Advancing Beyond The Press

How many remember the day the burdens of your soul rolled away?

You grateful for that?

If you have your Bibles, be turning with me this morning to the book of 2 Corinthians,

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4.

2 Corinthians 4.

There's a verse in that old song that says, now I can feel him by my side, my feeble steps

he comes to guide.

When trials come, he comforts me through faith in him over sin.

I have the victory and I never shall forget the day.

Right?

When all the burdens of my soul, well, they rolled away.

He made me happy, oh so happy, glad and free.

I'll sing and shout it, for he's everything.

He's everything.

He's everything to me.

Right?

Then we'd roll over in an old song that says, sing the wondrous love of Jesus, sing his

mercy and his grace.

In those mansions, bright and blessed, he'll prepare for us a place when we all get to

heaven.

Oh, what a day of rejoicing that will be.

Oh, when we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory.

Right?

When we all get to heaven, you know that's going to be a reality.

Don't get lost in the confusion of all that's going on around you.

Don't lose hope, don't lose faith that there's going to be a meeting in the air.

You see how we did that right there?

You've heard a little Moses in the Bull Rush and, you know, Joan and the whale you sing

about often.

Right?

But one day, just maintain your faith, maintain your confidence.

One day, there's going to be a meeting in the air.

The reality of the Word of God is going to come full circle.

An angel shouts, a trumpet sounds, the dead rise and those that are alive and remain shall

be changed.

And don't miss this part and together, together, they don't get there before we do.

They've got to wait that split second till we get changed.

Ladies, it'll be the quickest change that you'll ever pull off because you're not making

the change.

You don't have to get the shoes, you know, to match everything.

No.

You're changed.

And then together, we go to meet Him in the air.

And then, you know, from there, we are escorted to this banqueting table.

And then for oh, about seven years or so, there's meatloaf, fried taters.

It's just going to be a great time when we all get there.

She's just trying to ag me on.

At that meeting in the air, oh, there is going to be a meeting in the air.

Oh, in that sweet, sweet by and by, I am going to meet you.

I'll meet you over there in that home beyond the sky.

Such singing you will hear never heard by mortal ear.

It will be.

I do declare for God's own son will be the leading one at that meeting.

Oh, in the air, oh, there is going to be a meeting in the air.

Oh, in that sweet, sweet by and by, I am going to meet you.

I'll meet you over there in that home beyond the sky.

Such singing you will hear never heard by mortal ear.

It will be glorious, I do declare, and God's own son will be the leading one at that meeting.

Oh, in the air.

Hallelujah.

There's an old song that says getting ready to leave this world, right?

You all want to sing or you want me to preach?

I'm going to do both.

So it's early.

It's just 20 after 11, you know.

Yeah.

The Lord is good to us.

He's merciful.

It's hard for me to sing all the new ones without the words because these are ingrained

in my memory.

You know what I mean?

I've got to have the words.

I can sing them if I've got the words.

But these, they just come out, you know.

Just like for those of you, the ones that I have to read the words on, you sing them

all day, right?

Because that's what comes out.

And the blessed folks are those that's able to do both.

You know what I'm saying?

You can roll out of that into something else.

Get your Bible.

You got it.

Hopefully, let me get this done.

You're standing.

I feel good in my spirit today.

Amen.

Excited, I think, about what the Lord has placed in my heart for this morning.

And I do sometimes think we get a little guilty of rushing through worship.

We get a little bit of hurry, you know.

Then we want the preacher to hurry.

Your preacher don't hurry.

Right?

We don't do Sunday night, so we try to get the full maximum potential out of Sunday morning.

Amen.

Second Corinthians chapter 4 verse 8 reads, we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed.

2 Corinthians 4:8

We are perplexed, but not in despair.

We are troubled, but not forsaken.

Cast down, but not destroyed.

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus

might be made manifest in our body.

With the help of the Lord this morning for the next little bit, I want to talk to us

on this thought.

Advancing beyond the press.

Advancing beyond the press.

Father, I love you today.

So grateful, so thankful for your goodness and your mercy.

And I ask God that you continue to work in our midst today.

Work among us.

Sweet Holy Ghost, take your liberty in the hearts and minds of those who are here.

For Lord, I believe fully in your sovereignty and your reign and your rules, so therefore

there's no accidental attendance here today.

