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
Get Lit, Stay Salty
What if the key to transforming your life and those around you lies in shining brightly and staying true to your faith amidst a world of chaos? In our latest episode, we explore the profound spiritual metaphor "Get Lit and Stay Salty," drawing inspiration from biblical teachings that encourage believers to be a beacon of light. We journey together through historical anecdotes of faith in crisis, from Abraham Lincoln's spiritual journey during the Civil War to General Patton's strategic call for unity in prayer during World War II, highlighting the powerful intersection of faith and leadership.
Thank you. I know she mentioned food, but it's the meat of the Word tonight. Kingdom of Heaven is more than meat and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and so we're going to have some meat tonight. I don't know that this is a run-around-the-church message, but it is something that I think is critical tonight. We're on the edge of a revival. I know that, and I know that there are some critical things that must happen before we can have that really revived state that we're about to come into. But there are all the signs in place of a nation and a people that are reviving, that are waking up, and I'm excited about it. Jesus said blessed are those servants. When his master comes, we'll find them watching, and so you don't know the day, you don't know the hour, you don't know when he's coming back, but what he's coming back for is somebody who's doing their job, somebody who is watching, somebody who's ready, somebody who's in the middle of what he called them to do.
Speaker 1:The title of tonight's message is Get Lit and Stay Salty. Who wants to get lit? All right, we got a few hands that went up. I'm not talking about getting lit, drinking alcohol or something like that, although people do get lit, we get lit by the Holy Ghost, the light of the Holy Ghost. Jesus said in Matthew, chapter 5, verse 13, you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled under the foot of men. And you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify the Father in heaven. Get lit and stay salty, and so you know people don't really have a problem with the church as long as we stay inside the building. People in the world don't start complaining until we get out of the walls of the church and start doing the word out there. Then you are hated for his namesake, then the persecutions come and then it starts to get real, and it's been getting real. It's on our doorstep and I believe it's going to be even more real this next year.
Speaker 1:Romans 12, 2 says do not be conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And let me just break these down real quick. Good Notice there are three words there. What is that? Good, acceptable and perfect will of God? Three words Good in the Greek means beneficial and morally good, acceptable means fully agreeable and well-pleasing, and perfect means complete. So I could read it this way that we may prove what is that beneficial and morally good, fully agreeable and well-pleasing to god, and what is perfect, the perfect and complete will of god. And so there weren't three words that existed to describe, there weren't what there wasn't one word by itself that could describe the full will of God for our lives. And so there are three words right there that, when strung together, better articulate what is that? Complete, perfect, lacking nothing, will of God for our lives. But to have that we've got to be not conformed to this world but be you transformed. In other words, don't be normal, don't be normal.
Speaker 1:Ephesians chapter five, puts it this way. It says therefore, be imitators of God, of God as dear children walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us. In verse three it says but fornication and uncleanliness and covetous, let it not even be named among you as is fitting for the saints. Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor coarse jesting which are fitting, but rather give thanks For this. You know that no fornicator, unclean person, no covetous man who is an idolater has any inheritance in the kingdom of God. There's a long list, there's lots of lists in the Bible of things that are not acceptable. There's a warning here. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes on the sins of disobedience. Therefore, do not be partakers with them. There are some warnings there.
Speaker 1:The next verse is in 8, talks about light and walking in the light. For you were once in darkness, but now you are in the light. Walk as children of the light. You used to be dark, now you're light. Walk like it, act like it. Act like what he's made you to be. It also says have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
Speaker 1:So we're talking about light here. Down in verse 14, it says awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead and Christ will give you light. You know that goes back to Isaiah 60, arise, shine, for the light has come, the glory of the Lord. We are to be light in this time. In a very dark world, the days are evil.
Speaker 1:Continuing on in Ephesians, chapter 5, there's a warning here in verse 15, see, then, that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. I could say the days are dark, the days are evil. Therefore, be not unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Don't be drunk with wine we're in his excess but be being filled with the Holy Spirit. Get lit, be filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, and giving thanks always to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God. So those are some things out of Ephesians, chapter 5.
