Putting the Word to Work - Part 3 - Pastor Michelle Steele - August 23rd, 2026

Matthew chapter twelve.

The last two times that I've had the privilege of ministering to you, we've been talking about putting our words to work.

And I want to take a next step in that.

So Matthew chapter 12, we'll just review a minute here on our foundational text because we are people of the word.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

We understand the importance of God's word in our life.

And we are endeavoring to live by the light of that word.

Amen.

And in doing so, we cannot neglect our responsibility of words.

You know, when my children were learning to drive, I said, now listen, I'm going to let you have the ability to drive my the family van, you know, the to drive my car.

I'm going to let you have the ability, but with that ability comes a responsibility.

These are my rules.

This is how many people you can have in the car at one time.

This is how fast you cannot go.

This is how this is your speed limit.

You know, and this is what time you need to have that van back at the house.

These are my rules.

I'm giving you the ability, but there's a responsibility with it.

And so we have the ability that no animal or no angel has.

We have the ability of words.

God created us in his image and in his likeness a speaking spirit.

We have the ability to choose words and choose which words we will live by.

We have the ability to choose the words we say.

Hallelujah.

You can teach a parrot to talk, but that parrot doesn't choose the words they say.

They cannot choose to declare and call the end from the beginning.

They can repeat and mimic, but they don't have the ability of words like you do.

And so that responsibility, we see Jesus teaching on it here in Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

I want to look at verse 36 and 37.

Jesus said, Every idle word, but I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

Every idle word they shall give account in the day of judgment.

For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.

Now the word idle is an important word because if we're going to have to give an account for these kind of words, I want to be aware of what they are, and so that I can choose if I want to use that kind.

The word idle means inoperative.

The amplified brings out inoperative, non-working, and I like to use this definition, unemployed, unemployed.

Every idle, inoperative, non-working, unemployed word.

So my words need a job.

You know, I I I like Dave Ramsey's system.

I don't necessarily listen to him because sometimes he gets uh things in his mouth I'd never put in mine.

So I don't listen to him anymore, but I like the concept.

And one of the concepts that he used was every dollar has a job.

He's talking about how to make a budget, right?

Every dollar has a job.

Well, you and I, we have a currency of faith.

Every word needs to have a job.

Every word I speak, because Jesus says idle, inoperative words, I'm gonna have to give an account for those.

Why?

He says, why?

Why?

Because by your words you'll be justified, and by your words you'll be condemned.

Now I think the King James does a disservice because people see condemned and think condemned to hell or condemned to sin.

It's not necessarily uh that as the greatest definition.

So I want to pull up a couple of different um uh different translations.

I wonder if you could give me the umplified.

Let me look at the amplified of Matthew 12, 37.

By your words you'll be justified and acquitted.

Now, acquitted, that's something that happens in a court of law, isn't it?

He's talking about the day of judgment.

So acquitted means you're clear of any charges.

And then it also, next to condemned, uses this word sentenced.

Sentenced.

So found guilty or found not guilty by words.

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

And the Phillips translation says, it is your words that will acquit you, and your words that will condemn you.

Think about that.

Your words that will condemn you.

Every idle, inoperative, non-working word, you'll give an account for it.

You'll answer for it.

Why?

Because your words are either going to cause you to be found in the right or found in the wrong.

Lord, you said with long life you would satisfy me.

But I died early.

Let's just imagine someone is standing at the throne with this argument.

You said with long life you'd satisfy me, but I died early.

I died before my time.

And then God plays back.

I laughed till I thought I'd die.

That's killing me.

That just kills me when they say that.

It scared me to death.

And God begins to rehearse all the times that death was in their mouth, and then and that's killing me.

And and and you know, I'm over the hill, and I'm I'm old, and and and and uh all those words are played back.

Who's gonna be found?

They're trying to say, God, you said with long life you'd satisfy me.

And God said, Yeah, but you said it was killing you.

You said you'd laugh till you you were you died.

You said that scared you to death.

And so the words are going to be found against them.

Hallelujah.

Now that's just a uh a random application, and and so it's not that saying it one time is going to cause someone to lose a year off their life, but saying it is authorizing it for your life.

Saying it is opening the door.

The enemy, he likes to work with words of death.

He has over the, I mean, think about how long people lived in the Old Testament, and the enemy has taught people how to talk themselves into an early grave.

