Whole Heart Qualification

Pick your Bibles up and wave them around.

If you didn't bring a Bible, wave your hand around and maybe next time you come you'll bring a Bible.

Amen.

We teach right out of the Bible.

We don't have any pre-printed material.

It's right here.

This is the only material with God.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, I'm glad for what I witnessed tonight.

I witnessed true Christianity and tonight I'll be taught the Word of God.

There's no accident that I'm here tonight.

I'm destined to hear this message and I will take it to heart and I will put it in practice in Jesus' name.

Amen, amen, praise God.

Let's look at Proverbs, chapter four tonight.

Proverbs, chapter four, and we'll start reading with verse 20.

My son, attend to my words.

Incline thine ear unto my sayings.

Let them not depart from thine eyes, but keep them in the midst of thine heart, for they that is my words are life under those that find them and health.

Or, in my margin, says medicine, medicine to all their flesh, medicine to all their flesh, verse 23,.

Keep thy heart, with all diligence.

In my margin it says keep your heart, above all, keeping Sounds like it's priority.

Keep your heart.

Keep your heart, why?

For out of it, that is, out of your spirit.

So he's not talking about your blood pump, he's talking about your spirit.

Out of it are the issues of life.

Put away from thee a forward mouth and a perverse lips put far from thee.

Let thine eyes look right on and let your eyelids look straight before thee.

Ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established.

Turn not to the right hand nor to the left.

Remove your foot from evil.

And you know, tonight I wanted to just share a message briefly.

I don't want to take a long time, because we've been in church already for a while.

But the children are taking out.

They've got their service going on.

The youth have got their service going on.

So we're gonna linger here a little bit, and I'm talking about whole heart qualification, qualified qualification.

You know, sometimes we get so fixated on the fact that we're saved and we're on our way to heaven.

But you know we're not there yet.

We all have a purpose for living.

We all have a purpose that God created us to accomplish and it's called the believer's ministry.

You know we speak a lot about that in this church.

Everybody say the believer's ministry and everybody's got a part to play.

The body of Christ is a wonderful thing to think about.

The body of Christ, you know, christ is the head and we're the body.

Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father.

We're in Christ in that way, but physically we're down here on earth, and so we all have a part to play in manifesting Jesus.

I mean, you know I'm talking about this morning.

You know it takes the supernatural to prove that Christ is alive now.

It takes the supernatural to prove to people.

That's what happened to me all those years ago.

I had to see a miracle.

I was raised Catholic, and Catholics believe in miracles that are at least 100 years old.

See, they don't believe in miracles today.

They believe in miracles back in Fatima.

They believe in miracles back here, way back there.

Saints so and so pray for us.

Saints so and so pray for us.

They pray.

You know, they believe in miracles.

But I've never seen a miracle, and the first time I saw a bonafide miracle and made me realize you know what?

God Jesus is alive.

It's not just a figure, he's not just a figure on a page, he's not just a historical figure.

He's alive right now, because there's no way that could have happened unless Jesus is alive.

And so that's what we've got to have.

And so this qualification, you know there's a.

When I read these verses, you know I see some things that we need to pay attention to as Christians.

We need to pay attention to our own lives so that we can have our hearts, keep our hearts with, above all keeping.

For out of our heart, out of our spirit, are the issues of life, Life, the God kind of life issues out of our heart.

If we don't keep track of our heart, we don't protect how we're thinking and how we, the decisions that we make.

We make decisions based on the flesh, based on what's our advantages for us, and we don't take into account what does the word say Amen.

So I want us to turn back over here to 1 Samuel, chapter 16.

1 Samuel 16 · chapter mention

And I wanted to use a couple of Bible figures that were mightily used of God.

The two figures are King Saul and King David.

King Saul is an example of somebody that was King, that God picked out to be King and didn't keep his heart above all keeping, and became disqualified Master.

This is sounding kind of dismal.

No, it's not dismal, it's just.

You know, my job is to teach people that they need to live for God their whole life.

Just because you've got it made, you're on your way to heaven, doesn't mean you can get by with just doing anything.

I'm not talking about going to hell for your behavior.

I'm talking about God setting you aside and saying, okay, I'm not gonna trust you with this job I have called you designed for.

How many of you wanna do something for God Say we can never pay him back for what he's done for us, but yet on the other side we do have a believer's ministry.

There are people in this world that we're designed to reach, and if we don't reach them, they're not gonna be reached.

