Glorious Way Church
Glorious Way Church equips believers for the work of the ministry and stands for God’s truth in our culture. We serve as a regional center, where people from all backgrounds find refreshing worship and true communion of the saints.
Glorious Way Church
Steeled For Victory
Ever wondered how the trials of ancient kings can inspire modern faith and resilience? Explore the powerful narratives of Psalm 11 and the remarkable story of King Hezekiah as we uncover the essence of building solid foundations in faith. You'll discover how unwavering trust in divine support can fortify our spirits to face life's adversities with courage and confidence. Historical context comes alive as we navigate through the history of Israel and Judah, shedding light on the consequences of disobedience and King Hezekiah’s revival as an example of steadfastness and spiritual renewal.
Lift our Bibles up and wave them around. Make Jesus glad, the devil mad. Let's say this together Say Heavenly Father, I'm so glad to be here on this Sunday night. I come with a heart that's open and hungry, and, lord, I'm hungry for more of your Word, more of your Spirit. Show me the paths of life, teach me your ways that I can walk acceptably with you. I can bring forth victory for your glory in Jesus' name. Amen, amen.
Speaker 1:All right, let's turn a couple of places. This is Psalm 11. They both happen to be the Old Testament. Psalm 11 first, and then we'll look at 2 Chronicles. While you're finding places, find 2 Chronicles 32. We'll start with Psalm 11, verse 3.
Speaker 1:If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? But I like the passion translation. What can the righteous accomplish when the truth's pillars are destroyed and law and order collapse? That kind of relates to right now, doesn't it? We hadn't gotten this election right, I guarantee there wouldn't be any more justice, there wouldn't be any more law and order. These people have destroyed it. Almost Can't wait to see all the firings and the chops that's going to be necessary. What can the righteous accomplish when the truth's pillars are destroyed and law and order collapse, all right.
Speaker 1:And then 2 Chronicles 32, I just got through reading this in Kings and so I wanted to. It's the same account in Kings and I'm reading it in 2 Chronicles 32 about Hezekiah, verse 1, after these things, we'll talk more about what those things were. After these things and the establishment thereof, sennacherib, king of Assyria, came and entered into Judah and encamped against the fenced cities and thought to win them for himself. And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, he took counsel with his princes and mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains, which were without the city. And they helped him. So there were gathered much people together who stopped all the fountains and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water? And also he strengthened himself and built up all the wall that was broken and raised it up to the towers and another wall without, and repaired millow in the city of David and made darts or weapons my margin says weapons and shields in abundance. And he set captains of war over the people and gathered them together in the street of the gate of the city and he spake comfortably to them. My margin says he spoke heart to heart with them, saying be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him. There is more with us than with him. There's more with us than there is with him. With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord, our God, to help us and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah. My margin says they leaned on those words spoken by Hezekiah, heart to heart.
Speaker 1:I like the Message Bible. Hezekiah's words put steel in their spines. Hezekiah's words put steel in their spines. Glory to God. And so tonight my message is entitled Stealed for Victory. Stealed for Victory.
Speaker 1:My job is to encourage you, to strengthen you, to put, as it were, steel in your backbone that gets you to be able to stand up against any kind of attack, any kind of thing that comes against you. You know, when I first got saved, I just you know I started hearing the word of faith. Know, I started hearing the word of faith. I started hearing a miracle in your mouth.
Speaker 1:Brother Osteen's little mini book I read. That felt like a giant killer. I mean, I heard things I'd never heard before. I was so excited about the word and and he never said this and I you know, none of the people I read ever said it but I got the idea that if I could just get enough faith, I wouldn't ever have any problems. Well, opposite's true, because the devil always opposes your faith growing. He'll always throw things in your way. As long as we're here, jesus said in the world, you shall have, you might have, you shall have what tribulation, but be of good courage. And so I want to, I want to give you this message to put steel in your backbone and strengthen your emotions.
