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Jesus Is Alive - Pastor Rob Urban

Logan City Christian Church

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  1. Welcome to Logan City Christian Church podcast where we bring God's Word to you weekly.

  2. We pray that what you hear will bring clarity to your situation and open doors in your life.

  3. Enjoy the message.

  4. Father, we thank you. We thank you for your presence in this place today.

  5. We thank you, Almighty God, for the worship team and all that put their hand to the plow,

  6. the technicians and everybody that makes this all happen. We ask that you bless them.

  7. But Lord, we ask that we bless you with our thanks and our praise.

  8. And we praise what a privilege it is for us as human beings being saved by your mighty grace

  9. to be able to be in right relationship with the creator of the universe

  10. and to praise you and to sing to you and to worship you is such a privilege.

  11. And we thank you for it in the name of Jesus. We all say amen. Amen. You may be seated.

  12. Hallelujah. God is just so good. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

  13. I'd like to welcome Pastor Steve Harris today, Global Influencers and another missions that

  14. I can't think of and doing a great work around the world and just a good guy and

  15. and Carl Fletchner from Living Deep and Strong, the mentoring program. It's lovely to have you

  16. with us again today and I welcome everybody here this morning and our online congregation welcome.

  17. I just and if you're new here today, we just want to extend a very warm welcome to you. Amen.

  18. Praise God. Hallelujah. This morning, there's going to be an altar called given.

  19. For anyone here today that may not yet know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior,

  20. there will also be opportunity given for prayer and I know like I know in my spirit

  21. that today people are going to be set free. As Juliet, thank you Juliet, shared in the

  22. communion message this morning that the burdens that have been lifted off our lives

  23. some people here today. You sense the spirit of God here.

  24. He's going to do a wonderful work. He's already doing a wonderful work.

  25. If we will just let him. If we will just let him.

  26. The title of the message this morning is Jesus is alive.

  27. Jesus is alive. Jesus is alive. Thank you for your enthusiasm this morning.

  28. Come on, Jesus is alive. He's alive. He's alive. Our Lord and Savior is alive

  29. and well.

  30. And as darkest things seem to be and to be getting in this world today is no match to Jesus.

  31. And I want to encourage you with the word this morning that if you're in a place where you're

  32. feeling that you've lost hope, you feel that you're trapped or burdened to the place where

  33. there's no... you don't see any good in life where you're in the right place today.

  34. If you're today and you're thinking that I'm in need of a fresh start, you're in the right place

  35. today. And you know that there's so much that I could say in this message this morning

  36. about Jesus being alive, it's limitless. How can we confine into one message

  37. eternity? It's impossible. But I just pray that the Holy Spirit will capture the words that are

  38. spoken this morning and infuse them into our spirit so that when we go home, we can be

  39. alive and infuse them into our spirit so that when we go home, it'll play over and over and over

  40. that Jesus is alive. Amen. I'm going to read from Luke chapter 24, but before I do,

    Luke 24 chapter mention

  41. please allow me to go back and to set the stage as to what has previously happened. You see,

  42. we thank God for His amazing grace. We thank God for His mercy. He is a good God.

  43. And God thought of us so long ago when mankind fell into sin right back in the garden of Eden,

  44. that God Himself did not leave us stranded and He did not leave us alone, that it was prophesied

  45. in Genesis chapter 3 that there was a coming Savior. And then fast forward, we read how Jesus

    Genesis 3 chapter mention

  46. Himself, born of a virgin, that we see that His life was the beginning of the work of the Spirit

  47. of God, which He conceived by the Holy Spirit. And we see that Jesus Himself, when He was baptized,

  48. He received the Holy Spirit. And then we fast forward to Acts chapter 2, and the early church

    Acts 2 chapter mention

  49. was birthed in the Spirit. So, there's something in the presence of the Holy Spirit in the work

  50. of redemption, in the work of salvation. Jesus' birth was a result of the Holy Spirit.

