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I have a message this morning for people
who feel that they have failed God.
And if that's you today, I'm trusting that
you have an inner sense today that God
is for you and not against you.
You've become aware of it and you may
have walked in here feeling like an absolute
failure.
But there's something in your heart that only
the Holy Spirit can put there that's already
telling you in this service that there is
more hope in Christ than you have realized
and more grace and there's more mercy than
you have ever known.
I'm going to speak this morning about an
incredible sign that follows those who believe.
Now, I know the scripture talks about certain
signs, but there is one sign more incredible
than every other sign.
And it follows everyone who believes and trusts
in Jesus Christ and it will follow you
today.
Now, I'm going to have to go on
a journey and this journey is going to
take us into some places where we have
to look at some practices.
They may or may not be your practices,
but they have been in measure at least
the practice of the church, the pre-Christ
as it is, people of God in Jeremiah's
day.
And in some measure have been the practice
of the Christian church in our day.
We need to look at these things.
We need to go through these things, understand
what it is that grieves the heart of
God and then move to something.
And if you will hold with me on
this, if you will not give up halfway
through, there's going to be an incredible blessing
for you at the end of this journey.
Father, I thank you, God, with all my
heart, Lord, for the touch of the Holy
Spirit.
Oh, Jesus, the hour is very late.
The world is getting very dark and you
have sworn to have a people.
You will have a people.
And God, I ask you today that every
person in this sanctuary might be part of
that testimony that you will always have, especially
in this generation.
I ask you, Holy Spirit, to guide me
through this word, quicken my mind and physical
body.
Give me the ability to speak this in
a manner that glorifies you and that everyone
here can hear.
I pray, God, that you even animate my
emotions.
I don't want to be in this message.
I don't want to be in the mix
of it.
I want it to come just as you've
given it to me.
I thank you for this enablement and I
pray God touch us now with your word
and I ask it in Jesus name.
Jeremiah, we'll begin in chapter 13 of Jeremiah.
If you want to just open your Bible
to that chapter and just place it on
your lap or wherever and we'll get to
there eventually.
Now, before we begin in Jeremiah, I want
you to remember that when the Apostle Paul
spoke of the children of Israel in a
journey that they were taking from captivity, which
was Egypt, to a place of promise, which
was a physical place.
But in reality, the place of promise, of
course, we know today to be not a
land, but it's Jesus Christ himself.
But in this journey, Paul tells us that
they encountered and sometimes they surrendered or succumbed
or gave in to opposition.
The enemy of our souls will always oppose
the work of God.
You have a very real enemy against you
today.
He is a deceiver.
He's a thief.
He's a roaring lion.
He sets about to devour anything that has
the testimony or mark of Christ in it.
And quite often, the children of Israel of
that generation gave in to this opposition.
Now, Paul described it in the New Testament
as something that comes against you from without.
And to add to all that, we have
an opposition from within.
It's our own fallen natures oppose the things
of God.
So when you combine the two, the devil
is a roaring lion, my own heart that
the scripture says is so wicked that only
God himself can fully disclose it.
The only hope I have now is God.
The only hope I have is an inner
life more powerful in me than he who's
in the world and more powerful than my
own fallen nature.
This, of course, is the spirit of God.
The Holy Spirit is the third person of
God.
And if God be for us, Paul says,
who can be against us?
That's the hope of the Christian.
I have now the living God in this
earthen vessel.
I'm not just embracing concepts about God, but
I have God.
And I have him in full measure in
the Holy Spirit inside this earthen vessel.
Therefore, there is no limit to what God
can do.
He can keep me.
He can guide me.
He can change me.
And ultimately, the desire of God and the
design of God in my life is to
glorify his own name through me.
That's why we're here, beloved.
That's why there's a church on this side
of eternity.
That the whole world can see there is
a people who are called by the name
of Jesus Christ, a people who are otherworldly,
who are divinely enabled, a people who are
not like the people who are of this
world, who in their most sincere efforts fall
short, as the scripture says, of the glory
of God.
Now, the people in the Old Testament fell
short.
And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 and
verse 11 that all the things that happened
to them, now he's speaking about some specific
things in their journey at this time, happened
to them for examples.
And they're written for our admonition, or that
means our instruction, upon whom the ends of
the world are come.
Now, if Paul believed the ends of the
world were there in his generation, how much
more, beloved, in ours.
All of the things that happened to them
are written for instruction.
And if we can hear the voice of
God, we can learn from it.
We will see that people always act the
same way, and God always acts the same
way.
