Authorized For Good Works

Let's start out in prayer.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for the Holy Ghost that dwells on the inside of us, dwells on the inside of me.

I thank you for your holy written word that's been preserved for us, or.

Your word is true, and when we speak it and we send it out, it's just like you spoke it and send it out, and it never returns void.

It always accomplishes the thing we're into.

It was sent.

So, lord, I pray that every word that comes out of my mouth tonight will be your words, that they'll be anointed by you, holy Spirit, that they will go out and accomplish their intended purpose and that, no matter what I say, people will hear exactly what they need to hear, that they're increasing in the knowledge of your truth, we're growing in wisdom, our faith is increasing and we're becoming more bold to go and do and speak and accomplish your will.

In these times, it's a special time that we live in.

It's the end times and you didn't put us here without a purpose, and so we're going to accomplish our purpose and we thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, we're going to start in Ephesians, chapter two, and eventually I'll get around to several verses in here, but we'll start in verse eight, ephesians 2, 8,.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of Yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.

Everybody say for good works, which God had prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

The title of tonight's message in case you want to put a price tag on it and sell lots of CDs at the end of this is authorized for good works.

Now, we don't charge for that.

I guess we charge something for the CD, for the material, but all of these things that go on the website are free, and there's no copyright on God's word except your right to copy and preach it and proclaim it, and so that's exactly what I'm doing tonight authorized for good works.

There are some things that Christians are authorized to do, and there's other things that we're not authorized to do, and so let's go back to the very beginning in Genesis 1.

God created Adam and Eve.

Here God said let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion.

It says, and that's in Genesis 1.26.

And so God created man in his image and he created him Male and female.

He created them.

If you would like to get booted off of Twitter, post that scripture and see what happens.

You have about a 99.8% chance of being stifled on Twitter, likely Facebook.

I may run the experiment myself later tonight and we'll see.

I think Tara got kicked off of Twitter there for calling a man a man and a woman a woman who to thank.

But God created them male and female, in his image, and then he blessed them in verse 28.

God blessed them and said to them be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over it, all of it.

And he lists all the animals, all the things that fly and swim and everything that walks and creeps and crawls, everything Word of had dominion over the whole earth, and so that was what God instituted in the very beginning, and so there were instructions that God gave man and woman to have dominion, to fill the earth and subdue it.

And that word subdue means to tread down, to conquer, to bring into bondage and subjection by force.

And so it wasn't a passive thing that God created man to be, but to be an active thing, something that had force and a supernatural voice.

Right up until the fall, man had a supernatural voice.

We were created in God's image, in his likeness.

We were a three-part being.

We are a spirit, we live in this body and we have a mind, a soul, and so that's the likeness of God right there In Genesis 2, 16,.

God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, and so he was authorizing him.

You can eat of anything out of this garden I've made it, and it's good but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

So here's something you were definitely not authorized to do.

You can have anything you want in this garden, except that one tree Don't touch it.

The day you eat of it, you shall surely die.

And so then we know the story Along comes, a serpent starts talking to Eve.

The serpent was very cunning.

And he said to the woman it's not that bad, you won't surely die, for God knows that the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and then you'll be like God, and he doesn't want you to be like him, knowing good and evil.

And so the woman saw the tree and was attracted to the fruit.

It looked good, looked good to eat, and she wanted to be made wise.

And so she took of the fruit and ate and offered it to Adam.

And he took it and he ate it, and then they felt shame and they realized they had really messed up.

And so then they ran and hid from God and tried to cover themselves and hide and, just like our kids when they do something wrong, you know, as a parent we can know when our kids do something wrong and then we have that voice and we can call their name and they could be hiding behind the couch and we can walk around and we can see their backside sticking out from behind the couch, because they're not really that good at hiding it four years old, and you can look over there and go Benjamin, where are you?

So they can't really hide from God.

But God had that voice and he said, adam, where are you?

And Adam had to explain I was hiding.

Why were you hiding?

Well, I was naked.

Who told you you were naked?

And then he had to explain.

Well, this woman that you gave me, god, she gave me the fruit that you said we shouldn't eat and she didn't tell me about it.

So he had to kind of he's blaming the woman here.

Isn't that how it always goes?

I think Jimmy Buffett said there's always a woman to blame.

But God held them both accountable because they both did wrong, and so that was the fall of man.

Right there, adam lost the benefit of his supernatural voice and his God-given authority and God drove him out of the garden.

And so we fast forward all the way to Jesus.

Jesus got back the authority that Adam lost.

Jesus conquered the devil and he brought it back for us and he gave it to us, and he reauthorized us all over again to operate with that voice, to be the God kind of being that he created us, to be in his image.

He redeemed us and brought us back to that state, that original state, 1 Corinthians 619,.

Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?

Who is in you who you have from God and that you're not your own, that you've been bought with a price.

Therefore, glorify God in your body and your spirit, which both are gods.

We are not our own.

And if you just know that I'm not my own, I've been purchased, if you just walk around knowing that, that will keep you out of a lot of trouble right there, because then you're going to consider what am I authorized to do?

What am I allowed to do?

What can I not do?

I'm not my own, I'm bought with a price.

I tell people that fairly often.

It's really a reminder to myself.

I'm not boasting about anything, but I just remind myself.

I'm not my own, I don't get to make my own decisions.

I don't get to decide where I'm going to go to church this Sunday or next Sunday.

I don't get to float around, I don't get to make big life decisions.

We can, we're capable of that, but we're not authorized to do that.

