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you God to go deeper, Lord, and and to be filled to overflowing with your Holy Spirit, Lord. We invite you here, Lord. Speak to us. Lord, those listening by internet radio, speak and touch their lives. Lord, we sense your presence here today, Lord, and I believe you're preparing us for a new thing, for a new season, for a new time. Lord, we pray today, Lord, open our hearts, open our eyes to see what is out ahead of us and to grasp it by faith and to obtain it. Lord, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. And amen. During worship, God gave me a word for us now, and it's Isaiah 52 verse 1 through 6. Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion. Put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city. For henceforth, there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust, arise and sit, O Jerusalem. Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the Lord, you have sold yourselves for naught. Ye shall be redeemed without money. For thus saith the Lord God, my people went aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there, and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now, therefore, what have I there? What have I here, saith the Lord, that my people is taken away for naught? That they rule over them that make them to howl, saith the Lord. And my name continually every day is blasphemed. Therefore, my people shall know my name. Therefore, they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak. Behold, it is I. Amen. Amen. You know, I know that's a word from the Lord right there for us. Because as we were in praise and worship, the Lord spoke to me very clearly to tell you something. Now, even though we've been through a wilderness and even though we've been through a battle and even though though we've been through some difficult times as a church, as a ministry, I really feel from the Lord that he said these words to me, that you are very near a revival. And what I mean by revival is not a few days of special meetings. I mean where God opens heavens and pours out his
spirit in a special way beyond what we could ask or think. And I'm I've been sensing this now for about a week. And I remember it was even probably a few months ago that the Lord told me we were going into a new season. But let me just say, whenever you begin to transition from one season to the next, there's always in between that as you're moving into that transition, there's always going to be a spiritual attack from the devil and his and and the forces of darkness because the devil hears what God is saying to you and he sees where God is wanting to take you, and so there's an attack to try to stop you from getting there. So, I can just tell you that I know that I know that I know that God is about to do some very special things. And when I say pour out his spirit, and this is something that's been on my heart for some time because I've shared with you that, you know, I spent a lot of years, even before I went to Montgomery, here in this area, in Auburn-Opelika area of Alabama, I spent a lot of time in fasting and prayer for revival here. I mean, years. And I'm talking about fasting for weeks at a time and praying that God would open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that would bring conviction of sin and bring people to repentance. That would bring forth the true miracles of God in the place. And And sometimes you just have to sow a lot of seed. Amen. Sometimes it's just a lot of sowing, and there's a lot of planting, there's a lot of plowing the ground and sowing the seed. And sometimes, you know, you plow the ground and then it rains and then the sun pops out and you realize you got to go back and replow it again. And it's just work sometimes to get where you want to go. But one thing I've learned about the Lord, rarely does God ever do anything quickly. We want it quickly. We want everything right now, right then. That's why people end up in witchcraft because they're promised power and they're promised things right now, right now, right now. Do this spell, do that thing, and you'll get what you want, you know. Uh but God is not like that. God wants to build in us character. He will allow us to go through test and trials and difficulties to see if we will persevere because let me just say this, if you can't handle the trials and the test and the difficulties, you will not handle success. I remember Dr. Larry Lee. Now, many of you won't remember Dr. Dr. Lee, but Dr. Larry Lee wrote the best-seller back in the late '80s called Could You Not Tarry One Hour? Uh Dr. Lee uh came out of uh Dallas Theological Seminary. He got saved during the Jesus Movement, baptized in the Holy Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit. Uh God used him to lead many people to the Lord. He He uh He was getting many people filled with
the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues at Dallas Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas back in the '60s and '70s. And he has professors and people who like him very much and all. But anyway, he left there with his I think his ThD and his DD and doctorate of divinity and doctorate of theology. Anyway, spirit-filled brother, good brother. And he wrote a book and he began to develop a prayer life. God really convicted him to develop a prayer life. And so he began to pray every morning at 5:00 a.m. using the Lord's Prayer not as a repetition, but as an outline to pray over many things. And that's what God dealt with him. So, in 1980, in January of 1980, he started a church in Rockwall, Texas um with about, I don't know, 50, 60 people in a house. That was in January of 1980, but that church was a praying church. All right? And he said he had all the church, they were praying and they were praying for God to move and they were praying for God to pour out his spirit, for God to send revival. And he taught the church how to warfare, how to bind the demons and resist the devil and all those things. And it took a little while, but around, I don't know, 1983, '84, a few years, the Lord spoke to him and he said these words. And this is very important. I'll never forget it because I used to actually went to that church for a while. Lived in Dallas for a while. And I remember he spoke these words to Dr. Lee. Right before God poured out his spirit and that church went from just a few people to thousands of people. Right before that happened. And I'm not talking about just numbers. I'm talking about people getting saved left and right. All right? Right before that happened, the Lord spoke to him and said, "I'm about to give you the most dangerous