Put Your Foot Down

Pick your bibles up and wave them around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

And let's say this together say heavenly Father, I'm in the house of the Lord.

Today, on the Lord's day, I like to start out my week right.

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

I am teachable and I believe I receive the revelation I need to bring my faith to another level, to bring my fruitfulness into your will.

In Jesus' name.

Amen, amen, amen.

You can be seated now.

And let's look at Ephesians, chapter one.

And this is a Holy Ghost prayer, what I call a Holy Ghost prayer.

In other words, paul frequently in his epistles would write prayers and, of course, since they were written in the Bible, they're Holy Ghost inspired prayers.

I like to pray these prayers on a regular basis.

I pray Ephesians one, this first part, every day over my life, over my and others.

And Ephesians, chapter three is another good one.

Let's look at Ephesians, one verse, verse.

We'll start with verse 15.

Paul writing to the church at Ephesus, wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers.

That the God of our Lord, jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding.

I like this one being flooded with light, I like that version being flooded with light that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, both in this age and also in that which is to come.

And look at the.

Pay attention now this verse 22, and have put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him, that filleth all in all.

And so when you read verse 22, it says and have put all things.

The word things in my Bible is italicized, which means it just doesn't exist.

They just put it in there.

The writers put it in there.

It wasn't in the original manuscript.

So we could say he has put all under our feet.

He's put all under our feet, and so the message today is a simple one put your foot down.

My mother used to say that I'm putting my foot down and you will not.

She would point her finger at me If I wasn't good enough.

She brought out the belt, and it was a little back in the 50s.

It had little, you know, it was plastic.

I don't know where she bought a plastic belt, but anyway, plastic was big.

In the 50s.

They just discovered plastic and plastic was made right here in Houston, so you could probably buy it for 29.6.

And it was a sense down at Woolworths.

And anybody remember Woolworths?

How about Cresces?

Does anybody remember?

How about Hinkian Pee Lot?

See, I'm giving you a Houston Houstonology.

Hinkian Pee Lot, yeah, wine garden.

So it had little ribs on it.

And then it left a mark, and today's day they'd probably take me away and give me in defoster care.

It didn't hurt me.

I mean, it left a mark, but it didn't damage me permanently, you know.

But I put my foot down.

When she stomped her foot I knew I was in trouble.

Everything has been put under Jesus' feet and we are His feet, we're His body.

He's the head, we're the body.

The feet are where they're in the body.

So many Christians are waiting for God to do something.

No, he's waiting for the church to rise up and put its foot down.

Glory to God.

I mean.

Whatever circumstances come against you in your health, in your finances, in your family, in your neighborhood, in your business, in your place of work, your career, whatever comes against you we can walk right on top of those troubles.

We can put our foot down right on top of them.

You know, in Luke 10, 19, the disciples, jesus had sent them out and give them power over all devils and to cure diseases.

And they went out and they preached the gospel.

I got to looking at that the other day.

We skipped that part.

They didn't just go around keeling everybody, they went and preached the gospel.

They did just exactly what Jesus did.

Now they're novices.

They don't even hardly even know what the gospel is.

They're honest with it.

They're just starting out.

All they could do was mimic what they heard Jesus do.

Jesus went about and taught in their synagogues and he preached the gospel of the kingdom and he healed all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people, and so.

But he's only one person, he can only do that.

So he multiplied the effect and he sent the 12 out by two and two into all the cities and towns.

He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

He was under a, he had an emergency.

He's trying to get Israel and obey his word.

So he sent them out and gave them this power.

And they came back and he said oh Jesus, even the demons are subject to us in thy name.

And he said yeah, behold, I give you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions.

Now does he talking about real snakes and real?

No, he's talking about demonic powers.

He said I've given you power to tread upon them.

Listen, we ought to be walking on the devil instead of bowing down to the devil.

Psalm 91, 13 says the same thing.

And Psalm 91 is the old testament, that's the old covenant.

And how many of you ever pray Psalm 91?

Boy, that's a powerful, that's a.

You know, brother Pete, he had been all over the world in the service and he always had Psalm 91.

And he told all the soldiers that he had to deal with.

He told them.

