Sermon
The Prevailing Word
Publisher transcript
Transcript
-
Let's lift our Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.
-
Heavenly Father, I'm glad to be here tonight.
-
What a wonderful service in this house of miracles and my house is a house of miracles.
-
Thank you for the word that propels me.
-
I am hungry for more understanding so that my spirit will grow, my faith will grow and I can accomplish those things that you have for me in Jesus' name.
-
Let's look at Acts 19 tonight.
-
I'm preached out of this many times.
-
Acts 19, verse eight.
-
Thank you, worship team, thank you Carol and AJ, and Ethan and Jay's already gone.
-
The youth, they do such a wonderful job, don't they All right?
-
Acts 19, talking about Paul, verse eight.
-
And he, paul, went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.
-
You know, when you talk about that disputing, I mean I think we try to get along with people, maybe a little too much.
-
We need to dispute some folks, especially right now.
-
They're off their rocker and I'm not gonna act like what they're saying is okay, it's not okay, and I'm not gonna act like I don't have the right to say that this is America.
-
You can't stop me from disputing you, amen.
-
So he did that three months.
-
And what was he disputing about?
-
The kingdom.
-
But when divers were hardened, sound like they were hardened the whole time to me.
-
I mean you disputing with somebody for 90 days.
-
I mean they started out hard and they never did get softer.
-
But when divers, or different ones of them, were hardened and believed not, gave them a chance.
-
Well, pastor, we need to pray for President Biden.
-
I'm not praying for his salvation because he's hardened his heart, he's been exposed to the gospel and he's rejected it.
-
I'm not praying for him.
-
It's a waste of time.
-
You wanna pray for him?
-
You go right ahead.
-
I'm praying him out.
-
I'm praying off the scene and whoever takes his place, I'll pray them out the next time.
-
You know when I think about Kamala, why we'd have to work on getting her out if she took his place.
-
But when divers were hardened and believed not, but spoke of that evil, of that way, just like they do us, they speak evil.
-
We're haters.
-
No, we hate what they stand for.
-
We hate what they're doing, and there are some of them that can be saved.
-
But they can't be saved without hearing the gospel.
-
The gospel has to be preached and sometimes it has to be disputed.
-
But he spoke evil of that way before the multitude.
-
He, paul, departed from them and separated the disciples disputing daily in the school of one tyrannous.
-
There's no, no, no, no.
-
Those were disputed.
-
So I think you know the church in the 21st century here in America we're gonna have to learn how to dispute some of the things that we're hearing.
-
I wasn't really planning on saying that, but it just kind of stands out like a neon sign right now into the anointing I'm about to say dispute.
-
And this continued by the space of two years, so that all the way which dwelt in Asia Minor I see what he's talking about Ephesus, asia Minor, turkey, up in that region, not too far from the Middle East, we just north of there, west of there, all those who dwelt in Asia Minor, heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles.
-
They all heard it, didn't say they all accepted it, they all heard it.
-
That's our job, for everybody to hear.
-
That's why I'm saying in America, they've heard and heard, and heard, and heard, and heard, and heard.
-
They're without excuse.
-
So we need to separate ourselves.
-
Quit casting our pearls before swine I don't know who this is for.
-
And God brought special miracles.
-
Notice, he did it after he separated the disciples from the naysayers, from the disputers, from the hardened hearts from the ones who spoke evil.
-
God brought.
-
God brought.
-
God brought special miracle.
-
I thought miracles were all special, but he said this is special, this is special.
-
Miracles by the hands of Paul or Saul, paul.
-
And then he described so that from his body were brought under the sick handkerchiefs or aprons and the diseases departed from them and evil spirits went out of them.
-
Sometimes sick people have to have the devil cast out of them.
-
Well, the cloth didn't talk, the cloth didn't minister to anybody, it's just lays there.
-
It came from Paul's hands.
-
It says from the hands of Paul.
-
He laid hands on his own clothing.
-
Jesus didn't even lay hands on his clothing, had the anointing where the woman with the issue of blood just touched the hymn, his garment.