We heard masterfully on Friday night through Pastor
William that he cannot act outside of himself.
He is who he is.
He cannot act outside of his nature.
He can't wake up one day and decide
that he's going to lie to humankind because
the scripture says God cannot lie.
Paul also tells Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter
3 verse 16 that all scripture, all scripture,
how much of scripture?
All scripture is given by inspiration of God.
These words that we have on these pages
did not come from the minds of men.
They were birthed by the Holy Spirit.
Through human agents that simply put their hand
on a pen and began to write down
what God was sovereignly speaking to them.
And everything in this book is profitable for
doctrine.
That means for correct thinking, theological thinking.
For reproof, that means essentially that when we're
going in a wrong way, God one more
time can hold up the mirror of his
book and say, look, this is the right
way.
The way you're thinking, the way you're moving
is the wrong way.
Here is the right way.
For correction and for instruction in righteousness.
The word righteousness in the Greek text means
that which is right in conforming to the
nature of God.
For instruction in that which is God, that
which is God's life within us.
That which is the pathway that God has
set before us.
That which is what God is in and
through his church.
And, of course, in measure two as well,
obviously, that's what he is.
Whether or not we will accept that.
Now, Jeremiah chapter 13 and verse 12.
Jeremiah says, therefore, or God says to Jeremiah,
therefore, thou shalt speak unto them this word.
Now, keep in mind, Jeremiah's ministry is in
the last 40 years.
Historically of Judah.
The northern kingdom after Solomon, Israel is split
into two kingdoms.
Really because of Solomon's backsliding, a division comes.
The northern kingdom is eventually swallowed by the
Assyrian conquerors and they're assimilated.
In other words, they become so intermixed with
the world that they're almost indistinguishable as a
separate people unto God.
And in the southern kingdom called Judah, God
raises up voices.
One of those voices was Jeremiah to try
to bring the people back again.
Now, God knows all things and he knows
the people's hearts are so set on the
way they have chosen to worship him.
Even though that way is very distorted, they're
set in it.
And even though Jeremiah is speaking right from
God's heart, he has an audience with God.
He knows the mind of God just like
Isaiah did years before.
But the people are so hardened that they're
going to reward Jeremiah by putting him down
a well.
And whether or not they would like to
kill him, but even if they can't kill
him, they're going to try to do him
physical harm.
Because he is bringing now a revelation to
them of the true worship of God and
they don't want this revelation anymore.
Oh, folks, I pray God that not be
in your heart today.
Now, just in the years just prior to
this judgment of Judah, Now, many of God's
people had so distorted his word that they
interpreted everything he was trying to speak to
them from their distorted perspective.
Before I read this verse of scripture, I
want to show you what was happening to
them in Jeremiah, chapter one and verse 16.
Now, God begins this ministry of this man,
Jeremiah, and he tells him, he says, I
will utter my judgments against them, touching all
their wickedness.
Now, God's looking at his own people and
he's calling what they're doing wickedness.
He says, they've forsaken me and they've burned
incense to other gods.
Most likely, there are a lot of prayer
meetings going on.
Religion always produces prayer meetings, but they are,
and incense is a type of prayer, but
they're burning incense to other gods.
They have formed another concept in their minds
of who God is and they worship the
works of their own hands.
Now, we immediately conjure up an image when
we see this of these little golden idols
and such like things.
And that could be a small part of
this scripture.
But really, what it means is they were
governing themselves out of their own effort.
And their worship of God and their service
to God was not coming out of obedience
to truth.
It was coming out of their own will.
They were formulating ways to worship God.
They were changing the ordinances of God, the
commandments of God.
They're beginning to modify everything to appease themselves.
And they're worshiping as it is the works
of their own hand.
They're worshiping human will and they're worshiping human
effort, all in the name of God.
And God says, Jeremiah, I can't accept this.
And I'm raising you up to stand against
this.
And Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet.
He didn't come in just blasting the nation.
There was a brokenness in this man's heart
over the condition of God's people.
What had happened to these people of promise?
Now, back in chapter 13 and verse 12,
here's how hardened they had become.
Therefore, thou shalt speak unto them this word.
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel.
Every bottle shall be filled with wine.
And they shall say to thee, do we
not certainly know that every bottle shall be
filled with wine?
And so here God is saying one thing,
but they're hearing it another way.
God was speaking of a judgment that was
coming.
And they're interpreting his words as if he's
blessing them.
They're interpreting this, well, wine means joy, wine
means gladness.
And surely every bottle in every house will
be filled with joy and with gladness.
