Apostolic Characteristics

All right, let's lift our bibles, wave them around, get some exercise.

That's as much exercise as I've had all day.

No, I did jump up and down a moment ago.

Let's say this together so, heavenly Father, I'm hungry and thirsty for more of you, more of your Word, more of your Spirit, more of your presence, more of your glory.

In these last days, I'll be faithful to demonstrate your goodness in Jesus' name, amen.

Let's look at 2 Chronicles, chapter 26.

2 Chronicles 26 · chapter mention

2 Chronicles, 26.

Let's start with verse 1.

Then all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was 16 years old, and made him king.

In the room of his father, amaziah, he built Eloth, or Elot present day Elot up in the absolutely gorgeous city on the Red Sea, all in the south part of Israel, southernmost tip of Israel.

He built that city and in restorative to Judah.

After that the king slept with his father.

His father died.

16 years old was Uzziah when he began to reign, and he reigned 52 years.

That is a long time for a king, especially the kings of Judah and Israel.

You had the southern kingdom, which was Judah and Benjamin.

You had the northern kingdom, which was the kingdom of Judah, which was up in Samaria and his mother's name also was Jecheliah of Jerusalem and he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father, amaziah, did.

And he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God.

And as long as he sought the Lord, god made him to prosper.

As long as he sought the Lord, god made him to prosper.

So tonight I wanted to share a message, as I do frequently, on apostolic characteristics.

Apostolic characteristics we had a prophetic word one time about this church that it was an apostolic house with a prophetic river.

And I'm not claiming to be an apostle, but you know, I believe the church of Jesus Christ.

In the 21st century, all churches ought to have an apostolic element to them.

Surely a church like this.

It was started and I was a founding pastor.

We started with just a few people.

We started with some organizational meetings.

We started really with three couples at Lakewood telling me they felt like I was their pastor and if I ever decided to leave Lakewood and start my own work, they wanted to be part of it.

And they're no longer here, so it wasn't even long lasting, but I told brothers to who they were.

He warned me about one couple Better watch them, and I did, and they're gone, and so apostle is a sent one.

Apostolic is to build something, bring something, as opposed to being hired by the pulpit committee you know, a hireling, like most churches are nowadays.

They didn't start anything, they're just along there for a while until maybe they get a better offer or whatever, anyway, and so God has opened up a lot of teaching to me on the apostolic, and I teach it with the idea that you should know what the DNA is of this house If you belong here, and this is your church, your faith and understanding.

Maybe this is a little meat here tonight.

It's not just skimming across the top and you know it'll help you when times get tough in your life, as they always do.

There is a DNA, there is an impartation of the apostolic.

The apostolic is what I'm going to describe here tonight has to do with warfare.

On the 11th of January 2016,.

I was taking a break.

Gladys and I went to Galveston for an extended stay.

We rented a condo on the beach and a high rise I've never done that before and we were there for eight days, which is long for us, and we had the family came.

You know, one day, one family came and the other family came the next day.

But anyway, one day, god was.

I was reading out of my normal reading, and this was the run up to the 2016 election, when Trump and Cruz were just getting into battle positions and they were going back and forth.

But one morning I was reading 1 Corinthians 9-7.

And it says in the King James, who goeth to warfare any time at his own charges.

It's just like it came off the page, and so I started looking up the NLT.

What soldier has to pay his own expenses?

And the message Bible says are soldiers self-employed?

And so what does that have to do with anything?

Well, one of the things that I know about the apostolic is warfare.

Who goes to war?

Who goes to war?

Who goes to a warfare?

And so warfare, when you look it up in your contortions, it means to execute the apostolate with its arduous duties and functions you think about.

You think about the kind of warfare where he had.

What about Paul the Apostle?

What about the warfare he had to encounter in his ministry?

I mean, that's that's qualified as warfare.

I mean they were laying in wait for him everywhere he went.

Everywhere he went was a controversy.

Everywhere he went was a trial and a problem.

To execute the apostolate with its arduous duties and functions.

To serve in a military campaign.

I have a message called being a good soldier.

Paul told Timothy be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

Be a good soldier, so we are.

I know Jesus won the war, but we're yet we're in a warfare.

We are in battles with demon powers that want to usurp our authority.

They want to get by with as much as they can.