thing that I can give you. I'm about to bless you with the most dangerous thing that I can give you." Success. He told him, "Son, everything you touch turn to gold. Everything you do will work." And do you know that it became his downfall? Because Church on the Rock went from just at that point, you know, about 100 members or so, in just a few years by 1987, it was 6,000 members. I went there right after they built the new sanctuary that seated 8,000 and they had a total of about 12,000 people. The services were so powerful in the spirit of God. I remember sitting out in the parking lot there in Rockwall, Texas before the service and the glory and the anointing of God was so strong that it would almost overwhelm you sitting in the parking lot before the church. And I'll tell you why, because that was a praying church. They were unified, they were focused, and they were a praying church. Now, just to give you a little of the story, Larry got in trouble because once God blessed him with success, his book became a best seller, Could You Not Tarry One Hour about
Prayer and Developing a Prayer Life. Then his book, The Hearing Ear, about learning to hear God's voice, Wisdom, and then he had another book, The Weapons of Your Warfare. I want to tell you, to me as as uh Christian and as a minister coming up back in that time period, he was one of my favorites. I mean, the man was a preaching machine. He was a praying machine. He was a godly man. But there were issues that came up. Success got him off course. So, I say all that to just say that just because uh just because you go through difficulties and trials and sometimes God doesn't do things that he tells you that he's going to do, but he doesn't do them immediately, is really a good thing. Because he he's putting you through the test, the trials, the difficulties, the spiritual warfare against the enemy, so that when you get the breakthrough, when you get the answer, when people are listening to you, when people are listening to you through your witness and your life, when you're casting demons out of people, or you're beginning to see God heal the sick through you, you don't get prideful. You remember the time of dryness. You remember the time of difficulty. You remember the time when it wasn't easy, when you had to pray and you had to fast, and you had to fight. Because I'll tell you what, you'll go through a season, and this is I've seen this in my own life. Seasons where God begins to move in power, and a lot of people start getting saved, when you start casting demons out of people and seeing people delivered from the powers of darkness, I'm going to tell you, after a time of success is going to come another wave of attack to stop that. Matter of fact, the devil actually likes a minister or church to become successful. If he can't stop that, then he becomes successful, and then he makes them fall, and to make it all, you know, once it gets in the limelight of everybody. And that's what happened to Larry Lee. Um and you know, these are things that I know because I had friends I had a friend of mine who was on staff at that church. They had 30-something pastors, paid staff in that church. So I and I and I watched it. The Lord sent me there to watch it unravel. And to see why it unravel. But folks, you got to be hungry. And I think that we're at a point now where so many things are going to converge in the world, end time prophecy things. So many things are going to converge at one time. And I believe in 2014 is going to be probably one of the most interesting That's a And then of course I You have to put that in quotes, interesting years that we've seen in a long, long time. That's what I preached about last week, of course, 2014. What we could see, the things we could see happen. But there's also good
things. Not just the the negative things, not just the bad things that are coming in the world, not just the judgments of God or the wrath of the devil and all the plans that he has for the world. But there's good things. God wants to use his people. Amen. God promised in the last days, this is Acts chapter 2, y'all. He promised, "In the last days, he would pour out his spirit on all flesh." And he said, "And your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams." And he promises this right before blood and fire and pillars of smoke, right before the most terrible of the judgments. And so I believe that God is going to pour out his spirit upon those who are hungry, those who are thirsty, those who are sick and tired of living in sin, and living in in mediocrity, and lukewarm Christianity, and dead Christianity, that are ready to deal with things and face their giants. Listen, the Lord spoke to me this is not this Wednesday, but the Wednesday before in prayer, he spoke to me about our church. And I believe this is you know, whenever God speaks to you, it it can all it usually also has a broader application to other people. They go, "Yeah, that's me." That's me, too, you know? But I think the Lord was saying for us that we we have you know, left Egypt finally, most of us. Left Egypt. We've been through the wilderness now. And it's time to go on into the promised land. Now, right before they went into the promised land, and we're going to turn and we're going to read some of this, but right before they went into the promised land, they had to face some battles. Right before Moses died, they had to face some battles before they could move in. But they also, when they moved in, it wasn't going to be a picnic. There were battles to fight in that land. And the problem is is that God wants us to face the giants. Now, I'm going to get to this pretty thoroughly this morning. But if you won't face your giants, and you won't face the giants that God wants you to face, you will not make it in the promised land. Even if you make it in, you will not survive. How many people have left Egypt? Now, now we know what that means. But in fact, we're going to look at Leaving Egypt is a type of leaving the world. Well, let's just read some things. Go with me. Let's do 1 Corinthians 10 first. We'll just set this up with this. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. I mean, God didn't take the children of Israel out of Egypt because he didn't have anything better to do. He had a purpose. He had a place he wanted to take them, and he had things he wanted to do in them and through them. And that's the way he is with us. He
