The Apostolic Mandate

Well, let's lift our Bibles up and let's wave them around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

Let's say this together Say, heavenly Father, I'm in the game.

I'm not sitting in the stands, I'm not standing around on the sidelines, I'm out there.

I'm in the game, I'm in the army of God, the army of the living God, and I'm a good soldier.

I endure hardness, I know how to trust you through tough times, I have faith in your Holy Word, I have faith in the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit and I have the victory in Jesus' name, amen.

Let's sit down and look at 2 Kings 2.

And I want to preach on and teach on the apostolic.

Tonight it's called the apostolic mandate.

A couple of weeks ago I taught on apostolic characteristics in 2 Kings 4.

I like to teach on it because that's what this is.

It's an apostolic vine with a prophetic river and there are characteristics and parts of even though you are not an apostle, you're not a prophet, but you're in that type of church.

So you have those, you have that in your DNA, you have that in your anointing to deal in your life and your ministry.

Every believer has a ministry.

Everybody say I have a ministry and so my job is to get you fully equipped, to get you into your ministry, where you're performing and you're doing it, and that's really that's going to hasten the return of the Lord.

And every day that goes by where the church is still lulled into a sleep and not doing what it should do, it just God is going to pass.

If there's any fear I have, it's the fear that God's going to pass over our generation and wait for the next one.

He did that with Israel and he can do it with us.

So it's not a slam dunk, and I believe that's why God told me to wake up the church all those years ago, 1999, 25 years ago.

All right, so the apostolic mandate, 2 Kings 2, verse 6, this is talking about Elijah and Elisha, and so you know the story is, elijah really tried to lose his servant Elisha.

2 Kings 2:6

He said wait here, I'm going to go to the next town, I'm going to go to Gilgal, I'm going to go to, you know, jericho, I'm going to go to Bethel.

And Elijah wouldn't be left behind.

He stuck with his father, he called him his father and uh and we'll pick it up in verse six and Elijah said unto him Terry, I pray thee here, for the Lord has sent me to Jordan.

And he said mantle and wrapped it together and smote the waters.

And they were divided hither and thither which is why I like the King James, because I like hither and thither and they were divided hither and thither so that the two went over on dry ground and it came to pass.

When they were gone over that Elijah said unto Elisha ask what I shall do for thee before I be taken away from thee.

And Elisha said I pray thee.

Let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.

And Elijah, he Elijah said thou hast asked a hard thing In my margin.

Thou hast done hard in asking.

See, it's not an easy thing to get a double portion.

Who gets a double portion in the Bible?

Well, the firstborn son gets the double portion, so he knows his rights and privileges spiritually.

He's a son.

Only sons get double portions.

People with no father, no spiritual father, don't have the double portion.

Which is why this church is what it is, 30 years after it started, still going strong, going greater than ever before, is because it's got the double portion, because my father blessed me and I waited for the blessing.

I could have been left behind a few times.

I could have left offended, I could have messed it up.

But I got a hold of myself Because right at the end I mean, you know, I got sat down Because he knew I was leaving.

So he had to pull me off the front lines.

He had to pull me out of a very visible ministry where I was functioning in front of thousands of people and sit me down.

It was pretty humiliating in my flesh and I had to get a hold of my flesh.

Are y'all with me?

Now People would come up to me oh, it's not the same without you.

Oh, shut up, leave me alone.

I don't need this fake.

Where were you when I was in the middle of it?

I don't remember you ever saying man, that prayer really got me jammed.

They're just talking about me when I'm sitting down.

Are y'all with me now?

He said what do you want?

A double portion?

You've asked a hard thing, verse 10.

Nevertheless, if you see me when I'm taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee.

If not, if you don't see me, if you're going to get fixed on all the fireworks, the fiery chariot, the horses and the chariot, the angels of God, the glory of God, if you see all that and you don't see me, it won't be so.

And it came to pass as they still went on and talked that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, horses of fire, part of them, both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

And Elisha saw it and he cried my father, my father, key words to the double portion, the chariot of Israel and the horseman thereof.

And he saw him no more and he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces.

He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him.

Elijah took his mantle off from the chariot, threw it down and he went back and stood by the bank of Jordan and as he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and smoked the waters and said where is the Lord, god of Elijah?

