Hallmarks Of The Apostolic Church

Wave our Bibles and make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, thank God for Sunday nights I'm ready to hear, not just with my natural ears but with the ears of my spirit, the Word of God revealed to my spirit, so that my faith stands on something solid, not some theory, not some opinion, but the rock of your revealed word of God.

I thank you, lord.

On Christ, the rock, I stand, no matter what the storms of life do.

My house stands because it's built on this rock in Jesus' name, amen.

Let's look at 2 Kings tonight.

2 Kings 4.

Praise God.

Praise God.

Verse 2 Kings 4, verse 1.

2 Kings 4:1

Now there cried a certain woman of the wives, of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying Thy servant, my husband is dead and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord.

And the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.

And Elisha said unto her what shall I do for thee?

Tell me, what hast thou in the house?

And she said Thine handmaid hath nothing, not anything in the house save a pot of oil.

He's about to forget the pot of oil.

I mean, you know what's a pot of oil.

You know he's got debt, what's a pot of oil going to do for the debt that she has?

And then he said go borrow thee vessels abroad.

Of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not a few.

My margin says scant not.

And when you are, come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons and you shall pour out into all these vessels and you shall set aside that which is full.

So she went from him and shut the door upon her and upon her sons who brought the vessels to her, and she poured out.

And it came to pass, when the vessels vessels were full that she said unto her son bring me yet a vessel.

And he said unto her there's not a vessel more.

And the oil stayed.

Then she came and told the man of God and he said go sell the oil and pay thy debt.

Now Martin says creditor, pay your creditor and live thou and thy children.

Of the rest, hallelujah, hallelujah.

And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled Hallmarks of the Apostolic Church.

I like to teach on the apostolic because it's been prophesied and I believe we've lived it out.

30 years is our 30th year that this is an apostolic vine with a prophetic River, and we couldn't do what we're doing unless we were.

I've really believed that every true church, every true local church, should be apostolic.

Some are not because they really aren't true.

Somebody that's called themselves a pastor, they just went, they weren't sent.

Some, some were sent.

I was sent and of course the definition of an apostle is a sent one.

I was sent.

I know I'm a, I'm a pastor, but I I'm not afraid to say that the apostolic is part of my ministry gift and you know Paul said I magnify my office.

I went reading about Brother Hagin and you know he struggled with being a prophet.

He didn't prefer being a prophet because prophets see, prophets see things that they're not necessarily comfortable seeing.

And you know he got out of the will of god there for a bit and he preferred to teach rather than flow in the prophetic.

So he considered himself a teacher and a prophet.

He got it out of order and one time and I think it was new mexico, I forget what city he fell off the platform and broke his elbow.

He'd never been in the hospital, even though he had terminal heart trouble and blood diseases and everything paralyzed 14 months when he was a teenager.

He was healed of all of that.

But here he was laid up in the hospital broken elbow, and he's laying there kind of feeling down and feeling, you know, bewildered.

He's out there serving the Lord and next thing, you know and these are times when it's not as tight I mean he doesn't have health insurance, he doesn't, he's barely able to make it and he hears footsteps coming down the hall.

Here comes Jesus into the room, sits down on the side of his bed.

He said well, you're here because you were disobedient.

What?

How in the world, lord?

What do you mean disobedient?

Well, he said, you know, I've called you to be a prophet and a teacher and you've been a teacher and a prophet.

You got it out of order and you gave place to the devil to attack you.

And he said don't you concern yourself, you're going to heal up faster than the doctors are saying, that cast will come off and everything's going to work out just fine.

I made provision for you, you know, because I know you didn't intend.

And then he began to teach him on the ministry gifts.

And so brother hagan was never hesitant, even though he personally didn't go after the prophet's ministry, because the prophet's ministry, as I said, it's not comfortable to know things about people that you, it's almost like cheating.

You know, when god shows you something about somebody, what do you do with that information?

Well, you pray, but sometimes God will require you to go to that person and confront them.

And that gift was on him.

You know, even before he entered into the prophetic ministry that gift was on him.

You know, he was pastoring one time.

He tells a story where he was pastoring and had a girl about I don't know 18 or 19.

He's young himself, he's barely, I think he's about the same age when he started pastoring, about 19.

And here's this girl and she's, you know, young person and there's kind of circulating around him.

He's single, she's single, and and the Holy ghost just kept the distance.

And then one day he's in the pulpit preaching and he sees this open vision.

He's in the back seat of the car.

