The Greatest Strategy of the Devil Towards Christians | I Love My Church - Week 4 | Pastor Mike Signorelli

If you struggle with loneliness, even in a room full of

to mask your true personality when you're

else, paying for the gas, if you're the

If you're the one that's always hosting, always facilitating,

if you're the one always calling them,

Oh, come on.

Is anybody getting freedom already?

This message is for you.

So I want you to watch this thing all the way through.

I want you to lock in for this.

But a lot of times when we feel like we're all alone, when we

do.

We isolate when we need to congregate.

So turn to the introvert next to you and say, don't isolate, congregate.

Come on, put it in the comment section right now.

Don't isolate, congregate.

Come on, tell them.

Yes.

That means you people say, I'm so shy around who I'm so I'm quiet

Because I see some people who act quiet around certain people,

and then you see them in another setting,

So we need to get together.

We need unity.

We need to come together.

So I am going to briefly preach this word, and I'm not going

I was teasing.

But we don't isolate.

We congregate.

We need each other.

And so the primary tactic of the devil is to make you feel alone

So there's the chance that you're at a location right now, and

Nobody understands, nobody knows what I go through.

And that is a tactic of the devil.

And I just want to tell you, like, God brought you here to hear

Now, you tuned in to hear this message, because the, okay, this

is, I'm gonna help you.

The greatest strategy of the devil is not lust, it's isolation.

You think you have a lust problem, you think you have a pornography

The greatest strategy of the devil is not addiction.

It's not alcoholism, it's isolation.

Isolation is the greatest attack that you can experience from

It's not even trauma, it's isolation.

Oh, come on.

If you want to break the psyche of a human being, put him

in isolation, that will break a human

being.

Okay?

So I want to unlock this for you, but I've got to.

I have to confess something.

I made a horrible mistake.

I got a dog, and he is a.

What is he, a doodle?

What is hedehethere?

Something like that.

Very unintelligent.

And, you know, where I'm from, you know, dogs will kill you.

Where I'm from, your dog will protect you.

They'll.

You know what I'm saying?

I won't go any further than that.

Cause I don't want.

But our dogs were valuable where I come from.

You know, your dog was man's best friend.

I bought an enemy, and I'll tell you, this dog can't get a paper.

He can't fetch a paper.

He dog can't do nothing for me.

So the other day, I was in the backyard with my family, and I got

Star?

You ever get that, like, feeling, like, where's my dog?

Cause there's two kinds of dogs.

Dogs that can be left alone and dogs that should never be left

alone.

I got one of those dogs.

So something in me was like, where's Star?

Where's Star?

Now, Star finally figured out he's tall enough to jump up and reach

Now, if you would have told me that I would work as hard as I work

And put the QR code up and see who wants to do deliverance on this

dog.

Because I.

Because I had this pit in my stomach.

We're star.

And the kids were like, oh, he's just in the house.

He's just in the house.

So I walk in, and I start calling out, Star.

Star, where are you?

And everybody here knows when the dog doesn't come running to you,

It's just like in the garden of Eden.

Adam, Adam, where are you?

Am I right?

It's like when Adam and Eve sin.

They can't be nowhere to be found because we isolate when we're

ashamed.

That is.

Even a dog will isolate when a dog is ashamed.

And so guess what star did?

I had just bought this butter.

Now, this was grass finished, organic, pure butter.

And, you know, groceries are expensive right now.

So I said, I'm gonna do this for daddy.

Daddy's getting the good butter.

Y'all use your butter.

But that's dad's butter.

Star got up on the counter, ate half of all of that butter, his

And when I find him and he's wiggling his tail and moving around

Are you gonna put me on this?

You know, the dogs, like, which version of Mike am I gonna

get?

And I'm like, I'm figuring it out right now.

So he will be available now.

That dog vomited butter.

He pooped butter.

Liquid form everywhere.

Yeah.

Welcome to my world.

That's what I went through for this dog.

So.

But here's.

Here's the point in the story is one of the most natural consequences

of shame and guilt is hiddenness, but

do.

So when you find yourself falling back into sin, the first

When you have that big blow up argument with your spouse, you're

And you're gonna hide just, like, star with a mouthful of butter,

And so a lot of you, the very thing you need to do is congregate.

But instead, what you do is isolate when you go back.