And when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither and Elisha went over.

And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said the spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha.

And they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him.

So the apostolic mandate.

If you go all the way back to verse 1 of this chapter.

It talks about the time when this was supposed to happen.

There was a moed.

It talks about the time when this was supposed to happen.

There was a Moed.

There was an appointed time that they both knew by the Spirit was going to occur along these 50.

So it was not done in a secret, it was not done, you know, behind closed doors.

There was a number of people that knew there was an appointed time.

It's called a Moed and we're coming into some appointed times for this ministry, for this church.

It's very important for us to all be on the same page, all of us to be engaged, all of us to be awake.

When I say awake, I mean awaken to our own responsibilities individually in this body.

That's what this morning was all about.

It was really stunning to sit and listen to James, you know, go through some of the history of, of the church and the visitations, cause I'd never heard anybody else do it.

I've done it, little here, little there here, a little there, a little, uh, but for him to do it, you know, it was just stunning.

It was hard to keep from, you know, having tears run down my face and, uh, this mandate, our mission, our orders, from headquarters, you know.

So, these moeds, these appointed times, these anniversaries, 30 years of trailblazing.

Apostolic is a trailblazing, it's pioneering.

Apostolic is a gathering and a distribution, anointing All those dollar bills, all those little dollar bills I see floating around.

See, some of that's going to go into the kingdom.

Some of that's seed for sowing and some of that's bread for eating.

Some of that's a brand new pair of shoes, if you want a new pair of shoes, whatever cranks your tractor.

Yeah, 28 years since God spoke, the regional center to me, 25 years since Pastor Osteen went to heaven, my spiritual father, and the mantle fell.

Now I don't have Brother Osteen's mantle, but mantles fell.

I don't want to say they were his, I want to say mantles fell.

And I want to talk about what that is, because it helps to expand what was said this morning.

With the apostolic mantle comes a mandate.

Mantles are of no use without a mandate.

What is a mandate?

It's an authorization to act.

A mantle is a mandate is given to a representative.

It's an authoritative command.

An authoritative command, for instance, essentially it was the end of Elijah's ministry.

He went to heaven and it was the beginning of Elisha's.

Only Elisha had a double portion.

Beginning of Elisha's Only.

Elisha had a double portion.

If you look at the rest of these chapters in 2 Kings and Elisha's ministry, you'll see about twice as many miracles as Elijah had.

And it's a type and shadow of Jesus.

When he left the apostles and was taken up, and the angels came and said to the disciples why do you look up in the heaven?

He's going to come back, as he left.

And so you have Jesus, the man in heaven.

He did works, and the man on earth is the church.

They did greater works.

The greater works than these shall you do?

John, chapter 14, because I go to my father.

John 14 · chapter mention

How could there be greater works than what Jesus did?

Every time we get somebody born again.

Jesus never got anybody born again.

Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Then none of them got born again under his ministry because he hadn't died on the cross yet, you see.

So it's just a privilege to be in the church.

And so the end of Elijah's ministry was the beginning of Elisha's ministry.

The end of Pastor Osteen's life was the beginning of a new phase of my ministry.

I became aware of a mandate Five weeks after my pastor went to heaven.

I heard the words wake up to church.

And I became aware of an apostolic anointing on my life when my pastor left.

I had several preachers tell me that, one before he left and one after he left, so it wasn't just me.

Well, you mean you call yourself a pastor, I don't.

I mean, you know, whatever, I don't go around wearing a badge.

Listen, it's a mandate, it's a mantle.

I'm going to accept it.

You know, paul said I magnify mine office.

I'm going to accept it.

You know Paul said I magnify mine office.

It's an office, it's not me.

The whole point of the message this morning is just quit calling this the Griner's church or y'all's church.

No, it's our church, it's your church.

And guess what?

It's your mandates, it's your you know mission.

You've got a part to play, just like the janitor there at NASA.

Jfk asked him what's your role here at NASA?

He's got a broom in his hand.

He says I'm helping to put a man on the moon.

I'm telling you, anything you do at Glorious Way Church has the purpose of helping us complete these mandates.

