Chosen Vessel

Hallelujah.

Let's all stand together, pick your bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, I'm here on purpose.

I'm part of the Sunday night fanatic crowd.

I crave my God, I crave the Word.

I investigate the Holy Ghost.

I wanna cling to you, lord, through the Word and the Spirit, and you're the one that gives me victory on every side, in Jesus' name, amen.

Let's turn our bibles to the book of Acts, chapter nine.

Let's get into the Word, Verse 10.

There was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and to him said the Lord in a vision, ananias.

And he said behold, I'm here, lord.

And the Lord said unto him arise and go into the street which is called straight and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus.

For behold, he prayeth and hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias as coming in and putting his hand on him that he might receive his sight.

Then Ananias answered Lord, I've heard by many of this man how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem and here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all that.

Call on thy name.

But the Lord said unto him go by way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me.

Everybody shout chosen vessel, he's a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and the kings and the children of Israel, for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.

And Ananias went his way and entered into the house putting his hands on him, said Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way as thou cameest, hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the holy ghost.

And immediately they fell from his eyes, as it had been scales.

And he received sight forthwith and arose and was baptized.

And when he had received meat he was strengthened.

Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus, and straightway he, that is Saul, preached Christ in the synagogues that he is the Son of God.

And so here in verse 15, he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name.

So I wanted to deliver a message entitled Chosen Vessels tonight.

Chosen Vessels, you know it's our day to reach our generation and you know God has given us the mandate and the message and the manifestation for this time.

He's given it to us and it's up to each of us individually and for us corporately to reach our generation today.

You know, the message never changes.

The message is the same message, but the methods are different.

The methods have to be different because we have a different generation.

You know, we can't copy what happened yesterday.

I used to think, in fact I said one time I just kind of daydream something that's not necessarily spiritual, just daydream about having the anointing that Charles Finney had on him.

You know, I could take that to the Capitol, the US Capitol, where the parking lot would just open up and hellfire would come out of the parking lot and people in hell are screaming and all those senators and congressmen that are doing all these dirty things to us, you know, in the name of their own wealth and privilege, you know, would see where they're headed.

I mean, you know he had a pretty unusual anointing, but we can't use Finney's methods.

You know, john G Lee, west League Whitfield, even Daddy Seymour, even John Osteen, kenneth Hagen, noel Roberts, we just we stand on their shoulders to a great degree but we can't use their methods.

Their methods was for their generation.

You know, brother Osteen put that into me.

He said that to me In 1998, I think his last, his last pastor's conference.

6,000, 6,000 were there at a pastor's conference.

I mean, you know these great guys on television.

They're up in the nosebleed session section.

I'm sitting front and center on the front row, right in front of those things.

He's just out there pouring his heart out to those ministers and that next year he was in heaven.

That was the last time.

But he talked about these things that we can't copy everybody's methods.

We've got to have the method for our generation and God has equipped us for this time.

This generation he absolutely has, and this generation needs reaching.

I came across an article that I want to read you.

It's short, it's worth listening to.

Anybody ever heard of Tony Evans?

Well, his daughter, his name is Priscilla Shire.

So let me just read.

I was just going to do the little bit, but let me just read the article.

This is excellent, by Jim Fletcher.

He writes a lot for Bill Koenig.

I subscribed to his website.

I get a lot of my Israel news and a lot of, and he's a correspondent, washington correspondent that goes to press conferences in Washington.

So he's real connected.

He's a Messianic Jew and so Jim says as American evangelicalism, evangelicalism how do you say that word?

Good Lord All right, continues to be choked by the cult of celebrity Think, like a python strangling its victim, we really don't have to wonder why young people are A leaving the church in droves and, b by extension, abandoning Israel.

A few days ago, I saw a report about the continued weakening of true Bible teaching, driven by personalities and charismatic celebrities.

Priscilla Shire, the daughter of Tony Evans, declared in a 2019 address that a preacher teaching for the Bible is not sufficient.

Shire insists that each of us needs a fresh perspective, personalized.

This, of course, has passed for Bible study in American churches, at least for the last 25 years.

It has accelerated through the likes of Beth Moore Anybody ever heard of her?

Beth Moore, richard Foster and many others.

I would add Rick Warren and Hillsongs in general, especially Hillsongs, new York pastor of that church complete and total off the rails.

In her talk, Shire used the analogy of a little girl, herself dependent on hand-me-down clothing, which she refers to as traditional Bible preaching.

But she wants more.

She wants her own stuff, her own personalized message from God.

So then he quotes her verbatim, so I'll just read what she said, so you don't have to take his word for it.

