Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
I'm sorry. I've come with my. And I forgot that you're in a.
Jesus, we thank you, God almighty, that you have given us your word. We thank you for the Bible, Lord, we thank you for the truth. We thank you that you've given us your believers, your followers. You've given us your Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us into all truth. Lord, I ask you to help us as we walk by faith and not by sight, as we are in constant spiritual warfare against the forces of darkness. Lord, we ask for your strength. We ask for discernment and revelation. We ask that you would put in us a heart that will fight and fight and fight and keep fighting and not grow weary and well doing. Lord, help us to be those kind of people, Lord. I pray, and it's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. Amen. You may be seated this morning. Welcome, everyone, to Fire and Grace Church. Those watching and listening from all over. All right. Y'all ready to get into it? I had to run to my office. I had to find a quote in a Charles Finney's book. I'm going to read this here. And if you've never read Charles Finney's book, Revival Lectures, of course, it's kind of a thick book. And if you don't know who Charles Finney was, he was one of the greatest revivalist America has ever known. Pretty much just him. He spearheaded the Second Great Awakening. He was so filled with the Holy Spirit that he would go in places and thousands of people would just fall under conviction of the Holy Spirit and get saved. He was a lawyer by trade, and so he knew how to argue his case. He also knew the power of prayer. And he talked about if you have much of the spirit of God. And this is what I I want to help you with. If you if you love Jesus and you are full of the Holy Spirit and you're all about following him, of course, you need to understand that you're going to be targeted by the devil. He's going to leave the lukewarm ones alone. He's got them. All right. I want to read something that Charles Finney said. And this is in his chapter on being filled with the spirit. And it's just excellent. It says here, he said, basically, if you have much of the spirit of God, you must expect very frequent and agonizing conflicts with Satan. Satan has very little trouble with those Christians who are not spiritual, but lukewarm and slothful and worldly minded and such do not understand what is said about spiritual conflicts.
Perhaps they will smile when such things are mentioned. And so the devil lets them alone. They do not disturb him nor he them. But spiritual Christians, he understands very well and they are doing him a vast injury and therefore he sets himself against them. Such Christians often have terrible conflicts. They have temptations that they never thought of before. Blasphemous thoughts, doubts, atheism, suggestions to do deeds of wickedness to destroy their own lives and the like. And if you are spiritual, you may expect these spiritual conflicts. And that's just one of his points that he makes in revival lectures. The battle is real. And I'm just going to say this. I've been over my many years of walking with the Lord Jesus through times of such intense spiritual battle, mental, emotional, physical, from other people, persecutions and times. It just seems like that you just want to slow down, just give up, stop, you know, back away. And what the Lord has always shown me is that it just takes a person to overcome these things. You have to be a person who will refuse no matter what you feel that you refuse to back away from your intensity to follow Jesus and to fight the devil and to resist temptation. In fact, it's not real faith if you see it. You understand? Or what I'm saying too is if you're, if you feel it, you get what I'm saying? If you feel, have to feel it for it to be real to you, if you have to feel good and riding high in the Holy Spirit all the time to do what you need to do, you're still immature and you're going to have to learn the lesson that sometimes, in fact, a lot of the times and the older you get in the Lord as you walk with him, you're going to have to just maintain your intensity no matter how you feel. In fact, that's kind of the definition of an adult. You know, we go to work and we don't feel like it, right? We take care of our kids when we got a fever, right? You understand? It's like the body and the mind will try to tell you, just back away. And that's what the devil wants.
He wants you to back away. And see, here's what happens. If you back away from prayer, if you back away from the word, if you back away from worship time, if you back away from church and fellowship and those that you back away, the devil knows you're going to get slowly get weaker and weaker and weaker, and then he's got you, then he can bring the stuff and you just cave like a house of cards in a whirlwind. You have to maintain your intensity and walk by faith and not by sight in those times when the battle is intense. This is why in Ephesians six, when he said, what, having done all to stand, stand, meaning don't allow yourself to lose any ground. Don't move backwards. You hear me? There's no rope-a-dopes in this, uh, battle. And for you people that don't understand a rope-a-dope is what Muhammad Ali used to do. He used to just move backwards and let them wear out and he would guard himself the best he could, but he'd let the other fighter wear out, especially as he got older. This was his trick. And then he would start pounding them. But when the devil, you can't give up ground. You can't step back. You can't ease up your intensity. You can't do it. Somebody say don't lose ground, but I'm going to tell you the number one way Christians lose ground, I'm going to tell you what laziness. The fact is a lot of times I don't feel like it. I'm tired way, way, way, right? One thing that we learn about our soldiers is if they're in the midst of a battle, they don't even get, take a break, go to the bathroom. Why? Cause you, you get up, I got to go run to the bathroom and then you get shot. And that's one of the things I've shared this before, but you know, our Navy seals and special forces, one of the things that their training takes them through. And the reason they put them through such hell is to make them realize that their mind can overcome what the body's trying to tell them. Meaning they, they realize that they can push their body further than they ever realized. And basically what they learn to do is tell the body, the flesh, no matter how much pain it's in, no matter how uncomfortable it is, keep doing your job.