That's why I said the biggest attack of the enemy is isolation.

Let me just tell you another way.

The Bible says, confess your sins one to another, and you will

be healed.

When you confess your sins to God, you're forgiven.

But when you confess your sins to each other, you're healed.

And some of you are forgiven, but not healed.

Healing happens when you finally reveal.

Healing happens when you get real.

Healing happens when you say, you know what?

My marriage is jacked up.

I blew up on my wife.

I can't believe I did it.

I know you're going to think less of me.

No, we actually think more of you because you told the truth.

Now, let's get you in the marriage group around other married

Cause the first thing that happens when you get into the marriage

Honey, we're not doing too bad, and it heals you.

Or you find out that you relapsed into addiction, but you

up.

And then there's a healing that happens to your heart.

So isolation is a trap of the enemy.

This is the last and final installment on the series we've been

doing.

I love my church and Jesus is praying in heaven.

I have an intercessor.

You all know that song, high priest praise for me.

I don't know the words.

So Jesus is in heaven, interceding that we would come into

unity.

But we are one of the most divided, fragmented churches in the

And I'm not talking about v.

One.

I'm talking about the body of Christ.

And so we're going to look at this because I've got some revelations

I need to share with you, because some

My porn problem.

No, it's an isolation problem.

You do it when you're alone.

It's an isolation problem.

So what God wants to do is go to the root.

See, when humanity fell and Adam and Eve were in hiding, they

God was calling them.

The only one in the garden that could restore was God.

But it was the furthest they ran from him.

So it's like, I'm just trying to tell you in this church, let's

Or for those of you who are self righteous Pharisees, stop acting

than you.

Because this is what happens, is a lot of times when you become

a Christian, you start thinking that

Like, you don't have any.

And the Bible doesn't say don't judge.

So for those of you who have the tattoos that say only God can

Because the Bible didn't say that.

It actually says somebody is like, only God can judge me.

And you know you got that because you were doing something

bad.

But all joking aside, no, go get it covered up for real.

Maybe like a dove or something like that.

A lion, something like that.

But here's what I'm saying.

The Bible says, judge not lest ye be judged.

There are certain people that have the responsibility to judge.

But the problem is, if you sow judgment, you reap judgment.

And so the Bible says you should actually.

You should be sowing grace so that you reap grace, you should be

And if you are to judge, and that is your designation, make sure

The problem is we've somehow got the mindset that it's our job

And you've got more christians judging than they are, dispensing

grace.

And mercy.

And we have to become the kind of people that say, listen, I'm going

So even when you think you're doing good, be merciful, because

then when you fall off, you'll reap mercy.

I'm treating you how I need a future version of me to be treated.

Oh, come on.

And the Bible also says, and I don't know who this is for, but I

The Bible also says that we should not revel or glory in someone

So if you watch somebody fall and you get a little twinge of satisfaction

That's a heart of flesh that needs to be crucified, and you need

And I will tell you, the Bible says a righteous man may fall seven

up every single time.

And so even when you see somebody fall, you need to be praying,

Pull them back up.

And so even for those of you who feel like, I keep falling, keep

I've been serving the Lord for a long time, and I've fallen many

times.

But the Lord, I hear him in heaven saying, I have a high priest

If you're not dead, you're not done.

Get back up.

So I just want to encourage somebody.

You know, we don't revel when somebody falls.

We're not calling them out.

We're saying, get up.

We're calling you up.

Get back up.

Oh, I fell back into addiction.

Well, one of these days, you're going to get back up and never

That's the word of the Lord for somebody.

Okay, now let's talk about the iPhone users.

I gotta break something down for you.

IPhone is always updating, and I can't tell if it's getting better

or worse.

And then there's droid out of the bowels of hell.

I'm teasing.

I'm just, I'm totally teasing.

But what you understand about iPhone versus Android is that they

Now, here's what I want to teach you briefly.

Every single one of us, myself included, has received a download

of software called culture.

Okay, now, all of us have different downloads and we were raised

So if you were raised in Catholicism, you have the software

of Catholicism.

So you might come into a service like this, and you might

see everything going on and be like,

Because your software is Android, right?

It's like, versus Apple, you know?

Okay.

I'm treading lightly.

I'm treading lightly.

They're all sharpening their knives and loading their guns over

here.

