Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
for the scriptures lord the lord you breathe life you move by your holy spirit lord and as we worship god as we read and study your word as we hear your word god you move in our lives lord as we fast and pray you move in our lives lord it's a real relationship that you want everyone in the world to have we know everyone won't have it because they don't want it but lord you want everyone to have it especially those who name jesus as their lord but still many lord they don't know what it is to have relationship that it's not just a faith to a creed but it's a knowing of god almighty so we we worship you lord let us draw near and you promised if we would draw near to you you would draw near to us and that your sheep would hear your voice and follow you the lord we believe that today in jesus name amen oh lord the lord just wants to say that he's calling out his people in the wilderness in these last times he wants you to follow with your whole heart he will not accept compromise amen amen andy shared a word he said the lord said he's calling his people out into the wilderness in these last days and what was the response follow him with with your whole heart because he will not accept uh compromise pretty strong amen that's true god calls his people apart he called them out of egypt their problem was that they left egypt but there was still too much of egypt in them they wanted to hang on to right and that's uh maybe even a little bit pertaining to what we're going to talk about today everybody got the problem at this point and if you joined us during praise and worship if you're listening out there we welcome you to fire and grace church those of you listening by internet radio by shoutcast.com or through our website we welcome you i'm pastor dean odle and we're here in alabama god's country amen my brother from delaware there's grinding at me this morning before you know last week i kind of dealt with something i guess that most don't it's kind of heavy you know the dealt with the vatican uh the coming alien deception and the vatican church and how they're involved in all this and there of course is part two in part three of this that you know uh of that subject that we need to cover and get into but um i think the lord wanted me to
touch on this this morning because um you know there are some issues and there are some issues in in even in our church and some issues in the body of christ at large let me just tell you what it is it's amazing how many christians really don't want to know the whole truth they really don't want to know they don't want to know the deep things of god they don't want to know the secrets of god they don't want to know the mysteries of the kingdom they don't really want to have an answer for every man of the reason of the hope that's in them they want to continue to be babies they want pastors that'll give them milk and nothing too disturbing nothing too uh frightening nothing too um nothing too deep see listen there wouldn't be any such thing as what we call seeker sensitive churches purpose-driven churches there wouldn't be any such thing as joel osteen having the largest church in america if the people didn't want it you understand i'm talking about christian people i'm not about people that name jesus christ as their lord and savior want the cotton candy they're like little children if we if if we let faith she would eat nothing but candy and cake and sweets she loves it and it's okay once in a while it's once uh you know for a little treat you know i can understand you know wanting a little joel osteen fortune cookie uh word um to pep you up a little bit you know but too much of that will give you diabetes and diabetes has side effects right like blindness wounds that won't heal right and death right so you know little sugar here and there it's okay but the problem is is that christians today want a diet of sugar now i love steve hill from the brownsville revival the evangelist brother he preached not a few years ago he preached a message called you know give me some sugar and it was basically along these lines that you know the church today does not want sound doctrine they don't want uh to grow up to mature to move on into the deeper things of god and if a church or a pastor dares to try to go that way people run and what i guess what i'm amazed at is not just it's not just the new christians that run
this is what's so sad it's not just the new christians that's right it's people that are spirit-filled people that should know better people that have been in the church a long time people that have been filled with the holy spirit speak in tongues that operated in the gifts of the holy spirit that should be growing up that should be mature but if you go too deep if you get too heavy [Music] they run for the doors i know i've experienced this for 26 years of ministry i can't tell you how many christians i've seen come to church for a while and tell me it's the greatest things they've ever heard until until it's something a little too heavy for them now mind you it needs to be biblical it needs to be bible truth it needs to be solid but i'm telling you that you can give them all the scripture in the world on certain things but they're like i don't want to hear that and i'm going to tell you right now the lukewarm churches the seeker sensitive churches the purpose driven rick warren watered down compromised joel osteen fortune cookie churches are all over the place now and they got most of them are growing and have thousands of people because religion has become in america and in europe and other places but religion has become um [Music] basically it's become a little drug i'll get my little fix so i'll be good i get my little fix and i'll be good for the week doesn't matter how i live or exactly what i believe or do i am i am i an example of jesus christ am i am i being an example am i giving people the truth am i giving an answer to every man am i being effective am i being a powerful witness am i winning people to the lord you know is my life am i being conformed more and more into the image of christ and and growing into a mature christian or or am i just floundering am i just floundering around and i go to church on sunday or i go to bible study or i go to a wednesday night prayer meeting or i go to church once in a while to make me feel better to make my conscience more at ease i did my good church deed for the week see there in christianity if you're truly born again you've truly been saved at some point and made jesus lord and repented of your sin and turned from your sin and had the witness of the holy spirit that you are a child of god you've been saved there is no option you either grow and mature and move on into the word of god into the deeper things of god or you get into a stalemate of lukewarmness and you backslide there's no way there's no in between
