Faith Facts 2

Pick your Bibles up.

I want to get into a word with you this morning.

I know you came.

Some of you drive a long way to get here.

I'm trusting that it's worth the drive.

That's my job is to make sure it's worth the drive for you.

And let's wave our Bibles around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad, and live stream audience.

You do the same.

Let's say this together.

Say Heavenly Father, I'm so glad for the Holy Ghost, I'm so glad for the Word and the Spirit.

I need both.

Today I'll be taught the Word of God.

I don't know everything.

My biggest need of room is the need for improvement, and so I want to improve in my knowledge of the Word of God, nourish my faith so that I can accomplish what you've called me to do In these last days.

In Jesus' name, amen, you can be seated.

Let's look at Hebrews 11.

I want to.

I may not get through today, but I'm going to give you a little bit more information.

You know we need inspiration, but we need information.

Inspiration without information not worth much Motivation.

You can get motivated.

People get motivated about the first of the year to join a health club.

They go a couple of times and then they gain about 30, 40 pounds while they're thinking about maybe going back.

So motivation doesn't do much, amen.

But information, yes, all right.

Hebrews 11, verse one.

Now, faith is a substance of things hoped for.

I like to say it this way Now, faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen or not yet seen For.

By it, that is, by faith, the elders obtained a good report.

Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.

So the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear Verse six.

But without faith it is impossible to please God, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

So I'm sharing a message entitled faith facts.

And you know, because we live by faith, the just shall live by faith, and so every breathing, living, breathing moment that we're in this body, it ought to be by faith.

Once we get saved, god gave us each, he dealt, the measure of faith to every Christian.

That's how you got saved.

He gave you the faith to get saved.

Then it's what happens after that.

Some people are like the man that Jesus talked about, who wrapped his gift in a napkin and buried it in the backyard.

Some people still have just the faith they had when they got saved.

Well, you know, what we do after.

That is up to us.

We can grow our faith, we can nourish our faith, we can feed our faith, and so that's why I don't apologize for teaching and preaching on faith multiple times, because we need faith cometh by hearing and hearing, and so we need to be nourished.

I mean, if we work and expend the energy, what do we have to do?

We have to eat.

If we're working outside and heat, what do we have to do?

Well, we have to hydrate.

Well, it's the same in the kingdom of God.

It's the same with living by faith.

We need to nourish and hydrate.

And so last week we talked about three faith facts.

The first one we talked about with faith is now.

You know, we have to lose the idea that God's gonna, god will, god might.

All of that stuff is hope.

All of that stuff is in the future.

Faith brings the future and brings it into the now.

We need hope.

Hope is necessary, but hope by itself won't get you what you need to get.

It's incomplete.

It's only by faith.

It's only by faith.

Faith is now.

And then we talked about your world as a result of your words.

You know, god framed the world with words.

He said it in order, he equipped it for its intended purpose, he fashioned it.

Your world is built the same way as by your words.

And if you don't like your world, change what you're saying.

Nine times out of 10 is because.

Why is that?

Well, because the world is programmed negatively and there's so much negativity in the world, there's so much fear, there's so much fatalism.

Oh, I tell you, the supply chain is never gonna be the same.

Look at all those ships off the coast of California.

There's not gonna be any toys for Christmas and all of that stuff.

You know, we're just.

You know the devil is trying to put the spirit of fear in the church.

He's trying to get negativity and, just like Jimmy was talking about, we've got to speak differently.

And it's not because I have faith in the politicians, you know.

I just know that God's not through with America.

That's where my faith, my faith is in God and in His Word and I know we can frame our world with what we say if we constantly berate.

Now, that's different, you know.

You have to understand what's going on and sound the alarm.

That's not negative, that's actually what we need to be doing.

But once we've done that, we need to encourage people that God's not through with America, he's not through with the church.

The church is waking up.

I said the church is waking up.

You know it's, you know things are changing, all right.

And so then we found out that faith is released in words and actions.

Faith without corresponding action is dead.

Yes, we need to talk right, but we need to walk right.

If we're going to talk right, we need to walk right.

If we're going to talk a certain thing, then we need to act that way.

If you're going to say, thank God, I'm healed, then you need to what Act like you're healed.

That's step number one.

You know Rick just had major surgery.

What did he do?

He got up and started walking and what it bring to do.

As soon as she had enough strength, she walked.

It took a while for her to get her strength back.

