Being Increased Minded

Get our Bibles up and out and wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together say, heavenly Father, I am hungry and thirsty for more.

And you said, lord, that you would feel literally that you would gorge those.

You would just fill us to overflowing if we're hungry and thirsty.

So tonight we believe we've received revelation that will change our lives forever, in Jesus' name.

That's the thing about the Word.

It'll change your life forever once you grab ahold of it.

Let's look at Isaiah, chapter 54.

Isaiah 54 · chapter mention

And we'll start reading with verse one and it says here the prophet Isaiah speaking to Israel, here in the Bible, but I believe it goes beyond Israel and right to us tonight.

It says sing, o barren.

Thou did that, did not bear.

Break forth into singing and cry out, you that did not travail with child, for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife.

Saith the Lord, enlarge the place of your tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitation.

Spare not, scant not lengthen your cords.

Strengthen your stakes, for you shall break forth on the right hand and on the left, and your seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.

Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed, neither be thou confounded or confused, for thou shalt not be put to shame, for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth and shall not remember the reproach of thy widowhood anymore.

For thy maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is his name, and Dibrodemer is the Holy One of Israel.

The God of the whole earth shall he be called.

And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled being increased minded.

Increased minded.

We have to labor because, as human beings, the whole world is wired to be negative.

It's wired to look at the negative side of things, and so, as Christians, we have to renew our minds to God's word, and we have to remember that God has very big plans.

I mean, he's got bigger plans and we've been able to catch up with.

So we have to remember that he has a history of making great from small.

He has a history of making many from few, strong from weak, making people free that were bound.

I mean, god is just an amazing God.

He's not the God of the little bitty, he's the God of the great big, he's the God of exceeding abundantly above.

And so I just wanna encourage you.

And he's saying here in Isaiah he's saying to the barren woman and of course you have to understand the Bible to be a barren woman, that is a woman who is not able to bear children.

It is the lowest of the low.

When you come across these women in the Bible, they're always sad and forlorn.

They feel like they're being punished for something.

They don't even know why.

And it's in the sociological world and their religious world.

I mean, they were on the bottom of the heap.

And he's saying to the barren woman hey, it's time to sing and to shout Listen, you're gonna have more kids than the married woman, because the Lord is your husband.

I mean just this.

You know, you're gonna be more fruitful than those that you think have it made.

So, in other words, he's saying be increased minded.

And we need to keep that in mind right now, with inflation and the double digit range.

Don't forget, don't listen to these 6%.

It's not 6%, it's more like 16%, and I don't care what, how percentage it is.

You know what.

We're in a different kingdom, we go by different rules and we have every Bible right to be increased minded.

I mean, whatever the price is, we've got the supply to pay that price.

And so in Isaiah's prophecy.

Here's I mentioned when we started.

You know he's prophesying to the Jews, but he's also going right past the Jews and into the church.

Not every prophecy of the Bible is like that.

Some prophecies are only for the Jews at that time and, you know, some of the word is only for the believers in the church, but this prophecy is for both.

You see, the church was barren before Pentecost.

Think about it.

The church, you know, right after the resurrection, you know what were the disciples doing, the 11 that were left?

You know, one committed suicide and died and so they had 11.

And what were they doing?

Well, they were hiding.

They were behind closed doors, worried.

You know, even after they saw Jesus risen from the dead, they still were in doubt.

They still, in fact, on his way out of town, when Jesus was going up to heaven, on his way there, in Matthew 28, he rebuked them for their doubt and unbelief and hardness of heart because they didn't believe the women that said that they had seen him risen from the dead.

They doubted, and so they were barren, they were small, they were confined behind closed doors and they were fearful.

But then you have Pentecost, where the Holy Ghost was poured out there in the upper room, in the 120, they turned into blazing evangelists.

I mean, they were preaching the word of God to everybody that would listen.

And you know, every time you have a revival it's the same.

It's usually a waning, there's a decrease, the church looks like it's irrelevant, the church, it looks like it's back slid, the church looks asleep, and then revival comes and everything is energized and you see the Lord of hosts, the Lord of the armies of heaven, and that's Jesus, the head of the church.

You see him commanding the angels and I'm telling you, there's always a massive influx of people getting saved.

And so this applies now.

You know you've got you've got a church that's mostly asleep, but I see signs that it's waking up.

I see some ripples across.

You know there was some revival fires burning there in Kentucky, and they weren't the only.

There was another college, I think, in near, I think, pensacola.

