Overcoming Adversity!

You're listening to the Cross Kingdom Sermon of the Week.

We hope you enjoyed this message from Justin Carpenter. All right,

y'all are stuck with me one more week. This week

went by so fast I wasn't able to line somebody

else up to teach this week. And our team does

not like it. When I tell them on Thursday morning,

hey can you teach Sunday? They're like, how was y'all's week? Y'all?

I love our community.

I don't think there's a religious spirit ten miles from here.

Oh man, anybody have a rough week? Yeah? Anybody have

issues sleeping this week? Getting woken up in the night

and warfare dreams and yeah, the the level of witchcraft

that's been in the atmosphere this week has been pretty intense.

I actually, about four o'clock in the morning a couple

of days ago, was engaged in a spiritual encounter with

a spirit of witchcraft and it was talking to me

audibly and doing all sorts of weird stuff. And uh,

just part for the course, you know, because they're going

down people period. All they do is tick me off.

When they do that. I'm like, like Samuel who disturbs

my rest. I'm sorry. I guess I was the only

one that thought that was funny. This is my brain

on deliverance ministry after twenty years awful. Quiet, y'all, don't worry.

I'm bringing a real easy word this morning. That was

not a dad joke. No, actually, I want to talk

to y'all for a little bit on overcoming adversity. Anybody

have any adversity in their life this week? Anybody feel

like you're on a spiritual roller coaster at times where

there's mountaintop moments and then all of a sudden, it's

like WHOA straight down to the valley. So the Hebrew

word for adversity is raw, and this word means evil, affliction, bad, calamity, displeasure, distress.

This word's found six hundred and sixty seven times in

the Old Covenant alone. In like manner, the Hebrew word

for adversary means satan and withstand. This word is found

twenty seven times in the Old Covenant. The Greek word

for adversity is parosmos, and it means trial or testing, temptation, calamity,

or affliction. It's found twenty one times in the New

Covenant and the Greek word for adversary means opponent or adversary.

It's found five times in the New Covenant. And the

second Greek word for adversary is set ass not at

which we get satan from it, but it means adversary

or satan. And if there's any Greek scholars in here,

I'm sure I just butchered that word. Forgive me. Where's

was it that bad Stephen? Was it? Okay? He just

plug your ears? Anyways, that word's found thirty six times

in the New Covenant. I'm absolutely convinced that the key,

one of the primary keys to longevity with Walking with

the Lord is overcoming adversity. And the moment you stop

overcoming adversity is the very moment that you begin to backslide,

because if you don't overcome adversity, offence will come in,

and if a fense comes in, then you ultimately end

up bitter, and then you end up with bitter roots,

and then everybody else is the bad guy because you

become the victim. So when you have a victim mindset,

there's roles, roles that people will play. So if you're

the victim, you need a rescuer and you need a

bad guy, but all three of them, at the very core,

are helpless. How many of you are rescuers? How many

of you have spent your whole life trying to rescue others?

So I guarantee you if you say, if I asked you,

what would happen if you stopped rescuing people, you would

instantly get this. You would begin to feel powerless. So you,

although you may be doing good on the appearance and

helping people, you're literally gonna wear yourself out if you

actually don't deal with the root of feeling helpless underneath it.

That was good, Jay, You all awake. There's an enemy

of our soul. In one Peter five eight, it says

be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks

about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

So I said this first service, I watched this video

that yesterday or the day before. And in this video,

this guy's on this bus and he's preaching to this

young man, and this guy is getting madder than she ole,

and I mean he is ticked off, and all of

a sudden he rears back and smacks the snot out

of this guy on the bus and I'm thinking, here

we go. It's on, right, He's gonna go from preaching

Jesus to beating the sheol out of him. And all

of a sudden, this guy looks at him. He goes,

you blessed me, you blessed me here, Now, bless me here, now,

bless me here. Please gets in his face, please bless me.