She lost a lot of strength.

I know, I totally relate to that.

I, you know, and I look back on triple bypass surgery.

When I went into surgery I didn't have a heart attack.

I didn't.

I wasn't sick.

I didn't have any symptoms.

I had no symptoms that I knew of.

I mean, I'm preaching, I'm singing, I'm doing everything I always do.

And then one day I have a triple bypass and I wake up and I don't have any legs, I can't walk anywhere, I have no breath, I can't move hardly.

They said, mr Grine, you need to walk over here the door and back.

You know, it's all I could do to just walk to the door of the ICU unit and back to my bed and couldn't wait to get back there.

When I did and the day came, well, you need to walk down the hall.

Here's this cart.

I had all my tubes and all my stuff, they had bucket, they had me hooked up to all kind of drainage and everything and put it all in, had my IV hooked up.

You know, drag that with me and walk down the hall with this cart, handlebars on it and I'm leaning on it.

I didn't think I was gonna make it.

He said you can walk right down the nurse's station and come back.

I didn't think I could make it to the nurse's station, much less back, I mean.

So where did all that strength go, see?

So I had to resist.

I said, I had to resist the weakness that I had in my body and I had to do that a long, long, long time.

Praise God, I recovered.

How many of you believe I did recover?

Amen.

So we got more faith facts today.

We need to release our faith with action.

We need to act like the Bible is true.

That's a simple definition of faith.

We talked about Brother Hagin getting out of the bed when he was paralyzed and when he realized he was healed and the Holy Ghost said well, healed people don't lay in bed.

Healed people, you know, get up.

And so he stood by the side of the bed and got weak and dizzy and had to get back in bed.

It took him all day to get enough strength to stand by the bed and then finally, on that day, he walked across the room, got dressed, walked down the stairs and ate at the kitchen table, and then the grandma fixed him, you know, a meal and.

But it didn't happen the first time he had to take a run at it.

See, you know, we just need to act like the Bible is true, with all that is within us.

All right, so here's some more facts about faith.

How many of you want some more facts about things.

I mean the just shall live by faith.

But a lot of my deal is a lot of people live by motion, they live by just.

You know the seat of their pants, so to speak.

They don't really look at the Bible and let the Bible inform them of how to speak and how to think, and so we need these facts.

You know, a lot of people have been taught wrong.

They've been taught theories.

I like what Brother Hagin says about theories.

Theory is a supposition based on ignorance of the subject under discussion.

A theory is a supposition based on ignorance of the subject under discussion.

So a lot of people they get man's theories.

One theory is well, god's healing is not for today.

It only God healed in the Bible in the old days.

It's healing is passed away.

Well, you can't find it in the Bible.

It's nowhere to be found.

And somebody I've been subscribing to Bill Canig's website for 15 years.

He's a Messianic Jew, he's a White House correspondent.

I get a lot of good out of his website, but he turned his target on the Word of Faith and called it a heresy.

He turned his target on people that I know and it followed a long time.

Name it Kim and Copeland and Jesse DePlanis, and he just used the most wicked and ugly language to describe them.

And I wrote him a red hot email last night and I told him he needed to repent.

And you haven't investigated these men of God.

They have decades of the track record and you can't call them heretics.

You cannot do it.

You can disagree with their doctrine.

People good people disagree on doctrine all the time.

But see, I don't doubt that Bill is saved.

I don't say that what he believes is he's not going to heaven.

That's basically what he said.

And I'm just outraged.

I'm not going to put up with.

I'm not going to let people attack the Word of Faith.

I'm not going to let them do it.

I'm going to rebuke them and hopefully he'll read my email.

I don't know if he will, but maybe he will.

I mean, if you listen, bill, you want to fly in the back of the plane, you know, next to the potty, go ahead, knock yourself out.

Brother Copeland, brother, you know, all those Word of Faith guys have jets.

I don't listen.

I'm glad for them to have a jet.

I'm glad they don't have to stand in line at the airport, be treated like a criminal, and there I mean, you know, when you're 83 and you're still preaching the gospel.

And I don't know how old Jesse is, but he's not too far behind, he's older than I am and he, I mean, they're just go, go, go.

Do you think they could go if they stand out at the airport for hours at a time and be treated like a criminal and be herded in there like a bunch of cattle slammed together shoulder to shoulder?

How anointed would they be if they had?

