TCC Jubilee Celebration - The Past

So I get the wonderful opportunity to introduce to you a dear friend, and to me and to probably most of you here as well.

And you served Jesus so well, you served this church so well, so just welcome, neil Silverberg.

Thank you, mark, I'm a little overwhelmed.

Give me a second.

Was that powerful?

Wow.

Every time that song was sung, I think of Melissa, it was her song.

I want to just take a second and acknowledge a special guest, but you have to promise me not to get up and hug his neck yet.

But Paul Queen is in the house.

Praise God, paul.

So glad to have you here, brother.

Well, mark mentioned that the ban has been lifted on my jokes, so I'm struggling with whether I should take the opportunity or not.

For those of you who don't know, I've had a joke that is so old that the elders came to my house one day and posted on my refrigerator that I was under a ban.

That joke could not be repeated at any Trinity Chapel, trinity Community Church outing or meeting, but Tyler graciously lifted it, told me, even though I promised I did it.

In Israel I took 34 people to Israel, patty remembers and we I heard it, I'm so old.

When I was young the Dead Sea was just sick.

Okay, there it is.

Good night, praise God.

Shelly and I have had the privilege of being partners at Trinity Community Church for almost 30 years, with a five-year break to Florida, and we love this church.

We love the community we've been part of.

We love the fact that our kids grew up here.

We love working with the elder team.

It's just been an incredible blessing and privilege.

Mark did a brilliant flyover of the last 50 years 50 years amazing that we've been a local church and I hope tonight, if you are new, you're one of the newer people to Trinity that this history was helpful in providing you some context about Trinity and how it got started.

I've been brooding on this all week and it's blessed my soul.

You know the average church plant lasts four years or less.

So we're celebrating 50 years is no small matter is no small matter and you know we.

Mark mentioned briefly our background.

Steve and I met each other in Miami.

Actually, I didn't know Steve.

My brother, perry, was friends with Steve and introduced me to Steve for the first time.

Steve says I was very unkind and unfriendly in that meeting.

I had long hair and I was probably on dope and didn't realize the man of God in my house.

I didn't realize it, but I grew up in Philadelphia and I got.

My brother was a drug addict and my parents kicked him out of the house in 1970.

And my father looked at me and said, neil, we don't want you turning out like your brother, we want you free from drugs.

We're moving to Miami.

That's exactly what he said Drug-free Miami.

But you know what was happening in the movie Jesus Revolution?

What was happening in California was happening in South Florida in the 60s and 70s as well.

It was a major outpouring of the spirit and the charismatic movement was powerful in those days.

God was touching many drug addicts and setting them free.

Sandy was a heroin addict who got set free by the gospel.

The night I got saved, november 9th 1971, at Bayfront Auditorium, sandy Simons was singing in the choir that night.

I didn't know her that night, but I got to know her in the future and it's wonderful to know her.

We're trying to get Sandy out of her shell a little bit.

But Mark mentioned how Steve's life and my life was touched by the gospel.

I met the Lord in November of 1971, and Steve had gotten saved, I think in 70 or 69, 70.

So that was a period of time when the Spirit of God was poured out powerfully throughout the nation and later Steve and Sandy left Florida and moved to Alabama and pastored in Alabama, in Florence, alabama, where they pastored Calvary Temple.

We had breakfast yesterday, mark and I and Steve, and we were reviewing, renewing some of our memories about that time.

It was amazing and you know it was really a tailor made for Steve and I were reviewing, renewing some of our memories about that time.

It was amazing and you know it was really a tailor made for Steve and I being Jewish, because we were in pastoring in Florence, which was right down the road from Tuscumbia, alabama, which at the time was the headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan, so it was perfect setting for two Jewish guys from South Florida.

You know it really was.

But in 1984, when Steve and Sandy got the call to come to Knoxville and serve as senior pastor, we stayed, shelley and I, in Florence for another seven years and then, in 1991, we moved here to join the pastoral staff and work with Steve and Sandy.

By the way, steve served as senior pastor for almost 30 years.

We wouldn't be here tonight if it wasn't for their faithfulness.

In 2006, shelley and I left Knoxville and went to Cape Coral, florida, to work with a church there.

And then, in 2010, steve called me and asked me to prayerfully consider returning to Knoxville and taking the lead role, which we did in 2011.