doesn't take us out of the world. He doesn't save us from the world so that we can keep living like we used to live in the world. Or so we can linger and flounder around in Christianity and in the wilderness and die and do nothing for God. But 1 Corinthians chapter 10, I guess I need to quit talking and get there myself, right? So, that'd be a good idea, huh? All right. Let's look at it. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 1. "Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea and were all baptized under Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things were examples or were our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, that's sexual immorality, as some of them committed and fell in one day 20 and three and 20,000 in the wilderness there. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now, all these things happened unto them for examples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Now, listen, folks, this scripture, this passage here is telling us something very important. That everything that God did in the Old Testament with the children of Israel, but every single thing he did is an example for us. It has purpose for us. It has meaning for us. Now, that was under the old covenant, he did some different things, but they all had they all apply to us. Let me give you an example. Now, everybody knows this, but for the sake of where we're going. Now, we know that when the children of Israel were in Egypt, they were in slavery. That means that they were being beaten, they were being mistreated, they couldn't do what they wanted to do with their lives, they were miserable, they were oppressed. We know that that that that slavery, that bondage to us now represents when we live in the bondage of sin, when we're a slave to sin, and we don't know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we've not been set free. So, we know the story that God was getting prepared to judge the Egyptians for their wickedness and for their evil, their occultism,
their murder, their human sacrifice, and all the crazy things that they did in Egypt. And God was getting ready to judge them. Now, of course, I put this on Facebook this morning. We see something that's real interesting. You know, God didn't take them out, did he? Be before he judged Egypt. I remember the last time I started slamming that preacher of rapture, I started losing friends on Facebook. But, I don't care. The children of Israel were in Egypt. God said, "I'm going to judge Egypt." But, he didn't take them out. He's going to show them there's only one way out of Egypt. But, God begins to judge the Egyptians. And then he shows them. He says, "Now, I'm going to bring the final judgment on the Egyptians, death to the firstborns." The judgment of God was going to come down on the Egyptians. Right? What does he What does he do? He tells them they have to go and kill a lamb. They have to kill a lamb without spot or blemish. And they have to take the blood of that lamb and put it on the doorpost of their house and if they don't do that and listen to me close. If they don't do that, he said, even his children would die with the Egyptians. Right? So, the children of Israel will took took that lamb on the first Passover. This is Exodus 13:12-14. And they take that blood of that lamb and they put it on the door post and that night when the death angel went through Egypt he passed over the houses with the blood on them and that was the final plague. When the blood was applied, the people who survived because they applied the blood of the lamb were able to come out of Egypt. Oh, boy. Now, let me tell you what that coming out of Egypt, leaving Egypt and following God and God's leaders, Moses and Aaron, coming out of Egypt is a picture where we finally decide that we're going to leave the worldly things that we were in bondage to. I don't even understand this Christianity that exists today that says God will forgive you but you have to repent. You have to change. You don't have to get up and you don't have to do anything different. You can still live in sexual immorality. You can still live in drunkenness. You can still live in drugs. You can still have your idols. You can still toy around with witchcraft and and be saved and go to heaven. No, friend. You have to apply the blood of the lamb, Jesus Christ, to your life by faith that he died for your sins and rose from the dead. And then you have to get your butt UP AND GET OUT of the sinful habits that you've been living in. You leave Egypt, folks. Too many Christians right now are just like the children of Israel. THEY GOT OUTSIDE IN THE wilderness for 3 days. They left Egypt for 3 days and wanted to go back.
I'm sick and tired of seeing or people who call themselves Christians play this game. The blood of Jesus will not save you unless you are READY TO GIVE UP EGYPT and all of its evil and all of its wickedness. And Egypt represents the world and all of Satan's stuff. You will Listen to me. You will not be saved and go to heaven. I don't care if you've been baptized 15 times. I don't care if you've said the sinner's prayer 100 times. I don't care what you you think you've done religiously. You've been sprinkled. You've spoken in tongues. I don't care. IF YOU DON'T FINALLY GIVE UP THE SEXUAL IMMORALITY, IF YOU DON'T GIVE UP THE things in the world and the idols in the world and the devil's stuff, if you don't give it up and walk away, you're not going to be saved when it comes down to it. I'm I'm sorry. And if you don't believe me, let's just read Jude real quick. Oh, oh. I'm feeling it this morning. Jude next right next to Revelation. Next to the last book in the New Testament. It's one short little chapter, but look what he said here. Oh, let's just read from verse one. It's too good to pass up here. Right? Verse one. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Then he says, "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness or a license, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, look at this, verse 5. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though once you knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. Now, did that mean those people didn't believe in the Lord anymore that were in the wilderness? No. They saw God destroy the Egyptians. They saw God split the Red Sea. They walked through that sea. They They saw the pillar of the of the cloud uh by day and the fire by night. They saw the presence of God. They saw the miracles of water coming from the rock and bread coming from heaven. It wasn't that they didn't believe in God. They quit believing in God's plan, in God's purpose, in God's ways. They wanted their own ways. They wanted to go back to Egypt. They wanted to live in sin and continue in sin. They wanted to stay in that bondage and that slavery. Well, just because you enjoyed some things in that sinful behavior.
