Steeled For Victory

Let's lift our Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together say heavenly Father, I am grateful.

It doesn't take a holiday for me to thank God, to count my blessings.

Lord, we thank you that we live in the land of the free, in the home of the brave.

I'm one of the brave ones, I'm one of the free ones.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, lord, for the Word of God.

I've received it this morning in Jesus' name.

Amen, you could be seated.

Praise God, glad to have you here with us today.

Let's look at a couple of places.

We'll start reading I think we're second Chronicles 32.

We'll start and then, while you're looking in your Bible, look at Psalm 11, or Psalm 11, excuse me, psalm 11.

We'll read here Second Chronicles 32,.

It's talking about King Hezekiah and it says in verse one after these things and the establishment thereof, sinakarib, the king of Assyria, came and entered into Judah and encamped against the fence cities and thought to win them for himself.

And when Hezekiah saw that Sinakarib was come and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains, which were without the city.

And they did help him and there was gathered much people together who stopped all the fountains and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?

Also, he strengthened himself and built up all the wall that was broken and raised it up to the cowers, and another wall without and repaired below in the city of David and made darts or swords and shields in abundance.

And he set captains of war over the people and gathered them together to him in the street of the gate of the city and spoke comfortably to them, saying be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him, for there be more with us than with him.

With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord, our God, to help us and fight our battles.

And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah, in the message Bible.

It says Hezekiah's words put steel in their spines Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

And then in Psalm 11, verse three I'm gonna read it out of the Passion translation and it says what can the righteous accomplish when the truth's pillars are destroyed and law and order collapse.

And so today I just wanted to give you a word of encouragement, steeled for victory.

You know my job is to equip you with a word of God, to give you strength out of that word, to give you encouragement, and, you know, put steel in your spine, so to speak.

I can't do it, but the word of God can.

I have great confidence in God's word and what it will do for the believer.

And you know, much like how it was in Judah and Jerusalem back here in the days of Hezekiah.

So it is like that here.

If you keep reading here in this chapter, you'll find that Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, came and he sent his representatives and they began to blaspheme God.

They said what are you doing?

Building these walls?

You know this is in vain.

There's been no nation.

I mean they all believed their gods would deliver them.

None of their gods could deliver them.

Your God can't deliver you.

I mean he started talking big, just kind of like Biden talking big, and all the Democrats and socialists and communists are talking big.

They won a lot of places where we thought we had a chance to win this past election.

I know we're still feeling the residue of that, because I know so many of you worked so hard and prayed.

I mean, you know what about all our prayers?

None of our prayers went to waste.

God is not a puppet master.

He's not in heaven pulling strings and making people do right.

We prayed and God heard, and they resisted that prayer and it's becoming their judgment and God's in charge of that.

We're not.

You know, our job is to get prepared and he will fight the battles for us.

But they've got big mouths.

I said they've got big mouths, I mean, you know.

I mean we had, like, I think, 10 or 11 Republican senators that crossed over the aisle and made a deal with the devil during this lame duck session to pass a stupid bill called the Defense of Marriage Act, and it is in no way a defensive marriage as we believe marriage is.

Marriage is between one man and one woman.

That's what marriage is.

And just because the Supreme Court redefined the marriage definition doesn't change God's word in a bid and that there's no defense of marriage.

It's an attack against marriage as we know it.

And if it passes into law the way it's written, with these turncoat Republicans, you ought to know who they are so you can start crying against them, along with the Democrats.

They're gonna stand before God and give an account for coming against the God of heaven.

They're no different than Sonakarib, the king of Assyria, right here in my book, but they're gonna make it possible for people who are deceived and entering into marriage with each other or third person, or a typewriter, or typewriters are out now, but anyway, computer, apple phone you can marry your Apple phone under that.

How stupid are these people?

They act like we don't exist.

Well, we do exist and we don't have to put up with their shenanigans Amen.

But they're gonna make it so that we're the ones that are on the outside looking in, we're the ones that can be sued if we at all interfere with their rights.

Well, they do have the right to go to hell and that's where they're headed.

But we have a right to tell them how to answer.

Go to hell.

We have a right to call sin sin, and there's no law gonna keep me from saying it Amen.