We were accompanied by Tyler and Amy, who actually came down before we got here, and for Tyler it was like going home, because his father had planted a church in Cape Coral and Tyler actually graduated high school in Fort Myers, so it was like going home for him.

We were asked on this first night of our special Jubilee service to start to speak about what God did in establishing Trinity.

I want to take a few minutes and just give you a broad overview of what I believe he did when he established this church.

Tomorrow, we're going to focus in the morning on what God is presently doing and then tomorrow night we'll be praying for people prophetically and we will be talking about what God's going to do in the future.

We call this thanking God for a firm foundation.

I believe that Trinity has existed for 50 years because it's been planted on a firm foundation.

Can you agree with that?

And we could describe that foundation in many different ways.

We could talk about the worship, the fact that this church has been characterized by dynamic worship, and we saw some of it tonight Aaron Jones, mark Medley, jack Wright, others who've been part of the worship team.

It's always been an important part of Trinity, but I believe that the best way to describe the foundation upon which Trinity was founded is that God called Trinity, from the beginning, to be both a word and power church.

A word and power church.

We may not have been that to the best of our ability.

We may not be that to the best of our ability right now, but from our inception we've striven to be balanced in both of those areas of word and spirit.

What do I mean by word and power church?

If you go to the Gospels Matthew, mark and Luke, they all tell the story of Jesus running with the Sadducees.

Remember, he had confronted the Pharisees and they couldn't confound him.

And now the Sadducees came.

It was their turn.

They were the political power in the day.

They were, you know, and they were mainly described by the fact that they denied any of the supernatural in the Old Testament.

They were sad, you see.

That was worth listening to the sermon up to now just for that little bit, right.

They were sad, you see, and they disbelieved in angels or spirits, and that included.

They disbelieved in the core issue of the Old Testament, the resurrection of the body.

On that basis, they come to Jesus with a fictitious story.

Remember that there was a man who died and his brother married his wife and seven men married her and they had the question in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?

And Jesus, as he often does, knowing their deception, answers by going right to the heart of the issue.

He says you are in error because you are deficient in knowing the scriptures and the power of God.

You err because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God.

If they knew the scriptures, they would have had no problem believing the resurrection, because the Bible teaches it very clearly.

And if they knew the power of God, they would know that in the resurrection, men and women are transformed and brought into a realm similar to angels.

By the way, I encourage the pastors in the room to use this for pastoral counsel for marriage.

Just tell the couple if you can hang on to the resurrection, then you won't be married.

It's really helpful.

I've used it many times.

It works well.

But Jesus expected them to know both the scriptures and the power of God.

Because they didn't, they erred.

And there's a warning in Jesus' words for us.

I believe if any church wants to ensure that it qualifies as an apostolic company, they need to know both of these, the scriptures and the power of God.

And guess what?

We don't have to compromise and choose one above the other of God.

And guess what?

We don't have to compromise and choose one above the other.

Both are our heritage.

Both are our heritage.

It's important to recognize that, as far as Jesus is concerned, both of these belong together if error is to be avoided.

It should be immediately recognized, though, that for many people, for many churches, this is rarely the case.

We don't see a church, many churches, that are balanced with both of these word and power.

In fact, two distinct camps have emerged today, each stressing one of these to the other, each camp viewing the other with antagonism.

The two camps are evangelicalism, which has put its focus on knowing the scriptures so that we're pursuing a biblically based religion, and the charismatic church, which has emphasized, rightly, our need of the power of the spirit and the gifts of the spirit in operation.

Unfortunately, these two camps in the past have remained antagonistic, but we're coming into good news that we're coming into a day when something is going on causing both camps to recognize their need of the other.

Praise God, evangelicals can continue to insist on the importance of biblical knowledge and scholarship.

In the past, they've rejected the charismatic emphasis on the power of the Spirit.

The danger for them is, things can become only cerebral, the idea that they can embrace the idea that God wrote a book and disappeared off the scene.

You know, they easily become like many evangelicals which you know, jesus, many of the Pharisees.

Jesus said to them you diligently study the scriptures because you think that in them you possess eternal life.

These are the scriptures that testify about me, and yet you do not come to me to have life.

Charismatic saw this tendency and reacted against it.

But in their reaction they forgot that God's power is not a substitute for a knowledge of truth.

Are you with me?

Even the spirit is called the spirit of truth.