-
She got the anointing, hit her, healed her.
-
Jesus said he didn't say my clothes made you whole.
-
He said your faith made me whole.
-
Your faith made you whole.
-
But here it says that these handkerchiefs or aprons, that diseases departed from the ones that were, they were contacted and demons, evil spirits went out of them and evil spirits went out of them.
-
Then certain of the vagabond Jews exorcists.
-
This is what their ministry was.
-
They knew that people had demons and they had a ministry of taking people and getting rid of demons somehow.
-
I don't really know how they did that.
-
I'm not up to date on the Jewish rights for casting out demons, but it's pretty rare, because Jesus cast demons out.
-
I mean, the priest didn't seem to be upset with the woman who was bowed over at the waist, to whom the low Satan is bound these 18 years.
-
They didn't try to cast a devil out of her.
-
They didn't know she had a devil.
-
They thought she just had arthritis or something.
-
But what she had was what A spirit of infirmity that Jesus identified instantly.
-
So I don't know exactly what they're.
-
You know these boys, seven sons of Sceva.
-
I don't know exactly how successful their ministry was, but yet that's what they are their exorcists.
-
And they took upon them verse 13.
-
In other words, they presumed to call over them, which had evil spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus, saying we adjure you by the Jesus that Paul preached.
-
I guess they could see that the results were a lot better than their results that they were used to having.
-
They must not have had very good results.
-
So they thought well, I will try it the Paul's way.
-
They don't believe in Jesus.
-
They didn't profess faith in Jesus, they didn't amend their ways, they didn't repent of their sin, they didn't nothing.
-
There was no record of that.
-
They just presumed to use the name of Jesus.
-
We sang that song everything in the name of Jesus, bring it all to the feet of Jesus, that's what they were trying to do.
-
But they didn't have the authority.
-
And there were seven sons of Schema, a Jew, and chief of the priests which did so.
-
So you know, they had a lineage chief priests.
-
They're in a priesthood.
-
Maybe they knew something, but you know, success attracted them.
-
They decided to try it Paul's way, and the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them and overcame them and prevailed against them.
-
Everybody say prevailed, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
-
That's pretty extreme.
-
I mean one man and seven men.
-
I mean he pounded them, stripped them neck, it sent them on their way.
-
I mean, whoo, I'd had to be pretty embarrassing.
-
And this was known to all the Jews and the Gentiles also dwelling at Ephesus, and fear fell on them all and the name of the Lord Jesus would magnify.
-
And many that believed came and confessed and showed their deeds.
-
Many of them also, which used curious arts that's the occult brought their books together and burned them before all, and they counted the price of them and found it 50,000 pieces of silk.
-
So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.
-
There's that word again.
-
Again, the devil prevailed, demons prevailed over the seven sons of Sceva, the religious crowd, but the word prevailed and mightily grew.
-
So I wanna talk about the prevailing word tonight.
-
I've been talking a lot about the word, the word.
-
I'm so impressed with the word, and here we see that the word has the ability to grow.
-
So mightily grew the word of God, mightily grew.
-
You see, the word is a lies.
-
Hebrews four.
-
Let's turn there real quick.
-
It's good to keep this in mind, because we tend the word, we think about the word as a piece of a printed page or it's at our thinking.
-
We remember the word on a printed page.
-
How many of you read your Bible enough for you to know where a scripture is?
-
You can't know where it is on the page.
-
That's why I don't like to have different Bibles.
-
I don't like one Bible where I can find things.
-
Now, four, let's see.
-
Where is it?
-
I don't know.
-
Well, the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword.
-
Where is that?
-
Hebrews?
-
What?
-
Four twelve, huh, four twelve?
-
Okay, I looked over it.
-
So the word of God.
-
See, I knew it was there.
-
I just looked over it, for the word of God is quick, word is word.
-
Quick mean Means alive.
-
The word is alive, the word is alive, it's a living thing.
-
Now, jesus is the word.
-
We know he's alive.
-
But the word, the word in your mouth, is alive.