So here's the thing.

Just hear me.

We all have cultural downloads, right?

Like, when I heard a Long Islander say the word drawer.

Cause we pull out the drawer, I was like, they call it draw or

water.

I'm like, it's not water.

It's water, right?

It's like you go.

And then, you know the Australians, when they say, no, it's

It's like, it's not.

Where's the r?

There's no r.

It's not nar.

It's no.

But we all get these.

We all get these downloads of culture, right?

Some people put sugar in their cornbread and some don't.

And you guys didn't laugh at that because none of y'all even eat

cornbread.

But where I'm from, with the mountaineers and the hillbillies,

if I said that cornbread should have sugar,

I would start a riot.

And on Long island, everybody's asking themselves, what

We do need to have a potluck over here.

That's how we're going to unite, and we're going to teach them,

in an iron skillet, and you definitely

put sugar in it, and that's all you're going

to know here in New York.

But when I married Julie, their family didn't put sugar in

So y'all feel me?

I don't know why some Caucasians don't know how to season

I said it.

I said it.

I don't understand it.

In our culture, nobody ever educated us.

We need you.

We need you.

Somebody on the front row is going straight up.

You do.

I've been to your house.

I've eaten your food.

You need us.

I don't know how you made it to this age, how you survived eating

Now we're laughing about it.

But here's the thing.

This software can unite us or it can divide us.

And the thing that is hard about growing a healthy church is

unity at the altar of preference.

And we need to learn how to appreciate, and we need to learn

how to validate and vindicate, and we

go.

And I want to break down because I'm going to get into the

that you've received and we're going to

But as a church, you guys don't mind when I get intellectual

and I go into professor mode.

Are you with me?

Okay, so, because as a Student of Philosophy, philosophy is an Inherited

Software.

So in other words, human beings did not always think the way

And they also think differently across regions and across

countries.

So it's, we all have a different software.

So sometimes we have to ask, like, what download did you get?

Because what download you get determines how you interact with

the whole world.

So, number one, and if you're taking Notes, the biggest download

that we have in this generation of Software,

Our mindsets is called hedonism.

It's called hedonism.

So if you're taking Notes, it's H e d o n I S M, hedonism.

And this is what hedonism means.

It's the WorlDvIEw that life exists for my pleasure and my purpose.

So most of us are not really Christians, we're hedonistic Christians.

CausE we've blended some of its biblical and some of its philosophical.

So what does this mean?

Life exists for my pleasure and my purpose.

So what that means is, and now even people who are not christians,

most of their life is in search of pleasure.

What feels good, that's what I want to do.

It feels good when I sleep with this person.

It feels good when I traveled and go on vacations.

Hedonism is I'm always, I want to go on vacation.

I want to go on a cruise.

I want to get buzzed, but not too drunk.

I want to get high, but not too high.

I want to sleep, but I don't want sexually transmitted diseases.

We're always trying to avoid the consequence of seeking pleasure.

That's hedonism.

Wow.

We're one of those churches, every time someone visits, they're

Wow.

But I like the feedback.

Wow.

Yeah.

That is how I wasted my twenties.

It's hedonism.

And we never want to live where we live.

We always fantasize about living somewhere else.

We never want to be with who we're with.

We fantasize with being with someone else.

That's hedonism.

The problem is when preachers stopped preaching the Bible and started

they accommodated the scriptures to hedonism.

So then the church said, come here and I will teach you how to

And then you said, my purpose, your purpose, my purpose.

But biblically, there is no my.

It's the we over the me.

So biblically, you didn't have an individual purpose.

Biblically, you have a purpose that can only be achieved collectively.

So when you preach messages like, I want to teach you how to

is it reinforces your selfishness, because

Jesus was perfect and didn't fulfill his purpose alone.

Do you hear what I just said?

If anybody had an argument for not needing other people, it was

And he still recruited twelve other people because he said, it's

Even in the book of Genesis.

This is for the theologians.

In the book of Genesis, God himself refers to himself in a triune

nature.

Come on, God's trying to help you do.

Okay, let's go.

The other operating system is called narcissism.

We're gonna go there, we're gonna talk about narcissism.

Narcissism is a software download that we've received in culture.

And now before you're like, I'm not a narcissist.

You do understand?

Every narcissist has said they're not a narcissist.

So be careful.