That's what they learned. The rest of us, that's why so many of them in seal training ring the bell and leave. They finally give in and say, my body just can't take it anymore. I'm done. And this is what a lot of Christians do. It's too, it gets too hard. It's too difficult. So I'm going to retreat into Luke Warmville and Luke Warmville. The devil goes, Oh, let me just leave them alone. And that person starts thinking, Oh, I found a place of peace, but let me tell you, it's a false piece. It's a place where the reason you're having some peace is because you've waved the white flag of surrender. You see in this battle we have with Satan and the forces of darkness and all his evil in the world, we must keep moving forward. And what do I mean by that drawing closer to Jesus, filling ourselves with his word, being in prayer, and then doing things that he tells us to do. And if you don't spend time with him, if you don't fast, if you don't pray, if you don't meditate and stay in the word, read the word, study the word, then you will not be able to hear what the Holy Spirit is telling you to do. And if you don't hear what the Holy Spirit is telling you to do, then he succeeded at cutting you off from communication and then we don't move forward because you have to hear things that the Holy Spirit wants you to do and do them for the kingdom of God to advance, to reach the laws, to reach the prodigals. You have to hear his voice and move forward and do things. Like I've said before, there's nowhere in the Bible that it says Dean Odell, go to Opelika, Alabama, go to your hometown and start a church. It's not written in here. I've checked. So how did I know that's what I was supposed to do to advance the kingdom of God? Not everybody's called to start a church or pastor a church, so you have to know what God wants you to do. And that's how the kingdom of God expands. That's how we win battles against the devil. And the battles that we are fighting are for these unsaved lost souls. He's lost people around us that if we don't do what God wants us to do, if we don't win the battles, if we don't move forward, then they are going to be lost. We are the Lord's witnesses, messengers. We are his ambassadors on this earth. He has chosen to do it that way. Yes, he could say, I don't need them and I'll do it all myself, but that's not the way he set it up. He set it up to say, if you will follow me, I will fill you. I will empower you.
And if you will surrender your life to me and become a good soldier of Jesus Christ, then you're going to see you're going to you're going to set captives free. You're going to reach the lost. You're going to help the POWs we have get free. That's what deliverance is all about. We got POWs, so many of them, but we got a lot of AWOL too. You got you got a little lead for three days and you made it 30 or three years. Some people walked away from the Lord and they knew him. They walked with him and walked away from the Lord, walked away from that intensity of going after him and going after the devil and after the world and getting in this battle and fighting it. They've lost their intensity and they just found a church that will tell them what they want to hear that's comfortable and they sit there and convince themselves that they're winning this battle. You know, I don't want to go into eternity and the Lord look at me and go because you didn't obey me because you didn't keep your intensity. I want to show you all these thousands of people that went to hell because you didn't obey me. So blood's on your hand, son. But see, it doesn't just go for me. It goes for you. Maybe God's only called you to reach one person. You better, you better reach that person because this life is all about what, what we do. Do we do the will of God? See, that's the part a lot of people don't like. It's like, oh, Pastor Dean, know it's all by grace and I'm eternally secure if I just believe it. Oh, really? Why does it say over and over again, he who does the will of God will live forever. Let me show you this. Let's go to, uh, second Kings chapter 13. I want to read this right here. This is something that stood out to me the last few days because I'm going to tell you, there are some weeks that maybe you can't see it on the outside, but I just go through what I'll just call just a spiritual and mental hell for a while.