and frankly most christians don't want to be told the truth that you're either growing and becoming more like jesus or you're backsliding and becoming more like the world they don't want to be told that it's very uncomfortable but can i say that being made uncomfortable is exactly what the holy spirit wants to do if if god wants you to move out of the place where you are to grow into in and get stronger and deeper he wants you to move spiritually do you think he's going to make you comfortable where you are it's kind of like the eagle when the eagle mama when she wants the babies out of the nest you know she she builds her nest with thorns and prickly things but then she coats it with her feathers in there right so she lays her eggs and she hatches out the little baby eaglets i guess that's what you call them and she hatches them out and as they grow but when it gets time for them to get out of the nest to learn to fly to get up on their own and become what what god created them to be she starts plucking out those feathers one by one to make the nest uncomfortable and can i say that the true job of a pastor the true job of a preacher is to keep plucking the feathers out from under you so that you will fly you see what i'm saying so that you will grow so that you become in jesus christ what you are supposed to become so part of my job is to make you uncomfortable to make you stretch to make you see things in the word that maybe you haven't studied or you haven't seen and to make you believe them right to get you to believe them and to get you to obey them and to get you to understand them like then the bible say we should increase in knowledge and understanding right we should grow in wisdom we should grow in love we should grow in boldness we should grow in faith we should grow right are you growing that's the question you gotta ask are you growing now i know some of you are because i'm going to be honest i may have my faults and i have my issues but one thing i try to do i've always tried to do is pray seek god and make sure that i feed the church or the ministry that god's given me that i feed the sheep that i feed the people god gives me in my care the things they need not exactly everything they want right and it's funny how i run into people all the time say amen that's good preaching again until it starts making them uncomfortable right but i want to show you something
preachers teachers ministers of the gospel anybody called to any aspect of teaching ministry and preaching ministry within the church whether it be elders whether it be teachers whether it be pastors or evangelists apostles prophets whatever it is if you teach and preach and minister the word of god just even as you're what we'd say your everyday lay christian that's supposed to be a witness to the world you're you're called something that we i don't think we ever even talk about but you are called the bible calls you a steward of the mysteries of god i want you to look at this this is where we're going to start this morning first corinthians chapter 4. because in the weeks ahead i'm going to get into some stuff so heavy that some of you are going to go i don't know if i can handle this i don't know if i can take this but i'm going to give you a bible [Music] we need to we just first corinthians 4 let's just read it he says verse one let a man sow account of us as the ministers of christ and stewards of the mysteries of god moreover it is required in the stewards that a man be found faithful so he says let a man be a can man so account us as ministers of christ if we're truly he says you know if a man accounts us as a minister of christ he goes he should also account us as stewards of the mysteries of god now let me just let's just park on that term for a minute the mysteries of god now if you look up the word in greek it means secrets hidden things things not easily seen not easily understood and that's why god calls certain men and women to draw them near to himself to reveal to give understanding to give a revelation knowledge to give insight into the mysteries of god because what god's trying to get us to do is mature this bothers me and i'm going to tell y'all this that i hear so many times well it's not a salvation issue so you really shouldn't talk about it what my god folks if all we ever talk about in the church is the salvation issue you will never grow up and that's almost people trying to simplify they want to simplify everything because really what a lot of people who say that well it's not a salvation issue or you know it's a side
issue or whatever what they're not getting is that these these issues that come up that if it's in the word of god if it's a truth in the word of god that this stuff is for you to grow beyond after you have salvation see in a church we got to deal with salvation getting you saved but after that it's got to be stuff to get you to grow and stuff to get you to understand the bible to understand god's character and nature and frankly there's some of us that have more understanding than others and that's why god has the church the way he does that's why he tells younger newer believers to submit to elders and be involved in a church because there's people that know more than you there's people that understand more than you there's people that god's given revelation knowledge to does that mean to say that you can't know god by yourself and for yourself no absolutely not you can know god without ever having a pastor without ever having a preacher or a teacher you can know god and you can read your bible but there are things you may never understand but that's okay but see people who say christians mind you who want to say you know and recently y'all i've been told that i shouldn't preach on certain things by spirit-filled christians and i'm sitting here going and i've even heard the terms well you know it's not a salvation issue well it's the church and for the most part in a sunday morning church service in our church anyway i know that in secret driven purpose-driven churches most of the people are not saved but in our church everyone's saved probably 99 most of the time so again am i supposed to sit here and preach to you how to get saved every sunday if my if my congregation is primarily already born again christians no so my job is to approach these other issues to equip you that you may understand the mysteries of god the deeper things of god and so that you may have answers to those because guess what there are people out there who have questions on things that maybe you hadn't thought about maybe you don't worry about but you're going to run into people who have questions on things what like what is this ufo phenomena what do you say about it christian what is this this this demonic uh like what is what do you think about this show paranormal state what do you think about fortune tellers what there are people who have questions why did god wipe out entire groups of people in the old testament do you have an answer for that one you see what i'm saying there are questions that the world has that the bible has an answer for and you're supposed to know the answer to be
able to give it to the world that's what first peter 3 15 says first peter 3 15 says be ready always to give an answer to every man that means the scientist that means the doctor the medical doctor that means the evolutionist believer you get what i'm saying are you ready to give an answer and some people say well you shouldn't preach on that really do you know it see i i i check into the pulse of what's going on out there into the world but you know there's almost 2 billion muslims in the world do you know what muslims believe can you give muslims an answer do you know where they where they um don't agree with christianity and where they don't understand christianity and how to answer them and how to be a witness to them if you don't then pastor dean is supposed to equip you how to be a witness to a muslim and i think i've tried to do that some in here you get what i'm saying [Music] don't preach on that pastor d is it in the bible [Music] see we i'm holding my tongue on some things here because i'm disturbed we are stewards of the mysteries of god now i love this verse right here um let's just back up to first corinthians chapter 2. are you with me oh let's just read from let's just read from verse one this is just too good i was trying to see if i could shorten it but it's just too good so let's just read from verse one he said my brother when i came to you came not with the excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of god now when he's talking about wisdom here he was talking about not in his own wisdom not in man's wisdom he said for i determine not to know anything among you save jesus christ and him crucified and i was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling and my speech and my preaching was not with the enticing words of man's wisdom but in the demonstration of the spirit of power that your face should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of god he said how be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect yet not the wisdom of this world nor of the princes of this world so he speaks yes we speak wisdom but it's not the wisdom of this world and it's not the wisdom of the princes of this world
