This message is one of the Times Square
Church Pulpit Series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
You're welcome to make additional cassettes of this
message for free distribution to friends.
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Praise God.
Hallelujah.
Welcome to our visitors.
And if you're visiting, then you have really
no idea how long it's been since I
preached in this church.
But I believe it, I think it was
June or so.
Maybe some of you thought I was fired.
But it ended up that Pastor Carter and
I were able to minister in Latvia and
Ireland in June.
And I was privileged to go with Pastor
Dave to Brazil in July.
And then we were gone in August.
And then I got the month of September
off to write a book.
And I really need your prayers.
It's a tough go for me.
It's really hard for me to get down
to it.
And I just feel such an opposition.
And I think that's a signal that God
really wants that book written.
And so I'm trusting Him with that.
And I ask your prayers for that.
But it's going to be written.
It's going to be done.
And so I'm trusting Him with that.
What are you trusting Him for today?
Trust is a great word.
It's a scary word.
It's a very sisting word.
But I'm trusting Him for that.
If you're visiting with us today through Exit
8 and 9, we have a place for
visitors to go.
And that you'll be able to get a
gift from the church.
And we'd love to be able to just
meet you firsthand and give you that gift.
So if you're visiting with us, you're welcome.
I'd like if you would turn with me
in the book to Jeremiah in the Old
Testament.
The book of Jeremiah.
And the title of today's message is called,
Living in Plan A.
If you would pray with me.
Father, I come in Jesus' name.
Lord, I pray for the ability to deliver
your heart.
God, these are your people.
And Lord, I pray that I could disappear.
And that Holy Spirit, you would come.
And just like a free-flowing fountain, Lord,
your thoughts and your heart would wash over
us, oh God.
And find a lodging place.
Lord, I thank you we are a blessed
people to be able to live, oh God,
in the light of your love, your presence,
and your word.
Lord, help us, oh God, not to take
it for granted.
But Lord, help us to live in the
privilege that we have in Christ alone.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen and amen.
Living in Plan A.
When I mean Plan A, many of you
know, but for those that don't, that really
means living in the first plan, the best
plan, the highest plan.
Not unlike living and playing on the A
team.
Where you truly get to be in the,
where you have that confidence that what God
has called you for, what God has intended
for your life, you're living that life.
And you know, it was so strong in
my heart because the truth is that most
of us, no, all of us, at some
time get totally convinced that we're living in
Plan B.
And there are some people that actually end
up living their life in Plan B.
Where Plan B is substandard, it is lower
than God intended.
And in some cases, it is so living
apart from what He intended for us and
what He has for us that we end
up actually living under His wrath.
That there is this struggle within us because
when we come to Christ and we hear
that He is our life and that we
read these promises in the Bible and we
hear that they are for us.
And that by faith that the Spirit will
quicken and say this is for you if
we walk with Christ.
And if we begin to say, God, oh
God, give me the grace to believe that.
Give me the grace to trust that.
The enemy rises up.
You want to know why?
Because the devil lives nothing but Plan B
for his life.
And worse.
The devil's definition is a creature that lives
Plan B and lower.
You know, when he was standing in the
full glory and revelation of God, he blew
it big time.
When he had everything and he knew everything
and he was without excuse except that his
pride and except for his beauty and himself
rose up higher than what was right.
And he chose another path when he was
cast from the glory of God and the
presence of God.
I tell you, there is something I feel
in his heart that is full of rage
that is fueled with regret and self-loathing.
I feel that that creature is so animated
by what he has forsaken, not that he
could repent or wants to repent.
But there is something that is about the
enemy that anybody and anything that he can
take from the full plan and glory of
God.
He wants to lower to his level and
he wants to keep them there because he
is the epitome of Plan B or lower.
He's the epitome of a blown life, of
a wasted existence.
One that abides under the wrath of God.
That's who he is and that's what he's
about.
And he's so full of malice and envy
against the children of God.
But anything he can do to convince us
that we live in Plan B or anything
he can do to take us and have
us live there, he would do.
That would be his delight to do.
And, you know, today God has been speaking
to me that so many of us live
with a fear that, God, I have done
something in my life, I have caused something
that I feel, I battle all the time,
that I'm really missing your best for me.
That there are some today that they feel
that somehow through a wrong decision, something in
the past or something that they're battling with
right now and they're not getting victory over,
that it is disqualifying them from God's best.
There is a cry in your heart, God,
have I missed you somewhere?
God, am I missing you somewhere?
God, you know I want you, I want
your will.
But if I look to the left and
I look to the right, I don't see
blessing.
I don't see where it's easy.
I don't see, I want to know why
I seem to have like this low-grade
depression, this low-grade fever of living displeasing
you.
There are some, beloved, that here, and we've
all known what it is.
That there is a fear that can grip
us.
That, God, I'm not going to make it.
I'm not going to be able to live
the way I want to live.