And then, of course, I slammed my finger in my door too. So those things will happen and broke my finger. As you can see, this fingernail is going to come off. I probably at some point and that hurt. Like somebody had beaten me with a aluminum bat. Um, goodness, but the, you know, you just stack these things up and it sometimes it seems like it's just one thing after another, after another, after another, and then you got to go, all right, well, you know, some people know this is what a lot of, a lot of Christians do when it gets intense and difficult, they go smoke a joint because they need to relax or they go have a few couple of drinks. You know, I'm not getting drunk. I'm just, I'm just relaxing, just dealing with helping my nerves or for a lot of people they go to porn because that releases all kinds of chemicals in the brain, it's called neurotoxin, everything mixes together and oh yeah, it's like a drug and some people go from that, go to actual sex, sexual sin, because again, they're looking for a feeling, they're looking for something to feel satisfied. Some people, they love spending money or gambling because that gives them some pump of adrenaline and some excitement, some, some dopamine, right? But see, this is where we as Christians have to overcome, not just the flesh, but the carnal mind to see the mind is, is what you end up doing what stays up here. And if you let those things stay in there, you end up doing them. This is why it's so important when someone starts talking about suicide to take it seriously, because if they're talking about it, that means they've been thinking about it for a while because from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So if they start talking about it, then they could be very close to acting upon it. And again, all of that with even the spirit of suicide is about giving up. It's about, I can't take anymore. It's about, I need relief from this world or whatever I'm going through my family situation or the abuse I suffered or my own stupid mistakes or my drug addiction or my alcohol addiction. I want to run from this and have relief. So they put it in their mind that if I end it, I'm going to, I'm going to be at rest, right? Not realizing that kill yourself, you're a murderer
and no murderer has eternal life abiding in them. According to 1st John, chapter three, and you're dead now, so you can't repent. So it's kind of final. A lot of people, I've known people back in the day, there was a young man that I had led to the Lord and baptized in water and who was on fire for Jesus for awhile, but through different things. Family issues, his own rebellion, his pressure from his friends and all that stuff, he went back to drinking and partying. And then he was killed in a car accident and this was here in Beulah. And I, I knew his family well. In fact, I had led his whole family to Jesus, his mom, his dad, and they were on fire for Jesus. And I will never forget the cries of that mother as she laid over his coffin because he lost his intensity to stay with Jesus. That was one of the saddest days of my life watching that. And he was only probably when he was killed 18, 19, maybe 20, I can't remember now, but a long time ago, I've seen people back away, fall away, just simply because they would not keep fighting no matter how they felt. I can't stress this enough. I don't care what your brain tells you, what your body tells you, you're either going to keep believing the word of God and seeking after him, or you're going to give up, draw back, get lazy, and be in a very dangerous place. I want to show you something here about not having the intensity you should have. This is a second Kings, Chapter 13. We're going to go down to verse 14 and read there. Now, Elisha, this is Elisha, the prophet who had the double portion of Elijah's anointing of the Holy Spirit upon him. It says, now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness, whereof he died. And Joash, the king of Israel came down into him and wept over his face and said, Oh, my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. And Elisha said unto him, take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, put thine hand upon the bow and he put his hand upon it.
And Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands. And he said, open the window eastward and he opened it. Then Elisha said, shoot. And he shot. And he said, the arrow of the Lord's deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria, for thou shalt smite the Syrians in affect, tell thou have consumed them. And he said, take the arrows and he took them and he said unto the king of Israel, smite upon the ground and he smoked thrice or three times and stopped. And the man of God was Roth or very angry with him and said, thou should us have smitten five or six times. Then had thou smitten Syria, tell thou has consumed it, whereas now thou shalt smite Syria, but thrice and Elisha died and they buried him. I'm going to stop there. Now, Israel, you have to remember, this is after Solomon, the kingdom divided, ten tribes went to the north to Samaria and all the kings of Israel, they created basically a counterfeit, false system of worship up there. Jeroboam did. And all the kings, if you go through first and second Kings, first and second Chronicles, and you pay attention, you will notice it'll talk about you had the kingdom, the north kingdom of Israel. And then there was the kingdom of Judah. Okay. In the south and Jerusalem, and you'll notice that every single king of Israel, of the northern kingdom who was wicked, every single one was disobedient to God, was into idolatry, was rebellious, was a problem. Not one said that they serve the Lord or love the Lord with all their heart and was true to God. Now, in the southern kingdom, you would see every now and then you see a good king, a bad king, a good king, a bad king. That's where you had Hezekiah, good king and Josiah, of course. So every now and then you'd have a righteous king in Judah, but never in Israel. Now, here's what blows my mind. And here's what's so powerful is we'll just say that, oh, King here, Joe Hesh, the king of Israel, we know that he was not a righteous man. Okay. And in fact, we can even back up where it says in verse 11, where it says he did that, which was evil on the side of the Lord and departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin, but he walked therein. Now, what makes this amazing though, and I think that this is a picture of so many Christians in America, in the West, that we live