Speaker 1:Now, before we and just talking about being salt and light, get lit and stay salty. That is so critical for the time that we're in right now, and I've briefed y'all on some of this. I'm going to talk about these three individuals again. Claire and I got to visit with the Bartons in Dallas. David Barton was presenting this. It was a stern warning for the time that we're in. We've got to understand the times that we're in so that we know what we need to be doing, and so, if you've heard this before, listen again. I want you to get this in you. I want you to be able to articulate these things to other people. I want you to be able to take the warning that you have, that you've been hearing, that you've heard tonight, that you've heard previously, and be able to describe and articulate this in an intelligent manner such that you can help somebody else wake up and get lit and become salty. We need more.
Speaker 1:So that's what revival is. Somebody is awake and there's a whole bunch of people that aren't. In fact, the people that aren't awake, they're on the verge of spiritual death. And then in comes one person who's fully awake and lit and salty, and they start preaching, and they start preaching under the unction of the Holy Ghost and they start preaching the Word of God and suddenly, the people that were on the edge of death there's an inrush of the Holy Spirit and they start to become alive. The corpse that was the thing that was threatening to become a corpse is suddenly. Eyes are opening and they're starting to get up and shake themselves loose and get up and start to move around when they were almost dead, now they're alive and active, and so we're on the edge of that and I don't want this momentum that we have. I don't want to lose it, and so listen to these stories so that you can take notes, if you can.
Speaker 1:I'm going to tell you about three people George Washington, abraham Lincoln and George Patton, and we're going to talk a little bit about prayer, and then we're going to get back to the subject of getting lit and staying salty. Abraham, I'm sorry, george Washington was known as a man of prayer. He prayed an hour, at least an hour every day. When he was praying, people didn't mess with him. They knew that that was his time and they protected that. They stayed away from him, they let him have his time. He was a man of prayer During the First Continental Congress.
Speaker 1:And so you've got where they declared separation from Great Britain. It was the Declaration of Independence. At the First Continental Congress, you had 13,. You had representatives from 13 colonies come in. They didn't know each other, they didn't have a relationship, and they're coming into this place to decide whether or not to declare King George a despot and to declare that they were separate and were going to become our own nation. When they got together, what did they do? They started out by praying, and it wasn't just a quick little prayer, this was a two-hour prayer where they took time and they opened God's Word and they studied God's Word and they prayed, and somebody else would quote some scripture and they prayed some more. They were doing this under the unction of the Holy Ghost for a couple of hours before they started down this path of whether or not to declare a separation. And so, after the declaration had been signed, they had their first battle.
Speaker 1:It was the battle at Long Island, and George Washington did not get us off to a great start. He had 9,000 troops against the British, 30,000 troops. The British pushed them up against the East River where they had nowhere to go. And so you know, imagine the Israelites. They got pushed up against the river and had nowhere else to go. Remember the tight spot that they were in? Well, george Washington was in the same condition 9,000 to 30,000. These are single-shot rifles. So for every one shot we get to make, they got to make somewhere between three and four shots against us, you know, had they broke out in that kind of fighting. But for three days they sat there.
Speaker 1:And the British, I think they didn't want to get into this big fight at that level, and so they were hoping that George Washington and his men would just surrender and give up. And so they brought their navy. They had a plan to bring their navy, the navy ships, up the river and fully surround so that there would not be any way of escape for George Washington and the 9,000. George Washington recognized right away we got to get out of here, and so he's ordering his men to find anything that floats they were not swimmers at that time Find anything that floats, little barges, little canoes, things that they could strap together. We've got to get 9,000 men off the beach and onto the other side it's about a mile across across the river, right there. And so George Washington's men getting ready to find anything that floats and to begin moving.