Because our words carry life, or our words carry death, and life are in the hand of the tongue, the power of the tongue.

So, what am I reaching for?

Hallelujah.

So I don't want this to become something that we're nitpicking over specific things, but I do want us to gather a responsibility mindset.

I want us to come at this a little bit of a, I desire to be disciplined in with a bit in my mouth, the bit of God's word in my mouth, so that I can direct my life.

Because for faith to work the way Jesus describes in Matthew 11, 23, there are some components that need to be working.

I mean, Matthew 11, 23 is the high watermark of how faith operates.

That you believe that you can say the whosoever will say to the mountain, be thou removed, be thou cast through the sea, shall not doubt in his heart.

Oh, there's a component, shall not doubt in his heart, but believe that those things he says shall come to pass.

There's a component.

I've got to believe the things I say.

So for a person to operate a great and effective faith, that person needs to be skilled in these components.

Being able to hold my faith and not let it waver, not doubting in my heart, and believing that the things that I say will come to pass, that's a whole nother component.

Especially if I've been saying things like tickled me to death, laughed till I thought I'd die, uh, dying to go.

Right?

If I've been, if I've been utilizing my words loosely, those things aren't sinful.

Those things aren't cursing words, those aren't necessarily words that that we would could we would uh consider to be unchristian, but they're not meant for me.

Why?

Because I'm trying to work my faith.

I need faith to work.

I need to believe the things I say come to pass.

I need to recognize that God gave me the ability of words, and I can take my words and I can use them to direct the course of my life.

Like I can direct a horse with a bit in its mouth, and I can direct a ship in the middle of a storm, I can still get where I need to go.

Why?

Because I've got control of the rudder.

The storm isn't controlling me if I'm controlling the rudder.

The situation isn't going to dictate the end result if I've got control of my mouth.

If I can speak the word of God, think about Brother Paul.

I believe God.

They threw everything over, but he still had a rudder in his hand, the hand of his mouth.

I believe God, whose I am and whom I serve.

His angel stood by me tonight and said, none of us will lose our lives.

That was the mercy of God because he'd prayed, hadn't he?

But his words steered their lives.

Glory to God.

Even in the storm, if you've got control of your mouth.

Now listen, in the storm is when you you better already have control of your mouth.

And then you better guard the control of your mouth because the storm wants you to talk in line with the storm.

The storm puts pressure on your emotions to grab control of your tongue.

It's like at that moment, your emotions want the microphone.

Your emotions are like, give me the microphone and let me just cut your mouth.

This is what I feel like.

You do not want to say what you feel in the middle of a storm.

Why?

Because I need to steer the ship.

I've got to keep us on course, and what's going to keep me on course is to keep the word of God in my mouth.

Even when they came to Jairis and said, Your daughter is dead.

Jesus said, Only believe.

Stay with what you said.

His words had already steered the answer.

If you will lay hands on her, she will live.

That was the words that Jesus was working with.

That was the words God was responding to.

If you will lay your hands on her, she will live.

So their report, the storm, the wave of the situation coming and saying, Your daughter is dead.

Don't trouble the master any further.

Jesus said, Do not fear, only believe.

In other words, don't let anything else get in your mouth and abort the direction that we're going.

Change the course.

Hallelujah.

And he just stayed with what he had said.

There's no evidence that J.

Iris said anything else.

He'd already said what needed to be said.

So having control of your mouth before the situation is our homework right now.

That's what we're working on in this sermon.

We're recognizing I need to have my words so specific.

I need to have every word has a job.

Every word has an assignment.

Every word is a word that is filled with purpose.

It is on target.

I'm calling those things that be not as though they were until they are.

I'm calling, and I added until they are.

We call those things that be not as though they were, because God has chosen things which be not to bring to naught things that are.

So if sickness is, the way you bring sickness to naught is you call healing.

I am the healed of the Lord because by his stripes I am healed.

So I'm taking God's word.

I'm not just taking words that I've invented on my own that I'm not sick.

I'm not sick is not a faith statement.

I don't have cancer is not a faith statement.

It's not faith.

It's not faith.

Why?

Because it's denying and not calling for.

The power is in calling for.

The power is in saying what God said.

God said, I am redeemed from cancer.

God said, I am healed, not trying to get healed.

I am healed.

Why?

Because Jesus took stripes on his back and paid for it.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Yeah, but the the symptoms.

I'm not reporting symptoms.