Because, of course, we are God's people and
he can't do anything but bless us.
But the wine that God was speaking to
them was the wine of judgment.
It was not the wine of blessing, but
nobody seemingly stops and asks the question.
They simply throw back their concept of God
and there's no evidence that anybody even stops
and says, Jeremiah, what kind of wine is
God talking about?
They just interpret it the way they have
wanted to see it.
And in that way of wanting to see
God, they've run with what really is judgment
and falsely believed that God was blessing them.
Look at Isaiah.
Keep a marker in Jeremiah and go back
to Isaiah chapter 56.
Now, Isaiah is on the scene just a
little before Jeremiah.
The nation is already sliding into its final
stages.
And God is speaking all the way through,
all the way through to his people, trying
to get them to turn.
Isaiah 56 verse 9, he says, All ye
beasts of the field, come to devour all
ye beasts in the forest.
His watchmen are blind.
They're all ignorant.
They're all dumb dogs.
They cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to
slumber.
Yea, they're greedy dogs which can never have
enough.
They are shepherds that cannot understand.
They all look to their own way and
every one for his gain from his quarter.
So here are, here's the spiritual condition and
here's why it's happening.
There's a devouring coming into the body because
the shepherds have been raised up over God's
people who really don't have a passion for
the things of God.
They don't have a passion for the glory
and the honor of God.
They see ministry as an opportunity for self
-improvement and self-betterment and gain.
And because this is in their heart, they
are leading the people of God farther and
farther away while speaking to them about coming
blessing.
Come ye, they say, verse 12, I will
fetch wine and we will fill ourselves with
strong drink and tomorrow shall be as this
day and much more abundant.
We will fill ourselves with strong drink.
This is what they say.
This is a time of blessing.
We're going to, folks, the nation is coming
to judgment very, very quickly.
Enemies are gathering on every side but they're
saying, oh no, this is a wonderful day,
no cause for alarm.
We're going to be blessed and we're going
to be blessed even more.
And no matter what happens, we're still going
to be blessed.
Now they're talking largely about physical blessing.
They're completely locked out of the spiritual side
of this.
It's all about how much I have and
how good I look and how much wine,
as they see it, is in my pantry.
Now this wine that they speak about, this
strong drink, offers those who partake of it
strong delusion, especially the delusion of false security
and happiness.
And Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, said it
this way.
This is Micah.
Listen to this prophet of God in chapter
2, verse 11 of Micah.
He said, if a man walking in the
spirit of falsehood do lie, saying I will
prophesy to thee of wine and strong drink,
even he shall be the prophet of this
people.
Micah says this nation has gotten so backslidden,
this people of God are so backslidden, that
if a man arose and he started prophesying
to them of strong drink and wine, he
would become the prophet of this people.
If a man stood up and started making
the whole lot of them drunk and act
like fools, he would become their prophet.
That's how backslidden they've become.
That's what Micah is saying.
In Jeremiah chapter 13, verses 13 and 14,
remember now, he said, every bottle shall be
filled with wine.
But they said to him, do we not
certainly know that every bottle shall be filled
with wine?
Now verse 13 and 14 tells us what
he was really saying.
Then shalt thou say unto them, thus saith
the Lord, behold, I will fill all the
inhabitants of this land, even the kings that
sit upon David's throne, and the priests and
the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem
with drunkenness.
I will dash them one against another.
In other words, there will be no unity.
There will be all kinds of disunity.
Even the fathers and the sons together saith
the Lord, I will not pity, nor spare,
nor have mercy, but destroy them.
So this is what God is really saying.
He says, what you interpret as future security
is going to leave you all stunned.
All that I've trusted in begins to fail
in front of your own eyes.
It was coming, folks, and the people couldn't
hear it.
Oh God, help us, as the body of
Christ in our generation, not to be found
among that group of people that Paul the
Apostle says, in the last days are no
longer going to endure sound theology, but they're
going to heap to themselves teachers having itching
ears.
They will be turned from the truth of
God, and they will be turned to fables.
It means stories.
The stories may even have a good moral
to them, but they are not the word
of God.
They cannot offer insight into the character of
God.
There is no strength in these fables.
Jeremiah 14, verse 13, Jeremiah said, Then I
said, Ah, Lord God, behold, the prophets say
to them, You shall not see the shore,
neither shall you have famine, but I will
give you assured peace in this place.
You see, the prophets were assuring, or the
false prophets, the people of continued blessings in
this place.
That means being in the spiritual state that
they were in.
