Being A Good A Soldier

Make your bibles up, please wave them around.

Make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together say heavenly Father, I'm here by divine appointment tonight.

I have ears to hear what the Spirit is telling me.

I'm prepared for what's ahead because of the Word of God and the Holy Ghost in Jesus' name, amen.

Let's look at 2 Timothy tonight, chapter two.

Here's a Father-Son relationship, paul and Timothy.

Second Timothy two, verse one.

Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that Thou has heard of me among many witnesses, the same.

Commit Thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.

Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

Everybody say a good soldier.

No man that wareth, entanglet himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who had chosen him to be a soldier.

And if a man also strives for masteries, yet he is not crowned except he strives lawfully.

The husbandmen that, or the husbandmen laboring in my margin first, must be a partaker of the fruits.

Consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding and all things.

So tonight I wanted to share a message entitled being a good soldier.

Being a good soldier, we've been called as soldiers.

We talk a lot about sheep, but now's the time to be soldiers.

I think we're gonna have to grow up enough to get over the bad part and let's strap on our weapons and get our whole armor on Amen, being a good soldier.

God's called us to be soldiers.

You know Jesus won the war, but we're enforcing the devil's surrender, amen.

I mean, we are in combat.

You know there's a combat and, as a believer, you're a soldier who must endure hardness.

That means hardship, trouble, affliction just kind of what we prayed over tonight storms, and, like James said, it's not about just going until we drop, it's just about resisting those things with our faith and our words.

And it's not about enduring, like you know, poor thing.

No, no, no, we're bearing up under it.

You know, in Hebrews 10, 13, jesus is expecting us to make his enemies his foots too.

The foots too is under the feet.

Where are the feet?

Well, they're in the body.

Jesus defeated the devil, but then there is an enforcement of that defeat.

There's an enforcement just much like an occupying army In Japan.

You know, we dropped two bombs on them and that's the only reason they surrendered.

And then now you know they celebrated the.

You know that they marked that here recently and it was all this controversy about what we should have done, and they always show the poor Japanese people whether they're the ones that wouldn't quit.

I'm sorry, but war is hell.

War is horrible, and would we rather be the ones that died?

It's kind of like Patton said no, you're not supposed to die for your country and make the other guy die for his country.

That's all we were doing.

We were doing what Patton said.

No, it sounds frivolous, but I mean it's terrible for women and children to have to suffer that, but that's the terrible thing about war.

But after the war, we occupied Germany, and we occupied not as much Germany, because Germany was split in two, if you'll remember, and we gave half of it to Soviet Russia.

That's the group that we're fighting against right now, the people that made that decision.

The people that made that decision to empower Russia, the USSR, and give them the power and the forgiveness of all and let them take all of this stuff.

That was the same people we're fighting right now, and they're in both parties, by the way.

So, anyway, we had an occupying army, particularly in Japan, for years, and why?

Because we had to enforce the terms of the treaty.

And so, and modern times, we don't have that anymore.

But we have to demonstrate Satan's defeat.

So every man that wars the word warith or wars, that's a verb, it's the Greek word stratiome.

It means to serve in a military campaign, it means to execute the apostolate.

That doesn't make you an apostle, but the church of Jesus Christ is an apostolic work.

That's what we do, that's what this church is.

It's an apostolic vine with a prophetic river, and apostolic is involved in America.

It's pioneering, it's taking territory.

We have all this stuff about Indians, which they want to call them Native Americans.

Well, there aren't any Native Americans.

There wasn't anybody here in the beginning.

There's nobody native to the country.

They immigrated here from somewhere and so they just were here before we were.

But they worshiped devils, and so God said okay, you can't have the country, I'm gonna give you the country.

Okay, you can't have the country, I'm gonna give it to this group that's gonna dedicate it to the spreading of the gospel.

And that's not white privilege, that's the gospel.

And thank God, we got rid of slavery and thank God, we have the Civil Rights Act and, thank God, we've made progress all the way through to make the promise of the Constitution across the board, for women and for everybody.

I mean, the Constitution means what it says.

It just wasn't all politically possible at the beginning and so every time there's been a right kind of a leader and the right kind of Congress, we've been able to make some progress on those things.

Let's not just shoot the country and tear it down over the things that it's done wrong.

There's still things wrong, amen.

