The Proper Arena For Victory

Let's pick up our bibles before we're seated and let's wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's just, let's all say this together say heavenly Father, all hail King Jesus.

He's the head of the church, he's the center of my life and I am cognizant of the time that you've chosen me to live and I tap in, by faith, the grace that I need to live in these evil times, to be a light and to be salt to everyone that I meet, to proclaim Jesus' liberty to the captives recovering of sight, to the blind, to set it.

Liberty then that are bruised and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord In Jesus' name, amen, praise God, thank you, worship team.

Wow, powerful worship time we have together.

Glory to God.

I'll tell you, god is moving.

Don't be deceived.

God is working, sometimes behind the scenes, and I believe soon we'll begin to see things right out in the front that God wants to do.

We've been seeing what the devil's doing and what the devil's saying.

Now God hadn't lost His voice.

He's got a voice on the earth, and that's the church.

Let's look at three verses of 1 Corinthians, chapter 10.

1 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

And then, while you're looking for that, look at John 15 and 1 Timothy 6.

I've got three verses, maybe four, to share with you today.

First, corinthians 10, 13.

First, paul is writing and he says to the church, to believers there, hath no temptation taken you, but such is common to man.

But God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you're able, but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape.

Everybody shout way to escape that you may be able to bear it.

Now, that word temptation you know many times.

Look at that word.

People see temptation and think temptation to sin means that.

But it means more than that.

Tests and trials, contrary circumstances.

All right.

And now let's look at John, chapter 15, verse seven.

John 15 · chapter mention

Jesus is speaking to his disciples on the night before he was crucified.

How many of you believe that he saved some pretty important things to talk about?

Verse seven Jesus says to them and us if you abide in me, how many of you are saved?

Well then, you abide in him, you're in Christ.

If you abide in me and look at the and say there's two things, two conditions, and my words abide in you.

I like what brother Hagan said about that.

He said his word abiding in you is is equal to the degree over which the word has dominion over your life.

How much attention do you pay to the word?

Do you go to the word first?

Is it first place, is it final authority?

Then you can say that, yes, I'm a Biden Christ, I'm saved, I'm abiding in him and his word abides in me.

Then it says then, with those two conditions, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you, you shall ask.

It doesn't mean beg, it doesn't mean plead, it doesn't mean maybe.

The word asked means to demand your do.

It means to make a demand on the covenant.

Praise God.

Yeah, I mean.

Obviously, when the word is abiding in you, you're real mindful of what belongs to you.

The people that are worst in this society, the ones that get taken advantage of many times, are two people.

My sociology professor at A&M taught me this in 1969.

He said if you're poor or you're ignorant, those two things, poor and ignorant.

Sometimes people are poor and ignorant, or sometimes they're either one, but in both cases you're going to be at a gross disadvantage because horrible men will take advantage of you.

And so it's really when we know who we are and what belongs to us, then we can rise up and make a demand, not from God, but we can demand the enemy to take his hands off what belongs to us.

All right.

The next one is 1 Timothy, chapter six.

Paul is talking to his son in the faith and said here in verse 12, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life.

Well, I thought eternal life came.

Yeah, it came and it is there, but we have to lay hold on it.

By how?

By faith.

It doesn't just fall out of the tree on top of us.

We have to lay hold on it.

Lay hold on eternal life, where unto thou art also called and has professed a good profession or confession before many witnesses.

Today I wanted to share a message entitled the proper arena for victory.

How many of you interested in having victory?

You're interested in having victory?

Then you have to have the right arena.

What in the past?

What do you mean?

The arena?

Well, arena that I'm talking about is a place or scene of activity, debate or conflict.

You see, we're not trying to fight the devil because he's already defeated.

We're not fighting sickness, we're not fighting sin.

We're not fighting lack and poverty.

We're fighting the enemy.

Who is the enemy of our faith?

It's the good fight of faith.

It's a faith contest and we have to fight that faith contest in the proper arena.

Well, I still don't get it.

Well, you will, when four were through.

I mean I, the arena is a place of, or scene of activity, debate or conflict.

In other words, you know you don't play football on a soccer field.

I played football in high school.

Not one time did we have a game at the tennis court.

It wouldn't have worked.

Can you imagine trying to hurdle the net?

You know, every time you're trying to run, I mean, use a tennis ball set of a football, I mean, no, it doesn't work.

You know, I went.

I went to A&M my freshman year.

I met a guy in one of my classes.

He's a nice guy and I found out he was, you know, he was an athlete, lives in the athletic dorm.

I said, wow, what do you play?

What are you?

What are you?

What are you?

A baseball player?

I mean, he looked, I knew he wasn't a football player.

He wasn't that big.

You know you play football at A&M.