And, beloved, there is, we live there.
And we, in that lower place, we become
very, very vulnerable in our mind.
Now, I want to talk about a time.
I want to talk about a time when
Israel, the chosen of God, truly did live
in Plan B.
And I want us to look today at
what happened to these people when they started
living Plan B.
When God's incredible plan for them as a
nation, as individuals, somehow slipped through their fingers.
And something happened in the life of that
nation that infected the people of God.
That they began to think and move and
live in another way that was moving so
far from what God had for them.
And what God had intended to them that
God had to do an incredibly drastic thing.
I want to look into their lives, the
lives of a people of God that started
living in Plan B.
And I want to look at somebody in
that time that took another path.
There was a time when Israel, in a
nation that tells us in Jeremiah, it was
in Jeremiah's time of prophecy.
You see, he lived the last 40 years.
His ministry was the last 40 years that
the nation of the southern kingdom of Judah
was as a people.
He prophesied to this group of people.
And the end result was that about 600
years before Christ, after hearing...
Let me start by saying, he started his
ministry under King Josiah.
And King Josiah was a good king over
the king of Judah, the southern kingdom.
But Jeremiah had a word, a warning.
And Jeremiah had a word that sounded so
full of judgment and wrath on the surface.
But he began to speak to a people
who were living under a very godly leadership.
And he began to speak to them of
their heart and how God was saying, I'm
seeing right into the center of who you
are, and into the center of your thought
life, into the center of your battles, into
the center of your struggle, and I have
a word for you.
And it was an incredible word because it
was truth.
And it was always full at the beginning
of endearment and full of love and saying,
Turn to me, return to me, I'll restore
you.
But you see, when the people were living
under Josiah was a good time.
They had godly leadership.
They had a king that loved God with
all their heart.
And they felt safe, they felt secure.
And it's almost like we were living our
relationship with God through this man.
In other words, we'll know a blessing, this
man is a good king.
We have godly leadership over us.
And having that godly leadership almost allowed a
false covering over their heart.
Because when the word of God came to
them, there was no genuine change in them
as individuals.
And then when Josiah was taken, and there
started to be king after king that lived
on a lower level, didn't have the heart
for God.
All of a sudden the judgments that prophet
Jeremiah began to speak about began to be
fulfilled.
And about 600 years before Christ, under another
king, the start of judgment against Judah, the
southern kingdom, started.
And Babylon invaded Egypt in the year 612
BC.
And in the same year later, they invaded
Palestine and Jerusalem.
And they deported the choicest of youth from
among them.
And Daniel, the prophet Daniel, was taken with
them.
And Jeremiah kept prophesying.
And ten years later, Babylon came again, swept
down into Israel, and again plundered and took
people and removed them.
And Jeremiah kept speaking God's word to them.
And finally, a third time, Babylon came, destroyed
the nation, destroyed the temple, took the people,
and the southern kingdom ceased to exist.
And when Jeremiah began to speak to them,
we see in chapter 2, talking to a
people who was moving in plan B, he
says in verse 7, I brought you into
a plentiful land, he's speaking with the Lord's
voice to them, into a good country to
eat fruit and the goodness thereof.
But ye, when ye entered, you defiled my
land and made my heritage an abomination.
God spoke to them, when I took you
out of Egypt, he says in verse 6,
and all I did for you, I brought
you and rescued you out of Egypt, I
delivered you, this is my heart for you,
deliverance, I would be God to you and
bless you.
But it was falling on deaf ears.
And he says in verse 5, he says,
Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your
fathers found in me?
That they have gone far from me, and
they have walked after vanity, and they have
become vain.
What is your controversy with me?
That when I speak to you, your minds
and your hearts are full of vanity.
It means vain is light and empty things.
How is it that you can't hold a
word from me?
How is it that my heart is light
for you?
He was saying to these people who were
moving into a plan B, where their lives
were going to fall so far short of
what he had purchased for them, what he
was giving them.
Why is it that you can't retain what
I'm speaking to you and live in the
strength and the power of it?
And he says to them in verse 9,
I will plead with you, he says.
Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith
the Lord, and with your children's children will
I plead.
He says that, be astonished, verse 12, O
ye heavens at this, and be horribly afraid,
and be very, very desolate, saith the Lord.
For my people have committed two evils.
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living
waters, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken
cisterns that can hold no water.
And he's saying, be astonished anything, trees, heaven,
angels, be astonished if anyone can see what's
happening here.
He's saying, I have a people and I
gathered them from all nations, and I promise
to be their God.
And he said, what I'm asking of them
is they give me their heart and give
me their mind, and I will do for
them that will be an astonishment through all
the earth of what I will do with
a people that will acknowledge me as their
God.
Cry out to me and ask for my
ways, ask for my thoughts, ask for me.
And he said, I'll make you an astonishment
and a praise throughout the whole earth.
