The Apostolic Lifestyle

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

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, I'm teachable, I'm ready to hear what the Holy Ghost has got to share with me tonight.

I'm not listening for somebody else, I'm listening for me, for my instruction.

I'm ready to make whatever adjustments I need to make to line up with your Word in Jesus' name, amen.

I'd like Corinthians, chapter 10, please.

I like Sunday nights because I feel a liberty to share more meat than I do Sunday mornings.

Sunday mornings we have visitors.

Sunday mornings we have newer folks that just got here from different kinds of churches that aren't, and you heard them this morning.

Some of them had to overcome what they saw and heard here.

They had to get used to the way we do things and I'm just so proud that they did that.

I mean, a lot of people don't hang around for that.

They just leave.

Thank God they didn't leave, maybe, but meat, we're soldiers, paul.

I like what Brother Mark says about Paul and the epistles that Paul had a revelation that went unuttered by Jesus.

Jesus took the revelation Paul had unuttered to heaven with him.

He would have taught it, he would have brought it, but they weren't ready to hear it.

So Paul brought it.

And second Corinthians, chapter 10, verse one.

2 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

Now I, paul myself, beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ Keep that in mind who in presence and base among you, but being absent.

I'm bold towards you, but I beseech you there's that word again, he's not begging them, but he's appealing to them.

I beseech you that I may not be bold when I am present with confidence, we're with, I think, to be bold against some of the things that we do not think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they're not body ruled.

Carnal means body ruled.

They're not of the body, but they're mighty through God and pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Verse six and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

Well, we get into verse six in a little bit.

I'll give you another version of it.

Make.

It's always troubled me that verse, but tonight I wanted to share a message entitled the Apostolic Lifestyle.

I try to teach frequently on the Apostolic because I believe the entire church has always been apostolic.

What do I mean?

Well, the short version of Apostle is a sent one, and Jesus sent us into all the world.

So the apostolic should be not a denomination, not a Pentecostal denomination.

It ought to be a part, it ought to be the lifestyle of every believer.

It ought to be in the forefront of the pastor who's feeding the sheep.

I'm not talking about an apostle or the office of the apostle.

I'm talking about the lifestyle.

Sometimes people get tangled up with their own interpretation.

Hopefully that'll clear up tonight.

Help you to understand that this is an apostolic vine with a prophetic river, this church.

And when I found out what kind of church God said it was and a regional center, I found out that it has authority executive, legislative and judicial authority.

I found it really amazing.

Last Sunday we had 19 judge candidates sitting in our lobby.

I never knew that.

In 1996, when God gave me this, I didn't understand how it could be.

How could we have that kind of influence?

But we've got influence in the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch, not only of earthly governments but of God's government.

This is a governmental church and that's the apostolic.

Are y'all with me now?

So Paul here speaks of war and warfare.

You know, in verse four, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but they're mighty.

Well, what does warfare mean?

Stratea, greek word means military service, the weapons of our military service, a military expedition, our military campaign, our military, our apostolic lifestyle or our apostolic career.

Stratea, warfare.

And you see, I don't preach this on Sunday morning because some people would hit the door, they'd get.

You know what kind of weird deal is this?

Well, you're grown up enough to hear some meat.

You're not gonna choke.

And if I have to cut it up for you, well, I'll cut it up for you.

But we need meat, you know, and there's no soldier ever went to battle on milk.

I mean, milk is for babies.

Milk will make you fat and lazy when you have milk, when you're not a baby.

I mean babies need the milk, mother's milk especially.

It's perfect food for a baby.

Why?

Because babies have to grow and they have to grow quick and the little brains have to develop.

They have we talked about the five spiritual senses?

Well, they're very similar to the physical senses and those things have to develop Eye, sight and ear, hearing and smell and taste and touch.

Little babies have to develop in that so they can begin to encounter the world that they live in.

Well, that's the way that the church has to be.

We have to develop our spiritual senses to understand that we're not just in a rose petal garden.

I mean, you know we are in a warfare and we're not in a military campaign.