You got to be pretty, pretty stout.

You know, nowadays there are like 350 pounds on the line, I mean, and so, but that was a long time ago.

So he said oh, I've got a full ride.

Scholarship.

I live in Kane Hall, which is the athletic dorm.

I knew he ate better than me for sure.

And he said I play water polo.

I said, what Water polo?

I never heard of water polo.

Are you going to tell me a little bit?

But it's played in a swimming pool that's over your head.

You've got to get out there and tread water the whole time and there's a whole thing about a net and there's a ball and all that kind of thing.

And it's like polo, only without a horse.

You're I guess, you're the horse, you're a swimming horse.

Can you imagine what it would be like to play football in a swimming pool?

How about trying to kick the extra point?

That would be a real.

You see, you've got to have the proper arena.

Football has a football field, baseball has a baseball field, basketball has a basketball court.

Arena means a lot of times there are people watching.

I believe that that there's a mighty cloud of witnesses that every now and then get to look over the edges of heaven and watch some of our contests that we're putting on.

Well, I don't say that in the Bible.

Well, you can't prove it.

It's true.

I know about the mighty cloud of what the Bible says, the mighty cloud of witnesses.

So they must be witnessing something.

I like to think that they're watching us from time not all the time, but what from time to time.

And so, for a soldier, the proper arena is the battlefield.

You're not going to fight the war inside the barracks or in the mess hall, amen.

You're going to have to go where the enemy is.

If that is the battlefield, are y'all with me now?

I'm talking about where you live.

I'm talking about your situation.

I'm talking about the contest the enemy has put up against you and your health and your finances and your home and your relationships with your children or your family and your career.

The devil is working overtime.

He is your enemy.

Cancer is not your friend.

The freeze damage did not.

God didn't send the freeze and damage your pipes and have your sheet rock fall in top of your head to teach you anything.

God didn't do that.

The proper arena so that really a similar word that I see in the Bible to arena is array In 1 Samuel, 17, 1 and 2, put that note down.

I'm not going to turn and read it to you, I'm just going to tell you what it says.

It's Saul and the army of Israel came against the Philistines and they put the battle in array.

You'll see that over and over in the Old Testament that they put the battle in array.

In other words they had to prepare the proper arena Expertly, arrange all the details of a battle or contest.

That's what the word of array means Men, field, weapons and time.

But if you keep reading there in 1 Samuel 17, it didn't quite all pan out.

I mean they started to put the battle in array and then Goliath showed up and the Bible says that everybody was shaking in their sandals I would say boots, but they didn't have boots anyway.

I mean they were intimidated and Goliath came down and they were on one mountain and the Philistines on the next mountain, in the middle of the valley.

And here comes Goliath, down in the valley and he's cursing and he's swearing and blaspheming God.

He's trash talking.

But you know it's not trash talking if you can deliver on the trash that you're talking.

But nobody entered him.

Everybody's hiding behind a rock trying to be the first not to see him or hear him.

But he was manning, he was bellowing out and just everybody's intimidated.

And then here comes, if you keep reading in chapter 17,.

Here comes David.

Daddy sent him over to check on his brothers.

Hey, let's go find check on your brothers, go find out what's going on with them, see if they're okay.

They're in a battle and I'm concerned about them.

Go find.

So he brought bread and cheese and all of that brought the donkey and he, he comes over and he hears Goliath and he says what in the world are you people?

Y'all are all afraid of this uncircumcised Philistines.

He's blaspheming God.

Come on, what are you and I always brothers whoa, you get out of here, you little shrimp.

What do you know?

Well, I'll tell you one thing.

I mean, I got my sheep delivered from the paw of the lion and I took the sheep out of the mouth of the bear.

And this uncircumcised Philistine, I'm going to take his head off, even with his shoulders, for it's over with Now.

He wasn't trash talking, he was.

He was fighting the good fight of faith.

He was professing a good profession in the, in the presence of many witnesses.

Are you with me now?

I mean, sometimes you got to speak up or be roadkill.

He decided he wasn't going to be roadkill and neither, and he was offended that he was blaspheming God and nobody.

I mean, these are the armies of Israel.

He said you're blaspheming the, god of Israel and the and his armies.

I'm not going to let you get by with it, I'm not allowing that.

And so you know, they started asking question well, this little shrimp, what shall be done for the man who gets rid of this reproach of Israel?

What's going to be him?

The second thing he wanted to know is what's my reward for doing this?

I want some payment.

If I'm going to get out here and knock this out, I want some payment.

Well, I mean, you know you could get the king's daughter.

No, I saw, that's good enough for me.

And you know the story.

I mean, he, he, he told Goliath ahead of time what was going to happen to him.

He spoke his faith.