I'm reporting my stand in the Word of God.

I'm reporting what pertains to me, what belongs to me.

This is mine now.

Healing is mine now.

I'm not waiting to get it.

I am the healed of the Lord.

And I am releasing and authorizing the healing power to have its work in me.

Hallelujah.

The word in our words is like the bit in the mouth of the horse.

It's like the rudder in the water.

It's God's word in our mouth.

It's God's word in our mouth.

It's it go what a privilege.

What a benefit.

The word of God is yours to use.

It's yours to use.

He gave you his seed catalog and said, whatever kind of harvest you want.

Whatever kind of harvest you want.

You pick out your seeds.

Y'all y'all hear me talk about my grandmother.

My grandmother didn't just have one type of tomato in her garden.

My grandmother, she liked to try the different types of tomatoes.

She said, We're going to try these, these uh uh, and she had some purple ones, she had some orange ones, she had some some uh big boys, she had uh uh uh bluebells, yeah, all these different types of seeds.

Why?

Because she's looking through the catalog.

God gave you a catalog, and he said, There's there's harvest in here for your marriage.

You want a marriage made in heaven?

Just pull it right off the page.

I will love, I will honor my husband, I will respect my husband.

My husband loves me like Christ loves the church.

Glory to God.

And so he says, He gives us his word.

He says this in Hebrews chapter 13.

Hebrews 13 · chapter mention

He says in verse 5, in the end of the verse, it says, The Lord has said, I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you, so that you may boldly say.

So the reason he said it is not just so it could be said one time by him, he said it so that you can pick that up like a piece of equipment, like a tool, like a seed to be sown, and you can sing it.

God said, He'll never leave me and forsake me.

So I will say, the Lord is my helper, I shall not fear.

The Lord is with me.

Glory to God.

He is for me.

The Lord has said he always causes me to triumph, so that I can boldly say, I am a champion in Christ.

I am an overcomer and more than a conqueror through him who loves me.

Hallelujah.

Glory to God.

So he said it so that we would know what to say.

Now let's look over at Proverbs chapter 4.

Proverbs 4 · chapter mention

And I want to revisit this because every time I teach on faith, I end up talking about verse 23, keep your heart.

Talking about verse 20, attend to the words, incline your ear, keep them in your eyes for their life to those who find them.

Verse 23, keep your heart with what?

Full of the word.

So that verse 20, 21, and 22, talk about the word in your eyes, the word in your ears.

The word is what we are endeavoring to fill our heart with.

And then he says, keep it.

Why?

Because the enemy's coming after the word.

Jesus warned us in the parable of the sower.

The enemy comes.

What is he coming?

Steal, kill, and destroy.

He's coming to steal the word sown by the wayside, to kill the word that is there in the stony ground, to destroy the word that is there in the thorny ground.

He's coming to steal the word.

He's after the word.

It's not you.

You thought this was personal.

It's the word in you, he wants to do.

He wants to separate you from the word.

He wants to cut you off from the word supply.

Because the word is what's going on.

The word is your nutrition.

The word is the light.

The word is the life.

Jesus said, My words are spirit.

They're life.

If without the word, what does my spirit have to be strengthened with?

Without the word, where's my wisdom going to come from?

So he's after the word.

And so the Bible says you've got to keep it.

Guard your heart.

Keep keep it with all diligence.

For out of your heart, the heart filled with the word is the forces, the flows, the issues.

This is where my life is coming from.

So my healing's more about the condition of my heart than the condition of my body.

My financial health is more about the condition of my heart than the condition of my bank book.

Am I full of the word?

Because if I'm full of the word, we already looked and saw if I'm a doer of the word, I'm going to have every aspect of my life under the blessing.

Right?

So the condition of my heart is the emphasis of these prior verses, but verse 24 is telling us how to keep the heart.

Put away from you a froward mouth and perverse lips put far from you.

Keep your heart, verse 23.

He said, Keep your heart.

How do I do that?

How do I keep my heart with all diligence?

Guard your mouth.

There's some things that have to, why?

Because if I have it in my mouth, it's going to get back in my heart.

The tongue is the pen of a ready writer.

Psalm 45, verse 1.

Psalms 45:1

He said, My tongue is like an ink pen.

And I write on the tablets of my heart.

Proverbs chapter 3 says that we write on the tablets of our heart.

