God's Early Warning System

Tonight I'm going to minister on God's early warning system.

That's the title of tonight's message God's early warning system and again, bits of this come from what George Pearson ministered there, but I've got some other things to add to that.

He started off by asking about these three dates.

What do December 7, 1941, september 11, 2001,.

October 7, 2023 all have in common?

And I could add another date in there, so you just pick one in the middle of COVID and I could throw that one in there as well.

What do those dates all have in common?

And they have in common that those were surprise attacks December 7, 1941, pearl Harbor, september 11, 2001,.

The planes flying into the building we were under attack.

October 7th, israel experienced a surprise attack in 2023.

And God has an early warning system and God gives us the opportunity to know things.

Why did we miss those dates?

Well, I don't have answers for you.

Somebody missed something somewhere.

I guess somebody didn't seek God enough on those things.

We miss some things from time to time when we don't pray to know, and so pastors preached a message about praying to know things, and we can have a right to know.

But God's early warning system works when we are filled with the Holy Spirit.

And so the first thing that we've got to do is make sure that we are filled.

Jesus in John, chapter 16, talking to his disciples saying that he's going to go away, and his disciples were sad.

John 16 · chapter mention

And he says if I do not go away this is in verse 7, if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you, but if I depart I will send him to you.

So I've got to go, I've got to leave you and I've got to go there.

And then I've got to instruct the helper to come back here to help you.

And so the helper we know is the Holy Spirit.

And in verse 12, jesus says I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear to hear them now.

Jesus had a short time on earth, a relatively short ministry, a compressed ministry.

There was a lot crammed into the short ministry that he had here on earth, and the rest of the things that we needed to know were going to come by the Holy Spirit and by his written word.

And so Jesus said to his disciples and Jesus said some very challenging things to his disciples, things that they really choked on and had a hard time hearing and didn't understand, and so Jesus couldn't get it all out.

He said there are things you cannot bear to hear right now.

However verse 13, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, and he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak.

In other words, whatever the Father, who is in heaven, speaks to the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit will speak that to us, and he does that through our spirit.

He doesn't do it to our brain, he doesn't do it to our emotions, he speaks to our.

So spirit, to spirit, the heavenly Father, to the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, who dwells on the inside of us, conveys things to our spirit and it says and he will tell you things to come.

You don't have to be shocked and surprised about things that happen, because we have an opportunity for God to warn us early through the Holy Spirit.

I'm gonna take a little side trail here.

In Luke, chapter four, verse one, this is it says then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

So he was being led away to be tempted by the Holy Spirit.

I mean to be tempted by the devil.

So the devil is the tempter.

The Holy Spirit is not the tempter.

God is not the tempter.

He does not tempt us.

The devil does that.

But Jesus was being led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he would be tempted by the devil.

And of course Jesus fasted for 40 days while he was there.

But I wanna draw your attention to something in this verse.

There it says then Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Up until this point in the Bible it talks about the anointing being upon the Holy Spirit coming upon.

When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit came upon him.

It describes but this is the first time that I know of where the Holy Spirit filled somebody up in the Bible.

And the very first person to be Spirit filled and Spirit led was Jesus, our example.

He became filled with the Holy Spirit and he was led by the Holy Spirit and he is our example.

So we ought to be filled and led by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8, 14 says that those who are led by the Spirit, our Spirit led, are the sons of God and that the Spirit would bear witness, with our Spirit, that we are in fact the children of God and so we can know things by our Spirit, it's not by our brain.

Our Spirit can know things.

Now, have you ever noticed that Jesus?

He spent time with his disciples, and then he would leave his disciples and go pray somewhere.

He would go find a quiet place, he would send them over here.

I'll meet you over there, but I'm gonna go pray.

And here in John 16, 12, he says I've got a lot I'd love to tell you, but you can't handle it right now.

And so take that there were things that Jesus knew that his disciples would not be able to handle, and Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit, and Jesus took time away from his disciples to pray.

Now, what's one of the evidences, or the evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit?