So we need to be qualified, called qualified and then commissioned or set in place.

So let's look at First Samuel.

Do you find it?

Chapter 16.

And Samuel, of course, was an awesome prophet.

He was a fearsome looking man.

He had hair all over him, he had long hair and he had a hairy beard, and I mean he had fierce eyes.

And you know, prophets in the Old Testament were fearsome people.

I mean, when they spoke they stood for God.

In the Old Testament, they only had the priest, the prophet and the king that had the Holy Spirit upon them.

So when the prophet spoke, it was God speaking.

That's how that Jews looked at it.

So when the prophet came to town, they all scattered.

They were afraid.

They were afraid the prophets were gonna say something to them that they didn't wanna hear.

And Samuel looked the part.

And so let's look at Verse 1, I'm talking about now whole heart qualification.

You know, we've got to qualify for the ministry God called us to.

There's a testing, a lot of these young.

You heard my son, jay, talking about some of these young people having things in their lives that they've had to overcome.

You know, at a young age we've got these teenagers.

They've come from backgrounds and I mean they've had all kinds of things that they've had to challenges and all of this kind of thing that they've had to overcome.

And of course, in our youth ministry we become very acquainted with those challenges because we walk with them through it and we pray over them through it and we love on them through it.

But you know what?

Everything's a test.

I mean, you know how many of you have had difficulty.

You know God doesn't send the difficulty but he won't waste it.

This is our chance to prove to God that we are up to the challenge of ministering to people.

So the Lord said unto Samuel, the prophet how long would you mourn for Saul?

See, saul was a king installed by Samuel.

How long are you gonna mourn for?

How long are you gonna mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel?

Man, I mean, that's a job to lose, isn't it?

How would you like to be king and get fired?

I wish somebody would fire Biden, but then I think about who's gonna take his place.

Kamala Harris, oh my God.

We'd have to go way down the list, you know, all the way down to the speaker of the house.

You know we could find out what he's all about.

He started laughing.

Anyway, sorry, you always talk about politics.

I'm sorry, all right.

So how long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel?

Fill your horn with oil and go, and I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided.

Be a king among his sons.

So God had somebody in mind.

God had somebody in mind to take Saul's place.

Saul will get more into what he had done wrong.

And so Samuel said how can I go if Saul hears about it?

He was gonna kill me.

I saw was me.

Saul was rugged.

And the Lord said take a heifer with you and say I'm come to sacrifice to the Lord and call Jesse to the sacrifice and I will show you what you shall do and you shall anoint unto me whom I name unto thee.

And so Samuel did that which the Lord spoke and came to Bethlehem and the elders of the town trembled at his coming.

Didn't I tell you they were not happy to see Samuel.

They thought he was there to rain down fire from heaven.

They trembled and said come as thou peaceably.

He said, peaceably, I'm come to sacrifice under the Lord.

Sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.

And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and called them to the sacrifice.

It came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on a live and said surely the Lord's anointed is before him.

In other words, this boy looks really good, he's a handsome lad, he's tall and handsome and he must be the Lord's choice.

But the Lord said unto him Samuel, look not on his countenance.

In other words, don't look on his outside.

Don't look on the outside or the height of his stature, because I have refused him.

I've refused him man.

What did the liab do?

Well, I can tell you what he didn't do.

He didn't keep his heart above all keeping.

I have refused him, for the Lord sees not as a man sees, for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh upon the heart.

So now we know why we need to keep our heart.

Above all keeping.

We need to keep our heart because God is watching when you can look real good to other people.

You can look good on the outside, but what's on the inside is what God is interested in, and this is what's gonna make and break your ministry.

Everybody say I have a ministry.

See, are you a believer?

Then you've got a ministry.

You have a ministry.

You might not know what it is, you might.

It might come as news to you that you've got one, but you do.

And think about what God chose.

He chose you to live right now, in the last days.

I'm telling you Jesus is coming soon.

I said Jesus is coming soon.

I don't have a date for you, but I just.

I know the signs and I said this two weeks ago, on Resurrection Sunday or a week ago.

The biggest sign that I know anything about is Israel.

Israel is the regathering of the Jewish people into their promised land.

It's a miracle they had been scattered through the entire world.

And in my generation, since I've been born, they have come from far and wide.

They've come from South America, they've come from Asia, they've come from Africa.

They've come from places that nobody even guessed there were any Jews, like little homing pigeons.

It's supernatural.

And guess what?