And I've been okay with hand-me-downs with second hand clothes all of these years, but all of a sudden I want my own stuff.

I wanted something to come with my name on it that had been specifically chosen for me.

There ought to come a time in your relationship with the Lord when hand-me-down revelation just doesn't do it for you anymore.

Now we thank God for our pastors and our teachers and our leaders that help us to rightly divide the word of truth.

But so just eliminate everything she just said about the pastors and teachers and rightly dividing the word of truth.

She didn't mean a word of it.

She's lying through.

Her little mouth has no respect.

We thank God.

What God it couldn't be.

The God of our Father, of the Lord Jesus Christ Must be some other God.

They asked my point.

It's another God, it's another gospel, it's another spirit, it's another Jesus.

These people grew up in church but they have departed from the faith and they're teaching this garbage to our millennials and our young people.

But there ought to come a time in your life when you've decided you know what I want fresh revelation with my name on it that has come straight from God's spirit for my life, honey, it's not God's spirit, it's another spirit, it's personal.

All right, it's got your name on it, all right, but it isn't from God.

Now I tell you this is what we're up against.

Now.

This is what Jim said.

Sister Shire, a friend, I don't know why you call her sister.

She's not my sister.

My sister means that she's a believer.

I don't believe she's a.

I don't believe she saved it all.

There's no way she say something like that.

Sister Shire, a fresh revelation from God comes from God's spirit, all right, from the spirit that provided us with the word.

Where do you think this word came from?

It came from the Holy Spirit, but that doesn't square with today's me generation, which demands to be called special.

It demands to be coddled, it demands to be affirmed and, in this way, worshiped itself.

We've got to have lots of followers on Facebook.

We've got to act like movie stars.

We've got to have these pouty little pictures with our lips pursed and you can't tell how old somebody is.

You don't know whether they're 15 or 45.

You can't tell.

I'm on Facebook.

I understand Facebook.

It's just it has eroded the church and it's developed.

And this is what God told me in 2006 in this building.

He said you know, there's a dearth of the word, how?

So, lord, I investigated, I inquired, I heard what he said.

I knew what he said.

I didn't understand what he said.

How so?

There's a church on every corner and not all of them are good churches.

I admit that there's a lot of good churches like this.

How can there be a dearth of the word?

He said your children don't know what you know.

Priscilla doesn't know what Tony knows, but she thinks she does.

Are y'all with me now?

I'm talking about chosen vessels and we bear that name.

We're equipped, we have the mandate, the message, the manifestation of the spirit, like we had tonight.

You can't manufacture the presence of God.

They have no presence, got demons.

So, getting back to the message here, god chose Saul of Tarsus, and that is Paul, to bear the name of Jesus.

And notice, jesus didn't say it's going to be really cool.

He didn't say, man, you're going to love it.

He said I'm going to show him what great things he must suffer for my name's sake.

There's a lot of suffering in a lot of places in the earth.

You happen to live in Nigeria right now.

In your Christian, you got to watch day and night because Boko Haram they got all these Muslim groups are just marauding.

We have I think we told you that we have three teachers that we've supported for, I guess, 10 years.

We pay their salaries every month this church In a little village that after Ike hit there actually it was after the earthquake it was after the earthquake.

They had no power.

They had, you know, there was such damage all over Haiti.

This is a little village, you know, just a small kind of out in the boondocks away from Port of Princessa City.

See, everybody Left the countryside.

It used to be an agricultural country.

They grew their own crops and then the UN and all the, the aid agents and all of the, the church, really just giving them food.

It all congregated there in Port of Princessa City.

They all moved out of the countryside and started squatting in the city.

They have no money, they can't live in a house and then when the earthquake hit, I mean it was just horrendous the damage, the death, the destruction, the disease, and They've lost their, their agricultural base, because people were just would rather get a handout than work.

That's just what we're going through right now.

People are not working for small businesses.

Who was hurt in this whole?

Small businesses were hurt.

You can't hire anybody.

Hand out, hand out, hand out anyway.

So this is the village where the people would take the mud and Form it into little Disks, little patties, and put it on a rock out in the sun and sprinkle salt on it and bake it and eat it.

I Can't even imagine what their digestive tract must have been like after they ate mud that was hardened in the sun.

I Can't even think of what their health, how their health was affected.

They're so hungry to starve to death.

It's got to be the most horrendous way to die there is.

And and so James and and Royce made a trip.

We had a connection with somebody that was Working to organize us and build and put the roof on a school there, james and went out and got.