What's the evidence?

Speaking in tongues?

You're filled with the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, and so there's evidence that goes with being filled with the Holy Spirit.

So it doesn't say this, but I propose to you, by the evidence that I have just walked us through, that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and he prayed in other tongues, and he did so outside of the hearing of his disciples, who didn't record it, didn't know about it, because there were things that they would not understand or be able to comprehend or even bear hearing Jesus speak in other tongues.

There are gonna be people in your life that are not gonna be able to hear and understand and bear.

They're not ready for that.

And so what is the purpose of speaking in tongues?

It's our spirit praying to God, is what it is, and it's a way that our spirit can pray without us having to come up with a brain prayer.

We don't have to generate the words and we don't have to disclose our position or the strategies of the Holy Spirit.

The devil does not understand what you are saying when you are praying to God.

When your spirit prays to God in other tongues, it bypasses your brain, but it also bypasses the devil and demonic powers who would love to know things and they don't get to know things, and so it is a secret weapon that God has given us who are filled with the Holy Spirit, and so I say all that to say let's not blast people with that.

There are people that don't understand things and don't know things, and you just follow the Holy Spirit.

When you pray in the Holy Spirit, it is not to show off to other people.

It is your spirit praying to God, and so if you keep that purpose, then you'll never be outside of the lines of what it's intended for.

Your spirit is praying to God and so it's part of your prayer life, and Jesus had that prayer life and, by the way, 1 Corinthians 14,2 is where it talks about speaking in tongues is praying to God and people that don't understand that.

But our spirit speaks mysteries, and so that's where that comes from.

Ephesians, chapter five, verse 15, says see, then, that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil.

How many recognize that there are evil days out there right now?

I mean, that's not a hard thing to understand.

It is getting evil and more evil as the days go on.

So, as the logic says that the more evil it gets, the more circumspectly we ought to walk, or the more deliberately or intentional, and not haphazardly and willy-nilly.

We don't walk around like that.

We walk circumspectly, intentionally and with wisdom, and uh.

And that wisdom has got to be God's wisdom, not man's wisdom.

And so in verse 17,.

Therefore, be not unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

So it's foolish to not understand what the will of the Lord is and launch without knowing something.

That's foolishness.

The will of God begins, our faith begins, with the will of God, as known.

We can't have faith for something without knowing what we can have faith for, and so we've got to aim our faith at things that God said we can have.

And where do you find that information?

Right out of God's word.

And you can also know things by praying in the Holy Spirit and your spirit is talking to God and you're communicating with God and your spirit can know things and eventually your brain can know them too.

But it starts on the inside, with your spirit.

Verse 18,.

And be not drunk with wine or his excess, but be being filled.

The word be means a continual being, so it's be being filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord and giving thanks always to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God, giving thanks always for all things.

Well, we don't give thanks for trouble.

We give thanks in the midst of whatever circumstance we're in.

We just we're eternally grateful.

We're a glasses half full kind of people.

We're looking on the bright side of things, we're looking on the positive side of things and we speak from a positive perspective because our God supplies all our needs according to his abundant riches and glory, by Christ Jesus.

And so you can keep yourself full by expressing gratitude, you can keep yourself full by singing praises, making melody in your heart to the Lord, and so you're staying filled as part of be being filled with the Holy Spirit, and when we do that, we can know some stuff.

Now, in Hebrews 11, seven, we can turn over there, and here's an example of somebody who knew some stuff.

Hebrews 11, seven says by faith, noah being divinely warned.

So, but Noah was not somebody who was full of the Holy Spirit, but Noah was one of the prophets the Old Testament prophets and the spirit resided on, or the anointing resided on, the priests and the prophets and the kings, so there were people on earth who could speak for God, who could hear from God for others.

Now we don't have that anymore.

We can hear from God for ourselves because we have the Holy Spirit on the inside of us.

But it said by faith, noah being divinely warned of things not yet seen, what was not yet seen Rain.

God warned him about rain.