And listen, they're commands, they're not suggestions, they're orders from headquarters.

So that night when he left my pastor, you know I got a call at two o'clock in the morning, they said that he had collapsed at home and they were taking him to the hospital in very serious condition.

I knew that he'd been declining.

He'd been ill for a few months.

Condition I knew that he'd been declining.

He'd been ill for a few months.

Last time I saw him in late October, I was shocked.

I just wept privately at how pale and weak he seemed and frail.

And anyway, gladys got up out of the bed, started hollering at the devil and she's marching up and down our bedroom.

The Holy Ghost said Moses, my servant is dead, now therefore arise.

I said, honey, he's gone.

And that night I knew that I had not the mantle of John Osteen.

I mean, that's just kind of pride to say that, but I got my inheritance.

There's a mantle there for me, there are commands there for me.

Moses, my servant is dead.

Now, therefore.

Therefore, you arise.

As I was with Moses, john Osteen, so will I also be with thee.

No man will be able to stand before thee.

All the days of thy life, and people have had, you know, they've stood against me and they never successful, not because of me but because the office, because of the mandate and because of the mantle.

Are y'all with me now?

That's all part of what you have.

The mantle of Elijah, going back to what we're reading here, was the symbol of his mandate.

It was the authorization of heaven to enforce judgment.

I mean you first read about him in 1 Kings 17.

He's never in the pages of the Bible before that.

Elisha, the Tishbite Kind of weird Tishbite, I don't know where the Tishbites live, I guess in Tish.

But anyway, god told him to go to Ahab, ahab and Jezebel.

I mean Ahab is Jewish but Jezebel is a heathen.

I mean, she worshiped devils, she loved to kill the prophets.

Go tell them.

They're over the northern kingdom, they're over Israel, the southern kingdom is Judah.

He said go tell them it won't rain till you say so, pronounce judgment over them.

Agricultural society that means they're going to their stock market's going to go down.

That means their investment's going to go down, means their riches are going to get decreased.

And of course he had to run for them because they're going to kill him.

And God said go to the brook, cher, if I have commanded ravens to feed you there.

Oh, you know, sometimes your, your mandates just don't even make sense.

Ravens, that's an unclean bird.

Well, I didn't say you're going to eat the raven, the raven's going to bring you, you know, clean, according to the word food.

And I don't know where he got it.

I don't know where the Ravens got it.

Don't ask me where they got it.

I don't know where it was roadkill.

I don't know what it was, but it had to be kosher.

Think about it.

He brought them kosher bread and flesh bread and flesh twice a day.

Where do you get kosher flesh?

Where do you get it?

And the Raven get pulled, you know, takes it over to until the brook started drying up.

I mean, just think about how long that took.

You know the brook is going down, it's going down and it's getting soupier, it's getting brown, it's getting muddy and that's his water.

And he's wondering how long am I have to strain this water through my garments?

They haven't been washed except in dirty water and this is getting kind of gross.

He said, all right, go to Zarephath, I've commanded a widow woman to feed you there.

So the story of Elijah he had to recognize, desire, receive and act on his mandate.

I mean, he had a mandate.

Elijah did this mantle he carried was for judgment.

It's not easy to be the guy that's pronouncing judgment because you're hated, you're hated, you're nobody's friend.

When you come to town, nobody wants to visit with you, nobody wants to eat with you, nobody wants to invite you to the barbecue or the picnic.

That's the thing about a mandate.

It's a symbol or a mantle is a symbol of a mandate which is an authorization to act from heaven, and you have to recognize it, you have to desire it, you can't complain about it.

You have to receive it and you have to act on that mandate.

If you don't, then you God will replace you.

James made that point this morning.

I mean, he told me all those years ago, right after 9-11, right after the tsunami dream, he told me.

He said I've already interviewed your replacement.

If you don't do what I'm telling you to do, I'll just I'll get.

You weren't even my first choice.

My first choice failed.

You're my second choice and if you don't do it, I'm going to get somebody else.

You're my second choice and if you don't do it, I'm going to get somebody else.

Not about me.

I can tell you that right now.

I didn't win some competition.

I didn't get what God gave me by any ability of my own.

What I have is given to me and I am not ashamed to say it, I'm not ashamed to glorify God over it.