Paul told Timothy.

He said you know, be a good soldier, endure hardness as a good soldier.

Hardness didn't say enjoy the blessing, brother.

See, milk is the blessing scriptures.

Milk is all the stuff that we've got because of Jesus.

I do need to remind everybody about that.

But what about the meat?

What's the meat?

Responsibility, your duties as a soldier.

So he says here he's talking to the Corinthian church, which is a highly carnal church.

Okay, I figured you know if they weren't exempt from this message, we shouldn't be.

And I had nobody to teach me these things.

My father didn't teach this.

I had to learn it by revelation.

I had to learn it by boning up in the Word of God and praying and finding out what God's perspective on all this was.

So warfare?

It implies hardship and danger.

We're not afraid.

Why?

Because the Holy Ghost lives on the inside of us.

He's there.

He shows us to live.

Now at the end of really the end of the church age is rapidly approaching.

I don't have any dates for you, but there's gonna come a day when the last Gentile is saved, the day of the Gentiles be fulfilled, and then God is gonna turn his entire attention upon Israel.

Right now, though, we live in the age where whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

I mean, it's so easy to get people saved.

We're in a warfare, though.

It's a military campaign for the souls of men, or I should say spirits of men, but their souls are in the way.

We'll get into that in a minute, all right, and then, in verse three, it says war.

See, warfare is a noun, war is a we don't war.

So I beseech you may not be bold.

He said, though we walk in the flesh, we don't war after the flesh.

War is a verb there, and that's the Greek word strata euomi, which means to serve in a military campaign to execute the apostolate, with its arduous duties and functions, to contend with carnal inclinations.

Now, you know, in the 80s they had this error, and I think it's still floating around where prayer people would pray and they would pray and pray down the principalities and powers over cities and they would pull down strongholds over cities.

Well, that's not talking about cities, it's talking about minds.

It has nothing to do with a demon power floating over Houston.

I mean, you know, daniel didn't pull that Prince of Persia down over Persia.

He just had help from Michael the Archangel and they defeated that thing long enough to get the message through.

There are demon powers in the heavenlies.

We're not called to pull them down.

That's not our job.

In fact, we don't even deal with them.

God deals with them when we pray correctly.

We're going to have another prayer meeting next Sunday night.

You know, power hour plus A lot of that's going to happen.

But we don't bother with pulling down.

I pulled down the principality over here.

No, we don't do that.

That's not our job.

Our job is to deal with people on the earth and they're stinking, thinking Amen.

They've got strongholds.

Verse four strongholds.

Okuroma, which means a fortress, a castle.

I tell you, people that wear masks in their cars have strongholds.

You've got to be nuts.

Sorry, if that's you, I mean, come on, what are you afraid of?

You afraid of the dashboard, afraid of the steering wheel.

Oh my God, the steering wheel could be infected.

I'm going to put my mask on in my car by myself.

Saw one the other day.

I'm cutting road.

Just looked over there BMW SUV, $150,000 car got a mask on.

I thought whatever he does for a living that gave him that kind of money to have that kind of car.

How could he be that stupid?

Yeah, I'm sorry, I just think differently than a lot of people.

So pull down strongholds, casting down imaginations.

The Greek word logismos, where we get logic kind of a derivation of the word logic, which means reasonings, thoughts, logic, arguments, mindsets, and ourselves and others.

So our military campaign is designed to execute warfare against minds that have been affected negatively.

And many of these minds have strongholds and imaginations and thoughts.

So when you look at that word, you have strongholds, then imaginations and then thoughts.

So when we turn it around, a thought can become an imagination.

One thought is not going to necessarily paralyze you, but if you entertain that thought you I'm talking about you now because your apostolic lifestyle has got to affect you first before you can help anybody else If you can affect your thinking and your way and your and your, all of those things in your own mind.

You can't help anybody else.

So it starts with a thought.

The devil will fire a thought at you.

The thought didn't come from you, but he'll fire something at you and make you and accuse you and say, well, if you were saved you wouldn't think that.

Well, you didn't think it.