But he says, look, be very afraid, because
for some reason these people can't hold my
word.
In their thoughts, they're vain and they're empty,
and nothing settles and nothing grips.
And he said, here's the relationship I had
planned, that I would be like to them
a fountain of living waters.
And a fountain is easy.
A fountain bubbles up all the time.
It's springing fresh and it's springing new.
And he's saying, here are these people that
I'm offering them this kind of relationship with
me, if they will listen to me and
obey me in what they hear.
And he says, in other words, instead of
this kind of relationship where I spring up
in them and I will make them clean,
and it will be a living thing.
He said, no, what they're choosing is they
want to chew out of a rock.
They want to carve out of rock a
place where water flows into.
But everything they set their hand to, it's
hard, it's strenuous.
It's like they've got this thought.
Now here is how we please the living
God.
It is nothing but hard work.
It is our effort.
This is how we come to Him.
He's a God of commandments.
And here's what we must do.
And in their mind, the relationship with God
was like chewing out of a rock.
Sweat.
Work.
And what they built with their own hands,
what they thought would be wholly unacceptable to
God, was like a cistern that was broken
and it couldn't hold the living water.
So there were people always thirsty because, beloved,
in their minds had formed an opinion of
God that was not true.
In their minds, they thought religion was going
to be something that they put their back
to and chew it out.
That when they heard the commandments and when
they heard all that they had to do,
the sacrifice, their natural mind sprung up and
said, okay, I get it.
I'm understanding what God wants us to do.
We're going to work, work, work.
We're going to like chew out a rock.
And we all know that it's hard to
please God for any length of time and
the living water will run out and we'll
always be a thirsty people but we'll work.
God said you couldn't get it farther, farther
away than what I planned for you.
And what happens when we begin to work
and what happens when we have wrong thoughts
at the base of it, is that, beloved,
we're beginning to build commandments of men and
tradition of men and we begin to trust
that more than the Word.
And, beloved, God's Word starts competing against our
own thoughts of Him.
And our thoughts and our experiences and the
neediness of our own heart, we begin to
think this is who God is, this is
what God wants, this is what I must
do.
The next column, of course, is what I
can't do.
And it's work, work, work.
And God is saying here in Jeremiah 3,
what He's saying is that you've got these
thoughts of Me and they're competing with what
I'm trying to tell you but your heads,
your religious heads, are so full of what
you think I need, what I want and
what I'm asking you.
And in verse Jeremiah 3, God says, I'm
going to keep sending My Word to you.
And this Word is going to expose what
really is going on in your thought life
and what is going on in your hearts.
Because you're building your own system of what
you think I want, because you are now,
in your own flesh, trying to form your
own religion with your hard work and you're
trying to please Me.
He says that it's going to take you
to places you don't intend to go because
men have to find satisfaction somewhere.
And the Scripture tells us in Jeremiah 3,
they say, If a man put away his
wife and she go from him and become
another man's, shall he return unto her again?
Shall not that land be greatly polluted?
But thou hast played the harlot with many
lovers.
Yet return again to Me, saith the Lord.
And God is saying, You put away the
relationship that I'm offering you and you are
running now to find satisfaction in places, in
many places, where I want to satisfy you.
And you, because you need that satisfaction, you
need relief in your soul.
God is saying, I know that, My people.
You need that sense of peace.
You need that sense of release and that
relief.
I know that.
But because you have a wrong conception of
Me and because your own hearts will always
be springing up and wanting to lead in
the flesh, it's going to lead you to
places where you're going to find satisfaction that
will cause Me to have to put you
away.
But God is pleading with His people and
He says, You know, in the natural, an
unfaithful wife would be turned away.
But He said, I'm asking you, return to
Me.
Return to Me.
He says, I have things to speak to
you and I want you to listen to
Me.
But beloved, they couldn't hear Him.
And I kept thinking, God, what are you
speaking to these people?
What is it that you want to say
about people who can move so far from
you and so far from your plan and
your will for their life?
And God says in Jeremiah 3.14, He
says, Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord,
for I am married unto you.
In verse 22, He says, Return, ye backsliding
children, and I will heal your backsliding.
And I just keep hearing this appeal of
God in Jeremiah to this thing, because He
says, I know your end from your beginning.
And I tell you something, you have separated
yourself from Me.
And now the sin in your heart and
the lust, which are unsurrendered desires, are the
ones that are springing up in your lives,
in your minds.
And you are so unsatisfied with Me.
And I know it.
And you know, all through Jeremiah, like for
example, Jeremiah 4.14, God says, O Jerusalem,
wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest
be saved.
How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within
Me?
And I began to see that the Lord
was trying to speak to me.
And He was saying, Here is the root.
There are competing thoughts.
There we form a thing about who God
is.
It can be absolutely contrary to what He
is saying to us.