Are y'all with me now?

See, that's how you set the battle in a ray.

And he did exactly what he said he'd do.

Praise God.

You know, just recently March the first, for last Monday was the 22nd anniversary of God visiting me, telling me to wake up the church, and of course, he started with me.

He said the church is just like you.

They're sleeping their bed with the covers pulled over their head.

When I speak to them, they think it's a devil.

So I had to wake up first and I had to admit, even though I didn't understand it, god is right.

I may not understand how I'm asleep.

I thought I was awake.

I think a lot of church people think they're awake, but they're still asleep.

They're awake, they're awake.

Some of them are awakening, but they need to be fully awake.

And I and God began to charge me and put a mandate on this church to be part of awakening the church, because when you're asleep you're as good as dead.

I mean, what if somebody breaks into your house and kills your wife and kids and you sleep through it?

Did it matter that you were even there?

You might as well have been dead because you didn't protect them, you didn't do a thing, you didn't lift a finger, why you just kept snoring right on away till everything disappeared.

Brother Hagin said I don't know.

30 years ago he said nothing can happen.

The stuff that's going on in America is because the church has allowed it to happen.

I say I'm not the first person to say these things, I'm not the first person to say what I'm saying, but nobody listened to Brother Hagin, or virtually nobody, including a whole lot of Ramagrats, I'm sorry to say.

I mean, you know, it's just like it just went over their heads.

A lot of these people still don't say anything about electoral politics.

They don't give their people any kind of guidance.

When an election comes around, they make no effort to educate their flock about what's going on.

They act like it's just like it used to be.

Well, it's not like it used to be.

The devil is in our government in the form of the Democrat Party and a whole lot of the Republicans.

They're demonic.

They just passed a $1.7 trillion bill called COVID Relief.

It has very little to do with COVID.

It gives millions and millions of dollars to foreign countries.

It gives money to illegal aliens after other people in this country have waited their turn and they've spent a lot of money.

They've made a lot of sacrifices to come legally, to do everything legally, and now here's a whole bunch of people coming across the border and getting a check.

They're gonna get a check.

How many more millions are gonna come getting the check?

They're bringing COVID with them.

We're not even checking them.

Thank God for Governor Abbott.

He is gonna call the National Guard out and we're gonna listen, this time for states rights.

I mean, this Texas is a border state and we need to tighten up the border.

It's wrong.

God will judge any nation that invades another nation without his permission.

And let me tell you something they don't have the permission of God to invade our country.

But what we have is a government was voted for, in many cases, by people who call themselves Christians, and if you hear this message some way or another or it gets posted on my Facebook page I just wanna say unequivocally that if you're a Christian and you voted Democrat, you're gonna answer to God for it, and I have to call into account your true Christianity.

I can't see how you possibly could be saved and vote for a bunch of people that just approved money to go to abortion.

$400 million are gonna go to fund abortion.

They used to separate the money.

How many of you know it never was separated, right?

I mean, you don't trust Planned Parenthood to say, oh, that money, we can't use that money from the government for abortion.

We have to do that.

No, they used it all.

We know that.

But my point is they don't even try to do the right thing.

They're bold about killing babies.

They're bold to be murderers.

Why don't we call them what they are Murderers?

So don't tell me that Joe Manchin from West Virginia is a moderate.

He's not.

He went right along with them.

He doesn't get a get out of jail free card, and all the rest of them.

There was a number of moderates that passed and they stopped the minimum wage from passing.

They tried to tack the minimum wage $15 an hour.

Well, if you're a small business owner, you know that you can't pay everybody $15 an hour.

It's never supposed to be a living wage.

That's supposed to be a trainees wage.

That's a wage you give teenagers to learn how to show up on a job, to follow directions, to be a part of a team, and that's what you pay a minimum wage.

Because the minimum wage ought to be.

It ought to be about $3 an hour, really.

But if they've kept on and on and on making it bigger, making it bigger, and when's the last time you see a teenager working at McDonald's?

No, these are people that are adults, that have to support their family.

It's not supposed to.

I worked that way and that's why a hamburger's $10 instead of $3.

Pastor, I thought this was a faith message.

I'm talking about, though, the church.

The church has got to awaken In our lives.

We sang that song, do you mean it?

There's nobody can say Jesus, you're the center of my life.

No, and vote for some Democrat, vote for somebody that's going to tear our country up.

No, can't, can't do it.

And besides that, we've got to speak up and out against it.

No silence, no silence.

The church in Germany was silent while they hauled Jews off to the ovens.

When are we going to learn that good people saying nothing is not the way to get blessed?

All right.

So, brother Roberts, as a result of that visitation number of years later, I heard him say that God visited him and that the church was not ready for the second coming.