Speaker 1:Sometimes our emotions run away with us. We have emotions God gave us emotions but you know, they can get out of whack sometimes when we're under attack and we can kind of start to have a pity party and we start to have a lot of tears. And I just like to make I don't want everyone to let the devil see me sweat, much less cry. I mean, if you're, if you're in the habit of crying, we'll stop it right now. Don't let the devil see you cry. In fact, don't even let him. Don't let, don't let him see you sweat.
Speaker 1:How many were here this morning? Most of it, most of you, most of you. Some of you weren't here. Well, I released the blessing over the over the church this morning. There was our third message on the blessing, and so we'll we'll get that printed up in card form and have it for you so you can meditate on the. What was released, you know, over the church this morning. But part of what I said was the sweatless anointing. What does that mean? It just means we're so confident in God we just never get unnerved, we never have any anxiety or fear or dread. Amen.
Speaker 1:So you know, like Judah, we're facing overwhelming odds right now. I know we just had a victory, but my experience with the devil is that he's not going to just sit around twiddling his thumbs and feeling sorry for himself. He's going to bring us a counterattack. You might as well get ready. It's not just going to be peaches and peachy keen. I got tickled. Some lady's Twitter handle, or you know, x handle, was peachy keen. I thought that was kind of funny. It's not going to be peachy keen, there's going to be some.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you when Trump starts bringing you know the law enforcement into these cities looking for the illegal alien criminals, into these cities looking for the illegal alien criminals, and he starts going and finding them and pulling them out of these apartment projects and some of these hotels that they're staying in and hauling them in paddy wagons out to the airport and shipping them back home. I mean it's going to cause some unrest. We need to get ready right now and know what we're going to answer when people point at us and what we're going to answer when people point at us and say we're racist and all that garbage. I think there's enough people who are in favor of that, by the way, where we don't have to really sweat it very much. But listen, I mean you know what did they have facing them? You know they had a lot of issues and so he we'll get to that in a minute but he spoke kindly to them, he spoke heart to heart to them and you know I can say it this way in the face of what we face.
Speaker 1:I know we just had a victory, but I'm telling you there's going to be repercussions, there's going to be upheavals, there's going to be shakings. We're living in the last days and everything that can be shaken will be shaken, pastor, I came to be encouraged. I'm encouraging you. Let's not get so, you know. Let's not be like Pollyanna and look at everything like everything's solved, nothing's solved. We got one step done, that's it. One step is electing a person that's got a fight in him. But guess what? There's going to be a fight and there's going to be another fight, and it's going to be another fight.
Speaker 1:Not one of his people that he's nominated, boy. I mean he's nominating people every day, two or three a day. I mean he's just pouring them out and they're going crazy every time he picks them up. They're going to do everything they can not to let him pick them. They're going to smear them. They're going to release all kinds of garbage on them. Just remember back what they did to Kavanaugh. They got a crazy woman to just make up a story about Kavanaugh and just almost ruined his reputation. Came that close, but he got in. I tell you it was a lot of prayer that got him in. I'm still not happy with a lot of his decisions. I think I'd like to kick him in the tail.
Speaker 1:Wake up, boy. You wouldn't even be there if it wasn't for the church. You better fear the Lord. Some of these, I mean these people. They're not perfect. Really, the two, amy What's-Her-Face and him, are Catholic. That means that they don't know the Word like we do.
Speaker 1:All right, so we could say it this way Be strong and very courageous. Be not afraid of the multitude of communists, socialists, democrats, fake news media, university experts, washington elites, non-elected bureaucrats, billionaire globalists and everyone they've deceived, for there's more with us than there is with him. With them is an arm of flesh. With us is the arm of our mighty God. Amen. There's more with us than there is with them. Hallelujah, come on, let's let's praise him tonight. Hallelujah, let's not forget that.