I was like, this dude has lost it. From one

brother to another, bless me. He's I'm literally antagonizing this

spirit that was on this guy, trying to get him

to smack him on the other side. Now, I know

there's no one in this room that would have hit

that guy back if they if he'd smacked you right right, Phil,

he would have shot him. Uh, that was a joke.

Live stream, Please don't cut our stream. But he literally

says bless me, bless me, and within like two minutes,

this guy's crying. And because he was willing to turn

his cheek while he was preaching the gospel, he led

that dude to the Lord on a bus and I

was I watched that video and I just sat there

and I was like, first of all, I was like,

could I have responded that way? I mean, I don't

know that I would have turned my cheek and said, hey,

bless this cheek. I know, Becky, it would have the

whole bus would have turned into a deliverance session. But

I'm setting there thinking, it's like, that's adversity. Huh. You're

you're you're preaching the gospel, saying something to a guy,

and all of a sudden he smacks the snot Audia,

bless bless me, please bless me on this side. Now,

totally disfuse that guy. That dude was like, you're crazier

than I am. Probably, But because he understood in that

moment that his weapons of righteousness was humility, was self control,

and love. The Lords use that to actually get to

the root of what was going on in that guy's

heart that led him to be so angry. See, if

in the midst of adversity, we will not view the

person in front of us as our real enemy, but

recognize we don't wrestle against flesh and blood. We actually

then posture ourselves in that position in the spirit to

be able to get revelation from the Lord that maybe

we could lead that person to the Lord rather than

physically try to remove the hell out of them. Proverbs

twenty four to ten says, if you faint in the

day of adversity, your strength is small. Anybody watching the

The House of David series, uh, I'm not gonna if

you haven't watched it yet, watch it. I will say.

They definitely take some liberty and liberty. Liberty, all right, anyways,

they take some liberty and uh, but it's it's it's

really good. And you know, you sit there and think

about the life of David, and most theologians believe that

he was the whole reason why he wasn't there when

Samuel came to anoint the king with the other brothers

was that he was the result of a illegitimate relationship,

and so he was out tending the sheep. Samuel goes

one by one by one, and his brothers did not

I mean they you see little glimpses in the scriptures

where they're like accusing him of being prideful, and I

mean like they they did not care for him really

at all. And so he stuck out in the in

the wildern and yet he kills a bear and kills

a lion. It's grabbed the lion by the beard and

killed it. And every single person that's ever been used

any significant way throughout history overcame tremendous adversity. How would

you like to be Joseph? I mean, his own brothers

sold him, threw him in a pit, and literally every

time it looked like Joseph was going to actually get

out of the hole that he was in, it get

worse in his life. And the whole time the favor

of God was on him, from the pit to the prison,

and even says, hey, when you go back to the king,

please remember me. Wasn't that bad, was it? He goes,

please remember me? And of course the guy forgot him

until way later, and Joseph ends up in the palace

saving a nation because he was willing to face the

adversity and overcome the adversity. What's it take to break you?

How much adversity can you handle? I think that's actually

a real question we need to ask in this hour

because it's not going to all be rainbows and lollipops

in the future. And we are in a war right

now for the very soul of this nation, and the

Church had better stay awake and intercede on behalf of

our country. There's some things I would like to say

right now, but we are live streaming. I don't mean

like in a negative political it's just yeah, okay, lord.

We also absolutely need to be praying against World War III.

I don't know if y'all have noticed, but in the

news a few days ago, Iran released a video of

missiles and a tunnel, and they are weeks away from

eighty percent enrichment, which they could have nukes very quickly.

We have B fifty two bombers over there doing exercises

with Israel. Remember in the Last Days it says though

there will be wars and rumors of wars, and it's

our job as the church to pray for all of

the leaders, regardless of what we think about them, at

all times, so that we can actually live a peaceful life.

Who wants peace? Okay, hey, that's good job, y'all. Like

everybody put their hand up on that one. No, I don't.