A lot of these Jewish people aren't even people of the book.

They don't even know God.

That's another miracle.

They don't even believe of the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob.

They hardly know about that.

They're persecuted for it, but they don't know it.

And how is that true?

Well, because God said that that's what's gonna happen in the last days before Jesus comes.

He's gonna regather his children into Israel, and Israel wasn't even a country until 1948.

And then, when the day they became a nation, that's when five Arab countries attacked them.

It's a miracle that they exist.

It's a miracle that there is a place for Israel, for the Jewish people, to go back to.

And so just think about how God has chosen you to live right now.

And so we need to do what the Bible says, and we need to make sure that we pass the qualifications.

How many of you are interested in making sure that you can prove to God.

You know what.

I'm up for the challenge you picked me to live now.

I'm gonna live for you 100%.

I'm not gonna just look good, I'm gonna be good inside.

See, there's just too much greasy grace, too many people just working on the mercy of God.

We're not supposed to live on the mercy of God, we're supposed to live by faith.

The just shall live by faith, not live by mercy.

Does God have mercy?

Yes, he does, but really the church needs to rise up and start living the kind of life that God had in mind for us to live, and that's supernatural life.

But we're gonna have to pass some tests, aren't we?

So Saul flunked, saul was rejected and he became a castaway.

You know, paul had I mean Saul had heart trouble.

He had the fear of man.

When you read back in the previous chapters, you find out that he had the fear of man, that he cared more about what man thought than what God thought, that he was always trying to please man, trying to please his own underlings, and so he had a sort of an insecurity inside of him.

And I've observed this and, walking with the Lord as many years as I have, I've seen been around people of God and I've seen this type of insecurity, this fear of man, where you feel like you've got to please everybody and you don't really think that much about pleasing the Lord.

You know, pleasing God is the number one issue, not pleasing man.

And then you know so he had heart trouble, the fear of man, he was insecure and then he had high cholesterol.

I'm using physical.

You know he had high cholesterol.

What is that?

Well, he had pride.

He had a high opinion of himself.

That's what happens to people that are insecure and that have the fear of man.

They gather men and women around them that will give them a lot of yes, they're yes men.

They put around them people that will give them a oh.

That was a great message, pastor man.

That's the best message and I appreciate encouragement.

People sometimes tell me that, but I mean I don't try to heat around me people that'll just give me praise.

All my staff knows they've got, you know, safe harbor.

They can tell me what they really see, think and feel about things.

If they're disturbed about something, they have freedom to come and tell me what it is that they're concerned about.

I don't care about a bunch of yes men.

It's what I liked about Trump.

He didn't have just yes men around him, same as Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan would pit one person against another on his staff.

His closest advisors would get into a screaming argument and he would decide which one had the best argument and go with that one.

He didn't.

He didn't look for yes men.

So Trump was the same way.

That's how Trump built and became a billionaire is not by having yes men around him.

He had people that would tell him the accurate truth, give him the accurate what they felt, and then he would.

He would test it, he would go back and forth.

That's a leader.

Saul had high cholesterol.

Saul wanted to have yes men.

He wanted to have people that would pet him and build him up, tell him he's great.

Samuel was not that.

Samuel the prophet was not like that.

Samuel told him the truth.

In fact, samuel said when you were little in your own eyes, god chose you to be king over Israel Because when he was first selected, he was hiding behind the, the stuff.

He found a place to hide.

He was so, and you know, afraid and he was humbled and he wouldn't do anything but somewhere along the line.

See, he had these weaknesses, and God knew that when he selected him.

Why did?

Why was Saul selected in the beginning?

Because God knew that that's what Israel would have elected.

If they had elected a king, they would have elected Saul because he was tall and handsome.

He looked just like a king should look, but he had heart trouble.

He had high cholesterol.

He had some hidden things that only God could see on the inside.

God saw all of it and it was God's way of judgment against Israel for ever wanting a king.

Because God wanted to be their king.

He never wanted them to have a king.

You know why they wanted one.

They wanted to look like everybody else Does.

That sounds familiar.

I mean, that sounds just like the Democrats.

They want to look like Europe.

They want to look like communism.

They want to look like all these other failed places on the earth instead of America.

Why are you turning again?

Well, I don't know.

It's just ending, all right.

And then the last thing he had he had blocked arteries.

He had blocked arteries, he had lacked integrity.

You couldn't depend on the man to tell you the truth.

He lied to Samuel.