kind of with a foot in both worlds. We got a foot in the church, in the kingdom of God, in Christianity, we got our other foot in the world and we're trying to, we're trying to walk that fence. And it was obvious here, what's amazing, I think, is that this king of Israel had enough sense to know when Elisha was dying, that this was a man of God. This was a warrior. This is the one who God used to give them information on Syria, to fight the battles between them in Syria, to hear from God. He was like, oh crap, you know, the prophets going away. And he was really, I think God had mercy on this man because he acknowledged the prophet, he acknowledged the man of God, he acknowledged the anointing on him. And he really realized, I think, wow, this is the guy who God used to keep delivering us from the Syrian armies and invasion. And what Elisha was doing here, God had Elisha do this, had him shoot the arrow and these prophets did these things sometimes with these symbols and with these illustrations, but shoot the arrow out the window. When he shot the arrow out the window, this is the arrow, the Lord's deliverance from Syria. This is your promise of victory over Syria, that the Lord's going to be with you. And then he said, take the arrows and smite them on the ground. Now, remember, sometimes these things, the Lord does, he doesn't tempt us with evil, but he does test us. And when the King of Israel smoked three times and stopped, Elisha was very angry. He said, you should have done it five or six times. Had you done it five or six times, even though he wasn't a righteous man, he said, if you'd have done it five or six times, instead of three, you would have defeated Syria completely destroy the kingdom and never had to deal with this enemy again. And what this is an illustration of is the Lord leaves it up to us to decide how intense we're going to be about this walk with Jesus, how intense we are going to be about believing the word of God, no matter what, how intense we're going to be when we face persecution, when we face reproach, when we face sickness, difficulty, pain, constant demonic attacks, losing someone close to us. How are we
going to respond? Are we going to become lazy, get offended with God, get angry because everything ain't working out the way we want it to work out or God's not making it easy for us. Are we going to get lazy and just smite three times? You know what I can, I'll just, I think what made the man of God so angry, he did not see the intensity and the fight in this king. Think about us. The Lord knows everything out there in this world system, this beast Antichrist system that is arrayed against us. Spiritual forces, governmental forces, economic forces, pharmaceutical forces, everything in this entire evil system is meant to push us backwards to make us weak, tired, defeated, sick, and to give up. You just under, you gotta understand this. Satan, the fallen angels, the demon spirits, and the people that serve them are at war with us every single day. Everything they do is motivated at defeating true born again Christians. They want us stamped out, annihilated, removed from this earth because they know that the power of Jesus that works through us and the truth that comes through us and the influence we have on people, reminding them that they need to do good, even wicked kings, reminding them that they need to do things. Just being a voice, being a light influences our leaders, even if they're wicked. In fact, I remember Walter Cronkite speech when he won the Norman Cousins Award from the world, you know, wanting the World Federation, wanting the world government. He won the top world government award that there was. And he was furious that who was a Pat Robertson had wrote a book about the New World Order and where he said we're not going to have a utopia or a new kingdom until Jesus, the Messiah returns in any attempt to set that up beforehand is of the Antichrist or of Satan and Walter Cronkite said, Hey, I'm glad to stand at the right hand of Satan. And he was so angry that the Christian right, he said, were influencing senators and congressmen to move away
from the UN to not pay our UN dues and did not go along with the UN agenda. And it was really the pressure from Christians and all these places that was that was doing that. And let me just add this with the whole thing, but Trump, everybody wants to be Trump's evil. Trump's this, Trump's that. Let me tell you something, whether he is evil or not, the Lord told me this about him. I put my hand upon him. When Elisha, the prophet put his hands upon the king's hands, he wasn't endorsing everything that this king was doing in his wicked life. But what he was saying is, you know what? I'm going to put my hands upon you, which is a transfer of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. So you can do what you need to do for the people of Israel. Now think about that. God so loves his people. He will use a wicked king for his purpose. He can put his hand upon him. That's why the scripture says that the heart of the Lord's in the hand of the king and he turns it wherever he wants to turn it. Hmm. Did I say that backwards? The heart of the king's in the hand of the Lord. I'm sorry. He turns it wherever he wants. So again, when I say these things, I'm not even endorsing Trump. I'm just saying, I know the Lord said, I put my hand on him and it's going to be better for you. Now think about this because this king had through Elisha, the hand of God and the anointing put on him and gave him an opportunity of being able to defeat the Syrians, which would protect all the people of Israel, right? That king didn't have his intensity that he needed and yes, praise God, he got to win three major battles. But what did it mean that he didn't do it five or six times that he would not completely destroy his enemy, meaning that Israel would face them again in the future. And this is another thing. This is another picture of deliverance. A lot of people give up on deliverance. You've got strongholds in your life. You've got all these different things going on. And a lot of people maybe do a little bit and never finish or get lazy and tired or say I don't want to deal with it or I don't believe it. And then what happens is you might have won a few battles that you dealt with, but you're going to face them. They're going to rise up in you again. And if they rise up again and you're being lazy, you might lose that battle. See, go with me to Philippians