There is an ap, there is a, an anti Christ spirit that must be contended against.

It has to.

We have to stop it.

That's the apostolate.

What he just talked about going to Austin, that's the apostolate.

He's not going at his own charges.

He's not going to warfare at his own expense.

Are you with me now?

Which left me in the idea of okay, God, why are you telling me this?

Have I done that?

And sure enough, I had done it and I had to make some massive adjustments.

Took me all year, 2016, to make the adjustments into 2017.

One of the adjustments was we established God.

God greets the skids.

I mean, you don't just get somebody like Mark and Trent Hankins and establish something with them.

We got bunches and bunches of of young ministers that used to work for them and are now started churches.

They their fathers in the faith and they they, you know.

But God hooked us up.

Now he's not my father, I don't have that relationship with him, but we have a supernatural relationship.

That was one of the things that God did for me to plug me into someone that I felt like.

The impartation from his ministry is what we needed, and there's been a massive difference.

It wasn't that long after that that we finally sold the property next door and paid off our mortgage and got out of debt.

Praise God.

That's pretty cool, you know.

Anyway, I want to teach you on these characteristics and using Uzziah, the king and he's one of the good kings there's lots of bad ones.

Almost all the kings of Israel were bad kings, you know, like Jezebel and Ahab.

Ahab was a bad king, you know, and there were many.

There were lots of bad kings in the northern kingdom and some in the southern kingdom, but you had some good kings.

Jehoshaphat was a good king.

Uzziah was a good king.

His father was a good king.

Josiah was a good king.

He cleaned up the house of God.

So he was just 16 and he had lasted 52 years.

So he was 68 when he died, which is not a very old age, but for kings it was.

And he had the mighty prophet Zechariah, who is in your Bible, who had understanding of visions, as his advisor.

And he, you know, when you're 16, you need, you don't know much.

And here he is the king.

And so he, he leaned on Zechariah.

And it says in verse five as long as he sought the Lord, the Lord, god made him to prosper.

Now, the word sought it means to be hot, to be devout, to have in treaty, to worship, searching, questioning Boy.

That's a good trait for a young king.

He knew that he didn't know everything, so he sought the Lord.

He was hot for God.

He was not impressed with his power, he was not impressed with his office.

He, he leaned on God.

And as long as he leaned on God, god called him and caused him to prosper, which is an apostolic characteristic.

Let me read to you what prosper means.

This is your DNA, this is what belongs to you, it's part of your, it's who you are.

Because of your your, you're in this church.

You're, you're in the place called there.

This is the place called there for you.

And so that this is what's available to you to prosper, to break out, to push forward we all like that To come mightily, to go over, to be profitable, to make wealth or to send wealth.

Glory to God.

Come on, lift your hands right now.

I mean, if I stop right there, it's kind of a blessing.

I mean, that's just one.

I've got a few of these.

Might take a little bit.

It's already 751.

Are y'all sleepy?

So these apostolic terms see the results of his fervent inquiry and the anointing of the priest, prophet or the king are found in verses six through 15.

These are the results of his fervent inquiry.

He's as long as he sought the Lord.

God gave him these characteristics.

God caused him to prosper, to break out, to go over, to come mightily.

And so, as we read verses six down through, well, the rest of the chapter, the first one I see in verse six, is warfare.

And he went forth and warred against the Philistines and broke down the wall of Goth and the wall of Jabna and the wall of Ashdod.

So he was breaking down walls.

We are breaking down walls that have been erected to keep us out of influence in our government, influence in our city, our county, our state, our nation.

Breaking walls down, that's part of your DNA.

It means to confront.

You have to confront these demon powers.

This is the Antichrist spirit, and warfare is the defeat of enemies, the breaking down of barriers, occupying territory, releasing regions for the kingdom by confronting demon powers.

And then, in that same verse, building cities.

He built cities about Ashdod and among the Philistines, places of habitation, churches and ministries.

We built this church.

We built Gap.

Some of you are new.

You don't even heard of Gap.

Gap is our acronym for global aid partnership.

It is our humanitarian aid wing.

It's called a foreign mission society.

It's part of glorious way church but it's separate.

It has a separate EI employment identification number.

It's a separate entity.

It's got common board members and the requirement from the IRS is that we give 50% or more to foreign missions, which we easily qualify.