But the depth of the stronghold is such,
beloved, that whenever we get into trouble, whenever
we sin, whenever we fear, whenever we fail,
what is lodged there at the stronghold automatically
springs up into our minds and our thoughts
and starts competing with what God says He
does for us, who He is.
And it begins very hard for us to
hear.
And we need to begin to recognize these
thoughts that we may take them into captivity
by the power of Christ and offer them
to Him and say, Lord Jesus, right now
the turmoil in my heart, the confusion that's
facing me, show me what is truth.
And speak Your Word to me.
God, let me turn to Your Word.
God, let me turn to You in prayer.
You speak a word that You will witness
to me as Yours.
And then God, give me the grace to
exalt it higher than my feelings and higher
than the thoughts I have at this moment.
Jeremiah begins to say all through it.
He talks about, you don't need to turn
there, but in verse 519, he says, You
have forsaken me and You've served strange gods
in Your land.
He says in Jeremiah 6, 13, You're given
to covetousness.
You're always wanting something and you're never fully
satisfied.
In Jeremiah 11, 7 and 8, he said,
You've not obeyed me, but You've inclined I
near it.
And everyone walked in the imagination of their
evil heart.
And beloved, you see God now, He's beginning
to show them what is in their heart,
what is the sin there, but what is
the root, why they can never hear Him.
When He speaks, they're going deaf to the
voice of God.
There are competing thoughts and God saying, I
have to get to the root and bring
down a wrong conception that you have of
me.
And because you have a wrong conception of
me, and you're trying in your own strength
to please me, there is no covering because
I can't bless what is not of me.
I cannot reinforce and tell you, Yes, you're
on the right path.
This is truly who I am.
Because He can't bear witness to a lie.
And the only way that He can begin
to show us what are strongholds in our
minds and our thoughts concerning God, and we
are so firmly entrenched in them, we can't
even see that it's not Him.
And then we wonder why we're so unsatisfied.
And finally, God is saying, You have walked
in the imagination of an evil heart.
And Jeremiah says in verse 12, 2, Thou
art near in their mouth.
He's talking about this people living in plan
B, but are far from their reins.
God is saying, I'm in their mouth, but
I'm far from the reins.
In other words, what is happening now is
that I've got a people who live the
way they feel is the best way to
live.
However that lines up with my word.
They're going to tell me they're trying.
They're going to tell me that, God, you
know I'm doing my best here.
That, God, you know I struggle in certain
areas.
But their faith and their trust is ebbing
away because there is no change.
And what is happening, God says, is that
I am in their mouth, but I am
far from the reins of their heart.
In other words, I can't direct their lives,
but they will come to church, and they
will praise me, and they will say, God,
we love you.
But beloved, do you want to know some
evidences if that is true?
It's because when we come into His presence,
when it comes to worship, all of a
sudden, that kind of heart can't worship.
The thought life is being dominated by conversations
of the week.
The thought of being dominated of this relationship
or what needs to happen at work.
There is no ability to worship.
There is never any rest in the mind.
All of a sudden, the mind is racing.
And when you know it is time to
worship, there is no sustained ability to worship.
There is no rest in the spirit.
There is no rest in the heart.
God is saying, I've got to speak something
to you.
It's like there is...
Let me explain it this way.
I read a book this week.
It's a very popular book.
And I've been told that it is one
of the best sellers that's going through Christendom
right now.
And it's a man, he wrote this book
and he was writing to Christian men.
And he is saying that he finds most
Christian men are bored in church.
And the reason why he feels that way
is because he says that every man really
wants a battle to fight.
Every man wants to learn to be aggressive.
That every man wants to find an exciting
adventure in life.
And that every man wants to find a
beauty to rescue.
Now beloved, he could be speaking for men.
But when he says he is speaking for
Christian men, when he says he is speaking
for God, when he says this is what's
in the heart of godly men, I take
issue.
I take issue because when I was reading
this book at first when I got upset,
you want to know all the sources.
He was talking in this book, this Christian
best seller, about all the movies he had
seen.
And he was drawing from the main character
of those movies.
And he was going, you know, like as
you find in Braveheart and like what you
find in Gladiator and like what you see
the guy in Top Gun.
And I was going, aren't you talking about
Christianity?
And beloved, what he was doing is that
he was taking what the natural thoughts out
of his own heart was and he was
taking those thoughts of the natural man and
the natural man will learn something from fables,
will learn something from stories.
We know this guy had integrity, this guy
had courage.
True.
But the guys in the movies aren't real.
You can't base your life on what's not
true through and through in the spiritual realm.
We can't grow on that.
The scripture is what is truth.
And every born again Christian has a spiritual
man and a natural man.
And only it's the spiritual man who speaks
for God.
It's the spiritual man that has the mind
of God.
It's the spiritual man that has the understanding
of what God wants to do in him
and for him.
It is the natural man that has the
ability to see the truth and how it
applies to his life.