You know, he even gave them those.

What were those?

Those bandanas, you know, and had Psalm 91 on those bandanas.

He gave them out over in Afghanistan.

If there's a place in the world that you need Psalm 91, it's in Afghanistan.

And it says here in verse 13, thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder.

Do you suppose we're supposed to go down the Houston Zoo Of course it's closed and hop on a lion?

No, it's not really talking about a lion, it's talking about demonic powers.

It's talking about something bigger than a little demon.

It's talking about something more significant.

And the adder which really, in my margin the adder is an asp.

Have you ever had an asp fall out of a tree on down your neck?

Man, I mean it.

Nothing burns worse than an asp.

I mean there's.

But Romans I think it's 13 talks about you know the, the, the poison of asps.

Asps is under their tongue.

It's really talking about slander, lies.

People talk about you and it stings.

Listen, you don't have to.

You don't have to get mad at the person.

It's the devil behind that person.

If somebody's, somebody's lying tongue has been inflamed by the enemy, just tread on that thing.

Tread on those words that have been spoken over.

You Don't go in the corner and hide and pry and oh, I can't believe they said that about me.

Well, believe it and tread on it.

Sometimes we're our own worst enemy.

Sometimes all the wood is cutters and shoulders of life.

We accuse ourselves sometimes.

Well, I just can't believe I did that.

Well, you did it.

Get over it.

Why don't you?

If it's a sin, confess it and get it under the blood and don't ever bring it up again.

If you're doing anything for God and you're running as fast as as we have to run in these days, this is, I listen.

This thing's about to wind down.

I don't, I don't have a date for you, I just see the signs.

You know Jesus is coming soon.

As we're bound to make a few mistakes, we're bound to get out there ahead of God sometimes.

I guess that's why my nose is kind of flat, because I've run into so many brick walls In a hurry, too big a hurry.

Well, don't sit there and beat yourself up.

Go ahead.

When you recognize that you did something wrong, just get it under the blood and don't ever bring it back up again.

I mean, I'm a home builder.

I mean I've been.

There's been a couple of times in my life when God was one time he said, pause, I've got something else for you to do.

And I didn't pause.

I just kept on building houses and I had to move out of, out of the city before they'd sell.

I had six houses to sell and the interest I'll never forget.

The interest is going out in my company.

And finally there wasn't any more money to pay interest.

I mean, all the money was gone and I had to go get a job down in Corpus Christi.

I left the city and soon as I left the city the houses started to sell it.

Soon as I left town, god said okay, I clean your mess up now and now that you're not watching and crying and moaning and groaning and laying hands on the houses every day and orning the door posts with oil getting everybody to come by, would you pray for my house please that it'll sell?

They didn't know about it.

I mean they.

I was the last.

I mean everybody sold their houses for myself.

They were so cursed.

Well, you mean they were cursed.

You're supposed to be, I know, but that's what you got to obey God.

You've got to listen to him, don't, don't?

He's trying to tell you what to do and then you go off and do your own thing.

If there's anybody could whine and and and and compel about the mistakes I've made.

I could have done that.

I had to get over that.

I had to move on down the road.

I had to get that under.

Well, god, I did make a mistake, but God, I'm going to, I'm going to listen, I'm listening.

Now you got my undivided attention and that particular time of my life I've preached about it many times.

I mean, I hate to say this, I don't want to discourage anybody, but that particular little episode cost me about 10 years.

I was on a pathway of 10 years before we actually got off that pathway and got back in the will of God.

10, everybody say 10 years.

I'm not confessing that over, I'm just talking about my testimony.

Well, I could be all well if I'd have just done this.

If I could have, would have should have.

Oh my no, I got over it, I got, I got on down the road I put.

I just started stepping on those, my own failures.

Just step on them and keep moving.

Just step on those.

Somebody needs to hear this this morning.

Step on those failures and quit letting them dictate to you the future.

Your future is bright If you'll just trust God.

He's so merciful, he's so good.

Hallelujah, come on, let's lift our hands right now.

Lord, we thank you, we're living in your goodness.

Hallelujah, oh Lord, how great is thy goodness which thou has laid up for those who fear you, which you have wrought, for those who trust in you before the sons of men.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

Whoo man, it's just so thick.