But we use that.

Why do we have it?

Well, because years ago I realized that people don't want to give to a church if they don't belong to the church.

You can't raise money for humanitarian reasons and get people to write a check to the church Because they think that you're going to take it and put it in the church and they belong to another church.

The other thing is that corporations will not support you.

They will not give gifts and kind.

This flour mill would not have given flour to this church, but it gave it to a humanitarian aid that happens to be with the brother Max Manning.

So now we have over the years we formed it in 2008.

And we have given airborne vitamins man, it was a bunch of airborne vitamins Out to poor people in Central America.

We supplied seed corn and Haiti yeah, you give people corn, they'll eat it, but if you give them seed corn, they'll plant it and they'll have their own crop.

And that's what we did.

We gave bunches of that.

We sent medical supplies over there.

I think it was after I hit them.

We had people that we got hooked up with that were doing medical missions there and one nurse that we talked to.

I mean, there was such damage to the people there in Haiti that she had to amputate limbs.

There was no doctors to do it.

Here she is a nurse, not even trained, wasn't prepared emotionally.

I mean, it just took a toll on her A young woman in her early 30s chopping legs off in arms hands, trying to save people's life because they were injured and had gangrene.

There was no other way to help them.

Are you with me now?

We supplied bandages and, oh man, it took money.

We had to give money to get the supplies and then ship it over there, which that's how we got in with Max.

That's apostolic the building cities, places of habitation, churches and ministries.

We built global aid partnership.

Then, later on, we found out about Kids Against Hunger, which is a national outfit, and Royce helped us to get the Houston Kids Against Hunger.

So we had a franchise from the major and he's helped, I mean that organization.

They lost their main guy and there was a lot of conflict in the national.

He went in, was one of the peacemakers and, man, what a blessing it is to be hooked up with the Houston Kids Against Hunger.

Now we have these meals and we've sent those.

And remember the hurricane Sandy I think it was.

It hit New Jersey up in the Northeast.

We sent those meals up there and recipes on how to fix the meals where they would taste good.

You know, american palates are not like they are in Haiti, they're not like they are in Africa.

They're not picky, they'll eat.

If it's rice, they'll eat it, but you know America, they turn their nose up.

So we got with Pierre.

How many of you know Pierre?

He's from Haiti, he's Haitian, and Pierre came up with four recipes to make those rice meals taste like something.

That's apostolic.

You're all with me now, all right?

Verse seven and God helped him against the Philistines and against the Arabians that dwelt in Grbeil and the Mahunims.

So supernatural aid against regional powers.

Help means that you're doing something.

See, you know you're not going to get any help unless you're doing something.

We're doing more now than we ever have.

We are going to Austin, we are going I don't know.

Meeting after meeting after meeting.

We've got people in this church that are involved in precinct chairs.

They're involved in Republican educational and development, and they spend a lot of their time going to meetings and helping people, and then they always want to hear about this church.

When Tara meets with a precinct chair over here in some part of the county, he's heard about this church.

Oh, I don't want to talk about party things, I want you to tell me about the church, and so you wind up ministering to people.

It's ministry.

So why?

We're confronting these regional powers, and in order to confront these regional powers, you have to go where the power is.

Where is the power.

The power is in government and the power is in the money and much of the government is influenced by this money.

I guarantee you somebody's paying somebody to say what.

Somebody's beholden somebody for Dan Patrick to say what he said the other night.

He ought to resign.

If somebody paid him to say that, if the drug company's paid him to say that.

See what about the drug company?

Well, they want people to be vaccinated because there's more money in their pocket.

The government pays them.

There's money, there's a wealth transfer and they're sharing the wealth with these politicians.

When we find out who they are, they're gonna get confronted.

That's apostolic.

You just thought it was politics.

No, it's apostolic.

Are y'all with me?

We're gonna start confronting these CEOs.

We're gonna start confronting these boards of directors.

You know one thing about it if we never accomplish anything, we have done our job because it's a witness against them.

You know Jesus said you know, don't think about what you're gonna say ahead of time.

When you're hailed up before people, just tell them, confront them as a witness against them.

So that's what God is looking for.

So they can never have an excuse.

They'll never be able to say they didn't know.

Know this church over here in Northwest Harris County told you.