But God says now to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah
speaks to the people in chapter 15, verses
3 and 4.
He says, I will appoint over them four
kinds.
Here's their judgment now.
Now, I want you to follow me very
closely in this.
Remember that Paul said, All these things are
written for our instruction, upon whom the ends
of the earth have come.
Now, I will appoint over them four kinds.
Here's four judgments God says are going to
come upon them.
The sword to slay them, the dogs to
tear, the fowls of the heaven, and the
beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.
And I will cause them to be removed
into all kingdoms of the earth.
He says now there's going to come a
judgment.
There will be evidences of this judgment.
And at the end of this judgment, they're
going to be assimilated in a similar fashion
as it is, although it was under Babylon,
in the very same way that others before
them have gone into captivity.
I will appoint over them a sword to
slay.
Now, in the New Testament, we are told
by the Apostle Paul that we're to take
the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God.
And God says to Jeremiah, I'm going to
appoint over them a word that will slay
them.
And folks, you must never, you must never,
you must never sit in a place and
listen to any person who does not literally
believe that this is the inspired word of
almighty God.
You must yourself get into this book.
You must rightly divide it from beginning to
end.
Scripture is interpreted by Scripture.
It's not enough to be lazy and go
and sit in some place and say, well,
this man or woman who appeared to be
of God opened the text and said this
is what it means.
You have the Holy Spirit within you.
You've got to discern this text yourself.
You've got to get into this book.
There is no protection for your soul outside
of the word of God.
And here are a people, and God says,
I'm going to appoint a sword to slay
them.
And false prophets always arise just before judgment.
A multitude of them arise.
Ahab had 450 of them in his court
just before he went into the battle that
cost him and thousands of others their lives.
False prophets will always arise.
It's a sign when judgment is coming.
It's the rise of the good time prophets,
which is a sword that has been arisen
to bring and to devour.
And also, he says, I will appoint over
them dogs to tear and fowls of the
heaven and beasts of the earth to devour
and to destroy.
Now, several years ago, there was an apparent
revival that took place in a lot of
the Pentecostal and charismatic churches in Canada, in
the United States, somewhat in Europe and England,
and various other places throughout the world.
They say this was the Spirit of God
that came upon them.
And they began to have manifestations of barking
and making noises of birds roaring like lions
and doing all of these animal things in
this apparent blessing.
Remember, Jeremiah came and said, you're going to
be filled with wine.
They believed it was a blessing.
But God says, no, this is a warning
that's coming to you.
This spirit of drunkenness that's going to come
upon you is a warning that everything now
is coming to an end and judgment is
just around the corner.
And now here's where it gets interesting.
There was a great debate that arose in
the Pentecostal charismatic churches about is this the
Holy Spirit doing this?
Is this the devil doing this?
Is this a combination of the Holy Spirit
and the flesh or the flesh and the
devil or any mix of those combinations?
And, of course, it divided the church.
Half said it's the Holy Ghost, half said
it's the devil, and there were some in
the middle who just said, we don't know,
we're staying away from the whole thing.
Now, let's suppose just for a moment that
it really was the Spirit of the Lord
that came upon these people.
The Bible tells us, and for the sake
of learning, I'm going to repeat this, that
all these things happened to the children of
Israel for our instruction.
There's nothing new, Solomon says, under the sun.
If something happens, you can find, if you
are in Scripture, you can find it in
the Scripture.
You can find why it happened in the
Scripture.
You can find the purpose of why it
happened in the Scripture.
And the people who were involved adamantly held
to this and said, this is the Spirit
of God.
And they were possibly in some measure right
because there were people who went there and
they do claim that their lives were greatly
touched by God.
I'm not going to dispute any of that.
If you say your life was touched by
God, then thank God for that.
I'm happy for you.
But they misunderstood the purpose.
You see, he's warning of impending judgment.
And his judgment on that which claims to
represent and love him, but has embraced a
great measure of falseness in his name.
In this time of blessing, there were no
shortage of those who claimed to be speaking
for Christ, but not many of their words
were from the revealed text of Scripture.
They stood up and said, no, I know
what God is thinking.
We know what God is saying.
But you see, there is a judgment that
comes on a church that's out of the
Word of God.
This thing didn't just happen.
It's the result of many years of allowing
false prophets into pulpits and equating the revelations
of men's own minds and hearts on equal
basis with the Word of God.
It produced this stupor that allowed people to
be moved into this type of practice.
They would get up and say, oh, folks,
this is the Holy Spirit.
You see, we're barking like dogs because we're
watchmen.
