The Switch Of Faith 2

Take your Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad and make the devil mad.

Oh, he hates the Bible.

He's trying overtime, to get rid of the Bible.

Get rid of Bible believing Christians.

Stop Bible believing Christians from barking.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to get to church earlier.

I already said that.

Let's say this together Say Heavenly Father, I have ears to hear what the Spirit is teaching me.

Today, I have need of more knowledge, because the faith that I'm exercising is based on revelation knowledge of the Word.

Today, as the Word goes forth, it will water that which I already know.

It will implant within me things that I need to know in the future, and I'll give you all the praise for it In Jesus' name, amen.

Let's turn in our Bibles today to Matthew, chapter eight, and we're sharing with you a couple of messages.

This is message number two on this subject the switch of faith.

Faith is the switch that turns on the power of God, and it must be important.

Faith must be important.

Jesus was looking for it all the three and a half years he was always measuring oh ye of little faith.

How is it that you have no faith, old woman?

Greatest thy faith, peter, oh ye, of little faith.

He's always measuring faith, he's looking for faith, and 12 out of the 19 miracles of healing that are listed in the gospels mentioned faith.

So faith must be pretty important.

And a lot of times when I was, I grew up Catholic and, of course, when we thought about faith, we thought about the Catholic faith, the Baptist faith.

It was denominational.

Think about faith being like.

What faith are you?

Well, I'm a Christian or I'm a?

No, it's talking about real Bible faith.

We'll get into what real Bible faith is.

Amen, all right.

So Matthew, chapter eight, verse five, and this is one of my favorite testimonies.

And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching him and saying Lord, my servant lieeth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented, and Jesus saith unto him I will come and heal him.

And the centurion answered and said Lord, I'm not worthy that thou should come under my roof, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

Remember, last week, the woman with the issue of blood.

What did she continually say?

I shall behold, see, these are the strongest words in the Greek.

Shall be.

I mean, there's no wiggle room on.

Shall be.

There's no ifs, ands or buts.

It's a shall be, is rock solid, as my dad used to say, a lead pipe cinch, which I never understood what that really meant.

But he said whenever it was really true, that's what he'd say well, it's a lead pipe cinch.

Oh, okay, all right.

So he said why do I say that?

Because I'm a man, verse nine.

I'm a man under authority, having soldiers under me.

See, he understood the chain of authority.

He had to be obedient to his commanding officer in order for his orders to be obeyed.

And so he said I'm a man under authority.

Notice, he led with that.

He didn't say I'm a centurion, I got a hundred men under me, I know something.

No, he said I'm a man under authority.

See, a little humility there, pretty unusual for a Roman centurion that knows 99 ways to kill you, and he's taught me.

I mean, he knows how to kill somebody.

That's why he's a centurion.

I'm a man under authority, having soldiers under me.

I say to this man go it.

He go it, there's another coming, he coming to my servant, do this.

And he doeth it.

Only, his servants lie at home in bed, sick, grievously tormented.

And when Jesus heard it, he marveled.

Everybody say he marveled.

And he said to them that followed.

Now, see, here's a man standing in front of him and made a request.

And Jesus, let it kind of hang out there for a couple of verses.

He didn't even really address the need.

Instead, it was a teachable moment.

And he turned to those who followed and he said verily, I say, and you, I have not found so great faith.

No doubt it is real.

See, that's an insult.

Jesus was always, you know, doing things to irritate the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Wooden Sees, the Couldn't Sees.

He was always, you know.

Did y'all ever watch the three studios?

I'm only the only one I've watched.

I still love the three studios Larry, curley and Moe.

And so Larry will poke Moe in the eyes like this, poke him in the eyes with two fingers, and Moe goes like this, and then he hits him on top of the head, and then Moe goes like this, and he goes like this and like this and like this, like this, you know, half a dozen times.

That's what Jesus was doing.

Jesus would do that on a regular basis.

And then he'd go like this, like that.

You didn't know you were coming to a cartoon show.

I'd read the Bible.

I have fun reading the Bible.

Oh, it's so holy I've got to read it.

No, let's have fun.

Let's see what Jesus Jesus is ribbing them in the ribs.

They look at that guy.

He's not even covering it.

He said he's a Roman soldier.

Jesus called them dogs.

They call the Romans dogs.

Couldn't be more uncomplimentary.

He said he's got more faith in all the rest you put together.

Look at him.

Look at him.

Teachable moment I'm going to tell you.

Many shall come from the east and the west shall sit down with Abraham, isaac and Jacob and the kingdom of heaven, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out in the outer darkness and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Wow, that really hurt.