They sent people to tell you it was wrong and you didn't change your ways.

Now, get out of my sight.

You're going back to the lake of fire, some of these people.

That's where they're gonna be and we're gonna stand there and watch.

It doesn't give me joy, but that's our job to confront All right.

Number four is found in verse eight.

And the Ammonites gave gifts to Uzziah and his name spread abroad, even to the entering in of Egypt, for he strengthened himself exceedingly.

So you have as another apostolic characteristic transfer of wealth from the hands of the wicked into the hands of the righteous.

We haven't really seen it yet to the degree that we will, but I know it's coming.

Amen, amen.

All right, thank you for one.

Amen, amen.

Increase in honor and respect, or in other words, footprint.

That's what God said almost two years ago now.

This next month, september 19th, you know, a month, one month from now, it'll be our second anniversary of greater, greatest year.

Yet, in that prophetic word that God gave us and everything that came out of it, which was God, is increasing our footprint.

We've got God's perspective, power and prominence.

Prominence is attaching itself to this church.

People know about this church at the highest level and let me tell you Abbott knows about this church and so does, and I'm just praying somebody will send you know our lieutenant governor, that what I said this morning it has to be said.

I don't care he doesn't pay my salary, I don't care, he works for me and he's.

It's hard to hear, I know, it's hard for me to say, I know he's a brother, but he's acting like an infidel and if his reason was being paid by drug companies, he's in deep trouble with God, deep trouble.

You better repent, all right.

So transfer of wealth, increase in honor and respect are another word for fear.

You know I think about the Godfather.

You know you should have called me.

Why did you trust it?

In the opening scene of the Godfather, godfather's standing there and here comes the undertaker.

The undertaker's daughter's been beat up and he wants him to kill the kids that beat up his daughter broker job and he insults the Godfather.

He said you know, why do you come in my house and want me to do murder and your daughter's alive?

I can't do that.

What do you think I am?

He said, if you'd have come to me instead of the law, the law didn't do anything.

The law just slapped their wrists and they went all laughing out of the courthouse.

And he was so mad, this Italian undertaker, you know, first generation Italian in this country.

She should have come to me and those boys would be suffering right now and then they would fear you.

He put up his finger.

I'll never forget that scene and then they would fear you.

Do you know?

The devil fears us, do you know?

Because we're in covenant with something bigger than the Godfather, I mean, we're in covenant with almighty God.

And I'm telling, if we understood how much fear the devil and demon powers have of us, we'd speak up more.

I'd be a bunch of mice.

You mean?

You saw the God, yeah, like years ago I watch it, though sometimes just to remind myself because it's so scriptural about things.

They had a revelation of covenant in the early days, not today, but back in the early days.

They respected covenant, they cut each other, they did the blood thing.

Are y'all with me now?

All right, now then verse nine.

Moreover, uzziah built towers in Jerusalem and at the corner gate, the valley gate, at the turning of the wall, and he fortified them, or he repaired them.

So building and keeping gates, see.

That's restraining power against evil and calamity.

I think about the times we turned Katrina.

It was headed right for Houston.

It hit New Orleans.

We turned Rita and stopped it from coming to Houston.

It was headed right for Houston.

It's a month later and we stopped it at the border.

It went right up the border, grazed the eastern side.

We stopped Ike from coming right into Houston, another 10 miles west of where it went in, and we would have had multiple billions of dollars of damage to the ship channel and all the industries.

There's no telling how long the ship channel would have been closed, but we stopped it from being there and the ship channel and all the refineries were on the clean side of the storm.

I don't know, you don't remember, maybe you don't even know, but that's what we did with this church prayed against it, we held, say that's the kind of faith we have in what God said we could do.

Jesus rebuked the storm.

That's what we do.

We rebuked storms.

When it came to Harvey, god put in my heart.

He said you can't stop it from hitting Houston because there's no place left.

He's had them go south of us into South Texas in the unpopulated areas.

And really why did they come here?

Well, because we have shot holes in our covering.

And what is the covering?

It's the Hoopa, it's the wedding canopy that God has covered this nation with to protect it.

And we have shot holes in it.

When I say we not us, but America has violated its covenant and God cannot stop a certain amount of damage, so he let me know.

So Harvey is gonna hurt you, and it did, and we prayed against it, but we couldn't stop.