One of the problems in this entire scenario is that we have accepted the notion that it has to be either or or both, and there's a man who did some brilliant work.

His name was Jim Collins.

He spent six years researching great companies, trying to find out what makes companies great and better than others.

He grouped them into bronze and gold and metal companies, gold being those who performed well over time, and he found that these companies were those who eliminated the notion of either or and discovered the power of both and power of both, and he cites as an example a pharmaceutical company that found out how to make both a profit and serve the needs of humanity.

I believe the church should be the ultimate example of the both and paradigm, and I believe God has called Trinity from its inception to exemplify that.

We don't have to choose between a word-based church and power-based.

We can and must have both.

If we want to recapture the genius of the apostolic church, we have to embrace both these camps.

First, we must ensure that we're building biblically-based churches, churches that take the Scripture seriously.

We will not shun serious biblical study.

We will see the importance of theology in our ministry.

But secondly, we must recognize that the New Testament church is a supernatural church and we must be comfortable in the supernatural even when we embrace Scripture.

The man who wrote Romans raised the dead, and we have an example of this in the Old Testament.

Two men who worked together in the Hebrew Bible, their one book, the book of Ezra and Nehemiah.

You know what Nehemiah's name is in Hebrew?

It's comforter.

And you know what Ezra was, the scribe who studied the law to teach it in Israel.

And both of those work together, exemplifying the word and power paradigm.

I myself owe a great debt from both camps.

I've gained so much.

So if we want to ensure that our people are growing in knowledge of both the scriptures and the power of God, we must make sure that our ministry as leaders exhibits both.

Are you breathing?

We must model what knowledge of both means for our people.

The following should be demonstrated in our lives and ministries as part of our evangelical heritage we must first and foremost be students of Scripture, can't just give lip service to it.

We have to make sure that what we preach and what we pursue is biblical, and that can't be faked.

It must be the result of living constantly in the book and grappling with its message.

You know, in the past few years the church has been inundated with new techniques and emphasis that are not biblical.

People don't notice because there hasn't been a waning of authority of the scriptures.

We still quote the Bible occasionally, but we really look elsewhere for answers.

We need to desperately return to the authority of scripture.

If we don't, we will make experiences authoritative.

It's like Luke 16.

Remember the parable of the rich man and Lazarus?

Many believe it's not a parable because Lazarus is named by name.

But you remember, man and Lazarus.

Many believe it's not a parable because Lazarus is named by name.

But you remember, lazarus the rich man rather said send me back to my brothers.

If someone rises from the dead, they'll believe.

And they said and Father Abraham said, if they have Moses and the prophets, if they don't believe them, they won't believe that someone rises from the dead.

Our public ministry must expound scripture.

Leaders need to return to preaching the word of God.

Not only do we study the Bible when we preach it from our messages.

We must expound it.

We've got to be delivered from what I call state your text and depart you from it.

You know, listening to many preachers, you get the idea that the Bible is just a springboard for their own thoughts, because the message isn't drawn from Scripture.

The Scripture is used to bolster their own thoughts.

But besides the Scriptures, the following should be demonstrated clearly in our lives and ministry as part of our charismatic heritage we need our churches and ministries to live in and minister from the presence of God.

You know we have settled for a Christianity which is a little more than a commitment to propositions.

It's obvious from Acts that the success of the apostles was that their ministries were committed to both word and power.

The power of the Holy Spirit and the presence of God was evident, and we needed it, especially in an hour like ours.

Acts 5,.

With great power, the apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all.

Nothing, nothing, nothing can substitute for the power of the Holy Spirit in our ministries.

Without it, we're like the man in the story of Elisha Remember the man with the axe head who lost his axe head?

We're like him beating the tree with no axe head.

Spurgeon said it best.

He said to us as ministers the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

Without him, our office is a mere name.

We claim no priesthood over and above that which belongs to every child of God, but we are the successors of those who, in olden times, were moved of God to declare his word, to testify against transgression and to lead his cause.

Unless we have the spirit of the prophets resting upon us, the mantle which we wear is nothing but a rough garment to deceive.

We ought to be driven forth with abhorrence from the society of honest men for daring to speak in the name of the Lord.

If the spirit of God rests upon us.

We continue his witness upon earth, but upon him and his testimony the spirit always rested, and if it does not rest upon us, we are evidently not sent forth into the world as he was.