The devil threw it at your brain.

He got access there.

He got access to your flesh and your brain.

Your shield of faith has got to do with your spirit.

You're going to have to deal with thoughts.

You're going to have to deal with your thought life, because if you don't, your thoughts become an imagination.

All of a sudden, your thought, if it's not dealt with and cast down and bring it.

In other words, he says bring every thought in captivity.

That thought doesn't fit with the word.

I'm bringing it into captivity, I'm locking that thing out of my mind.

That thought doesn't belong there.

If you don't do that, it becomes an imagination.

Now you've got a loop, a GIF, a G-I-F.

You never see one of those loops, you know.

Yeah, it becomes an imagination.

And if you don't deal with that, cast down that imagination.

It's a little harder to deal with the imagination, because now the imagination is part of a video.

It's moving, it's suggesting something that is not God.

It didn't come from God and you've let it sit there in your brain and now it becomes an imagination and if that's not dealt with it becomes what a stronghold, a fortress.

It becomes a full feature link movie.

Brother Hagen tells about laying there in the bed, paralyzes a teenager, people talking about how he couldn't live.

Doctor said he can't live.

The preacher even said he couldn't live.

You know you've got to get your son.

You know you got to get your son to accept his condition.

That's what the preacher, baptist preacher, came to the house when he is hearing here.

He's 1415 years old and he's got eight blood diseases and a malformed heart and the brain dead.

Preacher gets in there and adds to his burden.

He hears it.

He said listen, I.

I imagine my, my be dying.

I imagine me, them laying me in the casket.

I imagine the funeral home with everybody crying over my casket.

I imagine the crack casket flow closing and I imagine them loading my body into the hearse and going to the graveyard.

I imagine it lowered down in the grave and the dirt coming over my.

He had, he had a technical or full color movie and I imagine he didn't know how to cast down that thought, to bring it into captivity.

He didn't know how to cast down that imagination.

He didn't know how to pull down that stronghold.

Are you with me now?

So let's look over here.

Second Corinthians four remember this written to a carnal church and they're carnal, they.

They had a background of the carnal church.

They were called, they had all kind of trouble in that church.

He had two letters to write to them.

It wasn't because they were getting a gold star.

They were not.

You know, they were not going to get the award church of the year.

Find that a prize case you ever read you should?

You never, ever look at it.

Look at it where I imagine that old man which believe not, lest the glad of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine in under them.

So the reason that people don't get saved, the reason people they're afraid of a, of a virus, and I'm not denying the virus and I'm not denying what it can do, but I mean on a percentage basis it's very low.

That doesn't help you.

When the loved ones passed, I mean my, my sister-in-law, sylvia Bob and Sylvia Griner, her sister, her little sister died yesterday of COVID and you know and she's a, I mean you know Sylvia Gladys talked to her a little briefly yesterday.

They called.

They called us first.

I couldn't say anything this morning because her daughter, laurie, was in town and she might have heard us on on live stream.

I didn't want her to hear the news.

They didn't bother telling her yesterday to ruin her.

She was here to see her little granddaughter have her grandson have a one year anniversary.

So no, no use telling her about her aunt dying and ruining her weekend.

I mean, you know there's nothing they can do about it.

So I respected the privacy.

But even that is the case where we have loved ones that pass.

Listen, as a percentage basis it's very low.

Let's measure the threat of this thing accurately.

Let's not let the devil magnify it beyond all reason.

And the reason we've had such a death rate is because the government lied and did wrong things in response to it.

If it had been handled like SARS, we wouldn't have this problem.

If it was even handled like the flu, it wouldn't.

We wouldn't have this problem.

If they would let people treat the disease, we wouldn't have the problem.

They don't want that.

They want to control better, understand that.

That's why we're here, folks.

I don't want it.

I don't want well, getting in the wrong outfit, then this outfit is going to go.

It's got a military campaign as part of it.

We get rewarded only as we perform that and do that.

It's arduous, it doesn't make you popular.

Not going to have, you're not going to have a gold star from a lot of people.