I don't know why I'm going on this, but you know, thank God for this message, thank God for the Word of Faith.

I don't apologize to anybody for it.

Eat your heart out if you want to live down here, when the Bible says you can live up here, all right, enough of that.

So how many of you believe I am wound up this morning?

I'm not going to contribute to that.

So I'll give him a couple of weeks to get back to me and if he doesn't, well then I'll just put him on the X factor, put him in the circular file, all right?

So, which is a shame, because we agree on more things and we disagree on.

That's what's.

So.

You know, I told him.

I said you're like a lot of Messianic Jews that I know they're bottom heavy.

They spend more time in the Old Testament.

You need to get into the epistles that were written to the church.

That's what they all do.

They all get over in Jeremiah and Ezekiel and all the negative.

You know where the prophet was.

You know mean and all of that kind of thing.

Everybody hid from Samuel when he came to town.

That's Old Testament.

We're in the New Testament, hallelujah, all right.

So here's three more facts today.

The third, the fourth one that I'll share.

Real Bible faith begins where the will of God is known.

Real Bible faith begins where the will of God is known.

And what is the will of God?

Well, god's word is his will.

I mean, that's why I'm always telling you to read your Bible every day.

Read it every day, don't read it just, you know, read it every day.

I said read it every day.

Okay, there's four or five that grunted Read it every day, that's better, that's better.

You said amen, so I'm going to hold you to it.

Why is that?

Well, because that's how you discover what the will of God is, and when you read it every day, systematically, it gets built into you.

This is the logos, and the logos is the general will of God.

This basically generally tells you how to live your life.

It tells how husbands should relate to their wives and children.

It tells wives how they should relate to their husbands and their children.

It tells children how they should relate to their parents.

I mean, just this is the general will of God.

But then in Romans 10, 17, it says so.

Then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

That word word is the Greek word Ramah, which means God breathed word.

So it doesn't say logos.

Faith doesn't come from the logos, it comes by the Ramah, or hearing the God breathed word for the moment.

That's why you read your Bible.

You're reading the logos Many times, not every time, but many times.

There is a Ramah that comes back to you when you read your Bible.

There is a specific word that speaks to you.

It all speaks to you in one way or the other.

I like what Brother Ovestain used to say you know, just feed yourself on the logos and when you need it, god will bring it out of you as a Ramah, and that's what he does all the time.

I'll give you an example.

You know all the logos.

The logo says that I'm healed.

The logo says by stripes, I was healed.

Logo says by stripes, I am healed.

The logo says all of that right.

And so you've got all these healing scriptures.

We got the cards out there with the healing scriptures on them.

The Bible says you can take the word as medicine.

I've done that.

It works.

But on another level, sometimes when you're facing a challenge, especially a health challenge and especially a challenge of disease that has an incubation period you know much of this virus.

It's got certain ways it acts in a human body that if we wait, we're at a disadvantage then to defeat it.

Well, god can do anything.

Well, I understand God can do anything, but your faith is like a seed.

Your faith works in time.

It's like planting a seed and so if you use up precious time after this thing has attacked your body and you ignored the symptoms and ignored it and didn't do anything about it maybe you spoke against it but you didn't do anything else Well then you know you're in a tough situation because then if you go to the hospital you're at a disadvantage because they're not treating COVID, they're doing other things besides that, and this is not even a medical thing anymore, it's political and I can't go any further than that.

But anyway, that's why we're gonna have Dr Hoce come next Sunday night.

We're giving a Sunday night service to that.

I hope you all show up.

It's very valuable information.

Well, I just believe God.

Well, I believe God too, but God expects us to act a certain way.

We have to act on our faith, amen.

And all he's gonna do is give you some alternatives to what they're offering out there.

But I was led in ICU a few months ago, back in, I guess July, and I wasn't feeling very well.

I'd short a breath, my heart was racing 160 beats a minute.

They told me you don't have a fib, you have a flutter.

I'd never even heard of a flutter before.

My heart was you talk about not beating correctly, it's just going, it's not pumping blood to my organs.

And so I'm laying there and praying in the Holy Ghost.

And I got Isaiah 55 as a ranger.

Now Isaiah 55 says you know that God's word does not return to him void, it prospers in the thing where to it is sin.

And I remembered that I've been speaking to my heart at least 16 years, every day, in fact.

At night I do it in the shower, I speak and ever since I had my first ripple 16 years ago, I've been speaking to my heart on a daily basis and I speak to its rhythm and all of that blood pressure, sinus rhythm.