I'm just talking about the way things are right now, not that much different than they were in Judah and Jerusalem.

And what did it?

Do you know?

Well, he spoke words that put steel in their spines.

That's what I want to do with you.

I want to get you in a place where you're immovable, you will not bow, you will not scrape to the spirit of this age when it comes knocking on your door and trying to accuse you and trying to make you a hater.

You're not a hater, you're a lover of God.

You love the truth, you love God's word.

You're not gonna let some political movement or some group of offended people change your idea Of what's right and wrong, what's truth and lie.

Amen, amen, praise God.

You know, a few years ago God gave me this term in the face of what we face, be strong and very courageous in the face of what we face.

See, notice, you know, king Hezekiah did not deny that there was a superior force.

Come against him.

He said don't be afraid of the multitude.

There was a multitude, outnumbered them.

They were fierce warriors, they had had a lot of success, they had won a lot of elections, they had deceived a whole lot of people the uninformed voter and, in some cases, the non-existent voter.

Dogs and cats, dead people.

They're not gonna.

They don't like me to say it, I'm saying it, whether you like me to say it or not.

It's a free country.

Got this freedom of speech and there's no news media.

There's no, you know, nobody gonna keep us from saying what's true.

They try to make you out like you're a complete idiot.

Well, no, actually, that's not true.

You're the anybody who's shake their fist at God.

You ought to see how Sennacher wound up.

I'm fixing to tell you how he wound up.

That's how these people are gonna wind up at some point.

They're not fighting against us.

They're fighting against the God under which we're supposed to be one nation under God.

Well, that's the God I'm serving, not some other God.

Got other gods?

We've got alternative gods in this country that are not God.

There's only one God, that's true, and he happens to be the father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He's the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob.

So that's the God.

It's not any other God.

There's no other God.

He's the only one.

So we have to be strong and very courageous.

Be not afraid of the multitude of communists and Democrats and fake news media and university experts and Washington elites and non-elected bureaucrats, billionaires, globalists, woke corporations that you might be working for.

Don't be afraid of them, because there's more with us than there is with them.

Come on, lift your hands right now.

I'll tell you we have a multitude of angels, are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister on behalf of those who are heirs of salvation?

That's us.

We're the heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs, equal heirs with Christ.

We got to remember that right now.

This is not the time to forget.

We're being steeled for victory.

What do I mean?

Political victory?

Not necessarily.

It's not our job to have political victory.

It's our job to contend for it.

It's our job to cry against evil.

It's our job to stand for the truth.

It's our job to, in the face of what we face, speak the truth in love, not turn away from it, act like it doesn't exist, like a lot of these churches have just been destroyed.

These churches have just gone either gone woke or gone to sleep, or dead.

Kind of hard to tell some of them whether they're asleep or they're dead.

I thought my job to figure out whether they're asleep or dead.

My job is to keep speaking the truth.

I have to believe that Harris County would be red if the church had showed up last month or this month actually still November, so a few weeks ago.

If the church had showed up at the ballot box, I think we would have won, but the church is asleep.

The church and the leadership of the church is just like all these weak knees that were in the 10 tribes.

See, you know, this same king, sinakarib, had already conquered the 10 tribes of Northern Kingdom and had taken him away.

They lost, the Northern Kingdom lost.

And so he's man, he's full of vinegar and he's woo, he's strong.

He said, okay, next on the list is Jude and Benjamin.

I'm going to Jerusalem, I'm gonna get them, I'm gonna take captive, I'm gonna take it for myself.

He just knew, see, these people are so confident in their victory.

And it just hung by a thread.

It was listen, it was so close.

In most cases they just barely hung on.

Well, they did hang on.

I'm not denying it.

But I'm telling you there's more with us than there is with them, and you know, we're just gonna keep doing what we're doing.

We're gonna wake the church up, amen.

So there's more with us than there is with them.

We have God on our side.

Let's stay on God's side.

That's the only reason he's on our side.

By the way, I keep I'm so tired of hearing where God's not a Republican, as if he's neutral.

God is not neutral on anything.

God has a side.

You name any subject and he has a side for it, and you better get on it, because he's not gonna move over to your side.

Are you with me now?

Big talking, you know so he.