But it's a great country, amen, the greatest country, in my opinion, to execute the apostolate.

That's Warreth, to contend with carnal inclinations.

And that's not just talking about you, of course that's you, but it's also the carnal inclinations of people.

Carnality is in the church, it's creeping in the church.

We've got a lot of entertainment centers instead of apostolic works.

A lot of churches are just there to tickle the senses, to entertain.

There's really no power there and many of them are in danger.

If not, hadn't it already happened.

But having Ichabod on the door, which means the glory of the party, thank God the glory hadn't departed here.

I mean you feel the glory when you come in these doors.

I mean glory to God.

Whoo.

Well, it's not just by accident, it's on purpose, amen.

So again, we salute you.

That's part of our war.

We're a war ring and so he that war with you know that shouldn't entangle himself with the affairs of this life or of life affairs.

What does it mean?

What's he talking about?

You don't get involved in paying your bills.

You don't get involved your children's educated.

No, it's not talking about that.

It's talking about getting entangled, having wrong priorities.

And so when it's talking about these things, about a soldier, it's got three comparisons the military comparison, then it compares sports and then it compares agriculture.

So he's got three comparisons of what it's like to be in the army of God, so to speak.

So the first one is he that war with.

He's in the military.

You don't entangle yourself with the affairs of this life.

In other words, you don't have your weapon and tangled up with your cloak.

You know people in the Bible today have these long garments and you got wearing a sword.

I mean you might get.

I mean you know you're on the battlefield, you're twisting and turning and running and pursuing and you're gonna die if your sword gets tangled up in your garment.

And so what it's talking about is, whatever it is that you're doing, if you have wrong priorities, you're gonna get tangled up in your weapon of the Word of God.

The Word of God is the sword of the spirit.

It's our only offensive weapon.

So take heed that we have the right priorities in this life.

We have to recognize who we are.

We're not you know, just our vocation or our profession.

That's not who we are.

We're soldiers of the cross.

So let's not get totally entangled Doesn't mean that we can't be involved a certain amount we have to be, but don't get entangled.

The entangle is a whole different thing.

And then it says here if a man strives for mastery, yet he's not crowned, except he strives lawfully, what's that talking about?

It's talking about the games.

It's talking about running a race.

And if you cheat you get disqualified.

So here you are, running around the track and you're behind.

So you decide to cut across the track and beat them to the finish line across the infield.

Well, you know you're not gonna get crowned.

So you gotta do things according to the Word of God.

You can't be doing things that are immoral or illegal, give you unfair advantage and all of that.

And then it says, the husbandman, laboring first, must be partakers of the fruit.

So we're farmers.

In a sense We've planted the seed of the Word of God, and God expects us to live off of what we plant and then have enough left over to give to everybody else.

But you gotta eat.

You can't give everything away.

You can't give your seed away.

What would happen if the farmer ate his seed?

Or if the farmer gave his seed away, you know what?

Honey?

Instead of planting a crop this year, let's just give our seed to farmer Jones next door.

He needs it worse than we.

Well, you're gonna be broke.

You don't have anything planted.

That would be dumb, right.

So no, that's not what you do.

You plant your seed and then out of the harvest you give and out of the heart, and God gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater.

Amen.

So that's the principle of the seed sowing principle.

It's all part of our warfare or our apostolic lifestyle.

Everybody say apostolic.

So there are rewards for diligence, for hard work, and verse six the husband and the laborers must be first partaker of the fruits.

Consider what I say the Lord give the understanding and all things.

So God expects Timothy.

Paul is talking to Timothy.

He's teaching Timothy.

He's an apostle, a young apostle.

People despise him for his youth.

People don't pay attention to him.

We had a lot of that when our church first started, because my son and my daughter were involved in the ministry with us and so whenever they said anything, nobody paid any attention to him for the first few years.

I mean, they had no standing with people.

It was frustrating because I knew what they had in them and they'd both traveled with me overseas.

I knew what they could do.

I mean, when I was gone one time they did a funeral.

I've never even showed them how to do a funeral.

They did one.

They had to do a funeral.

Well, I was gone, I was gone, nothing else we could do.

And they did a great job because they watched, and this was way back in the first building, and but that was kind of where we and over these years they've had to.

Kind of over many years they can identify with Timothy, because people did not, didn't recognize the anointing on their lives.