We're not authorized to do these things without guidance from the Holy Spirit, from God.

And so let's get back to our Ephesians chapter two.

But I'm going to start in verse two.

And you he made alive who were dead and trespasses in sin.

So the fall happened, we were dead and trespasses in sin.

Jesus comes around and now we're made alive.

We once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, that is, the God of this world, the little G, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.

We were once controlled by and walked by and operated by that spirit, the one who controls the sons of disobedience, among those also.

We all once conducted ourselves in lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath, just like the other people in this world.

We were that, but we're not anymore.

We're not our own.

We've been bought with a price and we've been fully redeemed.

But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love towards us, which he loved us even when we were dead, he made us alive together in Christ, seated us together in heavenly places with Christ, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

And then we get to the four by grace you have been saved through faith and that we're created for good works.

We were once dead and we've been redeemed and brought back to that original state, and so our whole purpose in life.

Our redeemed purpose in life is for good works.

Why am I here?

Good works.

People have that question what is my purpose in life?

Good works.

The Bible makes it real simple.

People float around in life wanting to know purpose in life and seeking out purpose here, there and yonder anywhere.

If you just go to God's word, you'll discover your purpose, and when you know your purpose, you can be fulfilled in life.

Your purpose is good works.

Jesus delegated his authority.

He taught by word and example, and then he authorized his disciples to do the same.

Isn't that how you teach somebody?

You say this is what we're gonna do.

Let me show you how it's done.

Okay, now you try it.

And so that's exactly what Jesus did with his disciples.

He sent out the 12.

He began to send them out two by two and he gave them power.

It says over unclean spirits.

He told them what to take, what not to take.

There was a whole list when to go, who to talk to, where not to go, what group of people to not to talk to.

And then he gave them this specific warning here.

This is in Mark, chapter six, verse 11.

And it says Jesus is talking and whoever will not receive you or hear you when you depart there, shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them.

That seems kind of harsh.

Assuredly, I say to you, it gets more harsher.

It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.

So he told his disciples you go and carry the truth, carry the gospel, carry our covenant over there, tell them about it.

And if they reject you, I want you to, in front of them, have a demonstration.

You take your shoes off and you wipe the dust off your feet as a testimony against them and you leave.

You don't give them a second chance or a third chance.

You don't show them mercy.

You give them the truth and if they reject the truth, you leave.

They're not worthy of the truth and it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for them in the end time.

That's tough.

And so they went out and they preached that people should repent and they cast out demons and anointed them with oil who were sick and they healed them.

The disciples were doing what Jesus told them to do.

He even told them so that the accountant Matthew, chapter 10, he said as you go, preach, saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons freely.

You have received, freely give.

And so Jesus is pouring into his disciples and expecting them to go and do it.

Jesus sent out the 70, told them pretty much the same thing, and when the 70 went out and they came back, they were surprised that their successes.

They were surprised.

They came back all excited and they said Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.

And he said I told you so.

But they were excited about it.

And Jesus said look, I've seen Satan fall from heaven.

He says I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, over all the power of the enemy, and nothing, by any means shall hurt you.

Nevertheless, don't rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you in my name, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven and so don't think it a big deal.

In other words, I've given you authority.

Yes, I know this works and doing it the first time, it can be kind of exciting, but don't be shocked.

Don't be shocked at what I tell you is true and real.

Just just do it.

If you should be shocked at anything at all, it'd be shocked that your name is written in heaven.

You ought to be shocked and happy and surprised about that.

But the authority I give you, just it works, and so we ought to have confidence in that and be able to use that.

In Matthew 10, 16, he said Behold, I send you out of sheep in the midst of wolves.

Therefore, be wise as serpents, harmless as doves, but beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in the synagogues.

You'll be brought before governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.

So how many in here just curious got to give a testimony to your boss because your boss requested you to come in and have a conversation with them about oh, I don't know your religious reasons, why you don't want to take the vaccine?

Or there's a couple of you in here that got to deliver testimony to them.

They asked you to come, didn't they Sylvia, and you got to preach the gospel to them.

Did you take your shoes off and wipe them off in front of them?

You might have been authorized, but now they become accountable for the truth that they hear.

And so don't be surprised when you're presented in these particular situations in verse 19.

So, matthew 10, 19,.

But when they deliver you up, don't worry about how or what you should speak.

In other words, don't make a long list of notes, don't make a five point sermon and bring it and what you know, so you're fully prepared on exactly, point by point, what you're going to tell them.

You got the Holy Ghost on the inside of you and in those kind of situations it said, jesus said, for it will be given in you in that hour what you should speak.

Well, at least you have an hour, or in that hour you should speak.

So it might be less than an hour, but you'll have it in time to be able to deliver the right message to them and your words coming out.

You know when God gives you those words, it's his word that goes out, and so it's not you who speak, but the father who speaks in you.

And then he goes on to list the whole bunch of various persecutions that are also terrifying.

If you read down that list I'm not going to read those right now In verse 28,.

I'm going to skip down Matthew 10, 28 and do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him, who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

In other words, fear God, not man.

And I kind of harp on this a lot and I'm going to do some more on it tonight.

It doesn't mean a lot to it doesn't affect you directly, but you know there's a lot of churches and pastors that are fearful about talking about certain topics and saying certain things, because they have a board that hired them and if they say the wrong thing, that board might fire them.

Fire them.

Or they have an attorney that said you know, if you talk about things that are in the political world, you're putting their 501c3 at risk.