chapter three. I love this in Philippians. Let's just read from verse one. Finally, my brother and rejoice in the Lord to write the same things to you. To me, indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs. Beware of evil workers. Beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I might have confidence in the flesh, if any other man think it that he hath, wherever he might trust in the flesh, I more circumcise the eighth day of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews is touching the law of Pharisee concern concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless, but what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless I count all things, but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that which I am also apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, now this word perfect means mature, fully spiritually mature. He says if you're going to be mature, you must be thus minded. What minded? Pressing toward the mark. Somebody say pressing, pressing, pressing, pressing, pressing for the high calling. What is the high calling of God? The high calling of God. I'm gonna just put it this way is the perfect will of God for your life. What he has called you to do, the good works
he created you to do before the foundation of the world, what he wanted you to be and Paul would never back up, you know, let's go over to acts, go to chapter 21. Paul was on his journey toward Jerusalem. Let's go to verse eight. He says, the next day we that were of Paul's company departed and came into Caesarea and we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven and abode with him. And the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy. And as we carried there many days, there came down from Judea, a certain prophet named Agabus. And when he was come unto us, he took Paul's girdle and bound his own hands and feet and said, thus sayeth the Holy Ghost, so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. And when we heard these things, we both we and they of that place besought him not to go up to Jerusalem. And then Paul answered and said, what mean ye to weep and to break my heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And when he would not be persuaded, we see saying the will of the Lord be done. Now I want to stop right there. And this is something that I think that a lot of us just don't get the prophet. And it's very, it's very important that when we hear something from the Lord that we don't add to it or take from it, did at any point as Agabus prophesied over Paul, did he tell Paul, the Lord says, don't go to Jerusalem. No, he just told him what's going to happen when you go. All right. So the disciples and the people around them, all of a sudden, oh, Paul, you can't go to Jerusalem. They're going to arrest you. They might kill you. And Paul was like, don't y'all get it? I know that is the will of God for me to go there. And even
if I am arrested and even if I die, so be it. I'm ready. You want to talk about not losing your intensity. If you go there, they're going to arrest you and you're going to die. But I know God wants me to go there. So what do you do? What if you knew the Lord told you to do something, but the thing that you're going to do may may get you killed? What do you do? Well, Pastor Dean, if I do what the Lord's telling me to do, I might lose my job. Guess what? You better do what the Lord tells you to do, because he'll have another job for you. This is what I mean about trusting him. This is what I mean about not losing your intensity. It's this intensity to keep pressing forward in Jesus and his will for your life, no matter what the consequences. But what about my family, Lord? Let me tell you something. Have you seen what happens to families that that they were the husband and the parents don't follow Jesus and live a lukewarm lifestyle? You got no guarantees of trying to keep everything safe and cushy for everybody that it's going to work. Satan has a way of moving into a household. You know, I've shared this many times when I was in Africa in 2002 and teaching the seminary students who were getting ready to graduate, graduate, and I was going to be the speaker at the big graduation. And I remember I taught them for like the last month before they graduated. And I'll never forget, see, and I mean, that school pilgrims theological seminary that's now pilgrims University there, of course, the founder Bishop Comos Akbo that I knew and then I went there with he's passed away now. And but they had schools all over planted churches all over Nigeria. I mean, they were doing it. The government of Nigeria hated them, put out lies about them. They were in a battle with Muslim politicians. And I mean, it was, it was, you go there and the battle is real. Okay. But if you as a Christian go into like the capital of Buja and north of there, that is Muslim country. And for the Christians
who go there, most of them are killed. When I was there, several thousand were killed, churches were burned. Um, anybody heard of Boko Haram? Yeah, bad stuff. These Muslims would go into these churches in Nigeria with machetes and hack women and children to pieces. Y'all haven't yet. We have it easy here in America. All right. But some of these students that I was teaching would come and talk to me after classes in the mornings or at lunch. And they would tell me I know that I am called to go to a Buja that I am called to go into the north of Nigeria and preach the gospel. And I know that my life may be very short. Do you think I told any of them don't go? What did I say to them? You must do the will of God, whatever happens. Now that's some intensity right there. They knew where God was leading them and it might be their end. They may even be captured for a season. They may even be tortured for a season. And here in America, we can't get Christians to go next door and share the gospel with their neighbor. We're too worried about what they might say about us, what it might cost us. And this comes down to everything you guys, you choose, you will choose to do things God's way or you would choose to do things your way or the devil's way. Everything from being a wife, you're going to do it God's way or you're going to do it the devil's way. Be in a husband, you'll do it God's way, you're going to do it the devil's way. Children, you're going to do it God's way or you're going to do it the devil's way. Pastors. See, it's all about the word of God. When it comes down to Judgment Day, you know what we're going to be judged by. It says the books are going to be open. Let me tell you what books, first of all, the 66 of them right here, you will be judged by this first, then you