But now they do.

See, that's not a situation anymore.

I mean, it shines forth, amen, and but it took a long time.

Well, it shouldn't be that way, we.

So, paul, so don't, don't let people treat you that way because of your youth.

You need to be all outspoken, timothy, quit your crying.

See, he was crying in the verse book.

He was crying about all that.

Now, quit your crying.

You know, get bold.

You're the man in charge.

I'm depending on you.

And here he's saying you've heard a lot of things from my teaching and from others that have been around me.

Now pass that along to faithful men and then let those faithful men pass it on to others.

Amen.

So this is all transferable, the anointing's transferable.

You get anything out of this Talking about being a good soldier.

So, since we're in combat, where are the battlefields?

Where are the battlefields?

It talks about the battlefields in the rest of this chapter.

Where is the conflict gonna occur?

It's probably not gonna be at South Padre Island.

It's probably not gonna be in Las Vegas.

Where is the battlefield?

Amen.

So verse 15, let's look at verse 15.

So I've got three battlefields.

We need to pay attention to Verse 15.

Well, let's study to show yourself approved under God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed.

Rightly dividing the word of truth.

Rightly dividing the word of truth.

This morning, we're talking about the spirit of truth.

Tonight, we're talking about the word of truth.

So truth must be pretty important.

Jesus said if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples?

Indeed, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

So Jesus thought the truth was pretty important, and so the word of truth and the spirit of truth.

So the word of truth should be rightly divided.

That means it can be wrongly divided.

What happens when the word of truth is wrongly divided?

Error.

And so it talks about what happens in the previous verse, in verse 14, these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord, that they strive not about words to no prophet, but to the subverting of the hearers.

So when the Word of God is not rightly divided, it's wrongly divided.

It causes the subverting or the subversion of those who hear that wrongly divided word.

Are you with me now?

So the first battleground is the battleground of truths, and we're living in a day where it's being wrongly divided left and right.

You better beware of what you're watching on YouTube and Facebook and everything else.

You better beware of it.

And so then, all of this thing about you know churches closing now they have so much live stream, but the live stream has just gotten alive and every Tom, Dick and Harry that doesn't know anything about the Word is out there preaching like they know it, and you better be careful.

You better be careful what you ingest, because garbage in, garbage out.

Somebody said did you hear so?

And so I don't have time to hear so and so I don't care what?

So?

And so is saying I care about what the Holy Ghost is telling me.

I don't have time to dig something up about some kid that may or may not have the.

I don't even have time to investigate and have to check my witness when I'm left.

If I have to go to that much trouble, I don't.

Why do I do that?

God didn't tell me to do that.

God told me to do what I'm doing right now and I'm, you know I'm doing, doing what I'm doing, amen.

So there's a war of truth and the truth the battlefield.

See, your study can be approved or it can be disapproved, based on rightly or wrongly dividing, and that brings you truth and error.

You know, in Matthew 24, you know Jesus said look at the temple.

There's not going to be one stone left upon another.

And they said Jesus, when is this going to happen?

And what are the signs of your glorious appearing, of your perusia, which is your glorious appearing?

What are the signs.

And before he began to answer that, he said take heed that you be not deceived.

See, truth is pretty important.

Why do we deal with the things we deal with?

Because people are being deceived and, as I said this morning and I say again tonight, because of these verses.

You know, you believe one lie and it leads to believe in the second lie and pretty soon you're susceptible to the third lie, the fourth lie and pretty soon everything that you're thinking and seeing is a lie.

Are you with me now?

I've seen it.

I've seen it.

I've seen people associated with this ministry listen to Joseph Prince and go right off the deep end.

I'm your name and names, in case you don't know what I think about Joseph Prince false teacher period.

Quit reading his stuff, quit looking at him on television, stop it.

If you want to be here, you better put the brakes on him.

I had people leave the church.

I can't believe you're saying that about a man of God.

Well, I wish he was a man of God, but he's not.

He wouldn't even listen to Oral Roberts and a representative of Ramisac with him five hours to try to correct his doctrine, the greasy grace message.

It is a lie.

He says that first, second and third John are not epistles written to the church.

You don't need to confess your sin.

Jesus paid for it.

Well, I'm sorry, but the Bible says we should confess our sins and he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

Oh, he didn't write that to Christians, he wrote that to this other group.