But it is the natural man that has
natural desires and this man was speaking right
out of his own natural heart.
But he wanted to give a Christian covering
over it.
And he wants to sell it to this
generation and say this is what you're about
and this is how you satisfy it.
And as I was reading that book I
was getting a little agitated and I was
thinking how can people read this?
It takes no discernment whatsoever.
But as I read it to the end
I grew very sad.
Because by the time you read that book
right to its conclusion you see a man
who revealed himself I think more than he
ever intended to do it.
He revealed because it kept cropping up especially
towards the end of the book.
He says just even a few weeks ago
so in other words he's written this whole
book and now he's testifying of something that's
currently happening in his life.
He talks about when he and his wife
get into an argument in his mind springs
up I never should have married you.
I could have married someone else.
I could have done so much better.
And beloved I'll tell you something he's a
man totally unsatisfied in his marriage totally unsatisfied
in his ministry totally unsatisfied with his walk
of God and in that satisfaction he turned
to his own heart and the needs of
his own heart began to shape his theology
because he says God I worship you I
sing the songs of Zion I'm a leader
in the body of Christ and what he's
doing is all his unsatisfaction and unmet needs
he's covering it over he's covering it he's
bringing it into the house and he's saying
I love you God but he's totally unsatisfied
and God is trying to get to the
root of every person in the house of
God like that because beloved in our natural
we're all like that there is something that
God needs to get a hold of and
speak to us in our unsatisfaction in our
unmet needs you see this man here beloved
I don't know his full story but I
could see how the enemy you know he
felt he made a wrong choice and now
what is happening in his heart is that
he in his own flesh there is a
flesh battle going on and he regrets the
day he married her now and from it
has grown a contempt for woman and you
see it in his writings and you see
now when he began to interpret the book
of Ruth he said that the primary purpose
of women in the church is to be
seductive and he backs it up by the
book of Ruth and I'll tell you his
theology has taken such an evil turn because
he has unmet needs and yet we have
a God in heaven that says I will
meet every need but God will take us
where our turmoil is in our mind or
where we are unsatisfied and he will begin
to lean on that and he's going to
say look into your heart no running away
why are you unsatisfied that is the love
of God doing that and if that man
would open up and say God go and
speak whatever you have to speak you see
every time there was an argument every time
there was something he told us in the
book that he didn't leave his wife or
he hasn't left circumstances because he says my
good heart keeps me on track you know
because he could make an honest attempt in
his marriage he could say okay I'm going
to be loving with her I'm going to
try when she goes through those bouts of
depression when she acts like I don't want
her to act I'm going to try to
be loving I'm going to try to be
understanding I'm going to reach out to her
and a natural man can one, two, three
times but I'll tell you something if it's
not from the spirit of God we start
keeping count we start keeping a record we
start becoming blinded to all that I'm doing
and all that she's not doing but beloved
we drag it into the house and we
say that God you are in my mouth
but you are far from ruling my life
and beloved this is what's happening in Plan
B lives is that we will come to
church and we will sing the songs and
we will go through the motions but deep
down we are so there is an area
of deep discontent there is an area of
pain there is an area of questions and
the enemy now the enemy will come in
and he will take that situation and that
area and he will begin to say you've
crossed the line with God you've made such
a wrong choice back there that really you
are now living on the lower level of
God's plan for your life and it can't
be turned about and what happened in the
time of Jeremiah is that God kept sending
a word my people turn to me return
to me you think that this relationship that
you understand me but I've got something to
say to you you need a right understanding
of my heart towards you beloved we have
to understand one thing failure never puts us
on the B plan failure never God knows
this is flesh flesh and failure begin with
the same letter it's like God needed to
reinforce something whenever we trust flesh there is
going to be fear and failure operating he
said I knew that from the beginning that's
why I sent my son it's because when
we trust him he gives us a new
spirit and that spirit man in us who
is Jesus Christ begins to confront everything that
is flesh and failure in us he says
turn to me you can't do it I
alone can and that becomes the hope but
so many times we let the flesh and
that has the enemy as a direct voice
to come and begin to shape our theology
and no matter what God begins to say
between our experience and the popular word out
there we begin to we don't understand how
deeply embedded we have of ideas of God
and beloved failure never puts us on the
plan B road making a wrong choice a
wrong choice does not put us on the
plan B plan what does is when God
can no longer speak to us because if
we can't hear him we can't obey him
if he can't lead us if he doesn't
have the range to our life how can
we be on plan A how can we
say God's best and highest we're being led
to beloved the only thing that takes us
from plan A is if we can't hear
him anymore in the areas where we need
to hear him where because our torment or
our anguish or our pain or our confusion
or what's at the deepest part of our
heart we feel for whatever reason we can't
bring to the light or we won't deal
with it you know maybe this man has
thought I have dealt with it I have
given her to God beloved the issue is
not giving her to God the issue is
God tear open this heart go to the
depths of it show me who I am
and show me what it is you need
to speak to me whatever it is I
am open to it because we are immediately
in the will of God if God can
speak to us we're in plan A because
his word creates the life in us his
word creates the desire in us his word
puts us in another direction it is his
voice that is life to us and when
he speaks to us his word creates faith
and we have a desire to start to
say oh God give me the power to
obey you on this now but we can't
obey him but we don't hear him plan
B is when we can't hear him anymore
when Jeremiah God is saying to Jeremiah you
