“Faith at War – Part 2” Teach the Word 2023

TEACH THE WORD 2023 took place in Oxford on 24th June 2023, featuring special guest speaker Pastor Jack Hibbs (CC Chino Hills) along with UK Calvary Chapel Pastors Tommy Fretwell (CC Hastings / Ezra Foundation), Kevin Berthiaume (CC Cardiff) and Steve Vickery (CC Oxford).

Oh, my. Okay. So how many of you, uh, missed the first session? Raise your hands.
This group will be here
together. Okay. Well, I’m not I our time is limited. We’ve got less time
than what we had. So I’m gonna trust you to look at the first message,
put in all this together. By the way, all of
you should know that none of us in preparing our messages compared notes,
hinted around, shot texts over about themes, or anything like that.
You should know that, which means that god is saying something here to all of us.
And you you need to know that.
So clearly, he’s been announcing to us When I was praying about getting a message together, uh, to bring here to you guys, my whole thing was faith at war.
Faith at war. And so I just took off on that study and began going on that.
But, uh, I was listening today versus that I left out uh, Steve included or or Tom included or Jeff included, which means, again, For us as Bible teachers, we’re like saying, okay, lord, this is clear.
We better be paying attention to what he’s announcing to us.
And that last message by pastor Steve,
You’re gonna wanna remember that.
So we’re looking at a message part two now of what is titled faith at war.
You’ve been hearing all about. How your existence now as a believer is number one, not by accident.
It is not by happenstance. It is engineered and designed by god.
For you to be a believer fighting the Christian fight right now, and I might add there’s no such thing as spectator Christianity.
Doesn’t exist. It’s never accomplished anything.
There’s some knuckleheads saying that has gone around for decades, and that is, well, you wanna be careful that your nose that you’re so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good.
Have you ever met somebody who’s so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good? Listen.
My problem, your problem is we’ve met people that are so earthly minded. They’re no heavily good.
We need more of heaven in us.
And, uh, if you haven’t caught on, uh, we, guys, pastors, if you’re speaking, we believe in what is known as pre millennialism, That is you take the Bible literally where the Bible is, uh, typological.
It says so. When the Bible is speaking in some sort of analogy, it says so.
You don’t have to make it up. So we’re pre millennial, pre tribulational.
And what that means is we’re looking for the lord Jesus to come at any time.
Technically, biblically, he could have come at any time in the last two thousand years, which means he’s really close to coming now.
That’s what that means.
Well, he hasn’t come yet. You guys my grandmother used to say that. What does that have
to do with anything? It means this. Your grandmother was looking and waiting.
And now we’re eighty years closer to him coming. That means you should get ready.
But the beautiful thing about this, for example, when the Bible says, John the Baptist ties Jesus. Remember?
Jesus came up out of the water and what landed on Jesus? Wrong, I heard the word dove.
That was sweet. Exactly.
It said the Holy Spirit came upon him like like a dove, which means we know this biblical interpretation, no dove landed on Jesus.
It means the Holy Spirit came down upon Jesus. So we’re picking it up now in the fourth argument.
We have stiff total, we’ve done three.
We’re looking at the fourth, and the fourth one is this regarding faith at war.
Every single one of us as born again believers The Holy Spirit unites us in what god has as his cause, whatever his cause might be, the spirit of god brings us together.
And every single one of us, if you’re on the mission field, if you’re watching right now via streaming, you’re from some other continent, you’re The Holy Spirit has brought you into the family of god for your particular ministry that he’s called you to do.
Whatever that might be, it’s for you to find out.
But also for us to be together fighting the good fight and advancing the kingdom of god until Christ returns.
And what that means is we do not believe that we are going to uh, get in, uh, a prime minister or a parliament or a Congress or a president that’s gonna usher in the kingdom of god.
Okay? I I I I I told a lot of people years ago, they got all excited.
And I said, listen, the Messiah nowhere. I’ve I’ve read my Bible, nowhere.
Does it show us that the Messiah arrives on Air Force one?
And the Messiah is not gonna be installed at, uh, ten Downey Street either. Okay.
This is the this is the world of man, but that doesn’t mean that we close our eyes to what’s going on in this world.
It means that we represent as ambassadors for Christ, we represent the kingdom of god until he comes and picks us up or until you drop dead.
It’s really simple to remember. One of two r’s.
One of two r’s rapture, which is the Latin word for being caught up.