  51. So too, the Christian church. But in between those parameters that I've just spoken about,

  52. Jesus, He walked this earth, and anybody that wanted to know what heaven was like,

  53. what the kingdom of God would be like, all they had to do was look and watch and listen to Jesus,

  54. because He was the... and is the express image of God, and He never spoke of His own.

  55. But Jesus reflected God everywhere He went. And it was there that the kingdom of darkness began

  56. to suffer terribly. What a great conflict that took place when Jesus began to do and preach,

  57. how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, with power, who went about doing good

  58. and healing all who were oppressed of the devil. And so, for the first time in recorded history,

  59. the kingdom of darkness is being challenged. There's a spiritual contest going on.

  60. And here, Jesus, the Son of God, empowered with all might from heaven, from God,

  61. was going about and showing us as human beings the heart of God, the kingdom of God,

  62. the power that resided in Jesus, and Jesus went about and doing wonderful things.

  63. Jesus at one stage then came, was teaching His disciples. He's saying, I'll put this in the

  64. Aussie term, He says, guys, there's coming a day that I'm going to be taken by wicked men,

  65. by wicked men, and they're going to kill me. They're going to crucify me.

  66. But be of good cheer that God is going to raise me from the dead,

  67. and you are going to experience such a wonderful thing.

  68. Jesus told them in Acts chapter 1, do not depart, stay in that upper room, stay there,

    Acts 1 chapter mention

  69. and wait until you receive the promise, the promise of the Holy Spirit. Jesus had instructed them,

  70. you are going to need the infilling of the Holy Spirit to do what I've called you to do.

  71. And Jesus prepared His leadership, He prepared His people

  72. to carry on with what the mission entailed them to do.

  73. And I can imagine Jesus was preparing them saying that when I'm gone, you'll receive this power

  74. from on high, and it's going to be your finest hour that you are going to do exactly what I did,

  75. but in greater numbers. You are going to be building and establishing the kingdom of God

  76. here on earth, and so Jesus preparing His people, His leadership. And so,

  77. Jesus couldn't do anymore. But how many of us know that we can receive all the training and all the

  78. spiritual input, but if we forget key elements of what we've been taught, it can change the whole

  79. narrative of what we see and what we believe. And there's something that these guys totally missed

  80. after Jesus when He was crucified and in the grave, and they missed it. It to me is the key point.

  81. Out of all that what Jesus taught, I believe with all of my heart, Jesus wanted them to capture

  82. this very thing that Jesus will die, He will be raised from the dead, and that He will live

  83. forevermore. But let's read from Luke chapter 24 from verse 1. Now on the first day of the week,

    Luke 24 chapter mention

  84. very early in the morning, they and certain other women with them came to the tomb preparing the

  85. spices which they had prepared, but they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in

  86. and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus, and it happened as they were greatly perplexed about

  87. this, that behold two men stood by them in shining garments, and as they were afraid, and bowed their

  88. faces to the earth, they said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here,

  89. but is risen. Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying the Son of Man must

  90. be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and be raised from the dead. And they

  91. crucified, and the third day rise again, and they remembered His words. Then they returned from the

  92. tomb and told all these things, all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. It was Mary

  93. Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, who told these things to the apostles, and their words

  94. seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them. But Peter arose and ran to the tomb,

  95. and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves, and he departed marveling to himself

  96. at what had happened.

  97. Church, what I feel in my spirit to say this morning, I pray that it won't be too hard or

  98. offensive, but I pray it'll be an encouragement, that it'll be an enlighten us, and empower us,

  99. that it'll be an enlighten us, and empower us, and need be refire us, especially at the revelation

  100. that Jesus is alive. He is alive. And I see that this modern move trying to capture the Christian

  101. church seems to be okay with serving a Lord that whether He's alive or whether He's not, they're

  102. not too perplexed about that. We see a graveyard Christianity that is being manufactured,

  103. and this I believe is exactly what happened to the very people that heard the words from Jesus

  104. Himself, and it said there, and they remembered. They remembered.

  105. But they went down on the first day of the week, early in the morning, they came with

  106. spices, which they had prepared. In other words, nobody goes to the tomb with spices unless

  107. you're going there to finish the embalmment of the deceased. So they're going down there already

  108. with the mindset, Jesus is finished, He's dead. What a great time we had with Him. He did wonderful

  109. things, and we learned a lot from Him. What a great season it was, but it's all over.