Well, you're a dummy.

You're a dummy.

I don't believe that.

He's a liar.

And I've had people that I was closely associated with trying to talk me.

I said look, I'm going to dance with who brung me.

You know the old Daryl Royal saying you know, I'm going to dance with who brung me, who brung me?

Where the faith brung me?

Brother Osteen brung me.

Brother Hagin brung me.

Brother Norwell brought me and I'm not listening to Joseph Prince.

I don't know where he came from and what he heard and what he who is his father?

He did go to ORU but see, oru is like a lot of colleges and universities.

There's people there that don't I mean they don't all agree with OR Roberts.

You don't know who you got in a class.

You don't know what kind of Bible study he went to.

I don't know who subverted him, but he's been subverted and he is subverting us.

Are y'all with me now?

I'm not about being a good soldier.

You can't afford to listen to people like that.

Carlton Pearson and that's been a long time ago that Carlton Pearson went down the tubes.

But in the 80s Carlton Pearson was a very famous pastor of a big church in Tulsa.

He was on TV.

He was an eloquent guy Me and that guy was so smart, so eloquent, and I heard his testimony.

I heard how he got deceived.

His parents died and his parents were both preachers.

I'm not sure if they were pastors or what, but I think they had a church.

But I'm not positive about whether they were pastors or preachers.

But they both backslid and they were hopeless alcoholics.

When they both died they died drunk.

And so you know that came up and he said I was crying to the Lord.

He said I'll never see my parents again, you know.

And he heard a voice and said who told you that?

The devil.

Who told you that?

Why do you say that?

And so he took that one little demonic little phrase and he redid everything he believed.

He started going against everything he had preached and everything he had learned at ORU.

Again, oral Roberts tried to help him.

Oral Roberts met with him and tried.

You know, if you're not going to listen to Oral Roberts, there's no hope for you.

Can you imagine what it would have happened?

Timothy would say well, paul, you just don't understand my situation.

But I heard this voice.

No, he's the father and a son relationship.

Carlton Pearson and Joseph Prince.

They don't have fathers.

Are y'all with me now?

Y'all are looking at me like you're scared.

Listen, I'm empowering you to be an influence around the people.

I mean, this kind of stuff has taken wreckage and there's more people like that coming online, especially during this COVID thing.

They are more than you can count.

They're everywhere.

They're everywhere, and so we've got to buy the truth and sell it, not Amen.

So the war of truth, and then the next one in verse 19,.

So we get on down.

Nevertheless, the foundation of God.

Stand us sure having this seal.

The Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone that name it, the name of Christ, depart from iniquity.

But in a great house there are not only vessels in gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor.

Talking about vessels, everybody say I'm a vessel and it says if a man therefore purge himself from these, from these, what?

From these vessels?

If a man or a woman separate himself from these wood and earth and dishonorable vessels that's what he's saying Say you can't be hooked up with everybody.

And when you discover a vessel that is not what it ought to be, somebody that's living a lie, somebody that's not you know they're in church, they're in church.

And when I find them and identify them, I try to move them out of that into living right.

But if they don't live right, they can't stay.

I had a couple of guys that came up and I knew they were homosexuals.

I would just look at them, I just knew it and all they loved it.

They just man.

Their hands went up, they worship, they come up for prayer, and I didn't move on it right away.

I didn't shut it down.

I thought, well, they need to hear the truth.

I'm gonna give them a chance to hear what we're saying so that they can get saved and they can repent of their behavior.

And so they heard.

I gave them about 30 days, or maybe even longer than that, might've been five or six weeks, but anyway it got back to me that one of them.

His idea, in order to be able to continue, was to get a sex change operation and he could be a woman and he could be the wife of the man that he was living in.

And I said, uh-uh, that's not the solution.

I said, really, if you wanna keep coming to this church, y'all need to move out and live separately and I'll help you get free.

And that's not something you snap your fingers on, but you have to be willing to be free.

But if you're gonna try to live the homosexual lifestyle and come to this church, it's not gonna work Because I'm not gonna have you here.

It's against God, it's against the Word and you can't live like that.

I'll help you get free and you can stay celibate and still have those desires that you have to overcome, like anybody has desires to overcome.

I'm not against somebody having those kind of desires as long as they live celibate.