Because why?

Because I magnify the office and that's what you have to do.

That's what you need to do.

You need to magnify the office this church stands in because you're part of this church.

It's your church and your mission or your mandate.

You got a part in it, no matter how small.

So you know I look at Brother Hagin.

You know he had trouble with his calling too.

I mean he was a reluctant prophet.

He didn't like it.

He didn't like knowing things, because some things he knew as a prophet.

A prophet is a seer.

A prophet sees things in the spirit realm and they're not necessarily something that's just wonderful to see.

Sometimes you see demons, sometimes you see sin, sometimes you see things in the back room.

You know about things that you wish you didn't know about and God will tell you go talk to them about their sin and tell them that if they don't repent they're going to die.

I mean, that's not a lot of fun.

I mean it's just things that you'd rather not know.

I mean he came to Lakewood in 1990.

I'm trying to remember what it was.

I think it was a world convention.

It was the last time he ever came and it was a night service packed out, man, the place was packed and he got up there and he you know, he just got off in a like a daze or a trance and he said this time next year, some of you that are here tonight are not going to be here, you're going to be gone, you're going to be dead.

Wow, that's a great man.

You could do it.

If you're trying to gin up the crowd and get, get the crowd lifted, man.

I mean, you know, it just seemed like the floor opened up and everything went down the tubes and then he started crying.

He said there's just some things I would rather not see and he went off the stage.

He just walked right off the platform.

Brother Osteen's sitting there.

He's supposed to try to salvage that service, but he was a reluctant prophet.

Listen, I learned.

You know I'm not going to.

I mean I'm not better than brother Hagen, but I can learn from his mistake.

I just don't think that was the right way to do it.

I mean, honestly, why don't you just give what God gave you and and let?

And there's other people that are not going to be dead next year?

How about them next year?

How about them?

How about them they?

You know they need something, they need some encouragement.

Brother Osteen was an apostle.

If I've ever seen one, he was one, but he wouldn't dare touch it.

I tried to talk to him.

No, john, I'm just a pastor.

Well, that sounds good, but it it's not really right to tell God that he doesn't know what he's doing.

Isn't that the implication that you know more, that you are governing what he gave you?

You can't do it.

You didn't earn it.

God gave it to you as a present to the body of Christ.

And you're saying, by your reluctance, oh, no, sounds critical, I guess it sort of Christ.

And you're saying, by your reluctance, oh, no, sounds critical, I guess it sort of is.

I don't mean to criticize brother Osteen, but I learned something about it.

But two great men.

They filled my life with such teaching and preaching and yet God was able to show me some things that you know what.

That's not exactly the right attitude.

What if Elisha had said oh, don't give me anything, just give me a little pittance.

I know I've served you for 20 years.

I know I've been up and down everywhere.

You've been cooking and cleaning and washing your clothes and making sure everything was fine with you.

But don't worry about me, I'll be fine.

I'm just going to retire over here.

To you know, I'm thinking maybe to try to move somewhere far away from Jezebel.

No, I mean, you know he said give me a double portion of what you got.

I want a double portion.

Oh, come on, lift your hands right now.

I mean, you know I wanted the double portion.

I knew it was available to me, I knew it was.

There's a price, though.

I'm not talking about money.

I'm talking about you pass some tests, you have to go through some temptations of being left behind and being cut out and being humbled and all of those kind of things, and you just have to decide.

You know it's worth it to do what God wants you to do.

So Elisha had sown the seeds of his ministry for 20 years.

He had recognized the Moed, he knew when his father was going to go off to heaven.

And he desires, he receives and he acts on the mandate.

After receiving that mantle, he ripped his old clothes, which means I'm through.

This is a new stage I'm putting on.

I'm putting on this office.

This is the office of the servant to the man of God.

I'm tearing these clothes off, I'm putting on new garments, I'm picking up this mantle which stands for the mandate, and I'm slapping the water and it it's dividing.

Just like it did for him, it's gonna do it for me and he goes on.

And he had twice as many.

So we last week or two weeks ago, we talked about 2 Kings 4.

He had twice as many miracles, five in one chapter, 2 Kings 4, one of the great chapters in the Bible, which basically is the church.