That sounded to me like a rebuke, a correction from a general of the faith that had usually God had used to uplift and to and go.

God is going to do something good for you today.

He had a lot of I mean, he had a lot of preachers.

Wouldn't let him come preaching that church because they felt like he was too liberal and too.

They wanted the God of judgment, they wanted the God of anger.

They wanted the God that would hit you upside the head with a two by four.

They wanted a God that would make you miss the rapture.

So brother Roberts was not that guy.

Brother Roberts was a very positive, and yet he had this corrective word.

And so God opened the door for me to go interview him.

You've heard me say it before.

And so, to my surprise, as he told me the story, I hadn't heard this on the television interview at all.

See, that was.

I was correct in that not enough questions were asked, not deep enough questions, and nobody had prepared really to interview him.

And I knew in my spirit that there were things that he didn't reveal about his visitation.

And one of the most surprising things he said was that God told him there is a wasting of power in my church.

And, boy, that hit me.

That hit me, and I went home and I meditated on that and meditated on that.

Okay, god, what are you saying?

You said wake up the church.

And now you're saying the church has got a wasting of power.

You know all power in heaven and earth given unto me, go ye.

Therefore, so we have authority.

We're asking God to do things.

God's not gonna do anything because he gave the authority to the church.

Oh God, please heal our land.

We wanna pray that prayer.

Well, god's not healing the land, it's the church.

Everything that Jesus is doing on the earth, he does through his body.

He's the head.

But can your head do anything without your body?

Can your head make?

I mean, you can make a decision in your head, but if your body doesn't follow through, what good does it do?

Well, that's the same with the body of Christ.

If Jesus makes a decision and the body doesn't respond, the body's asleep in bed.

The body is not doing anything.

You can pray till the cows come home, asking God to do something, and God ain't doing it.

People are just misguided under about what God is gonna do and what he isn't gonna do.

This isn't in my notes, but I was so impressed about the man in white.

Has anybody heard about the man in white last week in our missions Sunday?

So that's not a new concept with me because I've been hearing about the man in white for about 30 some odd years.

Brother Osteen had a dear friend, larry Stockstill, whose son and now his grandson, was a master Bethany, a world outreach center in Baton Rouge big church, and Brother Stockstill was Brother Osteen's age and he came out of the Baptist church about the same time that they were both baptized in the Holy Ghost.

I mean, this is the late 50s, this is before the charismatic revival.

So he's like an apostle, he's sent out ahead of time.

And Brother Osteen was talking to me about him on one of our trips to India and he got a note and he said you know, all over the Middle East imams are getting saved because the man in white is appearing to them and they don't know who he is.

And then God has to make an intersection and then Christians are telling the imams who you saw was Jesus and they're getting saved.

This has been 30, 35 years ago.

Same thing is happening to Jewish rabbis, same thing has happened to Hindus.

The same thing is happening all over the godless part of the world with false religions.

Yet God is pulling out all the stops in these last days.

He wants there to be a harvest, but not in any case does Jesus say I am Jesus.

That's right.

That's the church's job.

That's right.

That's the church's authority.

He won't breach it.

Can you imagine the one who laid down his life for that person's sins, the one who went to the cross, the love that he has for that person, that he reveals partially who he is to this person, enough to make them ask questions who is this?

I've seen this man in white.

Who is it who?

Why wouldn't he say I'm Jesus, I'm the Son of God?

No, he would say follow me and I'll, you know, make them promise, follow me.

Well, they don't know who to follow.

They don't know who it is.

See, he won't do the church's job, he won't heal this land, he won't vote right, he won't do anything.

We've got to do something, and you've got to do something about these circumstances that have come up against you.

If you're praying, oh God, take my sickness, oh God, take my pain, oh God, you're praying wrong.

It's a vanity, it's vain.

It's vain prayer because Jesus already took your sickness, amen.

That comes back to John 15.7,.

If my words abided, you Are y'all getting this now.

Yeah, so the wasting of power Brother Roberts was talking about, I believe, fits right here.

You see, we've received the power of God.

On the day of Pentecost, I mean, dunamis was poured out, the church was born and it has power.

You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you.

Power is available.

Not everyone has received it, so therefore it is wasted.

What if during the freeze.

You know they turned the power on to your neighborhood but you had flicked off your main breaker.

Well then, the power's coming to your house but you turned off the main breaker.

So there's a wasting of power because it's available to you but you didn't receive it.

There's a lot of churches and a lot of Christians like that.

They have not received God's power.

There's a wasting of power God gave it but you didn't receive it.

The second way that it's wasted is that it's been received but it's been wrongly used.

Power has been given, but the power has been used to build kingdoms that are really not the kingdom of God.