Be careful.

I'm not a narcissist.

Okay, that sounds a little narcissistic.

Just chill.

Let's listen.

Okay, you know what, people?

I'm not prideful.

I'm like, okay, pride.

That's exactly how prideful people sound.

You understand that, right?

Okay, so narcissism is a software that says, life is about

the unholy trinity of me, myself, and

I.

And if you get married to a narcissist, they didn't covenant

to you.

They actually married you to use you because your life exists

for their pleasure and their purpose.

They didn't marry you.

See?

Okay, y'all got me sweating already.

Okay, so let me explain this.

Biblically, marriage was established so that two people would

So it was, wives, submit to your husbands.

Come on.

All the husbands said, amen.

Come on, come on.

Everybody's nervous.

The husbands are like, come on.

It's the Bible.

I'm quoting the Bible.

Wives, submit to your husband.

By the way, wives, it doesn't say submit if he's a Christian.

It doesn't say submit if he is perfect and does everything right.

And submit if you think he's worthy of submission.

It says, wives, submit to your husbands.

Oh, no, listen, my wife.

And I'm looking right now, Julie, you didn't always submit to

me.

Because she would say, well, he's not worthy of submission.

He has an anger problem.

He just punched a hole in the wall.

He just drank too much.

He's not even a real Christian.

I see how he acts alone, and this was 20 years ago.

She didn't always submit to me, so I empathize.

But the Bible says, wives, submit to your husband.

And so what this gives us a picture of is that narcissism is

to serve you, not you serve them.

But then the Bible, okay, now it got real, real quiet.

No, everybody's super.

They're like, I don't like this teaching.

This is bad teaching.

We're equals.

Relax.

We're not.

Let me explain.

Wives, submit to your husband.

But then here's the other side of it.

Husbands, lay down your life as Christ laid his life down for

So here's what happens in this real equation.

When a wife submits to a husband, what will happen to a good

be for that woman.

And then he will reciprocate by giving his whole life in surrender

and sacrifice for that woman.

And here's my evidence of it.

When you had your first.

I'm talking to the men.

When you had your first kid, something activated in you that said,

I have to stop playing games.

I have to be the best man I can be for this baby.

Am I right, men?

Am I right?

Why?

Because you.

Okay, now this is gonna blow your mind.

Wow.

Because I already feel it coming.

Wow.

Because I'm trying to be sensitive, because I'm preaching

the opposite of american culture right

now.

You innately understood that your child is under you.

And because your child is submitted to you, you were willing

to sacrifice for those who were submitted.

So when a wife submits to a husband, it will have the same effect

Does this make sense?

So it provokes something out of you.

But let me go even deeper than that.

Wives, okay, watch.

Children submit to wives who are submitted to husbands who submit

All those layers of covering are really hard for the devil to

Is this on?

Wow.

So you don't have to be submitted, but why would you not?

You don't have to come up under the awning when it's raining.

You can get soaking wet, you can get a cold, and you can get pneumonia,

warm.

You don't have to cement.

But I'll tell you, your life changes when you do.

You don't need a pastor just like you don't need an awning.

You could stay out in the rain, you can get struck by lightning,

you can get pneumonia, or you can come

See, there's something about this.

There's something about, is this helping you?

Because what I'm saying is, I'm preaching against hedonism, and

and that is so antithetical to our whole culture.

Like, can I just tell you, okay, if narcissism is the belief

that of the unholy trinity of me, myself,

And when you start serving other people, you will initially

think that you're helping them.

When you hand out food in Brooklyn or in Portage, Indiana,

when we do the food distribution, you're

gonna think that you're helping them at

first.

You're gonna drive all the way there on your time off, and you're

to all of these people.

When you drive early in the morning to go all the way to the

to set it up, and you're gonna think

You're gonna think, I came to church early.

I'm a super Christian.

My friends don't even go to church.

And I'm going early, and I'm going to set it up.

But then something starts to happen.

You realize that it's helping you more than you're helping it,

Narcissism will make you go insane.

Why?

And you're like, I'm not narcissistic.

Then why do you think about yourself all day?

Even hurt feelings can become a form of narcissism, because you're

In those moments where you're handing food to somebody in a Brooklyn

You're actually receiving the anecdote for what this world corrupted

us with because you're not thinking

about yourself.