will be judged. There's a book of remembrance written. You know what the book of remembrance is? It's mentioned in Malachi chapter three. That's about every word you've spoken. Then there's the book of life. If you made it, your name will be in the Lamb's Book of Life. Here's what's so amazing is Jesus told the churches there in Revelation, he told one of them, if you don't stop the sin, if you don't get your defiled garments cleansed, your name's going to be blotted out of the Book of Life, meaning erased, meaning it was there, but it got erased. Don't let it get erased. That's what the books are going to be. They're going to be opened and says we're going to be judged everyone out of those books. According to what we believed or according to what we did, which one does it say? Does anybody know what we did, how we lived our lives. I knew when I went to Nigeria, I knew when I went to the island of Mauritius, I knew there was a possibility that things could go very wrong. Of course, in Nigeria, I think when I landed to 747s were full and emptied out and we were all standing around to get our luggage. And I was the only white boy standing there. I stood out like, you know, Christmas tree in the darkness. And it was so dangerous that Bishop Komosokbo, who had been in the Nigerian military and fought in the Nigerian Civil War and who had been an officer, had a couple soldiers that he knew with AK-47s to guard me, one here and one here to get me from the airport across Legos to another airport so that we could fly to the south where I would be much safer. That's what kind of situation I was in. But I knew that going in. You say, well, Pastor Dean, now, what if you, what if they had killed you in Nigeria in 2002? I was obeying the Lord. 2006, they got, probably got closer to it, but he got me out of there. And that's the thing. I want to say this. This is not doom and gloom. The Lord can deliver us in these situations as he
delivered Paul. They wanted to kill Paul when he went to Jerusalem. They arrested him. There was a plot to kill him and God moved in that situation. And then, of course, Paul appeals to Caesar, which the Lord had told him, you're going to stand before Caesar. And so they took him and Paul ended up going on a long voyage, getting to Rome and witnessing to Caesar under house arrest, then led half of Caesar's household to Jesus while he's there before they cut his head off. But see, Paul said, I know all these things, all these things. The Lord told me the things I'm going to suffer for him. But if Paul hadn't obeyed and went to Jerusalem and got arrested and appealed to Caesar and he would have never led all those people to Jesus. This is why I love the Apostle Paul so much. He never lost his intensity for following the Lord and doing his will. Never. He was like a laser focused guy that just, in fact, when he was the what was it, the lawyer to what was his name? Tertullian or something like that. I can't remember his in here, but it's called Paul, a plague, a Christian disease that everywhere Paul went, he infected people with Christianity with the real thing. But of course, he meant it in a derogatory way that he was a Christian plague. Let me ask you something. You infected anybody with true Christianity lately? Or are you in a comfortable little spot where nothing's difficult and, you know, you're not really hearing from the Lord. You just kind of you got on cruise control on the interstate, just cruising, make sure it's set not over the speed limit at all. Right. We're just going to cruise. That might be good for some folks, but that's not what he wants us to do. Amen. See, I'm going to tell you something. Nothing in me in 2020. There was nothing in me that wanted to run for governor of Alabama. Two years of my life taking tolls on my family because being exhausted. But the Lord wanted me
to be a light and a witness and a voice of truth in that world to people who would have never turned on fire and grace church service. So a passion thing, that was a lot of work to lose. I didn't lose anything. I obey the Lord. When you obey the Lord, you don't lose. The devil loses. Amen. Whenever the Lord sent me somewhere, go to Texas, go to Africa, go to Mauritius, go to Israel, stop your car and go talk to that person right there. I've had the Lord do that. I've had the Lord say, turn around, go back to that house right there, knock on the door and talk to this man. He's dying of cancer. And sure enough, knock on the door, start talking to him. He's dying of cancer and said, the Lord sent me to talk to you about Jesus and that you need to get your your life ready. See, I'm not talking about things that I haven't done. Like I said, I've had the Lord tell me to stand up in the midst of as that Auburn football game one time, well, right before the game, actually, there's people everywhere. The Lord says, stand up on that bench right there and preach the gospel. But they'll think I'm crazy. Look, you believe the virgin conceived that God in the flesh was born of a virgin, that God was here and walked and lived a sinless life and did great miracles, was crucified, dead and buried and raised from the dead. They already think you're crazy. The scientific communities of this world think you're crazy. Oh, that's why they think we're dangerous. They should take our kids away because we should should the world shouldn't allow our children to be indoctrinated by these crazy Christians. It's quiet in here, man. It's it's more quiet and Episcopalian church service. So quiet is like the the frozen chosen, right? I'm just going to believe you all are reflecting, pondering. Don't be lukewarm.