  110. And those that were following Jesus, it could have almost sounded like things were going so good,

  111. and now He's dead. And then life can continue down that pathway of trying to readjust and remodel

  112. Christianity, that Jesus did wonderful things, but not have the revelation, I'm speaking of a

  113. divine revelation in our spirit, that Jesus is alive. He's not dead, He is alive and alive forever

  114. forevermore. And they lost that. They were overcome with grief. We thought that Jesus was

  115. going to restore the kingdom to Israel. There were so many hopes that in the natural were dashed when

  116. Jesus took His last breath and said, it is finished. I could imagine His followers looking on

  117. and going, we had great hopes that this would be different. They could sense it, you know,

  118. when the Spirit of God is speaking or moving, you sense it in your spirit. And could you imagine that

  119. all of a sudden, it seemed like everything was ripped away from you. And so here are a bunch of

  120. followers of Jesus Christ that felt that they had everything taken away from them, all their hopes

  121. and dreams. And so here the women come to the grave already accepting this lie that Jesus is dead.

  122. They forgot the words and I believe the church of Jesus Christ needs to hear the words again

  123. and again and again that Jesus is alive and alive forevermore. Now what is the big deal about Jesus

  124. being alive? I'm glad you asked because we're going to get there in just a moment. But in their minds,

  125. they already had accepted the fact it is finished, He's dead. That's the end of that series.

  126. If only they knew it was just the beginning. There are times in our lives when we feel that

  127. all of our hopes are dashed and finished and we feel that it's all over. But I want to let you know

  128. that if you hold on to Jesus with everything that you've got and give everything that you have, your

  129. disappointments, your discouragements and give them to Him, that can be the first day of the

  130. rest of your life where you will walk with Christ and succeed and prosper in the things of God.

  131. Because we have faith in a living God. We have faith in a living Savior.

  132. And He is alive.

  133. But they found a stone rolled away from the tomb.

  134. Could you imagine? This is not like a little stone. This, you know,

  135. in one of the other Gospels, it says, who's going to roll the stone away for us?

  136. And so, they found the stone was already rolled away from the tomb.

  137. And they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And still at this point,

  138. they're looking. Where's His body with the spices in their hands? Let us put the final touch

  139. to His burial. Sometimes as Christians, I've done it myself. We can feel so defeated.

  140. We feel like there's nothing left. And we can so easily adopt the wrong mindset as such

  141. and feel that it's all over. I'm telling you, church, God Himself, as He sent two angels here

  142. to the women to readjust their thinking, cause them to reevaluate the circumstances,

  143. and bring their focus back from their mind as a dead Lord to a living Savior.

  144. And I tell you, life is so different living on that side of Christianity. Jesus is alive.

  145. And it happened, and it happened as they were greatly perplexed about this.

  146. This being perplexed, this amazement

  147. was they did not yet have the revelation that Jesus was alive, that He was risen.

  148. So they are in a not a very good place, thinking, how are we going to finish what we started?

  149. See, this runs deep. It runs very deep. And it's still running deep.

  150. It runs very deep. And it's still running deep in streams that flow around the world.

  151. That Christianity is just a gathering. People sing a few songs and they say a few words,

  152. and then we go home and we do this year in, year out, but no, church, the church of the Lord Jesus

  153. Christ is also alive. It is also living. It is built out of living stones, that's you,

  154. and that's me, and that's you, and you. It's all of us who are truly born again.

  155. The church is alive. The church is filled with the Spirit of God.

  156. And the church is doing great and mighty things for the Lord, building the kingdom of God here on

  157. earth. And I might say under increasingly more difficult circumstances, and it happened as they

  158. were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments.

  159. And these were two angels. If you've ever seen an angel, you will know why these ladies were on

  160. their face. It is a fearful thing to experience a spiritual encounter as such. Then as they were

  161. afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, now the angels are asking the

  162. followers of Jesus a question. Think about that. And this is the question that they asked them.