He sees her on the street and this car comes by and picks her up.

It's the night before Saturday night.

This is Sunday morning.

He sees the whole scene the next morning.

She's sitting in church and he sees this car come by and pick her up.

She's sitting in church and he sees this car combines, pick her up and they go out and have illicit relations in the car and he's there in the car with her.

Who wants to see that?

Who wants to be present when that happens?

In case I'm kind of blowing your mind.

Well, you know, that was God's way of saying stay away from this girl.

I mean, I think I could have just taken his word for it.

You know, but you don't get to choose these gifts.

You know, paul said I magnify mine office.

You know, not to magnify it means that you think you're better than God, that you know more than he does when he's distributing these presents.

You know, each of the fivefold ministries are present to the body of Christ, and so you know my.

I've known I won't say who, but I knew someone that just they were absolutely an apostle, but they wouldn't say it, they wouldn't admit it.

Oh no, I'm just a pastor, pastor, and they shorten their life because of it.

They shorten their life because it's false Humility.

You can't tell god he didn't that he made a mistake.

And so why you don't want to magnify your office is you're afraid of the opinions of men that will say Call himself an apostle.

Well, you know, I understand that I don't't go around bragging.

I very seldom say this, but after 30 years I magnify the office and I magnify what this church is about.

This church is an apostolic vine with a prophetic river, and God's allowed me to step into that prophetic on occasion and to see so hallmarks or characteristics we could say, say, of the apostolic church.

Everything here in the old testament is written for our admonition uh.

In first corinthians, chapter 10, it says uh, upon whom the ends of the age have come, and certainly the end of the church age is right upon us and we need to get instruction from the old covenant because it's a type and a shadow of what the church should look like.

1 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

And if you read in second Kings, you know you'll read the story of Elijah and Elisha.

Elijah was the prophet that Elisha served for 20 years 20, everybody say 20 years.

That's another thing about churches that just you know somebody's in charge and calls themselves a pastor, but they don't have a father and they've never served anybody.

Cause Jesus said if you don't uh be faithful over what is another's man's, how can, how can you ever have your own?

I was faithful over what God gave me to do for Brother Osteen.

I served him faithfully for 15 years, in the last eight years as an ordained minister and I've traveled all over the world and I'm glad to say it.

I'm happy to say it, it's part of my testimony and I'm amazed that God chose me to do that.

But I served before I went out and I was sent out with his full blessing and full, and so there's a difference in the characteristics of the church like this and a whole lot of them that you'll see out there and I'm not bragging, I'm just I'm just telling you there's a big difference.

It matters where you go to church and you've got pretenders and there's no anointing.

There's no real anointing there.

There's no power there.

They might get together and have a good time and they might shout, and they might or they might be like a tomb.

I don't know.

A lot of them are like a tomb.

I was in a church one time for a funeral years ago when we first started.

I think we were probably I don't know about five years old and I'm here I don't go out to places, but this was a mother of one of my members and she was a faithful member of the church and it was a big church, big church.

I knew about the pastor.

I knew that it's a Word of Faith.

Church, very famous pastor, successful if you have, if success is numbers.

But they weren't present.

They had someone do this funeral because they were out of town and they had a video and they honored this precious mother of this member of mine because she was a mother.

She was like kind of like may you know, she's one of our mothers, like you know, like miss irma, just like one of the mothers, she, they, they're prayer warriors, man, you, you know, you, they forgot more than you'll ever know, than many of you'll ever know, about the Holy Ghost.

And this is the kind of thing you have to have in a church.

You've got to have mothers and you've got to have fathers and you've got to have stability.

But anyway, this dear saint served home going, and so I walked in and Gladys and I sat there and I just waited.

You know, I didn't feel it, I didn't feel the anointing, I didn't feel the presence of God and I thought, hmm, that's kind of weird.

And so the service started and the preacher got up there.

It was really good what he said.

He preached the word, he delivered the whole thing.

I never felt a lick.

When I say feel, you know what I'm saying there when I say feel you know what I'm saying.

There was no anointing.

And I was absolutely shocked.

I mean, I had never experienced that.

I just never experienced it.

I thought what in the world, how could this be?

You know, and so you know, I just believe all these years later has been all those years ago, 25 years ago.

I've never forgotten it and I rue the day that that would ever happen at Glorious Way Church.

I mean, you know, I am absolutely unwilling for there not to be a heavy anointing, and every time you walk in the door and every time we have a service anyway I don't know how I got off on all that but hallmarks of the apostolic church.

