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Hallelujah.
There's been joy in this house tonight.
The joy of the Lord is our strength
and we thank Him for it.
1 Chronicles 26 verse 27.
Verse 27.
One verse.
My message tonight, the spoils of spiritual warfare.
The spoils, the spiritual warfare.
Out of the spoils won in battles did
they dedicate to maintain the house of the
Lord.
One of the most profound verses in the
Bible.
Out of the spoils won in battles.
Now, the spoils, not just battles, but won.
Battles that were won.
Out of the spoils won in battles did
they dedicate to maintain the house of the
Lord.
Now, Father, I ask you to come and
open this word to us.
Lord, I see it that I'm going to
have to have Holy Ghost anointing.
I'm going to have to have the Holy
Ghost come and just open our eyes and
our ears to understand it.
God, help me.
I need you.
I acknowledge you.
Lord, we thank you.
Your word is precious to us.
But Holy Spirit, we have to have ears
to hear.
Oh, God, make it clear.
Help us to understand the spoils of spiritual
warfare.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
This single verse opens up a profound truth.
Incredible truth.
And I trust that you'll see it with
me tonight.
Once you understand this truth, you'll understand why
God allows us to go through conflict after
conflict as long as we live, until Jesus
comes, or until you die.
You're going to have spiritual warfare.
You're going to have battles.
You're going to have conflicts.
It will never, ever end.
And we'll...
Somebody said, oh.
I didn't tell you anything new.
You knew that.
You're going to have spiritual warfare as long
as we live.
Now, the spoils represent the plunder, the goods,
the loot, so to speak.
In fact, it means loot won by victories
through battles.
Now, this begins back in Genesis.
You don't have to turn there, but this
is the story of Abraham receiving word that
Lot had been taken captive.
There were nine kings that came against Sodom
and Gomorrah, and they captured Lot and his
family, took all their goods.
They absolutely spoiled the city, took all of
their vituals, took all of their garments, all
of their furnishings and wagon loads, and carried
them off captive.
And the word came to Abraham, and with
318 trained men on his small army, they
took off after these nine kings.
These nine kings end up in a slime
pit.
God led them into a slime pit, and
they couldn't fight, and Abraham overcame them, and
the Bible says he took all.
He absolutely destroyed these kings, and he turns
around, and he comes back, and he's leading
now a great army.
He's bringing back Lot and his family, and
all of those of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Now, he gives back the goods to the
king of Sodom who met him on his
way back, and he said, I don't even
want a shoelace of what you have.
All your spoils are yours, your family, but
I'm taking Lot.
But he kept all of the spoils, all
the spoils of the nine kings.
In fact, you have this borne out in
Hebrews 7.4. Now, consider how great the
man Melchizedek is, unto whom even the patriarch
Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils.
He's talking about this war, and as he's
coming back, he's got these wagon loads.
He's not only won a battle.
You see, God's not interested in you just
winning a battle.
He said, we are more than conquerors.
Not just conquerors, but more than conquerors.
We can't come out of the battle the
way we went in, and all you have
is a testimony, I survived.
God's not interested in you surviving.
He's interested in you coming out with some
loot.
He's interested in you coming out loaded down
with wagons of spoils.
And he meets Melchizedek, or he goes to
Melchizedek, and he gives ten percent of all
the spoils, and this is a picture of
what I read to you in Chronicles.
The spoils of the battles won maintained the
house of God.
This was given to Melchizedek to maintain the
ministry in the house of God.
It's a very, very clear picture that Abraham
comes out of the battle, not just a
victor, but he comes out with the spoils,
and the writer of Hebrews says he gave
a tenth of those spoils.
That's a wonderful picture if you could begin
to understand it.
Get this one picture, please.
Here's Satan and his armies leading all of
those from Sodom and Gomorrah away, and the
devil now is gloating because he has the
one righteous man that could threaten his kingdom.
The one righteous man locked, the Bible calls
locked, dwelling in Sodom.
He carries him away, says, this is what
happens to anyone who invades my territory.
Picture another picture, please.
Now Abraham's coming back, and he has all
of these.
He has won the battle, and now he
has the spoils, and he gives them to
Melchizedek to maintain the eternal purposes of Almighty
God.
This is clearly illustrated in the setting of
my text.
You don't have to turn back there, but
if you're still there in 1 Chronicles, the
two chapters previous, now get this picture, if
you will, please.