-
Just think about that a moment.
-
The word is alive and it can grow.
-
Well, pastor, how can the word grow?
-
I don't know how, I just know it does.
-
Like a seed grows.
-
Have you ever looked at a bunch of seeds in a little packet?
-
You ever buy burpee seeds.
-
You know, in the feed store, a little old packet of seeds.
-
I mean those seeds are alive, because if they weren't alive you planted them, they wouldn't do anything, they'd just lay there like a nest.
-
They'd just lay there like a nickel.
-
You don't plant a nickel and it won't grow.
-
But you plant these seeds.
-
Now you know if they're old and they're sitting on the shelf for 30 years.
-
Well no, they're probably dead by now.
-
But something about those seeds they don't look alive, they're not moving, they don't have anything on them, they look just.
-
They look like an inanimate object.
-
But you plant those things in the ground and you water them, they're gonna germinate and then sooner or later they're gonna have a little shoot goes up through the thing.
-
So the seed is alive.
-
The word of God, jesus said, is like a seed and it grows.
-
And in the case of Ephesus, the word that Paul preached grew and mightily prevailed.
-
It exercised force.
-
The word prevail means to exercise force to do much work the Word of God.
-
See, we need to let the Word of God work.
-
We need to let the Word of God grow and prevail.
-
We need to let the Word of God just coming out of our mouth toward things.
-
I believe in prayer, I think we need to pray, but you know what?
-
There's not enough word coming out of our mouths in the church in general.
-
I'm not talking to you particularly, I'm just saying in general, Because God told me there's a dearth of the Word.
-
I didn't understand what he meant about this time in 2003.
-
19, hard to believe.
-
It's been 19 years ago we had just poured the slabs on them, on the children church and the lobby.
-
This was still under prep.
-
I'm standing out there one day, december.
-
All this is going up.
-
All the aluminum beams had been delivered, all the vinyl that went stretched over and all that stuff is stacked on the parking lot and God said there's a dearth of the Word.
-
I said, okay, I don't understand.
-
What is it?
-
How can that be?
-
There's more churches I know a lot of churches are kind of dead, but there's a lot of churches now that they're used to not have.
-
I mean, how could there be a dearth of the Word?
-
He said your children don't know what you know.
-
There's a gap.
-
And I didn't understand that.
-
I believed Him.
-
My first reaction was what have we done here in this church to make sure our children and children church are getting the Word?
-
I had a meeting and I said look, we're gonna quit having competition among the teachers and see who can get the kids to come to their classes with pizza, donuts and bicycles.
-
We had one guy's buying bicycles about every month out of his own pocket.
-
I don't want that.
-
I don't want to have gimmicks.
-
I want those kids like you heard them sing.
-
That's just simple, little, sweet little darlings.
-
And they're up here singing to Jesus and God, lee, it just makes you weep.
-
But that was born in me.
-
I man, I took, I said look, and I haven't ever taught children church.
-
To be honest with you, I've never done that.
-
But my attempt to obey what I heard there's a dearth of the Word started with this church and with our children, and three of the four teachers left us.
-
They didn't like my idea.
-
They wanted to keep running things.
-
They didn't think I knew what I was talking about.
-
Well, I'm the pastor and I decided don't let the door hit you on your way out.
-
And they were all replaced.
-
Are y'all with me now Talking about?
-
The Word is alive, it's powerful, it prevails and it can grow.
-
We're tempted Whenever we start speaking the Word, instead of having a panic attack disguised as prayer.
-
You ever have one.
-
I know you've never had one of those, but have you ever had a panic attack that's basically described?
-
You know it's put it in the form of a prayer.
-
It's hiding, it's hiding in a prayer.
-
Oh Lord, help me.
-
We need to learn how to release God's Word toward things and then go to sleep and know that that Word is going to grow in intensity and we get up the next morning we speak that where you know.
-
I told you da, da, da, da da.
-
By his stripes I was healed and I mean it.
-
You get anything out of this.
-
I know it's simple, but I mean.