There was another college and there's several other colleges across the country that were having prayer meetings that went for days at a time and students.

It was mostly student led.

They were not led by famous TV preachers, they were led by the students and their hunger.

And so there's some ripples across the country, you know, and we're beginning to see some things that are different.

And I'm just telling you, there's a great end time, harvest that's coming.

So we have to be increased minded, we need to be ready.

You know he talks about the Lord of the armies of heaven.

That's the same Lord of the armies of heaven that James, chapter five, talks about.

And so be increased minded.

We can pick up some of these points out of the verses, the three verses here in the book of Isaiah.

You know, this particular prophecy means a lot to me because it just seems like in the spring of the year, I remember, especially in the spring of 1987, then again in the spring of 1988, god brought these verses to me because I was just being tempted to be small minded and to be, you know, lack minded and to be, you know, because in 87 I was unemployed and 88, I was unemployed again.

You know, you, just at the spring of the year, you think everything's looking up, you know it's greening up.

Trees are putting on the red bud, trees are blooming in February, and you know, the trees are putting on leaves and the grass is greening up, and here Griner is, you know, doing well out, you know, and so I needed I mean I needed this word, man.

I mean I began to just do what it says.

I've had to live it.

And so, being increased minded, let's look at it.

The first one I see here is in verse one.

He said sing and break forth into singing.

So we need to rejoice in expectation of what's coming.

You know it's hard to just sing about what's going on.

It's hard to praise God for the present time it doesn't look that good.

Well, we're not looking at that.

We're looking at what's happening, what's coming down the pike.

I mean I just believe we're right on the edge of a greatest revival and the greatest influx of finances into the church on top of that, because it's going to take a lot of money to reap that harvest.

So rejoice in expectation of what's coming.

God has big plans.

We're going to have to run to keep up with him and just yeah, just thank God that you're part of it.

You weren't chosen to live in frontier days.

You weren't chosen to live in the 17th century, the 18th century, 19th century, even the 20th century.

You lived part of it in 20th century.

But look, I mean you're living right now.

This is when it all is happening and there's no fear.

You know I like the part you know I really needed this one that he said you know, fear not, you shall not be ashamed, neither be thou confounded, for thou shall not be put to shame.

Oh, I was sorely tempted to be ashamed.

You know, all of my adult life I had made a good living, I had lived well, I had plenty of money and I provided well for my family.

And then, all of a sudden, things hit that I wasn't prepared for and it was hard to get excited about what was in front of me.

Frankly, I didn't know other than the word of God.

You know, god put this word in me and I had to get excited.

I started singing in, rejoicing and no matter what I was going through.

So God's got big plans.

There's no fear, no confusion, no shame.

You don't have to be ashamed.

If you're struggling financially or struggling in your health, or struggling whatever in your relationships, you don't have to be ashamed.

There's, you'll not be confounded or put.

You know, confounded means discombobulated.

You know, confused, not knowing what to do.

I had to speak these words over myself because there were times when I didn't really know what to do about my situation, and so we have to prepare for big.

You have to forget the failures, you know.

You have to forget the bad stuff, you know, quit, you know.

I like to say break off your rear view mirror, because you quit looking in the rear view mirror so much.

And the failures of the past, the previous disappointments, greater works are in the offering.

You know, I like 1 Peter 1-8, rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory Inexpressible.

There's only one way to rejoice that way, and that's in tongues.

You just sing in tongues, rejoice in tongues.

And so that's number one on the list.

If you want to have a, if you want to be increased minded, you've got to do something about rejoicing.

You've got to do something about getting excited about what you haven't seen yet, all right.

And then it says not only that, but it says lengthen your cords, or literally your ropes.

What in the world?

Well, they're talking about a tent.

You know it's talking about a tent, and a tent, you know, had cords or ropes, you know, and had a center pole, and you know.

And that speaks of being a person under authority.

I mean, you're going to have to get under authority, and preferably under the authority of a local church.

Since COVID, we have a lot of people that have broken themselves out from the church.

Their church left them and they haven't gone out to find the church where they belong and they're out of order.

And let me tell you something the increase is not gonna come to you because you're not a person under authority.

You have allowed yourself to be offended at the church.

I mean, just because your church did some things they shouldn't have done doesn't mean the whole church is like that.

You need to get up off your blessed assurance and find the church where you belong.

Start praying that way, start getting excited.

You know, god, you've got a place for me.

I'm gonna go find it.

And people are starting to come around here and find that this is their place.