so my demonic princes here right they come to know he said but we speak the wisdom of god in a mystery oh we speak the wisdom of god in a mystery meaning we speak the things that god has hidden the secret things of god the things of god that are not obvious come on we can't sit back y'all and keep sucking milk right as christians it's too heavy pastor dean well grow some teeth and start chewing amen you know the folks that look that lose their teeth and can't chew meat one's been eating too much candy right oh boy let's keep going he says but we speak the wisdom of god in a mystery even the hidden wisdom which god ordained before the world unto our glory oh there are things that god said would be hidden would be secret and this is what i love most of them he's hidden in plain sight in your bible but it takes the holy spirit and the spirit his the holy spirit given wisdom and revelation and guiding you and giving you teaching and understanding and sometimes he'll give it to you directly and sometimes he'll give it to you through another preacher a teacher another christian it doesn't matter how it comes this is where god wants to go god wants to reveal to you the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven he wants to give you the hidden things the secret things the things that no one else in the world understands and that most christians are blind to because they don't want it they don't want to hear it and they and they so they set them up kings that we call preachers ceos that'll make sure they never hear it but god wants us to know these things so he says but we speak paul say we speak the wisdom of god in a mystery even the hidden wisdom which god ordained before the world unto our glory which none of the princes of this world knew for had they known it they would not have crucified the lord of glory so god is even saying here there are things hidden in my word that even satan and
his fallen angels and his demonic powers don't understand and i can reveal them to you isn't that awesome he says but as it is written verse 9 as the eye has not seen or ear heard neither has entered into the heart of man the things that god has prepared for them that love him but god has revealed them unto us by his spirit for the spirit searches all things yea the deep things of god the holy spirit is continually involved in all the deep things of god and he's constantly trying to reveal them to us the problem is who will listen who's hungry who's thirsty who's searching who's going after him who wants to know holy spirit reveal to me reveal to me things that might scare me to death but reveal the truth i want to know the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i want to understand your word from cover to cover as much as i possibly can god i want revelation i want the spirit of wisdom paul said he prayed for the the church of ephesus god give unto them the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of you that they might understand your calling on their lives come on now it's funny i can't even get christians to believe history bible history don't talk about demons don't talk about the giants the nephilim don't talk about that people will think you're strange how many of them who have said that to me or are thinking it have told the story of david and goliath to their children and what they've done is taught them about the nephilim they didn't call it that is it a fairy tale not according to the bible not according to archaeology not according to new dna evidence not according to history books not according to photographs that exist and newspaper clippings of excavations of these beings that existed that were giants and had different dna than us oh yeah we're going to get into those things right but don't talk about it well wait a minute have you talked about david and goliath to your children you've talked about it then
i got listen to me folks i know the world thinks it's strange that we read the story of david goliath to our children about david slinging and sinking a rock into his forehead and then running over and after he knocked him out pulling out his sword and cutting his head off sounds a bit violent but again understanding what goliath was when we understand that then it makes sense why god would sanction such violence against an evil being like that that wasn't completely human makes sense right god is not cruel he wasn't killing a human being it was killing an evil creature that wanted to destroy the people of god you understand [Applause] [Music] don't preach on that people think you're strange we'll go ahead and cut the story of david and goliath out of your bible go ahead and cut other stories of david's nephew killing some of goliath's sons cut that out let's cut out genesis 6. huh chop chop chop chop let's cut it out cut out the first part of deuteronomy chop chop chop let's cut out parts of numbers right numbers of 12 13 let's chop chop chop get your scissors out and start cutting christian because you don't believe the book you know i had a sermon title i was going to preach years ago entitled genuine leather religion because by the time they get through cutting out what they don't believe or what they say they believe but really don't all you're going to have is genuine leather because once you start cutting it out you might as well cut it all out i don't have a problem with the creator of the universe jehovah yahweh i don't have a problem with the god of all creation telling me he put a man in a fish for three days i have a problem with that because he made the sun you understand he made the milky way galaxy he can handle putting a man in a fish for three days and giving him oxygen right i don't have a problem it's logical to me because i believe in a creator so that same creator tells me that fallen angels had relations with human women and they created a hybrid race that some were giants and some had other characteristics i don't have a problem with it but it seems there are christians who have a problem with that right