We don't want war, right and like, but it's our

job as the church because we know that we're not

wrestling against flesh and blood. We know there's a divine

council at work, and there are fallen members of that

divine council that would love nothing more than to destroy

the things that the Lord has in motion. I believe

with all my heart that we are destined to be

a lighthouse in the last days as this nation, and

that I believe that we are positioned to actually begin

to start sending out more missionaries than what are actually

coming into our country. You know, we actually have more

missionaries coming into the United States than what we send out,

meaning they're coming to preach to us. Somewhere along the lines,

we forgot our identity as a country. And there is

a principality at work right now, and I really feel

like it started around five years ago and it's been

trying to deconstruct every facet of culture, government, gender, that's

even gotten into the church. Are you all awake? Do

you understand that we're not wrestling against flesh and blood

in the midst of adversity. There's always a coin with

two sides. One side is what God is doing. The

other side is what the enemy is doing. So when

you're in a situation where you're being tempted by sin,

God is not tempting you a sin because he says

he cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt

anyone with evil. But we're tempted when our own desires

stir up in us. But he tests us, he tests us.

And when he led Jesus into the wilderness, Satan was

tempting him. But Jesus, I mean, the Father was testing Jesus.

And I can guarantee you the Lord knew when he

was led into the wilderness to be tested. He knew

the Holy Spirit led him there. The problem is we

forget who we are in the midst of those wilderness periods,

and we start getting way more focused on the adversity

and the temptation, and then all of a sudden we

get offended with the Lord because we're going through something. Well,

what did I do wrong? Well? What if it's not

about you doing anything wrong? If you're discomfort, is actually

there to advance the kingdom and actually see soul saved?

What if you say, bless me on this side instead

of revenge? What does it take to offend you? What

does it take? How much adversity can you handle before

you throw in the towel? I know these are great

American church questions, aren't we so excited? I prayed at

the end of first service, I said, Lord, please put

people that are hard to love in our path, and

all the air sucked out of the room. Everybody looked up, like,

I don't like that prayer, y'all. Promotion comes on the battlefield.

It doesn't come when you're sitting in your recliner in

your living room singing Kumbai Yah. Promotion comes when you're

on the battlefield and you got a slingshot and a stone,

and everybody's lost their minds, scared to death, and you're

the one that stands out and says he doesn't have

covenant with God? Who's this dude? Who cares if he's

nine foot six, it's only a couple inches taller than me.

Second Corinthians one four says that God comforts us and

our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those

who are in are in trouble with the same comfort

we've received. Everything you've gone through, none of it's wasted.

None of it is. I don't care what's happened to

you in your life, none of it's wasted. God promised

that he would work everything together for the good. In fact,

he's so good at working everything together for the good

we actually attribute evil to him because he turned it

around for our good if you come down sick with

a disease. Oh, God gave me that disease to teach

me a lesson. No, he didn't. I watched another video

this week of this pastor who locked his church, literally

locked the church and demanded there was a thousand people

in this church, and he told his ushers to lock

the church and then begin to demand a forty thousand

dollars offering. I was perplexed after that video was over.

It broke my heart, but there was definitely a part

of me that wanted to give that dude some fivefold ministry. Y'all,

we are literally watching the falling away. It says they'll

be false prophets, false teachers in the last days. Hello,

get on social media. You know why. They never went

through any process. There is no character built, there's no integrity.

They didn't go through process. They just got a good

marketer and got online and convinced everybody that they were

something they weren't. By the way, men sign up for

the next study with Dragon Slayers by Danny Silk. John

Eldridge wrote the forward to that book. I'm on chapter

four of that book and I read Wild at Heart

twenty years ago, I believe, and it was a wild

at heart was an amazing book. This book is so timely.

I can't say enough. I don't say this about a

lot of books, but I will tell you this. I

think that book needs to be on every man's bookshelf

in their personal library. And I'm not just I'm not

just saying that, like I really really, if you haven't

joined the previous ones, this would be the one that

you want to join. Danny Silk does an amazing job

with this book and addresses a lot of timely things

that we're dealing with. Romans twelve twenty one says we're

called to overcome evil with good. Back to that video.