Water's going to fall from the sky and they had not seen that yet.

Up until that point in history, it had not rained.

God watered the earth by a cloud that came up.

It was dew, it was fog, but they hadn't experienced the rain.

So Noah's running around telling people it's about to rain, and what's that?

So, by faith, noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear.

He moved with godly fear.

He responded he had one person to please God.

All the voices that were speaking against him he didn't care about.

He couldn't care about because he was there, a voice of God, for God to people on the earth, and he had to obey.

And he had godly fear.

And it said he prepared an ark for the saving of his household.

And I don't know how long he spent doing it.

Some say 60, some 100 years.

However long it was, it was a long time and he diligently worked.

He obeyed that warning and he was diligent to follow through with that and he and his house were saved.

Matthew, chapter two, verse one We'll flip over there and see.

Some of these things we're gonna do sword drills.

How many are already there, cause you beat me if you are.

Matthew, chapter two, verse one.

All right, so I'm not gonna read all of this, but we'll just have this as a point of reference here.

But this is where the wise men were warned by God on a dream not to return to Herod.

And so the wise men came from the east.

They were seeking to worship the baby Jesus, the new king, and Herod was threatened by who is this king?

Oh, please tell me when you find him, who he is and where I can find this wonderful baby, so that I may worship him too.

And they said oh, yes, that's great, we'll come back and tell you.

But God warned them there was a divine warning and a dream for them not to return to Herod.

And it says also that an angel warned Joseph in a dream to take his family to Egypt and flee to Egypt.

And then an angel came back to him and warned him in a dream Actually, it was an all clear moment.

He said okay, the coast is clear, you can come back.

And so there were lots of divine warnings right there, and they came in the form of dreams to these along the way, and the result is that scripture was fulfilled.

The Savior was born.

Jesus fulfilled his ministry for the saving of the world.

If any of that had been interrupted along the way, we wouldn't have what we had, and so God was ensured the protection of that through warnings In 2005,.

Now this is something that George Pearson brought up the wake-up call that Oral Roberts received back in 2005.

And I thought that was very interesting at this service last week to hear him talk about the wake-up call.

How many remember the wake-up call?

All right, so there's a few hands around here, but not everybody raised their hand.

And so in 2005, Oral Roberts received.

He was in his home, walking in.

He's in a small condo in California and he's wearing a sweater.

Just pictured an old man walking down the hall wearing a sweater and he has an eyes-wide open vision in his in his home, and he heard a sound, the way he describes it.

He heard a sound and the sound waves ruffled his sweater in his in his home and he saw, as he described it.

He saw a cloud and he saw blood and fire and vapor of smoke, as was prophesied in Joel, and he saw something terrible over New York City and that, whatever, that whatever he saw over New York City, spread from there over other parts of the country.

And God warned him in that moment that my people are not ready for the second coming of my son.

And you know, you got to understand.

Something about Oral Roberts is that during his ministry it was something good is going to happen to you today.

He was the most positive of all preachers of his time.

Something good is going to happen to you today.

God wants to heal you and God wants to do good things for you.

And that was his ministry.

And here God is warning him something of something so terrifying and terrible, an impending doom and danger on this nation and on the world and on the church for not being ready for the second coming of his son.

And he also warned him there and said that there was a wasting of power, that the church is in debt and that when I tell them to do something or tell them to go, they can't do it because they've got this crushing debt on them.

God does not want his church, the body of Christ, bound in debt.

He wants us free from debt.

That's why we have a way for prosperity and a way for blessing that God provided for us, but the church is not living the way it should.

And so there's there's this dangerous condition.

And so during that time our pastor my father-in-law, claire's dad got to interview Dr Orle Roberts in his home about this.

So he was watching.

Pastor was watching this vision being described by Orle Roberts on TV and everyone who interviewed him kept interjecting and interrupting and saying things about it, and Orle Roberts couldn't get the whole vision out.