have tell these people you have broken covenant
with me tell them they have broken covenant
with me and beloved we break covenant God
says you break covenant with me when I
can't talk to you anymore on that area
and Jeremiah 7.30 says they have set
their abominations in the house that is called
by my name to pollute it and it's
saying that we come to the house of
God and we set all that's in our
mind a racing mind a mind full of
torment a mind full of pain a mind
whatever and we cannot say God at this
moment I'm going to exalt you and in
exalting you I exalt the truth that God
you are higher you are greater you see
you know you alone have the plan you
alone are the way out God at this
moment when I come into your house I
am going to I purpose in my heart
to worship you at this moment beloved that
is how we break begin to break the
strongholds when we come in with a mind
full of anguish and torment and our heart
and our spirit say I can do anything
but praise we say God give me the
grace now to exalt you at this moment
because the plan B people came and set
their abominations all that their mind was full
of all their mind was racing all their
anxiety to the point beloved that God couldn't
speak to them to the point where no
matter whether he was full of entreaty and
full of love with a return to me
message or a message of judgment they couldn't
hear and beloved I believe that God is
saying I want an altar and I want
you to put on that altar all that
is your torment whether you know the source
of it or not all that is your
anguish all that is that racing all that
would want to take you from hearing me
that we say God when we gather in
your name it is the most precious time
because I'm going to hear from you I
say I'm going to hear from you and
when I hear from you the strongholds come
down and when I hear from you I
get strength to obey you hallelujah hallelujah now
there was a man Daniel and he the
Bible says in Daniel 1.8 it says
Daniel purposed in his heart that he would
not defile himself now he's a young man
and he's been taken into captivity he was
taken with the first group that went and
now there's a point in Daniel's life that
he looked back he's got no more homeland
he's got no more temple there is no
more people of God and I wonder if
ringing in his ears were the word of
Jeremiah where the word of Jeremiah finally went
to people that wouldn't hear God Jeremiah began
to say it is over it is finished
I'll tell you what don't go to Egypt
go to Babylon cooperate this is of God
go to Babylon and all the prophets rose
up and said this is not God I'll
tell you one thing we're prophets and this
is not God God's not going to turn
his heritage out of his land God is
not going to empty the land of his
people and make it empty this is not
God you see Jeremiah we are God's chosen
people and the land is our heritage and
the land is the symbol God is with
us and the land is the symbol that
we alone of all the earth have the
God the most high God is our God
this is not a word from God they
say pointing to Jeremiah God would say and
Jeremiah would say listen to me this is
God go to Babylon don't go to Egypt
it was such a symbol you've got one
final choice to make God has determined something
here and you know what he's going to
shake out finally those that can hear from
those that can't there can be a people
that will come a nation that will come
and they'll say we worship you God we
love you God and we'll sing every song
we know but your heart you don't have
the reign to our heart you don't direct
you don't lead us really but our mouths
are full of you and God says at
that point I'm going to empty the land
and my inheritance and everything I had in
my heart for these people I will empty
it out and with a group that can
hear me I will start again but those
that won't their destination is Egypt their destination
you want the thoughts of the world and
how the world says about me and how
the world defines me and how the world
says this relationship goes you want to keep
on hewing out of a rock that won't
hold living water you go right ahead but
you're going to fall to the pestilence the
famine and the sword you're going to die
with my name in your mouth but you
will not know my protection and you will
not know my blessing and your seed will
grow and be raised in Egypt and God
gets to a point where he says there's
going to be one final thing hear me
and he will empty the land of his
heritage to start again with a few that
can hear him and Daniel is a man
now in Babylon and I'll tell you something
the scripture says he purposed in his heart
that he would not defile himself and that
word purposed means beloved purpose means establish a
new relationship purpose means to bring about a
change purpose means to be set aside for
some special purpose the scripture says that in
his heart he was saying give God a
new relationship God lest you bring one to
me I don't know how to get it
because we're not in the land anymore is
this not new ground I'm so dependent on
you it was God if you don't bring
about a change in the way that I
think about you and I need to know
your thoughts towards me because I'm not in
that land of protection and promise God a
change I'm desperate to be set aside for
some special purpose oh God could it be
true could I be part of a people
oh God that so refused to hear you
that you had to shake us out of
our inheritance and what formed us as a
people who am I now oh God in
you who am I but he purposed in
his heart and God said that there would
be a change in the relationship and there
you would be set aside for some special
purpose because all those in plan A find
out the promised land is not a place
out here it's not circumstances out here it's
not the anxiety and the oppression that forms
us it's what we have of him in
here and when we purpose in our heart
a people who live in plan A said
God I thank you for everything that shook
me awake I thank you for every pain
every torment every anguish of spirit that's getting
me to the place where I'm saying God
real God make it honest make it you
but speak to me what is the depth
what is the root and then God a
new place where I can trust and believe
you even in the midst of where I
thought you could never speak or where you'd
never give me the grace to trust you
Daniel purposed in his heart and beloved it
said he would not defile himself defile means
to free and repudiate believe it or not
it means where Daniel has to repudiate the
lies of failure all the time that I'm
failing that I failed God beloved Daniel would
have had all the time an enemy saying
you think you're gonna serve God here you've
been turned out of the land you've canceled
it look at you guys have blown it
God's turning to another people God's turning to
another man he can't use you don't you
get it?