In here, a Holy Ghost is getting information to help you and inspiration.

We need both, and so step over your failures.

Just put your foot down.

You know we have to possess our inheritance.

Remember, god spoke to us back in September.

He said this is your greatest year.

When you look back on this year, it's going to you're going to be able to say my, my, this has been the greatest year of my life.

Well, look what the devil did after that.

Look what he gave us an unprecedented attack.

I've never seen anything like it.

Neither has anybody that's living now has ever seen anything like what we've gone through.

Most of it is self-inflicted.

Most of it is self-inflicted.

Most of it is having leadership, curse the land and spread fear and panic through the land.

You've got the entire, you know, the majority of the US House of Representatives that is going against us and going against the citizens and using this as an opportunity, along with a bunch of judges and along with a bunch of politicians, and they're trying to take advantage of this panic and fear to get us to buy into socialism.

You better wake up, folks.

We're about to lose this country if we don't wake up real soon.

Nothing's guaranteed.

I mean everything that we have.

We have to possess by dispossessing something.

The children of Israel.

He just didn't just fall in their leather inheritance.

God said I will give you.

I'm giving you the land, I'm giving you the land.

You know Well, it's not going to come just by.

You know automatic.

You have to possess by dispossessing.

In fact, in Joshua 1, 3, let's look at this we're turning back to Joshua and seeing.

Now think about Joshua.

Joshua was Moses.

You know he rode shotgun.

In other words, you know Moses has got the reins, he's got the horses and Joshua's over here and he's riding shotgun.

I mean, he's just the assistant.

He's watched Moses do all this for 40 years.

He's watched Moses, he's Moses, and now Moses is dead.

God says Moses, my servant, is dead.

Now, therefore, wake up, rise, wake up Everywhere the souls of your feet shall tread.

That have I given you, as I said unto Moses.

So Joshua couldn't sit there and grieve over Moses and start thinking well, god lay, how am I going to fill his shoes?

I mean, he didn't have to fill his shoes, he had his own shoes.

And God said get busy, start taking steps Everywhere you step.

I've given it to you.

You're not going to get it by standing still on this side of the Jordan.

First thing you need to do is get across the Jordan.

You're going to have to cross a lot of swollen Jordans if you're going to ever possess God's inheritance that he has for you.

It's not going to come dropping out of the tree in your lap.

Are you with me now?

You're going to have to take some.

Everybody say I'm taking steps.

See, it takes multiple steps.

You got to do some stepping.

You drag those feet.

You're going to trip Embarrassed.

Don't pick your feet up and step down on those devils.

Step down on those lines, step down on those ass, those words that people are speaking against you.

And he said be strong and a very courageous.

As I was with Moses, so shall I also be with thee.

You know, god is with you just as much as he was with Moses, just as much as he was with Paul, just as he as much as as God was with Jesus.

That's how much he's with you and he's in you.

Glory to God, we have nothing to be afraid of.

All we got to do is step on a few things.

And so Joshua had to take steps to possess what was his, and he had to take repeated steps.

He couldn't just step across the river Jordan and camp there.

What did he have to do next?

Well then he had to obey the covenant.

And they obeyed the covenant and circumcision, everybody was circumcised, all of that stuff.

They had to get over it.

And then, after that, the next city is Jericho, the most powerful city in the known world at that time.

And they went in there and I mean they conquered it, didn't they?

And I mean I'm sure they were thinking, boy, lord, god, we're getting some stuff done.

Now we move these people better, watch out, here we come, ai, your necks.

And they sent several thousand.

Now we don't even need all gold, let's just get a couple of thousand guys, that'll be enough.

No big deal, just, yeah, get on down there.

And they got their clock cleaned and, oh, he starts weeping and moaning and God said what are you doing?

Get up from there and stop that crying and whining.

You got sin in the camp, get this sin out of the camp.

That's why you failed and say you know he's embarrassed.

I mean because he, what did he do?

He had a woulda, coulda, shoulda.

He had a oh I coulda had a V eight Instead of a bridge and stratton.

And so, anyway, he had to get over himself.