He didn't get all the details out in these television interviews, and so there was a way our pastor got to go visit with him in his home and interview him, and Claire and I got to be there, our whole family got to be there.

Some of our staff was there and got to pull out more that he had not disclosed in other interviews, and I think we still have.

Do we still have that interview available at the media center here?

Claire's going to put a link on our group, our GWC group, so that you can watch this interview because, again, this is 2005.

That's almost 20 years ago and it was being brought back up last week.

I mean, this is something that's really obscure when it's 20 years old, but it's critical for today and so you know, it's important that you go back and listen to this and watch what's going on.

But when Kenneth Copeland was interviewing Orle Roberts, he had some comments on what Orle Roberts was saying at the time, and he described reasons that God gives warnings.

God gives us warnings to prepare, so that we can prepare for the situation, you know.

So when God warns you, there's a preparing that needs to happen.

Perhaps there's an opportunity to avoid a situation, but maybe not.

If you can't avoid the situation, it could be that you have an opportunity to stop the situation from happening or to change something about the situation, to alter its intensity or change the outcome.

The impending result of that situation can be changed.

Something about it is flexible to you, who God warned, so you have a warning about it.

That means the situation is somehow flexible.

You might not be able to stop something, but you can change the outcome, you can alter the intensity of it.

And so those were things that Copeland was saying about it at that time, and he also made this comment that you can always change it for you, your family or where your church is concerned.

We may not be able to change impending doom, something terrible about to happen for a city, for a region, for a state, for a nation.

It may be inevitable, but where you're concerned and your family is concerned and your church is concerned, you have much more opportunity, much more power to change the outcome or the result of the intensity of that.

We don't live under the curse, we have been set free from the curse.

Our house is marked with the blood of Jesus.

Our doorpost, the header on our door, is marked with the blood of Jesus, and that goes back to a threshold covenant and I won't go into all of that.

But the simple version of the threshold covenant is that blood has been spilled, it has been marked, and God stepped over that spilled blood and came through the doorway into our home and made a covenant with us to protect our home.

And he can't not not perform his side of that covenant.

He has committed himself to perform his covenant in our home.

Our home is being protected by our God.

No weapon formed against us shall prosper, no harm will come near our dwelling.

So these are things that we can declare and we've got to enforce these terms.

If you just have this covenant and expect it to happen, you know there's still a devil that has a lease on this earth, that's running wild, that's doing things outside of what he ought to do.

And we are the enforcers here on this earth, and so we've got to enforce these things and so, but you don't always know what to do it until we have a Holy Ghost warning.

So let me give you an example of a Holy Ghost warning.

October 26th last year, our daughter was on her way home and she's driving down 2920.

She's coming close to the entrance to our neighborhood and she felt on the inside something was off and she had a thought what if I get into a car accident?

And so she prayed.

She got a warning, a Holy Ghost warning, and she prayed and she asked God for protection.

And she still felt off about it, like there was something more to do, and she didn't know what to do.

She did the best that she knew to do and she put on worship music in the car and just began to sing praises.

How many know that?

The presence of God inhabits the praises of his people?

So she created an atmosphere in her car while she's driving all by herself, an atmosphere where the presence of God was, and she pulled into a turn lane and she still felt like maybe I shouldn't have done that, and she felt trapped, like I can't get out of this turn lane.

I'm obligated to turn.

I have to, and she did.

And what she experienced was she sees a truck coming at her car and she said I gave it the gas and accelerated through the intersection, made it through the gate and I was just fine.

And that was her experience, and God protected her in that moment.

When she woke up, the EMTs had her on a board outside the car and she had been unconscious for some period of time and she had every sign and symptom of traumatic brain injury at the scene, and they called Life Flight to pick her up and take her to a downtown hospital, to a level one trauma unit.

And Claire and I got the call just moments before she's about to get into the helicopter and we had a terrible report of traumatic brain injury at the scene and that she was being life-flighted.

And so we had to be careful about the words that came out of our mouth.

They had to align with God's promises and not be aligned with fear.

Fear filled both of us.