The Greek word is Harpazo, which sounds very Italian to me.
Harpazo means to be violently taken up into the arms of Christ. Um, rapture. We use that Latin word rapture.
You’re you’re either gonna meet Jesus by rapture or by rupture.
That is your you’re you’re gonna drop dead and meet Jesus or you’re gonna hear a trumpet blast.
I would love to hear a trumpet blast.
And but I’m not afraid of dropping dead though either. Because Jesus has already taken care of that.
Isn’t that amazing? So we’re we’re gonna live our Christian lives at full throttle. At full throttle.
I tried that on your roads, driving backwards, and, um, Lisa said stop where I’m getting out of the car.
But, um, she she was smart about that. So you guys, number four, mark it
down in your notes if you’re taking them, and that is faith that war means this.
That are spiritual battle in the last days means that we are to be removing strongholds from or of the enemy.
This is a big one, strongholds of the enemy.
You say, what does it have to do in the name? Has everything to do with us.
Prying always with all prayer, and supplication in the spirit.
Notice how many times the concept, the statement, the call to prayer is mentioned right there.
Prying always with all prayer in supplication.
That means to for us to live a life in a state as the Christian soldier, the Christian warrior, the the committed Christian, in a state of prayer.
Always. So, Jack, how do we do that? It’s not bowing on your knees. It’s not closing your eyes.
Those are good things people have you have you people learn this. Right? Why do we close
our eyes when we pray? Because we’re distracted.
Um, why should we get on our knees? Uh, because it’s painful. I’m I’m serious.
You’re to pray. How how often all times. Always.
That is an attitude of prayer that veils your life, and that is with all of the armament that we were talking about.
This incredible sword of the spirit, the word of god, implies that you have one in your sheath to pull out.
You’ve got the shield of faith.
We talked about in the last push in the earlier message that from every generation of great biblical accounts, their faith was increased by the battles that they were involved in.
If it’s Abraham, if it’s Noah, if it’s David, it doesn’t matter who it is.
As you this is a great part about people in here with gray hair or no hair.
As you get older as a Christian, it gets more amazing. Yes. I mentioned earlier, our body is hurt.
That’s a sign. Oh, what’s that mean?
That means my body the outward man’s perishing, but the inward man’s being renewed.
Listen, as we get older, we get wiser in the lord.
Getting old as a Christian is an awesome thing. I actually enjoy it.
And, uh, when when everything seems to be going against me, I I remember this.
Those strongholds that the enemy seeks to bring about in my life to control my life,
Jesus took care of those things.
You need to mark this now. The enemy seeks to remind you of strongholds.
I’m gonna I’m gonna this is a test. Are you a born again Christian?
There’s no other former Christian, by the way.
Jesus said you must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Pastor Steve just gave a wonderful John sixteen, invite on that.
But to be born again simply means to be born of the spirit, to be born from above.
You were born of this world through your mother, you need to be born again from above by your father.
And the fact of the matter is that should break every stronghold in your life as a follower of Christ.
So what are those strongholds? They’re infinite number. Um, I’ll only pick on myself, but maybe we can relate.
Grew up in a home where I wasn’t wanted. I didn’t know that.
I didn’t find that out till I was about sixteen years old.
But my mom got pregnant And my dad was in the Marine Corps.
He was heading off to Alaska, and he told my mom, look, we have a son. We have a daughter.
And when I get back home in a year, I don’t want a third kid in this house.
And so my mom scared to death, born and raised in Hawaii. Now she’s living in San Diego. Uh, terrified.
Didn’t know what to do. So she attempted an abortion, messed herself up. Messed me up.
We were in the hospital till January fifteenth, nineteen fifty eight, and I came out, and that was god’s plan.
I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that along the the whole route of life.
I didn’t know that until later on in life, my mom is telling the neighbor woman about what happened with me, and I overheard the whole thing.
I was not a Christian, no Christian home.
It didn’t make any sense until the night I got saved on June twentieth nineteen seventy seven, God allowed me to hear the gospel first time ever in a church, and I heard Greg Lori who was a hippie.
He had you remember you guys know who Greg Lori? Some of you, anybody? Anyway, forget it.
He had long hair. How about that? It was the hippie era, and he and he was preaching the gospel.
And everything came together for me when I heard that.
I was like, oh my gosh.
Because growing up, I would see my dad take my brother and they would go machine or they would go somewhere, and I didn’t get to go.
Now, don’t don’t weep for me. God used all of this for the day listen.