-
Some of these things are so profound.
-
Everybody say the Word is alive, it grows, it prevails, it exercises force.
-
Think about that a moment.
-
We're no match for the devil in our flesh.
-
But you know what, when we speak the Word, he can't resist it.
-
They had a lot of naysayers, they had a lot of persecution.
-
They had a lot of people criticized and then speaking evil of that way.
-
They had religious people trying to hitchhike off of the name of Jesus and they got exposed.
-
What did it?
-
The Word grew and mightily prevailed, that Word that Paul contended about.
-
I think about all the years we've been preaching the Word.
-
Not everybody has liked it, not everybody has accepted it, but we just keep on doing it.
-
I'm doing what I'm told.
-
I'm just the FedEx guy.
-
I don't have any, I can't determine anything.
-
He gives me something to deliver and I deliver it.
-
Would you complain to the FedEx guy that you didn't like your package.
-
I don't like this package.
-
I like this package.
-
This is not what I ordered.
-
No, he's not the person to complain to.
-
He's just what the delivery guy.
-
He's gonna look at you like you're crazy.
-
You complain to him, right?
-
Some people don't like the way I look at him, but anyway that's what happens.
-
So the Word of God, when it's preached and manifested and demonstrated, it's designed to prevail, to exercise force and to do much work.
-
I Look at our country and I see the forces of darkness seem like they're multiplying.
-
But you know what I get back to this word, and this word is designed to stop that work and reverse it.
-
I'm not saying it's gonna all turn around and we're gonna return back to the Nation we were a number of decades ago, but I am saying we can stop the spirit of antichrist from accelerating past his limits.
-
So you know four things real quick, just to kind of go over what I have here for you.
-
You know, let's not get so excited about the gifts of the Spirit that we forget what, how powerful the word is.
-
I, I'm reading this and meditating on it and thought, thought about brother Hagan.
-
You've heard me say this recently, but brother Hagan, you know, was part of the voice of healing ministry back in the 40s and 50s, that great Healing revival that came into the church.
-
And later, of course, he was part of the charismatic revival in the sense that he had to bring the teaching side of it, because there was such a charismatic revival of the baptism of the Holy Ghost coming into all the denominational churches and and and the abuses of their lack of knowledge of the word.
-
They had a lot of wildfire and not a lot of sensibility and they, they had a lot of error and Most of that was you know they were, they were zealous of the gifts, zealous of that power, but they didn't have the grounding of God's Word.
-
And Really, a lot of the ministers in the voice of healing not all of them, but many of them their ministries were founded upon the gifts of the Spirit.
-
And I can say this in a private setting.
-
But William Branham was one of the greatest prophets of that era.
-
I Mean they had a picture of him.
-
I saw a picture of him somebody took.
-
He was standing at a podium and he had this halo kind of over his head and I mean people almost worshiped him.
-
He had such a measure of the anointing and power people would, pentecostal people, you know, they just oh, william Branham, william Branham, william Branham.
-
Well, william Branham got off and he died young, he's 60, I think, and and the reason is because he opened the door to Satan to end his life, because he got away from from good, sound Bible teaching.
-
He got over into performing by always Functioning in the gifts.
-
Well, some, some nights, it would be the gifts of the Spirit, the word of wisdom, word of knowledge, gift of prophecy, and other nights it would be familiar spirits.
-
You know, they just alternate nights.
-
Brother Hagan went to a couple of these meetings.
-
He said yeah, you know, I've reached out to him, he just wouldn't hear me.
-
See, that's a man of God that will try to correct and try to help people instead of condemning them.
-
And Then another minister that got off, jack Cove, powerful ministry, Amazing miracles.
-
But he got off.
-
See what happens?
-
Well, you, he told him, he told the whole group of them.
-
One time he said you know boys, that's what he called them.
-
You know boys, when you guys are on the scrap heap, I'll still be going strong.
-
What do you mean, hagan?
-
What would you say that to us?
-
But they didn't like people talking to them like that.
-
They were too high and mighty to have anybody Jabbed them in the ribs.