you've been taken out of the promised land
and in Babylon if you couldn't serve him
there what makes you think you can serve
him and never can use his court?
and that man had the purpose in his
heart God I believe you now you say
you offer me a new relationship you offer
me a new beginning if I but trust
you if you will say God I'll bare
open my heart and whatever you have to
speak to me I'll receive it but then
God I believe you that you love me
you have a purpose for me even here
in Babylon your hand's not too short and
even though you've turned out of people oh
God my heart can cry out to you
a whole nation can pat you in their
mouths but not reigning over their lives but
God where you've led me to this hard
place where the enemy everyday says you are
nothing but a failure to this hard place
it doesn't make any sense but I tell
you Babylon was God's plan for his chosen
people Babylon now in the history of Israel
represented a people who could hear Babylon now
represented a people who were desperate to say
God every false notion I have about you
that has blinded me to the truth you've
been trying to speak to me for the
longest of times oh God I tear open
my heart say what you will but speak
where your word is so precious to me
because every time you speak it's my stability
and my life we gotta get there God
give us the grace to open our eyes
to see that sometimes we're in the hardest
places the Babylon we look around we see
it looks like everybody's enjoying the promised land
by me but it's a lie Daniel was
appointed to that place Babylon and so he
had not defiled himself I will not let
the devil again define who God is to
me and how God works with me and
Daniel would have to keep repudiating that lie
that I'm a failure because things can't be
the same anymore that there's a line being
crossed that I've messed it up too badly
that I'm in the hardest of places that
I'm out of God's reach beloved, that's a
lie things have not gone too far for
anyone who can still hear his voice hear
me beloved plan B is only for those
who won't listen to what needs to what
God needs to say to them because there
can never be obedience if we can't hear
but plan A plan A beloved plan A
is a glorious place because the word of
God is there because the word a living
word is there because when we can hear
him we have everything whether it's Babylon or
Israel whether we're in the midst of a
backsliding people who just want to play church
we can have something real what we have
to be honest we have to say God
every false thing I've erected in you if
you have to admit the most horrible thing
you can think about yourself beloved do it
because we entrust it to God and we
say God is it true or not we
do have an enemy that will condemn us
and say we can never be forgiven but
somehow when we're totally honest with God he
brings nothing but terms of forgiveness and return
to me I love you I'm married to
you I will heal your backsliding will be
God's word to us and then beloved finally
when we can hear him that is such
strength because now we have a purpose and
a direction and when we can hear him
we can say oh God give me the
grace and the strength to obey you fully
and God loves honesty I came across this
verse that I just want to close with
but it's Hebrews 5-7 and it goes
like this that Jesus who in the days
of his flesh when he had offered up
prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears
unto him that was able to save him
from death and he was heard let me
stop right there it's talking about a time
in Jesus life when he was in his
flesh and he began to offer up prayers
and strong crying and tears unto a father
able to save him from death and he
was heard but his prayer was this Father
let this cup pass from me and he
was heard there was a flesh God let
this cup pass from me but you know
the ending but he ended it with God
not my will but thine that Jesus is
our example is that everything concerning our flesh
and our desires we wrap it by this
one prayer here it is but not my
will but thine every prayer that we pray
concerning ourselves gets wrapped in that just like
Jesus did go ahead do the strong praying
do the strong crying do the supplication like
Jesus did in the days of his flesh
and know that we are heard but beloved
when we coach it and say around but
God let it pass from me but if
not, not my will but thine beloved we
can bare our heart to him we can
pour everything out to him and God will
bring that healing and then God will bring
that strength to obey him even when it
goes against our flesh beloved there is nothing
but hope hope, hope to those that will
say God I thank you that I'm hearing
today that if I can still hear you
and you're creating a desire in me to
obey you not my will but thine I'm
in plan A it doesn't matter what's happened
in my past life it doesn't matter how
many wrong terms I've made it doesn't matter
how much the devil is oppressing me that
I've missed it here and now I have
to live on this level everybody else has
another chance but me it's a lie in
Christ we purpose we set our heart to
say I believe if I can hear you
God if I can still hear you you
will deal with me as a son and
you will lead me and God where I
can't hear you where I need a new
revelation where I need truth to break through
God give me the grace whatever you have
to say because I know it's going to
be for my healing and my good I
know you'll stand me up on my feet