Well, can you imagine a pastor having gone on, left this earth and goes and stands before God and God said now, why didn't you tell people about these issues?

Why didn't you talk to them about the present day issues?

Why didn't you tell them about those candidates and let them know that there was one that stood for righteousness and one that stood for something that was evil?

Why didn't you tell them about these things?

And then that pastor has to stand before God.

Well, god, you don't understand.

We have this thing called the 501c3.

It's a letter that comes from the IRS.

God, and you see it, gives our donors a tax benefit when they give to the church.

There's a tax benefit, but if I do something to violate the terms of that 501c3, we lose that and our donors don't have that tax benefit, and then they won't want to give as much.

And then what will the church do?

And so, you see, god, I had to stay quiet on these things, and God's going to be like what's the 501c3?

I don't get it Depart from me.

I never knew you.

It could be pretty rough, for you know the pastors that are charged to deliver God's word and speak things.

There's a harsher judgment for them when they don't do what God called them to do, when they don't operate under that authorization to do and say some things.

And so just a quick recap here Adam lost what God gave him.

Jesus paid our penalty and took back what was lost.

And now we are not our own, we're bought with a price.

We were once a puppet for the God of this world, but not anymore, and our purpose in life is what, For good works, we have authority to do all things that Jesus taught and demonstrated, just like he did for his disciples.

Everything that Jesus taught about and demonstrated we are now authorized to do when we speak the truth.

Some are going to want some more truth and we're authorized to keep delivering truth when people have a desire and a hunger and an appreciation for that.

But others are going to reject the truth and when they do reject the truth, we are not authorized to stand around and try to continue to talk them into it.

We're authorized to take our shoes off and dust them off as a testimony against them and leave and not waste precious time because somebody out there needs the truth and you're standing in front of somebody who doesn't want it and the person who really needs it and could accept it isn't getting it because you're still standing on the doorstep of somebody who doesn't want it.

And now you're in an argument.

You know you ever argue with a fool.

You start to look like a fool.

Don't argue with fools, just wipe the dust off and move on.

And then there's always the threat of rejections and persecutions, and that can come by family members too.

Our blood relatives can be the worst at rejecting and persecuting us, and that can be the most harmful to us, you know, to our emotional selves.

But we're not to worry about that, we're not to be concerned about that.

The bottom line is we fear God and not man.

Fear the one who is able to destroy the soul and the body and hell, and instead of everybody else you can throw sticks and stones and do minor things.

And so I'll give you a quick testimony about something that happened.

I don't, I guess it's been maybe gosh.

Time is time is fun when you're having flies.

I guess it was a couple of months ago now, but we had somebody from the fire marshal's office show up here and deliver a package and give us instructions on some things that they wanted us to do as a facility, and I didn't look at it right away.

I was busy at the time, and probably a week or two rolled around, and then they're calling about it and wanting to know how I looked at it.

Have I completed anything on this?

And so then I kind of dove into it.

I felt pressure from them.

Yikes, I missed something.

I got to dive into this, see what this is, and I looked at it and it was called an operational permit for places of assembly and it was an application for this permit.

So, just for your foundational knowledge on this, when we built this facility right here, this was completed in 2004,.

The sprung buildings that you see here 2004.

And we had to build that to a particular standard that was established at that time and then go through an inspection process before we could get our certificate of occupancy.

Once you have your certificate of occupancy, you're allowed to occupy the facility and as long as you maintain it to that standard that was applied to you at that time, you can continue to occupy that facility.

And so in 2004, we were authorized by local government to occupy this facility because we had met the minimum standards.

So fast forward a bunch of years we're 2022, and the fire marshal's office is hitting us with an operational permit for places of assembly and I start looking through this and a bunch of this stuff.

It's responsible things to do and it's a lot that we already do, and I was just, but there was a couple of minor things on there and then we would have had to make some modifications in a couple of places.

That would have cost money.

This is a permit that requires.

Anytime there's a permit, there's a fee that goes with it.

This is something that renews annually.

And I was just thinking to myself oh my goodness, I got more stuff to do.

This is just another thing More government intrusion.

I'm just getting frustrated and it was kind of the end of the day and I just I quit looking at it.

I threw the stuff on my desk.

It was late and I started to drive out of here and I was thinking I'll just get busy on it in the morning, we'll put together whatever they need and get it to them, just another thing.

And I started to drive out of the parking lot.

Sometimes I drive around our parking lot.

Just take a peek at the building, look what's in the parking lot, and I see our American flags on the fence over here and there was a couple of flags that were kind of shredded on the corner, knotted up and tangled up in the trees, and so I parked my truck over there and went to untangle them and I untangled the first one and walked up to the second one and was unknotting that one out of the branches.

And I'm looking at this flag in my hands and it's kind of tattered and shredded on the end there, all by myself, there's nobody else around, and I just got chills, sitting there holding that flag in my hand and I could feel that the presence of the Holy Ghost come on me and I got choked up in that moment and I had tears in my eyes while I'm holding this flag and in that moment I realized the blood that paid for our freedom.

First of all, the blood of our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ, whom the Son sets free, is unquestionably free.

Our freedom comes from God and Jesus paid for that so that we could have that.

We've got a nation that was founded on these principles that our freedom comes from God and not man, and those freedoms are established and protected in our founding documents, and so our Constitution, amendment Number One, says Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, nor preventing the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress grievances.

So right there, there's two foundational rights that were in question by that permit.

One was our freedom of religion and two was our freedom to peaceably assemble.