So here we have.

If you read in here, you find that Elisha served Elijah the prophet for 20 years and then there came a day when god sent a chariot and horses to pick elijah up and take him to heaven and, uh, he tried to lose elisha.

He said, okay, you stay here and I'm going to go over here to bethel.

I'm going to go here to gilgal.

I'm going to go here to jericho, I'm going to to go here to Jericho, I'm going to go.

He said, as the Lord, thy God, liveth, I will not leave thee.

He wouldn't be left behind, and so he followed his father.

Elijah was his father.

He followed him until the chariot came and picked him up and he said ask before I leave, ask what you will have me do for thee.

He said, father, that a double portion of thy spirit rest upon me.

He said you've asked a hard thing.

Nevertheless, if you see me, it shall be so, and if you don't, it won't See.

There was a fireworks display.

I'm talking about the glory of God, I'm talking about a glorious chariot, I'm talking about horses and I'm talking about angels and I'm talking about the Shekinah.

I mean, can you imagine what that scene looked like?

And here's Elisha on the ground and Elijah's being taken up into heaven.

He said my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horseman thereof.

And Elijah threw his mantle and he went over and picked it up and he slapped the water.

He said where's the Lord, god of Elijah Bam?

And parted the water.

And it went over and picked it up and he slapped the water.

He said where's the Lord, god of Elijah Bam?

And parted the water.

And it went where?

Where?

Hither and thither.

That's what I like, the King James Cause I like to say hither and thither.

I just always say that Everybody say double portion.

That's what this church is a double portion church because I waited for my father to send me.

That's what's lacking in the church at large.

There's a lacking of power, there's a dearth.

Brother Oral Roberts, jesus just told him there's a wasting of power.

See, there's power that could have been received and it hasn't been received, or else it's been received and wasted.

So here we see that Elisha begins to function in the double anointing.

Everybody say the double.

So Elijah, if you picture him in the chariot, he's the man in heaven.

Elisha is the man on the earth.

Elijah did works.

Elisha did the double works, he did the greater works.

Jesus said I'm about to go, I'm going to be the man in heaven and the works that I do shall you do also, the man on the earth is going to do greater works.

You see, he is a.

Elijah is a type of Jesus.

Elisha is the type of the church.

The church should be doing greater works.

Somebody said how could you do greater works than Jesus?

And we always go back to miracles.

But really, I mean, if we get anybody born again.

That's a greater work.

It's the greatest miracle in the Bible to get people saved, because Jesus did not do that.

Jesus came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

He got them, you know, and if you really want to know the truth, he didn't turn them.

So you know.

Was he successful?

Well, yeah, he was successful because he died for our sins, but, as far as Israel's concerned, not very many of them picked up on the fact he was a Messiah.

Are you saying Pastor?

Are you saying he failed?

No, I'm not saying he failed.

I'm saying that he fulfilled exactly what he was sent.

He was sent to Israel.

He wasn't sent to get people saved, but we are saved because of Jesus.

You get what I'm saying.

How are we saved?

Well, the church has got to do its work because Jesus is gone.

Amen, are you with me now?

So, in order to do the greater works, the church has to be apostolic.

We've got to function in the double anointing, and that's why, god, when Brother O osteen went to heaven and I had my experience that night when he did, and of course, officially, that was that afternoon before they disconnected him from machine.

So I always cringe a little bit when I speak about this, because I don't know if the family hears it.

I doubt it, but if they did, they kind of feel like, what are you doing?

I mean, we mean, we, he was here.

Well, I, god told me he was gone at two o'clock in the morning.

It's what God told me.

So I'm going with what he told me, you know.

I know they can keep people alive when their spirit's gone.

So, uh, when he left, I got not a mantle, but I got a.

I got my inheritance.

Are you with me now?

Not a mantle, I don't claim God, brother Osteen's inheritance.

Are you with me on that?

Not a mantle, I don't claim God, brother Osteen's mantle.

Are you crazy?

No, I didn't get that, but I got my inheritance because of my service.

So in this one chapter and that's homework for you you need to read the whole chapter.

We're going to just get little bits and pieces here, but in this chapter there are five miracles that represent the greater works that the church, an apostolic church, should bring forth as fruit.

So I want to go over this with you.

So you know what kind of church this is.

Number one.

Number two you know what you have a right to expect.

When I say expect, I don't mean like you deserve.

I'm not talking about deserve, I'm talking about you can use your faith to receive these sorts of things.