I mean he just about poked their eyes out on that one.

And then Jesus said to the centurion Go thy way and as thou hast believed, so be it.

Done unto thee.

And his servant was healed in the self same hour.

Many versions say that moment.

And so today, the switch of faith.

Faith is the switch that turns on the power of God.

And so over the last week we talked about these four keys.

You know, faith operates according to spiritual laws.

There are spiritual laws, spiritual principles that have to be present.

If you're going to turn on the switch, it's not just one thing that you do.

And so we discovered that last week, about the woman with the issue of blood, we saw four things that she did.

Does anybody remember what they were?

She said, and then she did, she had to go right, she had to move.

So she said she did, she received and then she told, in other words testified, those four things.

And if you do those four things now, you're putting yourself in position to turn on the switch of faith and God's power is going to be applied to your circumstance.

We asked a question last week.

I asked the same question this week what needs to change in your life?

Or is it health?

Is it finances?

Is it relationships, marriage, children, career, business?

What is it that needs to change?

Let me tell you, when you turn on the switch of faith, god's power can be applied to anything that needs to change.

And so we talked about that last week.

And you don't need a pilgrimage, you don't need a guru, you don't need a meeting or special meeting.

Just flip on the switch of faith and see God's power change your circumstance.

So today I wanted to focus in on one part of the four, and that was action or doing.

We see the switch of action.

So you got to.

The action is part of that switch of faith.

You've got to have action.

And so today, in this centurion, we see two words in this whole account.

We see the word faith and we see the word believe.

Everybody say faith and believe.

So what is faith?

Faith is a noun, isn't it?

I'm gonna be your English teacher for just a moment.

So faith is a noun.

Then what is believe?

It's a verb, so it's an action, it's an action word.

In other words, believing is not mental ascent, it's not a head thing, it's not down in, it's not in your brain, it is in your actions.

For instance, we talked about this last week.

But the woman with the issue of blood if she'd have stayed where she was, even though she had, I mean, listen, she heard about Jesus and it moved her.

So she had to move to where Jesus was, she had to act.

And so we see that with this centurion, he had to rise up where he was and he had to come to where Jesus was.

So he acted and so he came to Jesus.

That was his action.

And so when he got there the words that he spoke to Jesus, let Jesus know where his faith was located.

What kind of faith is he got?

Oh, I sure appreciate you coming to my house.

I really would.

I mean he's gonna die.

In fact, I hope he doesn't die between now and the time we get there.

See, I mean there's people that were like that, jay Iris's daughter, jay Iris needed Jesus to come to his house.

By the time he got there, she's dead, Didn't matter to Jesus.

He raised her up.

Talah Kumi, talah Thakumi, she rose up.

I tell you the church needs to quit being dead and rise up right now.

But Jesus didn't come back and do it.

We're gonna have to do it, amen.

We're gonna have to get some bark in our.

Maybe a little bite with the bark wouldn't hurt, all right.

So so his words told Jesus where his faith was and Jesus marveled.

He was so delighted.

Hebrews 11, 6,.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God.

God is always pleased when we move by faith.

He likes words of faith.

Yes, we need words.

We have to have words, but then, beyond words, we have to have actions.

The word is just the initial action, but it can't be alone.

We have to have action.

James 2.20 in the Weymouth translation says faith without corresponding action is dead.

Being alone, as the body without the spirit is dead, so is faith without action.

Without corresponding action, I mean, it's dead.

It cannot do anything right.

And so we need action.

In 33 years, we need action, we need action, we need action, we need action, we need action.

In 33 years of ministry, 26 years of being the pastor of this church, one of the main things that I see people when they're believing God, quote unquote is a lack of action.

They might say something in my presence, right.

I don't know what they say when they're alone.

I don't know what they say around everybody else, but they're talking, right.

But results sometimes are not forthcoming, and most of the time it's because they're not acting.

That's right.

Thank you for that big amen.

Back there, I can always depend on Micah.

I'm glad he's in the elevated position because his voice carries all the way to reverberate through.

The live stream goes all the way across the world and people that are watching they just yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm the only one I don't know.

And so, jesus, jesus.

He was so delighted to hear someone that described the authority of the Word of God.

That's what this man did.

He said I have faith in the authority that you exhibit.

I've heard about the things you've done.

That's why I'm here.

I know it's no big deal.

I know I'm a man under authority.

I know that you couldn't do what you're doing.

He didn't say all this, but Jesus knew.

He knew where he was, he located him and he marveled that a Roman centurion that's not Jewish, he's not a man of the book, and yet he knew this intuitively because of his life experience.