The feeling of fear was there, it was real and it was awful, but the words that came out you've got to only let.

Let not your heart be troubled.

Don't let it be troubled.

If you're feeling trouble, don't let it, and certainly don't speak the words that align with the trouble.

Speak the words that align with the promises of God.

It is well with her.

Do not fear, only believe.

And so the short story is that we after me, driving 100 miles an hour in and out of traffic, blowing through stop signs and red lights and running the cars off into the ditch and not quite into the ditch, but we get to the hospital and we walk in there and she leans over.

She said, mom, I'm fine.

And we walked out of there a couple of hours later and she really was fine.

God protected her and he protected her from the traumatic brain injury and the traumatic memory of the crash and all the things that go with that.

God protected her because she had a Holy Ghost warning that she responded to, that she didn't ignore.

And could she have gotten avert of the accident?

I believe she could have, but she's learning and she responded by prayer and creating an atmosphere where the presence of God was.

And there she is, right there, sitting right over there in the white shirt, feeling embarrassed, right there, but she's beautiful and she's unscared and uninjured and sitting right there alive and well because of a Holy Ghost warning.

And so let's go to Acts, chapter 27.

Acts 27 · chapter mention

Here's a Holy Spirit warning that Paul received when we began in verse 10.

He says, men, I perceive that this voyage and Paul is a prisoner right here being transported on a ship he said, men, I perceive that this voyage will end in disaster and much loss, not only of cargo and ship but also our lives.

And so he perceived something the Holy Spirit gave him a warning that they were gonna lose the ship, the cargo and the life if they continued on that journey.

And so he spoke that warning and said, guys, we can't go.

In verse 11.

Nevertheless, the Centurion was more persuaded by the helmsman and the owner of the ship than by the thing spoken by Paul.

And so here, Paul, he couldn't change, he couldn't stop that.

He still stuck on that ship as a prisoner and he had to go.

And it says in verse 13.

When the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their desire and putting out to sea, they sailed close by Crete, but not long after a tempestuous headwind called Urocladon arose, it says the ship was caught and could not head into the wind, and we let her drive.

In other words, they had to run with the wind.

They couldn't fight the wind, they just had to go in the direction the wind was blowing.

Now I've got a little experience with this because I sailed on a wooden, square-rigged sailing ship.

This was a replica ship, a ship designed in the 1700s called the HMS Rose.

We set sail out of Boston in April 96, and we got four days out into the Atlantic Ocean when we're trying to head from Boston to Bristol, england.

We got four days out and we received a warning.

Maybe it was a Holy Ghost warning, but it came across our shortwave radio through a guy in Canada who was watching weather systems.

This was before we had quite all the satellite technology that we have today, so he's watching weather systems and getting weather reports from various sources, talking to other ships at sea and finding out what current conditions are there and putting together a localized weather forecast for us.

We reported our position to him and he would tell us what to expect out there in the middle of the Atlantic.

He said there is a big storm and it's blowing your direction and my advice to you is to run.

In other words, run with it and let this storm blow over the top of you.

Do not get on the other side of this storm.

It is terrible on the other side.

Don't get on the other side.

And so we turned and ran, just like they did here in Scripture, and we sailed 800 miles too far to the south.

We're trying to go to Bristol, england, and we landed in the Azores volcanic islands, kind of out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Portugal.

It was pretty far out there, but we had 35-foot seas, so that swell would rise up behind and block out the evening sun and just tower over the back of the ship and the ship would rise, pick up on the back end, rise in the way, would roll up under us and we'd set down in the trough and you couldn't see anything but just walls of water all the way around the ship.

And we were in Hurricane Force winds for about four days like that.

We sailed over a week in the wrong direction, letting the storm blow over us, and so I want you to imagine you know I'm describing a scenario that I experienced and this is similar, except that Paul would have been on a much smaller ship than I was on, and so his conditions would have been felt much worse.