The church should be sparkling with the supernatural.

The church should be sparkling with the anointing and with healing and deliverance and miracles dripping off of us everywhere we go.

I can't go everywhere.

You've got to go.

You've got to manifest this to your world.

Glory to God.

How many of you willing?

Hallelujah, you get anything out of this tonight.

The book of Acts.

The apostles acted on their mandate.

At first, you know, it was all about the apostles.

Now, the apostles did great signs and wonders among the people.

It was all about the apostles.

But then they had the gripey widows, the Grecian widows.

They were griping and they didn't get their share of the eggs, and the migas, the huevos rancheros, ran out before they got their share, ran out of Vermont, made syrup for the pancakes and they were griping.

They didn't get all the breakfast and they started bothering the apostles.

You know it's not reason for us to wait tables.

Why don't you look?

Look out, among you, seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, to a point over this business, and we will give ourselves continually to the word of God in prayer.

I hadn't thought about this in years.

That first building you know we had.

You know I found this building for rent and we started with nothing.

I mean, we started with my family and then, you know, just by the time that first Sunday came around, we had a few people that was coming around, we had to go clean this building up.

It's right on 19, where the super target is now, in 1960.

9,300 square foot old, worn out building.

You know, leaky roof.

One of Jay's main jobs in that first building was to change out the ceiling tile every time it rained, because it would be about 15 or 20 or 30 ceiling tiles that are all wet and they're sagging down and if you leave them up there they mildew, they turn all kind of yucky colors.

It's nasty looking.

So he was always.

That was the nastiest job, because it's wet, you know, and you pull those things down the insulation up there and everything, and we had the river of life flowing through my office in the back because every time it rained the water would run down that hallway right through the edge of my office.

But anyway, before that, we had to clean the building up and we had a bunch of guys out there.

I think that was before Dwayne and Debbie showed up.

Huh, what, yeah, oh, yeah.

Well, they came just in time to to vacuum the carpet.

The carpet was 20 years old, worn out, it was looked like sandpaper, it felt like sandpaper.

It looked like sandpaper, felt like sand.

If you fell on it you'd have a strawberry, I mean, it would take the hide off.

But anyway, getting back to the first, this is on the Saturday before the Sunday first service, and we got to get in that building.

We got to clean it up.

It's been sitting vacant for a year and a half.

We've got to clean the bathroom.

We've got all this debris in there and some guys were in there and they were.

They had put in a wood floor and it needed to be taken out.

It was a false floor over the slab.

It was two by sixes with plywood over the top and they were in there with crowbars and hammers and they were pulling all that up.

You know, and and uh, all of that, and uh, you know, man, I mean I'm a home builder.

I brought my crowbar and my hammer and I went over there and I was helping them do it.

I was kneeling down and I was pulling all these nails out of it and trying to help them because we had all this to do, and one of the fellas was standing there watching me work with my hammer and crowbar.

He was just kind of in a daze and he turned like this and walked right into the plate glass side lights on either side of the front door and the glass shattered and it was like a guillotine right above him.

A piece of shard glass was right above him and he froze right in the middle of the.

I mean, he didn't get all the way through, he just waited in the middle of it.

Here's a big old piece of glass about to fall and hit him on top of the head and he's bleeding.

He'd cut his hand and I got him and I ran over there and got him through the door and sat him down out there and looked at you.

It was he needed to go get stitches.

I said, ray man, what happened?

He said you know, I'm just I don't know.

I was in a daze.

I was watching you work, I was watching you with your hammer and crowbar, and he said I just Forgot where I was.

I turned around, walked through the glass and the Lord said yeah, you have no business doing that.

You robbed him.

He should have been doing that.

He should not have been watching you work, you don't.

I didn't call you to get in here and tear flooring out.

And so, because of my own pride, you know, I don't want to be like that.

I don't want people to serve me.

Well, they're not serving you, they're serving the office, they're serving the body of Christ, and don't you get in their way.

I hadn't thought about that in years and I don't want to get in your way.

I mean, I want you.

You're not serving me, you're not serving my family, you're not serving, you're not doing, you're not our servants.

I've seen this in ministry, where preachers take advantage of the sheep and make merchandise of them and have them come over and do all kinds of personal services at the house.