He had to get past that.

He had to forgive himself.

He had to.

He had to find out where the sinning happened, and it was as people had taken the of the gold, and silver and some of the clothing of the people that live in Jericho.

God told them not to take any of it, and some people did, and they found out who they were and they.

Judgment was pronounced and then they went into AI and cleaned the AI's clock.

You know, they, they had to do that.

They had to repeat that.

They had to do it all over the land that God had given them.

They had to possess it by dispossessing.

You're going to have to take some steps.

You're going to have to take some steps to possess your healing.

It's not just one thing.

Quit looking for the quick fix.

Quit looking for just one easy little thing you can do and that's it.

Sometimes you've got, you've got steps to take.

A headache is one thing and the heart trouble is another thing and cancer is another thing.

You know you're not just going to take one little step and everything's going to everybody's looking for a quick fix.

You know, let's drive up in the drive-through.

We've got a lot of drive-throughs lately.

No, no eating in, I mean just barely can eat in.

I mean we went to a steakhouse on Mother's Day and family and and so the tent there was 10 of us, because there are 11th is up in at Ramah and Bible school.

So she couldn't be here, but we had 10.

And it had to be five girls and five boys.

And I had no idea that we weren't going to be able to sit at one table with one family.

They made us sit at two tables.

We were at five, not six.

We thought six and four.

They didn't have a big enough table.

So we thought, well, we'll have adults at one table and the kids at another table.

No, five and five.

So five ladies, that meant all the mothers were at one table.

Skip a table.

And here's the five guys.

I mean what in the world are you goofballs?

Why do you get to make that decision for me?

I'm an adult.

I should be able to assess the risk that I'm willing to take.

We got a letter here that was put out from a high Mukady Mucks I think they're the group of the Pharisees here in the city but they put out a letter and says if you really love your congregation, tell everybody over 65 to stay at home.

I'm not gonna do that.

Then I'd have to stay home, you dummy.

I'm not in the business of telling people to stay home from church.

We open the doors and the people come in.

That's it.

That's up to them to decide whether they wanna take the risk or not.

If it's indeed a risk, risk, risk, risk.

I mean whatever.

You have to put your foot down.

You have to stand on the word of God and exercise authority.

You know it's a severity of the attack.

I've seen people go to heaven and they didn't answer the attack with the severity that they were attacked.

That's right, you know.

Like I said, a headache is one level of an attack.

A heart attack is a whole another level.

You're gonna have to dig in a little deeper now that you've let something like that hit you.

Well, you mean, I let it.

Well, you know why?

Don't you own your life?

Are you in?

Did the Bible lie or are you in charge?

Well, I don't know why.

God allowed no, no, you allowed.

See, don't get confused with permission and commission.

God permits everything we permit, but he doesn't commission the attack.

That's a whole different ball game.

He's not sitting in heaven and say, okay, devil, attack them with cancer, I've had it with them.

They need to learn a lesson.

I'm gonna make them suffer.

Like I said, no, he doesn't do that it happens.

He permits it by virtue of the fact that he delegated his authority to us.

We're in charge, so let's put our foot down.

And you might have to put it down more than once, in more than different ways, because certain things attack you and then you've got to attack it back in an organized fashion.

Look at Jericho.

They couldn't just march up to Jericho one particular day and conquer it.

What did they do?

They marched around it for six days, total silence.

And then, on the seventh day, they marched around it seven times and then they shouted and the walls fell down.

So they had a.

What a strategy.

God told us early in this thing that if we would spend time before Him in prayer, he would give us strategies.

Come on, let's just lift our hands.

I just believe everybody's receiving strategies.

As I preach, I'm not telling anybody what to do.

Holy Ghost is only inside of you and I know the light bulb.

I see lights flashing on.

I mean, god is speaking to you even though I'm speaking.

It's amazing what God does.

When I came into the sanctuary of God then I understood.

Your mind later on is going to become aware of what your spirit knows right now.

Well, how is that going to happen?

Praying the Holy Ghost until you get a picture of what it is that God is telling you.

Amen, are y'all getting anything?

How severe is the attack?

See, I mean you're going to have to answer the severity, you're going to have to answer the intensity.