A lot of people don't like what we're saying and how we're saying it.

So more about that in a moment.

So the linguistic key to the Greek New Testament.

It's a little book that I bought, not at the Christian bookstore, they didn't have any, so I bought it off Amazon.

I know Amazon's the devil, but anyway, when people can get me stuff the same day, I order it, or maybe the next day it's you know.

Then maybe I'll change, but anyway, I got this book.

I'm not a Greek scholar, but the guys that wrote that are, and they write this about the God of this age, little G, it's not God, you know, it's not the devil.

We would say, oh, it's the devil.

Well, it's not the devil, exactly.

Let me give it to you.

We've said it many times, but you need to hear it the God of this age is all that floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, hopes, impulses, aims and aspirations, at any time current in the world.

Everything we're hearing from the, from the Democrats, is the God of this age.

We can say the anti-crash.

You can say that that's true.

But more accurately, it's in the thought realm, it's in the propaganda realm, it is in the brainwashing realm.

Y'all, y'all still with me.

Psyops, psychological operations, it's all about the brain, it's all about the mind, it's all about lying, and lying big, until people finally surrender their mind to a lie.

And so you know, we've got to be strong.

We can't, we can't bow our knee to something like this, because once we do, we basically eliminated our effectiveness in helping anybody else get free.

It's kind of like the, the flight attendant tells you on the airplane hey, you know, if we've have a sudden depressurization, there's going to come an oxygen mass fall from the ceiling.

Immediately get it and put it over your mouth and nose and pull the string and get the oxygen flowing.

And after you've got oxygen flowing to you, help your, help, your seatmate, because if you help them first you're going to die probably.

Because when your pressure goes out at 35,000 feet, it doesn't just cease to exist.

It sucks everything out of your lungs.

You don't I mean, you can't breathe at all.

There's no breath, you can't even hold your breath.

It's gone.

So within just a very short time, you're unconscious and then you're dead.

That's the fact.

So what sense does it make for us to be so a do-gooder?

Oh well, I've got to help my little child.

I've got to help my mother.

I've got to help my father.

Well, you're not helping them because you're going to die first and then they're going to die.

So you've got to do things a little bit out of boy.

That's where we are now.

People have bought this argument.

They have drunk the Kool-Aid and we are the ones that we're thinking correctly about it.

This is why this church was put in place.

I never understood why God called us a regional center.

I never understood why we had this type of authority Executive, legislative, judicial authority.

I didn't understand it.

Now I'm beginning to get the picture.

Amen, we're in the military together.

Folks, god's army.

Is this helping anybody, or is it depressing you?

I don't mean it to be heavy.

It's not really heavy, because we know the end of the story.

And then we have this authority, we have the weapons of our warfare?

And they are not.

They have nothing to do with an AR-15.

They have everything to do with the name of Jesus, the Word of God and the Holy Ghost.

That's our weaponry.

Truth, praise God.

So Paul's apostolic anointing was sent to destroy false apostles and teachers.

And you see that if you'll read the epistles, you know I read all the Bible.

I read the Old Testament and New Testament, I read the gospels.

All of it has value.

But meditate on the epistles, especially in Christ, through Christ, with Christ.

Everything that Paul wrote, he had that revelation that no one else really had.

Peter didn't have a complete revelation of that.

He talked about what Paul was preaching.

He said you know, follow what he's saying.

It's hard to understand, but you know, I mean, if Peter had trouble understanding it and he walked with Jesus three and a half years, he had a few miracles, didn't he?

So you know, it's so valuable for us to realize who we are in Christ.

We're not sent as lambs to the slaughter.

We have powerful supernatural weapons to fight the same enemies that Paul did false teachers, false apostles, wrong mindsets in churches, especially among pastors.

Thank God for what believers can do apart from their pastor.

But I say, when you go to a church that's got a brain dead pastor, there's nothing profitable about staying there.

Help people understand that.

Help people leave their dead church.

They're very resistant.

We heard that this morning Some people were resistant to leave and it was hard for them to get adjusted to the church.