Speaker 1:So back then, and just like today, the enemy likes to talk, the king of Assyria comes to town and he, you know he's already taken the northern kingdom. I just read these chapters where, you know, I go in through all of the judgment all the prophets sent to Israel and to the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. You know, why were there two? Why was Israel split in two? Well, because of sin. Sin did it Disobedience. And after Solomon died, the kingdoms were rent apart. Because Solomon backslid. He loved women, he loved the women of this world more than he loved God. He started out real strong. He had a wonderful humble prayer at the beginning, but then he went south.
Speaker 1:Let's read the Bible and see what it says about these people that we've got up on a pedestal. Well, they're just weak. And the whole problem with having kings is that problem. Kings was never God's plan for Israel. Never, never, never, no, never wanted to have a king.
Speaker 1:Kings came under the prophet Samuel and they started crying to Samuel we want a king, tell God, we want a king. And he says no, tell him. And he protested no, god does not want you to be like the nations, no, we want to be like the other nations. See, that's the problem with Israel. They wanted to be like everybody else, and you know what? In the end, that's what they were like. Instead of being God's chosen, instead of standing up for God and God alone, they kept disobeying him. And so then God gave him Saul King. Saul was a man. After what kind of? It wasn't God's choice, it was their choice. He wouldn't have never picked Saul. He said I'm going to give you a king. You're not going to like it. When it's all said and done, and they didn't. He was a terrible king, but then he gave it David. David was a man after his own heart. He chose him and and and, and David was God's choice, but still, the whole idea of a king was never in God's plan.
Speaker 1:It was the seed that Israel planted of disobedience that led to their complete dispersia. They were dispersed into all the earth. They lost Jerusalem, they lost the promised land and they were scattered. Until my generation They've come back into the land in 1948 and got their own. We've been able to witness that. What a prophetic generation we are to be here and witness what God said was going to happen.
Speaker 1:And so here in, you know, the king of Assyria had already taken the northern kingdom, which was in Samaria, the 10 tribes, and had taken them captive and took them over to, you know, kind of southern Turkey. To present day, southern Turkey is where they took them. And I mean you know they, like I said this morning, I mean they had a habit of boring out the eyes and before they did that they had the king of Israel and they I forgot what his name was, but he had sons they killed his sons in front of him and then bore his eyes out, put him in chains until he died. So they humiliated Israel. They tortured Israel. They, you know, they did everything they could to demoralize Israel.
Speaker 1:And so now Hezekiah is the king of Judah, and he knew that. So this same king comes in and he's threatening. Well, you know, he knows he's got power. And so he said, oh, there's more on our side than there is with him. So when he came to town, they're threatening Judah. You know these blaspheming God. What makes you think that your God can save you? They haven't been able to save. He wasn't able to save Israel. He wasn't able to save the Northern kingdom. He hasn't been able to save all the other kingdoms that we've conquered. Why, what makes you think he's able to save you? He's not able to save you. Don't you trust in that God? He's not able to save you. He blaspheming God. And so he went to Isaiah and they prayed and they cried to heaven. Now it started out here in chapter 32. It says after these things so when you read chapters 29 through 31, you find out what these things are.
Speaker 1:When Hezekiah came to be king, he recognized that Israel was backslid. The first king in I don't know how long. That was doing the right thing. And he spearheaded revival and he repaired the temple and cleansed it and took all the false gods out of the midst of it. He restored worship. He restored tithing. They collected the tithe from all of the people and there were heaps, and heaps that came in, and so the people, and there was great joy and rejoicing In Jerusalem as they brought their tithe. That's why we ask you to bring your tithe and rejoice and praise God for the privilege of giving God back his 10th and plus, giving offerings. Over and above that, they broke down the altars to the false gods and then they celebrated Passover for the first time since Solomon's day. No Passover had they ever celebrated like that, and all the way back to Solomon's day they hadn't had anything like it. And so he had a revival. I mean he fostered revival. I mean they elected the right president. They began to see churches get involved.
Speaker 1:See what I'm talking about, see how it's. Listen. That doesn't mean we're not in for some real opposition. Just, we can have revival. But you know what? There's gonna be some things that we're gonna have to contend with. I wanna get steel in your spine so that you don't be emotional, that you don't melt under pressure. Amen, glory to God. Come on, let's just praise him right now. Lord, we thank you, there's more with us than there is with them.