They say it's the kingdom of God, but it's the kingdom of that ministry, it's the kingdom of that church, it's the kingdom of that individual.

They got lots of golf club memberships, country club memberships and cars to drive and so forth and so on.

And listen, I'm prosperity.

I believe God can prosper you.

That's not the point.

The point is what are you doing with this power?

And so another way that the power can be wasted is the failure to properly set the battle in array.

Now we're getting to it.

You want God's power working for you against this temptation, test or trial.

God did not send it.

But now you are able.

You're able to overcome it.

Well, I don't know that.

Well, yeah, the Bible said so.

So, getting back to this battle in array, that's exactly what David did.

David took where King Saul left off.

He didn't finish the job.

He got the soldiers generally where they needed to be, but they didn't get down in that valley and defeat Goliath.

That was the bargain.

You defeat me and we'll leave.

They didn't even have to fight the whole army.

All they needed was one person to go down there and confront that one person.

But because he was a giant, because he had a loud voice, because he had bad breath, he had toenail fungus, I know he did.

It took David, little old, ruddy teenager Don't sell teenagers short he spoke and decreed the end from the beginning.

You know that kingly.

You know, see where Jesus is King of kings, where the kings he's the king of.

Let's think about a king.

A king doesn't beg, the king doesn't ask, he decrees and expects things to happen.

What have you said about this infirmity?

What have you said about this temptation, test or trial?

Sometimes we say the right thing and then we say the wrong thing.

Then we say the right thing, we say the wrong thing.

It's kind of like steering a ship.

James said you know you steer a ship with a small little rudder.

You know it steers the ship.

So you're steering the ship into victory and all of a sudden, you know, things start happening.

He said oh no, I guess I'm gonna.

I guess God is trying to teach me a lesson.

Now we're steering the ship away from victory into defeat and then we recover ourselves and we're going nowhere, aren't we Up and down?

Up and down, we're not sailing and we don't have our faith and our face set on the victory.

Let's get the battle set in array.

First Corinthians 10-13,.

The Bible says that there's no temptation, test or trial.

Take us, but such is common to man.

The devil is limited to attacking you in ways that are common to man, in other words carnal, flesh senses.

The devil's gonna attack your senses, your five senses.

That's where you end it.

That's where you encounter this world.

You encounter this world by your five senses.

So if he could cause a fire, if he can distract you from what's important and get you worried about the immediate instead of the wrong term, he kinda got you out of your battle array.

He's got you in the wrong place, in the wrong arena, because if you fight this battle in the arena of the flesh, you're guaranteed to lose it Right.

But if you get it over into the realm of the Spirit, say, our response to his things that are common to man is to use the weapons of our warfare.

They're not carnal, but they're mighty through God, amen.

What are the weapons?

Well, the Word of God, the name of Jesus, the Holy Ghost, amen, amen, amen.

So our response should be in the arena that is common to God.

God's got the arena that he is ruling in.

That's the arena that we ought to fight this battle in.

We don't fight it in the flesh.

The Bible says Ephesians 6-10,.

Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

See, there's that word.

Power again, there's in the Lord, there's in Christ.

We've got to get ourselves rooted in who we are.

It takes more than me saying it.

It takes more than you hearing it one time.

You've got to meditate and meditate and meditate until you know who you are.

That means you obliterate all of these negative things that are running, this endless loop of self doubt and condemnation that go through your mind, that keep you from God's best Amen.

I mean the weapons of our warfare.

2 Corinthians 10-4,.

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

So, when you're going to fight a good fight of faith, how many of you are fighting a good fight of faith?

Why is it a good fight?

Because we win when we do, when we have the right arena.

We win every time.

It's not 90%, it's not 75%, it's 100% when we have the arena.

Man, I'm not playing football in the swimming pool, no way, jose, not gonna do it.

It's a good fight because it's always victory.

You know what victory means?

Victory means defeat of an enemy in battle.

Defeat of an enemy in battle.

Well, I thought the devil was defeated, yeah, that's why it's such a tragedy.

When we let him win, he's really already been defeated.

We just have to enforce it.

So the proper arena for victory that we're talking about, and there's three things I want you to know when you're facing these circumstances, three things that you want to know.

They kind of overlap each other, just just bear with me, but these are the kind of messages that can cause you.

You might hear it and hear it over and over again.

Some of you may have heard these for 30, 40 years, but you know what One message can change your life.

Suddenly, something happened, something snapped, something clicks and you're forever changed.

From that moment forward, you've got a completely different outlook.

I don't know how many times that's happened to me, things that I've heard and I've heard, and all of a sudden, one particular day, one particular message, the anointing was able to uncover something that I hadn't seen before.

So the fear of repetition?

I don't have any fear of repetition.