They knew by the Spirit, they knew this was where they belonged, but they had a little difficulty.

Let's realize that and let's help people get over the hump, as they say.

Now let's look at verse six.

I know you're just really wanting to know what he said there, cause he's talking about war and warfare and second Corinthians.

Go back to second Corinthians, verse 10, chapter 10, verse six.

And the King James says it, and it's a little bit dark, it's a little bit hard to understand.

It says and having a readiness to revenge, all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled, revenge, whoa.

What is he saying?

So the NLT says it this way he's talking about war and warfare.

He's talking about pulling down strongholds, casting down imaginations.

He's talking about bringing every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God into obedience, the obedience of Christ.

He's talking about that.

And then he says and having a readiness to revenge, all disobedience.

When your obedience is fulfilled, that's NLT.

And after you have become fully obedient, we will punish everyone who remains disobedient.

Ooh, where is that in the church?

Where is that revenge?

Where is that zeal?

Where is that?

Where is that in the church?

Oh, I don't wanna hear this.

This is just.

Oh, my God, we're supposed to both get love.

Well, what love you love, god?

Are you not offended that these people are thumbing their nose at God, especially pastors?

They're no better than Jeremiah, I said all my shepherds are like dumb dogs who cannot bark.

That's what the Holy Ghosts call them, dumb dogs.

I call them worse.

I think they do know and they just don't bark Might affect their country club membership, might mess their golf game up.

So notice, though he's pleading with them.

First he said I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.

Notice he's not coming as a tyrant, he's not coming with a club in his hand, but he does wind up these verses and say you know what you better get with the program, or else I'm gonna punish you.

Now he didn't say he's gonna send them to hell.

Let's look at what kind of punishment we see in the Bible with people that were acting up.

Acts, chapter five.

Ananias and Sapphira Didn't say they went to hell.

What did they do wrong?

Well, they lied to Peter about an offering.

The Holy Ghosts moved on the church supernatural and they all decided to sell their lands and bring the whole price of the sale of the property and let before the apostles feet.

Notice, they didn't sign the property over and make them have to fool with selling it.

No, they sold it.

They did everything.

They handled all the business transaction.

They got the cash and they laid it at the apostles feet.

But Ananias and Sapphira said you know, when we can't do that, that's too much money.

Let's act like we did and give them half.

And the Bible says they plotted this, they said this and they acted like there was no Holy Ghost.

They acted like the Holy Spirit doesn't live inside of them and hear every word they're saying.

They're acting like there's no God.

Paul knew it.

Have you sold it for so much?

Yes, we sure did.

Sure, did, uh-huh, get Sapphire in there first.

Sapphire had a chance to tell the truth.

God's merciful.

She could have said oh, peter, I'm so sorry, we're sorry, we did this.

Please forgive us.

You know it could have been forgiven.

They didn't have to drop dead.

You see, you didn't lie to me, woman.

You lied to the Holy Ghost.

Boom, she dropped dead and they had a ministry in the church prepared to help out.

And the ministry of helps.

How would you like to be in the burial detail of Gloria Swaichard?

They didn't have a casket.

They wound them up with linen and dug a hole and put them in the ground.

Somebody from the church did it, and so later the husband comes in.

Hey, did you sell the land for so much?

Sure, did.

Well, you know the footsteps of the men that just bury your wife are coming and he fell down dead.

But they didn't go to hell, they just.

They were punished.

They didn't get to live their full life out here because they didn't regard the presence of God that was so powerful.

We're headed back in that place again.

I mean this is mild compared to what's gonna happen.

What happened tonight is mild compared to what we're headed into.

It is coming.

There's such a presence of God that it's gonna be so great.

We've got to get our act together.

Let's make sure we don't come into church with the wrong attitude.

Acts 13, elimus the sorcerer.

He was trying to stop the deputy from the faith.

He was trying to be witch, use witchcraft.

Paul came up to him and says oh brother, please be nice, come kneel down, let me pray with you, brother.

No, he didn't say that.

He said you, enemy of all righteousness, you, child of the devil, will you not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?