y'all wouldn't believe it if i told you would not believe it right deep things right hidden things stewards of the mystery of god right come on now [Music] shall we keep reading but god has revealed them verse 10 but god has revealed them unto us by his spirit for the spirit searches all things he hate the deep things of god for what man knoweth the things of man save the spirit of man that is in him even so the things of god knoweth no man but the spirit of god now we have not received the spirit of the world speaking to christians but the spirit which is of god that we might know the things that are freely given to us of god which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teaches but which the holy ghost teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual right and that's just talking about let's just compare what the bible says here let's compare what it says here let's let's rightly divide the word of truth and teach what's in the bible right he says but the natural man now here hear me the fleshly man the carnal man and paul said this was interesting we'll back up we'll flip over a second but he said this to christians he called some christians carnal and the reason he said they were karma because they were babes he said you're a bunch of babies you walk as men you walk natural thought processes natural man thought rule your life instead of spiritual things instead of the truth of god's words and what is true right he says verse 14 but the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of god for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned foolishness how i'm going to tell you there are christians who honestly don't believe certain things in the bible they think it's foolish i literally had a mature christian of over 20 years walking with the lord being spirit-filled tell me that i shouldn't talk about this whole vatican thing and the aliens that are going to return even though of course that's just a new name we're just talking about demons manifesting in physical form and fallen angels manifesting in physical form even though we have bible telling us that as it was in the days of noah so will it be in the days of the coming of the son of man and i had this telling me that i shouldn't talk about that that people will think i'm crazy and that i would drive people away from the lord right and you know what i told them
i said well what you just defined is the secret sensitive philosophy it's the seeker sensitive philosophy to water it down so we don't drive anybody away right either we're either see in this is what i love about god certain things are black and white man certain things are right and wrong and the philosophy you either take when it comes to ministry preaching and teaching pastoring leading uh the church you either take one of two philosophies i'm going to give you all the truth i possibly can and hope you grow up and the ones that can't take it bye bye or i'm going to try to water it down and soften it up and sweeten it up and make it look attractive on the outside so we can draw as many people in here as we possibly can but we got to keep it we got to keep it light we'll have secret house meetings and hopefully somebody will teach something that's deeper i know who i'm talking about it's all over the country and it's all over auburn and opalika that philosophy say now look do they get somebody saved once in a while yeah but i know stories of drunks and dru and drunk tanks in jail talking about jesus and people getting saved doesn't mean the drunk was right doesn't mean he was right with the lord it doesn't mean right but god can speak to a donkey right god can speak through a donkey but don't let him move in your house right you hear what i'm saying see let's look at this oh the holy grail we can't oh oh dear pastor dean we can't preach anything that might drive people away oh gosh man up look here go to john the gospel of john chapter six let's see what jesus did here i made a little post on facebook the other day that went crazy about can you handle the truth i should have posted a picture of jack nicholson on the stand of the movie a few good men you can't handle the truth what do you want i want the truth you get out of the truth that defines most christians you cannot handle it john 6. let's look and see if jesus watered it down to keep people around all right oh but pastor dean you're driving people away well maybe i am so be it
all right all right y'all with me look at verse 52 we'll go there first verse 52 well verse 51 oh let's just back up verse 47 verily verily i say unto you jesus said he that believeth on me has everlasting life believeth of course continually trust him rely on me has everlasting life i am that bread of life your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead this is the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die i am the living bread which came down from heaven if any man eat this bread he shall live forever and the bread that i will give is my flesh and i will give that i will get which i will give for the life of the world the jews therefore strove among themselves saying how can this man give us his flesh to eat then said jesus unto them verily rarely i say unto you except you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you he that eateth my flesh and that's a continual ongoing present tense greek verb he that continually eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and i will raise him up at the last day for my flesh is meat indeed and my body is drink indeed he eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and i in him as the living father has sent me and i live by the father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me and this is that bread which came down from heaven not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead for he that eateth of this bread shall live forever these things said he in the synagogue as he taught in capernaum so jesus is preaching this now do you think that jesus mighta could have made this a little more easy to stomach and understand right kind of difficult even today right knowing what we know but look at what verse 60 says it says many therefore of his disciples when they heard this said this is a hard saying who can hear it who can handle this now they heard it what they were saying is who can listen to this who can understand who can take this this is hard now here's what some people have argued some people have argued that they understood that they he meant total covenant commitment to him as lord maybe they did maybe they didn't some people thought it was strange we know some of the jews thought that he literally mean take a bite out of flesh and of course to the jews cannibalism that's that was an abomination right so many but see look who's talking here is it the unsaved is it the people who weren't following jesus no to be a disciple of jesus means that you have become a follower of jesus christ as the messiah and lord right disciples
not people that just believed right so he says many therefore of his disciples when they heard this said this is a hard saying who can take it now listen to me y'all i can't tell you how many times even in this church over the last you know we're about to celebrate our fifth anniversary in january how many times people had in this church has said to me i know that's the bible but wow i know that's the word pastor dean but i know it's in the bible but i don't even want to say what some of the buts are right because i'd identify too many folks you know i'll say one one's not here they've been gone a long time but you know came to me for counseling i know i don't have grounds to divorce my husband but [Music] i know i'm still messing around with other women and i'm married but i still want to be in ministry but i know what the word says i know what you say but right that's too hard pastor dean you know oh i'm sorry you you you can't you can't lead praise and worship because you're sleeping with your girlfriend you won't quit pornography but that's a hard thing but you're hard you're too mean went to other churches he's he's mean he's hard go my friend go right christians now these all were christians one of them was a pastor right many therefore of his disciples when they heard this said this is a hard saying who can hear it and when jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it and said he said unto them does this offend you oh boy see jesus didn't even know he didn't even physically hear them say it it says he knew within himself meaning he got a word of knowledge that they were murmuring talking anything behind his back he's too hard he's that's too much it's too heavy but then he shouldn't preach on that he's just dean's just a radical he's