You know Sonakur, but already taking the 10 tribes, now he's threatening Judah.

So in verse 20 of this same chapter 32, and for this cause has a kind of the King and the prophet, isaiah, the son of Amos, prayed and cried to heaven.

Now, isn't that what we've been doing?

Have we been praying in vain?

Say, I don't want you to believe that.

You need to know that God has heard our prayers and he is answering from heaven, and his time is not our time all the time.

You know he's not under control of us where we can just ring a bell and he'll come running.

But when we cry and pray against evil and against deception, he hears and he sends supernatural help.

And so here in this chapter, verse 21,.

And the Lord sent an angel.

He sent one angel.

We've got a multitude of them.

God said oh, I don't mess with the multitude, all you need is one.

Here, I'll send you one angel.

Some people would be disappointed.

God Lee, we prayed and all this evil's going on.

All we got out of it was one angel man.

That's not.

Well, listen to what the angel he sent an angel which cut off all the mighty men of Valor and the leaders and the captains in the camp of the king of Assyria.

When you read that same account in Second Kings, you find out that's 185,000 men that died at the hand of one angel.

Now, I'm not talking about killing people, I'm talking about one angel can do a lot of damage to the powers of darkness.

One angel can clean their clock.

And what happened to their leader, sinakarub?

Well, he went slinking back to his own country where he was in his temple worshiping his false gods when his own sons came in and killed him.

He didn't wind up too good.

Some of these people you're going to start seeing, they're going to kill over dead.

Right in the middle of their die tribes, right in the middle of all their bragging on the devil, they're going to kill over dead.

You're going to see it.

You're going to see some of these people in public.

They're standing at the podium and having a news conference.

The next thing.

You know well, we won't be singing any sad songs when that happens, praise God.

So when I look at this whole thing, I go back to the beginning of when Hezekiah took over his king.

He was 25 years old when he became king and again, the kingdom of Israel had been split into the northern and the southern because of Saul and David, and the war that arose there and it was David's sin really is what opened the door for Satan to split the nation of Israel into two kingdoms, and of course, the northern kingdom, which was around, and they had their holy place in Shiloh and Samaria.

Essentially, they never did serve.

They didn't have one good king, they didn't serve God at all.

They served false gods and God kept sending them, you know, prophet after prophet.

They would kill one, they would imprison another and they just wouldn't listen and wouldn't listen until finally, you know they just they were their own worst enemies.

They had a covenant with Almighty God that they didn't obey.

The southern kingdom was a little better, but not much better.

They had a good king and then three or four bad kings.

A good king and a bad king and blah, blah, blah all the way through.

You read First and Second Kings, first and Second Chronicles.

That's the history and I recently in my Old Testament readings.

I've gone through all of that.

It's, frankly, it's kind of hard to get through.

It's hard to see why, but really it's the history of America and we've had a number of really crummy presidents and as leader of this country they contributed to its demise, or at least it's the clan.

I won't say demise yet because I don't.

I'm not giving up on America, but we did have a good president.

Trump was a really good, refreshing president, to the total surprise and shock of a whole lot of Christians, and they still can't get over it.

I mean, they just they don't like his manner.

They want him to be polite.

Well, you can't be polite.

You've got to be a junkyard dog.

You've got to answer what they're saying back at them right in there, in the face of what you face.

You've got to have a bigger growl.

You've got to show your teeth.

All this breaching across the aisle is a bunch of baloney.

That's history.

It was, it's history.

We've come across them.

They still want to do it.

They want to be liked.

We send people to Congress and they want to be liked.

Mainly, they want a whole bunch of money coming from the lobbyists.

That's what they really want and they're not there very long until they get bought off.

We have a few that are good.

I'm not saying they're all that way, but you know, look 10, 10 sold out.

And when did they do it?

After the election, before they could be held accountable.

And then people forget, say well, I'm never forgetting what they did to marriage.

I never will forget it.

Are y'all with me now?

Praise God, there's more with us than there is with them.

Our job is to hold them accountable.

Our job is to cry against the evil.

So here's this young king, 25 years old, and he came in with a heart for God and he looked around.

He walked in the temple.

It's in disrepair.

It's got a bunch of idols in there.

It's got a bunch.

It's polluted.