God used all of that stuff in the past to break the stronghold of satanic warfare that I didn’t even know I was being exposed to.
That when the truth came in, you’ve got all these arguments. Well, I can’t do this.
Look, we live in a victimized age. I can’t do this in price of homes.
And I can’t believe that, and you don’t know how bad it is to be twenty one now, and all this kind of stuff.
And all of this stuff, But you know what?
We don’t we don’t walk around telling you our woes because Jesus has delivered us from them.
In fact, the biggest woes we have he made them the greatest victories. So growing up, I stuttered terribly.
In fact, I had a hard time asking my wife to marry I stuttered so bad.
She was so gracious to say Yes.
But god wound up supernaturally healing me one night.
And, And now I look back at all the things that happened in my life regarding the strongholds of my life.
And I view every single one of them church as great victory. As great strengths.
So when somebody comes up to me and says,
you make me sick. It doesn’t bother me. Because
I grew up learning that I wasn’t
destined to be in this world by human means.
We’re not gonna include you. I’ve never been included.
Um, you know what? You need to tone it down. Why?
Because sixty four sixty five years ago, I was supposed to be dead to begin with. Do you see?
Well, I had a husband. I had a wife that did this that or other.
I’m sorry, but watch this. Are you a Christian?
The number one is to understand hand, god breaks us from satanic strongholds that he seeks to weave around our feet.
Notice, Jesus speaks to the tombs very specifically, remember the story of Lazarus, Jesus is down to Jericho.
If you’ve ever been to Israel, that’s a long walk.
From Jericho up to where Lazarus, I think it’s Bethany where he was entombed.
And Jesus waited until he was dead. Remember? Before he left.
In fact, the disciples were getting a little concerned.
They said Jesus, will you come and heal and Jesus doesn’t go and the disciples are reminding Jesus.
Your friend’s dying. You should go. And he waits and he waits. And then Lazarus is dead.
Jesus shows up at the tomb the the tombs are communal in many cases. Notice what Jesus says.
Lazarus come forth. Two really cool things happen.
Number one, Jesus names lazarus by name, because if he would have said, come forth, the whole graveyard would have come out.
So he’s working very personal in your life.
He’s working personal in Lazarus’s life, but how does Lazarus come out?
He’s got life back by god almighty himself And the Bible tells us that lazarus comes out like this.
And what does Jesus say? Epic words. Epic.
Jesus says, someone untie him and let him go.
Listen, breaking the strongholds of the enemy that he to intimidate you with silence.
We talked about that. He seeks to keep you down. Listen, Jesus says, someone untie him. And let them go.
Every time your pastor,
if this is not happening at your church, go get
a new church. Every time your pastor cracks open the Bible, It you should feel you should sense gray cloths coming off of your life.
Every week, you and I are to grow closer to Jesus and more free, more liberated.
I had someone tell me that, uh, they forever grew up in the church of people.
And during COVID, they started getting verse by verse bible study, and they they quickly found out we need to we need find a verse by verse bible teaching, uh, church
in our area, and
her last words to me were Now, we’re free.
Listen, you’re not gonna get to heaven by any form of indoctrination.
You’re gonna get to heaven by doctrine. You’ve been hearing about doctrine all week or all
day, I mean. And and it means this.
What god has said, god will perform And when he says to your life, if you were a abused child or whatever the situation might be, or maybe it’s happening to you now.
You gotta ask god this. God, you know exactly. According to
your baba, you know exactly what’s going on in
my life. Number one, I don’t like it. I’m very, very hurt, confused and upset. I don’t get it.
You know what’s going on. When are you gonna do something about it?
Don’t be surprised if god speaks back to you and says, are you willing to accept for now this mental of ministry that I’m using you to either bring this perpetrator to faith or to use your life to be their condemnation on the day of judgment.
I’m using you to reach them because nobody else will be able to reach them.
Whatever it might be. Whatever criticism that pastor Steve was talking about, the persecution that’s coming against you, don’t let Satan wrap you up.
You can be born again, but silent like lazarus until you’re unwrapped. I think Christmas is universal.
What kind of a kid runs down to the Christmas tree and doesn’t unwrap gifts?
In fact, I don’t know about your family. But kids, our kids, they just dive into the gifts.
They open up anybody’s gift. The the thing is to get it unwrapped and to let it go.
And I want you to know today that god has broken the strongholds of the enemy in your life.