Now, folks, I'm laying down a principle that
if you can catch, if you allow the
Holy Spirit to speak to your mind, you
will never again fear your spiritual battles.
You will never again fear spiritual warfare.
You begin to understand why God allows you
to go through what some of you are
going through right now.
You understand why God has allowed a conflict
in your life.
He's allowed some kind of a battle that's
come into your life.
You'll understand the principle of it.
He's trying to give you spoils.
He's trying to give you resources to maintain
the house of God, this temple of the
Holy Ghost.
In this text, in the setting of the
text, David has already appointed Solomon his king.
He's now on the throne, and David up
to this time has been collecting all the
building materials for the temple.
In fact, so great numbers of brass, supplies
of brass, and stone, and timbers, and gold,
and silver, and money of all kinds.
He prepared it.
In fact, it was innumerable.
You couldn't even count it, the Scripture says.
And he has, in the previous two chapters,
he set up a divine order, the Levites,
the porters, and the singers, and the players
of instruments, and he's setting up a divine
order.
And he has the plans for the temple,
and Solomon's going to build that temple out
of the resources that David has collected.
But before David dies, and this is one
of the last acts of David, it's right
here, out of the spoils won in battles
that they dedicate to maintain the house of
the Lord.
David took all of his, where did David
get all of this gold, and silver, and
brass, and vessels, and timber?
He got it from his warfares.
Every battle he would bring the spoils back
to Jerusalem and to Judah.
And he asked, he set up a treasury.
This was, if you look at the context
of it, there was a special treasury.
This had nothing to do with the spoils
to build the tabernacle.
This was to maintain the temple.
And so he asked Joab, all the chiefs,
all the captains of all the army, to
bring in all the spoils that they had
won in their numerous battles, and he set
up a treasury, and he said, now this
is dedicated.
This is to be used only to maintain
it after it's built.
It's to maintain the house out of the
spoils of battles won.
Some of you, the light's going on.
You're beginning to see what the Holy Ghost
is saying.
The battles you're going through, and the battles
that you have won, spoils, resources, to maintain
the house.
What is the house?
We are the temple of the Holy Ghost,
the Bible says.
You and I are the temple of God.
The spoils, out of the spoils won in
battles, they did dedicate.
David dedicated to maintain the house of the
Lord in the original Hebrew, to repair the
house, to strengthen it, consolidate it, consolidate what
was built, to maintain it in its original
splendor, to repair any decay.
It was a reserve of resources to keep
the building from falling into disrepair, so that
there would be no disrepair, no leaking roof,
no falling timbers, no broken walls or doors
or windows, but maintain it in its pristine
condition.
All of Israel's battles were spiritual battles.
They represent the spiritual warfare that you and
I go through in our own lifetime.
Now, think of it.
God made sure that every battle resulted in
more than a victory.
Now, if you think this thing through now,
they didn't understand at the time, but every
battle they were in, they brought back these
spoils they didn't know.
They had no concept of what this was
about, but without even their knowing it, without
their knowledge, they were building up a resource
that Solomon would use later when he's taxing,
he's building those money.
God's house still has money to maintain his
pristine condition.
One through all of those past battles, the
principles found all through God's Word.
In 1 Samuel, the 30th chapter, remember the
Malachites invaded Ziklag, David's village, that he'd been
given by the king of Gath.
And the Malachites come and invade, and they
had been on a tour, they had been
rampaging, and they were driving herds of sheep
and cattle and camels, and they came upon
Ziklag, and they just picked up all of
the families of David and his army, and
all of the spoils of David, and took
it off marching away.
David was greatly distressed, for the people spake
of stoning him, but David encouraged himself in
the Lord.
Now, you talk about a spiritual warfare, talk
about going through a great conflict, David's heart's
right with God.
You don't have to be living in sin
to have a conflict or a great battle
or spiritual warfare, not at all.
David's heart was right with God, he's headed
for the kingship.
But he encouraged himself in the Lord, they
were thinking of stoning him.
And you know the story, you see, the
devil was trying to destroy the promised seed.
Remember that Messiah was supposed to come through
the throne of David.
And the devil is gloating now, he has
taken every woman, every wife of David that
could possibly bear a seed.
It is an attack of hell itself.
You talk about spiritual warfare, this is the
epitome of a spiritual warfare, the enemy after
the seed of Christ.