Wow.

In this regard, we should desire earnestly the spiritual gifts in our ministries and our churches.

You know, we may not be doctrinal secessionists but we can end up being functional secessionists.

Doctrinally we believe in the gifts, but functionally, you know, it's forbid not but seek not is the motto.

We need to return to the simplicity of what charismatic means.

It means pertaining to the gifts.

They have been abused but we still desperately need them today.

So I believe God has established Trinity on the foundation of being a word and power church, and may we become more and more.

May that characterize us more and more in the days ahead.

Mark's going to introduce Steve, thanks.

All right.

So before you heard Derek give his little testimony about how he came to Trinity, we're going to be doing that this weekend.

We're going to be talking about how each of the elders are going to be talking about how God brought us to Trinity and what we see happening in the future.

I just want to tell you one story about my coming to Trinity.

Okay, as I'm introducing Steve, because the first night I ever came to Trinity I was invited by some friends.

I had some friends who went here.

It was at Dedrick Avenue.

I don't know if you know the story or not, steve.

So Steve used to prophesy over people during services.

Dedrick Avenue building was a long building, right, and so we had.

There was no wireless microphones.

Steve had a little lapel mic and he had like seven microphone cables.

It's the truth and all the so it would reach all the way to the back of the building and he would go back and he would pull people out and prophesy over people.

Okay, first time I ever came to Trinity I've never.

I was hungry for the Lord and for the spirit, but I'd never been prophesied over.

So he's like doing that and I'm going oh, what's going on around here?

And, like you know, you've probably done the same things, like maybe, if I don't make eye contact, whatever you do.

So Steve pulled me out.

I was out in the aisle and my first prophecy I ever got and he said God is joining you with those who are around you and God is going to use you with them and God is going to send you out and you will go out and come back, and go out and come back.

Okay, I don't know exact words, but that's what it was.

Okay, I had no idea that meant join me with Trinity.

You know, I didn't know that's what it meant.

I couldn't imagine that because I was pretty young.

But that's exactly what's happened.

And now part of what I do, I'm here, part of the pastoral staff, six months out of the year, but the other six months of the year I'm going out, I'm in other nations and I'm coming back and other nations coming back, and it's the word of the Lord.

I mean the word of the Lord is strong and powerful and we need that right.

So very interesting.

So anyway, I just want you to welcome Steve.

He's such a wonderful father in the Lord.

Thanks, mark, great to be here.

Hey, great food, thank you so much.

Great fellowship, wow.

I'm not going to share long, but I do have a little five-minute capsule of something that Holy Spirit has prophetically given.

I've shared it with Clem so he released me to give it.

But you know, when I came here, it was 1984.

When I came, I first preached here.

I think it was 1982 or 1983.

And the first time I preached here was a Sunday night and that morning whoever the pastor was I don't know, he had only been here for about five or six months he had resigned that morning and I was the guest speaker that Sunday night.

And I was trying not to connect the dots, honestly, because Neil and I were working together in Florence and we had just, I felt had taken the church to another level, where we were finally something was happening and I certainly didn't want to go anywhere.

I was feeling very comfortable.

So I came back to Alabama and told Neil.

I said, neil, one of us have to go there, and I think it's you.

And I told him I said, please pray about you know they don't have a pastor there.

Of course, him and I being best friends.

I didn't want him to go, but at the same time I felt this like needed to go.

So anyway, he said he'd pray about it.

And he was praying about it and the elders here were praying about it and while everybody's praying, the Lord spoke to me and to my wife, sandy and doesn't Sandy look so beautiful here?

Hallelujah, yeah, she's doing great.

And we felt that we were supposed to go.

And then we said, well, gee, we're supposed to go.

How are we going to break the news to Neil, because it looks like he's wanting to go?

At the same time, the Lord downloaded to him that I was supposed to go and he was supposed to stay in Alabama.

So that's how it worked out by me coming in 1984.

I'm just going to share a few things.

You know we got so many things that happened during my little tenure here.

A little.

It was almost 30 years, 29 years.

In one of our services we actually had the glory cloud.

We actually had the glory cloud.

Shekinah glory of God actually came into the building and we had a balcony.

And it's kind of a funny story because Tim Ashley, who started another church and he wasn't able to be here, started Harvest Church.