just too he's just too far he's just too out there he's a conspiracy theorist he's this he's that liberty he shouldn't preach on end times prophecy he shouldn't preach on giants and nephilim he shouldn't talk about demons you know what's interesting you know back when we started the church we had a fella that kevin and patrick worked with that on the job went into full demonic full manifestation of demons i mean demons talking through him picking up a knife trying to stab them and then by him to bind the demons and try to cast the demons out of him now granted he really didn't want the demons out of him right and he was in sin and alcoholism and all kind of other stuff but he he finally through that though and through their prayers and their witnessing and everything he started visiting our church and this was early on you know and i remember at that time i just did some very basic teaching in the beginning about spiritual warfare and just started talking about trying to introduce everybody to deliverance right just gently now he came from a baptist background and you know that's why i preached a few weeks ago about breaking your religious box because you're not going to get free and sometimes you're not going to grow unless you break out of the religious box that you've been in whether it's baptist or catholic or methodist or assembly of gold or church of gold you understand you're not going to break out of the box and get free get the anointing out of the box to get free and move on with jesus unless you you break at him so his baptist box even though he knew he had demons and he was struggling and he was in alcoholism his he he stayed in his box and he came to church several times and he and he left criticizing me murmuring behind my back dean you know he was telling them dean he just talks too much about demons he talks too much he teaches too much on demonology you know what that man's dead now that man stayed in his alcoholism he never got free he wouldn't come back to church after he came a few times and decided i taught too much on demons and demonology and and what he needed was deliverance from the demons that possessed him and i heard not too long ago that he moved in with some woman somewhere i can't remember where it was but he moved in with some woman and got drunk and started beating on her and she called the cops and he was a former marine sniper and he came out waving a gun at the cops and they shot and killed him so you know what he's dead because he wouldn't listen to truth he wouldn't listen to the truth he needed and listen he could have went to any baptist church in town i hate to just say this but he could have went any baptist church in town and never heard what he needed to hear the salvation issue is not what he needed he understood that mary he thought he was saved right he had heard it all he'd been in
the church oh i'm saying i believe in jesus i'm once saved always say no he's dead kevo's dead and kevo's in hell and he was in this church at one point it's like you don't need you preach on that too much pastor dean you preach on demons too much i'm not coming back to your church i'm not and then thus i'm not getting my life right with god and now he's dead in hell and that's the facts of a life y'all you wonder why i get i sound kind of angry sometimes you're kind of mean or kind of tough when i'm preaching it's because it is life and death every truth that's in this bible at some point or another can be a matter of life and death for you and if you get offended at some point and walk away you're going to miss out on other stuff you need to hear what you need to do [Music] i'm amazed at the christians who walk away from the people they need the most people pray god send me help god sends them and then they walk away from them so jesus asked him when jesus verse 61 when jesus knew in himself that the disciples murmured at it and he said unto them does this offend you what and if you shall see the son of man and stand up where he was before it is the spirit that quickeneth or gives life the flesh profited nothing the words that i speak unto you they are spirit and they are life so what jesus was saying i'm not talking about you come on get it i'm not talking about you eating my arm i'm not talking about you having some priest in roman catholicism turn it into the real flesh and the real blood of jesus it's spiritual and i'm speaking to you in spiritual it's something spiritual grasp it grab a hold of these spiritual matters go a little deeper than the surface open your ears open your heart don't run away with the first time that things get a little tough and offend you right don't run from the truth i don't care you can run from me if you want to but if god put me in your life to be the person to give you truth and you run away that's you you're going to be in trouble frankly i don't know there's not a whole lot of places and i hear this y'all this is not me saying this i hear this from christians all over the country and all over the world that there are very few churches and ministers anymore that will tell you the truth so you better find one that'll tell you it's not afraid to tell you and go there and stay put quit floating around right [Music] oh don't shout me down now
so verse 60 story 64. he says but there are some of you that believe not i think about that y'all listen to me he says who's he talking to a bunch of unsaved people a bunch of worldly people his disciples that are murmuring against them and he says he knew some of them didn't believe what he was saying now folks this is jesus the perfect man the perfect teacher who never made a mistake who never sinned god in the flesh and yet there are people yanging in about him and what he's teaching yeah his own disciples getting offended even though he tries to tell him i'm trying to speak to you on a spiritual level as maybe a little deeper than babes and then look what he says but there are some of you jesus said that believe not for for jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believe not who should betray and he said therefore said i unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given him of my father look at verse 66 from that time many of his disciples his disciples his disciples his disciples from that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him that means never many people left following jesus at this point disciples now i'm going to tell you we know that jesus had the 12 right and we know from luke chapter 10 and and matthew 10 that he also had the 70 that he sent out that he gave the anointing to cast out devils and to heal the sick and when they came back if you go to luke 10 it says when they came back and they said even the battles were subject unto us they were excited that people were getting healed and people were getting delivered from demons in the name of jesus they were excited about that and jesus said behold i give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy nothing shall by any means hurt you and he said this he said in that hour this is luke 10 19 on he said in that hour jesus rejoiced in spirit and said these things are revealed to babes he was excited he was happy he was joyful that these things were that the babes his his disciples who were babies were getting this that they had power and authority over demons he was happy about that now we only have a record that jesus had the 12 and jesus had the 70.