You're thinking about, how many potatoes can I give you and

That's what I'm thinking about when I serve the people in Brooklyn.

I'm thinking, do we have enough food?

This and this same thing with load in.

You come in early in the morning, then you realize this is

And so it's like this church, they used me.

No, no, no, listen.

You didn't.

The medication didn't use you.

You used the medication.

You needed this more than it needed you.

Let me put it another way.

What we are a part of is always bigger than any part we'll

play.

So this is the diagnosis.

This is why we need this.

This is good for our soul.

Okay, I'm going to give you a few more softwares.

Is this helping anybody?

Okay, because I know it's kind of deep, but we're going there.

One of the biggest softwares that people have downloaded to their

Agnosticism.

You can write this down in your notes.

A g n o s t I c I S m.

Agnosticism.

And it means that God.

This is how they believe.

God may exist.

I'm not denying his existence, but he's unknowable and he's not

So God may exist somewhere, but he's unknowable, and he's not

life.

Now, based on that definition, how many of you know a lot of people

Almost every hand, like, you go to your job tomorrow, and you're

They're like, yeah, God might exist somewhere, somehow.

You go to school, you ask them, that's agnosticism.

That's a worldview, and that came from somewhere.

But can I just tell you, and this is why we need the gifts of

When you give somebody a word of knowledge, if you prophesy accurately

and he's intimately involved in your

life.

I was just at a pastor's conference, and that's why I'm getting

and then we're going to close it out.

I just went to a pastor's.

I got the privilege of preaching to a thousand pastors.

And as I was preaching.

The Lord told me, preach on the gifts of the Holy Spirit because

They believe that it's God the Father, Jesus the Son and the holy

scriptures.

And they deleted the Holy Spirit.

And I am on a mission to say, we cannot do this without the Holy

Spirit.

And if you deny the gifts of the spirit, you're denying the gift

giver.

And I want to give the Holy Spirit honor.

So I did this message and I was preaching on the gifts of the

And did you know that over a dozen pastors and their team walked

And now listen, you don't know what kind of courage you have until

things.

But many stayed.

Then when I got done, I said, okay, I'm going to risk in front

of you.

I'm going to put myself on the line and I'm going to demonstrate

the gifts of the spirit.

Now I have all my apostolic oversight, all the people that helped

And I'm thinking I'm either gonna fail the hardest I've ever

And I said, I can't teach you about prophecy without prophesying.

This just happened last week, by the way.

And all of a sudden I just said, lord, please help me prove

that you're real holy spirit.

Prove that, you know these people.

Prove that you're involved in their life.

Prove that there's more than just memorizing the scriptures.

Cause even the devil knows the scriptures but doesn't obey to the

scriptures.

And so all of a sudden I looked at this pastor and I said,

I want to say something to you.

And I said, you've been faithful to serve many other men

But God is now going to bring people to your ministry and they're

you to move, that they want to move to

a part of your ministry.

And then I got more, and the holy spirit was showing me and I

While I'm saying this, this grown man next to this pastor is

I mean, like losing it.

And I'm like, I was like, well, I just have to, I said to the

I said to the guy crying, why are you crying?

He stands up.

I live in Seattle.

I flew all the way here to tell this pastor.

God told me to move to Michigan to be a part of his church.

And he told me no.

But I knew it was goddesse.

Wow.

No, I don't say that to give myself credit, but I will tell you,

Because he's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And he was involved in speaking then, and he's speaking

today.

And the gifts of the Holy Spirit have not ceased in the earth.

Then I said, there's other people who want to give you financially,

and you're telling them no.

And the Lord says yes.

And a man behind him starts crying.

And then he comes up and he says, I tried to give him $5,000

for his ministry today, and he told me

no.

So we're preaching from our head, not from our spirit.

And that's why the american church is dying.

But I got good news.

As the american church is shrinking, the remnant is rising.

The real ones, the ones who know, oh, I want the real deal.

Show me.

So you didn't get invited to church today.

You got invited to become the church and step out of hedonism,

out of narcissism, be the hands and feet

of Jesus.

Whether it's handing out a loaf of bread or handing out a prophetic

It's Jesus in the morning, it's Jesus in the noonday, it's Jesus

This Jesus is alive through the resurrection.

He never stopped talking.

Still alive.