Most people have the idea that the devil just does something and just fontanies.

No, he watches you, he looks at you, he studies you.

He's got these little lower level demonic powers and they sit around, they watch you.

Sometimes they're called familiar spirits.

They run in families.

That's why the doctor asks you about your family history.

Well, when did your father die?

When did your mother die?

What did they die of?

Daughter of God, have you got anything?

Yes, this and your family, that and your family, a lot of that stuff, is familiar spirits.

These are demon powers that are assigned to families and they try to hop from one generation to the next and give everybody the same thing they gave grandpa, and then you get married.

So then now you've got a double winning.

Now you've got mama's familiar spirits to deal with.

It don't look so innocent.

Now you brought kids into the world.

Now they've got to fight all of that.

Are you with me now?

No, you don't have to fight anything.

You just have to be aware of it.

Stop looking for a quick fix.

Start dishing out the hot licks, start stepping on the devil, start resisting and start finding out the strategy to attack back on this spang that's attacked you.

It didn't happen overnight.

He watched, he studied and then he moved.

And what about if we're treading on serpents and adders?

What are those?

Those are vipers.

They strike.

You can't even their eye, can't even see how fast they are.

They strike like that and you're bit before you know it.

I mean you're so.

You're bit so fast that you don't even feel the pain till that the venom is already traveling in your bloodstream and by the time you feel the pain of that bite it's too late.

You've got that venom in there.

You got to have to do what You're going to have to have some antivenom.

See, the word of God is the best antivenom in the world, but don't get in a hurry.

Let's find out what it is and answer the I don't know.

This is for somebody.

Answer the severity of the attack with equal and opposite ferociousness and severity.

Don't just sit around.

I got cancer.

I'm just not led to have any treatment.

Really, you're just led to go to heaven.

Then, huh, you better treat something.

You better do something.

You better rise up and find out where your faith is and start answering that attack.

Well, I believe in heat.

Well, I do too.

But you know God can use doctors and medicine.

That's right.

Are you with me now?

There may be a time in your faith walk where you can overcome certain things without any medical intervention.

But I wouldn't do that the first go around.

I would make sure my faith has been tested in that way and that I've had victory.

If you can't overcome a headache like that, then you're probably not gonna be able to overcome anything more serious.

So you know, get your faith working on a headache and saying, my bless God, I don't need the Advil, I don't need any aspirin, I'm gonna conquer this thing.

And you conquer it and you do that pretty consistently.

You can move.

We talked about this last week.

Let's build our faith and let's come up to our faith.

You know faith in stages and let's not just assume that we can conquer something with one little strike back.

No, we might have to have a strategy.

Israel had to walk through the land and they had to conquer city after city after city, even though God had already given them the land.

They had to possess it.

By what?

Dispossessing the poachers, the trespassers?

Amen, are you getting anything out of this today?

Put your foot down.

I mean, let the devil know he just jumped on the wrong donkey.

Uh-uh, oh, not me, uh-uh.

Praise God, no devil, I'm putting my foot down.

We talked about the woman that it was just a little parable that Smith Wigglesworth talked about.

He said but you know, there's a lady leaving her apartment, or little dog Phee Phe followed her out the door and was walking down the bus stop.

No, no, phee Phee, go back to the house.

And she just kept walking toward the bus stop and little Phee Phee kept, you know, following her.

No, no, no, no, no, phee Phee, go back.

And finally, phee Phe wasn't listening to Mama, mama's getting you know where the bus stop is and she turned around and she said Phee Phe, go back.

And Phee Phe shot back and went back.

See, sometimes you've got to be more emphatic.

You've got to let the devil know you're not going to take it.

This is why our country's in a mess, because we've allowed this.

We've just opened the doors, it's sure.

Come right in, take our right to peaceably assemble, take our freedom of religion and just, and we'll just be subject to the governor of Illinois who said it's going to be I don't know how long before.

Churches next, next year, I think he said the churches will be open next year.

They want to get rid of the church.

They want to get rid of all the voters in the church that voted this president in.

Not all of them, not all churches voted for him, but a lot of them did and they're trying to change.