so when it says from this time forth many of his disciples went back and walked normal with him was that the 70 the ones who were excited about healing the sick and casting out demons but now they can't handle a little deeper spiritual truth oh see it's not always the unspiritual ones that can't handle going deeper it says from that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him i think it was the 70 or at least part of them and that's why jesus turned to the 12 and said to the 12 will you also go away verse 67 this jesus unto the 12 will you also go away then simon peter answered him lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life and we believe and are sure that thou art the christ the son of the living god and jesus answered to them have not i chosen you twelve and one of you is a devil and he spake of judas iscariot the son of simon for it was that he should betray him being one of the twelve so jesus even knew that one of you is gonna one of you is a devil i just lost a whole bunch and i'm gonna lose another one of even you but question did jesus water it down to try to keep people no no he didn't it's not his style and it shouldn't be ours our job is to give the truth of the word of god the whole truth nothing but the truth and let the chips fall where they may and guess what if you are younger in the lord than i am [Music] it's possible that i know something you don't know it's possible right and if god's called me to be a leader in the church there might be that i know you're going to need something before you know you're going to need it so i'm going to give it to you before you need it doesn't that make sense give it to you after you need it doesn't really help a whole lot and this is you know i mentioned this last week but this is the problem a whole lot of people think they know what's best i i marvel listen y'all i i i remember when i was teaching i was leading the singles ministry at a very large assembly of god church back in the early 90s very large church the singles ministry that i had i taught their sunday school class and we had between 70 and 80 in the
sunday school class right we had a two hour service before church started and all those people just oh they loved me oh pastor dean we never heard the word talk like this we're learning so much we are growing boy you hear from god you know we were doing all night prayer meetings every other week we were going out on the street preaching the gospel winning people to the lost the power of god was falling people getting healed i mean it was awesome time people stuff was happening oh we love you and then god told me to do something this is after about a year of doing this lord told me to sit down take a break let somebody else in the ministry said let them teach for a while do you know that nearly all of them turned against me you didn't hear from god that's not god you need to keep teaching no well how is it you believe i was hearing from god for a year and all of a sudden i'm not hearing when i'm humbling myself and sitting down and letting somebody else teach [Music] and i said the lord you know what he told me he's like they were putting you up on a pedestal it was time for you to step off the pedestal and see what they would do and boy they turn on you know i mean got right down vicious mean mean folks christians can be mean that's why you know i've said it often one of my favorite movie lines is from the gladiator the mob is fickle brother a mob is fickle saying group that love you i'll be the same ones that try to kill you in a little while just stick around just keep preaching just keep every now and then though you get you get the you know jesus did thank god had the faithful 11 right that stuck with him there's always some faithful ones i'm not saying there's never faithful ones there's always some faithful ones amen a true friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity right sometimes god sets true friends in a ministry and you can't separate them right and those are precious precious things i want to go to one more maybe don't hold me to that but go to luke don't laugh behind the screen now luke 4. [Music] just being honest bro don't hold me to it it might be the last one luke 4. i just want to illustrate what i'm saying here all right i mean we read over this stuff but you know i'll tell you a little story when i was in israel it was a powerful thing when i went to israel in 1988 because it was all god
god revealed it to me vision when i was in prayer and i said you know here i am 20 years old yeah i hadn't even turned i hadn't even turned 21 yet so i'm 20 years old i don't even have a passport no money the lord says once you go to israel so i start praying about it guy comes up hands me four thousand dollars managed to get passports in about six weeks and obeyed god and me and my brother flew to israel i'm 20 years old he's 17 years old you want to talk about crazy with one way tickets crazy right the mossad they were interested in us they we got pulled out and talked to by in paris and in israel they're like two young men traveling not checking any luggage one-way tickets what are they up to and think about that was 1988 it was before this other insanity so but they figured us out that we were just crazy christian dudes loaded down with tracks ready to preach all over israel they let us go right it's funny they went through everything in our bags too i mean everything all right took it all out so we go to israel though and we're traveling around the country in these youth hostels right and they were all a little different but they were awesome because some of them would be six shackles a night and at the time it's about three dollars right three dollars four dollars a night you know it's pretty often was we traveled all over the country staying in youth hostels and witnessing to youth from all over the world i mean that's where we led the australian guy to the lord had some german agnostic kids in tears just power of god it was just it was awesome had some some two guys from belgium just had them shaken up messed up gospel is powerful right but we go to this one youth hostel and i'm trying to remember that's right it was in tel aviv and we go to this one use hostel in tel aviv and it was packed with young people i mean and tel aviv you know is very secular place very hopping so at night it got wild you know out on the street and parties and bars all up and down the place but we just kind of hung out the youth hostel and so the only place you could go pray is you go up on the roof get away from everybody and all of its flat roofs you know and this building was three or four or five stories i can't remember it's a pretty tall building but i go up on the roof and when we entered this hostel i remember what was odd was that it usually had a big gathering room you know with a couch and