According to your word, the steps of good manner ordered.

Ordered of the Lord.

So we are assembled here today very uniquely because of your divine will and plan for our

lives.

So we surrender the hearing of our heart and the ears of our soul that we may hear what

the Spirit's saying to the church today.

And that we together leave this house of worship strengthened, built, established, encouraged,

empowered and imparted with your Spirit and your word.

You be praised forever in Christ's name.

And the church says, Amen.

Tell your neighbor you're going beyond the press.

You're going beyond the press.

This series we've been in, Advancing Beyond the Limits, has thus far taken us on quite

the journey.

And I expect nothing less than to travel on further today.

We've talked some about the press, but we're really going to dive into the press today.

We looked at Advancing Beyond the Labels.

Last week, Brother Milton Carter brought a wonderful message on Advancing Beyond the

Limits in Marriage and Relationship.

He's still standing and looking over me.

How many of you were here last week?

He's still looking over me.

Hallelujah.

I've told several about that today through the course of the week.

I said, you know, it was a great word.

If it's up, you need to go listen to it.

I said, but it's just one part that just really got me.

He's looking over me.

And in the Gospels where Jesus reached and Matthew, he records, he picks her up, right?

But then before, in the passage that Brother Milton read, before he touches or lifts or

does anything, he leans over.

That just really got me.

To know that before he does anything, he's observing, he's looking, he's seeing.

Let's get on.

So with that, seeing beyond sight, giving beyond resource, touching beyond reach.

How the Lord wants us to progress in every area of our faith walk in 2025.

To see beyond things that are simply sight.

To see into the realm and to delve into the realm of His Spirit.

And to know, you've heard it said, we walk in this parallel universe.

We walk in the flesh, but yet we walk in the Spirit as well, right?

And the flesh being weak, but the Spirit being willing.

And that our Spirit be willing to see that we by faith and through faith and the avenue

of faith and the word and the power of God's word in our life that we see beyond simple

sight.

I know for some of us sight isn't as simple anymore, you know?

But yet that we progress on and to see the goodness and the greatness of God and what

God has in store for us.

That we may be able to get a glimpse into that.

That we give beyond resource.

What the Lord is doing, we're going to have a mission Sunday coming up before long.

And I think you're going to be amazed at what you are doing.

And I want to inform you of what you're doing.

Church is being built under the name and the guise of the Hopewell Church of God.

That you and I, we are invested in building the kingdom, building churches around the

world.

Amen?

And those far to reach places, that's where God is giving.

And we're going to give even beyond the resources that we have to see even greater things done

for the kingdom.

Touching beyond reach, that somehow that we can have an extension beyond.

We all have a physical limitation with our reach or we can get reaching aids.

We can, I watched just the other day of a fellow that something was out of his reach

so he grabs a little stick and reaches a little further and brings what he was reaching for

to himself.

Isn't that the way it is to reach beyond that we have an extension to our reach?

And can I tell you, it's the power and the work of the Holy Ghost that gives us an extension

that our prayers reach further.

Amen?

That our faith extends beyond our own reach.

It's not just what we can physically do but what we can do through the power of the Spirit

that enables us to do the great work of the kingdom.

So today as we look at advancing beyond the press, I've had this on my mind now for about

three weeks and just waiting for this moment and this opportunity to think about the press.

We looked at Philippians 3 where Paul would say, forgetting those things which are behind,

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

And we looked at the thought of moving past those labels, those things that are put on

us that we don't look back.

One of the worship songs we sung about this morning is that we're not going back.

We're not looking back.

There's nothing behind us but yet we are pressing forward and we're moving beyond where we are.

When we think about press and the definition for it in the English language, it means to

push or to thrust, to continue to move forward.

But in the Greek it has three different connotations.

It has three different words and the implication all have a varying severity of what's taking

place and what is going on.

When we look at our text today as Paul was writing to the church at Corinth when he said,

we are troubled on every side, that word troubled there is actually hard pressed.

He's saying we are pressed on every side.

The opposition to our faith is squeezing in and it's putting a lot of pressure on us.

But here's the thing, we are not distressed.

Amen.

We are not crushed.

But I want to talk to us this morning a little bit about the crushing and the pressing and

how that we can advance beyond both of those ideas for our life and in our faith.