And this is how the Holy Spirit is
guarding over the nation to us.
Folks, I read these things.
Others were saying we're crowing like roosters because
we're waking up the church and we're waking
up the nation to the blessing that God
wants to pour out on all people.
They had apologists, but their apologists were ridiculous.
There's hardly anybody that understood the Scriptures.
And they said, well, we can't prove this
because we can't find it in the Scriptures.
Oh, yes, you can.
You have to be willing to look at
all the Scriptures.
You can find it in the Scriptures.
God says, I'm going to appoint the sword
to slay.
In other words, an interpretation of Scripture that
is not from my heart or my word.
Dogs to terror, fowls of heaven and beasts
of the earth that come to let you
understand that this system of religion is under
judgment.
It has to go.
Now, some today who are hearing this message
and others are going to hear it in
the future on the Internet are going to
say, oh, God, how much falseness concerning Christ
has been injected into my heart and into
my mind, into my very being.
Will Jesus Christ cast me off?
And how can I hope to find and
get back to spiritual truth?
Now, folks, you have to understand my heart
today.
I'm not here to rail on these things.
I'm not fighting against the church.
I'm fighting for the church of Jesus Christ,
for the people of God, for the testimony
of God.
I'm not standing and waving my finger on
any kind of a little soapbox saying to
anybody, I told you so.
That's not the point.
The point is we are in this battle
together.
There may be a few boats along the
way that have gotten swamped.
And maybe in this moment of time, I
might need to be a voice from God's
heart to them.
But who's to say in the future that
it might not be my boat that takes
on water and they might have to speak
from God to me?
We are in this together, folks.
Let anyone think that we approach this topic
from a position of arrogance.
That is not so.
It's from a position of wanting to see
the church in Canada and Europe and the
USA become the church of Jesus Christ one
more time in our generation.
And there are people that have embraced these
things.
There are people sitting here that you say,
oh God, what have I been listening to?
I've been on the television.
I've been attending meetings.
I'm just so confused.
How do I get back to God?
How can I know what is spiritual truth
and what is not spiritual truth?
Now, remember, I started out by saying there
is an incredible sign that follows those who
believe.
Now, I want you to go with me
to the book of Acts, chapter 28, if
you will, please.
In this chapter of Scripture, the apostle Paul,
in serving God, has been on a journey.
And in this journey, Paul has been shipwrecked
along with everybody else.
They set out.
It looked like a smooth sailing time, but
they encountered an unprecedented storm and the whole
boat was destroyed.
It was all shipwrecked.
They all had to grab onto pieces of
wood and swim to get to shore.
Now, in Acts, chapter 28, we see Paul
now setting about to gather wood.
And when Paul had gathered a bundle of
sticks, laid them on the fire, there came
a viper out of the heat and fastened
on his hand.
Now, I see this as a type.
Now, I'm going to preach about this as
a type.
It's a type of the world.
They were on this ship with Paul.
Paul represents the church.
The other people, let's say, represent the world.
The whole thing is falling apart.
People in the world know that everything around
them is falling apart.
They know they are falling apart.
Nobody even has to convince them.
They know it.
They know that there's such an uncertainty around
about them that everything they trusted in seems
to be breaking into pieces.
And they look to Paul because Paul was
the voice for God in the midst of
the storm.
And I see these people from the ship
as a type of the world who are
gathered around and they're looking at Paul who
represents the church.
And he's out there picking up sticks.
And as it is, regathering pieces of wood.
I see it as a type of the
world looking at the church saying, you're just
as shipwrecked as we are.
The world turns on the television and knows
the church is shipwrecked.
They know it.
They see it.
They hear it.
They're not foolish.
They know that what they're hearing is the
bulk of it, not all of it, thank
God.
But the bulk of it is from charlatans
that are just simply merchandising the people.
And they know it.
They know the church is shipwrecked.
They walk by all over this country.
They walk by churches every morning and all
these buildings that have a history.
But they've become virtually insignificant to a large
degree to so many people today.
Recent surveys are telling us that less and
less and less people in America believe that
the Bible is relevant or Christ is relevant
or the church is relevant.
They know they are shipwrecked and they know
the church appears to be shipwrecked.
And so they're standing on the shore and
they're watching Paul pick up these sticks.
And it's a type of the world looking
at the church as the church gasps or
grasps for truth again, as they too have
suffered in the storm.
And they're picking up sticks.
And that's exactly where some of you are
today.
So many people are just looking for fragments
of truth.
And Paul starts gathering wood.