And folks, that's every spiritual battle, it's not
the devil mad at you, he's after the
seed of Christ in you and me.
He's after the Jesus in us.
Now you remember that David falls upon them,
overtakes and defeats the Amalekites.
David recovered all, neither sons nor daughters, neither
spoil was lost, everything.
In fact, he recovered all, but he recovered
not only all that he possessed, he recovered
all that the Amalekites had gathered from all
over their excursions and all of their battles.
And David took all the flocks and the
herds, which they drove before them, all the
other cattle and said, this is David's spoil,
this is mine.
Now you have back yours and you have
this portion, but all of this that they
have collected from all of their battles, it's
mine.
Now David had a purpose, he was not
selfish, he was not keeping it to himself.
You see, what God takes you through in
a spiritual warfare has little to do with
yourself.
It has to do with resources God wants
to give you to help others around you,
your husband, your wife, your father, your mother,
and all around you.
He's giving you resources to use.
Because when David came back to Zaglag, immediately
he began to divide them in groups and
he says, you take this over to this
city, and you take this, and finally the
last one he sends to Hebron.
Now keep in mind Hebron is going to
be the city that brings David back as
king, brings him into the kingship.
And you understand the principle again out of
the battles won, the spoils dedicated to maintaining
the house of God.
Here again, God is maintaining the lineage of
Christ himself, his own son.
He's doing a marvelous work here.
I see it, I want you to see
it, and only the Holy Ghost can help
you to see it.
He is maintaining God's divine purpose, because up
to this time they've seen David nothing but
a fugitive.
Those who are going to anoint him king,
they see him as a fugitive, lacking power,
always on the run, but now he has
all these spoils, he has these resources, and
he gives them to all these places where
he had been hiding out, where he'd been
hiding, and now he's sending these resources, these
gifts.
Oh, it's a picture of the battles that
we go through, some of them so intense.
So David was at the point of losing
everything, his family, everything, and he was in
a spot, but he trusted God.
He believed God for him.
God was not testing David at this time.
He knew David's response, but he wanted to
put resources in David's hands that he couldn't
get any other way.
He couldn't go back over here and rob
from the Philistines because he would be exposed.
He can't go and get resources from his
own people.
There has to be resources, and these resources
out of his battle are taken, and God
uses it to maintain his eternal purpose.
You see, God wants to bring you out
of your battle.
For example, the Scripture says, tribulation worketh patience.
You see, those are the spoils, and patience,
what comes out of patience.
Does anybody know that Scripture?
I'm asking if God just forgot.
But hope, and joy, and peace, and rest
in the Holy Ghost, and the love of
God shed abroad in all hearts around you.
Glory to Jesus.
David sent of the spoil to the elders
of Judah, saying, behold, a present for you
of the spoil of the enemies of the
Lord.
Do you understand God can use the devil,
the things that the devil intended to destroy
you, God can turn them around and make
nothing but resources for you out of them.
David was what?
More than a conqueror.
And to them, which were in Hebrew, in
Hebron also, you get the picture, David's coming
back with wagons loaded with spoil, cattle, sheep,
goats, camels, and he's sending them out all
through the land.
Everybody knows that David had won a victory,
and this is how God brings forth the
spoils to maintain his eternal purpose.
Hallelujah.
There's another picture of it in 2 Kings,
chapter 6.
Remember, Syria besieged Samaria, and the
story, let me give it to you from
chapter 6, verse 29 in 2 Kings.
There was a great famine in Samaria.
It was so bad, the Bible said that
a donkey's head sold for 80 pieces of
silver.
A donkey's head for 80 pieces of silver.
And in the city of Samaria, under siege,
the Assyrians, they were eating, mothers were eating
their babies.
In fact, the king was so chagrined when
a mother came complaining, brought another woman to
her and said, last night we ate my
baby, but we agreed that we would eat
hers today, and she refused, she's hidden her
baby.
That's how bad it was at the time,
under a great siege.
And there were four lepers, remember, outside the
city.
Now, at this time, the enemy was encamped
around the city, a multitude in their tents.
They were just trying to starve the city
to death.
There were four lepers, recall, four lepers that
said, let's get up and we're going to
go, because if we sit here, we're going
to die.
And if they feed us, so be it,
if they kill us, we're going to be
dead anyhow.