My friends don't want to go to church.

Well, why would they?

Our churches are castrated and powerless.

And when you invite them to v one, they ain't expecting all this,

because what we've been given is a lethal

So here's, let me show you.

Okay.

This is the grand finale.

We're 3 hours in.

It went fast.

So this is the ending of this message.

This is the last installment of this series.

I heart my church.

It has to be about unity now, because the opposite of all the worldviews

But unity cannot be legislated by a politician.

You hear what I'm saying?

So in the next month or so, when we all vote, let us not divide

as if that politician, whoever it is,

because it requires blood to be shed to unify

But I started looking at the scriptures because the approval of

All throughout the scriptures, including the New Testament, fire

except for one time.

And we're going to look at it.

But it starts in acts, chapter two, verse one through four, where

it says, when the day of Pentecost arrived,

Everybody say all together and everybody say one place.

That one place could be digital right now, as you're joining

That one place is Brooklyn, that one place is Indiana.

That one place is here.

Man, I.

I don't know where Christine Papetti is.

I don't know where she's at.

I love her.

And I was just talking to her yesterday and she said, pastor Mike,

world.

Didn't even know Jesus.

Had one of the worst experiences of my life.

Had a panic attack because I was drunk and high.

My heart rate was at 200 for 5 hours.

I thought I was going to die.

And they had to take me out of the parking lot in an ambulance.

Then her friend, years later, invited her to church, and the church

And when they pulled up into the parking lot, Christine said her

Now, Christine is a daughter of this house.

She's been sober for years.

She's literally on the staff of our church, helping us reach the

They were all together in one place.

We have to come together to meet.

If they can meet for the sports games, we can meet for church.

If they can come on somebody.

We're not going to prioritize a soccer league over the gospel in

If they can meet together at the bar, we can raise the bar and

If they can meet for school Monday through Friday, and you'll

kid off to school, we have to meet together

of the spirit.

Because your kids are receiving a download of hedonism

at their school.

Your kids are receiving a download of narcissism at their school.

Your kids are receiving it.

They're being discipled by Babylon, by seducing demonic spirits

in the curriculum.

Y'all bring the music down for a second.

Something historic happened last week.

I want to show you how serious this is last week.

And you don't even know what happened because of how much propaganda

in every direction.

Last week, Russia banned the teaching of evolution in every school

Hear what I'm saying?

This is not an endorsement of Putin.

This is not an endorsement of Russia.

But I want to show you something last week, and you didn't

Evolution was banned from being taught in every school in Russia.

And the politicians are saying when we taught evolution, it led

to agnosticism, which led to atheism,

then atheism to nihilism, and then nihilism

the destruction of the nuclear family,

and it erodes an entire society.

So Russia was saying, this is not even a religious decision, but

bomb.

So while everybody's thinking of weapons of mass destruction, what's

But then you're like, I don't know if I feel like going to church

And I'm thankful for the teachers that we have across every

Just like yeast in there to leaven that bread.

And to say, as long as there's still someone righteous in there,

I'm thankful for.

We've got kids on this long island campus that are debuting a

And so we may not be able to help that.

We could go into the school, but we can help what happens on the

and Abednego up in Babylon, and he's

Come on.

I agree.

Amen.

I like this front row on Long island.

I'm just saying, they have helped me preach.

But listen, why is this so serious?

Because fire fell when there was unity.

First kings, chapter 18, verse 30.

1 Kings 18:30

Then Elijah said to the people, come here to me.

Come here to me.

So let's meet together.

And they came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which

Now the rest of the story takes place that you know about.

First kings, chapter 18, verse 38.

1 Kings 18:38

And 39.

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice.

And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and

Okay?

All these years I've been reading the Bible.

Every time fire falls in scripture.

I looked at the guy that was presiding over the fire falling as

When I went back and revisited the scriptures, what I realized is

And then from that unity, the fire fell.

So how many of you know the story of Elijah versus the prophets

of Baal?

And they're basically saying, baal is the true God.

Which, by the way, the spirit of Baal is very much in operation

today.

These ancient demons have taken on new new names, but it's

the same spirit.

And so they were cutting themselves, these prophets of Baal,

And then Elijah comes and says, God, now it's time to bring

Here's the problem.

If you read that story but you don't read all the scriptures, you'll

Elijah called all the people of God together, brought them into

fall.