You know, remember they talked about wanting the leeks and the onions again that they had in Egypt? Remember that? It's amazing how Christians forget. Oh, well, I enjoyed sleeping around. I enjoyed, you know, a little joint once in a while. I enjoyed my beer and whiskey. Yeah, but you seem to forget waking up with the depression. Or the car you wrecked. Or the marriages you ruined. Or the relationships you ruined. Or the people you hurt when you were drunk and making a mess. They forget all that, and it And it was just like they they they they seem to forget that they were slaves. Right? That they were being beaten. That they had to work for nothing. See, that's the way we are, isn't it? Human beings. We forget. But Egypt. And I love it what we read back here in 1 Corinthians when he said, "Not only do we have the picture of coming out of Egypt, coming out of the worldly system, coming out of the worldly ways through the blood of the lamb, getting saved or getting born again through faith in the blood of Jesus, not only do we see coming out of Egypt, but the Bible even says that they were baptized under Moses two ways. NUMBER ONE through the sea, which was water, water baptism. And then he said, "Through the sea and through the cloud." Who was the cloud? The cloud was the manifest presence of God. That's the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So even there you have a picture of two baptisms, baptism in water, baptism through the cloud, the Holy Spirit. And when you're baptized in the Holy Spirit, you speak in tongues. I'm sorry, but that's Bible, okay? Baptized in water is one thing, baptized in the Holy Spirit something different. Guess what? We need it all, right? Now, their time in the wilderness after they were baptized, after they left by the blood of the lamb, after they, what, were baptized in through the water of the Red Sea, and then they were baptized in the cloud of God's presence, and they went into the wilderness where they were beginning a journey. Remember, it's a journey. They weren't to stay there. It was a journey to go somewhere. And folks, that's where our church is supposed to be. Listen, we've been on a journey. We're not finished. Amen? God has us going somewhere, but we had to deal with the wilderness. And everybody's going to have to go through their wilderness. Everybody. No exceptions. You will have a wilderness time as a Christian. And you're going to stay in the wilderness until you decide to get Egypt out of you. Oh boy. So there's a lot of people that might and listen to me here, there's a lot of
people that may not be living in sin but they want to. They want to go back to Egypt. I remember Keith Green had a song about that. So you want to go back to Egypt. Right? God got angry with not for the ones that a lot of them never turned around and went back to Egypt but in their hearts they wanted to go back to Egypt. They thought it they had it the twisted idea they had that it was going to be easier back there. But let's take it a step further. You come out of Egypt by the blood of the lamb. You leave Egypt. You choose to leave. Remember, they applied the blood of the lamb on the door post that Passover night. But they left the next day. Applying the blood of Jesus to your life through faith, believing, saying that prayer is just the first step. Repentance is saying I leave my old ways. I leave it. Amen. I know I'm repeating myself but let it sink in. Cuz we got people on TV like Joseph Prince. We got Joseph Prince. We got now Pope Francis. We got everybody say Pope Francis is even saying now that atheists can go to heaven if they do good works. They don't have to believe in Jesus. They don't have to confess it. What he's saying is they can leave Egypt and go to heaven, have salvation without the blood of the lamb applied to their life, without leaving their old ways, without even believing the gospel. Pope Francis is a false prophet. I mean, I just hate to I mean Joseph Prince Joel Osteen Rick Warren I'm an equal opportunity. JOHN MACARTHUR SAYS YOU CAN take the mark of the beast AND STILL BE SAVED. SO, WE GOT PRESBYTERIANS, Baptists and Roman Catholics. So, I'm fair. We all have our false teachers. But, there is no salvation unless you leave Egypt. When I got saved I left the sexual immorality. I left the drugs. I left the alcohol. I left it behind. My old ways, my old music gone. Leave Egypt. Somebody say it's good preaching, Pastor Dean. It's truth. Here's the thing. Here's what's powerful. When you make up your mind to leave Egypt then you can get filled with the Holy Spirit. I think a lot of people have not
received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I've had Christians tell me, "Oh, I've prayed and prayed and prayed for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but I've just never spoken in tongues and I've never felt the power of God and I've never been I just think that you know, I think you get that when you get saved." That's their excuse. I really believe that a majority of them don't get baptized in the Holy Spirit because they've never really left Egypt fully. Uh-oh. Don't shout me down. It's getting kind of quiet in here. Right? There's always a reason God gives the Holy Spirit. You know that scripture? God gives the Holy Spirit to those that obey him. Imagine that, that God would require you to obey before he gives you more. Wow. Why is that? Well, I don't like that. God's too tough. Well, he's God, so he makes the rules. You either choose to submit to his way or you do it your way, rebel. Right? Sovereign Lord. If he made you and he made this planet and he made this universe and he made everything in it, he's got a right to say how it should go. Amen. He's kept you alive, he's given you breath, he's had mercy and patience. I would say he has a right to say "Don't do that. Go this way." You see, the problem is like a lot of children, a lot of teenagers they want to do things their own way. And they don't realize that the rules and the parents trying to get them to do certain things is because it's for their own good, it's for their own protection. And we don't realize that God's rules are for our protection. We think we're smarter. Has Has anything that that the human race has done against God's rules and God's ways and against God's morality or his law, has any of it worked out for the good? No. No. And And And And we're about to see the full manifestation of it. Of man's evil rebellion. Because more people in the church world are going to follow the than they will the true Christ, Jesus Christ. More people are going to follow and actually now more people do follow all these false teachers. I mean look, y'all. Over 1 billion Catholics in the Mary thing. Over 1 billion Catholics with the Mary idol. Over right at 2 billion Muslims with Muhammad then them saying that Jesus didn't die on the cross and that