He intruded into the office of the priest.

You know the king, the priest, the prophet and the king.

The king had no business offering a sacrifice.

He offered a sacrifice because the prophet Samuel was a little late getting to the meeting.

And then he lied about killing the Amalekites.

Well, I killed most of them.

I just kept all the cattle.

And he didn't kill all the Amalekites.

God Commanded that he killed the Amalekites and he didn't do it.

So here we are.

So, god, he said Samuel, how come you're sad?

Get over here and do what I tell you.

I'm gonna anoint the next king.

You're gonna pour a horn of oil on his head and he's gonna be the next king.

And I don't have time to get into all of that.

But it was David.

David was the last on anybody's list.

He was not on the short list to be king of Israel.

In fact, he wasn't present.

When Samuel got to town, he was in the back 40 watching his daddy sheep.

And when all the brothers filed up before the prophet and God said nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, and Samuel said run out of kids.

He got any boy.

You got any other boys around it.

Well, yes, david, yeah, he's like little old shrimp back there watching the sheep get him over here.

And that was the Lord's anointed, he poured the whole horn of oil on David.

I mean, you know, not by might nor by resume, but by my spirit, sayeth the Lord.

You know, thank God for a good resume.

But resume doesn't mean much.

Resumes can be faked.

They're finding that out all of you.

A lot of resumes are just fake.

You don't find out what you got till you put them to work.

And they don't want to work, they don't want to do anything, I just want to get paid.

They don't even want to come to work, they want to work from home.

This is what I'm hearing.

Oh, I'm telling you.

So David's anointing, see, he got the anointing.

He got the horn of our port on him.

David's anointing signal the end of Saul.

And and like a tree, saw, it took a while for Saul to die.

He didn't die overnight, he did, even though God was through with him.

Can you imagine?

So let's look back here at first.

Samuel, verse 13.

Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren.

See, this is, this is David.

And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.

So Samuel rose up and went to Rama and left.

He done his job, but the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.

So the the coming of the anointing upon David.

Was he King?

No, but the anointing came on.

Was Saul still King?

Yeah, but the anointing left him to be king.

Can you imagine being king without the anointing?

Can you imagine being called to do something and having no Holy Spirit to help you?

And that was the situation, was all.

So it says here and it gives people trouble.

I'm just gonna mention this real quick the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.

Well, they didn't come from God.

Well, why does it say that?

It says that God sent the evil.

No, he didn't send it to me, because the Bible is progressive revelation.

They didn't know anything about the devil, they didn't know how the devil operated.

Essentially, what it was is that Once the Holy Ghost only, they only had the Holy Spirit upon them to do the job.

Once the Holy Spirit was lifted off of them, then now that they're just basically lost their, their children of the devil anyway, they're spiritually dead men With a spirit upon them to do the job.

So when the spirit was taken off of him and given to, this can only be one king, and that anointing went to David, even though he wasn't king yet.

Are y'all, are you following me, so then?

So then the spirit left Saul and so he reverted back to being a normal person that's lost and undone, without God, and didn't even have the spirit of who God upon him anymore.

And so then he was open the door for the devil then to be with him, and he tormented him, and guess who they got to help him out when that happened?

They picked Sam David to come and play them, play the harp, and whenever David would sing and worship God and play the harp, the devil would leave Saul alone and he would get a little bit of comfort.

Isn't that amazing how God put them together like this.

And one of them is dying Like a tree, slowly, the other one is growing like a tree, and Over a period of years.

We know the stories.

You know Saul was killed in battle, and it's another little, a little part of this, the.

You know, god did bypass surgery.

He just bypassed Saul and inserted David.

My little heart, my little heart, disease, his Illustration.

God did bypass surgery, bypassed Saul and and and and rewired force for for David to take his place.

So we have a lot of souls and David's.

Now there's a lot of souls running churches.

They've self-appointed pastors, self-appointed ministers especially now after COVID, you've got a bunch of self-appointed ministers online.

You've got a bunch of false People that have never really they don't have the anointing to do what they're doing, they're just filling a slot.

Boy.

Say it matters where you go to church.

I said it matters where you go to church.

But then you've got David.

Just because you've got a soul, you've always got David.

You've always got God, you've always got David.

You've always got people that have passed the test and they have kept their heart above all keeping, and God is able to anoint them to do the job.

Praise God, say I'm gonna count myself as one of them.

Say count yourself as one of those.

I mean I don't want to be a Saul, I want to be a David.