There's just nothing too hard for God.

But if you're in some dead church or you're in some kind of church where the pastor would just win and no one sent, doesn't have a father and there's no double portion, and he never served anybody and he never, you know, he never laid his life down for someone else then you're not going to be in position to get the maximum.

There's a spiritual law at work that's going to prevent you from getting everything Jesus bought and paid for.

That's why I'm expecting all these red chairs to have people in them, because God's fixing to wind this thing up and he's not coming for a little old, paltry amount, he's coming for a multitude, isn't he All right?

So five hallmarks of the apostolic church.

So here we have the poor widow and we see that she received supernatural provision and debt cancellation.

Isn't that amazing, supernatural provision and debt cancellation.

And a third thing asset protection.

What is that?

Well, you know, if she hadn't paid her bills, if she hadn't paid her creditors what she owed, her boys would have been out the door and she is a widow and she might've starved to death, she might've died.

See, israel is backslidden.

They're not doing right by their widow, especially the widow of a prophet.

He's a prophet, he's a, he's a minister.

He feared God.

He's a.

He's a tither, he has, he has, and that's why the prophet could do what he did for her.

She was eligible because he was faithful to tithe and to give.

He sowed his seed.

But yet, but yet, see, really, for a widow to get in that position where somebody is wanting their money, so bad that they're going to take it out of her and bring her boys, they're sinning.

Whoever the creditors were, they're sinning.

But guess what?

The prophet said pay them.

The prophet said pay them.

The prophet said pay them.

She.

I mean, you know, it's just so she had.

So she had asset protection.

Her boys were an asset.

Not only does she love her boys, but, man, she's depending on her boys.

Her boys have got to go out there and and help her.

They've got to go get a job.

They've got to go get some, some income to to boy to bolster her, otherwise she's liable to just starve to death.

If she's depending on that community for anything.

It shouldn't be that way.

We ought to take care of our widows and our orphans Amen and make sure they're okay.

And then the supernatural provision.

I mean she had one pot of oil and God, I mean the prophet told her how to multiply that pot of oil.

How did she multiply?

By pouring it into as many vessels as she could borrow.

She just borrowed the vessel.

She gave the vessels back Soon as she sold the oil.

She had those empty vessels.

So she gave those empty vessels right back to her neighbors.

They all got the best, it's clay jars and the only limitation to the blessing was how many jars they borrowed.

How far could they go?

How many jars were available in their neighborhood?

I don't know it's an open question how much room in her house.

I've always imagined her house being a small house.

You know and you know it's a jar sitting in the cabinets or in the drain board, in the kitchen, on the kitchen counter on the island.

She opens the oven door and sits a couple of jars on the oven door.

Go in the kitchen, on the kitchen counter on the island.

She opens the oven door and sits a couple of jars on the oven door.

Go in the bathroom.

It's sitting on the toilet top.

It's sitting on the toilet seat, puts the seat down, puts a jar there, puts five jars in the bathtub.

If it wasn't so, I mean, I'm just imagining what it would have been like if it'd been me borrowing the jars.

I would have filled that house up with jars, but I don't know if there was enough jars.

But I know one thing she kept pouring into those jars and when she ran out of jars, her supply ended.

What does that mean exactly?

It just means that, god, when you need finances, that's the time to pour.

What you've got.

You've got to start pouring.

See, this is a prefigure of the loaves and fishes.

Exactly what Jesus did.

Jesus did exactly the same thing.

What did they have?

They had five loaves and two fishes one time.

Another time they had four loaves and some fish we don't even know how many and he had 12 disciples.

So what did he do?

He just took what he had, broke it apart.

That's not where the multiplication happened.

The multiplication happened at the hands of the apostles.

It didn't happen with Jesus, it happened with them.

And then, when they had their portion of the five and the two, they broke it off and gave it out and they just kept giving, kept giving it as long as they had mouths to feed.

That's how much multiplication they had.

And they had 12 baskets full of leftovers.

She had leftovers after she sold the oil.

She had enough leftover to live on.

Glory, come on, lift your hand right now.

We need to have this going for us.

Right now.

You have every right to have supernatural provision, every right to have supernatural provision.

Debt cancellation I mean, her debt was canceled, don't you know?

I mean you know they thought, man, we're going to get two strapping boys.

Ha ha ha.

The lender on this church just knew they were going to take, you know, our land.

We were, I'm telling you.

They would have taken our land just like that If we hadn't met every detail of the mortgage.