I speak and I just I started saying under my breath, I said heart, these doctors are doing whatever they're doing, but they're not in charge.

The word that I have sent to you is in charge of this situation.

I have sent the word to you and it does not return to me void.

That word is accomplishing what I wanted it to accomplish.

So you might as well get lined up with what I've said for 16 years.

See what was that?

That's Ramah.

Ephesians, chapter six, one of the one of the take upon you the whole armor of God and which is, and he says, which is the word of God, the sword of the spirit.

That word, word, is not logos, it's Ramah.

So if you wanna stick the devil with a dagger, you're gonna have to have a Ramah.

So Ramahs are very necessary for us to operate in.

Ramah is where we get our faith from.

But thank God for the logos.

Again, logos is a general will of God.

The Ramah is the specific will of God.

Specific will of God, that's a Ramah.

Y'all remember my Corvette story, ain't it?

I got a Ramah about my Corvette.

Say, I didn't know.

Well, why did you even pray about that?

Why didn't you just go buy it?

Well, because Jesus is my Lord and he wants something to say about how I spend my money.

He wants something to say, but he has something to say about every part of my life.

I've learned through terrible experiences to always check with God when I'm making some kind of a decision, whether it's big or small, and when you earn his trust enough.

A lot of times he'll leave it up to me.

On small things He'll just say whatever you want I've had him say that to me, but it wasn't right away.

Back in the 90s, all of my buddies and friends in the ministry seemed like everybody was buying Harley-Davidson, motorcycles, and man, I wanted a Harley-Davidson and my parents wouldn't let me have even a moped.

They wouldn't let me have a scooter, they wouldn't let me have a car until I was a senior and graduated high school.

Then I got to have a car and but anyway, I've always liked the way they sound.

I mean, you know, there's nothing like a Harley.

And so then I, and so I sowed some seed, you know, to help somebody else buy a Harley.

And you know, and I was really on my way, but I hadn't even prayed about it, I hadn't really asked the Lord really about it.

I just bought a thousand dollars worth of Harley magazines and books and started looking at them and dreaming about them, going by Mancuso's Harley Davidson and sitting on them.

Never did drive one or anything, but I just, you know, looked at them.

I had three motorcycles back before I was saved, but they weren't Harleys, they were just little little bikes.

One was a dirt bike, the other two were road bikes, little bikes compared to Harley.

And and I thought one day this is back in the 90s, you know 97 maybe.

I said you know Lord, I guess it's time for me to ask whether you really.

I keep doing this, but I don't.

I haven't felt any kind of release.

I guess it's time for me to ask you I'm sorry I didn't ask early on, but what about a Harley?

Is it okay?

If I buy a Harley, I've got the money to buy one.

He said no.

Short answer no.

Well, now why would he say no?

I didn't think God ever said no.

Well, be careful.

What you asked for it wasn't his will that I even asked him.

See, I had to learn that, unless I had to learn how to flow with my heavenly father.

I mean, you know, if you, if you flow with him, you'll know what not to ask.

I said you'll know what not to ask, for he won't ever have to tell you no, because, why?

Because you're flowing with him.

But he told me no for a good reason because almost every one of those preachers had a bad accident.

One of them came to town to preach and he had.

He had just driven off the end of his driveway, he had just fell off and he had road rash all the way down the side of his body, ooze, and you know how it does.

It starts, ooze, it's asphalt, it's mixed in there with it.

And he wanted to save me the pain.

A fallen off of one.

Well, you can.

You know you can have a car wreck, yeah, but in a car you've got airbags, you've got, you know, you've got a lot of things that absorb the energy you can survive a car wreck.

But if you have a real heavy duty wreck on any kind of motorcycle I don't care how much stuff you've got on you, you know it's pretty dangerous.

Jay's got one.

He asked the Lord and Lord said okay, you can have one.

So he's got one and I don't begrudge him having one.

Jay's one thing and I'm another.

I can't have one.

Jay can have one.

He's younger and he's got better reflexes than I do, more observant than I am.

So real Bible faith begins where the will of God is known.

The Bible is God's general will.

The Ramah is God's specific will.

That Ramah, ramah's come when you hang out with God.

Ramah's come when you spend time with God.

That's prayer and reading your Bible.

That's why, when I pray, I have my Bible open in my lap, because I just do both.