Amen.

I Don't want to get fired.

I Said I don't want to be rejected.

Well, what do you mean?

I mean I think once saved.

Always say well, I believe that for me, I Was once saved and I'm gonna stay saved and I'm never going back to the devil.

See, we're not talking about salvation, we're talking about ministry.

We're talking about when God selects you to do something and he anoints you to do something for him in the kingdom.

You're gonna have to prove to God that you can have the spiritual chops to do it.

You're gonna have to be qualified.

You're gonna have to pass some tests.

I'm standing here tonight because I passed a whole bunch of tests.

I don't mind telling you I Passed a bunch of tests or I wouldn't be here, I'd be in heaven, I'd be someplace else.

I've seen guys that Went to heaven early.

I Mean I could name five or six just off top of my head that I used to know right, real well, and they Wunked a few tests and they wound up in heaven.

I didn't go to hell, they just they got disqualified, they got, they got sidetracked.

I in favor of a few Davids like us.

You know we've got some Davids around here, so I can encourage you along these lines keep your heart, above all keeping.

So what does the Bible say?

How do I do that?

So when I read Proverbs, chapter four, I see what Saul didn't do and I saw what David did do.

Proverbs chapter four.

Let's read verse 23 again.

Do you find Proverbs Leave Samuel, because I'm done with that.

How many of you want to pass the test.

See, I'm not talking about going to heaven, I'm talking about ministry, because every believer has a ministry.

And you're not gonna get to do your ministry unless you're willing to be qualified.

Well, you know a pastor, god has called me to such and such.

I hear people like that all the time.

They'll come in the church.

They're just new, and God has called me to such and such.

Well, that's great if he's called you, but you've got a whole lot of qualifying.

That has to happen first, and how you work in this church will qualify you.

Whether you're not, you're gonna be used in that way.

So everybody say called, qualified and commissioned.

See, some people think the calling is it.

No, the calling is just the beginning, it's just the seed.

It has to be developed, it has to be honed, it has to be trained, it has to pass the test and then, and only then, are you released into it.

So Proverbs 20, 23, four excuse me, proverbs 4, 23.

Keep your heart above all keeping, for out of it are the issues of life.

So we read verses 23, 27.

And I see two parts.

I see what to do and then what not to do.

What to do and what not to do.

Everybody say what to do.

See on your to do list and what not to do.

The not to do list.

There are some.

Don't do To do and don't do.

All right to do.

What to do and then what to avoid.

What to do is says in verse one attend to my words.

In other words, pay attention, harken, put the word first place.

The word of God has to be first in your life.

I mean, whenever anything happens to you, the first inclination is what does the Bible say about my circumstance?

What does the Bible say about?

I see a lot of young people.

You meet a young person and you start thinking well, I think I might wanna date that person.

Well, what does the Bible say about the person you ought to date?

Well, it tells you to stay away from unbelievers.

That's what it says.

If you want a misery, just go as a little Christian person, go out and date an unbeliever and you'll just date the devil.

Then I mean, that's what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians.

No, stay away from unbelievers, stick to believers, because dating is a prelude to marriage.

At some point, I mean, when are you gonna draw the line?

If you let yourself date unbelievers, you're gonna wind up marrying an unbeliever.

Glad it's married an unbeliever.

But God bailed her out.

She didn't know I was an unbeliever, she thought I was a good little Catholic boy.

But I was lost as a goose.

But God bailed her out.

Amen, thank God for that.

All right.

So put the word first place.

And it says attend to my words.

See, he makes pay attention.

It says to listen to my word and then it says to look.

You know, let it not depart from my eyes, but keep in the midst of thine heart, see, look.

So you ought to be attending, listening and looking at the word of God.

That's the things that you do if you wanna keep your heart.

Above all, keeping.

And it has to be done on purpose, it has to be done intentionally.

I mean you've gotta make time every day to read your Bible and pray.

Everybody's gotta do that if you wanna be able to help people in this world.

How many of you have seen some people out there that need a lot of help?

I mean they're everywhere.

People are filled with fear, they're filled with deception.

They've been deceived, they've been lied to.

They're you know, they need what you've got.

I said they need what you've got and just thinking about all these people that got baptized and Jay was speaking over their future.

See, their future completely changed.

Now, when they come up out of that war, they're raised in newness of life and they're gonna be sent out.

That's where we're all sent out, to that, all that out there, that's where we need to help, all right.