-
He just kind of jabbing them, but yet he was serious.
-
Said you boys are gonna be on the scrap heap, I'll still be going strong.
-
What do you mean?
-
He said?
-
Well, I'll tell you.
-
Simply said you build your ministry on the gifts.
-
I built my ministry on the word.
-
Oh, the word of God is Alive, it's powerful, it prevails.
-
The gifts of the spirit are necessary.
-
We need the gifts, but we, if the gifts aren't flowing?
-
Hey, you got the word, we all have the word.
-
We don't always have gifts.
-
Because?
-
Why?
-
Because the gifts are as the spirit wills.
-
I can't turn them on and off.
-
I wouldn't even try.
-
If I did, I'm gonna get over into demonic territory pretty quick.
-
The sons of Sceva found out.
-
You can't be presumptuous when you're dealing with the name of Jesus, when you're dealing with gifts of the spirit.
-
Here you are, at you, and you don't even profess Christ as your Savior, and you're trying to duplicate People, trying to duplicate what the church is doing today, and they're gonna all wind up on the scrap heap, all right.
-
So the word of God prevails over number one.
-
Let's look at it, the naysayers, the doubters and the debaters of this world.
-
Those were hardened in verse eight and nine.
-
What did Paul do?
-
He left them.
-
He gave them a chance to change their mind.
-
He gave them a chance to humble their hearts and Receive new information.
-
You know, this is new information for a lot of people.
-
Even people that have been in church a long, long time haven't heard what we preach, and so sometimes you just have to be patient and Make the case.
-
Show them the Bible evidence of what you're saying is true.
-
But at some point in time, if they're gonna continue to have hardened hearts and not want to move into truth, well then you just need to leave and separate yourself from them and move on down the road.
-
Thank you for two old me's and three.
-
The longer you spend with them, you're missing out on the hungry people that are ready to receive.
-
You sit there and mess with them and mess with them and debate with them, and yeah and yeah and yeah.
-
Listen, the hungry people there want to hear what you have to say.
-
Brother Osteen used to say it this way follow your favor, follow your favor.
-
If you don't have any favor with people, they don't want to hear what you're saying.
-
Move to the ones that want to hear what you've got to say.
-
Well, pastor, I'm not a preacher.
-
Well, it's the same.
-
In in witnessing it's the same.
-
Whenever you're a believer, you have the believer's ministry.
-
The believer's ministry is all about laying your hands on sick people and and Making sure they're saved.
-
I mean, that's the believer's ministry.
-
That's not the gifts of the Spirit, that's the believer's ministry.
-
Amen.
-
The Word of God prevails over demons and diseases.
-
Paul was preaching the Word.
-
I'm sure he was praying for the sick and his meetings, because he brought a message of demonstration.
-
He said you know, surely my teaching, my preaching, were not with persuasive words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
-
That's what he said to the Corinthians, so that your faith would not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
-
So that was how he rolled.
-
That's how Paul rolled.
-
Paul rolled with demonstration.
-
He just he preached.
-
He was as listen, he was as learned as anybody.
-
But he didn't choose to hold a Bible school.
-
He chose to teach and preach the Word with demonstration of the Spirit.
-
That meant people were gonna get healed through the gifts or he's gonna lay his hands on people, and then you know he couldn't get to everybody and so we don't know how this happened.
-
But maybe the Holy Ghost said lay your hands on those cloths and send them to the sick people.
-
It still took faith.
-
God brought special miracles.
-
Well, that's right, it's a special miracle, but it still involved faith.
-
It involved faith on Paul's part.
-
It involved faith on the people who were transporting the, the cloths.
-
It involved faith on the person that received them.
-
It's still faith.
-
Are you with me now, here, here, paul?
-
Paul is patient.
-
He preached for three months, then he separated from the naysayers, then he preached two full years and everybody heard.
-
Not everybody got saved, but everybody heard.
-
That's a lot of.
-
See your, your world, where you operate, your domain, your place of authority, your place of influence.