Are y'all looking at me?

Kind of funny?

Are y'all getting this?

Now?

These are well, I knew that.

Well, yeah, but we need to hear it again.

And the faith cometh about what?

Hearing and hearing, all right.

And so let's look at Matthew eight.

Real quick, you getting anything out of this?

Yes, that's just real life.

First one, when he, that's Jesus, had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him and behold, there came a leper and worshiped him, saying Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.

Lord, if you will, you can make me clean and Jesus put forth his hands For every even said a word.

Jesus moved toward him, put forth his hands, says I will, I will be thou clean.

So you know, getting back to real Bible faith, a lot of people believe God.

Can they just doubt?

They don't doubt his ability, they doubt his willingness, they doubt his willingness.

That's why it's so, it's so important to be people of the covenant.

It's so important to know what belongs to you, and this Bible, the logos, tells you everything generally that belongs to you.

Health belongs to you, prosperity belongs to you, deliverance belongs to you.

What the world is calling safety, that belongs to you, but it's not gotten by human means.

I mean, there's no science behind their steps of what they call safety.

There's no science at all, none, zero.

I said none, amen, amen, richard.

So you know, where do we have safety?

Well, we have safety by believing what belongs to us out of the covenant.

We have to believe that God is not only able but he's willing, especially in areas that belong to us.

That logos tells us what belongs to us and the Ramah can tell us more specifically what belongs to us.

Is this helping you now?

Amen, amen, all right, the second faith fact, or I could say really number five.

I gave you three last week.

Number four was real Bible.

Faith begins with the will of God is known.

This one is number five, mark, chapter six, talking about Bible facts, faith facts.

Mark Jesus is in his own hometown preaching the gospel, like he did everywhere else.

He's preaching there like he preached in Capernaum, he preached in there, like he preached in Galilee, everywhere.

And it says here in verse five that he could, he could there do no mighty work, say that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and heal them.

So that means that he didn't say he wouldn't, say he wouldn't because obviously he did try, he obviously preached and attempted to do what he had done everywhere else where they healed them all.

I mean he was in places where all were healed.

And yet in his hometown he could there do no mighty, he could there.

He didn't say he would there, he said he could there do no mighty work.

Because of what?

Because of their unbelief.

And he marveled.

In one version it says he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them of minor ailments.

You know he got a few.

You know coals, sniffles, ingrown toenails, some minor things.

If you've ever had an ingrown toenail it's not minor, but anyway, the scheme of things, you know it's minor.

So it says he could there do.

Because of what?

Because of their unbelief.

And he marveled at that, because of their unbelief.

So unbelief, faith fact number five, unbelief stops the power of God.

Where you're concerned, and specifically the unbelief that they had was a lack of honor.

Jesus said in the verse before they had a prophet is not without honor, but in his own country and among his own kin and in his own house.

And if you go back to verse three, then you can hear what they're saying about him.

It's not this, the carpenter, the son of Mary.

See, they didn't call him Messiah.

They didn't call him the son of David.

Blind Bartimaeus knew more than they did.

He called him the son of David.

Jesus, that son of David, they're stupid.

They didn't call him the son of David.

What did they call him?

It's not this, the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph, and Judah and Simon are not his sisters, here with us.

And they were offended at him.

You could say they were jealous of him.

And see, I found that to be true of people that I used to go to school with before I got saved.

I mean going to.

I'm through going to high school reunions.

I'm done.

I stick a fork in it.

I'm through trying to be a witness to those people because they don't relate to me.

They think of me 50 years ago, 60 years ago, when they knew the guy that already died.

He died a long time ago, 40 plus years ago.

That guy died and the new one came in, a new creature, praise God.

So they don't relate to me and I don't relate to them.

And they'll say little snide things.

They'll say little things, and it's not like there hadn't been some works done in their presence, but they're not interested.

So I just have to move on and go to the Rife Parvist.

I refuse to cast my pearls before a swine.

You gotta listen, you gotta know that a lack of honor is gonna stop the power of God from operating, either for you or for the person who's offended at you.

Amen, are you with me now?

Amen, and so, mark 11, here's another way that God's power can be short circuited.

Mark 11, verse 25, jesus says, when you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anybody.

Mark 11:25

That your father also, which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses, but if you do not forgive, neither will your father, which is in heaven, forgive your trespasses.

So unforgiveness, animosity, bitterness, jealousy, envy negates your faith as well.