Speaker 1:So now they've had, you know, revival, and after that comes this threat. You know, come on, I'll take you back there. I'll take you back to my country. It's a wonderful country. You don't know what it's like. It's a wonderful place. It's got olive oil.
Speaker 1:He starts mocking God for the promised land. He knew what was in the Bible. And he starts mocking God, oh, we've got. You're not, though you don't have the only country that's got olive oil and good soil and good crops and flocks and herds. You come over, I'll bring you to our land. He's a lying devil, isn't he?
Speaker 1:And so he, after his revival and all these threats, what does he do? Well, he starts preparing his people to fight. He starts preparing them to fight. He starts building up the walls around Jerusalem. He starts, put, repairing the city of David, which is next to Jerusalem. He started, uh, building weapons and shields. He diverted the, the water. The waters were outside. He diverted inside the walls. It's, it's survived really. Uh, the, the springs of Gihon. I mean, it's still there.
Speaker 1:It's an engineering feat that he performed in the middle of all this attack. He had to get the water inside the wall so they could have the water and the Assyrians wouldn't have any for their horses and camels and everything else. I mean it's amazing what he did and of course we know God helped him and you know the bottom line is that God did all the fighting. He sent one angel out into the camp and killed 185,000 of the enemy One night killed 185,000. They never had to lift a sword, they never had to lift a hand. I mean, when they started getting back with God and doing things the right way, god fought their battles with them, for them and they I mean that angel went in there and wiped them out. And Sennacherib went back in shame to his own country where his own sons killed him and assassinated him. He died in disgrace. Oh, come on. Glory to God.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you, talk about justice flowing like a river. You know we sang that song tonight let justice flow like a river. Let me get off on this. Amos. What was this justice? This is justice or judgment. Amos.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I have a hard time finding Amos, but he's in here. Some people call him a minor prophet. I think he's in here. Some people call him a minor prophet. I think he's a prophet. I think I've got the right verse Amos 5, 24. But let judgment run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. In my margin, run down means roll, let justice judgment. Another verse says let justice roll, let justice roll. That's what we sang tonight. Let justice roll like a river and righteousness as a mighty stream. Every capital that we are bringing worship into. We're establishing the kingdom of God. We're planting the flag of heaven right in the place where justice can roll like a river and righteousness as a mighty stream. Glory to God. You know, you start being kingdom minded like this, and this church is, you know, got this assignment from heaven and we're doing it and God is helping us do it and we're increasing justice and judgment. I mean, if law and order are dissolved, what can the righteous do? Well, the righteous can get together and resist it. The righteous can rise up and plant the flag of heaven.
Speaker 1:What was the? Let's see. What was it? Football, ohio State, michigan. They had a tough game the other night. Ohio State lost and they were way high rank. They were upset by Michigan and Michigan was. They were so glad they tried to plant their flag in the middle of the 50-yard line of their.
Speaker 1:That was not well. I mean, that wasn't the best idea and just about had a riot. It was all over the news and they had to. I mean law enforcement had to. Best idea and just about had a riot. It was all over the news and they had to. I mean law enforcement had to go in there and use pepper spray. I mean, golly, after I played a hard football game, I don't think I would have wanted pepper spray in my face after that or any time before that goes.
Speaker 1:But we're planting the flag of heaven and there's nothing the devil can do about it. I mean, justice is rolling down like a river and righteousness is a mighty stream. Glory to God, come on, lift your hands right now. Glory to God, he's keeping the books. I said he's keeping the books. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth, not pillow, pillar, pillar. We're the pillar, we're the, we're the support.