It was no roads, no electricity, had to have generators and Just for our visit there we put the roof on the school, enclose the building, started having school there, starting to have church there on Sunday, and I mean that village started coming to life.

The government built a road to it.

Now They've got power to it.

I'm telling you she's completely changed because of what we did there.

We just established a beachhead and drove out the spirits of darkness and you know, listen, we're reaching that generation.

And now they give gotta be educated.

You can't just go through life dumb and Poor.

You got to have an education there because of this church.

They're not only getting the gospel to get an education.

There's some chosen vessels coming up and Hating that are gonna know how to reach their generation, he told him.

He said look, I'm gonna show him how.

What great things he's gonna have to suffer for my namesake, brother max.

Man has been going there 45 years.

We're connected, brother max, we'd stay in touch.

90, he's gone.

He's a 94.

He still travels back and forth from Topeka, kansas, to Haiti four or five times a year.

You talk about a trip, amazing, a chosen vessel.

Well, who's gonna take his place?

He's raising up his replacements.

We know them.

Are y'all with me?

No, everybody say chosen vessel.

In second Corinthians 12, verse 9, paul starts talking about the persecution.

2 Corinthians 12:9

He said the persecution rose everywhere about that name and he said I prayed to the Lord three times that he would just take this thorn in the flesh.

There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me because of the of the Abundance of revelation given in the name.

Now the thorn in the flesh is not physical sickness, it's it's.

It's it's people, it's.

It's persecution.

God use that term.

You know, if you don't conquer the and drive out all the ights in your land, they're gonna be thorns in your sides, and that's and it doesn't that.

Doesn't that Describe all of the Palestinians and the Arabs and Israel?

Their thorns and Israel side, it goes all the way back to their disobedience, way back then.

I'm not, you know, blaming modern Israel.

I'm just saying history shows what happens.

So, and then God and Jesus said but he said my grace is sufficient for the, for my strength is made perfect in Weakness.

In other words, it's perfected when you reach the end of your human ability.

It's not about me take see, god's not gonna remove the Persecution, he's not gonna remove the persecutors, he's not gonna do it.

We're gonna live through it, we're gonna overcome it, we're gonna have to endure it.

And I'm telling you right now, america is fixing to have a lot of persecution for the church.

It's been bubbling up under the surface.

They hate our guts.

They hate us so bad they don't know how to contain themselves.

They call us white supremacists.

Never mind your color, it's really all about being a Bible believing Christian.

That's what they hate.

They hate the fact this church that that, that this country was founded on Christian.

But there's no question about it.

It's not even debatable, it can't be debated.

You want to debate?

Fine, go ahead.

Blah, blah, blah.

But everything you're saying is a lie.

We've got the truth, we've got the manuscripts, we've got the history they why they want to reinvent it and ban the real thing.

Are you with me now?

Yeah, we're gonna have it.

We're gonna have persecution if we're, we're gonna have it between now and the time we get out of here.

And we can't be.

You know the kind of person that just wants God to come take us out to rescue us.

You know there's Christians that believe in the rapture.

Before you know there's some Christians believe in the rapture.

You know, mid-trip, post.

I can't even imagine why you'd have a rapture post tribulation.

Why would you do?

Why would a rapture occur after the tribulation?

Can you explain that to me out of the Bible?

To me it seems like a kind of a Moronic.

I Got more on this morning anyway came from Megan McCain.

She's so anointed.

All right, oh, you, I believe in the pre-trip.

What if it doesn't happen, pastor?

Well then, I'll believe it's going to be the mid-trip, but I'm right now.

I'm prepared for the pre-trip but I'm not looking for.

I'm not saying when I say Maura and Arthur, come quickly, lord, I'm not saying it to escape.

I realize we've got work to do.

I realize we've got people to get saved.

I realize we've got to reach our generation.

We are chosen vessels.

I've never forgotten that.

Let's not forget that.

Wishing and hoping for the oh, come tonight, lord, get me out of here.

No, we're not like that.

That's selfish.

No, we are.

We have the manifestation, the mandate, the message to reach our generation.

We don't have to depend on old methods.

We God is so creative, he knows how to reach people right where they are.

I don't know about you, but I've got relatives that have gotten saved, you, and I don't want to leave them behind.

But if they are left behind, the ones you know, this is the hope that we have, because there's going to be lots of tribulation.

Saints, it'd be better if they get saved in this dispensation, no question about it.

If they're saved now, what are they?

They're members of the body of Christ.

They will never, I'm telling you, that is going to be the elite of the elite of the elite of creatures.

But if they don't get saved, if they're just too, you know, stubborn or whatever to come to the Lord now and when we're gone, they're going to know they missed it and then they'll have a decision to make Go to hell or die for Jesus.