And you need to stand in that strength. Some verses about that if you would.
The Bible tells us in Joshua one, we read a little bit of this earlier.
Joshua one verse one, And, uh, after the death of Moses,
the servant of the lord,
it came to pass that the lord spoke to Joshua, the son of noon, Moses’s assistant, saying, Moses, my servant is dead.
Now, therefore arise, go over this Jordan. Does god sound like he’s doubting about this?
Not at all. I mean, this is gonna happen.
Sounds like it’s gonna happen with or without Joshua.
You and all the people to the land which I am giving to them verse five, no man be able to stand before you all the days of your life.
As I was with Moses so I will be with you, I will not leave you nor forsake you.
You church, do you believe that? No. Don’t don’t say yes. Do you believe it?
When you lose your job, when you get when you get, uh, canceled, kicked off whatever whatever it is, booted out.
I’m sure it’s not like this in England, but in America, the whole COVID dynamic.
Now we’re seeing all this new data. All that everybody’s producing data right now. Suicide, by the
way, among teens is off
the charts in America. It’s the epidemic. Right now, but broken homes, divorce, all this kind of stuff.
But families fell apart. Families You can’t see your grandkids anymore.
You’re vets or they’re we are vets, vax, you vax, who vax, whatever vax. Did you get vaccinated?
And I did not get all this.
And they it it became an issue of breaking the family in half and people died without family members.
What is that?
When this world tries to seek to wrap you up with fear intimidation and tactics, we’ve got to go to the word of god more than ever before.
More than ever before. And god says, I will never leave you or forsake you.
What a tremendous promise He goes on verse six. Be strong and of good courage.
Only be, uh, strong and very courageous that you may observed to do according to all which Moses my servant commanded you.
Do not listen, do not turn from it from the right hand or to the left that you may prosper wherever you go verse nine.
Have I not commanded you. Be strong and have a good courage.
Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed for the lord your god is with you wherever you go.
Why does god tell Joshua. Joshua, the the original Israeli commando. General Joshua.
How many times do you read here in Joshua where god is saying, Don’t be afraid.
Be strong and have good courage because Joshua was prone to being afraid and he had no courage.
I had a United States army Delta Force general say something I’ve never forgotten.
He said everyone is terrified going into battle. Terrified.
But those who have courage have determined that they’re gonna manage their fear.
Curriage is managing fear. What’s going on in your life?
At a time and an age like this, if we know our bibles, we should be energized by these demanding days.
They’re painful. Yes. But are they trying times? Yes. And they’re also dividing times.
God is preparing himself a church. I think it was pastor Tom.
Somebody quoted scripture the, uh, today, regarding the bride of Christ and the view from heaven.
You understand that the church, I hope you get this, everybody.
If you don’t know this, please write this down.
When the Bible talks about saints, you need to find out the context of what is in that portion of scripture regarding saints.
There’s Old Testament saints. You got me? King David, Noah, Abraham, Adam and Eve, Old Testament, saints. Okay.
And then there’s the church age saints.
On the day of Pentecost, the church was born, the Holy Spirit came down.
And on the day that the church is raptured, The Holy Spirit, no doubt delivers the church up into the arms of Jesus, John fourteen verses one to three.
Those are the we are we are the saints, the bride of Christ, the church.
Then there’s the tribulation saints. Think of that.
And then you read the end of the book of Revelation, and there’s the millennial saints, those who come to faith in Christ during the millennium.
Think about that. And every generation of believers, god’s truth will never change. Think about that.
During the tribulation period, whenever that is, there’s gonna be people reading the same Bible you’re reading
to get the same strength that you
and I need. During the millennium, think of that. They’re gonna the god’s truth never changes.
They’ll be able to not only see Christ in Jerusalem. Can you imagine?
The thousand year reign of Christ, do you ever study that? It’s absolutely epic.
When we drive around Cotswold, that’s where we were hanging out. Are you kidding me?
We we at least in our stand,
this is the way the millennium is going to be like this. That’s the way we see it.
It’s just beautiful green and water everywhere, and Set your eyes on what god has in store for you because it’s coming.
It will not miss you if you’re a follower of Christ.
Just don’t be dumb and miss what god has for you. Don’t do that. Very, very important.
Number five is this, is to be reliant upon the power of god.
Now, we mentioned that earlier, and it’s been mentioned by a few of the speakers as well.
Reliant upon the power of god.
First Peter chapter one verse thirteen says, therefore gird up the loins of your mind.