So they steal into the outer parts of
the camp, and it's so deathly still, and
they go into a tent, it's empty.
And they're so hungry, they just gouge themselves.
And they notice all of the, there was
gold, the Bible says, and there were garments,
and they just load themselves up, because, and
then they start going to other tents, and
one tent after another, they went all through
the camp, there wasn't a single soldier anywhere.
Their horses were tied to their stakes, there
were donkeys, and there were cows, and there
were garments thrown everywhere, because when they ran,
you see, God had caused the sound, the
sound of the great army, a noise of
a great army coming against them.
And they said, they've hired the Egyptians.
They've hired the Egyptians, and there's a great
army.
God has one of the greatest loudspeakers, and
tape players, or whatever, incredible thought that God
created this sound, and they all fled in
panic.
And there's not a soldier anywhere, and after
they've gouged themselves, they got convicted, after they
buried their loot, they went to the port
of the city, and they said, it's ghost
town there, please, there's everything you need here.
And the king, you know, who's walking in
the flesh, he said, I'll tell you what
this is all about.
They want us just to walk out, they've
all hidden out there, and they're waiting for
us to go out so they can move
into the city and take it over.
What faith he had.
They sent out a group, and I think
four horses left that had not been eaten
in the city, and they came back this
report that there were no soldiers.
Here's what the Bible says, the Lord had
made the host of the shears to hear
a noise of chariots, and noises of horses,
even the noise of a great host, therefore
they rose and fled in the twilight, left
their tents, their horses, their asses, and fled
for their life.
The Bible says the people went out and
spoiled the tents of the Syrians.
Bible said there was fine flour, there was
barley, there were garments, and there were vessels.
Once again, God's eternal purposes are being fulfilled.
Once again, more than conquers, Satan tried to
destroy God's purposes here on earth.
And not only is there a victory, not
only more than conquers, but there is spoiled
everything they needed to maintain the cause of
God, the purposes of God on earth.
Again, it's a picture of God saying to
His people, to you and to me sitting
here tonight, whatever your battle is, I've promised
you victory.
I've promised that you would be not only
an overcomer, not only that you would conquer
your enemies, but you would come home more
than a conqueror.
I'm working a purpose out in you.
There's a reason for what you're going through.
There's a reason for it.
You don't need to understand, all you need
to understand that when you come through it,
you're going to be able to look back
and see what you got out of it.
God sovereignly allows conflicts and battles as a
way to keep things strong and pure and
repaired, a safeguard against breakdowns.
Conflicts are necessary to maintaining His holy temple.
Just very quickly, if you follow through the
Bible, remember Esther?
We heard about it in a recent message,
a wonderful message.
And Esther puts her life on the line
to command by a law that was put
up by the king that all the Jews
from India to Ethiopia, the whole kingdom be
destroyed in the month of Adar.
And she lays her life on the line
to save.
You talk about spiritual warfare, this was between
heaven and hell.
This is between God and the devil himself.
An attempt to destroy God's witness on earth,
the very seed of Christ.
Once again, the enemy coming in a great
battle.
And you know the story very well.
Not only did God arrange it to be
countermanded, the Bible says that Haman was hung
on the very gallows he built for Mordecai.
And then what does the Bible say?
He gave Esther the house of Haman, the
richest man in the kingdom who could spend
what we would consider billions of dollars today
to get the Jews killed.
He gave the whole house.
But folks, what were the spoils?
It was not just the house of Haman,
not just the physical spoils, but the Bible
says very clearly that the Jews then had
light and gladness and joy of heart.
The spoils of the battle.
There's a proof text also, you can find
it, don't turn, but in Colossians 2.15.
And I think the greatest picture of what
I'm trying to say is that the cross
of Jesus Christ, the Scripture says very clearly,
and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made
a show of them, ultimately triumphing over them
in it.
Triumphing in what?
In the cross.
Triumph over, he spoiled.
What it means, he plundered the devil.
He took all of his power, all of
his authority, everything.
Took every authority from principalities and powers and
gave it to his people.
Jesus goes down into the grave and out
of the grave he leads a procession that's
still marching on and on of redeemed saints
under the blood of Jesus Christ, redeemed from
the powers of hell.
And the Bible said he gave gifts who
daily loaded us with benefits.
What did we get out of it?
Grace, mercy, peace, forgiveness, strength, power, all that
we need to live an overcoming life.