The three words in Greek that actually are rendered for this press, piazzo is one, to

oppress or to afflict, to press together.

Apothelebo is to press hard, to crush.

The lipsis is to add pressure.

So when we begin to read throughout the text and we read where the Word of God is talking

about a press or a pressuring, we think about all these severities and what could be going

on in our life.

The apostle Paul in Philippians 3, he's talking from a jail cell, from a Philippian jail.

It's one of the most joy-filled letters of Paul's writing.

Everywhere you look it's joy to be excited, but yet he's imprisoned.

He said this one thing I do, forgetting what's behind me, I press toward.

So I'm thrusting forward.

I'm moving on and he doesn't just leave us with the idea of moving forward.

He tells us what for?

For the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

We look at another instance in Mark's gospel, I believe it is, where we see the woman with

the issue of blood in Mark 5 and 25.

The scripture says that she's had spent all that she had and she grew none the better,

but yet grew worse.

She hears that Jesus is coming to town and the scripture says she comes in the press

from behind, right?

She comes in the press from behind.

That's the second place of the press.

Then there's a third in Matthew's gospel 26 when we see Jesus, our Lord and Savior, make

his way to the place called Gethsemane.

Gethsemane's translation is the place of the press.

Hallelujah.

When you begin to think about the press and all that transpires at the press.

I think about our life and how it is that we are pressed on every side.

If you look at the woman with the issue of blood, her press is actually a sickness and

a disease.

That sickness and disease has pressed her to a breaking point.

She's now down to her last option.

Oh, know something today, you and I have an option before we get to the last option.

You don't have to wait.

You spend everything you've got to turn to Jesus because you and I know the proclamation

of the Christ who is our healer.

You can be pressed now to turn toward him.

Amen.

You don't have to wait.

He's made available.

She heard this Jesus is coming to town and makes her way through the press, the squeezing

that is around him and makes her way to touch the him of his garment.

When we think about the pressing Jesus at this place called Gethsemane, the press.

What you have here is actually an olive press.

Brother Hunter, do you have the other picture of the crushing meal?

If you have, put that one up.

I had this process in my mind and the old olive press and the crushing is this round

wheel that goes around in a trough, something like that.

It's pulled by a donkey or it's pushed by men.

The olives when they're taken there, they've got a hard husk and it's just not an easy

process and they are placed in there and this stone rolls around and it mashes it to a pulp.

Then we begin to think about our lives and how an olive press and a crushing has anything

to do with who we are and where we are.

We have to think about the pressure has a process and the process has a pressure and

it all has a purpose for my and your life.

We think about Gethsemane.

It is there where there's a threefold process to this.

First of all, there is the crushing.

There's no pressing without the crushing.

You cannot just put the olive into that press right there and get anything out of it.

It has to be first crushed.

It has to be made to a pulp.

That's the stone that rolls around and mashes it to a pulp.

But then when you get it to the pulp, it's put in a woven basket and these, I don't know

if you can tell or not, but those are layers of woven baskets of reeds and the pulp is

taken out of that and put it at and flat and it's stacked up under that laver right there

that's going to have heavy stones hanging on it.

Then there's a stone on the top of those mats that are placed there and pressure is applied

and pressure is put to it.

As pressure gets on, the more weight, the olive oil begins to squeeze out of the pulp

and begins to run down.

You can't see it in that picture, but around that bottom stone is a trough that has been

hewn out and it pours out and it is caught.

It is added with some water and later the oil is extracted off the top.

Now there's this threefold pressing that's taking place after the crushing.

This threefold pressing, the first press is where they get the anointing oil.

I'm trying.

It's meaning more to me that it is used, so just hang on.

The first pressing is where you get the olive oil that's used for the anointing.

It's used for the oil in the menorah that was in the temple.

It's that extra virgin olive oil.

It's the one time pressed.

Are you hearing me?

But it's been crushed, but now it's being pressed and then from that pressing that extraction

is made.

Then it goes through a second pressing.

A little more weight is added and an already crushed and an already pressed olive has to

give up a little bit more oil.

Out of this second pressing, out of this second pressing comes cooking oil.

Hallelujah.

And medicinal oil where they would apply it to wounds out of the second pressing.

We're getting somewhere this morning.

Then there's the third pressing where you've got all the olive has to give.