Borrow a servant to the lender.

When you sign those papers, you have to do what you say.

They're going to do what they say.

And, uh, you know, things change.

But from before when we, when they wanted to make the loan, until when they made the loan, then Obama was in office and I mean they had all kind of trouble.

They didn't really know what they were doing.

They didn't have a very good way of of evaluating prospects for their lender.

You know, they weren't really perfect, they were preachers.

At one time they hired a good guy that I knew.

I knew him when he worked in Houston for home savings and loan.

I borrowed money from him one time but he went to work for them and so he was my connection.

He came to Houston and said pastor, what do we have to do to get your business?

I said to loan me what I want.

They won't loan me what I want.

What do you want?

Well, I want 2.7 million, wound up being 3.7 million and he went to the loan committee and got it for me.

They would never have loaned this loan if I hadn't.

It hadn't been for this, this expert, because he knew real estate, he knew that they were highly leveraged.

And we, you know, when you buy a house, you know, usually you buy, you put 25% down and you have a 75% value.

That you're that they lend you.

You put 25% down, used to be 80-20.

Now it's 75-25.

Well, we had 25-75.

We had 75% equity and we are only borrowing 25% on the appraised value.

I mean, yeah, they wanted this land.

They told me they did.

They were hoping we wouldn't pay.

Well, we paid.

Praise God, we had a land miracle.

I mean, we had a businessman give us this property and take the other one.

Cancel the $600,000 that we owed on my land down the street.

We had about a million dollars cash in the land down the street.

He took the whole thing and canceled it all out, canceled out a $600,000 note, took the land.

Instead, like I said, we'd had a million dollars cash in it.

And then he gave us a bigger piece of property.

This was 85 acres.

We got and his appraisal was $9.7 million debt-free.

So that opened the door for us to borrow this money because we didn't have any credit.

We'd never borrowed money before.

We were able to borrow the money to build this building and then build the second one, phase two, from this law right here, everybody say supernatural debt cancellation, supernatural provision, asset protection.

This is personally and corporately.

Aren't you glad you know you never had to sit with a, with a, with a committee?

You know a stewardship committed to sit in your living room and and see and delve into your finances and try to wheel you into making some kind of pledge?

You know, would you sign this and pledge?

You know to give this amount of money and then you take that pledge, you sign it and you take that.

Your church will take that to a lender and they give you kind of credit for how many?

How many people of your and and our lender tried to get me to agree to do that and I thought they were going to foreclose on the loan.

When we turned them down I turned them down flat.

I said I will not do it.

I will not have you, uh, try to run this church.

This, this is a supernatural church.

We don't go in there and beg our people to mortgage their future just to pay for all this.

God's going to pay for it.

They didn't like it because they made money off of that process.

Anytime you hire somebody like that, they get 25, 30% of what they raise in their pocket and I don't know, in their pocket, and I don't know.

I just couldn't do it, I wouldn't do it.

Is this helping anybody?

All right Now the next testimony is the Shunammite woman, and I wanted you to see that in verse eight.

It fell on a day that Elisha passed to Shunamm, where there was a great woman, and one time I asked the Lord what in the world, what made her great?

You know, I got a whole message on what made the Shunammite woman great.

Because he's a great woman and she was older and no child.

And every time he came to town, him and Gehazi, she put him up and finally she built a little room on her house, she built a prophet's quarters that's where we get the saying a prophet's quarters.

And in that prophet's quarters there was a bed, a candlestick, a table and a chair.

She had it fully furnished for Elisha.

And Elisha said what can we do for this woman, for this great care that she she's?

You know well, let's go ask her what, what we can do.

And she says oh, I, I don't need anything.

Would you like us to speak to you, to the king?

I don't need anything from him.

Uh, you know.

And finally there, she wouldn't agree to any kind of benefit program, she wouldn't take any money, she wouldn't take anything.

She said, oh, I'm just see she, her heart was to bless god.

See, the prophet stood for god.

In the old testament, god and the prophet were one in the same when, when the prophet spoke, god spoke.

Because they didn't have God to speak to them, they were spiritually dead.

So, you know, gehazi said, you know, she doesn't have a child and she's older and her husband's old and she's pretty sure she wants a child.

And so Elijah told her, said, about this time next year you're going to give birth to a son.

And I use current vernacular Don't you mess with me, man of God, don't you mess with me.

I mean he's touching a nerve, man.

I mean you don't prophesy something like that to her, because you're touching a raw nerve.