And it just washed over me what I was about to do.

I was about to comply with something and just kind of shrug it off.

Well, it's not that much trouble, it's annoying at best.

In that moment that afternoon it was annoying when I held that flag in my hands and the Holy Ghost washed over me and the significance of that decision hit me.

We have a freedom of religion and we have a freedom to assemble, and that's protected in our Constitution.

And now we have an operational permit for places of assembly which requires us to go to our government and ask permission on an annual basis to continue to assemble and practice our religion.

Every year I've got to ask permission and I said I can't do it.

And so I let a couple of days go by and I called our commissioner's office and the fire marshal returned a phone call.

The Harris County Fire Marshal called me back and wanted to know what our concern was, and I got to preach to her.

So here I am, set up before governmental officials with them asking me to explain our doctrine, our religion, to explain God's word on this and why I felt like I couldn't comply, and so, at her request, I got to preach to her for about 20 minutes on the phone, and she was very kind.

She didn't take the same position I took, but she wanted to understand more, and so she set up a meeting and had her deputy fire marshal come and his underling fire marshal come, and then another fire marshal's inspector come, and so there were three of them that showed up here at the church for a meeting and I invited Dave Welch, who's the president, founder of Houston Area Pastor Council, who comes sit with me at that meeting and I would represent Glorious White Church and he would represent all the other churches in Harris County, so he would represent about 500 of them.

And so we had that meeting and we went back and forth and these guys, their argument and their premise was well, this is written in international fire code.

You know, international fire code.

It's made with the help of international other countries to write our fire code.

So our fire code consists of ideas and words by other nations to be enforced here, and our nation too.

I mean, it's a collaborative thing, but it's international fire code and there was no consideration for our Constitution in that fire code, none whatsoever.

Yet we adopt these things and our commissioners court adopts sections of this fire code and then applies them.

And I had to explain that every time we lose freedom, our freedom gets smaller and government gets bigger, because now they have to enforce something.

And I made the pitch that our God-given rights are protected in the Constitution and that this is a direct violation of two of those rights named in the First Amendment.

And they didn't see it that way.

They kept saying but this is to keep you safe.

We need to make sure that your facility is safe.

I said you don't need to do anything with our facility.

We have a certificate of occupancy and that's all we're required at this point.

You don't need any, but we have to make sure you're safe.

No, so in the name of safety, you can lose all kinds of freedom.

And I was about to give that up, not recognizing the significance of it.

But the Holy Ghost would not authorize me to do that, and so I flat out refused.

I said you realize I cannot and we will not comply with this, not now, not ever.

We won't do it.

And I said what are?

I just got to know how to plan my day.

What are the consequences for this?

What kind of fine are we looking at?

I just got to know how to plan.

He said well, we really don't want to get into having to find you guys.

I said well, the truth of the matter is you can't, because there's a religious protection law that recently passed that says that you cannot shut down churches and you can't do anything that has the effect of shutting down a church.

And a fine has the effect of shutting down a church, so you can't do that either.

I refuse your fine to, and so they were a little bit dumbfounded that all they could do was take notes and they said, well, we'll run it up the flagpole and we'll have to get back to you on this.

And I said I just want to know how many churches have you enforced this on?

And he said, oh, we've been around to five or six now.

I said, wow, that sounds like a lot of work.

He said, oh, yeah, it is.

I said how's your office going to do that?

He says, well, we can't.

This is overwhelming for us.

We're going to have to hire bigger.

We're going to have to have a whole new office to do this and hire lots of inspectors to be able to enforce this.

And I said, oh, so you're saying government's getting bigger and our freedom's getting smaller?

He's like, oh, but the Holy Ghost was not for that.

We were not authorized to do that and they haven't been back and I don't expect they will.

But I don't want other churches to comply with that.

You know we'll be the last one holding out to the bitter end, and if everybody else complies, then we'll be expected to comply and we still won't.

But it's shameful that other churches don't stand up for this.

They have the same Holy Ghost we have.

I just don't think they're listening sometimes and so we'll get into the controversial side of Christianity.

We're going to be asked to do some things and to confront some things that are not comfortable for people.

You know, we hear the religious ideas about Jesus.

Well, he's the Prince of Peace.

Well, yes, he is.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Well, you don't know what meek is?

I gave a whole another, different message on that.

But meek is a military term that describes a horse that has been meeked for battle, that it is fully compliant to the rider who's on it and will ride into the oncoming fire and the oncoming danger at the gentle nudge of its rider and come to a complete stop at the gentle nudge of its rider.

In other words, somebody who's meeked is fully responsive to the one who is the controlling person, our Holy Ghost.

And so when we're fully controlled by the Holy Ghost, we are meeked and ready for battle.

So blessed are the meek.

But people don't understand what that is.

Walk in love, love your neighbor.

We should not be so.

We need to be more accepting of what people love as accepting.

Well, no, it's not.

Love is love.

We love people and we can hate the sin, but it doesn't mean we accept the identity that people take on or accept the sin that people are engaged in.

We submit to each other?

Well, yeah, we submit to each other in love, in the body of Christ, but we're not a doormat for someone to wipe their feet off on, unless you're rejecting the truth, and then we get back to that.

We should live quiet and peaceable lives.

Well, as much as possible.

We don't need to be unnecessarily stirring up trouble.

But when trouble comes, we better have an answer for it.

Don't judge, don't judge me.

Well, yeah, god looks on the inside, man looks on the outside.