And it represents to me that which remains
of the cross, that which truly is of
Christ.
He's out there as a type gathering this
up saying, I don't know where the whole
cross...
I seem to have lost the cross in
my life, but I'm going to go out
and I'm going to gather the truths that
God has revealed and wants to reveal in
me.
And I want to know.
I read about a life that says I'm
crucified with Christ, but I know so little
about this.
I've been under the ministries of illusion that
talk about the Christian life is just this
grand big elusive party where I'm to be
in this drunken stupor all the time in
God's presence.
But I'm heading up because there's something about
the cross that I know is true.
There's something in my heart that's telling me
this is right.
And while everyone's standing around looking at Paul,
Paul heads out and he picks up these
sticks and he begins to put them under
fire.
And there are people gathered around and they're
saying we're under judgment.
I'm sure they're thinking that in their mind.
We're under judgment.
They felt it on the boat in the
middle of the storm.
There's a season coming, folks, when there's going
to be an awareness, even if it's for
a moment, that the justice of God has
come.
And they're standing there watching this church as
it is trying to become the church again.
And Paul picks up these sticks, puts them
on the fire.
And the moment he does this, it represents
it, putting them, his fragments in a place
that offers light and comfort and protection.
And as he gathers them, a viper comes
out and fastens itself on his hand.
And it's funny, the serpent bites him.
And as the people are going through this
battle, I'm sure in some measure the enemy
is attacking Paul.
And he's saying, look at where your spiritual
journey has taken you.
Think of the mistakes you have made.
You're under the same judgment as everyone else.
And everyone around you knows it, Paul.
The serpent comes out and bites him.
Paul knows he's on a journey.
Paul knows the hand of God is on
him.
There's an inner knowledge in Paul that greater
is he who's in me than he who's
in the world.
Yes, I ended up on that ship, but
I'm there according to the will of God.
And yes, we all got shipwrecked.
And yes, we all ended up on the
same shore.
But there is a difference between you and
I.
And Paul took that serpent, and the scripture
just says he shook him off in the
fire.
That's an amazing thing.
When the barbarians, it says, saw the venomous
beast hang on his hand, Acts 28, 4,
they said among themselves, no doubt this man
is a murderer, though he has escaped the
sea, yet vengeance suffers him not to live.
And verse 5 says, and he shook off
the beast into the fire and felt no
harm.
He shook it off.
Paul knew this.
Maybe in his mind he might have said,
I know, I probably made mistakes.
No man is perfect.
No man has any perfection apart from Christ
in himself.
I make mistakes.
You make mistakes.
Everybody makes mistakes.
But Paul knew in his heart, God has
promised to keep me, and keep me he
will.
He will keep me.
In 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 12,
Paul says, I know whom I have believed,
and I am persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I have committed to
him against that day.
And the word against means until I reach
that day.
I know whom I have believed.
And when the people saw that he should
have fallen down dead or swelled up, and
they saw no harm come to him, they
changed their mind and they said he was
a god.
The reality is, they saw God.
They saw what only God can do.
Folks, you've got to stay with me in
this, because you're going to see something very,
very shortly.
Go to 2 Kings, please, chapter 8, in
the Old Testament, very quickly.
2 Kings chapter 8 is about a woman
who was sent into a certain place because
the Lord had called for famine upon the
land.
Hard to think that God will call for
famine in a place where his own people
dwell, but he will do that for a
purpose, for a reason.
In chapter 8 of 2 Kings, verse 1,
tells us the Lord called for a famine
and would come upon the land for seven
years.
And this woman, I want you to read
this as a type of the church with
me, arose and did after the saying of
the man of God, verse 2, and went
with her household and sojourned in the land
of the Philistines seven years.
It came to pass at the seven years
end that the woman returned to the land
of the Philistines and she went forth to
cry to the king for her house and
for her land.
So this woman has gone because of the
famine.
And she has herself gone into want.
She has lost some things.
But a word came to her.
And the word that came to her is,
you can come home now.
And so she did.
She got up with her household and she
came back.
And when she came back, she was aware
that most likely somebody else was occupying her
place or had taken away what was rightfully
hers.
So she came to the king and began
to ask, to cry to him for her
house and for her land for what was
rightfully hers.
And the king talked with Gehazi, the servant
of the man of God, saying, Tell me,
I pray thee, all the great things that
Elisha has done.
And it came to pass, as he was
telling the king how he had restored a
dead body to life, that, behold, the woman
whose son he had restored to life cried
to the king for her house and for
her land.