So don't you have the complimentary thing of being bored of something you've heard before?

Amen, don't ever be bored at something that you've heard before, because you might hear it differently this time.

All right, so the first one that we've talked about you are in Christ.

You've got to know that.

You've got to know it.

How many times have we said go through your Bible, especially in the epistles that's where it's talked about especially the Pauline epistles, because he had a revelation of the believer in Christ.

Go through there and underline in your Bible.

And if you can't underline in your Bible, put it under a glass case and go buy you a Bible you can write in and underline everywhere.

It says in Christ.

In fact, I would provide, I would say go a little further.

I would get a sheet of paper and start writing down each of these verses and meditate on them.

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old thing.

I remember getting a hold of that 40 years ago, a little bit more than 40 years ago.

It changed my life.

You've got to have the proper self image.

What is that image?

You're in Christ.

Is there any flaws in Christ?

Is there any personality defects in Christ?

Is there any sickness in Christ?

Is there any broke?

Is he broke?

Did Jesus run out of money at any time?

Only at the cross.

Only at the cross.

He was made poor, at the cross so we could be rich.

So remember and know that you're in Christ.

You're dealing with an enemy that's already defeated.

You have no fear allowed.

You must not fear.

Now, what do I mean by that?

Well, I mean don't act on the fear.

You know your body will have involuntary reactions to certain stimuli.

It's not really much you can do about that.

You have a flesh body.

It can be inflamed at the oddest things.

I remember when I was between my freshman and sophomore year in high school my dad was part owner of a little independent oil company, amoy Minerals and Referio, and he wanted his son to have something to do that summer in the heat, and something that would make me tough.

You know, I was a good student, I made good grades, but he wanted me to make the right choices in life and he wanted to expose me to what it means to work with your hands outdoors in 100 degree heat.

And so he had some work that he needed to do on his head.

He had some little oil leases at Christmas trees after you know what that is like an old oil well that they've capped.

It's got all these branches on it.

They needed to be painted, scraped the rust off and paint them.

Tank batteries storage batteries that need the same thing rust all over, had to scrape, paint the tank batteries Pipe that's laying around.

There was this particular lease that he had, several leases that needed to be cleaned up.

I remember a compressor station.

Here's this big, old, huge walk of shawl engine running and it's a huge engine.

Natural gas spired and exhaust on that thing is this big around it's cherry red and I'm right, my inch, my nose is that far.

At the end of the day it burned my skin on my face, painting all of that because I had to be real close to all that heat.

But occasionally we'd go out in the brush and we'd be picking up pipe and stacking it and moving it, taking care of it, making sure it doesn't go to waste, and there was this pop off valve that would go off and go like that.

Well, when that thing went off the first time, I jumped.

I could have won the high jump.

I mean, I'll jump straight up in the air.

I thought it was a rattlesnake and I started being.

I started getting away from that sound.

Of course they were last in the older hands.

You know, I wasn't, I was the youngest on the totem pole, I think.

I think that my wage that summer was a dollar and five cents an hour and so and so that he hired a contractor with the idea I will hire you, but you're going to hire my son.

So that's what you can do when you're, when you're a business owner, you can, you can, you know, help yourself out.

And he never came out there, he never told me anything to do, he just let me be working for all those guys.

So I learned it's better than working at the hamburger store.

I mean it's better because it's harder work, and I learned how to deal with people, how to, how to follow directions and how to be made fun of without getting mad and all that kind of how to be the butt of most every joke that's been said the whole day.

Long Last at the water cooler, all right, so all those things.

So every time that silly thing would go off, I would, I would jump, there was nothing I could do.

I would jump.

And then one day I came across a real thing, rattles thing.

Well, I was already conditioned.

I jumped straight in there and my feet were churning and and we killed that thing.

I don't let them live.

I don't care if you like it or you don't.

I kill every snake, especially poisonous snakes.

God put enmity between me and hit so some things.

You're going to have fear, a reaction of fear.

Don't be condemned if the doctor says you've got stage four cancer.

You're going to feel something hit you.

I don't know anybody that's dead to those kind of reports.

The key is not acting on that.

See, it wasn't wrong for Peter to see the wind and the waves boisterous, but he feared.

And then, when he feared, he acted by doing what Jesus saved me.

But if he said, jesus, I'm coming to see you, I don't care what it looks like, he never would have sunk.

So the initial action, when you have fear hit you, is the most important.

Don't speak it, don't give it life with your words.

Are you with me now?

So important?

Okay, so we're in Christ.

Don't listen to the voice of emotion.

That's what I want to say.

Don't listen to the voice of your emotion or your flesh.

So your emotion is here's your flesh.

I knew another guy that just didn't.

He was always.