Jesus rose from the grave to build a
new temple.
The Bible says, but Christ is a son
over his own house, whose house we are
if we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing
of the hope from to the end.
Solomon was a type of Christ when he
built the temple.
He built this great temple.
He was a type of just as Christ
is built, that he built it out of
the resources that have been given to him.
And the house, we have been built as
a house out of the resources that are
in Christ Jesus, for in him the fullness
of the Godhead bodily.
The Holy Ghost has created us.
He has made us the temple of the
Holy Ghost in which God abides.
Folks, he didn't build half a temple.
This body, this temple, when it's dedicated to
the Lord by faith, trusting in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ is a completed temple.
He was the capstone.
I want to tell you something.
Jesus is not fighting anymore.
He's reigning.
The battle is over as far as he's
concerned.
And he's built himself a church.
I stand before you and everyone of the
blood of Jesus Christ stands complete as a
temple of the Holy Ghost.
And we did that to the resources that
Jesus Christ provided.
But who's going to maintain it?
There has to be resources to maintain it.
And God will not maintain this temple without
our cooperation.
He will not maintain it.
You say it's all in Jesus.
Yes, it's in Jesus.
What you learn of him and the Christ
-likeness that comes out of you and me
in our battles.
Glory be to God.
Do you understand that what you're going through
right now is, you know, God could at
any time.
Why didn't Jesus make it possible?
As soon as you're saved, your battle's all
over.
That was your last battle.
Confess your sins, everything you are.
No more battles, no more struggles.
You're in, you're in.
That's it.
Just enjoy Jesus till the end.
Why didn't God do that?
Folks, that ground of redemption, that ground of
a whole world without battles, we could not
possess it.
We could not keep it up.
We couldn't maintain it.
Just as he took Israel in one step
at a time, he said, I won't give
you all the land until you are increased.
You have to increase in the knowledge of
the Lord.
You have to be increased.
You have to know him better and better.
You have to be perfect.
You couldn't handle the ground that he would
give you without the battles.
He couldn't do it.
I'm having enough trouble handling the little bit
he's given me.
But until I'm increased in him, he won't
give me any more ground.
He only gives us enough ground that we
can handle.
Conquered ground.
You see, Solomon needed more than the resources
to build it.
He needed the resources that had been set
aside by the spoils of the battles that
he had won and that all of his
soldiers had won.
Whatever you're going through right now, God has
allowed it.
I can assure you God has allowed it
and for one great eternal purpose.
To make you strong.
Because the one thing the devil wants more
than anything else is to take the fight
out of you.
The fight out of all of us.
Out of the battles, maintenance.
If you don't have a conflict, if you
don't have pressures, if you don't have trials,
if you don't have warfare, decay is going
to set in.
We would get passive.
We would get lazy.
We would get lukewarm.
And this temple would fall into absolute ruin.
Because we have no resources.
Do you see it?
If you see it, say amen.
If you're going through a battle, he's trying
to stop any possibility of ruin coming into
your life.
You know, if this temple was a literal
one, if it were made of brick and
stone that you could walk around it, windows
and doors and roof and, you know, think
about it.
If this temple was an actual physical brick
and mortar building, you could look around it
and take somebody around and say, hey, you
see that roof line there that was leaking?
I remember the battle I went through and
God repaired that.
That broken window, that stained glass window that
was smashed and broken, and boy did God
take me through.
God allowed me to go through the biggest
test of my life.
But look at that new window.
Look at that new window.
See that new roof that used to leak
real bad.
One day I went through something that I
thought I could never come through.
I thought it was over.
But I trusted God in it.
And I said, God, I want to be
more than a conqueror.
And He brought me through and He put
a new roof.
What's it going to be like when we
get to heaven?
And Jesus says, do you remember that battle?
Do you remember that time when He's going
to give you the date and the hour
and He's going to remind you of all
the circumstances you thought you were going under?
He said, but do you remember how I
brought you out and how that test put
golden faith in you and you trusted me?
And He's going to tell you about another
battle, another battle.
He's going to say, is it worth it?
Was it worth it?
Oh, but wouldn't it be wonderful if God
allowed us to take the devil on a
tour?
And we're home free.
Here we stand before Him, a glorified temple.
No ruin.
Not a spot, not a wrinkle.
Everything in divine order.