We've got a job to do. And like I've said before, there are things at times you're not going to want to do that the Lord is going to have you do. That's what makes us powerful. That's what makes the devil just shudder. A Christian who is living for Jesus, living a holy life, seeking after God and nothing will deter them. But but but what? Psalm 91 thousand fall at my side, 10,000 at my right hand. I'm going to keep going. See, we're about to see some scary things in the world. We got drones. We got UFOs. We got war with China. It's a war with China is coming, you know, war with China is coming. Matter of fact, our government is predicting it by 2027. They say we will be the United States will be over China by then. Somebody is going to set off a nuke somewhere. Y'all think that the the deep state, the Illuminati, satanic, Luciferian worshippers are through. We're going to enter a golden age. I'm sorry, but they're wrong about that. We're not entering a golden age until Jesus comes. It's called his millennial reign and Satan will be bound and there'll be no war and he'll heal the nations. So I want to be in that kingdom. Don't you? Let me show you something. Go to Luke 16 and we'll finish with this. Luke 16 verse 16. That ought to be easy to remember, huh? Here's what it says. The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time, the kingdom of God is preached and every man presseth into it. Press. Do you see that? So the kingdom of God is preached,
but you must press into it. Let me show you how this was worded in Matthew. Go to Matthew 11. Matthew 11 verse 12. He says him from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffer with violence and the violent take it by force. In spiritual warfare, you are to be violent. You hear me? You are to fight. You are to press. You are to be intense. You are to be a soldier moving forward, unafraid, as they say, rushing into the battle, not taking a seat, not taking a vacation. I love when preachers tell me they retired. You don't retire from this. The only time I'm going to retire is if I can't even get up to walk there and I still be preaching. They'll have to retire me if you know what I'm saying. Or Jesus will come. That's the only way I'm getting retired. How do you retire from being called to preach the gospel? To teach the word, you don't retire. Oh, help us, Jesus. I do want to go to one more. You all right? It's early, still. Second Timothy, chapter two. I remember when I read this long time ago when I was a young man, the Lord really made this leap off the page at me. Here's what he says, verse one. Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Now the grace means the power of the Holy Spirit to do the will of God doesn't mean a license to sin. He said, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that thou has heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. So he's telling him, he's not telling him sit down, take a vacation, retire. He's telling him to teach and prepare and train other men that can do this. And then he says, you thou therefore endure hardness
as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warth entangles himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who have chosen him to be a soldier. God's chosen us to be soldiers for him. And he's chosen us to endure and he's told us to endure hardness. What is that? Difficulties, trials, tests, temptations, attacks, loss, endure it. That means don't cave in, don't break down, don't give up, don't move backwards. Can somebody say amen? Come on y'all, even Baptist say amen out loud in church now. Endure hardness. If you find yourself like, oh God, it's just too hard. You expect the Lord to come over there and go, it's okay, it's okay little puppy. You know what he's gonna say? Get up, move forward, endure hardness. You're in a battle. Quit being a little wimpy person, right? Say, well, what do I do? What do I do? Well, you gotta cast down imaginations in every thought that rises itself up against the knowledge of God. You gotta get control of your mind. Say, well, I have a problem with that. Well, let me ask you something. How much crap are you feeding your mind from the world? You're gonna have a real hard time if you don't shut off some stuff. You gotta bind demons and resist them in the name of Jesus Christ. And I bind the demons attacking my mind. Depression, lust, suicide, whatever it may be. I bind those demons and I command them to go for me. I resist the devil. I cast down these imaginations and thoughts and images these devils are giving me. I fight this off in Jesus name. I resist the devil and he will flee from me. But remember, even when Jesus resisted the devil the first time, the devil still hung out. So sometimes it takes more than one situation. Maybe you need to quote some scripture and get the scripture in your mind instead of what you've been meditating on from the world. The number one area of this battle is gonna be right here. The spiritual mind versus the carnal mind. And the carnal mind, what is the carnal mind? There's voices. And listen, they're gonna say, oh, they're crazy. Now they're talking about voices. Oh, there's voices. Let me tell you what voice, your flesh, your fleshly nature wants to do things bad
and he will be talking to you. And the devil of course incites the flesh and he talks through it. Your spirit man will be saying, uh-uh, you know better than that. The Holy Spirit will be saying, you know better than that. And then you're gonna have a choice to make. Which way do I go? And the devil would just love, let me tell you the most deceived people in the world. We think it's the unsaved people. Nope, nope. Remember Jesus said to the church, Laodicea, be hot or be cold. But if you're lukewarm. And then he told them, he said, the lukewarm people didn't know that they were cold, that they were blind, naked, poor, miserable. They didn't know it. They thought, oh, I'm a Christian. I go to church. This Laodicea in church, I'm good. But they were lukewarm. And if you look up what the word hot in the Greek when he says bezellus therefore repent. Bezellus means what? Bezios is the word in Greek. It means to be fervent like boiling water. It means that you are intense. It means that you are fighting and moving forward and growing and you're not backing up and you're not giving up. See, the problem is the most deceived people in the world are lukewarm Christians because they have enough to think that they're okay, but not enough to get all the way in. And they were in the Lord's body for a time. And he says, if you're lukewarm, I'm gonna spit you or spew you, vomit you out of my body. He's being very clear. There will come a point where the lukewarm Christian will no longer be comfortable because the Lord is going to move them out of his body and say, that's it. That's when it's gonna be very uncomfortable to hear the words depart from me. Oh, hey, angels, come take this one right here, who was my servant and cast them in an outer darkness that should be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This one right here that came to the wedding feast without his garments, his robes of righteousness, you'll take him and get him out of here. Say, then there's gonna be uncomfortableness for eternity. And there, but see, this is the good news. There is a rest for us, y'all. The rest is when we get to sit down in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We're with Jesus and that will get to go on forever.