Now, this is a woman whom God had
raised her son from the dead.
It's a type.
Folks, we are a bride.
We are the bride of Christ.
We are the bride of the son that
was raised from the dead.
There's a typology in here.
Now, it says, Oh, Lord, Gehazi said, My
king, this is the woman and this is
the son, her son, whom Elisha restored to
life.
And when the king asked the woman in
verse 6, she told him, So the king
appointed to her a certain officer, saying, Now,
here's what the king said, Restore all that
was hers and all the fruits of the
field since the day that she left the
land, even until now.
Now, folks, this is what I feel God
is saying.
Yet we make mistakes.
I believe the church in Canada made a
tragic mistake.
I believe it with all my heart.
But here's what God is saying.
You might have been in a land of
famine for seven years.
And you might have lost what you think
is a great measure of truth and a
great measure of the life of Christ.
You may have lost the true riches and
blessings of God.
But God says, You come back to me
and you cry out to me and I
will appoint the Holy Spirit.
And he will not only restore to you
what is rightfully yours, but he will restore
to you everything you lost in the seven
years that you were in the place of
famine.
Everything will come back to you.
Give her back everything.
That's the incredible truth of this particular story.
Now, back in Acts chapter 28, Paul, it
says, But no harm came to him.
They changed their mind and they said he
was a god.
Now, remember, Paul is the type of the
church who's been out there picking up sticks
trying to make sense of the journey.
And all of a sudden, this serpent comes
and tries to tell the bride that it's
over for you.
Tries to infuse you with this poison that
comes from his mouth and say it's over.
Folks, it's never over.
God has intertwined his life with his church.
God has given you his life.
God has made the promise to you.
He said, I will never leave you or
forsake you.
I will not forsake you.
No matter where you've been.
No matter how far away you've walked.
No matter what land you've been dwelling in.
No matter what land you've been, things you've
been partaking of.
If you call out to me, I will
not forsake you.
Paul leaves this place of having been bit
on his hand by the serpent.
And the scripture says it came to pass
in verse 8 that a certain man was
sick of a fever, etc.
When Paul entered in and prayed and laid
his hands on him and he healed him.
And when this was done, others also which
had diseases on the island came and he
healed them.
They were healed.
And here it is.
This is the incredible sign.
Mark chapter 16 and verse 18.
Jesus said, these signs shall follow them who
believe.
In my name, they will take up serpents.
In my name, in other words.
The enemy will never convince them that they
are cut off from my life.
The enemy will never do this.
They will never be infused with the poison
that tells them that you are shipwrecked.
You must stay there.
There's no life for you.
You have to sit in a place and
be punished now for years to come for
the things that you have done.
They will take up serpents.
And if they drink any deadly thing, it
shall not hurt them.
Whether it's done in ignorance.
Whether it's done willfully.
They have opened their hearts.
They have allowed wrong reasonings about God to
come into their inner being.
But Jesus said, those that are mine, they
will not be poisoned.
They will not be killed.
They will not have my life taken from
them.
They will drink these deadly things.
But it will not hurt them.
It will not damage them.
It will not make them be put into
a place where they cannot be restored.
They shall lay hands on the sick and
they shall recover.
They will not be overcome.
They will not be overcome by anything the
enemy tries to infuse into their minds.
Or by anything she has willingly or in
ignorance partaken of.
If she calls out to me, this is
the church of Jesus Christ, through her hands
will flow my life to this sin-sick
and captivated world one more time.
Hallelujah!
This is the incredible sign that follows those
who believe.
It's that God will not forsake all and
any who call out to Him in sincerity.
Who long for truth.
He will restore you.
He will guide you.
And His life will continue to flow through
yours.
It's time for the church to get up
again and come home and be the church
of Jesus Christ.
It's time for the bride to come to
the throne one more time and say, Oh,
Father, in Jesus' name, give me back what
is rightfully mine.
And the enemy has stolen from my life.
Because ultimately, the reason for the church is
that through our lives flows the healing of
God to sin-sick people all over the
world.
Speaking, touching, believing, moving in the realm of
Christ's life.
Hallelujah!
If you feel that you're making a mess
of your walk with Christ, then this message
is for you.
Oh, beloved bride.
God loves you so much.
Yeah, we've all in measure made a mess
along the way.
I've done it.
You've done it.
Others have done it.
But God, in His mercy, sends a word
from His word.
It says, Return to me.
Return to me.
And this incredible sign will follow you.
I'll give you back everything.
The enemy drew you away.