in the power of the spirit and I
will have hope I will have a hope
every day and the enemy won't be able
to shut me down when I fail or
when I fear beloved it's an incredible thing
and the end result of Daniel's life the
scripture says living in Babylon was a man
with an excellent spirit the bible says he
had an excellent spirit there is liberation of
the mind yes it will be warfare but
when we know who God is and what
his thoughts are towards us and he can
speak anything we get a clear mind because
we have the mind of God and there
is not a clearer mind in the universe
than the mind of God and anything that
keeps us having the mind of God we
are more than conquerors the enemy can't condemn
us out of our full salvation he can't
try to get us to the point of
believing a lie about God himself and his
heart towards us so beloved I know you
join with me so many that can hear
this oh God my whole life open before
you whatever you have to say speak it
oh God for it's all about returning and
healing it's all about teaching me to put
the condemner under my foot and to remind
me that I am in plan A in
the very center of your will and that
you're highest and best for my life and
the call of my life goes unhindered as
long as I can hear you and beloved
we need to cry keep me humble God
and keep me open because the most precious
thing to me is you and your voice
to me and that we have a plan
A life hallelujah will you stand with me
hallelujah those that right now I would just
like to open this altar to those that
are knowing a real anguish and a torment
in their mind those that when you come
to worship there is no peace but the
events of your life and what you're grappling
with want to rob you of that worship
beloved we're going to God has an altar
here for those that are struggling with thoughts
that I failed you God I have taken
a wrong road that God I have to
battle so hard to believe that I am
on track that I am hearing from you
that God you that I haven't messed things
up so bad that I'm now living on
another plane for those that want that want
to come and say God I offer you
the torment and the anguish in my mind
and spirit and I'm coming to receive from
you a new beginning and a new hope
will you come as the musicians play there's
a song that says who will lead me
into the strong city and beloved our our
thoughts are like a strong city a fortress
sometimes no other thoughts will get in but
the ones we're thinking but it says will
not thou oh God give us help oh
God give us help from trouble for vain
is the help of man through God we
shall do valiantly for he it is that
shall tread down our enemies beloved God will
lead into the strong city that are these
thoughts in our mind that have entrenched themselves
and we sometimes don't know how deep they
go but we don't need to know but
we do need to know that God when
these thoughts this oppression this troubling that I
have failed you that I've crossed a line
there can be no new beginning for me
there can be no hope for tomorrow that
it will be fresh and clean like I'm
a babe in you that's a lie in
Christ that we can hear him today he
promises us a new beginning because if we
can hear him he can lead us and
we can start today plan B gets cancelled
plan B gets cancelled as long as we
say God give me a heart to hear
you and then I'm trusting you for the
strength to obey you and what I hear
if you're saying forgive lay it down walk
away release whatever you have to say to
me whatever you speak when you say believe
me I will give you a new beginning
sometimes that's the hardest battle that I give
you a new beginning that I can cancel
all the failure and I cancel the wrong
ways you have gone because I would be
a lesser God if I could not but
since I'm God almighty if I say that
now you can hear me and I can
lead you it's a new beginning then it's
to trust him sometimes that's the biggest battle
that's the stronghold the Holy Ghost wants to
lead us to that God I'm going to
believe you now when you say that I
purpose in my heart that means I believe
there's a new relationship a change that's a
special purpose you have for my life is
not broken love we're going to believe that
everything else will take care of itself if
we can believe that so we're just going
to lift our hands in faith and I
would just like to lead us oh God
I thank you that Lord just let me
pray for us for a minute God I
thank you that you will give us a
spirit of Daniel we can purpose in our
heart to believe you for this new beginning
believe you that the special purpose in our
lives goes forth as we trust you Jesus
you will lead us into the strongholds of
our mind and you will expose the lies
of the enemy that God you will speak
your word to us God we're trusting you
now for you to speak the word that
breaks the power of the lie breaks the
power of the condemnation breaks the power of
the sense of failure and God we know
that every time this battle arises in our
mind God you will put into us oh
God a cry for you a cry for
a word from you a cry oh God
for a living word and then God you're
going to set us free because we're going
to get stronger because we're going to receive
the word God I pray now for the
power to receive your word that God when
you say to us that if we purpose
in our heart if we believe for that
new beginning if we believe oh God there
is a new relationship that we cry out
for you grant it this is the conclusion
of the message