  163. Why? Why do you seek the living among the dead?

  164. You see, in that time, people that followed false religions and false gods,

  165. and false followers and leaders of false religions, they would often go to their grave

  166. and hope to catch their mantle. You know, people still do that to this day. They call it grave

  167. sucking. They go to the grave of a person that is deceased, an anointed man or woman of God,

  168. and they will lay on that grave in hope to absorb the anointing of that person.

  169. Let me tell you this. I do not believe that that is in Scripture anywhere.

  170. You don't know what you open yourself up to. Why would you do that when Jesus is alive and has

  171. already anointed you? And so, there's this coveting of someone else's anointing.

  172. We want to be like them. But what's wrong with being you?

  173. Do you know that you, as a child of God or as a minister, are the most qualified person to be you?

  174. No one else can be you. God has called you uniquely to do your thing and not to imitate or copy

  175. what someone else is doing, to want to be in their success when God has already anointed you in your

  176. success. And so, you know, this chasing anointings. I don't understand it. I don't.

  177. And so, these people, they used to go to the graves of the greats, as they will call them,

  178. the great people. They would go to the graves of kings in their eyes that were great,

  179. that they established the worship of Moloch and throwing little babies into the fire

  180. as a worship to their God. And they thought it was so great and wonderful, and they would go to

  181. their tombs. And these angels are so great, they are so great, they are so great, they are so great.

  182. And these angels are saying, hey, this has changed a lot here.

  183. All of those that came before that are dead are still dead. And today, saints of God,

  184. if you had the ability to do so, I don't recommend it. But if you could find the grave of Buddha

  185. and you dug it up, you will find His bones in that grave. And if you found the grave of Krishna,

  186. you would find His bones in that grave. And if you exhumed the grave of all the others that

  187. have ever lived, that of the followers that are not of Christ, you will find that their bones

  188. are still in the grave. But as Christians, we know, you don't need to go to Jesus with a shovel to

  189. dig up to find if He's alive, because His grave was empty, the stones rolled away. He is alive

  190. and alive forevermore. We don't have to go among the dead looking for the living.

  191. Jesus is risen from the dead. He's alive. That to me is such exciting news. And then if Jesus is

  192. alive, then His followers are, come on. You're alive. If Christ is truly your Lord and Savior,

  193. you're alive in God. You're alive in Christ. And He desires to do a great work inside of you and

  194. through you. You know, I remember some people that, you know, one guy, he came to the church

  195. probably 20 years ago and he had a $1,200 a week heroin addiction. And he said to me,

  196. am I allowed in the church? And I thought, wow, that is... come and seek among the living,

  197. the living God. And we walked him in and through the worship, he walked out the front,

  198. he fell on his face and his sobbing was as loud as the worship. And we just let him go.

  199. The Holy Ghost was all over him. He got up off the ground, sat in the chair next to me

  200. and never touched heroin again for the rest of his life.

  201. The only way that can happen is because Jesus is alive, He's living. He's living. He's alive.

  202. And He loves people. He sets the captives free. God's not mad at you. God wasn't mad at me when I

  203. was, you know, drinking all those sorts of things and those of us that have been down that same road

  204. God wasn't mad at you. If He was, I mean, we'd all be in trouble. But God provided atonement for our

  205. sin. And that's the Son Jesus Christ. And this man, he got up, he said to me, he said, Rob,

  206. there's more. And I said, yes, you need to give your life to Jesus. And he said, yes,

  207. you need to give your life to Jesus. And see, this happened as an unsaved man. Now think about that.

  208. And he got wonderfully saved. And he got filled with the Holy Spirit,

  209. the evidence of speaking in other tongues. And I know that does offend some people.

  210. But let me tell you that the evidence of speaking in tongues is a sure evidence of a resurrected

  211. Jesus. Because Jesus said, when I rise and I go to the Father, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit

  212. will come. In Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit certainly came and turned ordinary men and women

    Acts 2 chapter mention

  213. into amazing preachers. Peter preached his first sermon, 3000, then 5000. That's not a bad effort

  214. for somebody who's not long been, you know, working for the things of God. That's a pretty good effort.