I mean, we stopped the wind damage, but how about the flood damage?

The flood damage was massive.

You know, for the fifth church we basically escaped.

We had a couple of families that were flooded, but most everybody was covered by insurance.

Nobody, really, financially, was hurt.

That I know.

Of that I remember.

Are y'all with me now?

We keep gates.

We keep gates.

We're straining power from evil and calamity.

Terrorists, I'm telling you, houston, they would love to come here, they would love to blow themselves up in a mall, they would love to set fire to the ship channel, but Houston is a safe and prosperous city and God protects her from all her enemies.

We have to say that, to say it over and over and over again.

What are we doing?

Building a wall we're putting.

Repairing the walls around this city, all right, verse 10.

And he built towers in the desert and dig many wells, for he had much cattle, both in the low country and in the plains, husbandmen also, and vine dressers in the mountains and in Carmel, for he loved husbandry or he loved fruitful fields, so he had a lot of agricultural investment.

What is it needed?

It needs water, so he dug a lot of waters in the desert, wells and dry places, livestock vineyard.

So that's wealth creation even in contrary times.

Wealth creation even in contrary times.

I've said this many times.

But the money that it took for us to have this church came during 9-11,.

Right after 9-11, there was a recession.

Stock market flow just went straight down.

Many people lost a bunch of money that you know, people that have their retirement and 401ks and all of that.

But a person that we've had a relationship with, the one that we bought the property down the street from, he was our first landlord.

He shorted the stock market, he bought options and he made money while the stock market was going down, made $20 million in one year and he needed to tax right off and that's what generated the gift into this ministry of a $9.7 million piece of property, which is the property you're on right here tonight.

We had wealth creation in a tough time, in a bad time.

We've done it over and over again.

I mean, when times get tough, we just multiply.

Times were tough last year and what did we do?

Well, we just remodeled our entire sanctuary.

We've redone the lobby.

I mean on and on and on.

I mean, you know, god supplied every bit of it.

We didn't borrow a dime, it's all been paid for, cash on the barrel, replaced a bunch of old air-conditioned units.

Updating, upgrade that's what God said, update.

And we're not finished.

We've got a lot more to do outside.

We wanna do some signage and we wanna fix things up.

I don't know if James has any time.

He's full time in the politics realm.

I don't know.

Are y'all getting anything out of this?

It's 10 after eight.

Are y'all ready to go home yet?

How many more have I got?

Well, I've only got two more.

Can y'all take two more?

That would make eight.

That's kind of long.

That's a long message.

Y'all have time.

Is anybody late for an appointment or anything?

All right, okay, verse 11.

Moreover, uzziah had a host of fighting men that went out to war by bans, according to the number of their account, by the hand of J Ile the scribe, and Messiah the ruler, under the hand of Hananiah, one of the king captains, the whole number of the chief of the fathers of the mighty men of valor were 2,600.

And under their hand was an army 307,500 men.

That's a pretty good size army that made war with mighty power to help the king against the enemy, and Uzziah prepared for them throughout all the host Seals and spears and helmets and haborgens and bows and slings to cast stones.

So the seventh characteristic of the apostolic is to gather, train and equip men of war, releasing disciples into their ministry and equipping them.

Weapons is equipment.

I like to talk about loading your weapon.

I'm making sure you have plenty of ammo.

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they're mighty through God.

Are y'all with me now?

Yeah, and so that's what we do.

We're in the business of equipping people on how to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

God picked you to live in the last days.

I didn't pick you, I didn't know you, but God picked you.

God puts you right here, god intersected it.

The things that I have I didn't have from Brother Osteen.

Brother Osteen didn't teach on any of this.

This is revelation I received.

Brother Osteen didn't get involved in politics ever, didn't take a position on anything that I know of None of his generation did.

They just didn't think it was useful.

They just thought, oh John, it's just, they just had that attitude.

But they, that's their generation.

Our generation is different.

We've got to reach our generation and we've got to do the things that God told us to do.

I can't just do what Brother Osteen did.

I'd be missing God a million miles.

This is the problem with the church.

We're trying to follow our fathers too closely.

I mean, the father is not, listen, he's there to guide in a general way, but you're going to have to hear from God, you're going to have to let the Holy Ghost tell you.