And then it says what to avoid.

So it tells you there the things that you need to stay away from.

And it says, verse 24, put away from thee a forward mouth and perverse lips, put far from thee.

What in the world does that mean?

Well, it means lying, gossip, critical spirit, resistant to change.

I know it all.

Spirit unteachable, that's Saul.

Saul just went around.

He thought, cause he's king, he could get by with just hitting the high spots.

Oh, I'm the king, it doesn't matter.

Well, it mattered.

He wound up being disqualified.

Somebody else took his place.

Stubborn, independent spirit.

There's a lot of that in America.

Is there that in Bulgaria, in America?

See, in America there's an independent spirit.

See, people in America.

You know they bring like I can do what I've got, freedom, I'm gonna do what I want.

Oh, you know, the church is not a democracy.

The church is not a democracy.

Jesus is Lord, he's the ruler, he's the master.

You don't get to do just anything you want.

So, for instance, you know.

People say, you know what?

I just get up and I go to church whenever the Holy ghost comes to me.

The Holy ghost tells me I'll go to this church, I'll go to that church.

Is that how the army works?

You just show up at an outfit.

Hi, general, I'm Corporal Jones and I've showed up to be a blessing to you.

You know you're assigned an outfit.

You've got to show up there and if you don't, you're AWOL.

You might spend some time in the brig.

God's a lot more merciful than that.

People have the idea that the church is like Lubies you can just go down the line and pick and choose what you want.

Now give me some beans over here.

Let me have some collard greens.

No, I don't want those.

Oh, the candy gems, nah, no, no, we look.

You know God is in charge, jesus is Lord.

And so we have to change our culture in the modern church in order to do what God wants us to do.

So that's a forward mouth, perverse, that put far from you.

And then it says in verse 25, let your eyes look right on and let your eyelid look straight before thee.

So looking at evil.

And then the next one is says ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established.

Turn not to the right hand or the left.

Remove your foot from evil.

So what happens is there's a progression.

If you start looking at evil, pretty soon you're gonna walk toward it and you're gonna get in the middle of it.

And we've got to be separate from evil.

We've got to separate ourselves.

That's sanctification.

We've got to separate ourselves from evil.

We've got to be part of the solution to it.

We've got to preach about it.

We've got to hate evil.

Fear of the Lord is to hate evil.

Pride and arrogance in every evil way.

We hate it.

We're not gonna stand for all this legislation that's coming down that's approving our children to be mutilated with these drugs and they put a nice gender affirming care.

No, it's not care, it's child abuse.

It needs to be illegal.

Come on church, speak up.

If we don't say something, it's gonna happen.

And so we have to realize if we look at evil, then we're gonna wind up walking toward it and we're gonna be right in the middle of it.

God said avoid that.

He said avoid it.

Keep your heart above all keeping, for out of it are the issues of life.

And so, are you getting anything out of this tonight?

Just a short little Bible study just to encourage you.

That's what this church is about, is about waking up the church to some of these things, because a lot of people don't wanna touch these things.

Well, that's politics, a separation of church and state.

There's no such thing in the Constitution, and the separation of church and state is misused and mishandled.

It's really not.

It doesn't have anything to do with the church.

I've got freedom of speech.

I can say anything I wanna say, especially about moral issues, and I do.

Now, if the government finds out and says something about it and doesn't like it, and they take our tax exempt status away from them, well, that's what they'll have to do, but we're gonna keep doing what we're doing and we're not afraid.

This is America.

Unless until we, the church, just says, okay, we'll go ahead and take my right, my freedom of speech, my freedom of assembly, freedom of free association, all of my rights that God gave me.

I'm gonna go ahead and let the government take them away.

No, we're not, because they didn't come from government.

The government's there to ensure that we keep them.

So.

So anyway, you know, back in 2001, I went away to Galveston after the 9-11 had happened and I wanted to find out more about what was going on in the world.

And God began to speak to me about some state of the church and what our role was gonna be.

And it gave me a powerful word back then.

It's been 22 years ago, almost 21 and a half years ago, and he said the authority and the responsibility.

And he used the word booty, like pirate, booty like treasure, like spoils, and provision.

So those four things authority, responsibility, booty and provision of another has been transferred to you.

And he said I've already interviewed your replacement.

If you're not faithful over it and I will take it away from you and give it to another.

See, that's exactly what happened to Saul.

Now, this is after we've passed and this is not when I was at Lakewood.