  215. But the effort that was is the Holy Spirit. Now that guy that came off that heroin delivered from

  216. it, I asked him, I said, what did it feel like? He said, through that time on the floor, I felt so

  217. loved.

  218. No condemnation. He said, I felt so loved and accepted.

  219. And he just said, it was just, well, I won't repeat what he said, but he used a few expletives and

  220. just describe how good he felt. And he came to the next Sunday and he said, I just want to know

  221. that I've got to go reach other drug addicts. I go, I reckon that's the Spirit of God, brother.

  222. Let us train you how to do that. He went out and started, oh, he started a fire.

  223. Sitting here today, maybe you feel that something that's not quite aligned with God right today

  224. is going to stop you from progressing in the sin of love, in the sin of being a sinner,

  225. today is going to stop you from progressing in the things of God. I want to address that.

  226. God works on us. You see, we were justified when we got born again, just as if we never sinned.

  227. And then comes the sanctifying process of the Holy Spirit. If we yield to Him, the sanctifying

  228. process that God helps us and cleans us up and makes us holy. He brings that out. The Bible says

  229. to be holy in all your conduct. And so, you know, when I'm not speaking about a positional holiness

  230. that we received when we got born again, I'm speaking about a progressional holiness that

  231. the Holy Spirit works in us and makes us holy. Does that make sense? Yeah. So don't give up.

  232. Don't stop God from working in you. But we can't go seeking the living among the dead.

  233. You have a call of God on your life. God might send you across the back fence or He might send

  234. you into another state or He might send you into another nation. But whatever it is, God wants to

  235. use you. You have a message. You've got something to say and you've got something worth saying.

  236. God wants to use you and empower you. So why do you seek the living among the dead?

  237. Why do you seek the living among the dead? Saints, I believe that this has been widely

  238. understood as a comforting thing. Why even try? I'll just be a Christian and a good person and

  239. I'll just live my life till I die and I go to the sweet by and by. But no, God's got a lot more for

  240. you. He's called you to shake the kingdom of darkness because Jesus is alive in you.

  241. He's alive in you. You have a calling. You have a mission. The angels said, He is not here, but He

  242. is risen. They remembered. Let's go down to verse 11. And their words seemed to them like idle

  243. tales and they did not believe them. That's a sad passage of scripture.

  244. You see, I'll tell you, I sense the presence of God, the Holy Spirit so, so powerfully.

  245. So powerfully. And I sense in my spirit, the Lord is just speaking in my heart saying,

  246. He's going to bring this revelation alive. A revelation many of us know here,

  247. but it hasn't dropped to here. I tell you, when that revelation drops,

  248. you're going to turn the world upside down and inside out and right side up for Jesus.

  249. The scripture was used this morning, Juliet and communion, greater, greater is He that is in you

  250. than He that is of the world. This message that we preach, the marvelous gospel of Jesus Christ,

  251. we need to know did not come from this planet. It came from heaven. So we have a message

  252. that is foreign to this world, yet so needed. And we need to understand in this world,

  253. if you run it down to the line, there are two kingdoms that exist in this world.

  254. There's the kingdom of darkness and there's the kingdom of light. Now each kingdom has a ruler.

  255. The ruler of the kingdom of darkness, as we know, is Satan and he's mean. He's nasty. He came to

  256. steal, kill and destroy. There's no mercy, there's no compassion, there's no goodness in Him at all.

  257. It's all darkness. And he's doing this on this planet as we live and we're seeing it.

  258. Just turn on the news and you will see it. But the ruler of the kingdom of light is Jesus.

  259. He is all good, He is all truth, He is all light. There is no darkness in Him at all,

  260. all light. There is no darkness in Him at all, at all. He doesn't lie, He tells the truth.