I get that we shouldn't be judging each other on those kinds of things.

We need to judge ourselves with the sin.

But Jesus also said by their fruits you will know them.

And so if I look at the fruit of somebody's life and recognize there's all kinds of trouble, all kinds of terrible things, bad results, I can recognize that fruit is because it's growing on a rotten tree and that tree needs to be changed.

And so there are some religious ideas there that people spit out that they're just not true.

God is in control.

Well, yes, sort of, except he assigned the authority to us to have dominion over the earth and subdue it by force.

Remember that that was in the very beginning.

And here we are back to where Jesus bought and paid for it and gave it back to us and said okay, here's your mulligan, here's your do over, here's your authority back.

And so now the church is just a mess not operating, in that Each one of those phrases comes from Scripture, but it's out of context and it's a misapplied, and we need to study to show ourselves approved and to God a workman that need not be ashamed because we've rightly divided or discerned the word of truth.

A devil tried to trip Jesus up with Scripture.

He would twist Scripture and throw it at him when Jesus was in the desert being tempted, and Jesus would answer with God's word every time.

And he answered the devil stronger and stronger every time and ran the devil off.

And we can do the same thing we answer with his word.

You know, jesus also said some things that fly in the face of the religious crowd.

I didn't come to bring peace, I came to bring a sword, and that sword is going to divide people.

It's going to divide groups of people, it's going to divide family members from each other, it's going to divide and separate.

In other words, there's a dividing line of truth and depending on which side people fall on, they can fall on the right side of truth or the wrong side.

But if that line is drawn with the sword and separates, we need to not be dancing over here on the wrong side of that.

We just know that God's truth separates us from people and that's a good thing.

That's a good thing right there to be separated from the evil.

Jesus called people names.

You brood of diapers, you dine of thieves.

He told Peter you know one moment he's complimenting him.

Next moment he said get behind me, satan.

When Peter had the wrong answer, paul learned how to operate with this.

He called Elemaus the sorcerer.

He said oh, you are full of deceit and fraud.

You, son of the devil, you enemy of righteousness.

I'm waiting for the day when I get to call somebody that you, son of the devil, enemy of righteousness.

Will you not quit perverting the straight ways of the Lord?

And then he said you're going to be blind for a season.

I believe we're coming back to that time and we can operate on that level of authority and God's going to back us up on that.

Now, paul did that under the full authority and inspiration of the Holy Ghost right there, and the scripture says that.

And so we can't just go.

I'm going to tell them, I'm going to give them the what for you, son of the devil.

Now you got to operate with what you're authorized to do, and the Holy Ghost to operate authorized you to do some stuff, but we can't do it on our own.

You got to have God's word hidden in your heart, so that you know what you're authorized to do, thy word of I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against thee.

You know the original intended purpose of schools was to instill the love of God, the love of country and the love of family and or into our kids.

That's what school started out to be.

Our public school system was that it was about love God, love country and love your family.

And their first textbook was the Bible.

In the early 1600s that's what the American schools had was the Bible.

That was their textbook and then they added other textbooks to it along the way and but they still continue to use the Bible as a textbook and as a devotional guide in schools, in our school system.

That happened all the way through the 1600s, late 1600s, 1700s on into the 1800s and it didn't start falling out of favor and kind of they started cutting that out.

You start getting into the 1900s and they start trimming that stuff away and really in the last 50, 60, 70, 80, maybe even 100 years is when we've had the most damage done to our schools because we work to remove God and remove God's word out of it and create this fake separation of church and state out of the deal.

This is a Christian nation and that means we ought to instill the love of God back into our kids and that ought to happen in school and the love of country and the love of family.

We have the problems we have because kids don't have a love of God.

They hate this country and they have no respect for their families or their parents.

There's disobedience and dishonor.

We ought to honor our mother and father.

That it might go well with you, but our kids don't know that and so it goes bad for them.

And so now we're in this conundrum of a mess.

The God of this age is what blinds the minds, and that God of this age has been at work for a while now.

In 2 Corinthians, chapter four, verse one, it says Therefore, since we have this ministry what ministry of that?

We're ministers of the new covenant and therefore, since we have that ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we renounce the hidden things of darkness and we don't walk in the craftiness.

We're not handling God's word deceitfully, but by manifesting the truth and commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded.

There are some people who just are not capable of hearing or seeing, or understanding or recognizing the truth because the God of this age, the little G, the little God of this age, has blinded their minds and they are perishing.

And they blind their minds lest the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

For we did not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your bond-servets.

I'm not my own, I'm a bond-servet, for it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness.

We are to be light and we're to shine out of darkness in this world, on these people.

You know God warned pastor your children don't know what you know, and you hear that warning repeated fairly often around here.

Your children, this generation, doesn't know what you know, and so I looked up some statistics on one of the Barna studies.

This one comes back from 2019.

It said more than 64 percent.

So 18 to 29 year olds, more than 64 percent of those in that age range 18 to 29, who grew up in church, have now withdrawn from church 64 percent of those who grew up in church in that age range think about that have withdrawn from church and rejected that.

That's terrible.

That ought to break your heart.

That's the precious fruit of the earth that is rejecting the truth.

64 percent that's the generation that doesn't know what we know.

That's the future of this nation who doesn't know what we know and they're rejecting God.

They're rejecting truth.

Here's some of the reasons that they gave why young Christians left church 23 percent.

And there's overlaps and crossovers because they gave multiple reasons here, so these percentages won't add up to be 100.