He had to live and die.

As a man under authority, he was ordered into battle.

He had to go.

It might mean death or it might mean life.

So what did he do?

He couldn't control the orders that he received.

All he could do was do something about what happened when he got on the battlefield.

And you know, a long time before he decided I'm going to live and not die.

The other guy's going to die.

Remember Patton's famous speech that he gave his troops.

He said you're not out there to die for your country, you're going to make the other guy die for his country.

And I left out all the other things that he said.

Aren't you glad.

So Jesus said this this is the law of faith that he, that we're talking about laws, spiritual laws that govern.

This is a spiritual law.

This is what it's called the law of faith.

Jesus said it.

He said go your way and as you have believed, so be it done unto you.

What is I have believed?

Jesus took no credit.

He, you know, just think about it.

What if the centurion had been like, you know, the ruler that came to Elijah, elijah rather, and wanted him to go heal his king.

You know, his king had trouble, and so you know, and he, just, he, just he wanted to be healed, unless what it was healed of leprosy.

And Jesus and the prophet Elijah just go dipping the Jordan seven times.

And he got some mad.

He was so angry because he expected he would go out there and kind of turn and twist and call fire down from heaven and do a big old, great.

And I don't know what the centurion, the centurion's faith was in the simple authority of a command Go, come, do.

It's pretty, I mean, there's not a lot of eloquence in that.

Just go, you know, come.

And so all he was listening for was Jesus to send the Word to his servant and he shall be healed.

Are you with me now?

The great law of faith?

Jesus didn't turn somersaults, he didn't holler at the devil, he didn't scream, he just said go your way, as you have believed.

So be it done unto you.

And he went on to the next, next, just as a matter of fact, when we can get to the place where the Word of God is enough, the Word of God is enough.

And then he departed, he went, see, he came by faith, and when Jesus said go your way, then he had to leave by faith.

He had to leave knowing that his servant was going to be well on the other end and he's really ready for him to be well because he hadn't been cooking, he hadn't been cleaning, he hadn't been mowing the grass, he's been in bed dying.

You know Paul's, he was a death sentence.

I mean, you didn't get over it and so you just.

You know, I know it sounds selfish, but I'm just kind of being facetious, I guess.

But I mean, he is a servant.

If he's not there to serve, the servanthood is not getting done.

What if God's servants are all sick?

What if God's servants are all broke?

What if God's servants are all mentally distressed.

What kind of work is going to be done on the earth through the church?

I mean, we've got to get well, we've got to get whole, we've got to get financially blessed in order to carry on this harvest?

Come on, and it takes the authority of the Word.

Faith in the Word of God will do it.

Do we have the Word?

Yes, we do.

How blessed we are.

The centurion didn't have the Word.

He had five books of the Bible.

He had some other, you know, prophets and stuff like that, but he didn't have access to that because he's not Jewish.

Now we have the Bible, thank you.

We owe a debt to the Jewish people because they preserve God's Word.

Everybody that wrote this down was a Jew.

Every book in here is written by Jew.

Paul was a Jew, but he got saved, so therefore he wasn't functioning as a Jew, but he brought that knowledge with.

Are you with me now?

So you know, we do this all the time.

The authority of the Word.

We function like this all the time.

If we just open our eyes, you know, if we just open our eyes.

We do this all the time as a matter of course and we just don't quite recognize it that way.

So you know, a ployer comes to you and says, gwyn, you're gonna get a 20% raise.

And what do you do?

Oh, you call Kim.

Well, I'm gonna get a 20% raise.

Glory to God.

You call all your friends, put it on Facebook, and maybe not 20% raise.

Have you got the raise?

No, you just believed your employer and you're not waiting till you see it and I better wait until I see it on my pay stub.

I'll wait and then you see it on your pay stub and say, well, I better check my bank account.

They may not have put it in the bank, it may not have.

No, the minute he said he's gonna give you a 20% raise, you've already spent that raise.

You already.

You've got plans for that money already.

And did you have it?

No, you didn't have it.

But you acted like you did.

You acted like you did, you praised like you did, you moved like you had it.

Are you with me now?

See that faith is not just mental agreement, it's an action Buying a car.

Recently, during this COVID craziness, people started buying cars online.

When they could find one to buy, there were hardly any new cars left.

They got way down and then people started buying used cars because they couldn't find a new car to buy, they bought used cars and then used cars went down and started going up in price.

That's just about over by now, but, man, in July and August the used car prices went through the roof.

You paid a whole lot of money for a used car, and because the new cars were in short supply.