  261. And He has come to give life and life in its abundance. And so those two kingdoms clash.

  262. And when you and I got born again, we came out of that kingdom of darkness

  263. and we were translated into the kingdom of light. So we no longer are under the

  264. power of that old master. And the thing that really amazes me when I got saved,

  265. it was like this revelation then as a newly saved Christian, that when I was being led to Christ,

  266. when I made the decision to accept Christ in my life, there was no power of darkness that could

  267. stop me from that point. And when I bowed my knee and received Christ, I felt this incredible

  268. power and this experience that there are no words to explain it.

  269. There are no words to explain it. But Christ had come into my life.

  270. When Christ came into your life, it was an incredible experience.

  271. I've been, and I know you guys have too, been privileged and blessed to see miracles take place.

  272. Blind eyes open, deaf ears hear, cripples walk. We've seen it. And we rejoice in that, and rightly so,

  273. because it's all evidence of a risen Savior. But there is no greater miracle than salvation.

  274. When a person comes out of slavery into freedom, out of darkness into light, there's no greater

  275. miracle. Forgiveness of sin, eternal life, what a wonderful blessing. I'd like to go now to Ephesians

    Ephesians 1 chapter mention

  276. chapter 1. I just spend a little minute here, and no that is not my first close for those that are asking.

  277. Praise God. And I'm going to cut in at verse 19 of Ephesians chapter 1.

    Ephesians 1 chapter mention

  278. And what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe? Do you believe today?

  279. Do you believe? Well, there's an exceeding greatness of power for you.

  280. Toward us who believe according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ when He

  281. Come on. When He? From? So that means that Jesus is alive.

  282. Which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand

  283. in the heavenly places. Right hand symbolizes authority. Now listen to this. Far above all

  284. principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age,

  285. but also in which is to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him to be the head

  286. of all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

  287. Let us grasp the picture here. When Jesus was raised from the dead,

  288. He was raised far above, not just equal to, far above all principality and power and

  289. might and dominion. What is that? They are the ruling ranks of the devil's kingdom.

  290. So it's made very clear here that number one, Jesus is alive. Number two, Jesus has been exalted

  291. to heaven at the right hand of the Father with all authority. Number three, He has total authority

  292. and power over every ruling dominion of the kingdom of darkness. Now we should start to be

  293. getting excited about this because this is what I want to say. There is no power of darkness that

  294. can overrun your life unless you let it. Because as I said, Jesus is alive.

  295. You've seen it, I've seen it. Like my friend who was delivered from heroin,

  296. that is one of many that we have witnessed over the years.

  297. To see what Jesus has done, that people being in outlaw gangs, there are some of you here today,

  298. I won't point you out, but you know who you are. You came from a very dark background

  299. and yet Christ still received you. You know, what a rejoicing moment when a person comes to you,

  300. you know, what a rejoicing moment when a person comes from darkness and calls upon the name of

  301. Jesus to save them. Jesus said that all of the angels, not some, all of the angels in heaven

  302. rejoice with this guy who might be covered in tattoos, been stoned and stolen, all those sorts

  303. of things, that there's a place in heaven for a person who repents. There's a place in heaven.

  304. How can that be? Because Jesus is not in the grave and when He rose from the dead,

  305. He Himself as the sacrifice now became the high priest and He took His own blood when He ascended

  306. into heaven and poured out His own blood in the mercy seat in heaven that makes atonement for the

  307. sin of the world. And that's why the Scripture says in Romans chapter 10 that whoever calls on

    Romans 10 chapter mention

  308. the name of the Lord shall be saved. Why? Because atonement has been made for the whole world.

  309. Hallelujah. God is a graceful God. He's a good God and the atonement is there because Jesus is

  310. not dead, He's alive. Come as you are. Come as you are. That day that night I got saved,

  311. I was under the influence of several different things. I remember saying to Chantel,

  312. let me get out of my pajamas and give me a couple of days to dry, you know, and she said,

  313. you just come right now, boy. She knew that I was trying to buy a bit of time, I think.