But 23 percent of those said that churches demonize everything outside of church.

Well, the serpent said to Eve it's not that bad, you won't actually die.

Come on, it tastes good, it looks good.

Look at that fruit right there.

No, the church is demonizing that.

They're demonizing things because there's demons involved.

The God of this world is involved and you've got Christian parents pointing out that devil wants my child, and so they minimize that.

31 percent of the church, of these youth, say that church is boring.

There's no life.

Well, that's a product of a dead church right there.

There's no Holy Spirit in that church.

Of course it's going to be boring because there's no life there.

Get out of the dead church Parents.

When parents are in a dead church and you're raising up your kids in a dead church, don't be surprised when your kids reject church.

23 percent of them said God seems missing from my church experience.

That's because there's no signs following, probably because there's not a lot of word being taught.

God performs His word with signs following.

There's no Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit's been run off.

24 percent said the Bible's not taught clearly enough.

Well, my people perish for a lack of knowledge.

35 percent of the churches that these youth said that.

35 percent said that these churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in, out of step with the scientific world that we live in.

We just had Avery Jackson here, brain surgeon, who does brain surgery and prays in the Holy Spirit.

While he's doing brain surgery he leans on the Holy Ghost for help to know what to cut, what to burn, where to go, what to do to save that life right there, to preserve that life.

And he said that science is the language of God.

And yet these right here said these youth said that the church is out of step with the scientific world we live in.

They're probably the same people that are hearing on the news.

Follow the science, follow the science.

But the science is ever changing and contradictory to itself.

40 percent of those youth said that churches are teaching on sexuality or out of date.

God's moved on since then.

I guess you know that was an old thing.

God had an opinion about it back then.

But now we've opened it up and we got a lot more genders and God is loving and accepting and the church is just out of date on sexuality.

Praise comes to mind.

I am the Lord, god.

I change not.

And so the God of this world, the little G of this world, is blinding their minds to these things, and God of this world is anti-life.

They're trying to abort babies whenever they can, trying to work their way around that, trying to mutilate kids and change their gender and bend their minds and destroy our freedoms.

Jesus said I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly, and whom the sun sets free is unquestionably free.

The God of this world is at direct odds with everything that Jesus did, and so if there's any goings on in this world operated by the God of this world, influenced by the God of this world, we cannot cooperate with it, not even a little bit, not even that much.

I've met given this quote plenty of times before, but there was a Marxist a hundred years ago and that was roughly the time that Bible and godliness and all that starts making its way out of our culture and out of schools and out of government.

But he said that socialism is the precise religion that must overwhelm Christianity.

So socialism is a religion at odds with Christianity, and their stated goal is that it must overwhelm Christianity and that it would do that by infiltrating schools, universities, media and churches.

All of those places have been fully infiltrated by the God of this world.

There are woke churches.

There are churches who refuse to speak on these issues.

There are churches who have gay pastors in the pulpit Woke churches infiltrated by the God of this world.

Our universities are infiltrated by communists and Marxists.

Our youth don't even know what that is or care what that means, but that means that they are being manipulated by the God of this world to destroy Christianity.

It's stated purpose overwhelmed Christianity, and so then we've got people in our public school system, any school system, anybody who goes and gets an education for anything has to go sit in front of an answer to a professor that is woke and Marxist and the devil himself and write down and report and give answers to whatever that professor desires.

And if you don't, then you don't pass the class.

And so what do you do?

How do you justify sending a kid to college anymore?

We have our kid for some period of time and we pour godly values into them.

And when we train them up in the way they should go, and then we're happy when they get a scholarship to go to a godless university and sit in front of godless professors who are going to brain, pollute them and drive out the Christianity and pour in the God of this world and blind their minds.

And then we get our kids back.

Don't be surprised when you send your kids to Rome or it was to Caesar and they come back Romans.

We should not be surprised at this.

You know our medical world.

They are science deniers.

They don't follow their own science, they follow the God of this world.

It's amazing to hear some of the things.

How can you trust a doctor who's wearing three masks when their entire medical school had nothing about wearing masks and that any of these masks can somehow filter out something that's way smaller than the pores in that mask?

They're not following their own science anymore.

They're completely gone, following the God of this world who's blinded their minds.

I'm not sure what to do with our kids anymore.

I'm not sure.

Colleges, really, you have to follow the Holy Ghost on that.

I can't give you a decision on that, but I'm saying it's a really dangerous place when you send your kid there.

The family's been destroyed.

It used to be that there was one working member, one working parent in the family, and then typically the man would go to work and the woman would stay home.

But that became sexist.

The feminism movement destroyed that concept and now we've got to have equal opportunity, equal pay, standards.

Well, that's good, there's good things in there.

But when you send both parents off to work, that means the kids have to go somewhere.

They can't just stay at home, and so we have to offer more time in the school for those kids to be there, so that both parents, who are now dependent on those two incomes, can stay at work longer and those kids can stay at school longer.

And we can't have God in school.

Remember, we took God out, we took the Bible out, that used to have a textbook and we had devotions about the Bible and all that's gone, so we're going to have our kids there longer.

Thank God for Christian teachers who are in there.

But it is largely not that.

There's unspeakable filth in our school libraries.

They denied that it was in the libraries and now you've got concerned parents that are going and digging it out of the libraries.

Every couple of weeks there's another book that comes out and it is pedophilia and pornographic and evil.

Who let this stuff in a librarian?

I guess who was blinded by the God of this age, let this stuff in?