And you take the devil on a tour
around and say, devil, remember how you tried
to destroy me here?
And do you remember how you laughed and
your heart was full of grief because you
thought you had tempted me and I lost
it?
What a thank you, devil.
I don't think you'll thank me, but you'll
tell him.
If it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't
be here.
It's all of those battles I went through
that made me strong in the Lord.
I'll tell you something, you can cop out
if you want to.
I'm going to close in just a few
minutes.
You can drop out.
I'm getting letters from all over the United
States and from overseas, from family members, wives,
and especially from children of pastors.
This past week, one really broke my heart.
This daughter of a pastor, Pentecostal pastor, who
got so bitter.
He'd gone through a great spiritual warfare.
He went through a great problem, great conflict
in his life and in the church.
And he just quit.
He just quit.
He said, I don't have to take this.
I've had it for so many years and
I don't want any more of it.
And he's almost 80 now.
Won't go to church.
You can't talk to him about God or
Jesus at all.
He's bitter.
He just quit.
He laid down with his struggle and his
battle.
And this temple is in total ruin.
His temple is gone.
It's just ruins.
And you can, in the struggle, you can
say, I don't see any purpose to this.
I don't see why I have to go
any further in this at all.
That's enough.
And you can quit.
You can get discouraged and say, that's it.
And you can get bitter and you can
get hard.
That's possible.
And a lot of people are spinning out.
A lot of people have been shipwrecked all
over the world.
It's tragic.
But if you can catch a glimpse of
this, and with that I close.
If you can just catch a glimpse of
this now.
He has allowed the spiritual warfare.
And it may not even be that you
will see immediate explanation.
You would immediately see the results of it.
Until you back away.
And you come through into a place of
victory when you just simply give him faith.
And you embrace then.
You begin to embrace what you're going through.
Embrace it and say, God is with me.
God wouldn't allow this unless he had a
purpose.
Now, folks, I talked to somebody today.
I was just trying to rehearse my message.
And this sister's going through a great battle.
She'd been through a lot of battles.
And she said, you know, there's one battle
in particular I went through.
I would go through it again as hard
as it was because of what it produced
in me.
I would go through it again because I
see the results.
I wouldn't be here now.
Well, folks, I look back over my life.
And if I bring anything to you of
life today.
If you hear anything from my heart that
tells you this is of Christ.
This is the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
If I have anything of an anointing at
this time in my life.
And I look back over all that I've
been through.
And folks, there were times that I wanted
to quit.
There were times I could have walked away.
And I'll tell you what, if I had
done that, I would be pumping gas somewhere.
I'm not putting that down.
Not at all.
But I'm just saying, all my children would
be divorced.
My temple would be totally ruined.
Because I simply walked away and didn't even
try to see God's purpose in what was
happening.
And I look back after 50 years of
marriage.
The times earlier on when it was so
easy to quit.
So easy to walk away.
And there were times that I would go
into my room and fall on my face
and say, God, I just don't understand this.
The more I pray and seek you, I
go through these kind of things.
And the attack of the devil against my
wife with her sicknesses and the pain.
And all of the things that were coming
at me.
And I say, God, I don't understand you
at all.
And the Holy Spirit would come and say,
be still.
And the Lord would say, trust me in
this now.
Just trust me.
And when I would trust Him and just
rest in Him.
And allow Him to put His arms around
me.
Folks, out of that came a sweetness.
Out of that came something special that put
a backbone.
It gave me a spiritual understanding I've never
had before.
And God wants that for you.
God's allowing you to come into a place
that you could have never come any other
way.
Will you stand, please?
Now, I know in the Spirit, this is
all I'm going to say.
Upstairs, here and in the overflow.
I just want to say it quickly.
I know that God put this message on
my heart for a reason.
Because He knew you would be here.
And some of you are going through the
battle of your life.
Now, I'm asking you to step out of
your seats.
Before you turn to root of bitterness, allow
root of bitterness or jealousy.
Sometimes it's jealousy.
It's envy.
Whatever it may be, say, God, get that
out of my heart.
And upstairs in the balcony, you can come.
And in the annex, you can come down
here also.
I'll pray for you.
And let's believe the Lord.
If you're going through that struggle, you're going
through that battle.
And say, Brother David, I'd like you to
pray for me tonight.
We will stand with you together and believe
Him for a miracle in your life tonight.