You add more weight.

You add more pressure.

And out of this third pressing comes the lamp oil, the burning oil, the usable oil.

And it's not over with.

Then they'll take the pulp and the poorest of the poor would take the pulp and stick

their wick in it and light it as it would soak out and drain everything that the olive

had to offer.

Can I tell you today that you and I have to go through some pressings in life, but before

we ever go through a pressing, we have to go through a crushing.

My God, before anything is extracted out of us, anything that of good use is extracted

from us, we have to go through a crushing.

We go through the mill and the hardships and the hard ends of life.

My God, but don't give up there because there's something good coming out of the crushing.

There's a purpose in the crushing.

Before you ever get pressed, you're going to get crushed at that place called Gethsemane.

How many remember the story Jesus went and prayed?

How many times?

On the very night that he makes his way and he leads his disciples there, he's in an

upper room.

He institutes the Lord's Supper.

He breaks the bread.

He passes the cup.

They sing hymns and they worship and they leave from there.

They go down the street away and they go to the Garden of Gethsemane, the Garden of the

Pressing.

It would stand to reason that they would be a crushing and a pressing in Gethsemane because

it was an olive grove and there's still trees standing there, 800, 900 years old.

They presume probably from those who were in the garden, seed from gardens when Jesus

was there.

Now we understand why Jesus is going there because he's about to be crushed.

When we read the story of the happenings of that night, the crushing actually took place

in that upper room.

That crushing took place as he's looking at his disciples and he tells them that one of

you are going to betray me.

The crushing was the betrayal of Judas when he crushed him there in that room.

Oh my God, I don't know what you're feeling this morning, but I'm all inside and upside

down today when I think about the crushing that took place.

One of his own beloved, those who traveled with him, he sold him out for 30 pieces of

silver and he was crushed, but he didn't stop at the crushing because he knew the pressing

was still in the garden.

My God, you cannot stop at the crushing.

You can't quit at your crushing.

I know life has come down on you heavy and you feel like you've been squashed a pulp,

but you can't stop at the crushing.

The crushing for the woman with the issue of blood as she spent all that she had and

still grew worse.

Crushed, right?

The crushing for Paul, he's falsely accused and he's in prison.

You know his story.

He's beat, left for dead.

Stoned, left for dead.

Shipwrecked, left for dead.

Crushed, but the press is on its way.

She comes through the crowd and presses her way through, thrusts her way through and at

a last gasp she makes a final lunge and touches the hem of his garment.

And that's all you need.

Let me just tell you something this morning.

You don't need a handful of Jesus.

You don't have to tear a piece of his garment away.

You just got to touch him.

How do we do that today, Pastor?

We touch him through our faith as we're processing our way through the crushing.

We're sick.

We're devastated.

Life's turned us upside down.

We have been crushed on the wheel and we have been made to a pulp as though it feels like

and we have nothing left.

You take your nothing that you have and you make one final lunge and you let your faith

be released in Jesus Christ and the power that he possesses that he can enable you over

every obstacle that is before you.

And when you are crushed, then get ready for the press because he will extract the best

out of you.

Isn't it amazing that it's the first pressing after the crushing that you get the best oil?

You get the best immediately after you are crushed.

Pressure's applied.

You can go watch the little videos of it.

It just truly amazed me.

I've been in this 30 years now and preached on the press and all that.

Never understood this part of it.

Because when you pull up an olive press, you're just going to see that wheel.

That's most of the time all that they show is the point of crushing.

That's all I saw.

Had to dig a little bit deeper.

I thought, well, that's not pressing.

Just thought come to my mind.

You know, that's the crushing.

And so a little bit of further research on the winterweb and it pops up this picture

and many more like it.

And it pops up pictures and little videos of actually seeing this thing at work.

This big heavy law with a big flat stone tied to it.

And then the process after the pulp is made and they put in those little woven baskets

and they stack them up and then they apply the pressure.

As time would come and technology would advance, they got to where they understood threads.

And we can apply more pressure by just turning the wheel, not having to lean and get neighbors

and everybody set on the pole.

Pretty good looking size rocks if you ask me.

Pretty heavy to drag all that in.

Somebody's got to get it picked up to get everything under it.

So it works the same way in our life.

How do we understand the crushing and the pressing?