I had to pass a lot of tests when I was at Lakewood to even get to where I was there, but once I started my own church, you think you're through.

No, you're not through passing tests, you're not through proving that you're gonna do the hard things when God tells you to do them.

Because, why?

Because it's not about growing a big church, it's not about pleasing the members, it's not about pleasing anybody but him.

I've had to do things that some people didn't approve of.

I preached right here about politics and had people whole family get up and just walk right out of the door on a Sunday morning.

Well, evidently I offended them.

Well, I'm so sorry, but I'm gonna say what I'm saying.

You don't like it.

I like what Brother Osteen used to say if I'm rubbing the cats further wrong way, let the cat turn to ramp.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You know he's already interviewed my replacement.

That's something I have never forgotten all these 20 years.

I mean, I know that I am on the clock, that God is watching me Not to go to heaven or hell.

He's watching my ministry.

He's watching whether I'm gonna do what I've been told to do, and so we're busy about doin what he told us to do.

Amen.

Late in life, david quit, keeping his heart so diligently.

You know he started off in life being real diligent about that and his first part of his reign as king he reigned over Judah and Benjamin for seven and a half years.

And then all of Israel came to him and he unified the Northern and Southern kingdoms and he was king over all of Israel.

But he quit keeping his heart so diligently and he didn't ponder the path of his feet in 2 Samuel 11.

He was supposed to be with his troops in battle it was time for kings to go to battle in that season.

But he was home in Jerusalem and he looked out his window and spied Bathsheba and coveted her and took her and had her husband, who rides with a hitchhike, had him killed in battle.

Said told Joab, put him in a place where he'll be attacked and make sure that he doesn't come home.

And so he did that.

I mean basically adultery and murder.

I mean this is pretty bad and God forgave him.

He repented, god forgave him, god forgave him.

But then later in 2 Samuel 24, see, you know, he didn't keep his eyes, he didn't remove his feet from evil.

Amen Didn't do the proverbs.

Later on, god told him I don't want you to take a census.

I don't want you to trust in the number of troops you have.

I don't want you to number your kingdom.

You leave that to me.

Don't take a census.

Well, he was determined to take a census.

He sent Joab and his mighty men out and they all argued with him.

Joab pled with him.

He said look the Lord, make you just so powerful, bless your kingdom, but please don't do this thing.

Don't make us go out there and count these people.

You know, god told you not to do it.

See, they tried to talk sense into him and he wouldn't listen to them.

He turned into Saul, didn't he?

He's looking for, yes, man, he's looking for people that will do what he tells them without any hesitation.

Well, they did hesitate, but they eventually, I mean, they had to do what he said.

So they did, and God punished Israel and he had to bear the punishment of it and it did repent.

But my point is that it resulted in grave difficulty for his kingdom and for his descendants.

He sowed a bad seed, and I don't say this now.

I know we live in the new covenant.

We have a better covenant than David did, found upon better promises.

This is one thing that's absolutely true today, as it was then.

You cannot make up by the sacrifice of prayer what you lose through disobedience.

To disobey God always costs you.

Yes, god can forgive you and will forgive you if you recognize that you've done that.

We believe in that.

But the consequences sometimes are still there.

I see it all the time.

I see where people had risen to a stage where God was about to use them and then they make some terrible mistakes, the terrible things that they know better than to do.

They just violate what we've been talking about tonight.

And I'm not talking about going to hell.

I'm not talking about that.

We don't go to hell for sin.

Jesus took that.

But what I'm talking about is that God will take his assignment away from you and give it to somebody else that will obey him.

So, in a sense, god's looked for my.

He's already interviewed my replacement.

He interviewed me to replace somebody else.

I don't know who that person was, that he was talking about authority, responsibility, booty, provision for another.

He's given unto you, transferred to you.

I know I wasn't his first choice.

Doing what I'm doing right now Wasn't his first choice.

You might not be his first choice for what you're doing.

He's already interviewed your replacement, amen.

So let's live to pass that test, let's be qualified, let's submit to the qualification process so that God can use us in these last days to reap a mighty, mighty harvest, amen.

How many of you committed to doing that?

Come on, lift your hands.

God's watching, god's watching, amen.

Hallelujah.

Did you get anything out of this?

Well, I got three grunts and four old maize, and I wish I had skipped this part of the service.

No, you don't.

This is meat.

Meat, you chew on it and you get the benefit of it.

Hallelujah, thank you, lord.