Well, you know I didn't pack it on trip.

Would you come help me pack and get my stuff in order?

You know it's one thing for you to volunteer, it's another thing for me to ask.

I'd probably turn you down if you did ask, because I do my own packing.

There's some things that have been done in the church that ought not be done, but on the other side, in the house of the Lord, these are things that have to be done.

I can't do the sweeping, I can't do the cleaning, I can't do the flowers, I can't do about 99% of what needs to happen here.

I get to do this right here.

That's about it.

I mean I have to give myself continually the Word of God and prayer.

Everything else has to be done by the body.

So we're in an apostolic vine with a prophetic river.

We had two prophets say that, one before Brother Osteen left and one after, and I began to accept it, believe it, receive it and act on the mandates.

I saw my platform one time in 1999.

I was out on my patio praying one day and in those days I've remodeled all of it back there now, but back then it was just a little sliver of concrete next to the house.

I had a chair there and out in the backyard I just I saw this.

It looked like a boxing ring.

It's about the size of maybe the center section.

That's bigger than a boxing ring, but the material looked.

It wasn't concrete, it wasn't.

But the material looked it wasn't concrete, it wasn't wood, it was like a boxing ring and it was about the size of this middle section there.

And it was up on a tower where I walked out on this platform and I could see all the way around.

It was breathtaking In fact.

You know I'm not real comfortable with wide open heights.

I mean, I worked on the Astrodome.

I had to get over my fear of heights in the Astrodome.

I worked in downtown in the Houston House Apartments.

It's still there on the 30th floor with no walls, and you're just right next to the edge and you're looking out over downtown.

I had to get over my fear of heights.

But even now, if I get exposed to something, I have to overcome that, that feeling of fear.

And that's kind of the way it was.

I walked out in the middle of this platform and it was no walls, it just you could see for miles.

You could see the landscaping.

I didn't know what I was seeing.

That's your, that's your, that's your place of authority in the spirit realm.

And later that week I was praying out there, walking up and down, I felt this weight around my shoulders and I thought what is that?

And I looked to the side and I could see it looked like Joseph's coat of many colors.

It was a rainbow of colors, drip, drip, dripping off of my shoulders and I can hear it drag the ground.

Then it just disappeared.

Just a glimpse in the spirit realm of my office.

You know, you have to.

You have to believe God, you have to you.

You either accept it or you, you have this false humility and say, oh, no God, I don't know God.

Well, no God means that he's got to find somebody else.

And what's the delay and how long will it take?

So I just decided when God shows me something, I'm going to believe I receive it, I'm going to rejoice in it, I'm going to magnify it.

I'm not magnifying John Griner, I'm magnifying the office.

Is this helping anybody tonight?

So I looked up Joseph.

Let's look at Genesis 45.

Joseph is an apostolic type type of Christ and he was reunited with his brothers who sold him into slavery.

They betrayed him and betrayed their whole family.

Boy, you talk about a dysfunctional family.

Just read about that family.

You think you've got troubles.

You ought to try being part of the 12 tribes.

They're in a lot of mess.

Genesis 45, verse 5.

Genesis 45:5

So he's reunited with his brothers and he's revealed himself.

Of course, they're shocked, they're afraid.

I mean here, now he's been promoted to second only to Pharaoh.

I mean he is way up there and they're afraid.

In verse 5, now, therefore, be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life.

He sent one See, apostle is a sent one.

God sent me to preserve life In the misery of their sin against him and their dad and their family.

Yet God, in the middle of it and used it, he sent me before you to preserve life.

For these two years has the famine been in the land, and yet there are five years left in the which there shall neither be earring nor harvest.

And God sent me before you to preserve you, a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

And so Joseph gathered resources, he distributed goods, he fed and supported his family Israel 70, brought them to Egypt, delivered them out of the land of Canaan where they were outnumbered and might have perished, and he was a trailblazer.

He was a paymaster and that's the cornerstone or the manifestation of the apostolic.

That's what this church is.

It's going to increase.

I'm a father in the faith.

I'm going to have sons.

We've got our first you know person outside my family coming up.

Joseph Davis is coming on board with us and I've been talking with him for years.