And I believe over 27 years it's born out.

It hadn't been the way to church growth, but it's been the way to influence.

I mean, what good is a 15,000 member church if they have no influence?

If they can kowtow to the mayor of Houston and have him lick their boots, so what Now?

I'd rather have the Holy Ghost power.

Are you with me?

All right?

In verse 15, and he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks to shoot arrows and great stones with all, and his name spread far abroad, for he was marvelously helped until he was strong.

So the last one here is to develop weapons and to build a church.

So the last one here is to develop weapons and strategies of war.

Of course it relates to number seven that we talked about.

It mentions engines.

What's an engine?

An engine converts one form of energy into another.

You might have seen the movie oh the fighters.

You know the huh Gladiator, the movie Gladiator.

All right, so the opening scene of the movie Gladiator is you've got the Roman army and then you've got the Huns.

The Huns are rough looking, man.

I mean, they look like a biker gang.

Okay, they're all big old beards, you know, real rough looking.

And you got these decked out Romans, man, they got uniforms and they have engines.

What the engine was was this catapult, and it doesn't show it in detail, but I know that they would lash a gigantic, heavy stone on one end of a fulcrum and they would tie the thing back like this and the weight would be down here on this arm, the weight of that big stone.

And when they cut the line, the stone would throw whatever's in this big, huge arm that was called an engine.

In their case they had these flaming tar balls that they big flaming balls that would hit in the middle of the Huns and burn them and burn the forest.

And they had a forest fire in the middle of them and some of them had all these arrows and of course they had bows and arrows, but these arrows were bigger and they were you know, they would sling like 50 arrows at one time An engine.

So that was their version.

They didn't have gunpowder, they didn't have sophisticated weaponry, but they had cunning men that designed these weapons of war, well, the weapons of our warfare, not carnal, but they're mighty.

Through God.

You're taught about the name of Jesus, you're taught about the blood of Jesus.

You're taught about I mean, you're armed to the tooth.

If you only knew how powerful the.

It's much more powerful than anything they made.

But we're not against flesh and blood.

We're not fighting flesh and blood.

We're fighting against demon powers stopping them, and so Holy Ghost power.

Just amazing what God can do with a believer that knows how to pray, knows how to declare.

There's a time to pray, there's a time to declare.

Are you getting anything out of this?

Eight characteristics that I present to you tonight that this church has had for the longest time?

Not by accident, god called us to be a regional center, which in itself is governmental, in itself is apostolic, which is why I knew I had to hear about this.

I've had men and women of God tell me you're a apostle, you're an apostle.

Well, I don't talk about titles, I just talk about the anointing.

What is the anointing on this church?

The proof of the puddings in the eating, amen.

And so, being a regional center, I was open to that idea because it's governmental, it's ruling and reigning, amen, all right.

So then, verse 16,.

But when he was strong talk about his eye his heart was lifted up to his destruction, for he transgressed against the Lord, his God, and he went into the temple of the Lord and burned incense upon the altar of incense.

Who's supposed to do that?

See, in the Old Testament, all you have is three ministries.

You have the priest, the prophet and the king.

So he intruded into the priest's ministry.

He's the king.

He does not have any authority to burn offerings, to go into the temple and offer burnt sacrifices to God.

It belongs to the priest alone.

Amen.

He had a wonderful prophet.

You know Zechariah.

I don't know.

It's not clear whether Zechariah was still around at this stage of his life.

It could be that Zechariah had already been to heaven.

I've never done the genealogy so I don't know.

But at some point in time the king's, you know, he got lifted up in pride.

He surrounded himself with yes men.

I've seen ministers that were marvelous, that had great anointings, they had healings, they had fruit, and then they just don't have the guts to have people around them that will tell them the truth.

They have people that are afraid to speak their mind.

In our church, in our leadership, especially with my family, but in other leaders they have what we call safe harbor.

We want to know what you know.

We want to know what you feel, what you think and feel is important to us, but not just all the way.

I don't want you to tell me.

I want you to go through channels.

I want you to go through your team leader.

We like to have teams.

So you know we have in Children's Church.

You know we have a director.

We have Elizabeth.

If you work in Children's Church, you should have free.

You have safe harbor to tell her of your concerns.