You can have faith, but it's negated.

You've got a power failure.

I said you've got a power failure.

It's not gonna work.

And, like I tell people, when you have things that aren't moving, when you have things that are not responding to your faith and your prayer life, the first place I would look, the absolute first place I'd look, is my love walk.

I'd make sure I'm not being touchy or fretful, or resentful or jealous hearted or unforgiving or any of those things.

Listen, that's gonna stop God's power from operating in your life.

It stopped it in his own hometown.

I mean Jesus himself.

Could there Do no mighty work.

So can we expect better results?

Of course not.

Of course not.

We have our faith works by love.

So when love is not present, love.

Love is not in it for ourselves.

Love is giving people the benefit of the doubt.

Love is forgiving.

Love is not laying down in the road and being a doormat.

It's not standing in line for a second dose of whatever they're dishing out, but it means that you're not trying to get revenge, you're not trying to show them up, you're not trying to do anything against them personally to pay them back.

Well, what about a thief that's hijacked you or carjacked you?

Should I not?

No, they ought to be arrested and you ought to testify against them.

That's not unforgiveness, that's holding them accountable for lawlessness.

I've heard Christians be so well, I'm just turning the other cheek.

Oh good, you don't even know what the Bible says.

You're taking it out of its setting and applying it in the wrong place.

You know, rightly, dividing the word of truth is necessary.

Amen.

We have a spirit of lawlessness in the world today and the church is the pillar and ground of the truth.

It's the pillar and ground of justice and judgment.

Amen, amen.

You know, peter said this one time it's time for judgment to begin at the house of God.

A lot of times people look at that and they see it as a negative.

Actually, I see it as a positive.

I see it that the church ought to be standing for judgment, which is separation of good and evil, amen.

And identifying what is evil.

Amen, praise God.

So getting along with that, you cannot receive from the ministry that you're critical of.

When you're critical of your pastor, you can't receive from his minister.

I've seen it.

I've seen it.

I've seen people sit right there and then suddenly they're about halfway back and then suddenly they're on the back row and the next thing you know they're out the door.

And I find out after the fact, when they don't even write a letter, they don't even say.

I mean, I've had people be here 15, 20 years and leave without even word.

And when I don't hear a word, I know they got offended at something.

And I know my heart and I never try to offend anybody.

I just preach the word.

And so some people are offended by the word.

But don't get offended at it.

And if you don't understand something I've said this recently but if you don't understand something I'm saying, give me the benefit of the doubt and don't let yourself get offended about it.

Seek the Lord for yourself and find out whether there's something that you can't agree on.

Well, if you can't agree on it, put it on a shelf.

You might get to the place where you agree with me on it.

But don't become disagreeable and offended at me.

Are you with me now?

But I mean, it's the same.

I would not allow myself not even a little bit to differ with Brother Osteen.

I mean to tell you, when he preached, I just I treat it like Jesus is talking to me.

Oh, that's dangerous.

No, that's safety, that's right, it's just safe, it's safer.

He's the one who's got to stand before God giving a count.

He's got more to lose than I do.

If God sees that you're faithful to the man of God, who's a gift to you, then he will protect you, even if the man of God is off base, and he'll warn you and he'll let you know in plenty of time for you to make other arrangements I've had, you know, people are here this morning because your church left you.

You heard some things from the pulpit of the church that you used to go to that you couldn't agree with, and you tried and you tried to help them and you tried to, and finally you had to leave.

Well, praise the Lord, that's never gonna happen here, in Jesus name.

All right, and the last one I wanna share with you is that and this is kind of repetitive in a way, but it bears repeating in a different way Faith puts God's power to work.

See, we just heard about unbelief stopping God's power.

Faith puts God's power to work.

Oh, I like to say it this way Faith is the switch that turns on the power of God.

It turns on the power.

See, since Pentecost, god's power is everywhere present, because God, the Holy Spirit, is everywhere present.

He's omnipotent, omniscient.

He's everywhere present since Pentecost.

But before that, in the Gospels and in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was limited in His being present to the priest, the prophet and the king.

God's power was available upon the ministry of the priest, the prophet and the king, and that was the only place he was present.

He was present in the temple, behind those doors, behind the curtains, and before that, the pillar of fire by night, the cloud by day.

That was the presence of God, that was the power of God.

He was with the children of Israel, but not in them.