The other kings had put their idols in there.

They'd taken all the some of the holy things out of it and all of that.

And he said he called the priests together.

He said you need to get your act together.

You get yourself sanctified.

We've got to get, we've got to get the sacrifices back and you're in no shape to have any sacrifices.

You get this temple cleaned up.

You get all this stuff out of here and burn it and destroy it.

He started, I mean he started ordering things in the right direction.

And he said because there's the wrath of the Lord, our God, is great against us because of our great sin and what the previous administrations have done, the previous kings have done, it just took somebody to take the bull by the horns and start turning the wheels in a different direction and I mean I tell you the whole country was filled with joy.

I mean, they cleaned the temple up, they reinstated the tithe and they brought the tithe in and they had heaps and heaps and heaps of money.

They had plenty of money to repair the temple and take care of it and put the priests back in their offices and pay them and all of that and pay the laborers that did all the repair work.

And then they celebrated Passover for the first time since Solomon's time and they had, they invited all that were scattered everywhere Come to Jerusalem, celebrate, celebrate with us this great Passover.

They had revival.

I said they had revival.

They had national revival.

Isn't that what we want, don't we want?

Revival in the church and reformation in the world.

It's going to take a revival in the church.

I said it's going to take a revival in the church.

But somebody had to spearhead that revival.

Who was it?

Well, it was the king.

Well, in this country we don't have any kings.

They want to be a king.

I mean, the Biden would love to be crowned.

Really, kamala is the one who wants to be crowned.

But anyway, they want to be kings.

They want to.

They don't want elections.

There's all this stuff about voter rights.

That's just temporary, until they get in power.

They're going to get rid of the elections and they're going to be permanently, just like Putin.

You know, they had one election number of years ago and that's the last one they've had.

If you do have one, it's rigged.

They know how to rig.

They know how to rig that.

They know how it looks, you know, and people will buy into it.

Why?

Because if they don't buy into it, it's really inconvenient.

And oh, you know, americans don't want to be inconvenienced.

They want to mail their ballot in.

They want to.

They want to.

They don't want to have to go down and stand in line.

They don't want to go into a lot of trouble.

They just, in fact, if you want to, just vote for me, just put my here.

I'll sign it ahead of time.

You vote for me, that's what they're doing.

They're signing blank ballots and they're filling them out no involvement.

But see, this country doesn't have a king.

The leader of this country is its people, its government of the people, by the people, for the people.

We're the kings.

That's what they forgot in Washington and Austin.

They forgot who's boss, because we quit being boss.

We quit doing it.

We couldn't be inconvenienced.

We're too busy to inform ourselves about what's going on.

Not this church.

No, this church is a different kind of a church, because that's what God told me to do.

That's why I'm just a man under authority, I'm just a male man.

I didn't create all this, but I do know that this is what we need to do.

So what happens after revival?

You know the devil came.

You know the devil always opposes faith.

He always opposes the revival.

That's what we've had many revivals in history.

We have these revivals and everybody gets bunch of people get saved and miracles occur.

And what happens?

The devil comes and steals and comes around the edges and gets people back into the mess that they were in before the last revival.

And if you read your church history, that's kind of the chronicle of the church history for 2000 years since Jesus left the earth and went back to heaven.

He left us in charge, and we'll we'll take charge for a while, and then we get tired of being in charge, and so then we have a you know, a holiday, and we just, you know, walk in the blessings and don't think about how we got blessed.

That's kind of where we are in America.

We forgot why we're blessed.

It's the people that are the kings.

It's the people that have to rise up.

And what do we need?

We need a revival, and I suggest that part of revival is the political realm.

You're not going to have a revival If you don't at least address the political realm.

That's part of the world that we have to influence.

Are y'all getting this this morning?

I want to encourage you.

I want to encourage you.

I mean, god answered their prayer and he sent one angel to take care of their enemy, and the king went home and his own kids killed him.

These people are going to start eating each other alive.

When we start, I tell you, we just keep on praying and keep on crying against the evil and keep on standing for right.

Our enemies and they are enemies oh, no, they're American.

No, they're.

They're our enemies, they hate us and they want to get rid of what we believe and criminalize it.

Do you understand that?