Tell her what you see and hear and what your concerns are, and she's going to listen to you.

Are you with me now?

Well, he didn't have that.

He had nobody there.

I'm afraid to tell him the truth, oh no, he'd get mad.

Oh no, he's going to send you to the gallows.

He's going to make sure your head is lifted off of your shoulders.

If you tell him what you think you surround yourself with yes men, you'll never know what the truth is.

You get lifted up in pride.

I've seen it.

I've seen wonderful ministries get on the scrappy, wonderful ministries.

I mean, I would try to tell them.

I would say I'm just not one of those.

It's a yes man.

I'm going to tell you if I have a ministerial relationship with you, and you know what?

I'm going to tell you what I see and what I think.

Sometimes God gives me dreams about things and I've seen men of God, women of God, just get all huffy and puffy and go the other way.

Well, okay, don't let the door hit you.

I don't care.

I'm not trying to make anything happen.

I'm trying to give you the benefit of the anointing on my life.

If you throw it down.

I won't ever tell you anything again.

I won't be inquiring about you.

So, anyway, he went into the temple and offered burnt sacrifices and, as arrived, the priest went in after him and with him forescore priests of the Lord.

That were valiant men and they were stood Uzziah.

Good for them.

They were not, yes, man.

They feared God more than the king and they were stood Uzziah.

Verse 18 said unto him it appertaineth not unto thee, uzziah, to burn incense.

Unto the Lord, unto the priests and the sons of Aaron that are consecrated to burn incense.

Go out of the sanctuary, for thou hast trespassed.

Neither shall it be for thine honor before the Lord, god, it won't be for your honor.

And then Uzziah was raw and he had a censer in his hand to burn incense.

And while he was raw with the priests how dare you?

I'm the king, you can't talk to me like that.

The leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord, from beside the incense altar.

And you know, make a long story short he never got to go in the temple again.

You know, in his early days he worshiped God, he inquired of God, he spent time with God, and now, in his latter days, he got a leprosy, he was banished and he died.

And he died, died as a disgrace, he died with dishonor, he cut off from the house of the Lord.

What an ending.

And so you know, god never wanted Israel to have kings, for this very reason, because the tendency was for them to get lifted up in pride.

So I've always guarded against that.

I have a lot of authority, I have a lot, but whom God has given, much is required and I've always been conscious of pride.

I've always been conscious of not having an attitude where I can't hear the truth.

My children, especially, tell me the truth when they have a concern.

I might hold out for my way.

I might hold out.

I'll tell you.

Claire will stand for her idea and she will say but dad, but dad, and she will tell me the truth.

Sometimes it takes more than one meeting for me to get the truth out of her, but I listen to them.

They have earned the right to tell me what they need to tell me.

It been here a long time.

James can tell me the truth.

Sometimes it's not easy to hear, but I have determined that I will make myself subject to the truth, no matter who the messenger is.

Now you can't come up and just tell me anything because that's out of order.

Some people try I'm easily, I'm approachable, you know I am, but you have.

Let's do things decently in an order.

We have a line of authority.

We have a line of authority and Pete was.

I forgot what kind of sergeant he was way up there.

He wasn't and he'd gunnery Master Sergeant.

That's a big.

A master sergeant in the army is.

They know more than all the colonels put together.

Most of these colonels that were his bosses they would treat.

Every now and then there'd be a colonel, kind of young, just barely promoted, and they wouldn't treat him with the right kind of respect.

Most good educated army colonels would know that a master sergeant knows more than they do and you better treat them with respect and then they can really make you look good.

They can make you look good.

But he knew how to approach them.

You're just sitting them walking in their office and tell them off.

You had to bide your time, Okay, amen.

So God never wanted kings.

He wanted to be Israel's king.

But the result is many good kings turned bad.

Here was a good king that turned bad and when it wound up on the scrap heat.

So the bottom of the message is pride and presumption will kill you.

So let's not get lifted up in pride over the gifts that we have, as an apostolic vine with a prophetic river, amen.

Did you get anything out of this tonight?

Well, let's lift our hands and receive it.

I want you to know what's all in your DNA, what you have available to you that will be valuable to you to overcome the things that come your way.

And then, when we all know that we have more faith, when we pray together, release God's mighty power.

He's helping us because we're doing something, amen.