But when you live together, you're not even trying to do anything, you're just living together.

Well, you ain't gonna live together and be here Now we have couples, male and female, that don't know any better.

They come here, they're living together, have been living together a long time.

I don't condemn them.

I let them hear the Word and most of the time when they hear the Word, they wanna get married.

They get married and that's it.

You know it's not about me coming down on people, but you do have this war that we're fighting, and it's the war of the flesh, he said.

You know, depart from iniquity.

The church is not doing its job in this area.

They're allowing whatever goes to go.

They don't wanna offend anybody, they don't wanna get involved in that.

That's private.

It's private.

No, it's not private.

When you walk through that door, it becomes my business and if I know it, by the Holy Ghost, I can't act like I don't know it.

Something's gonna happen at some point.

I'm gonna bring you to a point of decision.

That's my job.

Depart from iniquity, amen.

I mean, we can't have it any other way.

We can't have the glory and have iniquity Won't work.

Is this helping anybody?

Talking about being a good soldier?

Amen.

And so make a definite stand, make a definite break from unrighteousness.

That's what we do.

We bring people to a place of decision where they make decisions, decision where they make a definite break with the world, the flesh and the devil.

That's what it's all about Discipling people, amen.

Yeah, there's vessels of gold, vessels of silver, vessels of honor.

That's what we ought to attain.

But then there's the other kind Wood, earth and dishonor.

You have to cut off association with people like that.

You can't have those kind of associations.

Flea, verse 22.

Flea also youthful us, but follow righteous.

Well, pastor, it's okay if I go to a rave every couple of months.

It's no big deal.

Most of you don't know what a rave is.

I know I'm really up to date on young people.

I know Flea also youthful us, but follow righteousness, faith, agape See word charity.

There's agape, the love of God, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

See, that means you have to reorder again your associations and that way you you making it.

That's part of you making a definite stand.

If you're gonna hang with the same group that you've always hung with in the world, you're not gonna be a successful at being a vessel of honor, much less gold or silver.

Amen.

What's a vessel?

It's a container of the anointing.

What's our body?

It's a vessel.

And what does it contain?

The Holy Ghost, when you're saved.

But that's why you can't live just like the devil and have the Holy Ghost live inside of you.

If I know that's going on, I'm gonna bring you to a point of decision.

Amen, not condemn you, but love you enough to tell you the truth.

So the war of truth.

I've gotta fight that and I've gotta fight the war of the flesh.

You getting anything out of this?

But foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender stripes.

So you have all these have to learn to walk in unity with each other and love each other and be a busy body.

In other people's affairs it sounds like I'm a busy body.

I know what I know by the spirit, not gossip, you know by the spirit.

That's why it's so important to have in-person services.

I can't really pastor online.

There's no way that I can see you.

There's no way I can read your countenance.

There's no way I can encounter what is on you.

Sometimes I can encounter things that are on you that need to be knocked off of you.

Or else I can see things on you that I really oh boy, that's man, that's a vessel of honor there.

Oh, that's a vessel.

Oh, that's you know.

Sometimes I'm wowed.

I want to have that, I want to see that.

So the war of the truth, the war of the flesh and the last one we'll talk about verse 24, the war of the mind.

And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient.

Now, this is talking about, maybe, ministers, but it's talking about all Christians.

We all have a minister, a believer's ministry.

So it applies you can be a teacher without standing behind a pulpit.

You can teach people one on one, you can have teachable moments and teach people, and so you ought to be looking for opportunity to share what you know with others.

That's what the thing about people full of the Holy Ghost they are excellent at sharing truth.

That's what the baptism of the Holy Ghost is all about sharing truth with people that they don't have it so apt to teach.

Be gentle unto men, apt to teach, patient.

My margin's just for bearing.

What does that mean?

What does that mean?

Some people are rough around the edges and you can't just get offended at them every time they misbehave.

Some people are babies.

You know, you ever try to reason with a crying baby.

You have to reason with a baby.

You have to pick them up and kind of hold them and get them over it.

You know, and there's no you can talk Now.

Stop that.

No, that's the ad doesn't do any good.

No reasoning with a baby Crying baby.

You know You're going to have to give them what they want or else Amen.

That's the way people are sometimes, until they grow In meekness.

Verse 25, instructing those that oppose themselves.