Jesus is not the son of God. That right there is half the planet. And I dare even believe that we even have half the church that really loves Jesus and and walks with him. I don't even believe it's half. Revival, I like this. Charles Finney said this. He was one of the great revivalists in the 1800s. And he said this. He said, "Revival is nothing else. If you If you're a dead Christian or your church is dead and dry or or you're struggling and you're in a wilderness, he said, "You want to be revived? You want God to pour out his spirit on you? You want to be refreshed and filled with the Holy Spirit?" He tells you real simple. This is what Charles Finney said, "Revival or being, you know, revival means that you were alive, you're almost dead or you are dead and somebody has to resuscitate you. That's revival. Right? That's what it means to revive someone." She does this. She works as a in heart surgery. Right? "Revive," he said, "Revival A revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God. When Christians decide they are going to leave Egypt alone, leave disobedience and unbelief, when we decide we're going to obey, God promised he'll revive." Somebody else say amen right there. It's really that simple. And when enough people get on their faces and say God, forgive me for being lukewarm. Forgive me for continuing to want to go back to Egypt. Forgive me for toying with sin and playing with sin in my life. Forgive me for making excuses. Forgive me for having idols in my life. Forgive me, Lord, I want to obey you. I want to walk with you. I want to know you. And when you get up and do it, too many people talk about it. When you get up and you do it, God pours his spirit out on you. Amen. I can tell you I can tell you my testimony. When I made up my mind and then I did it, God filled me with the Holy Spirit. Satan has started getting saved. My friends started getting saved. My family got saved. I saw blind I see a eyes open. I've seen deaf ears healed. I've seen God do miracles. Crippled walk. I've seen the dead raised. I've seen the power of God poured out his spirit on my life. Well, guess what? I feel like we've been walking through a wilderness. I want that again. Amen. We can have it. And I felt like the Lord said that. We're almost there. We're almost there.
Whew. The hour is late. You know I was talking about facing the giants. When they went into the promised land, they they fought a couple of battles before they went in and Moses died, passed away. Cuz God intended that Joshua would take them in. Right? But remember there was the old songs back in the old days. And all those old hymns would say that basically portrayed the promised land as going to heaven. When you died and went to heaven or when Jesus came and we went to heaven. No. Brand new, new, new, new. Cuz what do we see in the land? Evil people, bad stuff, giants. Who were the giants that were in the land, the promised land? Who were they? The Bible tells us, Genesis 6. They were the offspring of fallen angels and human women. Oh, it's real. I'm going to get into that in the in the days ahead here. There's archaeological evidence the giants were real. There's DNA evidence that they were real. This is in the Bible. These are not myths. These are not fairy tales. The Bible is not fairy tales. But what does that tell us? That going into the promised land, that there is going to be warfare, spiritual and physical warfare to fight if we're going to possess what God wants us to have. Right? Let me just give you a list, a few things that you're going to have to face. Some giants you're going to have to face if you're going to possess what God wants you to possess. I've already addressed the first thing. You're going to have to face leaving Egypt and getting Egypt out of you, getting the world and the sinful desires out of you and walking in obedience to God. Number one. But let's move on into the spiritual warfare side of it a little more. There's a giant you're going to have to face. If you don't face it, you're not going to make it. Cuz listen to me. God told them in Deuteronomy, he told them in Numbers, he told them and and we see it fulfilled in the book of Judges chapter 2. But God told them, he said, "Go into the promised lands and drive out the inhabitants thereof." And fight them. Now, a lot of people think that God was mean because he thinks that those people
or those inhabitants of the land were actually all human beings. No, they weren't. They were Nephilim. They were half-breed fallen angels human beings. That's why God wiped them out. God wouldn't be in mean wiping out men, women, and children. He was wiping out false mutations that the devil created. God love the one guy said there's a guy named L.A. Marzulli. That's a researcher and minister and uh but he he's researched this down in Peru and and discovered these I had these archaeological digs and discovered the giants and these race of the Nephilim and there's DNA evidence and all these things. Right? But see, it finally makes sense when you see in Deuteronomy 3:1-3 where God told them to go into the land and certain groups of people like the the Amorites and the Hivites and the Hittites and he would say, "Go and destroy." Kill them all, men, women, children. That sounds evil. That's the You know what? That's the