Because in their society to be childless was just terrible for a woman.

You're kind of an outcast and you're looked upon as cursed.

You're looked upon as something's wrong with you, with god.

And yet god called her a great woman, and so she did have that child.

Glory to God.

So the second thing is that you get in.

One of the hallmarks of the apostolic church is discipleship birthing and turning barren.

Turning barren into fertile, turning crop failures into producers and distributors.

He told her, about this time next year you're going to have a son about this time next year.

And so brother Osteen used to always say to new people he give me a year of your life.

And I've done that off and on for 30 years.

I don't I'm not as consistent saying it anymore, but I like to tell people give me a year of your life.

You come in here and you feel like this is your church and I'm your pastor.

Give me a year.

I mean it takes me a year to go over the scriptures and give you a broad enough arsenal so that you can grow and so that you can start to have success, so that you can start to turn into productivity, so you can learn enough to overcome some of the crop failures that you've come into, because everybody has them and that and the antidote to those is teaching, which is why I'm teaching this.

I mean, you know, we want to see you succeed.

We want to see you, uh, become producers and distributors.

Hallelujah, we want, we want to see you birth into, into God's plan for your life.

Maybe there's some things that have to be birthed.

This church had to be birthed.

I recruited people to pray and get it birthed.

It took prayer, it took some people that I trusted and I asked them to join in there with me when we got the marching orders to start this thing.

I asked them to help me to birth the church and they did, and it was birthed to start this thing.

I asked them to help me to birth the church, and they did, and it was birthed.

And I'll tell you, the biggest thing was waiting for brother Osteen's full, uh, blessing.

That was the double, that was the double portion.

Um, give me a year of your life.

You know that's we like people to come in and get involved, be on a team.

You know, I was talking about the lady this morning that just wanted to be a lone ranger.

She just wanted to work by herself.

She didn't want to have anybody around her.

Nobody could please her, nobody could get along with her.

She's kind of fussy, kind of uppity and whatever.

I mean good night, what's wrong with you?

I mean, are you a Christian or what?

I mean?

Why do you be that?

I mean, I just couldn't get over this lady.

She ought to be, but she was too old to change.

She was set and she didn't last.

Because I'm listen, this church is for people to come in and to be a blessing, be part of a team, and then you have someone to be accountable to.

We want to empower you, we want to give you authority, but you can't have authority without accountability.

That's the recipe for disaster.

You have to be accountable, amen, period.

So, uh, that's part of discipleship.

You know jesus, jesus going to all the world, make disciples.

He didn't say just go get, have crusades.

I was coming back from a crusade in new delhi one time with brother osteen I saw the last night of the crusade was how 100, 110, 000 people in the nairu stadium in new delhi I mean after that there were, I think ryan hart bonkey preached to a million people in africa.

I mean huge crusades and I'm I'm not crusades, but that's not really God's way to build the kingdom, because you can say you preach to a million but you have no idea whether they ever got discipled.

Jesus didn't say go get them saved.

He said make disciples.

That's what he said.

I mean, I'm just telling you what he said.

So, coming back on the plane, I started my math.

You know my engineering background.

I started trying to.

You know what would it take if we had these crusades?

And how many crusades would we have just to, just to reach, just to reach India?

At that time India had one point I think 1.1 billion people live in there and that's been 30, some odd 30, some odd years ago.

Huh.

So no telling how many billion they have now.

And I could tell that you know we're losing because they got more Hindus and more Muslims than they do Christians.

So they're going backward, they're getting more and more populated away from God.

What would it take if we came and held a crusade?

Every you know, and so I started doing the math.

You know how many would be in the crusade.

You know they've got some big cities across India, you know, and you could go to this city, go to that city, you know, be strategic and how many, you know.

If we average so many, I forgot what my numbers were, but I mean I think I came up with 1400 years.

No, you can't, you can't do it.

You can, you cannot have crusades.

It's not going to work.

You've got to make disciples.

Disciples go and they get their world changed.

Are you with me now?

Not about one man preaching Amen, it's about a multitude of disciples.

All right.

Number three you keep reading the verses 18 through 37.

The Shunammite had this precious child and the child died and we know the story.

I mean, she took that child and laid it in the prophet's quarters, in Elisha's bed, and she went to find him and elisha saw her coming and sent gehazi go tell, go ask the woman.

Is that okay?

Is it well with you, is it well with your husband, is it well with the child?

And she come running to gehazi.

Gehazi went running to her, rather, and she said it is well with my soul.