So I'm an early adopter.

I don't know, I do things.

I bought a car online in 2008.

And I had never heard of anybody doing what I did.

But I wanted a Corvette and the Corvettes here in town.

God gave me permission.

I asked the Lord and he said you can have it.

I was praying about something else.

About a year went by.

I asked Him and then I let it go.

I didn't just storm the gates of heaven, I just kind of left it with Him.

I wanted His wisdom.

I didn't want to buy something like that, especially the one I was looking at.

It was the Z06, which is the 505 horsepower model and it weighs 3,200 pounds.

It's like driving a go cart with a supercharged.

It's huge Back then.

Of course, there were a lot more powerful now, but back then so everybody in town they wouldn't order one and all the ones they had on the lot were boring and black and black interior.

I mean that's you know a dealer.

I mean they don't ever go out there and do anything fancy, they just buy the you know dullest looking to black with a black interior.

And I wanted Jetstream blue and I wanted the Burnt Sienna inserts in the black interior and I wanted all the.

I wanted the Z06.

I wanted all that and they weren't gonna order it for me.

They just sell me one off the lot.

If everyone comes in like that, they'd be glad to sell it to me for 10,000 over list, but order me one.

So I got on the Corvette form and I found a dealer in Nashua, new Hampshire, and I called him and said yeah, we'll order anything you want.

We got a big allotment.

We don't mind ordering, we'll do it for 2,000 under list, give me a discount and order what I want.

They sent me the paperwork.

They trusted that I wanted to buy one.

I trusted that they would sell me one.

They mailed me the paperwork.

I checked every box, every option Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check.

Did I have the money?

No, I did not have the money.

I knew I'd have to borrow the money but that's gonna be six months down the road.

But I checked all the.

It's really powerful to be able to check boxes when you don't have to pay for it.

But anyway I checked but the day came that I had to pay for it.

Six months later the car comes in and Larry Oar saw it.

I checked Larry's back there.

Larry saw it.

He's my witness.

Larry saw that car.

I checked museum delivery, which means that the factory makes it, ships it across the street, the Corvette Museum and they make it ready.

They do all the make ready, not a dealer.

And I actually received the car not at a dealer but at the Corvette Museum and with the Corvette Museum I think it was $450 option I get a VIP tour of the plant.

And then mine was the first car in that color that was made in the whole country and they put it right behind gold ropes in the Corvette Museum and so it got online and it was online and I saw it online.

You know wasn't a good Back then, the internet speeds are not that good, it's kind of fuzzy.

But it was mine.

I knew it was my car.

I could see that orange from my interior, kind of shining through one of the windows and I said that's my car.

That's it.

Was it my car?

No, it was not my car.

I had not paid for it yet.

It had been ordered, it had been manufactured, it had been sent over there to be made ready and they still hadn't been paid for it.

Then I get a call from the dealer Well, it's in, we need your money.

And so I call my banker.

They wired the money to the dealer and then they trusted that I would come in and sign the note, which I did.

See, it was all done on the basis of somebody saying something.

And then I asked John Dyer if he wouldn't mind flying me up to Bowling Green, kentucky, which we flew up there, jay and James and I, and we all toured the factory.

I became even more prouder that I was American going through that factory and to see all those corvettes in that one building, nothing but corvettes in that building, and they were up there on the ceiling and the bodies.

And then they're coming across, coming across, coming down, and then they get married with the chassis and then the engine puts in there and it goes over to the and they let me drive one right off of the right off of the end of the line.

I got to drive it into the area where they they test the paint and all of that kind of thing and make sure it's flawless before they ship it across street or to the dealer, whichever it may be.

And why are you going through all this?

I'm just talking about how I believed, everybody believed on this entire situation, a very I mean.

For me it was a pretty significant purchase and it was a pretty significant sale for that dealer.

It's a pretty significant sale for the General Motors plant.

Are you with me now?

We do this all the time.

We go on the authority of someone's word.

Mama says, when you're growing up, mama says put your coat on.

It's cold outside.

Do we go outside to check if she's right?

No, we put the coat on right.

Don't eat a bunch of junk after school.

I've got your favorite meal tonight, do we do?

We wonder if we're gonna have that?

No, we know mama wouldn't lie right.

Well, god doesn't lie.

The word doesn't lie.

If it said it, it means it.

Are you with me now?

It's so simple and people miss it.

Listen, it's not about well, I just don't have the faith for that.

Well, as soon as you act.

That's faith.

Believing is acting.

I mean, can't you just act like what God said is true?

I mean, how much faith does it take?