atheist's biggest argument against us. Your God is a is into genocide. He wants to just wipe out races of people. No. Because if you're half human, half fallen angel, you're not human. As a matter of fact, so evil, I believe they were so evil that God said, "If I don't wipe them out, they will wipe you out." And we'll get into that. You got to remember this. The same Remember, we talked about the things in the Old Testament have their parallels in the New Testament. There are things out here. Demons, fallen angels, that go bump in the night. The as they say, the things that go bump in the night. And if you refuse to fight, then you will lose. He told the Israelites, he said, "Make no covenant with them, make no peace treaties with them. Fight them until you destroy them and or drive them out of the land, but make no peace with these enemies, these evil enemies." And this is what we got to get Christians to understand. Once you move into the promised land, it's time to fight. AND YOU GOT TO FIGHT THE DEMONS ON A personal level. Hear me out. If you won't deal with your personal demons and go through deliverance and get the strongholds of the devil that came into you through your past sins, if you won't bind THEM AND CAST THEM OUT AND GO THROUGH DELIVERANCE, you will not stand. If you don't face that giant of personal deliverance. You hear me? Second thing they had to face in the God
told them that when they went into the land, the promised land, he would give them houses they didn't build and fields they didn't plant. But he told them and you can check me out in Leviticus chapter 14, he said, "You're going to go into the land and there'll be houses there that'll have red and green streaks going down the walls." HE SAYS, "CALL THE priest and have them come in and go through this cleansing ceremony." He says, "But if the red and green streaks, if they disappear, then the house is cleansed." He said, "But if they won't disappear, if they won't leave, that house is cursed. Destroy it and do not live in it." Why was the house cursed? Because back in then, a lot of the pagans, a lot of these demonic people would take their little idols and their little images and they would literally bury them in the foundations and in the walls of the house. Now, why do I bring up all this? This is all historically proven. This is all a fact and this is why God would say destroy it because hear me, if you won't face this other giant, I'm just going to be honest with you. I've taught this in this church. Kevin has preached this in this church. But if you don't face the giants that certain objects that you can bring in your house are cursed and will destroy you if you don't get rid of them. If you don't deal with that giant, you're going to be destroyed. I'm just going to be I'm just going to tell you straight like it is. You can't keep the devil's stuff on your body, in your house, and be okay. You can't go to their healers. I don't care if they're African voodoo shamans. I don't care if they're Santa Maria. I don't care what they're You can't go to their healing. You can't go to the Asian acupuncture. You can't play with the pagan religions' supernatural realm, even if it's for healing. You play with that, you don't face that giant and fight it off in the name of Jesus and trust Jesus Christ to be your physician and your healer. If you don't do that, you're just going to you're just going to take you down. Amen. You don't get rid of your own idols in your house. Oh, don't we like little religious trinkets? God's commandment. I know the Roman Catholics took it out of the Bible, but it's in the Bible. Thou shalt make no graven images of anything that's in on heaven, on the earth, or under the earth. You shall not bow down to them. Worship them. I got pictures of every pope for decades going up to a statue of Mary and bowing down to it. Idolatry. That's it.
Idolatry. It opens the door for demons. It's paganism. It's witchcraft. I don't care if it's masked in Christianity. I'll make a lot of people mad with that. The truth is the truth is the truth. Whenever God's people took the pagan junk into their houses or the idols into their houses from pagan religions or they took they created their own, whenever they took those things under themselves, they began to fall apart. Turn with one more passage and we're going to close with this. Look, I want to show you what God said in Judges chapter 1. Say, this is not a sweet little sermon, is it, Pastor Ding? No, it's not. But here it I'll tell you what it is, though. Any sermon that lifts up Jesus is a Christmas message to me. Amen? Jesus is the way, the truth, and the lie. We celebrate Christmas about him being born, coming in God manifested in the flesh, coming into the world to do something. He didn't stay a baby, did he? No more than Mary stayed a virgin. Right? He came into the world to do something. To go to the cross for our sins. He is the Lord of glory. I'm sorry. I mean, I know I'm I'm I might be hurting some feelings, but I don't care. And I know I got people listening to me all over. I start talking about Roman Catholicism, I start talking about or healing oils and acupuncture, I start talking about uh you know, pagan religions or you know, willow tree angels in your house or the rapture is not at the beginning so you you know, you can escape all the problems. Yeah, I start losing people, boy. They start leaving. They start running for the doors. Right? I can tell you this much, truth tru- true truth from God, I mean, truth Bible will either do one of two things in your life. It'll cause you to let go of sin and the devil's stuff or it'll cause you to run away from Jesus. One of the two. You will not just stay lingering around. You'll do one of the two. That's why you're either growing or backsliding. On it. Right? I told y'all to turn to Judges, didn't I? Here's what happens if you won't face these giants in the promised land. Here's what happens. And I'll get there in a second. Trying to walk around. I need to get my podium, I guess. Bring something else to Sherri's house. All right, here we go.