He was not upon them, only upon the priest, the prophet and the king.

But, and so even in the days of the Gospel, where Jesus was present, jesus had God's power in Him and upon Him.

He was filled with mighty power.

But the apostles had a delegated power.

He said I give you power over all the power of the enemy.

You tread upon serpents and scorpions.

So they had a delegated power.

I said they had a delegated power.

So where they went they could do what Jesus told them to do.

And you sell them.

See them ever taking advantage of that power.

They had it and they didn't use it.

But in every other case, I mean, if you took blind Bartimaeus, where did he have to go to experience healing?

He had to get in Jesus' presence.

As a matter of fact, the boy who was thrown by the demon into the fire and into the water and his father says oh, jesus, I took my son to your disciples and they could not help him.

You know, I just don't understand.

He said if you can do anything, if you can do anything, please heal my son.

You can.

Just, you know, he's so broken hearted A lot of people like that broken hearted oh, if you can do anything.

And Jesus said it's not a matter of whether I can do anything, it's a matter of whether you can believe.

If you can believe, I can do all things to him that believe.

And so he cast the devil out of that little boy, something like you know epilepsy, and he cast that thing out of him and he was fine.

And so the disciple said Lord, why couldn't we?

Why couldn't we do it Well, because of your unbelief.

He hit him in the head with a two before.

He didn't say well, give me a hug, thank you for trying.

Y'all are good guys, man, y'all really tried.

Thanks for everything.

No, he hit him in the head with a two before.

Because if you're unbelief, see why was it unbelief?

Because they, hey, they could have done it.

They were intimidated by the size of the demon, they were by the terrorizing of the child and they just they, they just couldn't.

You know.

He said how long have I got to put up with you?

He was irritated.

Jesus was irritated more than he was pleased.

If you really read your gospels, I don't think it's changed a whole lot.

He's not looking to hug anybody right now.

I'll tell you.

What he's looking for is people that will believe his word and do it.

When you believe his word and act on it, the switch turns on.

Praise God, and God's power is released in the direction where you speak.

Glory to God.

That morning in the ICU, that God's power was released yet again into my heart, because I declared that it wasn't the doctors in charge of the treatment they were treating me, or in fact, they've treated me wrong.

The first go around, they put some medicine in my IV and I mean my eyesight shrunk and I didn't have any peripheral vision and my body started shutting down.

I said I'm not complaining, I'm reporting.

But whatever you just did, it didn't work and it's going the wrong direction.

You better change directions now.

Well, that wasn't faith.

Yeah, that was.

I'm warning them.

They're messing my, they're messing what God's trying to do up.

They're not on the right track.

See, doctors, I'm telling you you can die.

You've got to make up your mind and when you do, and if you do go to the hospital and you do wind up in ICU, that the word that you have spoken is ruling it.

Amen, amen, amen, all right.

So faith puts God's power to work.

Faith is a switch that turns on the power of God.

That word power is dunamis, it's supernatural power, and since Pentecost happened and the Holy Ghost was poured out into the church, then the Holy Ghost is everywhere present.

I said this recently, but if there was still a ghillies, a Holy Ghost would be in ghillies.

The Holy Ghost would be in the crack house.

The Holy Ghost would be in the massage place.

The Holy Ghost would be everywhere.

In the truck stuff, the Holy Ghost would be.

Wherever sin is, the Holy Ghost would be there and miracles would happen.

We don't have to be in church for them to happen.

The Holy Ghost can happen and his power can be turned on and you're living room and your bedroom and your car, anywhere you are, the Holy Ghost is.

And he's even where you're not.

He's where your unbelieving relatives are.

He's anywhere you send him.

Oh, come on, let's lift our hands.

Thank God, he's not trying to get.

He's not just locked up in the room of this church, he's not just right here, amen, he's everywhere.

Now you know this idea that we can somehow fast for things, fast for healing, and I find this in India a lot.

I have Indian brothers and sisters.

A lot of them have immigrated to America now and they're preaching the same thing here as they did there.

But I had a preacher tell me.

He says oh, our whole church is fasting and praying for your healing.

I said, well, don't bother doing that.

That's not how it's gonna happen, I guarantee it.

You know, when you do that, when you say to God I'm gonna fast until such and such happens, you're basically saying you don't have any faith in God's Word.

You're saying that you've gotta participate, you've gotta do something that's hard.

You've gotta earn something that Jesus already freely gave us.