Proverbs 3 · chapter mention

So when you wanted to learn, I remember when I was growing up, they had a 78, was that a 78 record?

Remember those records that they would put on?

And my teacher had records.

She would put the record player on, and she would play the multiplication tables, and we would all rehearse with her out loud.

It would be on the board.

So it's in our eyes and it's in our ears, right?

And we're repeating.

Two times one is two.

Two times two is four.

And we're repeating it out loud.

And now they've got songs.

And I think that's so cool because Lily, she's got all these songs, you know.

She's learning her multiplication tables with her songs.

And so, but what is that doing?

It's writing it on the table of the heart.

That's how we learned, that's how we memorized.

We wrote it on the table of our heart with our tongue.

And so he said, if you want to keep your heart, in order for you to guard your heart, for you to keep your heart that's flowing out the forces of life, you've got to keep your tongue.

He says, put away a froward mouth.

The word froward again means crooked.

We're not talking about cuss words.

We already know we don't want to say those.

He's talking about things that are twisted.

And another definition is deceiving either by mischief or rebellion.

Deceiving by mischief.

And it's just funny, you think, until you deceive your heart.

Because now what you're saying isn't truth.

Right?

And so it's not saying that we can't enjoy life or have fun, but we need to use the wisdom of understanding that I've got to be able to believe what I say.

And if I say this is a little tiny dog when it is a 50-pound rottwaller, I'm deceiving myself.

Nobody else is going to care.

They're going to go on with their life, but it's going to injure my faith from working because I have to be able to believe that what I say comes to pass.

Because when I'm looking at a difficult situation and I say, I am the head and not the tail, I am above only and not beneath.

I need that to work for me, and I don't want the watered-down words.

Do you know when they were building the Tower of Babel that God said they could?

Not permission on his part, but he says they have the ability.

Why?

Because they're of singleness of language, they're all speaking the same thing.

He said they've got the ability to do it.

And it's not good for them to do it.

Their intent, their motive, their design, it's not good.

It could hurt them.

So he went down and did what?

Confounded.

Confounded.

The word means to fodder.

Anybody ever foddered your family?

Listen, all my kids when we were growing, we had all the kids around the table, everybody gets one pork chop.

And then you get some fodder on the table.

The mashed potatoes are the fodder.

The rice, the pasta, it's the fodder.

Why, it's going to fill them up, but there's no nutritional value to speak of in those mashed potatoes, in those, in that pasta.

The nutrition, the the essences in the meat and the vegetables.

And so, but the meat and the vegetables are not going to fill them.

They're going to be back in 30 minutes saying, Mama, I'm hungry.

Mama, I'm hungry.

So we've got to put some fodder on the table.

So there was all it was pasta, it was rice, or it was potatoes.

Because that's an inexpensive.

When I had a horse, I would we would give the horse one cup of nutritional grain and then three cups of oats.

The three cups of oats we're foddering to fill their tummy so that they're full, but they don't need four cups of nutritional grain.

So they get three cups of fodder, one cup of nutrition.

So God said, I'm going to come down and fodder their mouth.

And oh my goodness, some of us will thank him one day.

Thank you, Lord, that you foddered my mouth, so I didn't end up.

Why?

Because if the power of my words worked immediately, the first time somebody said that tickles me to death, they would have fell over.

Words were so foddered, but you and I, now that we're walking in the light of God's word, we want to pull the fodder out of our mouth.

Right?

When we get ready to drop weight, we what do we pull out?

The rice, the pasta, and potatoes.

Why?

Because that's not helping me on my goals here, right?

Right?

So if we want to drop the fodder out of our language, we've got to say every word needs a job.

Every word is an on-purpose word.

I'm only saying what I want.

I'm only saying what I desire to come to pass.

When um when Brother Charles Caps, if you've read the book, God's Creative Power, you've ever heard him talk about it, he was upside down, millions of dollars, because he had, he was a man who taught Sunday school for years in his church.

He attended full gospel church.

His parents, I mean, they he was raised in an assembly of God church.

He was raised serving God, tithing, reading his Bible, going to church.

But he didn't know about the power of his words.

He didn't know how to work the word.

And he decided that he was gonna make this decision, and he said, I put out a fleece before God, and I got fleeced.

And so what he did was, Lord, if it's you, let this, this, and this happen, and that, that, and that happened, but it wasn't God.

And so he went under millions of dollars, and he said, I worked for two years and did not make enough profit to afford to renew my driver's license.