Perhaps your own heart drew you away from
walking with me.
And because of it, you're now trying to
regather some sense of truth.
And the enemy has bitten you and said,
No, it's over for you.
But this sign will follow you.
Serpents will not take you up.
You will take them up.
You will hold captivity captive.
Whatever death has been poured into your spirit
will not harm you when you call out
to me.
This is where you begin to know the
miraculous power of God.
And I'll send you out.
And my healing will begin to flow through
your life.
Hallelujah.
Father, I thank you so much, God, with
all my heart.
Lord, you are truly speaking to this generation.
I know there are pulpits all over the
nation that are preaching this kind of a
word.
God, you have Davids.
You have mighty men and women of God
all over the country.
In Elijah's day, you had 7,000 that
had not bent their knee to the gods
of prosperity and self-indulgence.
Oh, God, I thank you, Lord, that you
have a bride in this house.
You have a people.
I pray that you give the courage today
to those who have a serpent hanging on
their hand to shake this thing off in
the fire and say, No, I'm not staying
here, and I'm not going to be weak
all my life, and I'm not shipwrecked.
No, I'm not.
I am walking with God, and God is
walking with me.
God has a purpose for my life, and
he will use my life for his glory.
Through my hands are going to flow the
healing touch of Jesus Christ to sin sick
people all around me.
Through my voice is going to come the
compassion of God for a dying and a
hurting world.
Oh, God, I thank you for this with
all my heart.
I thank you, Lord, that you have a
church.
You will always have a church.
You will always have a testimony.
I pray this morning for every backslider in
this house, everyone who has a serpent hanging
on their hand.
God Almighty, give them the grace to shake
this thing off today and walk out of
this house free.
Free.
You shall know the truth, and the truth
shall set you free.
I pray for freedom.
God, let there be a genuine shout of
freedom.
At this altar today, Father, I ask you
to open prison doors and let captives go
free.
Heal those who have been wounded in their
heart.
Give sight to the spiritually blind.
God Almighty, let those who are sitting in
spiritual poverty have the treasure of God's mercy
revealed one more time into their mind and
into their heart.
Lord, only you can do this work.
This is your work.
You are good, and your mercy endures forever.
That's who you are.
Oh, God, do the miraculous.
Do the miraculous.
I pray God for every chain of hell
to be broken off the church of Jesus
Christ.
God Almighty, set people free.
If God is speaking to your heart today,
as we stand, Education NX, you can move
your way, please, between the screens.
We'll pray for you momentarily in the sanctuary.
Make your way to this altar.
I'm calling everybody who's got a snake hanging
on their hand right now.
You're going to shake that thing off in
the fire.
Let's stand.
Balcony, main sanctuary.
Slip out of wherever you are.
You can go to either exit in the
balcony.
Make your way down here.
We are going to pray.
And this cursed thing is going to be
thrown into the fire.
My God, thank you, Lord, for your mercy.
Thank you, God, for mercy.
Mercy.
You said this building will be finished and
we will put a capstone on it and
shout grace.
Grace.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Jesus.
What incredible mercy.
What an incredible sign that your life continues
to flow through us, even when we have
made mistakes.
When we've dishonored your name, we've worshipped the
work of our hands.
Your life and mercy still continues to flow
through us.
Hallelujah.
Pray with me, those at the altar today.
Satan, I stand against you in the name
of Jesus.
I stand against your lies and all of
the poison that you try to put into
my heart and my mind.
I am not under the judgment of God.
I still am under mercy.
And the evidence of this is that I
can still hear his voice.
And my heart still passionately longs for him.
He has said that he will never forsake
me.
He has said he will never cast me
away.
He has said that he will restore to
me everything that I lost when I lived
in this place of spiritual famine.
Oh God, this very moment, by faith in
your words, I cast off the serpent into
the fire.
God, there are sick people in this world.
There are foolish people.
There are darkened people.
They need to feel your touch.
They need to be healed of the power
of evil and the consequences of sin.
Thank you, Jesus, that you are going to
use my life as an agent of healing
in this generation.
I will not be used of you in
a lesser measure, but in the full measure
of everything that you have destined for my
life to be and to glorify you.
I believe that no serpent has authority over
me.
I believe that no deadly thing can keep
me from my God.
I believe that through my hands, through my
hands, through my hands, your life, Jesus, will
flow to a sickened world, bringing them hope,
bringing them life, bringing them freedom.
I declare this.
And God, I say thank you.
Hallelujah.
Give him thanks.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, God.
This is the conclusion of the message.