And it says in running under the shelter of an island called Clota, we secured the skiff with difficulty, so they're dragging a small boat behind them and they had to pull that small boat back on board, and that's hard to do in those heavy conditions.

Verse 17,.

When they had taken it on board, they used cables to undergird the ship.

And what does that mean?

They took rope and wrapped it around the underside of the ship and they'd put tension on that rope across the deck of that ship.

And that rope is there to help hold the planks of the ship together, because when you're being beat by these sea conditions the planks will sometimes spring loose and then you go down.

And so they've wrapped ropes all the way around the hull of this boat to keep the planks together.

They're trying to keep their ship together while they're sailing.

And it says in fearing lest they should run aground on service sands, they struck sail and so were driven.

They pulled all their sail in, and so it's now it's just the wind blowing the ship without the sails up.

Verse 18,.

And because we were exceedingly tempest and tossed, the next day they lightened the ship, they took the cargo and everything that they didn't need and they started throwing it overboard.

On the third day they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their hands.

So this was gear that they needed for various conditions sailing tackle, ropes, anything extra that they didn't need in that moment.

They were throwing it overboard because they're likely taken on water by now.

So they're trying to lighten the ship.

And it says now, when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and no small tempest beat on us, all, hope was lost that we would be saved and finally given up.

But after a long abstinence of food.

So Paul was fasting.

So abstinence means to abstain or to restrain from doing something.

So Paul was restraining himself from eating, he was abstaining from food.

Why would he do that during this condition?

Because he wants to get weaker.

He was seeking God, he was looking for guidance from God.

So he was going after God and trying to get the flesh out of the way, the thoughts out of the way, anything that would desensitize, that would prevent his spirit from hearing something.

He got that out of the way and so he was seeking God.

And when he abstained from food, it says, then Paul stood in the midst of them and said men, you should have listened to me and not have sailed from Crete and incurred disaster and loss Verse 22,.

And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only the ship and of course it's cargo.

And so Paul seeking God, he had a Holy Ghost warning about a loss of ship, a loss of cargo and a loss of life.

And Paul continued to seek God to understand what it is he was supposed to do and say and win.

And when he obeyed he didn't stop the storm, the storm.

He didn't say peace be still.

Remember, jesus did that at one point.

Jesus got out there and said peace be still.

And there was a great calm.

But Paul couldn't do that.

Paul couldn't stop the storm, but he did alter the effects of the storm.

He couldn't stop the intensity of the storm, but he did alter the outcome of that situation so that now there would be no loss of life, only the ship.

And so you know the story.

He said that we must run aground on a certain island, and they did, and Paul and all those who sailed with Paul were saved.

And God saw that as a different perspective.

He was a prisoner on that ship.

But God saw all those people, all everyone, the Centurion, the Romans, everyone.

They were with Paul, and so Paul was able to change the outcome of that.

So back to John 16, verse 13,.

John 16:13

The spirit of truth has come and he will guide you into all truth.

He will not only speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will guide you and he will tell you things to come.

The Holy Spirit will show us things to come.

So we mentioned fasting there.

I'm not getting into fasting tonight, but that was one thing that would get the flesh out of the way so that your spirit could be sensitive to the things of the Holy Spirit and your communication gets better.

Here's another thing that can get things out of the way for you so you can hear better.

Hebrews 12, 1 says Lay aside every weight and sin that easily ensnares us.

Not all weights are sin, but there are things that get in the way and slow us down and that can interrupt our hearing from God.

It can interrupt us being able to understand what our spirit is trying to tell us.

You can miss Holy Ghost warnings and walk headlong into some pretty ugly trouble because of weights.

I'm not even talking about sin.

I mean sin will do that.

Sin will separate you from God.

So my encouragement for you here is to keep short accounts with God, that is, don't run away from God, don't try to hide and cover things, but run to God and receive covenant kindness, receive his mercy.

His mercies are new every day.

His covenant kindness endures forever.