I thought, Lord, I guess this is the reason it's meaning so much to me this morning.

I don't know what press I'm in.

Press one, press two, or press three.

I know this.

I have been crushed.

I feel like I'm nothing but pulp right now.

How about you?

I feel like life has left a tire tread on my back and it's in a 2000, 2000 pound old

Israeli stone that's got me in a trough and it's rolling around over my back.

I feel like I've been crushed.

Amen.

But I know that now the process is you got to get crushed before there's something that's

pulled out of you of value.

My God.

So I'm ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, because now the weight's being added,

the pressure's being applied, and there's something squeezing out of me, David, old

Paul, that I can't quite explain.

I've been in this for a long time, but I'm feeling something on the inside of me coming

out that hadn't come out ever.

There's a place in him that we are reaching.

There's a place in his anointing through the press of life that the good is about to be

extracted.

The valuable is about to be pulled forward.

Oh my God.

Hold on.

You've been crushed.

Now get ready to be pressed so that the anointing can come out of you.

Sometimes I just simply say life stinks, but I don't think this is about life.

Is it?

If you're confused about what's going on in you is about life, then you're mistaken.

It's not about life.

It's not about politics, whichever side of that stupid fence you're on.

Don't get me on that.

Ignorance is running unabased on both sides of that fence.

Somebody ought to say hallelujah and watch what flag you run up the pole and start saluting

and bowing down to, mind you.

I'm feeling it.

Doesn't matter if you're a never Trump or ever Trump.

Trump is not the savior or the anti-Christ.

I almost said he's just an elevated, arrogant New Yorker that's president of the United

States, but I didn't want to go there.

Far as alternatives goes, it's better than what we have.

There's my geopolitical stance.

I'm a Jesus man.

My allegiance is to Christ.

Why?

Because he went to Gethsemane in that upper room crushed by betrayal.

He made his way to the first prayer of pressing where he said he was heavy, greatly heavy

and much distressed in that first prayer.

He prays, oh Lord, if there's a way, Father, let it pass from me, but not my will but yours

be done.

He gets up, goes back.

His disciples are sound asleep.

Why?

Because their crushing is coming.

They hadn't been crushed yet, but there's a crushing coming toward.

Oh, Peter, that he's not, it's going to blow his mind when the crushing's done with him.

Oh, let me just jump ahead and just go ahead and tell you, Peter's crushing and the reality

of his crushing came at the third coring of the cock.

When the old rooster crowed that third time, my God, can you not see it come together?

One crow, two crow, three crow, one prayer, two prayer, three prayer, one press, two press,

three press, it was there, my God, he's crushed.

Can you not tear with me but an hour and help me pray?

He goes back for his second pressing, right?

He goes back for that second prayer.

The press of surrender.

He comes back to stir them awake one more time and he goes back for the third prayer,

the third press.

Remember, the first press is the anointing.

The second press is medicinal.

The third press is just for fuel.

You go read the third pressing prayer and he just simply prays, this is what it says,

and he's saying the same words.

There's nothing left to say.

There's nothing left to say.

He's heavy, he's greatly distressed with the weight that's being placed on him, crushed

by betrayal.

Now the weight of the sins of the world is squeezing out the sweet aroma of the anointing.

So he goes back, he prays the second pressing, this anointing of healing, this taking in,

let's fry a little flatbread with what?

The second crushing.

Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the

Father.

So he comes back and he just lets them sleep and goes and prays.

And he says the same thing as he did at the second pressing.

There's nothing left to say.

You are greatly pressed on every side.

We are pressed down, right?

We have a heavy load, a heavy weight of life that tries to enable us from the goodness

of God.

But yet, but yet we travel on.

Yet we continue forward in our faith because there's no stopping place.

Just because you feel like you're being crushed, you can't stop because the best is about to

come out of you.

The oil is about to be squeezed out.

For you and I, the oil is a symbol of the Holy Ghost.

We do know there's the same process at the wine press, the crushing of the grape, the

extraction of the juice.

So that we understand that through the crushing and the pressing, the good gets squeezed out

of us.

That's the reason the scripture says, be ye not drunk with wine as in excess but be ye

filled with the Holy Spirit.

Be ye being, it's a continual.

Why?

Because there's a continual pressing.

We can't stop at the crushing.