a tv kind of like a fraternity house almost i mean you know you have your big gathering room and then you have rooms off in the back and um so we you know there's just young people everywhere in and out and i look over there's one couch in this big you know community room there's an old guy laying on it [Music] oh god white beard white hair reading the bible reading the little bible laying there reading his little bible i thought that's odd i just looked at him he's like you don't fit here i mean i'm telling you there was just young people that was it no adults so um a couple of days later we stayed there for a few days i was up on the roof i went up on the roof to pray and i noticed he was up there in the corner standing on in the corner and i thought i don't interrupt him so i walked away to the other side of the building and i started praying talking to the lord so i don't know how much time passed and he came over there he walked over to me and he said i he said i have a word from the lord for you now y'all cannot believe me or you can believe me i don't care this is what i believe but when he walked up to me and he looked at me in the face his face and his eyes were not earthly i mean he they glowed his eyes were the his skin was you know it was kind of wrinkled and but very tan very very dark but his eyes were the jet blue i mean just but when he looked at me i could i mean i can almost still see it and feel the presence of god that came up and at the at that moment it did not register until he walked away i believe he was an angel a real angel you know the bible says in hebrews 13 2 it says be not forgetful to entertain strangers for some have entertained angels unaware they they can walk around among us and look just like us and but the presence of god was all over me and he said i have a word for you and he basically said this he said this will characterize your ministry right here and he read it to me he said you know i carried a little bible that time because i it was about that big full bible genesis the revelation it was that big and uh here's what he read to me this is luke 4 verse 16. and i mean he read the whole thing too he says speaking of jesus and he came to nazareth where he had been brought up and as his custom was he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day and stood up to read and there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet isaiah when he had opened the book he found the place where it was written the spirit of the lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor he sent me
to heal the brokenhearted to preach deliverance to the captives the recovering of sight to the blind it is set at liberty them that are bruised and to preach the acceptable year of the lord of the year of the lord's vengeance and he closed the book speaking of jesus he closed the book and he gave it again to the minister and sat down and the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him now you have to understand he did this on a regular basis but today that day was something was special something was different why because it was time jesus came out of the wilderness out of his time of prayer and fasting out of his baptism in water out of being touched and filled with the holy ghost jesus came out of that in the holy spirit so when he got up to read the anointing the presence of the holy spirit was on it and everybody was like just all he did was read the scripture and yet everybody couldn't take their eyes off of it he'd done this many times you have to understand so he says he closed the book he gave it again the eyes of everyone in the synagogue they were fastened on him and then he added this little problem this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears and i know now looking back 25 years the reason that the angel of the lord gave me this passage for me was that i was going to be preaching a lot of end time prophecy and saying this day now this scripture is being fulfilled it's different to just get up and read scripture but when you say today now it's being fulfilled gets a little attention you've gone from saying just reading a book to saying this this prophecy is being fulfilled supernatural things are happening god is moving god's word is coming to pass it's a little different so he says this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears this particular one and all bear him witness and wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth so everybody everybody reckons the word gracious there is the greek word charis which means everybody recognized the divine influence and the divine power of god that was on what jesus was saying everybody in the synagogue was hit by the holy ghost and understood wow something something is going on here and then all of them for a second the holy spirit hits them they realize that this is this man speaking anointed powerful words but then they make the mistake of going back to their human reasoning their human mind their natural man wait a minute they said is not this joseph's son wait a minute this guy can't have the power of god on him he can't get up and say this day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears he can't say he's anointed and even
though we recognize the anointing he can't say it jesus you can't say that this day this is fulfilled how dare you say i'm a pastor how dare i've had people say how dare you say you're a prophet why is that odd i didn't call myself to be a prophet but i'm not ashamed of it amen anyway but look what he said they all bear and wondered at the gracious words that perceive as then they lean back to their own understanding so jesus spoke this to him and he said unto them you will surely say unto me this proverb physician heal yourself and what sort of we've heard done in capernaum do they also here in your country and he said verily i say unto you no prophet is accepted in his own country but i tell you a truth many widows were in israel in the days of elijah when they were the heaven was shut up three years and six months and when great famine was throughout all the land but unto none of them was the elijah sent to save unto sarapa the the city of sodom to a woman that was a widow and many lepers were in israel in the time of elisha the prophet and none of them was clean and saved the name of the syrian and they all that were in the synagogue and all they in the synagogue when they heard these things were filled with wrath it did amazing they went from being in awe of the anointing and the presence of god on what he was saying to being filled with wrath and then it got worse and comes up and thrust him out of the city and led him under the hill where upon the city was built but they might cast him down headlong the mob is fickle it says but he passing through the bits of them went his way and all jesus did y'all will speak the truth but this is what the angel told me when we were on that roof he said all he did was speak the truth but he spoke the very thing they didn't want to hear oh ouch now how do you like now that i believe an angel of the lord telling you this will characterize your ministry you will speak the word of god but you will speak it in such a way that people one minute will think wow he's an anointed preacher and teacher of the word and the next minute let's kill him let's get rid of him we can't take this and it's still the word of god right and that was just in one church service right it's sad but nothing has changed i marvel at the at the at the
corinthians paul the apostle is the founder the planter of the corinthian church he leads the first people to the lord there he disciples them for a time they see the miracles he gets them baptized in the holy spirit they're operating the gifts of the spirit then he sins apollos comes and waters and the church grows and flourishes and pauls away and all of a sudden there are people in the corinthian church who are going paul you're not an apostle literally it's no different today y'all it's sad but you better brace yourselves more and more christians will turn against christians they will some of you are already experiencing it because you you started talking about deliverance for christians christians might need to be set free from some demonic strongholds about you start talking about that there are christians separate from your company i've had christians separate from my company don't have anything to do with me anymore because i don't believe their pre-trib rapture myth anymore i got some that actually hate me preachers that won't even answer an email or a phone call over the pre-trib rapture i i don't joke i have no joke we have another pastor in town does everything he can to keep everybody that ever wants to come to our church that he has any contact with he does everything he can to keep them away from our church and yet he's supposedly a pentecostal spirit-filled preacher [Music] right [Music] and y'all think that it's not going to get worse i guarantee you you stand for the truth of the bible all of them the nice ones the sweet ones and the tough ones and the hard ones and the ones that are fearful and the ones that are ominous and scary [Music] uh christians there'll be christians who get offended who walk away don't want to be your friend anymore don't want to talk to you anymore or don't want to have anything to do with you anymore um murmur run their mouth about you i mean sanders got them at work don't you say don't drink the kool-aid like kool-aid i'm drinking is a whole lot better than that sewage you drink right a bunch of christians bound up in pornography nothing but foul foul stuff