He was constantly going back to the bank, he would pay off the bank and go back to the bank and borrow it again.

He said, I had been a successful farmer, huge farm.

He said, I'd been a successful farmer all of my life up until that point.

But when I made that bad decision, he said I turned negative and I started using my words in a negative way.

And he said, I would say, if I sow my seed, I'm gonna sow it too deep, and then the freeze is gonna come, or I'm gonna sow it too shallow, and this rain's gonna come.

And he said, My words weren't controlling the weather, but my words were affecting my ability to choose the right thing.

He said, Before I'd had skill to make the right decision, but now my words are against me.

And he said, It doesn't matter what I do, it's gonna come apart, it's not gonna work, and I don't know, it's too much month at the end of the money.

That's that's that kind of attitude.

That's what he was doing.

He was speaking the defeat before the defeat even happened because he had turned negative, and so he had had somebody come by his house, and this person had some books, and he said, I'm done with these books.

If you want to read any of them, here, help yourself.

And he said, I picked a couple of them out, and one of them was Right and Wrong Thinking by Kennethy Hagan.

Right and wrong thinking.

And he said, Here I am, I've been in church all my life, I've been raised in church tithing, I'm in this mess, and I'm I'm drinking mallocks by the bottle because I've got such my nerves.

I have have I've eaten holes in my stomach because of the situation that I'm in financially.

And he said, I began to flip through the pages of that book and read right and wrong thinking.

If a man, if a man believes wrong, he's gonna talk wrong, he's gonna act wrong.

And he said, I thought, that's what I'm doing.

That's what I'm doing.

And so he began, he ordered another book from Brother Hagin, and and so he's starting to get the word to uh and an understanding.

The light of God's word is coming, and so he's there and he's saying, he said, Lord, he's praying.

He said, I've I was praying.

I was Lord, it's not working, it's not working, Lord.

I'm doing what you said, and it's not working.

Your word isn't working, it's your it's not working, and the Lord said, Who told you that?

And he he backed up and he thought, Well, I guess the devil told me that, because you what your word didn't say that, did it?

And he had this, he's having this conversation and he shares this part.

And I want to, I'm reading this, I've written it right out of the book for you.

I want you to hear this.

The Lord in that conversation said, You are under an attack of the evil one, and I can't do anything about it.

You have bound me by your words of your own mouth, by the words of your own mouth.

God said, You have bound me by the words of your own mouth, and it's not going to get any better until you change your confessions and begin to agree with my word.

You have established the words of the evil one on your behalf.

By your own mouth, you release the ability of the enemy.

And we know what kind of things he said to release the ability of the enemy.

It's not working.

We know what kind of thing he says, doesn't matter what I do, it's not gonna work.

It's always gonna, I no matter what I tried, no matter what I do, at his words, we're opening a door, but not to God.

His words were opening a door for the enemy to have the directional force, the flow.

And so what God told him to do was to take the promise that he found in the in the scripture and to begin to repeat it out loud, to read it out loud.

He said, I need you to say it.

And I need so he got a yellow legal pad and he went through the scriptures and he started writing out things, specific things that he found in the Word of God, and he would tear it off the page, he would put it in his pocket, he would go out and get on his tractor, he would drive around, do his work, he would take a break and get off the tractor and walk through the turnrows, pull his paper out of his pocket and repeat what God had said.

You said that I'm blessed going in and I'm blessed coming out, I'm blessed in the field, I'm blessed in the city.

You said that you would cause me to prosper.

You said that you would perfect that which concerneth me.

You said that I'm the head and not the tail, I'm above and not beneath.

I'm always going over, never going under.

And so he began to speak these things over his life.

He said it took about a year to transform the image that was in him.

It didn't take an entire, but within within about a year, God began to move in his life and it turned that upside down, millions of dollars right side up.

Glory to God.

And what we have today in those books, God's creative power, started.

He took the legal yellow pad, the pages off that legal pad, and and he would copy it on the copying machine.

When he would go out to preach at places, he would have copies and give copies of the page right off the legal pad pages.

And Buddy Harrison said, we need to take those and make a book out of them, and that we have the books today.

And the millions of copies have been sold, and we have access to the same type things, the exact same scriptures that he was using in the confessions, that opened the door to God to work in his life and not the enemy.

So I want to look at this one phrase, though, that God said to him.