If that guy when he got smacked in the face,

if he would have smacked that dude back, we would

Yet you see those you know, the tournaments where they

do the smacking tournaments, and oh man, y'all, I would

pick a different sport like like that, that smacking in

the face sports. Brutal, y'all. But it could have turned

into that back and forth, back and forth. And when

we repay evil with evil, evil advances good does not.

I remember my junior year in high school was grace

back this academy, and my Bible teacher made the statement,

he said, evil spreads good, doesn't. We have to be

intentional with teaching righteousness. We have to be intentional with

raising up the next generation, with training our children up

in the way they should go so when they're old

they won't depart from it. We have to be intentional

with discipleship. But evil, you don't have to. You don't

have to disciple yet. Did you ever have to teach

your kid how to do something wrong? Anybody in here

ever had to teach your kid how to do something wrong?

Like don't touch that? Well, they do, they touch it.

Tell them, hey, don't touch that. That's hot. Back in

my day when I was a kid, they'd let you

touch it because you wouldn't touch it again, you know

what I'm saying. I remember one time my mom had

a curling iron in the bathroom and my little cousin Patrick,

uh I forgot how old we were. He went in

there and I followed him in there because I was

following him around the house, and he reached his hand

out to grab the curling iron, and me, being the

intelligent child I am, I go to grab it from him,

so he doesn't burn himself. But I grab the wrong

end and I grab the hot end, and man, it

just lit my hand up so bad. But guess what,

I never did that again. That's hot. Found out it

was hot many times. The consequences of our choices are

the consequences of our sin. Is the very school master

that the Lord uses to teach us. And if you

get in the way of people's process, you bail them out.

When the Lord says, don't bail them out, guess what

you're guilty of, unsanctified mercy. You just got in the

way of the Holy Spirit's work. And he had planned

on using those consequences of their choices to try to

wake them up. And you withdrew those consequences. Anybody been

there because you couldn't bear to see them hurting. Matthew

twenty four to twelve says, And because lawlessness will be increased,

the love of many will grow cold. You know what's

interesting about this phrase grow cold? In the Greek lexicon,

it literally says this word is to breathe or blow,

but cool, like you become cool by blowing, so to

be made or to grow cold. There's a waning of

love because the lawlessness of others literally is like a

cold air on your love. And if you're not careful,

your love for others gets colder and colder and colder

because of this air of lawlessness blowing on you if

you don't watch it. Anybody like you have loved ones,

maybe friends, acquaintances, work. I mean, there's somebody in your

life that you just are tired of their behavior. You

just want to shake them awake, right, all right, everybody

in there, everybody's not in their heads. If you're not careful,

their sin will become your problem because their sin will

actually put a separation in your intimacy with the Lord,

and you'll lose your ability to love others. So again

I ask, how much adversity can you handle? When do

you withdraw your spirit because you don't want to deal

with somebody anymore. I'm not talking about healthy boundaries, so

please don't email me. Oh I didn't believe in healthy boundaries.

Well see, that's a perfect example of you could grow cold. No,

Matthew five ten and eleven. We are blessed when we're

persecuted for righteousness sake, and our reward is great in heaven.

That's why that guy's going hit me again, smack me,

bless me. I remember watching a Heidie Baker talk about

She's walking down the street with her orphans and these

guys show up with machine guns and they put these

machine guns in front of her face and in front

and with the orphans, and she laughs at them, laughed.

Heidi is on a different level than Minnie, and her

ability to overcome adversity is absolutely supernatural. I sat there

and think about that first time I was out of

country to minister. Some of y'all have heard the story before,

Pretend like you haven't. First time I was there. I

was in Egypt, four hours south of Cairo. Never been

out of the country to minister. First time that Becky

was with me. She's doing the chicken dam Fifteen minutes

into the first session, a car bomb goes off outside

the conference center, and I thought, I mean Isis was

training in the desert just outside of this place. And

I thought, okay, And I said, Lord, did you bring

me to Egypt to kill me? Like you could just

taken me out in Texas? And I turned pale, evidently

by the laughter of all the ministers on the front row.