Boy, do we need this today? Gird up the loins of your mind. Isn’t that amazing?
Gird up, wrap around the sensitive parts of your mind.
Satan’s tactics today is to cause your child.
Well, I hope I don’t get thrown out of the country for this.
I can only speak from
from being, uh, a male man, not a male man, but a man who’s a male.
I I can tell you that to gird up the loins
of your mind, guys, guys, I’m just talking to you. Ladies, you can just tune out for it now.
I came from a world that
was, worldly. And when I came across this truth about girding up the loins of your mind, when you unpack what that means, Think about think about a tourniquet.
You know what a tourniquet is? Yes?
Think about putting something around your head and and taking that fabric and putting a stick through it and just twisting it until it is very, very tight.
You’ve girded up, so to speak, the loins of your mind. It means I brought my thinking under control.
Listen, before I was a Christian, and this is true regarding your life, if you’re not
a Christian, your thoughts were crazy all the time, like whatever.
And when you become a Christian, for me, that was one of the immediate manifestations of being actually born again, was I didn’t get goosebumps.
I got saved that night. There’s people crying. I wasn’t crying. I’m looking at everybody.
I’m thinking, is it working? I had no feelings. I didn’t feel anything.
I just knew what I was hearing was true, made that decision for Jesus, and I noticed within a few hours, After heading home, my thoughts were thing, my thoughts were being challenged in my own mind by my own voice.
It was my own voice, but the sentence structure was completely different. I knew it wasn’t me.
And my mind would wander to where
I had been early in my life. And basically, this thought came back.
We don’t think about that anymore. We’re done with that. Think on this. Are you listening to me?
Guys, are you listening to me? Here’s the thing.
The world around us today, Satan has packaged things up with all kinds of sparkles and glitter. Okay.
When you go fishing with a lure, you write a lure in the water for a fish,
you just don’t throw the hook in the water. You use a lure. Satan knows how to fish.
And you’ll throw stuff out there, and maybe for you, it’s pornographic, or maybe for you, it’s power, or maybe for you, it’s uh, violence.
State knows you. He he can’t read your mind, but he’s old.
He’s been around forever, and he knows the patterns of humans.
Or maybe for you, it’s if it’s you your identity is all wrapped up in what you have, your car, in your house, in your clothes, you think makes who you, who you are.
That’s not who you are. Those are idols. You’re laying on the wrong thing.
Or the wrong one. But so many men today, they’re they’re Christians, and they beat themselves up constantly because, listen, they they don’t enjoy Christianity and they don’t enjoy their pornography.
Why? Because one is pathetically weak and the other one is horribly condemning and damning to your heart and mind.
Do you understand that? So you’re you may be going to heaven But Paul said, you’re you’re gonna get there by by flames.
You’re just gonna make it. And my submission to you is this, why not allow god to break the power and strongholds of the enemy by the power of the Holy Spirit who tells you you can give me your thoughts in an instant.
The moment the thought rises in your head of this, that, or the other thing that is of your past,
Give it to god right now. Listen, did you know temptations is not a sin?
Tempation is not a sin.
It’s what you do with
the temptation that determines it to sin.
So how many times will state and tempt you to look down at other people, criticize them?
Look, I was I got on I we landed at the airport.
I’m driving the car, and I’m thinking, why did you guys do this?
Why did you put the steering wheel on the wrong side?
And then the car on the wrong side double on the wrong everything’s on the wrong side.
It’s all in the wrong side, and I’m hitting the curb, and Lisa says stop hitting the curb.
And it’s like I’m trying not to but then so I get away from the curb, and I’m gonna go head on with somebody.
And it’s like, where’s god help me? God. And I’m thinking, why? And then it dawned on me.
You guys do it right. We do it wrong.
We’re the ones that flipped it around and made it all goofy. Yes. It’s true.
We don’t even use our fork and spoons and knives right. You guys do it right.
But you bring the thought into their captivity.
So when that listen, if there’s any young people in here, when that thought comes up, listen, when the thought comes up, by whatever means, a school teacher, a film, a video conversation, what’s going on because this is what’s happening in America.
You pack up your little kid and you put them on the bus, and they get to the school, and they get mentally molested.
The little kids are the little kids are being asked.
They’re the teachers are saying, would you like to know what it’s like to touch another little boy?
Oh, this is for real. And I don’t know if it’s happening here, but you better start asking questions.