If God's prevention will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will, we're going to have people walk through the door that are in that condition.

Are we going to just throw them out?

Are we going to just be so impatient with them that we can't put up with some of their misbehavior, some of their odd, you know character?

No, we're going to be with them.

We're going to love on them.

We're going to share truth with them.

We're going to teach them the right way.

Sometimes we have to grab people by the hand and just One-on-one people.

That's why I can't do it by myself.

I have to have you.

You got to help me.

I need some help right now.

The war of the mind, how you think of yourself and how you think of others.

You know we think about ourselves and what God says about us.

That's not arrogant.

To say I'm the righteousness of God in Christ, that's not being superior, but then so is that person that just got saved.

If they really got saved, they're just as much righteous as you are, and even though they're immature and they don't have it all together yet, but as far as God's concerned they're just every bit as righteous as you.

So be careful about condescending and being kind of looking down your nose, because you were there.

You were there at one point, amen.

So how you think of yourself and how you think of others, see a war of the mind, you know a good one is James 1-19.

Be swift to hear, slow to speak and slow to rat.

You know, sometimes it's better to put a hand over your mouth.

Just keep listening, listen to people all the way out.

Let them just go ahead and vomit it all out.

Say it all out, you know, because they don't know yet about their words.

They don't know yet about how to talk, and it's hard to listen to people that don't know how to talk.

You know how to talk, but they don't know how to do it.

So just put your hand on your mouth and don't interrupt.

Let them just tell their story.

Let them just, you know, and let them legitimize them.

Help them Swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to rat and the war of the mind.

2 Corinthians 10, talking about being a good soldier, and these are all things that we have to hone ourselves and train ourselves.

You know, a good soldier, they go through all kind of drills.

James was talking about those football drills.

I remember the football drill where the coach would hold the football and we would all be out there like this you know we've already practiced an hour and a half and so we can hardly do this, but you know we're going like this, and then he goes the football like that.

So we go like this, then he does like this.

We go like that, then he goes down like that.

Then you got to hit the ground and then you got to pop back up.

And man, it's hard to pop back up about the fourth or fifth time that he's had.

You pop back up, you're ready to just die right there, especially in August.

And those drills what do those drills do?

They make it possible for you to go through a whole game.

If you play the whole game, you've got to be in shape.

Same with the soldier, the soldier's drill.

They practice, I think, about the drills that the paratroopers had to have before the jump at Normandy.

These are already guys that went through basic training.

They've already had a lot of training, but they had to have more training to jump out of a plane and they had to prepare to land in a swamp.

They had to prepare to land in a tree.

They had to prepare to land in at dark.

They jumped in the dark.

That's not fun, I mean, you can't even see the ground come up on you.

And so here you are, you're flying through the air, you're coming down out of that plane, you don't know exactly where you are, and all of a sudden you hit a tree limb.

Or all of a sudden you land on a church steeple.

You ever see the movie?

That was a true story.

The guy landed in the town square where the Nazis were out there with machine guns killing the guys in the sky before they ever landed.

And this one guy landed on the church steeple and hung right by the bell tower.

So they started ringing the bell and he was deaf by the time he could get unstrung from that bell tower.

The bell was ringing and they couldn't hear anything.

I think he was deaf.

But no, they trained.

Soldiers trained.

We have to train ourselves, we have to be ready.

We don't know it all.

We need to train ourselves, get ourselves ready for the harvest, amen.

And so being a good soldier.

So look in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 4, verse 3, for we walk in the flesh, we do not war.

2 Corinthians 10:4

That same word we just read.

We do not war after the flesh, we do not execute the apostolate, we don't do it in the flesh, we do it in the spirit.

For the weapons of our warfare see, there is that word again, a different, that now it's a noun the weapons of our warfare, our apostolic lifestyle, are not carnal but they're mighty, through God, to do in what?

To pulling down strongholds, casting down imaginations in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

In the 80s there was a lot of error because people got to say, oh, we're gonna pull down the demonic strongholds of the devil over cities, and they'd get together and they'd scream in tongues for hours till they were hoarse.

That's totally unscriptural.

That's not even what this is talking about.

It's not talking about demonic powers over cities.

Jesus never did that.

He was in some of the most wicked cities there were.

What did he do?

He preached, and when they didn't receive him, what did he do?