I was like, my brain is not totally registering everything

in real time. All I know is the building just shook.

The windows I thought were going to break, and I

have pastors laughing at me, and I'm totally confused. I

know this that all the blood left my head and

I thought for sure they were coming in and they

were gonna shoot us and all the ministers because of

the adversity they live in, the level of persecution they

live in. They just laughed, It's okay, keep going. So

I regrouped, finished the session and I told the worship

pastor Malad. I said, my lad, what was that? What happened?

He goes, oh, it's okay, something went wrong. Yeah, Lisa

saw some pictures I'd sent her, and she goes, are

you fighting fear off a little bit, babe, a little bit.

My level of adversity of what I could handle was

tested in Egypt, and this wild child was just trying

to get us in trouble praying over all these Muslim women,

you know, I mean, fully robed, you could only see

their eyes. And she's over there praying over them. And

I wasn't with her with the time. When she prayed

over one boom, power of God hit her and of

course we're being protected by Muslim police. It was great

for felt totally safe. Yeah, I hear you, And they said.

The vice president of the Pentecostal movement in Cairo are

in Egypt, gave me an invite to come back and

do another conference and said please bring your wife and

your children. I got back to Texas. I said, hey, babe,

I got an invitation from the VP of the Pentecostal denomination.

He wants all of us to go. Absolutely not Lisa

and the boys. She goes, we are not going there.

I'm like, okay, babe. If you're watching online, hunt love you.

She's coming back today. She's out of town. Romans twelve

two says, do not be conformed to this world, but

be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by

testing you may discern what is the will of God,

what is good and acceptable and perfect. So your typically

your initial thought in the midst of a stimulus or

a trigger, probably is not the right thought you should have.

So give yourself a chance to have another thought. So

as I pray at the here in a little bit

when we close and prayer, and I once again pray,

Lord put really difficult people in our lives this week

to love on. We got one, So we're there. We

got one, y'all. If you want to advance the kingdom,

and you want to see the kingdom advance, you've got

to go where it's not. You can't advance the kingdom.

If you're in your recliner, Lord, send them, bless them,

Jesus send them. I'm fine. I'm good right here, Lord,

in my living room with my coffee sixty eight degrees

ac and fan blowing. Oh the sufferings of Christ over

sixty five. You can hang meat. Overcoming evil with good

and truly loving our enemies is nothing less than a

supernatural task that can only be accomplished by the Holy Spirit.

You know why it's hard to love other people is

because their stuff triggers your stuff. That's why I always say,

you get free of yourself, you'll be free of others.

You'll stop being a pincushion for triggers. Ever is triggered.

You offended me, I'm offended. You know, we've got people

losing their minds because they've got to switch their passports

and make changes because there's two genders, y'all. I could

solve this problem real quick don't get offended with me. Hello,

how were you made? I mean, I'm not, But listen,

this is a part of the deconstruction from this principality

over this nation. Look at what's been happening over the years.

The last few years, the enemy has been hard at

work to deconstruct, rewrite history in every facet, in every

mountain of influence. Says in the last day they'll call

evil good and good evil. I mean, in some ways,

I never thought we would get into such confusion and

moral decay in some ways. But it says, gross darkness

will cover the face of the earth. Again, here's your coin.

Gross darkness is going to cover the face of the earth.

But flip side to that coin is what the knowledge

of the glory of the Lord is going to cover

the earth as the waters cover the sea. So what

do you want to focus on? You understand? You walk it?

You all right? You prophetic people? Who's in the class

that tomorrow night's the last class?

Who's in the class?

We've got twenty three, twenty five. It's not a very

It doesn't take a whole lot of discerning of spirits

to walk into a room and feel stuff. It doesn't

take a lot of prophetic maturity to look at someone

and see their process. Everybody's in process. What if we

all understood that we're in process, which means we all

have dirt and it's not real hard to find the dirt.

Right if you didn't get religious and think your dirt

wasn't as dirty as somebody else's dirt. Are you with me?