And there are school teachers now, and then it’s just epic.
What’s going on? Watch.
Once you put that into him, uh, mind, When was the first time you heard something, saw something, did something when you knew you were not supposed to?
You can remember what shirt you were wearing, where you were at. Are you hearing me guys?
I’m telling you, I’m speaking for the guys.
The first time we saw a woman, it was not good.
And it changed our minds in the way that we saw women.
And maybe that same is true for women in the reverse. I don’t know. I’m just telling you this.
What are we supposed to do? Bring every thought under the captivity of Christ. How often?
A thousand times a day, if you must. It’s called being a Christian. Fight.
The fight begins on the inside.
I’m gonna say this, and I believe it with all of my heart.
Getting victory from the lord Jesus Christ on the inside, the outside is a pushover.
No wonder why Paul the apostle said, to live is Christ to die is gain.
You see, man, that’s really religious, awesome speaking
of a guy. That’s deep. No. You know what? That was basic for Paul, to live as Christ.
Can you imagine to die his game? So Rome said, you know what?
You won’t bow to Caesar. You keep preaching all this stuff. You say that there’s one god?
We’re gonna we’re gonna kill you.
To die is gain.
So
wait a minute. What? What did
you say? To die is gain?
Well, See how you’re so pleased about that. We’re not gonna kill you. We’re gonna
we’re gonna have you live out the rest of your life in prison. Not to live as Christ.
So what’d you say? To live as Christ, I thought you said to die his game. Yes. Amen.
How do you stop somebody like that? That’s the Christian life.
I’m sorry, but you have a terminal condition. What is that?
You’re gonna die in six months. Well, hallelujah. Thank god. At least
I know I know where I’m going and I know how I’m gonna be going.
I mean, I could get killed on the way to the hospital next time around, but are you with me?
I’m just saying, Jack, you gotta be kidding. I’m not kidding.
You understand, do you believe that when Jesus rose again from the dead? He broke the grave. He busted hell.
Did you you know that? He rose from the dead, and he busted the power of death.
You wanna talk about strongholds? Well, I just can’t get past this thing of forgiving that person.
Get over it. He’s forgiven you.
Don’t let anyone control your life because you can’t issue forgiveness.
Do you understand what I just said? I can’t forgive that person for what they did to me.
Well, then you know what? You might as well go lock yourself up now because you’re allowing because you will not forgive that person you are allowing them to control your life.
Did you listen, forgiveness was given to us to model after Christ so we could go free and no matter what that person says or
does to us from that moment forward.
Did you understand that? Forgiveness is not for them.
Forgiveness, the ability to forgive was given to us so that we could go free from those who offended us.
Think of that for a moment.
The power of god, be reliant upon that power over and over again. And we can be.
Micah chapter three verse eight says, truly, I’m full of power by the spirit of the lord and of justice and of might.
To declare to Jacob, his transgressions, and to Israel, his sins, boldness.
Micah had boldness and one of the great Calvary Chapel.
If you’re not familiar with Calvary Chapel, the great Calvary Chapel verse that, uh, was given to us by pastor Chuck Smith from the beginning.
In fact, in our in our foyer, when you come to Chino Hills, if you ever do, there’s a big two thousand pound Jerusalem stone.
It’s uncut, stone in the foyer.
And on top is a forty nine pound bronze seven lance lamp stand manure coming up.
It’s the exact replica. There’s only ten of them or eight of them in the world, one of them was at our church,
and it was, uh, prototype before the the Arterson made the one at the Conesta.
You ever seen the big one that’s at the Israeli government building, and it says on there in Hebrew, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the lord.
Zachariah four six. Remember that? Hang on to that. Grab that.
And then finally, as we begin to land this thing here is that faith at war means this, everybody, rejoicing in the victory that is ours.
I think we fail so much and I get it.
According to the Bible, can we have some group participation now?
According to the Bible, uh, has the war been determined?
The answer is yes. The war I said. Battles.
We have battles, but Battles are part of a war.
Battles are local, the war is general. Jesus won the war.
Oh, I hope somebody can quote this better than me, but I’m reminded right now.
In mere Christianity, CS Lewis talks about god, Somebody somebody said, uh, why doesn’t god do something then?
If your god is so great, uh, CS Lewis, what is it? Your god do something about it?
And he said, he is doing something about it.
And he said that every time somebody becomes a Christian, it’s like someone landing in enemy occupied territory.