Oh, I don't know if I can believe God.

I don't know.

I have His word, but I don't think I can believe it.

It's just too fantastic.

No, you don't.

You believe mama.

You believe the banker, you believe the lender, you believe amen.

You ought to be able to believe God.

Believing is acting.

Everybody say believe anything is acting.

Are you getting anything out of this today?

The switch of faith, and that switch depends on action.

It depends on you acting.

The woman with the issue of blood had to walk.

She could have easily said no, I can't do that, I'm weak.

I've been bleeding for 12 years.

Are you kidding?

There's no way I can get the no.

She moved, she attempted, she was.

She put one foot in front of the other and and so to this centurion.

He didn't sit there and watch his servant die.

He heard about Jesus and he went to where Jesus was.

You don't have to go back there, just send the word.

Are you with me?

Brother Hagen talks about a Church that he was preaching in years ago After he got in the field ministry.

He was a pastor for 12 years and then he started preaching field ministry, going to church to church, and he was actually part of that great healing revival in the 40s and 50s.

God instructed him at that time to only preaching churches and not to buy a tent and go like the rest of them, like it wasn't wrong for them to do.

That is just that he didn't want Him to do it.

He wanted him to invest his ministry in the local church, which brother Hagen did until the 60s, and then he started doing meetings and bigger venues.

But he was at this church and the pastor was talking about a 36 year old woman that was dying of cancer and he would go to her house multiple times a week, sit by her bedside very weak, and he would read her the healing scriptures reader, read her the Bible, and she would say I just believe every word you just said.

And so he was telling brother Hagen and was kind of perplexed that she wasn't getting any better.

She seemed to be going downhill and she said and he said you know that woman believes the word.

He said no, she doesn't.

Brother Hagen says no, she doesn't.

No, she doesn't.

It was just like he slapped the pastor right across the face.

Wow, it was, if we, if she believed God, she'd get out of bed, start cooking for her family and cleaning and doing the laundry and everything that housewives do.

Now this is back then when housewives did that.

Now, I'm not denigrating you, I Know you can also bring home the bacon, I do know that and fried up in the pan the whole thing.

So Get myself in trouble Dodging right now dodging.

So I got an amen on that one.

He knows by experience over there.

I think it's the no, she doesn't, he's.

And so it hit.

So after brother brother Hagen left that you know he was there two weeks and after he left, the pastor went back to that house, did the same thing, sat by her bedside, 36 years old, that kids got a husband, terrible.

And and and he read her the scriptures, said I believe everything.

You just said.

You said no, you don't.

And she, she did a double take and says what are you talking about?

She, well, if you believe God, you get out of this bed and clean the house and do everything you're supposed to do.

She said you get out of here, I'm you, just wait in the other room.

I'm gonna get up right now, I'm gonna get dressed, you just go in there.

When she got mad I mean she and she got up, she got dressed and she started doing everything she was supposed to do.

And 18 years later, brother Hagen went to that church and that woman was testifying 18 years ago and now she's 54, and 18 years ago I was dying in the bed, but I believe this word.

I got up and acted like it was true and I've been acting like it's true ever since.

Glory to God.

So it's not about having some kind of great amount of faith, it's about acting on what God said.

You have the faith on the inside.

Every We've been dealt the measure faith.

Every believer's been dealt the measure faith.

What we do with that faith, it's what is what we do now.

You didn't start.

You didn't graduate from high school in the first grade.

Anybody graduate from high school in the first grade might have some prodigies in here.

I think may have more than one prodigy in here, but typically it takes 12 years right and and and.

So you go.

You go up gradually and it's the way it is with with faith.

That's the way it is with the things of God.

You don't start off at the top.

You start off where you are, but at some point in time you have to act on the word.

You have to act on what you know Amen.

So listen to Mark 11, 23, one of the great scriptures Jesus Spoke about.

He said who's barely barely, I say in you, whosoever shall say under this mountain, be thou removed, be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe those things which he say, it shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he say.

It.

Jesus told brother Hagan one time if you ever noticed in Mark 11, 23 it says Say, or some version of say, three times and it says believe one time.

No, I never didn't notice that.

He said my people are not missing it primarily on what they believe.

They're missing it on what they're saying and you're gonna have to teach three times as much about what to say as what to believe.

But we have.

We have what we have seen.

Is that's important to say no question, you've got to say the right thing.

You can't say something against what the word says.

In other words, you can't believe you're healed and say, well, I'm sick, I'm sick, I'm sick.

I mean you've got to say you're healed, amen.

It's kind of simple.