That's all about getting rid of Trump, don't you do you understand?

This is not about a virus.

This is about trying to take our country away from us.

And I said no, you're not going to take our country from you.

No, we're not going to have socialism.

No, we're not going to have the LGBTQ plus plus agenda.

No, I said no, we're not going to have.

We're going to have to say no, oh God, when we're trying to God and asking God to do something and we're in charge of that.

You know, that's got to be frustrating for the Lord.

He done all this wonderful stuff.

They gave us this name, gave us his blood.

He's giving us his word and we're all the time moping and groaning oh God, oh God.

You know, come on, let's rise up and stand up and put our foot down.

Oh God, I say that we're back to work in Texas, back to work.

We're going back to work and, by the way, our kids are going back to school.

I mean, do you realize they don't want school open, because then you go back to work.

They don't want you to go back to work.

They want to keep giving you bailout money.

They want to keep giving you benefits so that you'll look to the government to get these benefits and you'll look to the government be your source instead of God, and then later on it'll all evaporate.

But right now there's people already that are saying, oh, we don't want to go back to work, we don't want to do that, we're making it just fine.

These are stupid people.

These are stupid people.

I mean you can't build a country of free people with people like that.

I think about you, jim Locke.

He fought in two wars.

He fought in World War II and Korea, in the Army and in the Navy.

I mean he served his country, but I'm pretty sure he didn't go over there and risk his life and lay it on the line in two wars for people to sit around and let the government be their source.

I'm pretty sure he did it for freedom.

I'm pretty sure he did it to defeat the regimes that had stood up and buffaloed their.

You know that's what the Nazis did.

They brainwashed their population.

So in Japan and Korea, north Korea, the Chinese came in and fought a lot of those battles.

Are you with me now?

Come on, folks, we've got to fight back.

I say the COVID-19 virus is dying, it's not coming back this fall because it'll be dead.

Well, that's not what the.

I don't care what the scientists.

This is not about science.

This is about the Word of God and our authority.

This is about stepping on top of demons and crushing them.

Glory to God.

I say the politics of fear are failing.

That's what this is.

Is the politics of fear?

I mean we keep feeding the politics of fear.

We're going to have more fear and more panic.

They'll come up with something else next year.

They'll come up with some of.

They tried global warming.

That didn't work.

They changed it to man-made climate change.

That didn't work.

Then they had AOC saying we've only got 12 years.

That didn't work.

It didn't work.

Nobody believed her.

And so all of their efforts to get everybody panic-stricken.

What did it take?

It took a virus and took people in white coats and saying oh, oh, oh, it's a global pandemic.

What's a pandemic?

So they used fancy words and they had that tone in their voice, that kind of a little shaky and kind of a grimace.

I think one of them said the other day I saw some people outside and they didn't have their mask on.

It was just terrifying.

I thought terrifying.

What about the criminals that are wearing the same mask to go down and rob and You're not terrified to even arrest those.

They just go free.

There's no problem without it.

Arrest the guy without the mask.

See, we are Got everything backwards.

Oh, I'm glad some of you are laughing Not all of you, but some of you are laughing.

If it wasn't so tragic, it would be laughable.

But it's tragic because lives are being ruined.

They're finally recognizing that if we don't have school next year, this could be detrimental to young people.

Oh, really, somebody?

When did they find that out?

Isn't that?

Wow, what study?

Did you have a model?

I say the church is rising up.

I say the church is under revival.

I say that we're stronger than ever before.

I say that 2020 is our greatest year.

Yet, come on, lift your hands.

Praise God.

We put our foot down.

We put our foot down.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

We put our foot down.

Come on, let's just stand up and let's do a prophetic act.

I want you to.

Just.

You don't have to have me lead you, you know what to say.

Just start talking to the devil.

Put your foot down about something.

I put my foot down.

Devil, you're not going to steal from this church.

You're not going to shut any doors that God has opened for me, I put my foot down.

I'm not going to allow that any longer.

I'm not going to allow heart disease.

I'm not going to allow COVID-19.

I'm not going to allow the devil to steal our school system.

In Jesus' name, come on, let's shout the victory now.

Hallelujah.

Glory to God.

Glory to God.