Think that through for a moment. I like that.
The moment the moment someone gives their life to Jesus Christ, It’s as though that person has just landed from a parachute out of an airplane onto enemy occupied territory.
What is the occupied territory? It’s earth. It’s enemy occupied. Who’s the enemy?
Satan in this world.
God has called you and I to literally be victorious in our Christian life.
And the the reason why I hesitate is because I There are
programs probably only in America where
there are people on TV talking about how great you are how you can change the world, you’re amazing, you’re a champion, you’re a Victor, and you’re the best, and you’re so great.
And
so send me a hundred bucks. Right?
They never they never talk about who is really the great and who is really the wonderful.
It’s him. We live in an age right now where it’s no longer even appropriate or or usable to say, I’m a Christian.
Right. I mean, think about it. When somebody says you they’re a Christian, are you impressed anymore?
Seriously. I think Satan’s a Christian on Sunday.
Christian. It’s just a label.
You know the book of James.
Remember, Martin Luther, the great reformer, he hated the book of James, because he thought it flew up against the book
of Romans, the just shall live by faith. Amen. Right? That’s true. But James is written to believers.
You know, the epistle, the James in your Bible is written to believers.
And basically, the book of James has summed up in this.
James would say to us,
this is why we don’t like the book of James. James would say Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Paul’s right.
The just shall live by faith. But how do
we know your faith’s real? If you say you have faith, but there’s been no transformation, Then it’s not real.
So James would be like this.
You could almost see him, right, a little Jewish guy. And he would
he would say something like, So you you say you’re Christians? Well,
it’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to move in with you.
And I’m gonna watch you. I’m gonna put cotton in my ears. Plug my ears.
I’m gonna watch you for a month.
And at the end of the month, I’m going to tell you if you are a Christian or not.
By observation. Listen, especially young people today.
Forget the titles when people say, oh, I am a Christian. Uh, alright.
Now I gotta watch you for thirty days to see if it is true. You see, Jack, that is judging.
No, it’s not judging. Judge well, listen, we’re not to condemn anybody.
We don’t have the authority, but we are to be fruit inspectors.
When somebody says, I’m a Christian, but they don’t live like it. What is real?
Their statement or what they do? It’s what they do.
The real Christian in this room today is the person who when they sin, they hate it.
Remember before we were Christians? We’d make plan on Cindy. We’d plan.
We we set our calendar to send. Eight o’clock Monday night. See you then.
As Christians, we can’t do that.
Christians is when somebody I’m yelling at somebody for driving on the wrong side of the road here.
They remind me you’re the one. So it’s like, oh, gosh lord, please forgive me.
I was all upset with that guy. And I was in the wrong.
Notice the lord keeps us on a short leash, everybody. I thank God for that leash.
I thank God for that. The victory is in Jesus Christ. We don’t strut around like we’re something.
Come on devil. I’ll take you on. Don’t ever do that.
In fact, the Michael, the archangel said, to Satan. The lord rebukes you, Satan.
You know the people that go around places and they say, I’m gonna cast out I’m gonna cast that demon out of you you know, I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna I’m gonna I me.
Don’t do that.
Listen demons can be cast out, but you don’t have that power.
As a representative of heaven, that power is flowing through you.
And you can take on the kingdom that’s invisible and dangerous and dark and increasingly wicked.
How do you explain? I’m I’m done.
How do you explain this all around the world?
How do you explain this issue that we we call I don’t know, we call homelessness.
Have you ever heard of this term? Homeless. What does homeless mean?
Seriously, we’ve stopped we don’t even we stopped It used to be in the United States that vagrancy, vagrancy, panhandling is illegal on the books.
The Bible says if a man doesn’t work, he’s not supposed to eat.
Did you know that? Why? Because
god didn’t make god didn’t preach you to put your hand out.
God but god gave you hands to be used. Watch this. In America, there’s homelessness everywhere. And it’s happened over
the last several years. Why? What happened? What happened?
I want you to think about that for
a moment. When you talk to the people, they have no minds. They’re gone.
I know this sounds mean people, but fentanyl has destroyed them. They’re mindless.
They crawl on the ground like an animal. Uh, their hands and their feet turn black.
They’re they’re gone.
Homeless this means you’ve lost your house.
You’re on the streets, but you’re looking to get back on your feet so that you’re no longer homeless.
The world is experiencing right now an attack against us as humans because Satan hates your guts.
That’s why he’s trying to destroy your life with really cute, cool things.