And behold, thou shalt be blind, not seeing a son for a season, and they had to have people lead him off by the hand.

Now, he wasn't permanently blind.

What was that Punishment?

Everybody shout punishment.

See, we've left all this out and I know this is kind of could be heavy, but I'm getting you ready for what's next.

There's gonna be some punishment for Christians.

I said there's gonna be some punishment for Christians and there's gonna be some punishment for people that are the enemies of righteousness and the child of the devil.

Don't be so quick to think that they're getting away with anything because there's coming a dispensation.

They're gonna be cut down like the grass and wither is the green herb.

I'm talking about the ungodly now.

I'm not talking about Christians.

There are gonna be some Christians that are punished.

Well, I don't understand that.

Well, they didn't go to hell, they got punished.

In other words, they had to forfeit their life on earth.

They got cut short.

It's not the worst thing that can happen to somebody.

At least they went to heaven.

There's no proof that they went to hell.

They're born again.

They just lied.

All right, let's talk about 1 Corinthians, chapter five, about the young man that's having an affair with his stepmother, an adulterous affair in the front of everyone.

Come into church, sit down like they're just everything's right with the world, open adultery.

Paul heard about it.

He said I heard from a family he names the family that tattled.

It's not tattling.

Thank God for those people.

I mean, whoever was in charge of the church in Corinth had mishandled that massively.

Now I see in the second Corinthians now he's talking like this.

He's saying look, I beseech you, but let me tell you when you think I'm weak, but I'm gonna be a different person if I have to come down there, don't let me have to come down there.

How many of you told your kids that Don't make me come down there.

You liar anyway.

So well, you're not gonna whip them.

You're not gonna do it.

We had a wooden spoon.

Glad it's used a wooden spoon.

It was pretty effective.

I don't know what Paul was planning on using.

But it must have been supernatural, wasn't an AR-15.

?

Wasn't 38 special?

It was supernatural.

So this young man.

He said I heard from the family that you've allowed these people to come in your church openly and you have not rather turned them over to Satan for the destruction of their flesh, that their soul might be saved in the day of judgment.

Oh, that's a mouthful.

What does that mean?

In other words, they are saved, but if they continue in adultery, they're gonna cauterize their heart.

They're not gonna have a tender heart toward God and at some point in their life, if they're not confronted and forced to repent, they could turn their back on Jesus and there is no salvation.

Then, you see, that is a thought that has become.

You know, they thought about it first.

You know that's my stepson is kind of a good-looking guy.

He's a lot better than his daddy.

No, my stepmom, she's hot.

See, thought.

I hate to be so graphic, but you gotta get this.

And this is where it goes.

It goes from the thought life into what An imagination.

I just imagined myself with my stepmom.

Then it becomes a stronghold, and then they act on it and then they go to church.

That tells you that they're already hardened their heart.

They've lost all shame.

I mean, the church has lost all shame.

They allow anything to go on in their midst.

God is going to punish that.

So what's the reason for the punishment?

So they'll repent, so they'll be saved in the day of judgment, so they won't finally turn on God and say I don't want you anymore.

Then they're going to hell because that stronghold turned into something they never could get rid of and didn't get rid of, and they eventually got so hardened the deceitfulness of sin will harden your heart to such a degree that you'll turn and say I don't need Jesus anymore.

They were on the way.

So in the first book he said turn him over to the devil and when he gets, when he gets, in other words, take your pastoral covering off of him, your place of protection.

Quit being so merciful, you know.

Quit enabling them and some of you need to quit enabling your own kids living like the devil.

Don't enable that.

Don't let them come into your house, shack it up.

Don't let it happen.

Don't let it happen.

Make them leave.

I don't know where they're going to go.

What.

What differences it make the way they're going right now.

They're going to go to hell If you don't do something.

Quit enabling.

I don't know who this is for, hopefully nobody here, maybe somebody you know.

Anyway, so they did that.

They obeyed Paul.

In the second, in the second letter he says okay, let's slack off.

He's repented, now you know.