So keep those short accounts with God so that you can hear from the Holy Spirit, your spirit can understand what's going on, but also weights things that, so you don't have to fast from food, you could fast from weights, things that are not profitable in your life, that are just extra, that might take up valuable time that you could be spending with God instead that you could be spending in His Word or spending in prayer.

And in doing so you're making your spirit become ultra sensitive to the things of the Holy Spirit.

God is talking to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit and God.

They know stuff and he wants to convey that to your spirit.

But sometimes our spirit isn't very good at understanding things, or at least it doesn't make it up to our brain all the time, because we've got things in the way and so lay aside the weights and sin and increase the sensitivity of your spirit so that you can know things, so that you don't miss the warnings.

So I've got a Holy Ghost warning that I received.

This was I think it was back when I was in college some friends and I were going to go on a ski trip to Colorado and it was a package deal.

I had bought the plane ticket and the ski lift passes and the place to stay and all that and I plopped down all the money to pay for that and I couldn't afford a lot at the time and I spent way more money than I should have in that moment to go on this ski trip.

But it was paid for and done.

And the closer we got to that date, when it was time to board that plane and go, the worse I felt on the inside.

I mean, my guts were tied in knots.

I felt so at a place it was wrong, something was wrong and I didn't know what.

And it became more clear to me as I got closer to that date.

It was the night before I was going to leave on that trip and I began to associate that bad feeling on the inside with traveling on that trip with my friends.

And I knew that if I talked to my friends about it, that they would talk me out of not going or they would talk me into going, and I would not heed the warning that the Holy Ghost was giving me.

And so I was so desperate to not miss this warning.

I didn't know what was wrong, but I was so desperate to not miss this warning.

I rented a hotel room, a very cheap hotel room, in Corpus Christi, and I went and stayed there and I left a note on my door because I knew my friends were going to come and abduct me and take me to the airport with them.

They were not going to let me miss this trip that we had been planning for a long time, and so I ran away.

I got a hotel room, I turned my phone off, I unplugged the alarm clock, I drew the shades tight so that light couldn't come in there, and I made sure that I missed my flight the next morning.

And I missed my flight and I woke up and I felt so peaceful and calm inside.

And you want to know what I missed out on.

How many want to know what I missed out on?

Well, I do too, because I don't know, but I know that I obeyed the warning of the Holy Ghost and I don't have to know what I missed, because I know it was right, because the Holy Ghost was talking to my spirit in a very loud way and I missed trouble.

I know that Psalm 78 talks about the Israelites forgetting their God, the Holy One of Israel, who had done these wondrous things among them, and they forgot that and they wandered around in the desert for 40 years while God was trying to lead them through the desert.

They were wandering around the desert.

God wants to lead us through stuff.

There's a direct route for us.

When everything God is leading us.

There is a route.

There is.

A man plans his ways, but God orders your steps.

There is an efficient route for each one of us to fulfill the plan of God in our lives.

And I turn around behind me and look at the route that I walked through and it is such a strange and convoluted and tortuous route that I took, and God did not lay that route out for me.

I took that route because I missed a lot of warnings along the way and I experienced a lot of upsets along the way and so it was a constant oh I'm way off course and another course correction.

I wandered in the desert for 40 years, but I spent my time wandering out there for a long time and I didn't have to, and so the world has enough trouble in it already that we don't have to add more trouble.

We can take the warnings and miss a lot of trouble.

And here the Israelites.

They got stuck in the desert for 40 years and they missed going into the Promised Land because they limited God, they doubted, they griped about things, and it was the next generation that got to go in the Promised Land.

But in verse 40, psalm 7840, it says how often they provoked Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert.

Yes, again and again they tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel.

They limited God, who thought God could have human limits put on Him?

Well, it says here that they limited Him, and it's true.

They limited God because God is righteous and he's just and he won't do things unless he's justified in doing them.

And because they disobeyed Him, he could not justly bless them and get them into the place where he wanted them to be, and so they limited God from being able to bless them because they disobeyed.

When we disobey, when we get off course.

We're out from under our covering, we're out from under our blessing.