Dangling everything in front of you that works.
Sucks you in, get you hooked a little bit, and begins his insidious trap.
This thing that’s going on in our world,
it’s not homelessness. It’s the ram it’s
the ramifications. It’s the fallout of a godless culture. America has kicked god out of school.
Out of courts, out of its politics, America has evicted god, and most churches in America have followed suits.
And you wonder why things are messed up.
The only hope for the United States is the only hope for England.
It’s the only hope for any nation. It’s the church. Everything can change.
If this small group of people decide, I’m gonna live radical for Jesus.
I’m not gonna be a fool.
I’m not gonna be that person that pastor Steve was talking about, but to be an obnoxious individual.
No, that’s not the spirit of god. But when you are a follower of Jesus.
Notice, I’m breaking away from the word Christian to a follower of Jesus, and I’ll even dial down more on
it because it’s kind of a code word.
Or a code statement, a follower of Christ, forget Christianity or Christian, a follower of Christ.
But I like this. Back home, it’s in Christ.
Did you know the Bible says those who are in Christ? And here’s the amazing thing about that.
Either you know you’re in Christ or you’re not.
If you’re in Christ Everything I hear and see Jesus said Isaiah said, Ezekiel said there’d be days like this.
Lord, what do you want
me to do? What do you want me to say?
Each of you This is your sweet spot. This is your golden moment.
You can choose to believe god’s word and say, I’m I’m gonna actually go for How about this?
Try it for thirty days. Read your Bible and do it for thirty days.
Just pick a go to John’s Gospel, start there.
And say, I’m gonna do what I read for the next thirty days. Can you imagine?
It works because he works.
He’s at work in you He will perfect what he has planned for you.
The best thing to do is to cooperate and to go with him.
My biggest struggle in life, I’m old now.
I’m supposed to, you know, be I mean, I’ll never retire, but it’s like you know, you gotta let the next generation come in.
So it’s like, okay, here’s the deal.
But I don’t want to miss one thing that God is going to do.
So I look around at our countries, and something’s gotta give.
And something can you feel can you feel this? Somebody mentioned rightly the word discernment?
Don’t you discern something’s up. Can you feel it? Like, what do you mean?
I don’t know what I mean. I do not know what I mean, but whatever’s coming, it’s big.
I don’t know if it’s the rapture. Is it is it war? Is it is it?
I don’t know what? I don’t need to know. I just need to be ready.
And if I’m in the word, I’m gonna be ready. But I wanna be ready
no matter what I’m doing in this life, father, we come before you as a people
that have been brought together by one passport.
And that passport is stamped with the blood of Christ Jesus.
Our citizenship is in heaven, You’ve left us here for a reason.
And father, we’re asking you, lord, now, that you would speak to each and every one of us about what it is that you would have us to do
next. For your kingdom work. Next, meaning tomorrow. This afternoon.
Each day now for the rest of our lives,
In fact, church, while your heads are bowed and your
eyes are closed, I’m gonna ask you that perhaps maybe now you would make a recommitment to Jesus.
It’s between you and God I’m
not gonna call you forward. I’m not gonna have you raise your hand. You’re a believer,
but you must confess Your life’s been a little predictable in these dark days.
It’s been kind of just existing version of Christianity.
And the spirit of God is speaking to you, and he wants to do something new in your life right now.
He wants to do something fresh because he’s about ready to move and you will not wanna miss what he’s gonna do.
If you if you discern that same thing, tell him right now in your own words, in your own head, You can tell him, lord, I
don’t want to miss a thing, transform me. I know I’m going to heaven.
I know you died for me, but lord, take my life to the edge. Whatever that means.
I know you love me, so you’re not gonna abuse me.
Cause me to live out the very reason why I was brought into this world.
Don’t let me move. Don’t let me goof up. Just help me to hang on Jesus.
Wanna see you do things in my life.
Do things in my church, in my town, my city where I
live, God, we pray that before you come back maybe maybe you might pour out your holy spirit of revival upon the church in England the church in America, in Canada, in Mexico, in Switzerland, and in Germany, god in China, the believers in China who worship in secret, oh god, tear down walls in his last days that would set people free because you’ve already broken them down.
They’ve gotta get out
of their gravecloths. That you have purchased with your own blood.
So god may we be loosed and may we be everywhere
to your kingdom’s glory. We pray in Jesus name and all god’s people said, amen.
God bless you guys.