That's the reason Peter would put it this way, think it not strange concerning the fiery

trial that's come against you.

Don't think what's happening to you is strange or odd and you've done something wrong.

The first thing the devil wants to come up to you and tell you is you did something wrong

for you to be crushed.

No, we had to be crushed so that the anointing can be extracted from us at the press.

We have to be pressed so that the good can come forward.

The anointing flow out and people be fed.

We have to be crushed, pressed over and over and over again so that the fuel of faith ignites

the hearts of those who are around us and they remain engaged no matter what the press

is, whether it be sickness, whether it be grief.

Grief is an awful press.

It's an awful crushing.

Betrayal, anybody ever been betrayed by a supposed friend?

We call it backstabbing.

Anybody ever been stabbed in the back by a friend?

You know what I'm saying?

That's the same thing.

Right?

Anybody ever lied on you?

That's betrayal.

It's crushing, isn't it?

It's devastating in our heart and life.

Anyway, I'm quitting.

There's an advancement beyond the press.

It's beyond the press for Jesus.

It was Calvary.

You say, well, that's worse.

No.

Calvary was won at the place of the press.

When he said, not my will but yours, victory.

The rest was semantics.

The deal was sealed at the press.

Right?

At the press, it was a done deal.

When his sweat became his great drops of blood, he surrendered his flesh, his body, his life,

victory.

The rest was just to follow it out.

That's the reason before Pilate, he never said a word.

He didn't have to.

He knew what was going to happen three days from then.

That event would speak for itself.

Oh, they say you're the king of the Jews.

Well, if that's what they say, I'm more than that.

Boy, couldn't he just really have told old Pilate?

Couldn't he just really laid it out there?

Couldn't he display his power like he did over the winds and the waves and the storms?

Like when they come to take him at a movement, soldiers fall down.

Couldn't he really demonstrate his power when Peter and his zealousness chopped off the

guys there and he picks it up out of the dirt?

Right back up on the side of his head.

Could he not have demonstrated to Pilate?

You mock me now.

But no, he walks down those stations of the Via De La Rosa, makes his way to the foothill

of Galgotha, his flesh unable to sustain the strength of his spirit.

Simon, the man they laid his cross on to bear the weakness of his flesh, Jesus'

spirit was not diminished whatsoever.

It was just that earthly body he had to get to count.

Makes his confessions, sayings from the cross, yields his life.

Crushed, pressed.

Purpose, power.

The purpose of his pressing and crushing was that you and I may have power, anointing,

fuel, sustenance through our crushing and the phases of our pressing.

Father, I love you today.

Lord, I don't have a clue with what you want to do with this this morning, but I've delivered

my soul today.

I've carried this, Lord, for a couple of weeks now and I don't know if it's made any sense

to anybody else.

Maybe you were just speaking to me.

But Lord, just knowing a few folk and a little bit of what I do know, I know there's others

that's been crushed besides me.

I know there's others who feel as though they have been gathered after the crushing and

carried to the press and the pressure has been applied.

Going through the first pressing well, the anointing flowing, but the second press, there

wasn't near as much.

Some in the third pressing and there's even less.

And some feel as though they've came out of the press like they went into the meal.

Just pulp.

My Lord, if you're here this morning and you just feel like pulp, you've been crushed,

you've been pressed, and the only time you come off the press is when there's nothing

else to extract.

The three prayers of the garden, the crushing of the upper room, the extraction of all that

He had, He gave it so that you and I could live in victory.

So think it not strange, concerning.

Let me read these last scriptures to you.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding

and eternal weight of glory.

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporal, temporary, but the things which are not seen

are eternal.

I don't know what you're seeing, I don't know what the press is, don't know what the

weight of it feels like in your life, but it isn't compared to the glory that is to

come for you.

The good, the good comes after the press.

Not the crush, the good comes after the press.

The crush just gets you ready to be pressed.

Well, I feel like I've been repressed and re-crushed, if that's you.

I want to pray for you.

Just come stand in the front.

We're going to pray for one another.

I'll tell you what, to keep putting anybody on the spot, why don't we just all come down

here?

All that will, all that can, because I know life happens to every single one of us.

You're not going to get out of this thing without a crushing.

For those who live godly and endeavor to live godly in Christ Jesus, welcome to Christ Jesus.

Welcome to it.