It's already been freely given.

It's not about you fasting.

Fasting won't make it happen.

Fasting won't make it happen.

Faster Fasting, in fact, really again fasting is.

In that way fasting can really be a tool of unbelief and pride.

I had a guy you know just come up to me say well, have you ever fasted 40 days?

I said yeah.

I said no and I don't plan to.

Jesus did that one time.

As far as I know, he only did it once.

Once was enough for him.

It's enough for me.

I don't think I'd ever do that, thank you.

Oh, I've been on many 40 days fast and I thought is that what's wrong with your brain damage?

That's what happens.

Flaky is a $3 bill.

I knew of a preacher one time that had just gotten married and he went on a 40 day fast, came down off the 40 day fast, said you know, the Lord spoke to me, honey, that we're not supposed to be married.

I married the wrong woman, divorced his wife, blamed it on God and he's 40 days.

No, he went nuts.

Male nourishment.

I know I'm popping some balloons in here today.

You mean you don't believe in fasting?

Well, not for that purpose.

I mean, fasting has its purpose.

I mean, after 40 minutes I'm usually done with fasting.

Typically, I start having visions, visions of donuts, visions of fajitas, visions.

Fasting is a way to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.

It is.

Fasting is a way to become more spiritually sensitive to God.

And my tradition, if you have one I traditionally like to fast a little bit.

When I go off to Galveston to pray.

I'm usually fast, you know, for most of the day, but I found it's counterproductive to fast as long as 24 hours.

I just feel too bad, I'm just not.

I don't have the grace for it, I guess.

And it's not about me feeling bad, it's about me drawing near to God.

And the other thing about fasting doing without food if you're not gonna pray and fast, you're kinda wasting your time.

So you ought to dedicate the time you would spend at the Papadot feeding your face, to prayer.

You know, we were in Papadot the other day.

It was an hour and a half to get out of there, right.

So instead of going to Papadot, you don't eat anything and you spend an hour and a half praying.

Now you're going somewhere and you know the Holy Spirit can govern all of that.

You know, in the New Testament there's not a lot spoken about it and so I like to not major on things that the Bible matters on.

Some people are way too sensitive about, you know they're thinking they can earn again.

It's a wrong mindset.

So you can't fast for healing.

You fast for spiritual sensitivity.

And fasting never changes God.

God's the same.

Hopefully fasting will change you.

It will cause you to be more spiritually sensitive, to send a signal to your bodily flesh, to your fleshly desires, that you were in charge of those.

Brother Hagin, one time this is what he would do.

He'd go on a meeting, he'd be in a church at least two weeks and he would have six services a week with one day off.

So he'd only have two days off in 14 days and two services a day.

That's a lot of work, a lot of energy being expended, and as he got older and he's got a little you know been doing that a while he would just wear out.

I mean he was tired because he would fast the entire morning.

He would eat no breakfast, he would eat no lunch and then by the time he ate it was late at night, which is not good for your health, and he would eat it late at night.

And then you know.

Then you just repeat the whole thing and just so, one time the Holy Ghost spoke to him.

He says you know you need to change what you're doing.

He said I want you to just quit fasting and using up all your energy praying and fasting.

He said, after service, go to your room and lay down on your bed and meditate.

In my word, see, he would be on his knees.

See, he felt like he had to be on his knees, praying, fasting, wearing himself out, wearing himself.

And you know, he said, my spiritual growth took off.

I was more sensitive to the things of God.

By doing what the Holy Ghost told me to do, I quit fasting, so much I quit doing with that.

I quit.

I just started laying on my bed and resting, resting my body and replenishing my spirit by meditating on the Word of God.

Are y'all getting this?

I tell you how many of you believe God knows better than we do, and so a lot of these things that we have are just traditions that we've heard people speak about and maybe even teach about, and a lot of these people that brag on how much they fast.

That's what their reward is, that they're bragging on how spiritual they are, and that's not spiritual, is it?

Jesus said if you fast, anoint your face, don't let anybody know.

You fasted, and here they are wearing a sign.

I fasted for 40 days.

I've done that every 40 days, all right.

So faith facts.

You getting anything out of this today?

Come on, lift your hands and receive today, father, we thank you for the facts of the Word of God.

We're not basing our lives on theories, but on the facts of the Word of God.

Hallelujah, come on, let's rejoice this morning.

Glory be to God, hallelujah.