Glory to god.

That beautiful song is based on that testimony.

She wouldn't say he was dead.

She wouldn't say why, because he was the son of promise.

He can't die.

God said, see again another type and shadow of Jesus.

He can't die.

And so, uh, he came back and reported to Elisha oh, I think it's something about the son she won't say.

She just said okay, here's my staff, take it.

And of course, he couldn't do anything.

It is, you know, gehazi just couldn't do it.

And so, finally, he had to go personally and he laid himself on prostrate on top of the child seven times, and then the child sneezed and was raised from the dead and he presented the child alive to the mother.

We're talking about a double portion.

We're talking about the greater works.

We're talking about twice as many miracles as Elijah.

We're talking about the power of God that should be in the church today for the greater works.

So this represents restoration, resurrection, raise up dead dreams, raise up dead visions, raise up dead ministries, restore marriages, restore relationships.

That's all part of an apostolic church.

Resurrection and restoration.

Come on, lift your hands right now.

How many of you could stand some things to be revived and restored, maybe even raised from the dead?

There's nothing too hard for the Lord.

All right, then.

You keep on going through the chapter.

Get over here to verse 38.

And you've got the sons for the Lord.

All right, then.

You keep on going through the chapter.

Get over here to verse 38.

And you've got the sons of the prophets.

And they're all around gathered.

And they gathered a bunch of pottage out in the field and they brought it in and they were eating.

There was a dearth in the land and the prophets were sitting before them, and so they seethed pottage for the sons of the prophets.

They gathered herbs, found a wild vine verse 39, wild gourds.

They poured it out for the men to eat and as they were eating, they cried out and said oh, man of God, there's death in the pot, poison.

But he said then bring meal.

And he cast it into the pot and he said pour out for the people and that they may eat.

And he said pour out for the people and that they may eat.

And there was no harm in the pot.

So he, you had restoration and reclaiming stolen property, stolen wages.

This is dearth time, see.

Dearth means it's a recession.

Dearth means it's high inflation.

Dearth means Biden is president and he doesn't know it.

In fact, he doesn't even know he's alive.

Supernatural protection Just what if they'd all ate that deadly pot, if they'd all died?

Supernatural protection Do we need supernatural protection right now?

I mean we got targets on our back.

The whole government's weaponized against Christianity.

It's weaponized against Christians.

It's weaponized against Bible-believing Christians, especially If you're a Lutheran.

Like the fruitcake that Kamala chose for vice president.

He goes to Evangelical Lutheran Church, which believes in calling God a girl and ordaining homosexuals and transgender people and all of that stuff.

They're completely out of their minds.

That guy is crazy.

I thought Kamala was crazy.

He's worse.

Anyway, I'm super.

Everybody say supernatural protection, restoration.

God wants to restore what the devil stole.

Man.

I mean, he's worked that in my life.

He's worked that in my life.

Praise God, god's restored.

I had one pair of shoes at Lakewood.

You wonder why I have all these shoes?

Because I had got down to one pair of shoes.

They had a hole in them.

I'm not lying, I had.

They had a hole in them and when it rained my socks were wet.

I'm sitting there in Lakewood church.

I looked, I looked great, but I had one suit.

I had four or five pairs of four or five dress shirts.

I'd dress up the suit with a different shirt and a different tie and it would look kind of different.

I remember, finally, one time I finally did buy a brand new suit for the opening of the big building, the big building, and it was the opening night and I got to wear a double-breasted.

It had a silk blend to it was had a sheen, it was a gray, light gray, beautiful suit, but it's double-breasted.

You know, I was dressed to the night, brand new.

It's the first suit I'd had and I don't know how long, I don't know.

I must have gone into hawk to buy it, but anyway.

Uh, we had the altar call and the guy came up for prayer and I laid, laid my hands on him and the Holy Ghost hit him, you know, and he hugged me and he laid his head on my shoulder and a bloody flux came out of his nose.

There was bloody snot all over my shoulder Running down my, and I looked over there and I said, oh my God.

But you know, I just went to the bathroom real quick and wiped it.

It just didn't even stain.

I mean, god redeemed my suit, but I still had the holy shoes.

The shoes were still and I told the devil you were never.

You will never get me in that position.

I'm going to have all the clothes I need.

I'm going to have every pair of shoes.

I'm embarrassed to tell you how many pairs of shoes I have.

No, I'm not, I have.

No, I'm not.

I have 40 pairs of shoes.

I don't care if you like it or you don't like it.