See, then we still got a lot of brain dead people that want to, you know, just be patriotic and think that we're one nation.

We're not one nation anymore, we're divided.

We got a whole bunch of people that are lost and they hate us and they don't want to be saved.

Now there's some of them that we can get saved.

We're going to do our job, we do the preaching and God does the saving.

Amen.

But we can't do it.

You know where?

We're?

Just kind of hiding in our little church building and we're just.

You know, they would be happy, for a temporary period of time, if we just shut up and stayed in the church building.

They would say oh, you have freedom of worship.

No, no, we don't have freedom of worship.

We have freedom to our faith.

We have freedom of religion, which means we can speak our faith outside the walls.

That's what they want to get rid of.

And after they've done that, then they'll come inside the church and start micromanaging.

Isn't that what they did in Russia?

That's what they did in all these places.

They micromanaged what's going on inside the walls.

Yeah, I was going through the bunch of stuff upstairs.

As you know, it's just glad to say I live in a two store house so we don't go upstairs that often and we've got a lot of stuff up there.

I was going through looking for something and I saw this box.

I said what's in that box?

So I pulled the box down and looked in there and there was a photo album in there and some like paper that you use to wrap gifts with.

And then at the bottom was a pair of old shoes Yellow shoes, sandal, like shoes open toe, and I realized what I'd gotten into and I picked up the pairs of shoes and I looked at the photo album.

And the photo album was with Gladys and some other ladies went to Vietnam in 2000.

We were in the Seventh Day Adventist Church in those years and set up a meeting for her to go to Cambodia.

She went to Cambodia first and then they went to Vietnam, to Ho Chi Minh City, which used to be Saigon, and they no sooner got there.

They had 500 ladies from all over Vietnam there gathered to hear Gladys and the other ladies.

And was it Cambodia where you prayed for that lady?

It was Cambodia.

She had prayed for a lady in Cambodia, and this were her shoes.

She had one shoe had a heel that was about two and a half inches tall and the other heel was about a half inch, so her legs were two inches different in length.

And God healed that lady, completely healed her, and she was walking around normal she used to walk around like this, you know and she was completely healed.

I mean, that place erupted and so Gladys took her shoes and gave her her shoes.

So the lady left the meeting wearing Gladys' shoes, and so that's the keepsake of that miracle.

Oh, come on, lift your hands right now.

Oh, I tell you those people, they're undarting, they're under communism, and when they went to Ho Chi Minh City, they had 500 ladies gathered there and the authorities heard about it and they come up there and they just barely escape the city without being.

They had to hurry up and get out of the meeting room and the lady that was in charge was holding the authorities at the door trying to talk her way out of it, and they went out the back and had to flee the country before they did the meeting.

See, this is what they want.

They wanna be able to control what's going on in here Right now?

They just wanna shut you mouth.

Don't you say anything at the school board meeting?

Don't you dare say anything.

Don't you say anything.

Don't you say anything, you bigot, you homophobe.

But eventually they're gonna come right in here, right in here, and try to micromanage everything that's being said and done.

That's their history.

They're no different than Russia.

They're no different than Venezuela and China and Cambodia and Vietnam.

Amen, listen, we're gonna cry out, we're gonna hold them accountable.

Are you with me now?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bible says in 1 Timothy 3, 15 that the church is the pillar and ground of the truth.

And if we don't stand for truth, then what do we stand for?

This Hezekiah?

He stood for the truth and God bore with him.

God verified it, god vindicated him, god was on his side.

I mean, they didn't even have to fight.

They cried out to God.

They prepared themselves.

They had weapons, they had captains, all delegated.

They were ready to go to war, they were ready to fight for their country.

They were ready to fight for Jerusalem.

They erected the walls, they did everything they needed to do, but they didn't have to lift a finger.

God, one angel, fixed the problem.

I believe God loves America.

I believe God remembers the good things that America, the nation of America, has done around this world.

This country still does more good Even under this situation.

It still does more good than all the rest of the nations put together.

Look at our allies.

We have allies and look at them.

Look at Canada, my Lord.

Look at Great Britain.

Have you been noticing what's happened in Great Britain in the last few weeks?

They've gone nuts.

And Canada too.

They're not reliable allies.

We're looking for these allies.