He shook off the dust of his sandals and left and said don't go to Bethsaida, don't give them another witness, they don't deserve it.

Don't go to Capernaum.

I was there, they didn't receive me.

Don't even go and tell them what I've done for you.

Stay silent, don't even tell them, don't even testify in that place.

Well, we got you know.

Jesus is just different than what we think when we really read the book.

That's why we need to read it.

People don't need a third and fourth chance.

They have one chance.

If somebody doesn't listen to me, I don't press it.

I don't press it.

I mean, if they don't listen to me, whoever it is, maybe they're saved.

And they ask me for advice.

I give them advice.

They don't listen to me.

I won't go back and meet with them again because they didn't take my advice.

Why do I waste my time?

I don't have time to waste.

If you ask me and I give you godly advice, godly counsel, and you don't take it, what good is there coming back and keep?

Oh, please, do what I say.

Please, it'll help.

No, I'm not gonna do it.

I'm not gonna beg people.

Jesus, didn't?

He just let people learn?

I said he let people learn.

So anyway, this is talking about exactly what it says.

It's talking about strongholds, imaginations and thoughts.

So, in reverse order, everything starts with a thought.

That's why, in the thought stage, that's when we use our weapons of our warfare, they are not carnal, they're mighty through God.

They're not coping mechanisms.

Well, I'm just gonna learn to cope with this disease.

You know, the doctor told me I just have to accept my disease, I have to accept death.

No, you don't have to accept anything the devil gives you.

I mean, you cast down that thought.

You say that thought comes to you.

You're gonna die.

No, I'm living.

I'm gonna live and declare the works of the Lord.

The Bible says I was healed.

I don't even have to get healed, I'm already healed.

You're fronting it in the thought stage.

That is a warfare.

That is, you're enduring hardness as a good soldier.

A good soldier is disciplined in his thought life.

We're gonna have to be more disciplined in our thought life.

Because why?

Because everything out there is coming to bear in our thinking.

I mean, it's gotten to where you can't even turn the television on for any length of time without it being a salt on your mind.

So we have to be disciplined in our thought life.

If we're not disciplined in the thought life, the thought turns into an imagination.

It's gonna be harder to get rid of the imagination.

A thought is just a snapshot.

I said a thought is just a snapshot, but all of a sudden that imagination well, that's like a little video.

Have you ever gotten real?

Sad and depressed, you may be the loss of a loved one, and then you think about your own funeral, think about your own death, and you let yourself just sit there and think and think how it's gonna be and what it's gonna feel like.

Brother Hagan had those kind of thoughts.

He said one time he just thought about what it was gonna be like when he died and he laid his body out and then they laid him in the casket and everybody came by and they were crying and then they hauled him in the terse to the graveyard and he thought about how it was gonna be when they lowered him in the ground and they covered him over with dirt.

He let himself go all that long length of time because he didn't know any better.

He wasn't saved yet and that led to him dying and going to hell.

The first time when he died he went to hell.

You ought to get his book.

I've Been to Hell, but that's more than imagination.

That's a stronghold.

When you let your imagination go into a feature-length film, that is a stronghold.

It's one thing to see a quick YouTube video or a little gif you know a little gif, you know something like that but when it goes into a feature-length film, that is a stronghold.

You're probably gonna need help to get rid of that because demons have attached itself to it.

And it's not that you can't do it, it's just that most people in my experience, when they get to the place where they're deceived by strongholds in their mind, they need deliverance.

Now, it doesn't mean they have to puke in a bag, doesn't mean they have to come to the altar.

It means that they need to sit under the anointed Word of God and let the Word of God cut on them and apply that word.

And you know, people get delivered out here in the audience.

I don't, you know, don't necessarily have to do it at the altar, but when people get strongholds in their mind, see, this is all talking about the warfare, the warfare of the mind.

So the three battlefields the mind and the truth and the flesh.

And so, as you grow and mature in the Word and the Spirit, determine within yourself to win every confrontation on these battlefields.

You are a good soldier when you endure hardness and engage the enemy.

Amen.

Was that a good one tonight?

Is that okay?

Is that enough meat for you to chew on awhile?

Well, come on, let's rejoice.

Thank God.

We're good soldiers.

We know how to win the battle and we're not limited to the things of this world.

We have supernatural equipment.