Speaker 1:Those big old brass pillars they had on the temple. You know they, they took those big old, they was without weight, they took, they took the, the brass pillars. The later on, when, when Babylon came and destroyed, it wasn't Assyria, it was Babylon that actually took away Judah and destroyed Jerusalem and they went to the temple and he burned it with fire and they took those massive brass pillars that were on either on the front of the temple and they took that back to Babylon and that basin. They had those that basin, the, the, the, where the water, the, the, the priest would wash in this water, and they had four big old bulls that their rear ends were facing each other and the and the heads were outside. So they had four of those solid brass and the whole big I guess it's probably bigger than that row there, just full of water, huge brass, without weight. They took all of it and took it back. Of course, all the gold had already been stolen, all the riches, that there were, billions of dollars that David and Solomon gave for the temple, all of it was lost. Every bit of it went into the world. Every bit of it went into the world.
Speaker 1:You know, it's time the church rises up and we have a. We have a. It's time to pay up world Time to pay up. Devil is payday for the church. Amen.
Speaker 1:Let God be true and every man a liar. First Timothy 315. Let's seek the15. Let's seek the truth, let's love the truth, these people that we oppose and it's really the devil behind them. But yet he uses people. We have to not be afraid of them. We can't be afraid of their faces, we can't be afraid of their accusations, we can't be afraid of what they say, because we know behind them is this demon power, the spirit of Antichrist, and we're going to, between now and the time the rapture happens. I mean it's going to get hotter and hotter, amen. So let's be steel for victory.
Speaker 1:Just three things, just to remind you about number one lean on and depend on the word of God. Lean on it. Let God be true in every man alive. Just measure everything by what the word says. If the word says it, I believe it. That settles it. Nothing else matters. Somebody's got this opinion, somebody's got, you know, somebody's got this.
Speaker 1:The God of this age has all those sayings, those maxims, those thoughts, those opinions. They've got opinions. They've got opinions. They've got theories. They've got all kinds of stuff. You know, sometimes I just like to watch Discovery Channel until they start pitching global warming, or they start pitching you know all of their theories. Then I flick it off because I can't stand it. I mean I don't want to hear it. They're trying to collect carbon dioxide and store it instead of releasing it in the atmosphere, so that they can stop global warming. Well, you're an idiot. What are you going to do about all the trees, the trees put out? Are you going to cut them all down? Is that what you're going to do? They've actually spent billions and billions of dollars to these machines that basically take all the carbon dioxide and store it. But what in the world are you going to do with a bunch of carbon dioxide? You can make a lot of Coca-Cola, maybe Make a lot of beer fizz. It's nuts. They're nuts. The whole global warming craze.
Speaker 1:Thank God we've got some people that don't believe that in charge now, but my Bible says that man can't destroy what it didn't make. God's going to remake this entire earth. It's going to be transformed one of these days. That's what my Bible says. So I don't have to worry about global warming doing anything. So lean on to depend on the word of God. Stay full of the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1:Number two and that really what I'm talking about is personal revival. You know, we can't really have revival out here if we don't have a personal revival. So we've got to get dedicated to the word and the spirit ourselves. Each member of the body of Christ is not insignificant. We all have a supply, and when the church is weak, it means the individual members have been weak and they're not. They're not living by the word and they're not full of the Holy ghost, which is why the church itself, the corporate anointing, is down and we don't have much influence.
Speaker 1:But now that we're on the word of God and we're not ashamed of the God's word and we're planting the flag of heaven in all of these capitals around the country and we're standing up for what's right and we're going, in some cases testifying for bills that our good Christian legislators are sponsoring. They need good citizens to come and say, hey, we want this law. You know everything that happens in our capitals, whether it's the nation's capital or our state capitals, or down at City Hall or wherever. Everything is political and if we're not there to bring the political voice of the church into that arena, then guess what? The devil's there and we don't have justice and we don't have righteousness.
Speaker 1:Are you with me now? So let's stay full of the Holy Ghost, let's lean on and depend on the Word of God, and then let's let our light shine. Let's just speak the Word. Let's let our light shine. Let's just speak the word. Let's let our light shine, let's be a bold example of love and faith to others and let's be steeled for victory. Come on, lift your hand and receive the word. Father, we thank you tonight.