I mean Europe.

Listen.

We don't have reliable allies.

We better get back under God.

We better have God as an ally, because that's the only reliable one that we have right now.

What we're facing right now is a threat to our national security.

All by design, because they have this idea somehow that it's gonna go well with America if we're all under communist rule, and they couldn't be more wrong.

There are ancient hatreds involved and it transcends communism.

There are people groups that hate other people groups.

Forget about communism, liberalism, conservatism.

There are people groups that hate other people groups, and the only remedy for that is salvation.

The only remedy to that is Jesus, amen.

So the church is the pillar and the ground of the truth.

Let's be steel for victory, not necessarily political victory.

That's not my measure of victory.

My measure of victory is occupying until he comes.

My measure of victory is serving him in the face of what we face.

Are y'all with me now?

So you know things that I say all the time.

Number one lean on and depend on the word of God.

The word of God is your guide.

You know, let God be true and every man a liar.

This is where you've got to wash everything that you hear on the news.

I say that pejoratively.

It's not news, it's a.

You know, it's a narrative.

Y'all picked up on that.

They just tell you a narrative.

They tell you their interpretation of what they want you to think.

No news in it, no, this.

You wash everything you hear and see through this word.

You've got to be a person of the word.

You got to know what it says.

Amen.

Let God be true and every man a liar.

Where is that?

Well, that's in Romans 3-4.

One of my favorites Let God be true and every man a liar.

You want to argue against God?

Go ahead.

You want to argue against the word?

You go ahead.

You're a liar.

This is the truth.

You can't reach across the aisle with these people and give them anything.

You can't negotiate with them.

It's like negotiating with a devil You're going to lose.

Every time.

You always lose.

Number two stay full of the Holy Ghost.

I think about some of our you know candidates and they've been through here and we got on their side and we, you know, encouraged them and prayed for them.

But they need the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

You're going to run for office in this country right now.

You better be full of the Holy Ghost, with evidence of speaking in other tongues, so you can build yourself up on your most holy faith.

Pray it in the Holy Ghost.

You've got to be able to edify yourself.

You've got to be able to have the power of God.

Jesus said you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon you.

And there's so many people they mean well, they're Christians, but they're not full of the Holy Ghost.

They don't have the power.

They need to do what they're trying to do.

It's not enough just to be a do-gooder.

You've got to have the good.

You've got to have that power on the inside of you.

Really, what I call that is personal revival.

We have to have a personal revival if we're going to have a church revival and more of the church needs to be full of the Holy Ghost.

I mean, so much of the church is just a bunch of you know.

They love Jesus as far as they can love him, but they don't really know the Bible much.

They don't get taught the word when they go to church.

They get a bunch of theories, they get psychology.

I think a few years ago there was a church I won't even say where, because then you know I just it's a church in Texas.

I'll give you that it's church in Texas and a pastor and his wife were teaching a series on marriage.

Well, that's worthy of a pastor to teach a series on marriage.

So I've done that and used to teach a series on marriage.

So what did they do?

They put a bed up on top of the church and he and his wife spent the night up on the church.

News media went out and made a big thing and it's just a gimmick.

I mean, come on, why don't you just teach?

What does that have to do with anything?

What does sleeping outside on the roof of your church have to do with marriage?

And so there's see all these churches.

They don't have the Holy Ghost.

They have to have gimmicks, they have to have some kind of a hook to get the news media.

Oh, they're sleeping together up on the church roof.

And then the pastor and his wife.

I don't know what in the world they're doing up there.

Well, I don't know and I don't really want to know, but anyway, what does that have to do with marriage?

I'm sure they come up with something.

No, we don't need gimmicks, we need the Holy Ghost, we need personal revival.

That means each of us.

Yeah, pastor, I've been filled with.

Well, stay full.

See, that's what it really means there in Ephesians 5, 18.

It says be being filled.

It literally said be filled with the Holy Ghost.

The word be means be being filled.

Stay filled, be continually and habitually filled with the Holy Ghost.

Written to Christians, written to Christians.

Christians need to be continually and habitually filled with the Holy Ghost.

It's not a one-time event.

It's not what you had happen to you in 1956, you know at some revival.