Can we do that to God?

Can we hinder God?

Well, let's see some examples.

Malachi 2.

Malachi 2 and verse 17.

Malachi 2, 17.

You have wearied the Lord with your words.

Now I know the first scripture that comes to my mind is, I am the Lord and I do not grow weary.

So I looked up a little bit closer at this verse because I thought, okay, now I know it's not meaning that it makes God tired, like he's worn out physically.

And so when I looked it up in some different translations, the word actually in the Hebrew dictionary means to make to toil.

To make to toil.

And for instance, God's word translation says, you've tried the patience of the Lord with your words.

You've tried the patience of the Lord with your words.

The Ycliffe translation says, You have travailed or tired the Lord with your words.

And so God is not exhausted in a physical sense, but the words that they were saying, God was constantly having to work against them, or his work was being for nothing.

The work of God is like, I've done all of this, I've set you up for success, I've put you in a place where you should be blessed, but your words keep undoing everything I just did.

Now I gotta go back and do that again.

I you what you said just undid all the favor I put on your path, all of the provision I put on your path, and then you had to go say that.

Right?

Like, oh, okay, let's do this again.

Okay, I'm gonna provide, I'm gonna bring favor, I'm gonna make a way for you.

And then they get right to it again, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and just undo all the work that God is.

So God's working, but they're not receiving it.

Why?

Their words.

He's yet we say, yet you say, Wherein have we wearied him?

Like, what'd I say?

What?

What?

What'd I say?

Where did we weary him?

When you say, now you're gonna bring it out specifically, everyone that does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.

Or where is the God of judgment?

In other words, look how well they're doing and they're not serving God.

Look how much money they've gotten.

They don't go to church, they don't honor God.

Look at them, they don't honor God.

Where's the God of judgment?

Chapter 3, verse 13.

So we saw in verse 17 of chapter 2, it said, You've wearied the Lord.

You've made God work hard.

Chapter 3, verse 13.

Your words have been stout against me, says the Lord.

Heavenly Father, I pray that we never use words that are stout against you.

Would you disagree with that right now?

Father, I pray that I would not use words that are stout against you.

Help me, Lord.

Keep my words as words you can work with.

Hallelujah.

He said to this group of people, your words have been stout against me.

I don't ever want to say words that are against him.

It says in the Amplified, your words have been strong and hard against me.

The Jubilee translation says, Your words have prevailed against me.

The definition of the word stout, one of the definitions from the Hebrew language means to bind or restrain.

To bind or restrain.

So I can speak words that tie God's hands.

Or I can speak words that loose him into the situation.

I can bind God or loose God.

I can bind the angels or loose the angels.

I can bind the promise from working for me or loose the promise from working for me.

How?

With my words.

What I say, what I say authorizes things in my life.

So when the situation, when the report comes, and it looks like it's negative, it looks like it's trouble, it looks like you're gonna be at a loss, it looks like you're gonna lose something, it looks like you're not gonna have enough, you've got to open up your mouth and authorize something different than what you see.

I always have more than enough because my God shall supply all my need.

I abound to every good work, and I am enriched into all bountifulness.

Glory to God.

I have more than enough.

Glory to God.

So my words are loosing or my words are binding.

So he said, You they had bound him by their words.

They had restricted or restrained him in their situation.

And again, they have the same I didn't do it attitude.

What?

Why have we spoken?

You have said it is vain to serve God.

And what prophet is it that we have kept his ordinance and we've walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?

Well, that doesn't sound like a cuss word.

That doesn't sound like uh something that that I mean is openly sinful to say, right?

But think about it.

Think about think about the comparison between Joshua and Caleb's words and the report that the the rest of the people had.

Think about the difference.

And and Joshua and Caleb, they were like, we can do it right now.

Let's go, right now.

We are more than able to possess the land.

Let's go up at once.

Come on, everybody.

Here we go.

We're gonna go.

And like, no, no, we be like grasshoppers in our own sight.

We're like grasshoppers.

We we're like grasshoppers compared to them.

You see how little and insignificant we are?

We don't have any might, we don't have any strength, we are like grasshoppers in our own sight.

We are not able.

Oh yeah?

We are like grasshoppers.

Oh yeah?

Grasshoppers in our own side.

Really?

You're provoking me.

Is it this what you want to you want to fight?

Is this that?

You're provoking me.

God called it provocation.