But then, besides what you say, you have to believe and believe is what an action verb there has to be another action.

Besides saying To go with your words, you have to act like the Bible is true.

The simple definition of faith is faith is acting like the Bible is true or acting Upon the word.

Well, in this case, you're speaking to a mountain.

If you're gonna believe those things which you say are gonna come to pass, right, jesus said this, I didn't.

Jesus said it.

He said and you're not doubting your heart, but believe those things that you say will come to pass.

Well, if we substitute Act like the mountain is gone, isn't that what it means?

I said isn't that what it means?

You substitute act like the mountain is gone for the word believe.

So then, who sure ever say to this mountain be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, shall not doubt in his heart, but shall act like the mountain is indeed gone.

He shall have whatsoever.

He says so.

In 33 years of ministry and 26 years of pastor in church, I would have to say that the number one reason that people fail or don't get results is because they fail to act.

I Said they fail to act.

Let's act on the word.

Let's act like the Bible is true.

Let's act like what we're saying is right and see.

That's why I be you ought to not just go Off half cocked and say anything.

You ought to wait and see what God's word says about your situation, then say it.

You can say any kind of fantastical thing, francis.

I'm in the car vet.

I know y'all are not car nuts.

I'm kind of a car nut.

I was born that way.

I love cars all my life.

From the time I was, I sat on my grandmother's porch at three and four years old and I knew every car, even ones that were built before I was born.

I knew the year, model and the model number of all of them.

Well, that's a 37 Dodge.

Well, that's a 30.

And they'd get out there and test me.

They'd try to, and most of the time I called the thing out and they didn't even know what model it was.

So I've been that way.

I don't know why.

I don't understand that, but I love cars.

So I went to get the car vet.

But I'm telling you I had to pray about it.

I wanted to see if God wanted me to have one.

Maybe he didn't want me to have one.

Maybe it wouldn't be wisdom for me to have one.

See, it's according to your faith.

Be it unto you, not according to Gladys's faith.

Be it unto you, because Gladys did not want and reminded me every time she had to get in it.

We would pull out, we would pull up out there and she would have to get two guys to help her get out of the car.

That's a car that you didn't get in, that you put on.

You put it on, you put the car on, but I had to get.

I had to know.

I couldn't just say I'm gonna get me a car.

No, see, he's my Lord.

He's gonna have something to say about certain things.

That's not in the Bible.

See, corvettes are not in the Bible.

I wish they were, but they're not in the Bible.

Maybe your situation not really specifically in the Bible, but you know you can pray about something until you know what belongs to you.

God can put the quarter in the slot and all of a sudden you become aware that this is yours, that it belongs to you and you've got his full endorsement.

Are you with me now?

Yeah, what did he just do?

Well, sometimes I burst out in tongues, I'm sorry, I don't often do that on Sunday morning, thank God for the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

So our faith is the measure of our knowledge of the Word.

Little knowledge, little faith.

We've all been dealt the measure of faith, the faith that it took for you to get saved.

We're all saved by grace, through faith, and not of works.

Lest any man should boast, I say as a Catholic, I was raised Catholic.

Eight years of Catholic school, nuns, favored president of the Knights of the Altar.

They all thought I was going to the seminary.

I mean, you know all of that and my version I'm not saying this is what I, they taught me, necessarily.

I'm just saying my version of the Baltimore Catechism was that somehow God had to approve my works, that my good had to outweigh my bad.

That's what I was, my word.

I'm not saying anybody ever said that.

That was just what I synthesized through what I heard.

And when I heard the truth, you know I got saved.

They didn't preach born again.

They had the sacraments first, communion, confirmation, and all of those are fine and dandy and everything, but the truth of it.

You're a little kid.

I never heard that I needed to ask Jesus to come into my heart and change me, make me the kind of person he wanted me to be.

But when I did that, at age 33, I got saved, amen.

So whether you're Catholic or Baptist or Church of Christ or Disciples of Christ or Methodist or whatever you are, I mean you must be born again.

I said you must be born again and when you are you've been given that measure of faith that you wouldn't be able to get saved without that measure of faith.

God gives it to you at the hearing of the gospel, the good news, and then you get saved and then we always have that much of faith in there.

You have faith.

Everybody say I've got faith in there.

But you don't start off as graduated from high school the very first day.

You have to develop.

Are you with me now?

So your faith is the measure of your knowledge of the Word.

And once you know what the Word says about your situation, you simply act on that Word as if it's true.

And the more you fellowship with the Father, that's called prayer.