One of the two.

There won't be any two choices.

There won't be any other way to get through the tribulation.

You either have to die for the witness of the Lord Jesus or you'll have to go to hell.

One of the two and I believe most of them will choose Jesus and yes, they will be saved and yes, they'll go to heaven.

They'll never be a new creature, they'll never be like us.

They will have lost something that's so valuable.

What we have is so valuable that it should motivate us to share that, no matter what.

So, yeah, I'm not, I'm not looking for the rapture to get out of here.

God has chosen us.

We're chosen vessels.

John 15, 16.

He said I have not, you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and that you would go and bear fruit.

Yeah, I'll tell you what.

I didn't choose him, I didn't even go after him.

He came after me, he found me.

I was the lost one.

He wasn't lost.

People say I found you.

No, you didn't find him, he found you.

You didn't know where to look.

Look at 1 Corinthians, chapter one, talking about chosen vessels.

Keep you, keep you stirred up.

We've got so much work to do and we're able, ministers of the new covenant, and we're able to do that.

And we're able to do that.

And we're able to do that.

Not many mighty, not many noble, are called or chosen, but God has chosen what?

The foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

I've been called worse and God had chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and base.

One version says lowborn, think, wrong side of the tracks.

You don't use that term, butch anymore.

It's not politically correct.

It's the base things of the world and things which are despised.

Have God chosen, yeah, and things which are not to bring to know, things that are that no flesh at glory in his presence.

You know, god doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called.

The calling is not the qualification.

He calls the fools, he calls the weak, he calls the base, he calls the despised.

That's how you are when you're called or when you're chosen, and then you go through the process of discipleship, which is why every believer has to have a pastor, every believer has to have a church, every believer has to have a place of accountability where you can hear the truth about yourself without being condemned.

Are you all with me now?

Kind of quiet in here?

And he begins to qualify you, he begins to train you, he begins to perfect you, he begins to knock off the bumps and the edges and the places that are kind of rough and he begins to mold you and shape you like a pile of clay on a potter's wheel, begins to mold you into a container, into a vessel that contains something wonderful.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4, we have this treasure.

That's what he called it.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels.

I consider what I have a treasure to be able to minister to you like this.

I just consider it a treasure.

He let me have it.

He put it inside of me after many years of preparation.

I called you, heard me this morning, four years old.

I didn't respond.

I'm a little Catholic kid, little boy, four years old.

You don't even know what's ended up.

Four years old, I went to Catholic school.

None, start bothering me.

Well, john, we want you to sing over here in this thing.

We want you to do this, we want you to do that.

We want you to be an altar boy, fourth grade.

Well, we want you to be training some of the other younger altar boys in the fifth grade.

We want you know.

Then, finally, I get the president of the Knights of the Altar.

Now I'm the main guy.

John, we want you to go to cemetery.

I mean seminary.

By that time I discovered Gladys.

There was no way I was going to be approved.

I didn't know what to do with the call.

I knew, you know, I knew, I knew, but I didn't want to admit it.

I knew, I knew, but I just went, man, I kept going back away from it.

I can't do that, cause for me a priest is.

I started asking one time, I remember starting asking Monsignor Oberstuh.

He was the pastor of the church, kind old man.

He married Gladys and I, then our wedding ceremony in that church and I said what about being a brother?

You know I could be a brother.

Don't brothers get married.

You know they have brothers.

You're kind of an odd, you know it's kind of odd.

Real religious stuff Most of them go to not convinced.

But what do they call them?

They call them some kind of building out of way.

You know, they're just kind of isolated.

They don't, they're not around people.

Oh no, you got to do everything a priest does and you're not a priest.

That's a priest, is the highest.

So he started selling me on being a priest and I wasn't buying.

I kept backing away and when I got saved I realized it wasn't a priest, it wasn't being a priest, it was just being a vessel, chosen vessel.

And Acts 13, god said separate me, barnabas and Saul, for the work we're into.

I have called or I have chosen them.

He had called and chosen them before and now there came a culmination.

There came the day when they were, when they were commissioned, commissioned, are placed into the ministry of apostle.

So there's the calling, there's the qualification and then there's the commissioning.

Everybody say called, qualified, commissioned, commission is when you're placed into that place.

And so in a church you're called and you know you're called to belong to a church and then you find a place to serve him and you serve him and you, and that means you're under someone else because there's always somebody above you.

That's kind of directing the deal and some people have a hard time with that.

They just don't.

They kind of chafe in fuss and they like being told what to do and some people, frankly, are not as great a leader.