He said, They provoked me in the wilderness.

With your words, you're provoking me.

I want you to see it.

He took it so personal.

Look at Numbers 14, 11, and see how God responded.

And all they said was, We aren't able.

We are not able.

And you know what?

It sounds more like complaining.

It wasn't intentional necessarily to God.

It was more complaining.

It was more saying what their flesh felt like, saying what their eyes told them.

Numbers 14, 11, the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people provoke me?

He called it provoking him.

And what did they say?

I don't have enough money to pay that bill.

I'm gonna lose everything.

I don't know why.

God hasn't blessed me, and we're gonna lose everything.

Provoking me.

Because to say that would have to be to say, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, is a lie.

To say that would have to be to say that he became poor with my poverty from 2 Corinthians would have to be a lie.

Right?

That we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sake he became poor, so that we through his poverty might be rich.

Is that truth?

Then we are more than able.

Right?

Is that truth?

Then it would be provoking God to say, I'm gonna lose everything.

I don't know why this is happening to me.

Although the pressure is on us to.

Do you see what I do you see?

The pressure is coming from the emotions.

We don't let them have the microphone.

The feelings don't get the microphone.

Faith needs to hold control of the microphone.

Never put feelings in the driver's seat.

The soul needs to be under the control of the born-again spirit, who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit is never gonna say, we be not able.

We be not able to keep this marriage together, we be not able to pay our bills, we be not able.

The Holy Spirit's never gonna say that.

My born-again spirit is agreeing with the word, it's never gonna say that.

I'm gonna say, what God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

The blessing of the Lord governs my life.

I am the healed of the Lord, and regardless of how I feel in my body, I'm healed because his stripes paid for my healing.

And so I'm gonna say, in line with what he said, because I'm going to stand in a place of accountability for what I said.

Did it agree with God?

Then you'll be acquitted.

Did it disagree with what he said about you?

Then you'll be found guilty of being on the wrong side of faith.

These in Numbers 14 were on the wrong side of the picture.

And it was God's will for them to go in.

It was God's will for them to enjoy the land and to have houses they did not build.

Filled with all good things they did not fill.

God had provided it.

It was there for the taking, but they're believing.

Their believing and speaking wasn't in line.

And God said, we see from Hebrews, he said, they could not enter in because of their unbelief.

Where was their unbelief?

In their heart and in their mouth.

In their, we be not able.

We be not able.

Their words restrained God's hands.

They tied God's hands.

And God couldn't.

He would have.

He wanted to.

But he had to give them what they said.

And if you look on in Numbers, he says, as you have spoken in my ears.

That's what you'll have.

As you have spoken.

Verse 28 of Numbers 14, As truly as I live, says the Lord, as you have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you.

Hallelujah.

Two blind men came to Jesus and said, Son of David, have mercy on us.

And Jesus said, Do you believe that I can do this?

He said, We believe.

And he said, Be it unto you according as you have spoken.

Why, you say you believe, and evidently it was in their heart and in their mouth because they received.

But God is limited in our life by our faith.

And if we don't believe it and speak it, he's not authorized to do it.

Jesus is the high priest of our confession, our declaration.

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

In him shall I trust.

Psalm 91.

I will say, and then from that moment on, it changes voice.

Because you have made the Lord, which is my refuge, even your shelter, because you have made him, because you've said this, because you've authorized this.

No evil shall befall you, no plague shall come.

All of these benefits are going to be yours because you've authorized it with your words.

Hallelujah.

He's the high priest of our confession.

So let me give you this: Psalm 19, 14.

This is what we need to pray today.

Psalm 19, 14.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

Hallelujah.

Write it down.

Take notes because you want to pull that one out this week and you want to pray, Lord, let the words of my mouth be acceptable in your sight.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

Psalm 141.3.

Psalm 141.3.

Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth.

Keep the door of my lips.

Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth.

Keep the door of my lips.

What if we invited God to do this for us?

Let's do that together.

Say it with me.

Set a watch, O Lord.

Set a watch before my mouth.

Keep the door of my lips.

Hallelujah.

We don't want words that hinder God from working in our life.

We want words that free him up to bless, to strengthen, to help.

Hallelujah.

Glory to God.

And when we get our words in line, you'll see the acceleration of some things that you've been standing for, believing for.

Did you receive something today?

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Stand with me to your feet.

Praise the Lord.

I'm getting you out of here right on time.