Let's see. I want to see what part I want to read here. Told them to go in and to fight the land. Let's see. Let's go to chapter 2. Let's look at verse 1. And look what he said to them. Cuz this is when they got tired of fighting. When they got tired of fighting the devil and fighting the giants in the land, when they got tired of facing the spiritual warfare and doing what God told them to do, here's what happened. Look at verse 1. Judges 2:1. And the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, "I made you to go up out of Egypt and have brought you unto the land which I swore to your fathers, and I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you. And you will shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land. You shall throw down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Wherefore I also said, 'I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your sides and their gods or their demons shall be a snare unto you.' And it shall come to pass when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children of Israel that the people lifted up their voice and wept, and they called the name of that place Bochim or the place of weeping, and they sacrificed there unto the Lord. And of course it says they served the Lord all the days of Joshua. Verse 7. But this is amazing right here, chapter 10. Boy, and this is where we are. I mean, not chapter 10. I'm sorry, verse 10. And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers, and there arose another generation after them which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And it says in the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Balaam. Here's the thing, listen to me. I'm going to be straight up with you. We lose the next generation, our children, our children's children, we lose the next generation when we quit fighting the spiritual warfare and when we don't teach them how to fight it. You hear me? We will lose them when we make peace with the devil. When we make peace with the devil's junk, when we make peace with the devil's people and the devil's ways. That's why I thank God what Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty just did. They asked him a point-blank question, he spoke out about homosexuality, the the the the liberal nutcases and all the crazy groups of homosexuals, they've gone crazy cuz he simply quoted what the Bible says about homosexuality. And did it in a in a such a graphic sense that it really exposes how horrible homosexuality is. See, I'm going to tell you what, a lot of times I'm sick of people saying things nicely. Uh you know what I love about Phil Robertson? He's a man. He ain't some a little effeminate wimpy man. I like what he said, "I'm not into dainty things."
You know, if there weren't children in here, I'd just go ahead and say what he said. But here's the thing. I think probably all the children have heard it anyway, right? This is what gets me, they're trying they're putting this stuff in the children's schoolbooks. Obama teach all your children about the homosexual acts. If he had his way about it. And it's already in a lot of them. Oh my, I guess I need to stop. We need more people. I'll tell you what will take place. Here's what you need. Don't make peace with the devil. And can I just say this, too, Christians? Don't make peace with the lukewarm Christians who want you to soften it down and water it down. Don't make peace with them. Matter of fact, I enjoy irritating them. I'll say things sometimes in a certain way just to irritate them. Because they need to be shaken out of their complacency and the la-la land that they live in. There's certain things I don't have to say, but I say it anyway. Snap out of it. That's why I love it Will Ferrell did. Snap out of it, America. God created male and female to be together. Not male and male, not woman and woman. Sorry. If that offends you, get right with God. Because the wrath of God is coming upon all this evil. You hear me? And let me just go on and tell y'all this. Listen. Y'all have no idea how bad things are right now in America. I'm talking about behind the scenes. In our government, in our military, in our financial system, everything is about to come crumbling down. All of it. The military is about to split into and go against each other. Everything is about to change. All the top economists are saying, "No, we're not printing 80 billion a month now of money that we don't have gold and silver to back. No, we're printing 200 billion a month to pay the interest on a debt we will never pay. The Chinese have moved into Canada. They've moved into Mexico. They now have submarines armed with nuclear weapons. The Russians are here.