Fellowshiping with the Father is prayer and the more you pray that prayer for a couple of weeks recently, the more you pray and fellowship with the Father, the more easy it is for you to have faith, to live your life.

We're not supposed to just have faith in the crisis time, just faith when it's terrible.

We're supposed to have a lifestyle of faith, a lifestyle Our faith ought to be active all the time.

That means we ought to always be out there walking on the water, so to speak.

Are you with me?

Now?

We are in this building where you're sitting right this morning and you're able to watch by livestream, because 26 years ago we acted on one word, actually two words from God when he called this church a regional center.

And I won't tell the whole story, but I went that day.

I was looking for five acres, we had outgrown our first building.

We had no parking.

I remember Easter Sunday one Easter Sunday we'd been in that building, you know, for just a little while, I think it was.

I think it was the first.

It was a second Easter Sunday.

We'd been in that building and I was up on the platform getting ready to start and a car came in the parking lot and just turned around and left.

There wasn't any parking Boy.

That grieved me so bad that somebody came to church and they didn't get to come to church because we didn't have enough faith to have enough parking to accommodate the crowd.

And so I started looking for some land.

I had five acre.

Faith show me five acres.

And then, when I was looking at that five acres, god spoke to me regional center.

I'm building a regional center.

I didn't even know what it meant.

I found out it was a governmental center.

It's a place where executive, legislative and judicial authority happens.

And now I understand that today, and God has been 26 years building the kind of faith and the influence and the authority that we are having in this place, from this place right here.

And God said he was gonna do it.

I could have.

There's been many times that doubt in my head.

My brain would say how can that be?

I don't see any evidence of it.

I mean, that's the way things are.

You can have faith in your heart and doubt in your head.

As long as you'll keep walking by faith, as long as you'll keep acting.

You can have all the little squirrely cobwebs up here you can want, but faith will still work when you act on the word.

It'll work.

Faith will work in your heart with doubt in your head.

Boy, that's for somebody.

Come on, let's lift our hands right now.

So I went from five acre faith to 10 acre faith, went back to my landlord and he was the owner of land all over here.

He had bought up in the 80s when everything went bankrupt and he bought up a bunch of land.

He's a contrarian.

When people are selling, he's buying.

When people are buying, he's selling, he's always 180 degrees out of phase.

That's the secret of wealth.

Contrarian he was and is that.

And so I said you got 10 acres, maybe with another adjoining 10 acres that I could get an option on.

He said have I shown you my 63 acre track?

I almost fell out of the chair.

He had more faith in me than I did.

And he showed me that.

63 acres, I said.

And he told me what he'd sell it to me for.

He told me okay, I'll sell it to you for the same price as you know, so forth and so on.

I'll finance the whole thing.

You don't even have to put any money down.

I'll finance the whole thing.

I'll even put out the price.

How long do you want to not make payments on it?

I'll put off the payments for a year or two, three, if you need it, two points above prime interest rate, I'll finance 100%.

I mean, how do you not do that?

Well, I said I got to pray about it and I did, and I felt a witness.

And so I said, okay, I can't buy it right now, I just can't do it, I can't pull the trigger, but I want to tie it up.

Will you sell me an option?

And he said just shake my hand.

This is an unbeliever, shake my hand.

Why did this happen?

Because I was acting on a word that God gave me about a regional center and we shook hands.

He said I will not sell it.

I'll give you first right of refusal.

If anybody comes and makes me an offer, I will call you.

Couple of years later, things happened.

We had a big down payment we were able to make.

I thought it was time.

I called him.

I said I got a meeting with him.

I said I'm ready to execute this contract on this 63 acres.

He said, man, I meant to call you.

My heart sank.

He said first of all, you don't have frontage on that road because the county changed their plans and you'd have to have 92.7 acres in order to have frontage on the road.

And I just got an offer from two home builders.

He showed me the two home builders offers and they were identical offers.

I don't know who talks to who, but they had identical offers.

That's kind of strange, isn't it?

Two independent home builders.

He said I'll say you.

He said, oh, don't worry about it, I'll still do the deal.

They're paying cash, I'll still finance it, I'll do everything I said I would do.

Here's an unbeliever that has more honesty than most people I know.

And so we wound up buying 92.7 acres of land.

That's why we're here.

Why in the world would anybody do?

Because God said it was a regional sin and because I did that and that's champions crossing right down the street.

That's what we wound up moving here and having this land and now this campus 10 acres, 50,000 square feet under roof paid for Because of that move we made in 1998 to close on that property.

Are you with me?

Come on, lift your hands, thank God.

All you have to do is act on the word.

I can't tell you I had faith like that I could identify.

