a schedule of how I'm gonna speak these scriptures out because I began to understand that for these scriptures to work for me, it was more than me just reading them silently.

I'm gonna have to speak them out loud to myself.

And so I set up time in the morning uh before the kids woke up, and then I set up a time during their nap time where I would separate my list.

It took me uh a little over an hour and it continued to grow.

Uh, and so I'd set up that time, and so I would I would get my scriptures out and I would turn in the Bible to each one of those verses and read it out and declare it over my life.

And I felt like I was lying.

I but I I remember when I first started, it was as if the words were coming out of my mouth like a feather and just floating out there in the air.

But every day I just stayed with it.

Every day I'd open up that scripture and I'd say, Deuteronomy 28, and I would start reading it.

According to your word, if I will hearken diligently to the voice of the Lord my God, you will cause all these blessings to come on me and overtake me.

I am blessed in the field.

And I began to speak those words out of my mouth.

And at first, like I said, it was like those words came out.

Why?

Because there wasn't any faith in my words.

I didn't believe it until the word, the word itself has the ingredient to produce faith.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word, and I was hearing myself every day.

And I would go through these verses.

Somewhere in that 40 days, I'm gonna guesstimate it was about day 30, day 28, 29, 30.

I'm I opened to the same scriptures I'd been going over every day that whole month.

And when I opened my mouth and I spoke that verse out, there was a difference.

And it wasn't the volume of my voice, it wasn't the inflection in my voice, there was faith in my words.

I sensed something spiritually that it was not there day one.

It was not there the first day.

I loved Jesus day one.

I was washed in the blood day one, I was a child of God day one.

I was an heir of the blessing day one, but I didn't have faith for any of that.

I didn't have faith for the increase.

I didn't have faith for it because I hadn't fed on the word.

I hadn't deposited those specific scriptures that that produced the power for me to believe that God could increase me more and more.

But after 30 some odd days of depositing that word, now I opened my mouth and there was something in my mouth because it was in my heart that wasn't in my heart or my mouth 30 days before.

And when it came out of my mouth, I sensed it hit the target.

It wasn't coming out like and floating, it came out with a power, it hit the bullseye, it came out like a bullet comes out of the gun with an intent, with an aim.

And in that moment, I knew.

I knew by a spiritual knowing that we that it had changed.

If you hear Brother Caps' testimony, he said he was going through those scriptures.

He wrote, got out a yellow legal pad, he wrote those verses out, tore the page off, folded it up, put it in his pocket, and when he would get off the tractor and take a break, he would walk through his turnrows on his big fields, and he would read off that paper, and he would read those scriptures to himself.

Whatever I do prospers, even my mistakes prosper because God said whatever I put my hand to will prosper.

He'll command the blessing on the work of my hands.

He's quoting these scriptures.

He said, One day he received a phone call, and it was from the person he had been for years wanting to buy this property.

He leased the property for one of his fields, and he had worked on that property, but they'd never wanted to sell it because it was in the family and they they didn't intend to sell it.

But one day he got a phone call, and the that person had passed away, and they just decided we think we'll just sell it now.

And do you want to buy it?

And he said, Yes, I want to buy it.

And then he said, Okay, I'll I'll get going.

And he hung up the phone, and his wife said, Now, this is while they're in this upside down, millions of dollars in debt, but he's been going through the word, right?

And he's been speaking the word, and and he said, Out of my heart, I heard my mouth say, money is no problem.

Because his wife said, How are we gonna pay for that?

How are we gonna buy that?

He said, Money is no problem, and he said, It didn't come out of my head, it came out of my heart because he had been putting the word in his heart.

And he said, even when I got ready to go down, and they at one bank had at first said that they would help him, and then the other one he went they decided not to, and so he the Lord led him across the street.

He ended up buying it and selling half the land to the school district and paying off the what it cost him to buy it, and that's how God gave him that one idea that brought him out of those millions of dollars of debt.

But do you see how it happened?

He got the word in his heart, and the word in his heart changed the words in his mouth.

And once he began saying what God said, God could begin to work for him, and God brought him out and kept him out.

Glory to God.

God brought him out and prospered him.

Why?

Because God he was saying, God will prosper even my mistakes.

Whatever I put my hand to prospers.

Hallelujah.

It's not automatic, it's yours, it belongs to you.

But you've got to take the spiritual activity, the spiritual participation of believing and speaking.

Hallelujah.

Not just putting your hand over your mouth not to say certain things, but putting something in your heart to say that will turn your situation in the direction God wants it to go.

Not just not saying, but having the right thing to say.

Having the supernatural material to bring up out of your heart to bring that debt freedom.

To bring that bill paid in full.

To call the end from the beginning.

Glory to God.

What a privilege.

What a privilege.

Glory to God.

Father, we submit our tongues to your plan.

We have learned, Father, the responsibility we have to discipline and put the bit of your word in our mouth.

But Father, I ask you to reveal to us words that remove the limits, words that open the horizons, words that launch us into your greater glory, your maximum, your best.

Let us speak words built in the heart by your promises and employed for your purposes.

And I thank you for it, Lord.

I thank you for it, Lord.

I thank you for it, Lord.

Hallelujah.

Your words can be as his mouth, your mouth can be as his.

Glory to God.

Did you receive something today?

Glory to the Lord.

Stand with me today.