Comfort him, have mercy on him, now he's.

You know, they kept going.

They just let the devil eat on him.

It doesn't say what happened.

It doesn't say how the devil ate on him.

I don't know if he got diseases, I don't know if he what doesn't say.

But that's how powerful the church is.

The church should be a place of safe.

They talk about safety.

Out there there's no safety.

They don't even know how to measure safety.

We've got the safety.

Faith in God is the greatest safe thing you can have.

But when we sin, when we get out of fellowship with God and we flaunt it and flout it and come in church and act like we're just wonderful, well then there comes a time when they need to be punished.

They're not gonna repent.

Remember, brother Osteen, you know he didn't meet with people like that.

He sent me.

So thank you very much, brother Osteen.

But we had a prayer parter that his wife found out he was cheating on her.

And Brother Osteen's secretary called me.

He wouldn't even tell me.

He said he wants you to meet with him and see if you can, you know, get him to repent, get him to get back with his wife and stop this craziness.

Man, that was hard because I knew the guy, I knew him pretty well, and so I called him.

He was kind of sheepish, you know and I met with him, sat down with him.

I said how long has this been going on?

Two years.

I said two years.

I said you come to church and when I noticed I hadn't been coming up to counsel people, you know, I kind of took myself out.

I said well, it doesn't matter, you came to church.

I said you know, what you're doing is adultery right.

Well, I just love her.

I can't do anything.

I just can't do without her.

I said you're gonna have to.

I said it's not a matter what you want.

What you want is irrelevant here.

What God wants is you to drop her like a hot potato and don't ever see her again.

See, I mean, you know, I kept thinking why, me Lord?

What have I got to?

Why do I have to handle this?

I mean, why do I have to be the hard guy and the mean guy and the threatening guy.

And I just, I mean, I threatened him.

I said, look, the way you've got to go is gonna come in destruction and you're gonna wind up in hell before it's over with.

There's no, if you don't repent of this, you're totally without excuse, man.

There aren't any excuses.

Your wife is willing to forgive you.

Are you nuts?

It's gonna cost you everything to have a divorce.

She's gonna get half of everything for all your retirement there and she deserves more than that.

If she gets a good lawyer, she might get more than that.

And then what are you gonna do with this woman?

What's gonna be left for her?

I said, just in the strictly and the natural, this is stupid, but in the supernatural it's fatal.

You're gonna go to hell at the end of this.

You're gonna get hardened toward God.

You already are two years.

You've hardened your heart.

You must, you must.

Well, he did praise God, he did repent and he did leave her.

I think I didn't keep up with it forever, but I'm talking about.

This is real stuff.

We haven't.

The church has done almost nothing.

One more, third John.

There's others, I'm not going to all the.

There's one more punishment, and it doesn't say what it is.

It's another one of these left to the imagination.

Third John, the Apostle John, third epistle Beloved, verse 5, you do faithfully whatsoever you do to the brethren and strangers which are born witness of your agape before the church, whom, if you bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, you shall do well, because that, for his name's sake, they went forth taking nothing gentile Talk about missionaries traveling ministries and how they had contributed to them.

We therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers to the truth.

I wrote unto the church, but the atrophies, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.

Can you imagine somebody not receiving the Apostle John?

Can you imagine somebody so arrogant and so full of themselves that they can't be corrected by the Apostle whom Jesus loved?

That's what he called himself?

I mean, you're talking about the guy that was thrown in a pot of boiling oil and came out alive.

It didn't die.

You're going to mess with him.

He loveth to have the preeminence among them and receiveeth us not.

Wherefore, if I come?

He wasn't sure he was coming, but if I come, I will remember his deeds, which he doeth, preting against us with malicious words.

And not content therewith, neither does he himself receive the brethren and forbids them that would and cast them out of the church.

He said I will remember, I will remember.

Didn't say I forgive him.

Oh, I just forgive our brother, I know he means well, he's misguided.

No, he said, I'm going to remember what he's done.

So we're left to wonder what John would have done.

I don't think we have much doubt, do we?