So the problem is we want Elijah, but we don't want a congregation.

We want fire to fall, but we don't want to gather everybody together.

And what I'm saying is, we're about to go back to the word and

And we're about to put our preferences and our divisions aside.

And we're to say God.

Regardless of our political affiliation.

Whether we say water, draw drawer water, whether we have sugar

to fulfill the call that you have on

And let me just tell you this, because I've been feeling led of

You know, when Randall and Mary are now our campus pastors of

I love them with my heart.

But Randall had received a prophecy that there was going to

he could never go on his own.

And that he was gonna, this was gonna be a sign from God.

So then Randall is going on this search.

Who is this white guy?

Where is he?

And then all of a sudden he came to v one and he met me and he

you know?

And that's a true story.

And then what's funny is all these years later, it has come to

And so I was telling the story at our Indiana location, and I had

Come on, you can laugh about it.

And they were saying, you're my white pastor.

And I said, I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing,

Here's the thing.

I didn't choose to be white, but I chose to be in unity.

Randall had to get a prophetic word from God to say, don't judge

the container and miss the contents.

Come on.

I'm trying to say so.

I don't know why I'm the race.

I am.

I don't know why you are.

But if we come together in this place, I believe that the God

And we can bring the racial divide down, and we can step up in

unity.

And fire from heaven will fall fire on our finances fire of God

unity.

Somebody shout, fire, fall.

Oh, this message will get you in trouble.

I'm about done.

We're about to pray in a second.

I'm about to pray.

How many of you know the burning bush moment with Moses?

The burning bush.

Everybody always thinks it's about Moses and God.

It's not.

The burning bush was fire on that bush to get Moses attention,

to give him instructions to unify Israel.

It was always about unity.

It was always about unity.

How many of you know Gideon?

Gideon's army?

Sometimes you got to thin it out so we can grow back healthy.

And he was looking, who's drinking from the brook?

Looking down, and who's drinking from the brook?

Looking up?

In other words, who's vigilant, who's awake, who is seeing

Let me just tell you, there are some of you in this place that

to see such a time as this.

Just like the sons of Issachar that came out of the lineage of the

Levites.

They could discern the signs of the times they knew.

And I will tell you this, Christ's return is hastening.

We are drawing near to that hour.

We are living in the last days, and I don't know what day that's

Just like when a woman is travailing in birth and the contractions

are happening.

You don't know the moment of birth, but you know you're in labor.

I will tell you, Jesus Christ is getting ready to return, and I

the signs of the times, and they're seeing

And we say, lord, we are the wise virgins that have more oil in

this dark night, and we will not succumb

to deception because we know who you

are.

Stand to your feet with me as we close.

Now.

Fire fall.

Fire fall.

Okay, remember I said there's one time when fire fell, but it did

I'm going to tell you that story right now.

It is the story of two men.

They were sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu.

And this is what it says.

This is in Leviticus, chapter ten, verses one and two.

It says, aaron's sons, nadab and Abihu, they took their censers,

they put fire in them and added their

incense.

Then they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to

So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed

them, and they died before the Lord.

Unauthorized fire.

So this is what it was.

God gave explicit directions to Aaron and Moses, saying, this

is how you offer things to me.

This is how you do life.

This is how you.

And what happened is, Nadab and Abihu, what they did was they

We're going to do it the way we want to do it, our own preference,

and we're going to do it in isolation.

And God responded to their false fire with the fire of judgment.

Now, the spirit of those two people is in the earth right now.

I don't want to do church the way church was prescribed.

I want to do church how I want to do church.

And they offer strange fire before the Lord.

I don't want to come into alignment the way we're prescribed

alignment.

I want to do what I want to do.

And so the reason why I've been teaching these messages is because

And what God is doing is he's separating the sheep from the goats,

And what that separation is is are you doing it the way you want

to do it, or are you doing it the way

Done.

And so the thing I'm crying out for, because even being on Long

I remember when I spent over 50 hours a week counseling the original

I remember them coming to my house, me going to their house, them

doing everything I could to get the actual

I remember them coming from these 40 person churches where the

to them, and me trying to get that out

region.

If we are not leading the loss to the cross at any cost, we've come

And I'm telling you, you're not here because we're a megachurch.

We grew through discipleship.