So we try to train our leaders, try to help them develop skills where they can lead without being obnoxious.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

In 26 years we've had, we've had people that just I just couldn't, we couldn't Seem to get them in a place where they could lead without being just real hard to deal with.

Nobody wants to be Minimize, nobody wants to be talked down to.

God said if you want to be great, be the servant of all, amen.

But anyway, he said we have this treasure in earthen vessels and you know, in Luke 16 it called.

You know, jesus said if you're not faithful over another man's work, who will give you the true riches?

See, the true riches is what we carry on the inside of this vessel.

The true riches, everybody say the true riches, this treasure we had the anointing, the anointing to reach our generation.

We have.

We have in God's preparedness, persecution, tribulation, false accusation, hardship, disappointment, betrayal, and all come for the territory.

You said I'm gonna tell Paul, I'm gonna, I'm gonna teach him, I'm gonna show Paul what great things he must suffer.

I Don't know anybody suffered with Paul suffer.

There in 2nd Corinthians he talks all about what he suffered.

I Think it's 195 stripes.

Can you imagine looking at his back?

And he suffered 195 stripes, beaten with rods three times.

I Saw a film right after the Iraq war had started, pictures of Saddam Hussein and what he would do to the population Send his henchmen out To terrorize them, make sure that they Tatled on their neighbors, make sure that they stayed humble.

And they I just I Was so taken back I just couldn't hardly watch it.

But I made myself watch it.

But in one particular scene they strapped a man to a post Like this and they started beating him on the back with a stick.

You wouldn't think that's so bad, but they kept beating him until his kidneys rupture and blood came up all on his back.

Oh, cut the tongue out of a man.

This is what Islam is.

This is what they want to do.

They do it to each other.

You know, that's the thing about Islam.

They hate each other almost as much as they hate Jews and Christians, but not quite.

So they'll unite, they'll fuss and fight and cut each other's tongues out, beat each other and do all these things, but then you know, when it comes and they'll finally unite Against Israel or they'll not and unite against America, because they still see us as Christians, even though it's fading fast, all right.

So all these things come with the territory and so you know, when they beat the apostles this, they rejoiced and they they rejoiced about it because they, they, they said you know, we've been counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.

That's a good attitude to have Worthy to suffer shame for his name.

Wow, this is kind of a downer message.

I'm getting you ready for what's ahead.

This is not a Sunday morning message.

This is for my Sunday night crowd, the Sunday night fanatics.

You're mature.

You can take a message like this about being discouraged.

You have nothing to fear.

Let's not be fearful.

He goes on to talk about how he protects us.

Just look at what he said tonight.

But we are.

If we do our job, we're gonna be hated.

Can you stand to be hated?

You might be hated by members of your own family.

That's the other thing that I hate to say.

I don't want to say it.

Some of you already have been hated, but there's more of it coming because there's a generation that doesn't know what you know.

They don't know God.

They don't know the God you know.

They don't know him like you know him.

They have been deceived.

They've deceived themselves and then, on top of the deceiving themselves, then they have turned so far from God that God is introducing even more deception.

To read that, get that message from last Sunday morning.

I mean God has sent deception on.

Well, is there any hope for more?

Yeah, bible says there is hope for them because somewhere in there there's a seed.

If they're your relative, there's a seed in there somewhere.

You've got great influence with anybody.

That's your kin vote.

Look at Rahab.

I mean she, her family, you know they didn't know anything about Israel.

They didn't know anything.

They were all just because they were kind of Rahab.

They got saved out of that car.

They got saved out of that car.

They got saved out of that car.

They got saved out of that car, in that car and their stuff.

So no, don't be discouraged about it, but you might.

There might be some times when when you know, when there's, when there's some sharp words and some angry words and accusations.

Those are so easily picked up by people who have been deceived and they just speak in in little phrases that I call the God of this age.

That's blinded their mind to the truth.

So they're gonna give you back to you and accuse you of everything they are guilty of.

That's what goes on all the time, every day, in the news.

It's really not even the news media I'm gonna quit calling the news media.

There's no news, narrative stories.

Gotta fit a storyline, so we ought to be honored to suffer shame for his name.

You know?

Let's, let's just stick in there together.

Let's be a church.

Let's be each other's best friends.

Let's stay connected to each other, talk with each other, pray with each other, stand with each other.

It's better for us to hang together Than to hang separately.

Amen.

We're chosen vessels for this time, for this generation.

Yield yourself to be a chosen vessel.

Come on, lift your hands and receive.

Tonight you got the true riches, amen.

I.