Oh, yes, I just obeyed what God said.

That is the definition of faith.

I think we make such a big deal of how big the faith is or how huge the it's really all about.

Faith is just a seed and it grows.

Are you with me today?

Let's act on the word.

See, joseph, that's what Joseph did.

He had a dream.

All he had was a dream and he went to Pharaoh and told him the dream, and Pharaoh believed it was gonna happen, just like he said seven years of plenty, seven years of famine.

It's a dream.

And Pharaoh acted on the dream and put Joseph in charge of it and look what happened.

Look what happened.

He just believed enough to believe God's word, and we have enough faith in us to believe and act on God's word.

So let's act on God's word, be prepared for possible emergencies.

Right now we're coming into a time of great conflict, and I'm not talking about hurricanes.

I think, because of where we live, we ought to be this way anyway.

But I like to remind you that faith doesn't mean having an empty cupboard, no gasoline, no water, no food.

I mean you should stockpile enough food and enough gasoline.

You know it's not easy to pour gasoline in the modern vehicle.

Did you know that?

Have you ever tried you better plan on it.

You might have to look at your.

See, I've got a truck.

It's got the filler is vertical like that, it's not in.

It's got that automatic little door.

It's got something's got a pierce.

It's got to be long enough snout to pierce in there.

And then if the funnel is like this, you can't pour into the funnel like that, can you?

It's gonna run all down.

So you're gonna have to look at your situation and buy a five gallon can of gas and put some stabilizer in it so it'll keep a long time, and be prepared that you, if you've got gas, if they run out of gas in an emergency, get some bullets for your guns.

I'm not, I'm not joking.

Get some bullets for your guns.

I don't have any guns.

Get some guns.

Pastor, you're scared of me.

No, I'm giving you ammunition, spiritual ammunition, to be prepared.

I think our faith needs to be prepared.

This is an act of faith.

I love this country and there are people that are trying to tear it apart.

They're trying to start a race war.

They're trying to start a movement to overthrow the government and turn it into a communist dictatorship.

Forget about black lives.

No lives matter to these people.

No lives matter is what they ought to be named.

They ought to be named, they ought to be renamed, and no lives matter, because they don't care about black, brown, yellow or white or any other lives.

They care about their life.

Don't be fooled, don't be deceived.

So get you some water, get you some extra food canned goods, easy stuff that keeps not refrigerated food but other kinds of food, and be prepared, and that way, if there is a storm, you're prepared.

Just keep that as a matter of fact.

Well, pastor, you're scared.

I don't mean to scare you.

I want to prepare you and I want every member of this church to be solid and have faith in God.

I do have faith in God.

I believe God has a tremendous plan for this nation, but he has delegated every bit of his power to the church and every time I hear somebody pray that second Chronicles 714, I want to throw a rock at him, because God is not going to come down here and heal anything.

He already sent Jesus.

He sent Jesus.

There's no more help coming from heaven.

What do you mean?

God can heal?

No, he sent the church to do everything that needs to be done.

We are in charge, we have authority.

It's our words and we must vote.

Voting is delegating your authority to somebody that goes to Washington or Austin and carries out your will, and then you need to hold them accountable.

So if you vote for somebody that believes in killing babies, well then you just delegated your authority to murder them.

I don't want to tell you who to vote for.

Don't ever vote for a Democrat.

Don't ever vote for a Democrat.

Don't ever vote for a Democrat.

Oh the pastor, all that's running it's just a small town and it's nonpartisan.

There's nothing nonpartisan anymore.

The dividing line has been dropped and we've learned that, haven't we?

It used to be.

Mayors and county officials were non, no more, no more, no more.

Just half the country shut down because of this, and the other half is kinda open.

I wish we're praying against this closing of Texas.

It needs to be wide open.

It needs to be completely open.

It needs to be as open as we are right here, every bit as open as we are right here.

Everything ought to be all the small businesses.

It needs to be as wide open, all of it, oh pastor.

Well, I just have to give you what I got.

Amen, let's be.

I'm not looking for a war, I'm not looking for civil war.

I want to be prepared for what insurrection or anything might happen.

These people are well-funded Billionaires are giving them money.

There is no accountability for all the billions of dollars they're getting, and so we have to be wise as serpents, harmless as doves.

Amen, amen, praise God.

So let's act on God's word.

Let's be prepared.

Let's be prepared.

That's what my remarks mean.

No fear, just acting on the word.

Let's act like the Bible is true.

God's power will get us through.

Amen, the switch of faith.

Come on, lift your hands and receive today Hallelujah.