I've got more shoes than Gladys does.

I don't care, I don't care what you think.

I laugh at the devil every day.

I just laugh.

I look at this.

I got a choice of shoes.

The nurse was oh, look at you, you were all color coordinated in your shoes.

You were all color coordinated with your shirt.

I had my orange OCs on.

That's my tennis shoes, my sneaks, all right.

Praise the Lord.

Everybody say restoration, all right.

The last one we see is found in verse 42.

There came a man from Baal Shalisha and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits.

See, this is like the tithe One man brings a tithe.

And it's, what is it?

Well, it's 20 loaves of barley and full ears of corn in the husk.

He said give unto the people, see.

Elisha says give unto the people to eat.

And his servitor said what Should I set this before a hundred men?

This is the tithe of one person, the tithe of one person.

How can the tithe of one, the first fruits of one person, feed a hundred men?

See, that's not enough.

It's not enough.

And Elisha said again give the people that they may eat, for thus saith the Lord, they shall eat and shall leave thereof You're going to have leftovers.

So there it is again.

So he said it before them and they did eat and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord.

So the last one is multiplication of resources.

God is able to multiply what you've got.

Isn't that what he did with the woman?

One pot of oil was multiplied into whatever it was that she needed.

I've seen it happen in this church over and over again.

I mean, you know, we've been through some skinny times.

This is not one of them.

We're blessed.

I don't mind telling you we're blessed, but we're not blessed enough.

We need more, because he keeps.

He keeps giving us places to pour into more jars.

We're pouring into so many jars.

We don't talk enough about what we do for missions.

I mean we're always, we're writing checks, we're we're filling jars.

Where we're helping this one, we're helping that one.

I mean we need to just maybe stop down some Sunday and just give you a full report of all the things that we're involved with.

You're talking about filling some jars up.

I'm not bragging, I'm just reporting.

Everybody say multiplication of resources.

So the tithes and offerings into this church has always been multiplied.

I mean we do more with less.

It's just amazing.

I mean we just don't.

I mean we do more with less.

It's just amazing.

I mean it just, we just don't.

You know, when we were in the Seventh-day Adventist church, that was a tough time and we lost about half the membership when we made that move and that meant that a whole lot of money didn't come in, a whole lot of our budget went down and yet the payment on that building was more than what we were paying the Baptist church down the street.

I mean we were paying them a lot.

But man, those Seventh-day people, they saw us coming and we didn't have any place to go and we just kind of.

We wasn't negotiating, so, and you know, god provided that.

He provided that.

And so when we were in that building, god made this land miracle.

Well, that land miracle was wonderful, but now so, okay, so we can go borrow.

And we borrowed $3.7 million and we're in the seventh day church and that's the number of people.

We got about 200 people on Sunday morning.

It's all we've got, maybe 180, not a very big crowd.

And I'm thinking what are we going to do?

We need to raise an offering in order to get into this building program.

My goodness, what are we?

I mean, and I thought about do we try to have a fundraising company come in, hire somebody to come in?

You know one of these things.

And I did some stuff and man, I mean my spirit just went and the Holy ghost said tell the people just to tithe.

If everyone in this church will just tithe, I will build the building.

That's what he told us.

How many of you remember that?

I mean, I just stood up on Sunday morning.

I couldn't hear my couldn't believe I was saying what I was saying, Cause the tithe is not for a building project.

The tithe is just to basically take care of the ministry.

The tithe shouldn't be going to the building project.

The tithe to the priest, they ate it.

It was food, it was their living.

You raised offerings to build the temple.

You raised offerings to build the tabernacle in the wilderness.

That was extra, over and above.

The tithe was just for the priest.

So the tithe is designed for the ministry, not for the building.

And he's saying just tithe and I will build the building.

You know that's exactly what he did.

We just sailed right on through, moved into this thing, got it done, praise God.

So everybody say multiplication of resources, multiplication of resources.

See, god can multiply.

I know that we preach this all the time, but this is right here, in this wonderful testimony, this type and shadow.

Hallelujah, hallmarks of the apostolic.

Come on, let's lift our hands and receive the Word of God tonight.

Hallelujah, thank you, lord.

I tell you, praise God for the Word of God.

Did you get anything out of this tonight?

Hallelujah, hallelujah, glory to God.

I might go buy five more pair of shoes.

I don't know, I don't know.

Gladys just shakes her head.

You need another pair of shoes.

Really, I've run out of room.

I'm going to have to add on to my closet.