What if we stayed in a place of humility and

loved each other and allowed the Holy Spirit to bring

conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment, and when we did

warn our friends, our brothers from things, it was actually

done in love and humility, not from arrogance, pride, and

a judgmental spirit. Your adversity is bothering my adversity. Stop

it here we go, count it all. Joy my brothers,

when you meet trials of various kinds, For you know

that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let

steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect

and complete, lacking and nothing. So do you want to

be perfect and complete? Do you want to be complete

not lacking in anything? Guess what has to happen? It's James,

go to James. That was the ESV verse and did

they update this app behind my back? What are they doing?

The other? Who's got who's got new king? Who's got

a new king? James on him? Anybody? Hey, David, will

you read James one two to four? Yes, mister Rogers,

that's really his name. I'm not trying to be funny. Sorry,

James two sorry, yeah, yeah, James one two s sorry.

I was like, no problem, keep going, there you go.

So the new King, James says patience rather than stuadfast.

So count it all joy, my brothers. When you meet

trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing

of your faith produces patience, and let patience have its

full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking

in nothing. Who grew up in a denomination, you were

told do not pray for patients, anybody. I came out

of a Baptist background. Everybody said, don't you pray for that?

I mean it was like, right, it was like people

were literally terrified of praying for patience. Do you think

for a moment that that actually kept you from trials?

Don't pray for patience? Trial can't catch me when right here,

let patience have its full effect, that you may be

perfect and complete some of y'all. If you want to

accelerate your destiny with the Lord, you can, but you

have to understand, however many tests the Lord was going

to give you between here and here. And you want

to accelerate your faith, now it's this who wants it?

It literally accelerates, But you're going to go through every

one of those tests. How patient are you? If someone

were to describe you right now, would they describe you

as being patient? Got a couple giggles? You both have

your moments, y'all. We live in the most impatient culture

in human history. Every single thing we're doing is designed

to go faster. Computers, y'all, you younger people, I remember

the days of dial up. I was in Bible College

doing AOL. You remember that sound going through the telephone line. Murder?

And then you wanted to load a website, Type the

website and hit enter and it's halfway loaded. And now, y'all,

I mean our cell phones, our wave, I mean you boom,

it's there, right. We have microwaves. You stand from the microwave,

you get irritated that it takes sixty seconds to melt

the butter to put on your ribbi steak and you

get irritated, y'all. I'm sorry. If you're over there in

front of the microwave and you're irritated over sixty seconds

of melting butter, you haven't allowed trials to test you

much and your adversity is light. What's that watch butter? Milt? Yep,

you have to because if you burn it doesn't quite

taste it good on the stake.

Terry, Oh my word, all right?

Terry Bennett says the playground of Satan is attached to

the school of Christ. The enemy is always going to

be there. If if you're not being resisted, you're probably

going in the wrong direction. I remember coming out of

a background where if there was any resistance, they thought

it wasn't God's perfect will. I mean, I don't know

where they came up with that, because everywhere I read

the Bible, everybody went through the wringer. I mean, tell Job,

Job is the one book that I don't care how

long you walk with the Lord, there's always that tension

of theology by the time you're done with Job. And

if you don't have your identity sound in Christ and

understanding the very nature of the Father, that he is

good and always good. Then you will walk away from

the Book of Job thinking God is not good you

know with me? And then there's also things lost in

translation from Hebrew to English that can mess you up

a little bit. I just know this Job stood the

test of adversity, crazy crazy level of adversity. Never sinned

against God in all of it. When God finally showed

up to talk to him, he wished he hadn't that.