I knew him for quite a while, tried to help him and of course our paths went apart because he never would.

He never would listen to reason.

I tried to help him but you know he started off in life just being very rebellious to his parents and then, when he got in the workforce, he was rebellious to every boss.

He just had a hard time with authority and he never could and he would.

Just as soon as anybody said anything to him to make him accountable, he would drag up.

You know what I mean Drag up, quit.

But you know he had a wife and kids and they depended on him and he was undependable and I, you know, finally, when he got to be 45 or 50, I just didn't have any more to say to him I don't, I don't.

I don't have anything more to say to him because he's never done anything that that I suggested.

He just still just wanders around now.

He's going to at some point, he's going to be at a retirement age and I, I know that he's going to not have enough because he's been rebellious.

See, he listened to his emotion.

He's a believer, he's a spirit filled Christian, speaks in tongues.

I'm not talking about a lost person.

He reads the same Bible I do and yet he has not bridled his flesh.

He listens to his flesh.

Wrong arena, everybody say, wrong arena, all right.

Number two remember and always know God's Word is available to you, whatever the, whatever report you have, whatever conflict, whatever contrary circumstance has arisen, I don't care what.

The Word of God is available to you.

You're not without direction.

You might not know where in the Bible it is, but it's here.

It's the key, it's the key.

So don't panic again that fear.

Pray and get God's Word and put it on the inside of you.

In other words, don't listen to the voice of reason.

You know you'll get an attack.

And you know, first you have the fear.

And if you can get rid of that and not speak it, then your mind is gonna try to figure out something, what to do next.

But don't let your mind take over.

Get into the word, begin to seek, put the word first, say oh God, I know this has happened, but you know, I know you're faithful, hallelujah, and you've got a way of escape.

I'm gonna start praying, I'm gonna put the word of God in me and see, you've got to.

Just you gotta take a deep breath and not just go off half cock.

Do you know what I mean by half cock?

The old timey guns had a position on the hammer where you know you could fully cock it and then you just barely touch that trigger and it's gonna fire.

And the old single action if the hammer was totally closed it wouldn't shoot.

You know you can't pull the trigger, it's locked.

So it was a safety.

But they had a half cock.

Well, why would they have that?

Well, because that way it wouldn't take but just a little bit more and it'd be ready to fire.

But the half cock is kinda dangerous because if you drop the gun or if you do certain things, it can go off.

So half cock means you're gonna be at a disadvantage.

You're about to make a hasty decision.

Don't go off half cock.

Make a hasty decision based on reason, reason, carnal reasoning.

I heard brother Copeland say this 40 years ago.

He said most Christians I know are too quick to pray against something.

They don't pray about it, they just pray against it without any unction, without getting a reama word to confront the situation.

They just kinda throw a bunch of nervous, listen, nervous prayers don't work and, first of all, begging God and praying about things Jesus already bought and paid for is a waste of time.

Also, really, we ought to be speaking.

You don't have to pray for healing.

You claim it.

But before you claim it, let's make sure we have a word.

Let's invest some time in the Word of God and let God begin to build in you a fresh reama word for that particular situation.

I've seen people just quote everything, throw it up like a shotgun, but nothing specific.

And so when you say, well, what verse are you standing on?

Well, they can give you a whole line of verses.

Well, you know, I know that they didn't do what I'm telling you about right here.

Are you getting anything out of this.

So let God's Word be final authority.

God said it, I believe it.

That settles it.

That's what it's worth.

I don't care what the emergency is, it's worth taking the time.

It's worth taking the time Most of the time.

It's well.

I get in point number three.

I'll make that point in point number three.

All right, so you are in Christ.

Know that.

Know God's Word's available till you.

Don't panic.

Number three know that God is faithful.

You know it's on him.

He's faithful, he's been watching you.

He didn't send the trouble, yeah, but he allowed it.

Well, let me just say this about that statement quit saying it.

It's kind of self-evident and it doesn't help your faith a bit to think that God allowed, because God allows everything that happens.

We're in charge.

I said we're in charge.

So instead of kind of backhandedly blaming God for the trouble where he said God won't allow me to have this trouble, so he allowed it, so he must have some, no, he didn't.

The fact that he allowed it means that he counts you able to overcome it or he wouldn't allow it.

He's the gatekeeper, the ultimate gatekeeper.

So when you say God is in control, I agree.

See, they overuse that statement all the time.

You see that on social media.

Well, god is in control.

Well, if he's in control, he sure has made a big mess.

He's not in control of this world.

The devil is in control.

The God of this age is in control.

His lease hasn't ended.

God is in overall ultimate control and he's in control over you enough that if anything is happening to you, you know, by the fact it is happening, that God said they're okay, they can beat this.