-
Every one of you has that place of influence in your family, in your neighborhood, on the job, in your career, whatever.
-
You have a place of influence and it's not just snap your fingers and everybody's gonna line up with what you believe.
-
It takes a while, but you have to start now.
-
Exercise in that word, speak in that word.
-
Man, if I was going into one of these gosh awful offices where there was so much woke-ism and everything else there, I would be speaking the word all the way to the office.
-
I'd be praying tongues all day long till you know.
-
If any of them came up to me to say anything, they'd just get tongue-tied and then, if it doesn't change, get ready to leave.
-
If it doesn't change, get ready to leave.
-
Before it changes you.
-
I've seen Christians just get blown out, worn out, discouraged, just at their wits in, because of the lack of any kind of fellowship or any kind of recognition that what they have to say is valuable.
-
Don't look, do like Paul did and just go, uh, bye-bye and go to the place.
-
That's gonna appreciate you.
-
Has this happened to anybody?
-
So the Word of God, it prevailed over demons and diseases.
-
And Paul didn't even have to do the preaching In that case.
-
He just sent part of his clothing.
-
Talk about easy.
-
Praise God, all right.
-
Then the Word of God prevails over naysayers, doubters and debaters over demons and diseases.
-
And, as we've seen, number three the Word of God prevails over dead religion.
-
The sons of Sceva is a perfect example.
-
The sons of the chief, of one of the chief priests, that's a family of the high Muckity, mucks in the temple or in the synagogue, as the case may be I don't guess there's a temple in Ephesus, but there's a synagogue, and they were the chief ones.
-
And so dead religion was exposed.
-
I mean, you know they were.
-
They were sent packing by that young man that had all the demons and everybody heard about it.
-
Everybody, all the Jews, all the Greeks and the whole Asia minor, heard about what happened to dead religion.
-
It was exposed as dead.
-
Now you could have, if you go in this story early, you might think that Paul was wasting his time for three months when he was disputing all these people and then preaching another two years, and might have thought, well he sure, but you know what?
-
God caught up with everything and God started backing everything up, he started to confirm it, everything, and he exposed dead religion.
-
I tell you that's the next big thing that has to happen in our nation.
-
You've got to expose dead religion.
-
Global warming is a religion.
-
Green energy is a religion.
-
Lgbtq plus PP is a religion.
-
Now, they worship this stuff.
-
They're so in love with this doctrine.
-
This transgender, it's oh, it's holy, it's American, it's all together.
-
It's all together normal, according to our president, while they had the drag queen there to celebrate the signing of this gosh, awful abomination and we're not going to stand for that.
-
We're not going to stand for it.
-
It's unconstitutional and it's going to get undone.
-
It's going to be thrown down and God is going to show them exactly who God is.
-
He's going to show it to them.
-
You know, religion makes the word of God.
-
Jesus said religion makes the word of God and none effect because of the traditions.
-
The traditions of men render the word of God and none effect.
-
I read that verse one day and that's the verse God used to get me out of the Catholic church.
-
After I read that verse and I don't think it was the first time I read it, but it was the first time I understood it it's just like it came off the page and I thought you know, I can't just keep split, splitting time between Lakewood and the Catholic church I got to leave the Catholic church.
-
That was kind of a hard decision for me.
-
I wasn't sure if God was through with me because I knew that I was going to have a lot of influence over Catholic people.
-
But you know what?
-
I dealt with more Catholics since I left the Catholic church than I ever would if I'd stayed there.
-
Isn't that amazing?
-
Because the ones that I come across are the ones that are hungry, that are fed up with all of this mess like I was fed up with it, and I'm able to help them.
-
But I had a friend of mine that stayed behind in the Catholic church for about two years and went to a prayer meeting every Tuesday night and go to a prayer meeting at the Catholic church Prince of Peace I'll just name the church Prince of Peace, catholic Church, big O Catholic Church that's the church we used to go to, that and St Edward's, and he was full of the Holy Ghost and they all.
-
They just pulled on him.