We grew through the great commission.

We grew by leading the lost to the cross at any cost.

We refused to offer strange fire because Aaron had two sons that

And I believe that God brought me to this region like a son of Aaron

This is the cost.

If it costs me everything, I will give you that and more.

And I had to come here to bring, just like Elijah, to repair

the altar that was broken.

We had generals like David Wilkerson, and in the generation

after him, the altar has been broken.

And it takes the people to say, let's rebuild this altar.

Let's rebuild it before the Lord, and let's stop giving God our

Let's stop tipping and start tithing.

I'm not talking about finances.

I'm talking about my life.

Church shouldn't be an afterthought.

It's not a bonus on Sunday.

It's a daily revival.

So here's my call to you as we get ready to pray for such a time

as this.

Let's rebuild the altar together.

Let's peel back all the layers.

If you're visiting and you're new to this, a lot of what you experienced

at other places.

We haven't got it all figured out.

We still got a long way to go.

But at the same time, God is in our midst, and he's doing amazing

things.

I just got a message.

You know, there was a guy that came to our church with a broken

marriage.

But then there's going to come a day where you're actually repairing

That man, now out of our Brooklyn location, is leading 25

their marriage because his marriage is

received.

And on top of that, he's raising up leaders who are now doing

So I want you right now to do this across every location.

Think about your greatest need.

That's your ministry.

Come on, I just helped you.

Think about your greatest need right now.

That's your ministry.

I feel the anointing on this pastor execa.

Think about your greatest need right now.

That is your ministry.

Because wherever there's need, there's the power of God flowing

through.

He was like, I need my marriage to be restored.

The Lord said, that's your ministry.

I need to be free from addiction.

That's your ministry.

I need finances.

That's your ministry.

I'm confused.

That's your ministry.

Bringing other people out of confusion.

Wherever there's a need, there's a ministry.

It always shows up in the form of brokenness.

And then fire falls and we come together and we activate each

So right now, I want to ask a question.

I was going to ask, am I your white pastor?

But we won't.

Come on.

You could think about that.

I'll give you a couple more Sundays.

But the question I want to ask you is this.

While the world around us has fallen apart, while the world around

While everything around us is falling apart, could we be this group

I never have felt any.

Could we be this group of people that while Mayor Eric Adams

is going through all those indictments

and New York City is in chaos and post pandemic,

What is this?

These people love each other.

These people care for each other.

Tonight in Manhattan, there's going to be a radical act of generosity

And if you live in the region and you want to come see it, come

to Manhattan tonight, but it's going

to blow you away.

A radical act of generosity.

Could it be.

Could it be that we are these little bubbles?

You know, one time I was in Columbia ministering and it was over

we have access to the us embassy and

And we know that independence day is really important to Americans

and so.

And you're not there for it.

So.

And I know you're in Columbia, but do you want to go?

And I'll never forget to going to a us ambassador's house in Columbia.

And we were lighting off all these fireworks.

There were no sounds of fireworks anywhere else in Columbia

but where that guy's house was.

We were not in Columbia.

We were on us soil within Columbia.

So what can happen in this next season as the whole world is

There's freedom here.

This is not Long island.

This is the kingdom of heaven that descended into Long island through

This is not new York.

This is the New New York.

So if you want to join in with me and you want fire to fall, not

Come on, you're a part of something.

Bella, come here.

Where's Bella?

Here.

Get a picture or video behind me because I want everybody to see

this.

We're going to capture this because your hands lifted up.

Long island would say, it could never happen here, but I say,

Your hands lifted up.

And some of you are saying, well, I feel so insignificant.

No, it's the we over the me.

It's not that we can't do it without you, that we refuse.

You have to be here, you have to be a part of it.

In Indiana, in Miami, you have to be a part of it.

This is a moment of unity.

And I believe that this.

Each one of your hands are like pillars that are getting lifted

for the next floor that we're building on

And if when you lifted up your hands, the Lord said, your hands

in this next season.

Everybody pray this with me across all six locations.

Heavenly Father, I ask you to unify me.

Forgive me for all hiddenness, for all isolation.

I will reveal, I will step into relationship.

Wash me with your blood, renew a right spirit in me and God.

I say my need will become my ministry.

My need will become my ministry in Jesus name.

Come on, somebody, shout amen.