And his weapons that he would have used were not an AR-15, was not a dagger, a knife.

It was not carnal, but mighty through God.

Are y'all with me tonight?

So the two main weapons see the Apostolic confronts and pulls down demonically Inspired reasoning and arguments.

And that's one of the things that this church has to do.

I've had to do that over the years.

I've had to bring people to a place of repentance and when they didn't, I forbid them to come back.

I don't like it.

I'd rather anything happen than that.

But I'm not going to have people live in sin.

I'm not going to do it.

I'm not going to let them be here and live in sin.

They are either going to repent or else.

And so the two main weapons we have.

Number one preaching of the Word.

First Corinthians, chapter two, verse four.

You know, paul talks about his ministry and he said in my teaching and preaching we're not within persuasive words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

I don't know what you're saying.

No, I'm not a preacher.

Well, no, but preaching just simply means to declare the Word as truth, to make a case for the Word of God.

So every time you go to a school board meeting and confront the school board with what they're doing and not doing, then you're preaching.

And it comes with a demonstration that if they don't do what you're saying, they could be in jeopardy of punishment.

Are you with me now?

We're not victims.

We don't have to beg people to do the right thing.

We tell them what the right thing is and if they don't do it, they just committed something that God knows how to take care of.

I'm empowering you.

I think about James.

I mean, he stands before so many groups and he is a preacher.

He does preach, he does have, but you may not be on that level.

That's not about that.

It's about the truth of the Word.

We all can do that.

We can all speak the truth of the Word.

And then the second main weapon is prayer.

Now, prayer without somebody to actually go wouldn't be worth much.

It takes both.

But prayer includes praise.

I just think about Paul and Silas.

They were doing God's work.

They were at Macedonia under the direction.

They waited for two witnesses that said don't go to Bithynia, don't go to Asia Minor.

They waited for spectacular guidance that showed them, yeah, come over here and help us Macedonian men that come over here and help.

And that's what they did.

And they got beaten and thrown in prison for their trouble.

And so at midnight they prayed and sang praises and all the prisoners heard them.

The devil heard them, tried to kill them with an earthquake and God invaded the earthquake and broke them all out of jail.

You talk about weapons.

Prayer is a weapon and that includes praise.

It includes worship.

I mean, when we worship God tonight it's like, yeah, we're worshiping God, but it's a weapon.

We're equipped.

I just think about this night and the anointing we all sat under and this word.

I wondered about this word.

I thought, man, it's kind of a downer, a little bit, it's kind of solemn, but we're in those days.

Don't let it be heavy, let it be empowering.

I said let it be empowering.

I'm saying it to empower all of you.

You can see that this is not milk, but this is the kind of meat you need when you're a soldier, when you're a soldier of the cross.

Amen Prayer, that includes praise.

It worship a petition, crying out, crying against.

A lot of our prayers are crying against.

He told Jonah, go to the city, that great city, netava, and cry against it.

He didn't say pray for it, he said cry against it.

Their sin has come up before me, cry against it.

And when the prophet cried against it, they all repented, from the king all the way down to the animals.

I mean the animals even repented.

I don't know what they had done.

Praying in the spirit.

We know not what to pray for, as we ought, but the spirit himself make it the intercession for us.

With groanings we cannot be uttered.

He help us our infirmity.

He takes hold together with us against, and there's a lot of prayer and we have to pray against things right now Groanings, travailings, intercessions, laughter.

Let me tell you something Like tonight laugh.

That's one of the biggest weapons we have is laughing at the devil, laughing at their foolish antics, as if they think they're going to succeed.

No, we've got the long view, amen.

So welcome to Glorious Way Church, welcome to the apostolic lifestyle.

That's what this is, apostolic lifestyle.

Did you get anything out of this?

Was it too heavy?

Just be honest, you're not going to hurt my feelings.

Was it too heavy?

Are you leaving here kind of down?

I'll pray for you.

Did I step on anybody's toes?

I'll pray for your toes before we leave.

Okay, let's all stand together In the name of God, please come on up.