Parents not following up, not involved in their kids education.

Here you do it.

You raise my kid.

I got to go to work, I don't have time for this, and so the parent is disconnected and disinvolved and don't be surprised when they come back.

Mine polluted when you as a parent aren't training him up on the way they should go.

And I'm not beating you up, but this is what's going on in this world Unspeakable filth in our schools and it's not everywhere, but how much is acceptable, how much is okay to have in these libraries?

How much is it okay to expose our kids to this?

None of it, and you see it in the Disney culture that's just coming out.

How many have seen the reports about Disney and what's going on in Florida?

They have an active LGBT agenda at Disney to push and in state and install more of that agenda into the programming for long for young kids, kids of all ages.

Disney is the God of this world.

They're operating fully.

The God of this world does it work there.

I tell you, the church needs to go into the millstone manufacturing business.

And if you don't get that reference, you can look up Matthew 18, verse six is where it starts.

We'll want to anyone who would offend or cause one of these little ones to be drawn away from the truth and tithes to sin.

We'll want to them.

It'd be better for them if a millstone were hung around their neck.

Jesus said so.

These are controversial things that we're going to have to help people understand the truth.

We're going to have to speak this truth.

We do it with compassion, we do it with love, with a heart.

This is God's precious fruit of the earth, but we don't back down on it, we don't comply, we don't bend, we're not passive.

We've got a lot of ground to make up and we're authorized to take this ground back.

We have authorization to do and say these things.

In fact, it's more than an authorization.

We're not authorized to not do this To him who knows to do good and does it not.

It is sin.

And so if you know to do something good and you're just like, well, I don't want to offend somebody If I say that they might not talk to me anymore.

That's my sister I can't talk to her like that, you better.

They need to know this truth and they need to be responsible for it.

This thing's fixing to get wrapped up here.

Some Jesus asked Peter who do men say that I am?

First, the disciples answered some say that you're one of the prophets, you're Elijah.

And he said yeah, but who do you say that I am?

And Peter answered well, you're the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah.

And Jesus said flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father, who is in heaven.

And I also say to you Peter, which means little rock.

He said Peter on this rock, which is big rock.

So you have Peter meaning little rock.

And then Jesus said on this big stone, on this big rock, you're a chip off the old rock.

On this big rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

On this rock of revelation knowledge that you just got you got a download from our father who is in heaven.

Man didn't tell you this on revelation knowledge, I'm going to build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

And I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

In the common English version it says I'll give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and God in heaven will allow whatever you allow on earth, but he will not allow anything that you do not allow.

So God is in control through you and allows everything that we allow.

That's an indictment on the church at large right there.

We're authorized to allow or not allow.

You know, when David lost everything at Ziklag, the amykytes attack took the women and children and burned their stuff and David was at his wits end, at the lowest point in his life, and he had to encourage himself and the Lord.

The devil has stolen a lot and he's stolen so much of this generation who is now rejecting the church, rejecting the truth Makes your heart.

But we're authorized to go and recover all.

David said, or he inquired of the Lord.

He didn't just assume.

He said can we go after him?

Can we do this?

And God said you can and you shall and you shall surely recover all.

We're authorized to recover this lost ground.

We're authorized to recover this generation.

We're in fact we're not authorized to not go after them.

We have to go after them.

Time is so short.

We have to go after them.

You know, the thief doesn't come to steal, but to steal, kill and destroy.

And in that verse in John 10, 10,.

It's talking about religion.

Religion is the reason why the church has been kept quiet and not answered these issues.

Religion is killing the next generation.

Religion is killing our children.

We're authorized to go after religion and to bring truth.

We're authorized to go after these kids.

We're obligated to.

Here's a quote from Charles Finney.

He was one of the second grade awakening pastors.

I think he's Presbyterian.

He said if there's any decay in conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it.

If Satan rules the halls of our legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it.

If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundation of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it.

This falls squarely on those who are authorized to allow and not allow to bind and loose, and that is the church of Jesus Christ that has remained silent and become less and less involved and more and more passive, letting the God of this world steamroll us.

We can't do that anymore.

You know those fire marshals.

They're just doing their job.

They're an enforcement arm, they're part of a bureaucracy and their motives were good, but they didn't make the rules and so we butted heads on that.

What are you going to do when I won't be moved and you can't move me.

Well, they go find an easier target.

They go find somebody else who will move, but in the meantime, we need churches who are going to rise up and take back the ground that was lost.

We don't need international fire code to violate our rights anywhere in Harris County, anywhere in this state.

It matters where people go to church.

You know, I look around this room and there's a lot of empty chairs right here.

There's a lot of people that belong in this church that are not here.

I can't tell you the number of people just in my dealings.

In the Republican party, people talk about their pastors.

I wish my pastor would say this.

I wish he was bold.

I wish our church would talk about these kinds of things and they don't.

I got a call from a guy a few days ago maybe a week ago, and I didn't remember his name.

I didn't remember him until he reminded me.

He said I talked to you two years ago Like wow, two years ago.

And he said it was kind of hard chasing your number down, but I finally got you.

I want you to know.

Two years ago you lectured me for about 20 minutes and I thought, oh gosh, what did I say?

He said you lectured me for about 20 minutes on this 501c3 in churches and I was like, oh, waiting for the.

And he said it turns out you were right and I've been trying to get our church for the last two years to do something.

He said, but they just won't.

He said I've been the glorious way church.

He said I walked in that lobby and I felt love.