Yeah, that might not have been when it started, but you have a revival, you have personal revival.

You pursue staying Habitually, staying full of the Holy Ghost.

Are you with me now?

And finally let your light shine.

We've got to shine our light.

I preached a message on Wednesday night a couple of weeks ago.

You know why the fire.

We need the fire of God in the church.

We need to be on fire for God.

When someone's on fire for God, is there any doubt?

I mean, their countenance is different, their speech is different, their way they carry themselves is different.

Why?

Because they're full of God, which is point number two.

But then let's let it shine.

It's not just for us, it's for everybody that sees us, it's for everywhere we go.

We're on fire.

Our light is shining.

I got saved on a Friday night by myself in my house, didn't answer an altar call.

Some folks had prayed for me that afternoon and gave me some truth and I was examining that truth that I was given and I said, in light of what they said, I mean I can tell God I'm not saved.

If I died right now, I know I'd go to hell.

I need you to make me the kind of person you want me to be.

I need you to come into my heart.

Jesus, cleanse me.

I'm 33 years old and I got saved by myself in my living room at my house and for the first time in I don't know a year I slept all night long.

I mean I had such peace.

And the next night that same couple invited me and glad us to go to the full gospel businessmen's fellowship international meeting in Conroad Holiday Inn, fraser Street in Conroad, texas.

That's when I first met John, jd and Loretta.

She would come and sing from time to time at that meeting, but anyway, and it's a dinner meeting, so I could relate to a dinner meeting.

That's pretty cool.

Go to a meeting.

I didn't know what it was.

I said what full gospel?

What is that?

Well, you know, a businessman gets up and gives his testimony and you know his Christian testimony and then you know there's prayer made and the guy that gave his testimony we got to be real good friends with for years and years.

But anyway, we were sitting around the table and I didn't know a soul there except my family.

My sister and brother-in-law were there and this other couple and Gladys and I and my mother, and we were all there and I was chowing down on chicken fried steak it's pretty good.

And across from me there was a guy sitting there, big, big guy, and he was glowing.

I mean his, his face looked like a lantern, I mean he was bright, shining, and I couldn't get my eyes off of him.

And finally I leaned off to the other side of me, to a total stranger.

I said who is that guy right there?

That guy?

Oh, that's Jim Scalise.

I said, oh, okay, I said I just watching him.

I said he seems to be just glowing.

You know, I was.

I didn't know anything, I didn't know, I didn't even really know what I had.

I hadn't been filled with the Holy Ghost yet I just got saved.

So I said, you know, he just seems like he's glowing.

Oh, he said, you know, we're so happy he just got out of prison last week and we've been praying for him ever since he'd been in prison.

And of course, back in those days, my idea of ex convicts was line them up against the wall and shoot them, you know, because that's that solves the problem.

They don't have any recid, you know, they don't ever go back to that life.

They're dead.

But that guy was I know y'all are looking at me back that's when I was lost.

I was lost back then.

I'm different now.

We ought to just wound him.

No, no, I'm just joking.

We ought to just threaten him.

No, we shouldn't threaten him and I got to know him and I mean we used to travel together and he'd give his testimony and I'd sing and we got to be really good friends, spored his ministry for years and he's in heaven now, but his light was shining, he, his light was shining so much I couldn't get my eyes off of him.

It attracted me.

I wanted to know him, I wanted to know more about him, I wanted to find out about him and I did.

Oh, that's the kind of light we need to shine.

We need to shine our lights everywhere we go.

Amen, the love of God and the light of God everywhere we go.

And we're going to persuade some of these people that look like they're persuadable.

We're going to.

I'm telling you right now we just need to be steeled for victory.

The victory we have is the victory of getting people saved in this time, because people need to get saved.

Come on, lift your hands and receive Praise God.

Everybody say I'm steeled for victory.

My backbone is strong.

I'm not going to bow down to the spirit of this age.

I'm not backing up.

I'm going over.

Come on, lift your voice and give the Lord a big shout of praise.

Hallelujah, hallelujah.

Listen, I'm like everybody else.

When you see the results, you want something better results.

But you know what we have, what the Bible says we have.

Amen.

Let's know that we've got more forest than there is against us.

Hallelujah, hallelujah.

Thank you, lord.