Leonard Ravenhill used to say that this life is just a dressing room for eternity. So what are you getting dressed with? What does the Bible say? Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll either put on Jesus and live for him or you're gonna put on the world and act like you're a Christian. You got it? Let's stand. I wanna do that song we did again at the end there, the last song. I think it says it all. You say, well, Pastor Dean, I think I've been lukewarm. I think I've fallen into some lukewarmness, some worldiness, some sin. Well, guess what? What'd Jesus say to do? He told the Laodicean church, the lukewarm Christians, he said, be zealous and repent. Somebody say zealous means intense. We're gonna call this one, keep your intensity. Don't lose it. That's why a lot of people say it used to be scared. They scared of me because somebody said, well, your bald head, it scares me. I had someone, one little Baptist girl, she'd hear me appreciate, he's scary. His bald head scares me. Yeah, it wasn't what was scaring her. She's hearing, and some people say, oh, he's just too mean, he's too intense. And then they get around me and they find out, oh, no, he's just, he's a normal person. He said, why is he so intense when he preaches? Because I take it seriously. I know that every sermon could be the last one you hear. And y'all don't realize, these messages reach people and just, I never cease to be amazed at how many new people are listening for whatever reason. And the truth, let me tell you, I can say this. The truth is getting through to people. People are being reached. And that's what it's all about. And I wanna thank you guys that do come to Fire and Grace Church here and those that watch and you guys that support the church and help us do this. I mean, really, it's all you guys. Like I told some people, said it's, whatever fruit comes from here is your fruit too. Amen. Let's pray and we'll do this song, forwardly. Father, thank you for your word and help us, Lord. Help us stay hot on fire for you, Lord.
Intense, pressing toward the mark. Enduring hardness as a good soldier and staying in the fight and not letting our flesh or our carnal mind or the devil's lies and temptations and tricks take us down into a lukewarm Christianity, Lord. I want no part of that. Let us hear your voice and be led by the Holy Spirit and let us know what you've called us to do. Fill us with the knowledge of your will so we may know what you've called us to do so that we may do it and have impact and push the devil's darkness back off of people and break his chains off of people. Well, I pray, Lord, for the arrow of your deliverance to go forth from this church even greater than it has, Lord, I pray, Lord, as we come to you, Lord, we will take these arrows and smite them five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 times. We're gonna keep smiting them on the ground because we are determined to be part of the church that endures to the end. The church where the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Lord Jesus, we want you to keep building this church and this mission to be what you want it to be, to say what you want it to say, to stand for the truth that you want put forth, God. Lord, I pray in Jesus' name that you will help us. Lord, so many ministries are falling. There's so many scandals and sexual sin and skeletons in closets that are coming forward. Lord, help us stay out of all of that and be an example. Help us be an example of true believers. And if they come for us, Lord, we will not run and hide. Bless your people with boldness, with intensity, with fire, with power from the Holy Spirit. Help them make up their minds that there are gonna be soldiers and warriors for you and they're going to press in and hear your voice and do what you've called them to do and live according to your holy word. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Let's worship him for me.
God, help us keep our intensity to press in to your kingdom, to be like John, the one that wanted to press in and lay his head on your chest and stay right next to you. Lord, we wanna be like John. We want you and not this world system, not the things of the world or the lust of the world or the wealth of the world. We want you and we wanna do your will. We wanna draw near to you, we wanna please you. I wanna be a light for you, Lord. We understand that that's gonna be in conflict with this world system and almost everybody around us that's in darkness. So Lord, we just pray for your grace. We pray for your anointing and power. We pray you forgive us for our laziness, slothfulness, lukewarmness. Forgive us for getting distracted with worldly things. Wash our sins away and help us, Lord, be on fire for you. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen, amen. All right, we all know the drill there. I wonder if I'm hearing a little, okay. I don't know what that is either. Thought you were starting a song for a second. Like, okay, huh? Anyway, we're gonna say bye. Y'all know the drill out there. Hugs the necks before you leave. If you have a testimony, share it with us. Send your testimony in. Oh, just on a side note, people have been asking, there's a few people have been asking. I will be addressing the issue of the final experiment, as they call it in Antarctica. I will be addressing that in the weeks ahead. I don't know exactly when, but I've just been waiting to see what happens, but we will discuss it. So I don't want anybody to think I'm ignoring that. I'm just was waiting for that whole thing to be over with, and it's not quite, so we'll, but I will be addressing it from the Bible. But let me just say this before we go. I believe the Bible. Not anything that happens with the luminaries, I believe this. Amen? And we're gonna talk about that. All right, hugs the necks before you leave. God bless. Go ahead.