The Illuminati bankers are getting ready to rob every single one of your bank accounts. DHS, Department of Homeland Security, rogue elements within our own military are going to fight the true Christians and the true patriots in our military. Mark it down. The lines are being drawn in the sand right now. There is talk within military circles to physically overthrow Obama for his unconstitutional, illegal presidency and everything he's doing to violate the Constitution. This is hard to fathom for Americans, y'all, because our country has been around for over 200 years. BUT EVERY GREAT NATION that ever turned its back on God and and just just thumbed their their noses in God's face and said, "We're going to do whatever we want with abortion. We're going to do whatever we want with occultism and pornography and paganism and we don't want you, God." He finally takes his hand off and great, listen, y'all, great nations, nations that lasted the longest in like Rome fell into complete disarray and were taken over by other countries. We are about to be taken over, y'all. The Russians and the Chinese and the Germans and the UN world government that's coming is about to take over America for its resources. Mark it down. They will strategically nuke certain cities and they will try to preserve as much of our natural resources as they can because they view it, especially the Chinese view it as we owe them. Y'all just have you I'm not even scratching the surface on what is about to happen. What is the answer for us? Listen. The people of God who got serious about God and revival can have revival in the midst of the greatest persecution and darkness. As a matter of fact, it is those things sometimes that have to push the church to finally get on its knees, to finally get the sin out, to finally get right with God SO IT CAN HAVE REVIVAL. WHAT DO YOU THINK'S HAPPENING in Egypt right now? What do you think's happening in in Syria right now? The systematic elimination of Christianity. Nigeria. I was in Nigeria twice. But you know what you know what when I was in Nigeria? Yeah. Are the Muslims
trying to take over Nigeria? Are they killing Christians and burning churches left and right? Yes. But you know what's happening in Nigeria? I could go do a meeting in Nigeria right now in a week. Do advertising in a week and fill a stadium 60,000 people. 80,000 people. And and they don't even know who I am. Just a a preacher from America. I could do that. They know their only hope is to be right with Jesus and to walk in the power of God. I'm just trying to tell you it's our only hope, y'all. It's your only hope. It's my only hope. It's our children's only hope. That in wrath God will remember mercy. But the wrath is coming. And it's not just the wrath of God, y'all. The wrath of Satan. Satan hates this country because we have we got our problems, but we have stood for freedom. We have stood for Christianity. We have sent missionaries all over the world to share Jesus with with the world. We have sent mission missionaries out that have died in other parts of the world to share Jesus with people. And that's why I think God's not going to let us be completely destroyed as a nation that he's going to have mercy and in the midst of it there's going to be a little reviving. There's going to be a little salvation. There's going to be pockets of refuge and safety and that God will use his people IN MIGHTY WAYS. GOD'S NOT FINISHED WITH America even though he's going to let it be judged. But it's GOING TO COME DOWN TO you're on the Lord's side or you're on Satan's side. It's going to get that drawn down the line. So even though at times I get a little concerned. I have three daughters. I don't like having to know these things. But folks, I'm going to tell you this. I'm getting emails. People are getting saved. Even today. Even today. Going to pray with two two people that say, "I want you to come pray with me. I want to give my life to the Lord." today after church. Here in this town. And it wasn't because I preached it soft and sweet to them. No. My wife knows. I'll share the details later. Maybe they can come and share the details later. They may be even listening right now. They were driving back from somewhere to get back here. What I'm saying, folks, I believe we're about to see everything that we've desired, but we we've we've got to kick it in and our our church has got to get unified. We got to break out of some bad habits. We
got to get in prayer. We got to get the Amen. Be unified. God bless every fiber of your being. It's time to get unified. Amen. All right, let's pray. Thank you, Jesus. Father in heaven, we come to you this morning. Let's everybody just stand for a minute. Thank you, Jesus. Brother, you got set of fire. That's good. That is the library. Here's what we're going to do this morning before we go. I feel like this is important. Even though we're going to fellowship here in a minute, we got plenty of time. We're not in a hurry. Some of you might be, but I'm not. All right. Here's what we're going to do. If you've never really been saved, you've never really said, "Jesus, I believe in you. I'm going to follow you. I'm going to give you my life. I'm going to turn from my sin. I'm going to be real." If you've never done that and you're in this room, we'll give you an opportunity to do that this morning. When we start this song, I want you to just get out and come up here and I'm going to pray with you. But second of all, if you're a Christian and you've been toying, you've been going back to Egypt, you've been playing around, you've been playing in and out and up and down, playing playing playing playing with the world and with sin, and you haven't made up your mind to finally leave Egypt, let this be the day you do it. Let this be the day that you say, "I'm done with the world. I'm done with sin. I'm done with doing it that way. I'm going to do it God's way." So many people have never done that. They go to church, they play the game, they think they're okay. They God loves me no matter what I do. No, wrong. He loves you, but he wants you to change. Amen. So, bow your heads. I'm going to pray and then we're going to play this song. It's a love her. And during the song, if you need repentance, you need to ask God to forgive you, you need to get right with God, I want you to step up here. And why do you say, "Why do you do that, preacher?" Because the Bible's very clear. If you confess me before man, in front of other people, I will confess you before my father. That's what Jesus said. If you are ashamed of me in front of people, then I will be ashamed of you. It's a thing where you say, "You know what? I don't care what anybody thinks. I don't care what anybody thinks. I'm giving my life to Jesus. I'm getting my life right with Jesus today." So, and you say, "Well, why do you call people up?" Let me tell you, when I was 11 years old, 12 years old, whenever it was in that time period, the day I walked, I I finally decided to step from the back row of that church, and I put my foot in the aisle to go pray that prayer with the preacher, the power of God hit me and came over me, and it was an experience that I've never forgotten with Jesus, simply deciding today is my day to do this in front of everybody. Amen. Let's pray and then we'll play this song. Father, I pray right now in Jesus
name for everyone here, everyone listening by internet radio. Lord, I pray if they're not saved or they're not where they need to be with you. That God today will be the day. That they'll confess their sins, that they'll turn from them, that they'll say, "Jesus, today I'm going to obey you. I'm going to walk with you. I'm going to take up my cross and I'm going to follow you. I'm going to turn loose of the devil's stuff in that world. I'm going to turn loose of all of it and I'm going to follow you." Lord, I pray today that people will do that. In Jesus' name. We're going to sing this song and if you need to do it, do it today. Amen.