We're walking in places.

We're walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

God's trying to lead us through green pastures and by still waters.

And, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we still don't have to fear evil because he's still with us there and thank God for His rod and His staff that comfort us, that correct us, that bring us back in course, to bring us back to those green places and the still places.

Even when we find you, when you're going through hell, don't stop, keep going, keep going and God's with you and He'll help you get back.

The Holy Spirit is our guide and He'll lead us back to where we're supposed to go, but we got to let Him.

I mean John 1633,.

Jesus talked about trouble to His disciples.

He said in me you'll have peace in the world.

You'll have tribulation, but be of good cheer, get happy about it.

I've overcome the world.

In other words, there is trouble in this world besides the trouble that we induce.

There's just trouble in the world, and Jesus overcame, so we can overcome and he is the overcomer and we are more than conquerors, meaning we reap the benefit of His overcoming and conquering without all the trouble that he experienced, so we could actually get through this world with less trouble than he went through.

When we do what's right on our side, we don't have to have self-induced trouble, but sometimes we do and then we end up with a crazy, convoluted route to get to where we are today.

That's how I feel.

James 1-2 says Count it all.

Joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing, your faith, produces patience.

But let patience have its perfect work.

God is not putting you through this stuff so that you can generate patience Again.

There's plenty of trouble in the world to do that, but when you go through that stuff and don't stop in the middle of it when you go through it, patience has its perfect work, you are being completed, and it says you're lacking nothing.

You've probably seen it on Facebook.

There's memes about this all over, but it's true that during the course of history, we go through cycles of good times and bad times, good times and bad times.

It says that bad times, or hard times, produce strong people and strong people produce good times, and good times produce weak people, and weak people produce hard times.

And so we've got that cycle, and so there's a perfection.

That happens when we go through things and win.

But Jesus said we are overcomers and we can win on these things.

And if you're going through something and you're having a hard time, you feel like you're at your wits end.

There's good news there's no temptation, test or trial taking you, but such is His common demand.

And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.

Again, he's not the tempter, but it says he will give you a way of escape.

And again that convoluted route.

I missed so many escape points and I stayed on a course that I shouldn't have for way too long and I ended up about 800 miles off course before I could finally get back on course.

But don't miss the escapes, and if you do miss one, don't miss the next one, and if you miss that one, don't miss the one after that.

Remember Jesus.

Talking about he who hears these sayings and does them is like the wise man who built his house on the rock.

The fool builds his house on the sand and the wise man builds his house on the rock, on the promises of God's word, on the revelation, knowledge of salvation and who Jesus is, and we build our house on that.

And one house got washed away and the other house was not moved, but it was the same storm.

Both houses same storm, and ours can be the one that stands.

No weapon formed against our house will prosper.

No harm will come near my dwelling.

I am faithful to hear the sayings that Jesus spoke and to do them.

They're not just nice little sayings.

We got to be doers of His word and don't miss those Holy Ghost warnings.

And so again, holy Ghost warnings, early warnings.

Get filled with the Holy Spirit.

If you're not Be continually filled, don't dry up and miss hearing what the Holy Spirit is saying.

Lay aside the weights and the sins, things that get in the way of your ability to hear from the Holy Spirit.

Lay that stuff aside.

Become sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

It is more critical in the day that we're in right now, because the days are even more evil.

There is some stuff coming to this country.

There's an October surprise.

Every time this nation does something to set Israel back, every time this nation does something that, as a reproach on Israel, occurs against Israel, we bring that on this nation.

And there are things that are coming on this nation that we cannot stop and we're not gonna be able to alter the intensity on some of this stuff, but we can alter the outcome for our house, for our family and for our church.

We live in this nation but we're not of this nation.

Our doorposts are marked with the blood of Jesus.

We're gonna stay sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes we miss things, but we're not gonna beat ourselves up.

We're just gonna take the next exit route and get off that course and get right back on course.

And so God's early warning system don't miss them.

They'll save you a lot of trouble, amen.