  314. But let me give you an example how powerful it is when you receive the living Christ in your life.

  315. Before I became a Christian, I alluded to this last week, I never finished the story.

  316. Okay. I was being attacked physically by a demonic being and it went for around about six months.

  317. And most nights it happened, not every night. But what would happen, I would be paralyzed in bed,

  318. fully awake, and this creature thing would try and torment me and it did a good job. And I tell

  319. you that every time that I tried to resist it with all the might that I had, this thing's power would

  320. increase just multiplied. And I knew that I was subservient to the power of this thing, that I was

  321. not going to win. And I knew this thing wanted to kill me. I knew it. I would be choked, half dragged

  322. out of bed. But often in the struggle and the thrashing, Shantel would wake up, she never saw

  323. it. But as soon as she touched me, this thing would stop, just stopped. And I thought, you know,

  324. then the following days I'd think, Lord, this is all wrong. You know, we as the men of the house

  325. need to be the protector of the house. But now it's like, wake your wife up, honey, there's an

  326. intruder in the house, get them and pull the sheets over your head. That's what I felt like.

  327. How many men can, you know, align themselves with that? Come on, there must be more than one.

  328. And so, I was totally overrun by this thing. And eventually this one night,

  329. it went ballistic and I thought I was going to die and Shantel ministered to me. And it was that

  330. night that I received Christ. And she said to me something that I didn't really take seriously and

  331. I want us to grab hold of this this morning. She said to me, if that thing ever comes back,

  332. you now have an authority that in the name of Jesus, you can command this thing to go.

  333. Now, in here, I'm thinking, but I'm a this and I'm a that and she's, no, you're not.

  334. That's what you did. It's not where you're going.

  335. And about two weeks later, I said to Shantel, I should have done this years ago. I'm a very

  336. slow learner. I had such wonderful peace and rest and I would stay because I had a back injury at

  337. the time and I couldn't work. And so I was trying to stay awake at night and sleep during the day.

  338. And and my whole life was just turning around upside down inside out. And until one night,

  339. about two weeks later, Shantel went to sleep. Let me, how many of our wives, as soon as their

  340. head hits that pillow, they're gone. If you want to have a conversation, forget it, write it down

  341. and talk tomorrow because you're not going to wake them up. So this thing came back and it was furious.

  342. And I was sitting against the head of the bed, is that what you call it?

  343. And I was saying, Jesus, get him, Jesus, get him, get him, Jesus. And this thing was going to tear me apart.

  344. And then this thought came back.

  345. Rebuke it in the name of Jesus. And I said, in the name of Jesus, I rebuke you thinking

  346. that this is weird, right? But you try anything. And when I said, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,

  347. this thing just stopped. You could see like a sudden stopping. And I realized I had something.

  348. And I said it again. How many of you know when the bully, you find out the bully's a coward,

  349. that suddenly you're no longer intimidated that now you're the aggressor? Anyone ever found that?

  350. That's what happened. And inside of me rose this boldness. And I remember saying it quite loud,

  351. in the name of Jesus, I rebuke you. And this thing burst into like billions of particles

  352. and it was like an upside down tornado. And as it left, Chantel woke up, the curtains were being

  353. blown around, all papers on top of the wardrobe, and there was like a carnage in the room, and then

  354. there was a rest. Why do I say that? What is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who

  355. believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised

  356. Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand and in heavenly places, far above all

  357. principalities and powers of might and dominion in every name that is named, not only this age,

  358. but that is which to come. And He put all things under His feet. If you are a believer today,

  359. a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ and serving the Lord Jesus Christ, you have the authority

  360. of the living Christ that lives inside of you and at the name of Jesus, at the name of Jesus.

  361. If Jesus was dead, He would have no power in the realm. If Jesus was not alive, the devil would not

  362. be threatened. When I was confronted with one of the devil's servants, He didn't know anything,

  363. He didn't respond to any of my physical strength except with more of His strength. There was a

  364. battle I was never going to win, but I'm telling you, when Christ is in you and He is living

  365. alive and you have a revelation that He is there, you will go across every rough sea in life,

  366. you'll go through the fires, you'll go through the waters, Christ, He's with you. Why? Is because He

  367. is alive.

  368. Thank you for joining us. We pray God's richest blessing on your life. If you haven't already,

  369. make sure to join us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. You can also find us at

  370. LoganCityChristianChurch.com. See you next week.