He happened to come for the first time as a visitor to Trinity Chapel and he was sitting next to Bobby Ewing how many remember Bobby Ewing, anybody remember?

And Bobby was sitting there and all of a sudden this cloud comes in.

Okay, and Tim is sitting next to Bobby, he doesn't even know Bobby, he just happens to come in as a guest and turns around to Bobby.

He goes, what is that?

And Bobby like nonchalantly goes oh, that's the glory cloud, as if it comes every Sunday or something.

I mean he did it like every day.

Oh, that's the glory cloud.

Tim goes.

Glory cloud Because Tim was going to a Baptist church.

He was going.

We don't have that in our church.

So Tim left his church and came to Trinity and later was sent out to some things that are kind of in my memory.

I remember having this dream and in this dream all the cars in the Trinity parking lot were all driving around without anybody in the car.

There was nobody in the car, just cars driving around the parking lot car.

There was nobody in the car, just cars driving around the parking lot.

So I woke up and I said Lord, what is that?

And he said I'm about to do something in which you have no control over.

You know, to a pastor that's like the most fearful thing you could hear, because pastoring it's like we have to have a little bit of something.

You know, like you're, I'm about to do something you have absolutely no control over.

So we had a whole crew that went to Toronto and I know Sandy, patty and a bunch of others.

They all went to Toronto, all got blasted.

I know Russ went to Toronto, really got blasted.

So church really got blasted, anyway.

So they came back and one of them was Dee Durfee, and I don't think she's here tonight but she's not here.

But anyway it's a Sunday night and Sunday night Dee Durfee gets to the microphone and this is what she says.

She says would you like to see a move of God?

That's what she, you know in a very low voice, because d had a very soft voice.

Would you like to see a move of god?

And I still remember, jim greer, what she said.

Arms were folded like, yeah, you're going to do something like you.

A move of God.

That's all she said, and I'm not kidding.

The heavens opened and we had this outpouring of the spirit.

Nobody left the building till one o'clock in the morning.

Everybody was out in the spirit and laughing hysterically.

I'm not exaggerating.

I never got it.

Honestly.

I never got the laughing.

Everybody was asking me to help them to stop laughing.

Neil was there.

I mean, we could not stop it and we could not start it.

And I remember all the teenagers were piled up in a pile like a haystack.

I couldn't figure out how they did that.

And we didn't get out till, you know, one o'clock in the morning and this went on and we had to go every night and this happened.

This is the truth.

We would have months where no one could preach on Sunday night.

Every time you were ready to preach, you couldn't speak.

Is Ed Rosen here?

Great, now I can tell what happened.

So, ed Rosen, he was one of our elders and he had a teaching and he didn't care.

Man, I'm going to give forth this teaching and you're going to hear it.

I've got something I believe you're supposed to hear and I remember.

So he gets up to the pulpit.

Like I told you, every week no one could speak.

On Sunday night, the power of God was so strong, the glory, the presence.

You could not.

All we could do was worship.

That's all we could do was worship.

So, anyway, ed gets up to the pulpit.

God bless him.

He's standing there and we're waiting for him to speak.

He's just standing there and this weird look comes over his face.

And we're all waiting over his face and we're all waiting.

He's just standing there.

Then he finally goes.

I'm absolutely drunk in the Holy Spirit and I think he falls over and the whole church just exploded.

That's what we had meetings like that.

They were insane.

They really were.

I mean, there was no way to and the worship was incredible and Aaron would play the most famous song on Sunday night.

Here he comes.

Here he comes We'd be jumping and dancing.

I mean it was no way to stop it, it was unstoppable.

So we had a lot of that.

You know that took place.

But you know even before that we always had worship was kind of always something big and I think it was already mentioned.

You know people would sneak in.

Sunday night was our biggest meeting and on Dederick Avenue we just had something special, I hate to say it, beloved.

I appreciate Mark was so kind of how he shared about when we moved to Haines, turkey, sharing about all the good things, but I hate to say it, the cloud seemed like it never left Dederick, going over.

God bless that place.

But all I could tell you there was something special at Dederick.

I don't know if because it was in the ghetto.

In other words, if you went there you really took a chance in the ghetto.

In other words, if you went there you really took a chance.

I mean, we would have new cars would be stolen from the parking lot, people would come up to me crying my car's gone.