coming out of their mouth about sex all the time they call themselves christians but don't drink the kool-aid don't believe the preacher that's preaching holiness and repentance and faith and no don't don't drink that kool-aid he's crazy what y'all meeting a house i mean you don't have a big expensive church building that we have to waste god's money on no that's weird we should be wasting god's money and that's why you know what i love preaching our church and the thousands of people that'll listen to our over the internet why do i love it why don't i love the truth i love preaching because you know what as jesus turned and said we to the 12 will you also go away if y'all go away i'm still gonna preach and i'm gonna change you'll find me if jesus didn't come back you'll find me 20 years later preaching the same stuff same way let's still learning still growing still trying to blow your mind and freak you out with things that's in your bible that you just read over and ignore that's what's like my wife you know we've only been married five years she found when we were cleaning out my aunt's house recently she found letters that i wrote to people 25 26 years ago she goes you're preaching the same thing back then i said that's what i said that's what i told them i haven't changed i don't if it's truth if it's bible truth if it's sound doctrine i do not move away from the truth you can't bulldoze me off of it you can't push me off of it you can't convince me to stop preaching it if i find it in the word of god and it's truth and it's sound doctrine and it's rightly divided and it's needful for the body of christ or for the unsaved to give them an answer i'm going to study it i'm going to memorize it i'm going to learn it and i'm going to preach and teach it to all i can and i don't care who likes it and who doesn't like it right and that's the way we gotta be truth god's truth no matter who it offends and at some point or another you're going to offend the unsaved you're going to offend the saved you're going to offend the lukewarm you're going to you're going to even offend the strong some of the strong ones sometimes because people get in the flesh [Music] i spent too much time in the flesh yesterday i shouldn't watch that whole georgia game you understand everybody gets in the flesh just don't have to live there all right oh boy i like what a woody said on toy story
the boot fits right the boot fits some people say well you know i gotta that offended me what you said there well it shouldn't unless unless you needed it right if the boot fits put that's right put it on wear it oh there's so much more the mysteries of god you know look up the word is what you ought to do look up the word mysteries it's amazing i wrote this when i wrote on facebook i said jesus it says preach things oh i do have one more verse jesus preached things it says it was kept secret from the foundation of the world paul numerous times said behold i show you a mystery he talked about the rapture of the church and the sucking of things that weren't revealed and then i said you know what i said the apostle john gave us the book of revelation which i am sure blew the minds the first century christians went what is he talking about right i know he talks about jesus coming at the end no he talks about stuff he saw in heaven but what on earth are these seals and these red horses and green horses and trumpets blowing and stars what is this oh john you shouldn't talk about that that'll drive people away no write it in the book give it to the seven churches what jesus said spread it all over the world right doesn't matter if they understand it or not and that's what jesus look look at i got to read this matthew 13. here's the good news for you about the mysteries the mysteries of god if you want them if you want to know them if you want to learn them are you there yet are you there verse 34 matthew 13 34. and all these things spake jesus under the multitude in parables and without a parable spaking not unto them that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying i will open my mouth in parables i will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world then jesus sent the multitudes away and went into the house and his disciples came with him saying declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field explain it to us right so jesus explains it hold on where am i going i'm missing what i'm why am i missing oh i'm sorry back to verse 10 though the disciples came in and said unto him why are you speaking to them in parables and he answered and he said unto them because it is given unto you
to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven but to them it is not given right now see what i love about the disciples is jesus was speaking these things kept secret from the foundation of the world these mysteries these truths that they hadn't heard before and jesus is speaking them and while he's speaking them to the multitude the multitude doesn't understand it the disciples don't understand it you say well jesus why don't you speak where people can understand it guess what i think the lord of glory knew what he was doing right but here's the thing the disciples went to him privately and said lord declare this to us explain this to us give me understanding and what does he do he explains it to them the person that's given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven is basically anyone that'll pursue it with all their heart right see they weren't satisfied there were plenty of people that heard jesus that could have decided to keep following him like the other disciples did there are mysteries y'all there are secrets there are things that are in your bible you know i mean i've been studying the bible pretty diligently for many many years and i'm still learning things and sometimes i learn them directly from the holy spirit teaching me as i read and sometimes i learn that from another minister or another christian but i'm hungry i want to learn i want it all lord i want understanding i want to know i want to understand the deep things the secret things the hidden things that are hidden in plain sight see that's what's beautiful they're all hidden in plain sight [Music] that's why that's why the worst thing a christian can do two things the worst things a christian can do not pick up their bibles and read them and miss church [Music] you never know when you're going to learn something you need let's pray hallelujah heavenly father we thank you god for your word i love your word god your word is truth and i love your holy spirit of truth that guides us and teaches us and i thank you god that you breathe life into us and you give us understanding and wisdom and the spirit of revelation knowledge so we can understand the deep things of god i thank you lord that there are mysteries and there are deep things that are in your bible that you want us to know that you want us to desire you want us to want them and to seek you for them and that they will equip us to give an answer to every man
lord i pray that none of us would be offended when the teaching gets hard or difficult to understand or maybe a little deeper than we're we're wanting that we won't get offended and run away or get in fear or worry or whatever lord i pray that that lord you'll raise up a people who can handle the truth and fill their hearts and minds with it and share it with people because it's the truth of the word of god that sets people free too many people walk away from the truth of the word of god and die so lord we just pray move mightily in jesus name amen