-
They wanted to know all about what he knew and they were just fascinated.
-
Oh, please, would you pray for me?
-
I just found out I had cancer and he'd pray for them and they'd die.
-
And somebody else that had something, he'd pray for them and they'd die.
-
There was no faith whatsoever.
-
They're just waiting for the blessed virgin or something else.
-
I mean they had no concept of faith and not getting fed.
-
They prayed, but they prayed wrong.
-
They didn't pray the word.
-
They prayed all these Catholic prayers and I finally, I mean he kept frustrated.
-
I said why are you still there?
-
Miss it out on all the people you could be influencing.
-
They're not ever going to do any different.
-
They want to stay Catholic.
-
You need to leave them alone and get out of there.
-
And he finally did.
-
Are you with me now?
-
All right, and the name of Jesus is magnified.
-
Fear of the Lord hit the whole place.
-
Boy, do we need the fear of the Lord in this country?
-
We're going to start seeing it if we'll hold on to the word Everything to the feet of Jesus, everything in the name of Jesus.
-
We are the house of miracles.
-
He's going to be magnified, he is going to be glorified.
-
And then finally, in verses 18 and 19, all the hardened hearts of the people in the surrounding areas.
-
Many came and repented of their evil deeds.
-
Many came and repented of the evil deeds.
-
It's like the word was stored up for two years and three months.
-
The record was two years and three months.
-
Paul preached the word preached, the word preached, the word.
-
Claws went out, people got healed, dead religion tried to duplicate.
-
It got shown up for what it was a fraud.
-
And then then, after all that time, then you had a real awakening.
-
People repented.
-
Oh, we need an awakening in this country.
-
People need to repent and they repented of their sin.
-
They came and repented.
-
Look at it, verse 18, acts 19.
-
He said, and many that believed came and confessed and showed their deeds.
-
So they believed first and they realized they had to repent and confess their deeds.
-
Don't see that very much.
-
People want it to be private, people want to do it in secret.
-
Here it's out in the public, everybody saw it.
-
Many of them also which used the occult, came and brought their books together and burned them before all public.
-
Brother Osteen was preaching out of these verses one time and said you know what?
-
We're going to put some 55 gallon drum barrels out in the parking lot and I want all of you that have occult books and rock and roll albums and everything you come.
-
We're going to have a big old bonfire.
-
We're going to burn those in the barrels and I don't have any barrels ahead all lined up out in the parking lot of that church.
-
But I mean there was a lot of smoke.
-
You know plastic rock and roll vinyl albums.
-
You know when you burn those I mean that's a lot of black smoke coming.
-
It's amazing the fire marshal didn't come and shut that down.
-
But I knew a young lady who was a single mom and she had a 12 year old daughter, I think, and later on I got to work with her.
-
She was hired on its staff and she interfaced with me when I did weddings.
-
She was in charge of some of the arrangements on the weddings and stuff.
-
So I had to work with her.
-
She said you know, remember when Brother Osteen had that altar call and said bring your out?
-
She said I had a real big rock and roll collection.
-
I mean it's been a lot of money.
-
I had all my rolling stones, I had all my you know, and she named all the rock.
-
You know kiss, you know Knights and Satan service.
-
I don't know if they were serious about that, but they looked like they were and burn those records, man.
-
She said I was one of the ones that burned those records.
-
She said I know it meant something.
-
I mean I just felt free when I did that.
-
I said you are free.
-
Oh, hallelujah, one of these days we're going to see bonfires all over Houston.
-
We're going to burn all their trash, all their junk that they believe in.
-
So the word of God is mightily not just growing, it's mightily growing and prevailing in your life as you speak it forth.
-
Come on, lift your hands and receive tonight.
-
Hallelujah, glory to God.
-
Well, I enjoyed sharing with you.
-
Did you get anything out of it?
-
There's probably nothing new in there, but sometimes it just helps to just dive to a deep dive and put ourselves on the scene of things that happened 2000 years ago and kind of see our similar situation that we have now.
-
Praise God, thank you, hallelujah.