You know, I still remember Gene Wright was in the vestibule of the and I think it might've been with Joan too, and I remember they were crying.

I go.

What's the matter?

There was a gunfight going, bullets flying all over the place.

Maybe that's what made it special, I don't know.

We had bullet holes in our stained glass windows on Dead or Again, we had bullet holes in our stained glass windows.

And you know, I learned a lot since then, believe me, I used to have a saying, and one of my sayings was if you didn't like what I said, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

I used to say it all the time.

I used to say you don't like what I'm preaching on, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

And I remember Linda Wheeler that was her name, precious sister.

She came up to me one day and said Steve, I'm so sick of you saying If I don't like what you're saying, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Would you please not say it anymore?

So I repented and never said it again.

But I remember one of our worship services.

At one time we had four trumpets.

We had four trumpets and then one Sunday night I think we had five.

And I remember asking somebody does anybody know who that person is?

We didn't even know who he was.

It was like somebody can just get up on the stage and play.

I mean it was like, and then we used to have a tradition, it was called special song, special music, before the preaching, and every Sunday morning somebody would sing, and sometimes who absolutely could not sing.

And we had one dear sister who used to have a great, a great operatic voice.

Neil would call it the seventh seal.

She would get up and all she had left was falsetto.

All she had left was just falsetto, and we would let all the teenagers are under the that's when we had pews, they were under the pews and I'm pinching myself because I'm about to burst out laughing and we didn't have the heart to say to her you can't sing, to say to her you can't sing.

Anyway, that was some of the stuff that went on before Mark led worship and then Aaron, you know, jack Wright.

I think literally people would come to church just to see Jack smile.

I mean he had the biggest smile on his face when he led worship.

I mean he made everybody feel like $1,000 just coming in through the door, unbelievable.

I met Neil back down in Miami, like I said he just mentioned.

He did have long hair and he was very.

He was not nice to me, let's put it that way, because he wasn't saved yet and his brother was.

I want you to meet a friend of mine.

Neil looked at me and go, hey, hey, you know.

So Neil and I came into that background.

We were part of the Jesus movement and one thing about the Jesus movement is we were totally abandoned to the Lord.

So it was kind of hard for us to actually fit in to organize church because of our background, of what we used to do.

I mean, we were every day.

We were just the passion that we had, not just for the loss but, you know, for Jesus.

Let me just share real quick just a very simple prophetic word that I feel like the Lord's given to me for Trinity.

We already mentioned the pioneers, which was Jack and Charlie, and you, brashear and Len, you were thrown kind of in that too, in that kind of mix, also even Russ, coming back later.

But I almost look at them.

They were like the Abraham realm.

That was like the Abraham realm.

You know it cost a lot Most of those got.

I remember one time somebody asked a survey how many came out of the Baptist church.

I couldn't believe almost the entire congregation had come out of the Baptist church.

Wow, had come out of the Baptist church.

Wow, that was a big deal to all of a sudden believe that in a Holy Spirit, in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

By the way, most of them were disfellowshipped.

It wasn't like they were sent out with laying on of hands.

I mean, there was just so many people that were in the churches.

So I look at Jack and Charlie, they were the Abraham you could call that particular section of Trinity.

Praise God for that pioneering spirit, praise God for the.

And, by the way, a little more background that perhaps you didn't know is that a lot of this started way back when, when many of them went to Frank Meredith's church yeah, I think I hit a note there and then he got into legalism of the shepherding movement and all that stuff, and so Trinity was kind of established to be a church that would again like Neil mentioned, that would really believe in the word of God and wouldn't be submitting just to man but would be submitting to God.

So they really made a stand and in a sense this was the real major charismatic church in the whole city.

It was like the start of the first charismatic church in the entire city.

So therefore people came.

They would sneak in in the balcony because we had a balcony.

They would sneak in, nobody knew who they were, to hear what we were doing and hopefully they would get baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Anyway, those guys were the pioneers.

That's the Abraham.

Now, when I came in 1984, and then later Neil would come I look upon myself in my little tenure with my wife and I.

I look at myself as simply being Isaac.

I was more of the Isaac.

This is something that's interesting about Isaac that most of us would know.

First of all, isaac, his name means laughter.

Come on, you know, having Neil and his one-liners.

How many know we're going to have a lot of laughter.

By the way, we had even a spirit of laughter that actually came into the place.