There are times I wish I could be
a mind reader.
To read the minds of those that respond
to calls like this.
But I guess it's better that no man
can do that.
That is the work of the Holy Spirit.
He reads your heart and He reads your
mind.
And He knows what you're going through.
The steps of a righteous man ordered by
the Lord.
It's a wonderful thing to know that we
have a Father who cares, who understands.
It could have been that just yesterday, you
couldn't even conceive the battle that came to
you today, or that you're facing now, or
maybe a week ago.
It only takes a telephone call.
It takes, you just sit there one day
and look at all your bills that are
piled up.
And it looks like there's no way out.
There's some of you standing here, you're almost
at the point of saying, I don't see
how I can get out of this.
I don't see how I can make it.
Well, I was just reading, and I'm not
going to take this long, but I was
reading this just before coming to church, 2
Kings 8 chapter.
Remember when the prophet Elisha raised the Shunammite's
son from the dead?
And then he goes to her later and
says, there's going to be a famine, come
to Israel.
Now go anywhere you want, but Israel's being
judged, there's going to be a famine.
Jehoram's king is going to be judged with
a severe famine for seven years.
So she, listen, she goes less than 100
miles away, those things weren't under that famine.
And after seven years, she comes back.
And what happened, her kinspeople, her kinsmen, relatives,
stole her house.
And everything she had, just stole it.
And you talk about a spiritual warfare.
She was in obedience, total obedience to the
command of the prophet.
She obeyed God.
Now you may be here, you're obeying God.
But now you're at the verge, this woman
came home with her son, has lost everything,
lost everything.
And I want to tell you, when you're
at the point where you feel that you
can't go anywhere, and that you're up against
the wall, there's no hope, that's when God
begins to move in miracle power, absolute miracle
power.
This woman goes, so what are we going
to do?
It looks like they're going to starve to
death.
They remember that Elisha said, do you want
me to speak to the king?
Well, he's not there.
So she said, maybe he'll receive us.
Maybe they told him about us.
So she goes to the king, and he
somehow must have been in the outer court,
because he had called Elisha's servant, that had
later got leprosy, if you remember.
And he said, would you tell me some
of the miracles Elisha's been doing?
Tell me about this man Elisha.
And he told him about, he said, well,
there was a woman.
And her son died, and he laid on
the bed and raised him from the dead.
And the servant suddenly looks over here, and
there she is.
She'd come to the king to make her
plea.
He's telling the king the story.
Do you think that's just a happenstance?
He's telling the king the very story, and
the king is amazed.
I'm sure he couldn't believe it.
And suddenly, the servant turns around, Gehazi turns
around and says, by the way, there she
is.
She had come to plead her cause, to
get back her property.
And he calls her over and says, this
is the woman, and this is the boy
that was raised from the dead.
Here's the woman that's at the end of
her rope.
There's no hope.
And the king said, are you the woman?
She said, yes.
And the boy gives his testimony.
And he calls one of his people, and
he says, listen, I want you to go
now, and I want you to see to
it that this woman's house is restored to
her.
Now, not just overcome, but more than overcomer.
Not just survival, not just coming out, but
boot.
Spoils.
I want you to restore everything to her
that that property has produced since she left.
Now, if you just stop for a minute,
let faith rise in your heart.
And we're going to raise our hands and
just shout and thank God for His faithfulness.
No, not yet.
Hold it.
Listen, this, God will produce a miracle.
God will produce a miracle.
This theater wouldn't be here if God didn't
do that.
I couldn't see the owner for anything.
I tried and tried, and one day I
go over there, he's walking the hall, and
I ain't able to get a hold of
him.
God put him there, right there, sent me
the time, put him at the same place.
God work a miracle, put people together like
a chessboard.
He owns the chessboard.
He can do it anywhere he wants.
All he asks is that you believe him,
that you trust him.
He's the king.
Let's bring our petition to him right now.
Let's believe God right now.
Raise your hands.
Lord, just say, Lord Jesus.
I give my problems to you.
All my conflicts, all my battles, you have
allowed it in my life.
I receive it as from your hand.
The devil cannot afflict me.
He cannot destroy me.
I trust God.
Now praise him.
Just praise him.
Glory and honor and praise and give him.
You, Lord, are worthy.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, glory, glory, glory to God, glory.
This is the conclusion of the message.