Listen when the creator of the universe says, prepare yourself

like a man, I'm going to talk to you. Who

you ever have the Lord ask you a question? You

know why he asked you that question because you didn't

know the answer. And the scary thing is, sometimes he

asked us a question because we think we already know

the answer. Let me give you a little golden nugget

for the kingdom. If the Holy Spirit ever asks you

a question you don't know the answer, just say, Lord, proceed,

and also, please leave me out of any conversations with

the enemy like you had with Job. Pretty please. All right,

I'm gonna start landing. The wilderness is always a time

of testing. It's always a time of testing. Your promotion

comes in the wilderness. Do you understand Jesus was full

of the Holy Spirit when he went into the wilderness,

led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, and when

he resists all the temptations of the enemy and was tested,

it says that he came out in the power of

the Holy Spirit. So we always pray, Lord, give us

more power, give us more authority. We want to conquer

the kingdom of darkness, pull the treasures of darkness out.

And that happens with power and authority. You know why

demons manifested all the time wherever Jesus went because of

the authority that he walked in. Do a word study

on authority in the New Covenant. Even the religious marveled

because he taught with authority. They knew he had authority.

Those demons the moment Jesus came in with proximity, they

were like, we know who you are. Have you come

to destroy us before the appointed time? And guess what

a lot of times Jesus was doing deliverance in the temple.

They weren't afraid to be in the temple, just like

they're not afraid to be in the church today. Even

Jesus learned obedience by the things he suffered Hebrews two eighteen,

for because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is

able to help those who are being tempted. And then

Hebrews five eight although he Jesus was a son, he

learned obedience through what he suffered. We really don't have

good theology in the Western Church for the sufferings of Christ,

because we have been so blessed. I mean, the Body

of Christ meets all over this nation free of worry

of real persecution. Back when I was in when we

left Egypt, it was less than a year that very

place that I ministered at they were crucifying Christians on crosses.

Right around that time, they blew up one of the

Coptic churches in Cairo. In the church's response, it was

right around Easter. The church's response, guess what. The very

next weekend they went into the church that was halfway

blown up from the bomb and they had service. How

much adversity can you handle? Where's your breaking points? A

good thing? It's the Holy Spirit that leads us into testing.

Testing is designed to give us more power of the

Holy Spirit. Testing brings obedience. The greater the test, the

greater the possibility of anointing. Do you know it takes

fifty pounds of olives to produce one gallon of extra

virgin olive oil, and that comes through the pressing. The

greater the call of God on your life, the greater

the testing that you have to go through. Psalms one

oh five sixteen to nineteen. When He summoned a famine

on the land and broke all supply of bread, He

had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was

sold as a slave. His feet were hurt with fetters,

his neck was put in a collar of iron until

what he had said came to pass. The word of

the Lord tested him. That word for testing in the

Hebrew there means to purge, So what was being purged?

So God was using his adversity all the entire time.

And his destiny included the pit. His destiny included the prison.

His destiny included the betrayal of his own brothers. His

destiny included him interpreting dreams in a prison. His destiny

included him ultimately going to the palace to save the nation.

But what if he said, that's it, I've hit my line.

I'm done, It's not worth it. Who would have been there,

who would have interpreted Pharaoh's dream, who would have had

the wisdom to prepare in the seven years of plenty

for the seven years of black? They were tested. Your

test is not to bring destruction. Your test is to

bring promotion. But you're gonna have to have the mind

of Christ in it. You're gonna have to think in

heavenly terms and not earthly. You're gonna have to understand

and the moment if you get smacked in the face

that your weapons of righteousness are in your right hand

in your left and you go, okay, Lord, what do

you want me to do? And if you hear a

voice that says punch them, that's not Jesus all right?

Have the prayer teams have come forward, not all at once? Good?

Don't You're gonna what are what? The prophetic class does

not know that I have an exercise plan for them

after we finish our next class Monday night. If you

bring the M and MS, you're gonna have to up

a game. Dude. Now we're talking. Listen, I I can

I cannot be uh persuaded by M and m's, but

if red meat gets involved, I could possibly right, don't

all right, I'm gonna close us in prayer. Hey, remember

the old Covenant, the fat was left for the Lord.

You all know that's where all the flavors at, right,

mm hmmm, getting hungry? So, Father Lord, there's no way

to get through planet Earth without trials, tests, adversity, and

when we're squeezed, you're the one that's supposed to come out.

Thank you for listening. For more messages and other resources,

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