Interesting that Isaac actually moved into a city and I actually wrote it down somewhere and it was called Gerar G-E-R-A-R and it actually the word means excitement and we had a lot of excitement.

I mean it was good excitement.

We had some crazy things that happened.

I remember one Sunday morning, all of a sudden it was silence and all of a sudden I heard om, some far eastern guy was oming or something and of course me, in my nice, polite, gentle way, from the pulpit, I said shut up.

That's what I said.

I said shut up.

I remember my daughter later would say why weren't you kinder to that person?

I said because that was a spirit and we had to deal with it that way.

Perhaps I would deal with it in a different way now.

So we had a lot of excitement and we did.

We had a lot of excitement and, by the way, if we think of Isaac, what do we think of?

We think of him upon the altar right and all of a sudden a substitution comes.

There's a ram caught in the thicket and that represents all of us.

You know Jesus taking our place.

You know we all should be dead, but Jesus took our place.

Praise God for that.

And so we saw a lot of that at Trinity.

We saw a lot of people saved and this is the truth.

We had a time that we would have 50 visitors every weekend, every Sunday, 50 visitors, but they never stayed.

We never could figure out why I didn't want to stay.

We were always scratching our head.

I'd be signing 50 pages.

We used to send up something in the mail.

If you always scratching our head I'd be signing 50 pages.

We used to send up something in the mail.

If you came to our church my hands would get tired from signing, but they never would stay, maybe a few.

You know, it was like they would check us out.

I don't know.

I don't know where they went, but I was the Isaac part, but I was the Isaac part, I believe.

Now you're at the Jacob part and let me just share a little bit about the Jacob part.

You know, jacob experienced a lot of sorrow and a lot of pain and a lot of grief.

You've gone through a lot of sorrow and a lot of pain and a lot of grief.

You've gone through a lot of sorrow and a lot of pain and a lot of grief.

But in the Jacob part, which I believe Trinity is in, he had 12 sons.

You see, isaac only had two and one was worthless.

I mean Esau, jacob.

I loved Esau, I hated, but Jacob had 12.

So I look at our Isaac tenure and Neil was with me during that time.

It was basically just Neil and myself doing most of the ministering, neil and myself doing most of the ministering, neil and myself going out.

But now, at Trinity, you're not just going to have one or two going out.

Jacob had 12 sons.

You're going to have many and many and many going out.

A matter of fact, more than all that we did, as Isaac and even Abraham had.

You will have now, from this Jacob, tenure and on that, by the way, I actually believe what I'm preaching.

So if you're thinking I just came so everybody would like me, I'm telling you, the Holy Spirit downloaded this word for you at Trinity.

You went through your sorrow, you've gone through your pain, you've gone through your grief, but not just two sons will you have.

Twelve ministries will come forth, more than that that will affect the whole earth.

So what I want to do and then I'm going to give it back to mark is I want to show you the prayer, the prayer that isaac prayed for jacob, because I believe it's prophetic also for us here, and it's found in Genesis, chapter 27.

Genesis 27 · chapter mention

It's actually two little prayers.

By the way, I brought my Bible with me.

You know, somebody introduced me.

I was preaching to some pastors just a couple of weeks ago and they introduced me by saying he still carries a Bible.

I couldn't help that.

I'm a rebel.

I'm never going to go through that phone.

A Bible is a Bible.

I don't care.

I'm just saying that doesn't matter to me.

I'm one way or the other.

Genesis 27.

Verse 29.

This is part of a prayer and a blessing that isaac gave jacob.

So I am representing isaac here, and so is neil.

I think in some ways he's kind of overlap we overlap.

But listen to this Let people serve you and nations bow down to you.

You're going to impact many nations In this tenure of the Jacob tenure.

You are going to affect many nations.

Be master over your brethren.

Let your mother's sons bow down to you.

Listen to affect many nations.

Be master over your brethren.

Let your mother's sons bow down to you.

Listen to this Cursed be everyone who curses you and blessed be those who bless you.

Gee, I think you need to receive that.

Come on, that sounds pretty good.

And then this last one is in Genesis 28, 3 and 4, but I'm just going to read verse 3, because that's the one that really.

May God Almighty I guess I'm saying this to you as like a prayer May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you.

That you may be in assemblies of people.

Father, in the name of Jesus, let it be done.

Hallelujah.