I'm gonna give them an opportunity to beat it.

I'm gonna give them the way of escape.

I'm gonna give them information that they need.

God's faithful in that way.

Are you with me?

Now?

He's already provided a way of escape.

That's why I'm saying don't go off half cock.

Don't just start knee jerking, throw in scripture at the wall and trying to see.

Just take your time and find the way to escape.

Now let's talk about a way.

Now, a way is not usually just straight line point A to point B and that's it.

It's got some turns in it.

My first car that I ever bought that had a navigation system was a 2002 Acura TLX, which is a glorified Honda.

It had an Asian woman living under the dashboard that would talk to me.

And no, it didn't.

But back then it was made in Japan so they had a Japanese woman that they paid to program her to speak English and she didn't speak very good English, she had a real heavy accent.

We would just turn the navigation.

We knew where we were going In Houston.

I know where I'm going, I don't need a navigation.

But I turned on just to kind of laugh at the girl talking to me.

Turn right at next to six and no anyway.

But I mean, you know, you find out she's got all these and she keeps talking.

I didn't learn how to turn her off for about six months.

It took me about six months to find the little thing in the menu to turn her voice off Because you had that thing on.

She's gonna tell you she's talking to you the whole time.

You know interrupting your conversation.

How many of you heard Siri?

One Sunday I had my phone up here.

Siri started talking to me.

I said I'm not talking to you, siri, I'm talking to the technology now that day.

But he has provided a way of escaping.

It's more than one step and he rarely gives you.

I mean, when you turn your nav on, it's not gonna give you a series of steps.

All at one time it's gonna tell you the first one and then, after you make that right turn, it's going to wait a while until you're close to the next turn.

Then it's gonna tell you again.

That's the way God's way of escape is.

You have to continually stay in contact with God all the way through until the final destination.

His way of escape sometimes is a little more complex than just one step.

It rarely is just one step, it's a number, a series of steps.

Are y'all with me now?

The problem with a lot of folks is, instead of responding, they want to react, which comes back to that half-cocked idea.

They don't react to trouble, but to respond to trouble and know that when you're in it, that God already has said they are able.

Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 10.

I want you to see some words.

How many of you know words mean something?

The Democrats are changing the entire language.

They're making, they're redefining words right now.

So man is not a man anymore and a woman is not a woman anymore.

You can't say wife, you can't say niece, you can't say daughter, you can't say daddy, you can't say grandpa.

Huh, that's what they're doing right now it is an affront to the Second Amendment, the First Amendment, every amendment, first amendment, all right.

So in 1 Corinthians 10, you find it so.

There are little temptation, test or trial taking such as common amendment.

God is faithful, not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able, what you are able.

The word able there is the Greek word dominio, dunameo, dunameo, dunamis, dunamis means supernatural power.

So it's a kin to supernatural power.

You have supernatural power to overcome whatever trouble by the fact that you're facing that trouble.

It's not listen.

God said they're able.

He calls you able.

Don't ever say you're not able.

Oh, this is just overwhelming.

Oh, I said this the other night.

Quit using the word devastate.

I heard that and I was just devastated.

It's an overused word.

It's not applicable to any kind of thing that you.

It means to be laid waste, it means to be destroyed.

So don't over.

That's what the Democrats do.

They overuse language, they overuse words.

Don't be like them.

No, don't say anything.

Say, oh, thank God, I've got the ability to overcome this thing.

Praise God, I wouldn't be facing if I didn't have the ability.

All I need to know is the way of escape.

Praise God, I'm gonna be able to.

I'm able.

I have dunameo to bear up under it.

In other words, I can carry it on my shoulders and I won't even know it's there.

I'm not talking about oh, it's burden.

Oh my God, god, take this burden.

No, he already gave you the power to bear up under it.

It should be.

It's like Superman lifting the car over his head.

Are you with me now?

Some of you are so spiritual.

You've never washed a Superman movie.

Okay, I grew up with Superman.

I'm faster than a speeding train, faster than speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Ta-da-da, da-da-da-da.

All right, yeah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha.

That's what we are.

He's provided, he's already provided.

All we let's respond to the trouble, let's not react to the trouble.

Praise God, you just stand in the face of the trouble.

After you quit laughing for about 20 minutes and just said he said I'm able.

He said I have ability, supernatural ability, to bear up under any pressure.

Glory to God.

This is gonna be a piece of cake.

Are you with me now?

I'm talking about the proper arena and these are the steps you need to take to get the battle in the proper array, to get it in the proper arena for victory.

Come on, lift your hands and receive right now.

Come on, let's shout his praise this morning.

Let's shout his praise Glory to God, glory to God, hallelujah, hallelujah.

Thank you, lord.