We've had numbers of people that have hooked up with us.

So, be a person under authority, get tied to the center pole, get tied to that.

And he said you're gonna make room for increase.

He said Enlarge the place of your tent.

So if you're thinking of a tent, you're gonna break forth on the right hand and on the left.

See.

Well, if that's true, how can you do that unless you get taller?

See, because a tent if you start getting the roof too flat.

That's happened to me when I was camping.

I didn't get the roof steep enough and so when it rained, all the water leaked through that old canvas and we had back then we had canvas tents.

They were, oh man, they were lousy and they were hot, and the water came through there like it wasn't even you know.

It was just pooled up in there Cause the tent was kind of flopping like this.

No, you gotta get that center pole higher so that you can stretch the sides bigger and still have the slope necessary to get the water to run off.

So as the tent grows, the center pole gets taller, the cords get longer, and so what happens?

Everything has to change, and I see people they're not prepared for growth.

Growth means change.

It means change and you have to change with it.

Now I see a lot of people that have been in a church for a long time and they have this feeling or sense of entitlement Well, I've been here longer than anybody, I shouldn't have to change.

Well, yeah, you do.

You have to change.

You have to grab a hold of that rope in a different place, otherwise you're gonna be dangling off of the floor of the tent about 25 foot in the air.

What happens?

The tent goes up and the cords go longer.

And so if you're holding out at the end of that cord, you gotta move your hands down to the end.

You know you gotta make some changes yourself, see, be willing to change, be willing to be accountable to the authority and be under authority, because that's the only way you're gonna be blessed, that's the only way you're gonna see increase.

All right, hope.

This is helping you tonight, it's helping me.

And so then, the third thing I see is lengthen your cords.

That's what we just talked about.

Strengthen your stakes, in other words your tent pegs.

You know you've got these where the cords are tied to, and you know, in Zechariah 10-4, jesus is known as the nail or the tent peg.

You know he's the tent peg, he's the solid part that's holding up all of the stress of the church, and that stake, that tent peg, has to be driven down in the ground.

You know, back in the days of the revivals of the 40s, you know they had these big, huge tents Some of them were 10,000 seat tents and it took 18 wheelers to haul the tents and it took an army of people to erect the tents and when they were putting the tent pegs in the ground, they couldn't just use a sledgehammer and just hammer a pole or a stake into the ground.

They had to use augers.

And they had these big old power wrenches gasoline-powered wrenches and they would turn these augers and those augers would just go like this and they would screw down into the ground real deep.

And that's what you had to have, because if you had a 30, 40, 50 mile an hour wind in a thunderstorm and it hit the big old tent, it's gonna rip all those stakes out of the ground and that tent's coming down and you're gonna have a bunch of mess, you're gonna have broken poles, you're gonna and if it happens, when people are inside some you could be injured.

So it took quite an effort to strengthen the stakes and because there's so much pressure on the tent peg when things grow, you see, and so we have to be rooted and grounded in love.

That's where I'm getting to and we got to our faith in God's Word.

Both of those are gonna be sorely tested in the time of great growth Because, again, in the time of great growth, there's great change.

We're about to have a massive growth all at one time, if we're believing God for a big harvest, where do you think the harvest is gonna light?

It's gonna come into the churches, and churches like ours are gonna hold a lot more people than they're holding right now.

And guess what?

That's gonna make a bunch of changes.

It's gonna test your love walk.

It's gonna test your faith.

It's gonna test your faithfulness.

It's gonna test everything, and so we have to be prepared, and we have to.

One of the ways to get prepared is to be increased minded.

So it's not surprising to us when it happens, come on, lift your hands, be increased minded.

Praise God, god's got big plans.

Big plans Bigger than we've ever thought.

You know.

We were talking about waking up the church.

At our staff meeting, we were spending a little time talking about how things have developed in the last since COVID, really since 2020.

And how our footprint as a church has grown, and we have one of a subsidiary ministries of our church is my God Votes, and I'm telling you things are happening so fast we can't hardly keep up with it.

That's just another example that when God told me to wake up the church, let's see that was 1999.

So it's been 20, well, this month, in fact, march the 1st, it was 24 years ago.

It's hard to believe it's been that long 24 years ago when he told me to wake up the church and it's not that I didn't do my part, I did everything I knew to do, but it's just started to take root.

It started to have results just in the last three years.

It's just amazing.

God is accelerating the time frame and he's doing great things, big things, bigger than we ever thought.

So let's all be ready for that.

Amen, praise God, all right.