The people there were so loving and so warm and there was joy there and it felt good to be there and the preaching was great.

He said what your pastor preached was right on.

It was exactly what we needed to hear.

We need more of that.

He said but y'all don't have a Bible study and so we're still at our church because we need a Bible study.

I can't.

I don't know what to do.

People are making their choice over a Bible study.

The stories go on and on like that.

There's lots of them, they happen all the time and occasionally somebody will come in and stick, and I'm so grateful for the ones that will come in and stick.

You know, back to Gideon's army.

God's not looking for huge numbers of people to do something, people who are wholly committed and just a handful can do some pretty amazing things.

You know, god whittled it down to about 3% 3% of what he started with and they did some pretty amazing things.

It's not by our power, our might, but by my spirit, says the Lord.

It's by Him, through God, we shall do valiantly.

On our own, we can't do squat.

Through God, we shall do valiantly, we shall do valiantly.

We have a nation because of about 3% of the population grows up to fight the greatest military power on earth.

And we have a nation because of it, because we put God first, we honored God, we installed God and godly principles into our founding documents and ensured that we are a Christian nation and leaned on God for help.

And he helped us.

With 3%, this nation was formed.

So I guess if we have about 3% of the churchgoers who will get on board with this, we can do some pretty amazing stuff.

I just wish the numbers were a whole lot better, but I'll take whatever we can get.

I'm so grateful for you, but we can't allow any of this.

We can't allow this filth to be poured into our kids.

We can't allow the God of this world to blind the minds of our kids, this next generation, 64% of them walking out of church.

God breaks my heart.

What are we supposed to do with our kids?

Well, I don't have the answer for you.

I'm not your kids' parents, but the Holy Ghost does.

If you ask me, I'm going to give you some pretty drastic answers.

I'm going to say take your kids out of any public school because you're leaving them to a government entity to train them up in the way they should go, so when they're old they won't depart from whatever is being poured into them there and you have no control over that, unless you're just on the ball, completely involved, looking over their shoulder, involved, have a relationship with the teachers and the administrations and know what goes on with your kids and you're that parent.

It ain't going to work for you, but you need to be that parent.

It's our job to raise up our kids, not government.

I believe that we need school choice where money follows the child, because right now you've got a monopoly on school through government.

There's a government monopoly for school, and I'm not saying schools don't do some good stuff and have some good things, but how much room do we give the devil?

It says give no place to the devil.

And there's lots of places for the devil in our public education right now.

I mean any Christian teachers that we have in there are just like poking a hole here and plugging another hole here and another hole there.

They can only plug so many holes, but it's waters coming in faster than they can stop it.

That ship is going down.

My advice is to get out and take on your responsibility of training up the kids.

Our federal government has no place in public education.

It should not be at the federal level.

If anything, it needs to be at the state or even local level for for educate.

If we're going to have a public education system, we have to ensure that it's founded on God Godly principles.

We got to get God back in there and ensure and forget separation of church and state.

That was the death nail in this.

We can have a public school system if God's at the center of it, if this is a textbook in there, if we have daily devotions in there, if we have daily prayer and we honor God and tell our kids that we are a Christian nation founded on Godly principles that come out of this word, and we tell them what those are and what that means.

We can have a good education system, but in the absence of that, it is doomed to fail.

If we had competition in our school system, competition breeds excellence, but instead we have to pay taxes into one so that we have an institution of education in our neighborhood or close by.

And then, you know, some people can send their kids to public school, or some people can home school their kids, but they're still paying for this thing here.

That is a failed thing.

I don't want to pay for that anymore.

I want to divest from things that are Godless and failing and I want to invest in things that are Godly and successful.

When we stop pretending that there's more than two genders, you know we can improve some things, but instead people are afraid to speak to that because I'm going to lose my Twitter account.

I challenge you if you're on Twitter, go ahead and call somebody out and say so.

And so who's the swimmer that just won the Leah something?

Yeah, whatever that name is, go ahead and call it what it is.

Say Leah is a man and see how long you have a Twitter account for.

Try it on Facebook.

It's just, you know, just for fun, if you're looking for something to do.

You know our schools have replaced God with philosophy, and Colossians 2.8 warns about that.

Beware lest anyone cheat you through the philosophy and empty the seed according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

And so we're teaching our kids to pay more, more attention to their feelings, how they feel about something.

Remember we're a three part being.

We are a spirit, we live in this body and we have a mind and so our spirit.

We need to be spirit led and not emotional led.

But the schools teach our kids to be emotion led.

I don't care.

Any amount of education isn't worth it If we're losing our own soul, if our kids lose their soul.

What profit on man if he gains the whole world and lose the soul?

And so I'm challenging you tonight that we've got to contend earnestly for this faith, just like Jude wrote in Jude 3.

We got to contend earnestly for this faith with everything that we've got.

We're authorized to go on the offensive.

We're authorized to contend for this faith.

We're authorized to contend for this next generation, for these kids who are being blinded.

We're authorized to tell government that they're not the answer.

There's no political party.

That's the answer.

Jesus is the answer.

We're authorized to say such things and to operate that way.

He gave us keys to the kingdom of heaven and he said we're authorized to act on his behalf.

In fact, we're not authorized to not act, we're obligated to act and we must act on his behalf, and we're authorized for those good works.

And so we've got to do more.

I'm challenging everybody in here.

We've got to have a voice.

We've got to use it and don't worry about who it pairs you up with or separates you from.

There's too much at stake and the end is too close.

Amen, amen.