Hello?

Because you do realize that, just to put it bluntly, Satan hates your guts.

I mean, old Popeye says, I am what I am.

Devil hates your guts.

He has no good for you, no purpose for you, other than to destroy you.

Bottom line, that's it.

He'll use anything and everything at his disposal to do it.

But what he doesn't realize is, as he's trying to crush you, the Lord draws nine to those

who are of a contrite spirit, broken.

That contrite means to dust.

So the whole time the devil's breaking you down, he thinks, he's just preparing you for

the best.

He's getting you ready for the press, and he may be the one to put you in the press,

but let him apply the pressure, because I told a guy the other day, people are trying

to figure out how to live out their faith, right?

They go to different venues, they go to different things, so they hear different stuff.

And so if they know me, they kind of know who I am, what I stand for, so they ask questions

about how I see scripture.

So I just tell them I kind of read it for what it says and try to apply it like that.

And boy, how we do, we try to justify kind of where we're at.

Well, you know, that's the worst I do, and the more I say a cuss word every now and then.

And I say, well, why?

Well, I don't know, that's why I'm asking you.

I said, well, if there's no cuss in you, one can't come out of you.

He said, well, what does that mean?

I said, I can mash my thumb with a hammer on a cold day, and the first thing that comes

to my mind is not a curse, it's a prayer.

Because there's not a cuss in me.

Never did do it much anyway, afraid mom would hear me and mash my mouth, or hear about it

and mash it when I got home.

In my youthful stupidity, I used the Lord's name in vain one time, one.

I'll never forget where I was standing at, vocational school, county line, Sequatchia,

Bledsoe County, in the welding department, third booth down.

Pissed up a weld, got mad, come out, and I said it, and I kid you not, as the last syllable

come off of my tongue, I ducked, because I just knew God was about to strike me.

So I'm trying to tell him how to live out his faith and the pressure of life.

If you got the right stuff in you, you don't have to worry about the wrong stuff coming

out.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And I said, if you've been transformed into a new creature, they should not be a cuss

in you.

Well, what do I do?

Go back until it's not.

Crushing.

Life stinks sometimes, but for the child of God, the crushing is just to extract the best

out of you.

It's just to get the sweet anointing to flow out of us.

And people see it.

That first press is so that the light burns.

Father, I love you today.

And over this household of faith, Father God, in the name of Jesus, God, I pray, I know

they're getting crushed.

I know they're getting crushed.

They're getting crushed at the job side.

They're getting crushed at school.

They're getting crushed at home.

They're in the meal of life, and it's rolling over and over and over and over and over top

of them.

And Lord, they're being placed in this structure, this holding, and they get put in this basket

and it gets folded over as they are crushed to hold it all together.

My God, to hold me all together.

And then I'm placed beneath the press, and then more weight's added.

But this time something's happening to me.

There's something coming out of me.

It's not a cursing.

It's a blessing.

I just want to bless your name.

I feel the weight, Lord, but something odd and something strange is happening.

Every time the weights get added, every time I feel pressed, there's just something different

coming out of me.

There's something different coming out of me that might be useful, Lord, to let my light

shine, to let my life shine before those.

And Lord, for those who are crushed this morning, and life is pressing, Lord, that widow, that

woman with that issue of blood, she comes in, she touches the hymn by faith, she's healed.

Paul is released to make his way to Rome before Agrippa and all the others, and Caesar, he

proclaims the gospel.

Jesus, to Gethsemane, pressed, crushed, sits at the right hand of the Father, ever making

intercession on my behalf, on our behalf, so that when we are crushed, we're not destroyed,

so that when we're perplexed, we're not cast down.

When we're troubled on every side, we're not distressed.

When we're hard pressed, we're not fully crushed.

For the weight, for the weight's going to turn to glory.

Hear me, hear me, folk, for the eye has not seen, and the ear has not heard, neither has

it entered into the heart of man what God has in store for those who love him.

So don't focus on the crushing.

Jesus didn't focus on Judas.

He didn't focus on Judas.

He carried through the supper, sung his hymns, and went to the garden.

Don't hang up at the crush.

Don't hang up at the crusher.

Make your way to the press so that the very best can be extracted out of you for his glory

and for your building and your strengthening.

Father, I love you today.

Help us, Lord, help us.