He's been a faithful member of this church.

He's a great leader at Cypress.

His census ministry has done a lot of good.

They're going to be throwing him a big going away party.

So we wanted y'all to be the first to know before that party gets on Facebook and everybody's like, oh what, he's going to glory's way church.

Well, yeah, but we've been talking, we prayed.

What if I had a meeting with him in Florida and my family?

I said, let's play.

What if I know you're called a pastor?

I know you've got a church name.

You know you're a pastor?

No, you are.

But yet what if?

What if we could structure a place for you and our staff and bring you on board and for you to help us do what we have in front of us.

I mean this doesn't mean that you're never going to have a church, but you're going to have a church.

And I wasn't sure what he would be amenable to it.

That's why we played what if.

You know, we played what if and it seemed good to him and I'm just, I'm thrilled to have him.

He's going to be a blessing, and I said this this morning.

But I mean, you know he considers himself a son and me a father, and that's kind of odd because he served another minister for 15 years.

But that one was not a father and really he wasn't sent out, he just went.

I'm not being ugly, I'm just saying the facts.

I mean he just went and he was not sent.

There's a difference.

I don't care, I don't care who you are, what your name is.

If you just went and you weren't sent, then the double portion isn't there.

And so while he was serving this other man of God and never, ever criticized, I mean he stayed.

He stayed when other people would have left, stayed to his own.

He swore to his own, hurt Changed not, it was well.

I won't go any further, but proving himself, you don't serve what belongs to another man, how will you ever have your own?

And now, here he is going to serve again and I, you know it could be easier for him to say, well, no, god's called me to pastor.

But you know, I mean, he felt a witness to come on board and so you know, he knows, if he ever leaves, and we're going to be part of that church, we're going to plant that church, help him plant it.

That's in this, in the future of this church.

We've, we've wanted to do that, we've, we've attempted to do that, but we just haven't had the loyalty, the humility or whatever it takes, I guess, to be a son, except in our own family.

Well, now we've got one coming on board and I'm excited.

I believe this is a step of faith for this church to take a step, and I believe it's the first of many adjustments that are going to be made across this body so that people get in the right position so that God can use us mightily.

You know, brother Hagin laid hands on Gladys and I in February of 1999, just the next month after Brother Osteen went to heaven, and we've had his hands laid on us.

Benny Hinn laid hands on us and prophesied over us in October of 2002.

Oral Roberts in January of 2005.

And again in October of 2006,.

Laid hands on me and my family.

And TL Osborne, october of 09, derrick Prince in September of 2010.

Several of these, you know, just goes back to my beginnings, when I first got saved to be listening to him on radio and then have them lay hands on me later on.

I believe in the laying on of hands.

I believe in the transfer of the anointing and gifting.

Hallelujah, this ministry is rich with the anointing and the giftings that can change your life if you know what they are, if you know how to magnify the office and not relate to the personality.

It doesn't matter who James pointed out this morning.

It's not about who's in this pulpit, it's the office that stands here.

There are offices coming.

Thank God for Mark and Trenta Hankins.

How many of you want to know how much we gave them?

We gave them $30,000 last week.

We loaded them up so they could go to Columbia and they've had some awesome meetings.

I got a text from him.

He said man, it's just awesome.

15 nations pastors from 15 nations are down there.

Spanish speaking nations Boy, they need the Holy Ghost down there.

Well, he's there, we don't have to go.

We've got more nations than that that have crossed the border illegally.

They're living right here.

We don't have to go anywhere.

We just walk across the street and start preaching to people get them saved before Trump deports them okay, anyway.

So everybody here has got to receive and recognize and to desire and act on our mandate.

We need to gather resources.

There's a wealth transfer.

I saw those.

I still see them.

They're floating around here, man, come on, let's catch them.

Come on, let's catch them.

Wealth transfer.

Everybody say wealth transfer.

We're distributors.

Hallelujah, to preserve a posterity on the earth, save lives with a great deliverance.

Hallelujah, jesus is coming soon.

Come on, lift your hands.

The apostolic mandate.

Did you get anything out of this tonight?

Hallelujah, come on, let's rejoice right now.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, lord.

I believe I've received.