Speaker 1:The British ships are coming up the river and history records that the strangest storm ever set up over the river and it blew the British ships down the river all day, and the harder the ships tried to sail and work their way up the river, the more persistent they were, the harder the wind blew and blew them down the river further, such that they fought all day and went backwards and finally they had to lay anchor somewhere downstream. And because it was nightfall and you can't sail at night, they didn't have good lighting at night and it's a river and there's rocks, and in a narrow way. So they anchored and George Washington is bringing his men across the river, 9,000 of them trying to make their way across, lots of trips back forth. I want you to imagine what this is like all the troops, all the equipment, all the people making trips all through the night. And then morning came and daylight was breaking and there were still about a thousand left on the on the beach right there and there was no way. I mean, now you've got 30,000 against a thousand on the beach right there. It's's impossible odds.
Speaker 1:And then history records that a very dense fog began to rise and settle in a peculiar manner over both encampments. And this is Benjamin Talmadge, the leader of George Washington's spy ring, that's quoting this, that I'm quoting right here, and he writes I recollect that this peculiar, providential occurrence perfectly well, and so very dense was the atmosphere that I could scarcely discern a man at six yards or about 18 feet. So a fog settled remember the cloud by day and the fire by night. A cloud settled over the encampments such that our guys could keep evacuating off the beach and onto the other side of the river. And when the fog finally lifted, the British could see and begin to make out. On the other side of the river, the last boat, with George Washington stepping out of the last boat onto the beach, and he got away. He was a man of prayer, and prayer provided a way of escape. So let's talk about the next one. You got Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 1:Abraham Lincoln grew up in a home that was a troubled home. It was a Christian home, but he still had a drunken and abusive father, and so his view of Christianity was not one that was truly representative of Christianity. He saw Christians behaving a particular way, and it was a terrible environment. Growing up, he had a rough life and he just decided he didn't want to have anything to do with that. So he drifted off, he became a backslider, to the point where he was quite frankly an atheist and he denied that there was a God. And he was an attorney. He had his own law practice. He liked to argue with Christians. He liked to because the Christians of that day had such a weak argument, they were easy to put down, easy to beat in a debate, and so it was just, you know, he was antagonistic towards them. Then he watched the debate. A certain preacher had a debate with the atheist of the day and he heard the arguments that this one preacher made and they were so compelling that he began to think again and thought maybe this is true, maybe there is a God. And he began to turn. And so he had a relationship with this pastor in his life and he starts coming along. He had four kids and he lost one son during that time and that pastor was there for him during that time. It was a pretty hard time for Abraham Lincoln, but he began to recognize that there is a God. This pastor brought him along to a point where he actually had Abraham Lincoln preaching a sermon and Abraham was very, very nervous about it and he preached on the Ten Commandments and how they applied to everybody in every aspect of life. And so he's still not a Christian yet, but he's believing that there is a God and that there's benefits from God's Word and that people should know this stuff A little bit later. So he's elected president and before the inauguration the whole union dissolves. What was 36 states was reduced down to 25 states, the United States split into two parts and he just had a disaster on his hands During the time when he was running for president.
Speaker 1:Just before this point, he asked I think he was standing on the back of a train and he asked the people that he was giving a speech to to please pray for him, because it was becoming a tumultuous time. Things were beginning to degrade and fall apart. So he asked people. He said I didn't. I wasn't a Christian. I believe there was a God and I asked these people to pray for me when the country fell apart. There, you know, you've got both sides at war and both sides calling on the same God, and so he you know he recognized this. He said both read the same Bible and both pray to the same God and each invokes his aid against the other. The prayers of both cannot be answered and that neither that of neither will be fully answered. So both sides praying to the same God. God, help us beat the North. The North is praying. God, help us beat the South. You can't have an answered prayer like that. And so we'll get to what he did here in a minute.
Speaker 1:He said when I left home or let me give you another quote. He says I've been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. And so he's a troubled man and a troubled life. I have nowhere else to go. And so I went to my knees and prayed. He said when I left home, I asked the people to pray, but I was not a Christian. When I buried my son the second son, he's lost two now this was the severest trial of his life. He said I prayed, but I still was not a Christian. He said but when I got to Gettysburg, I saw the graves of thousands of soldiers and then, and there, I consecrated my life to Christ. Yes, I do love Jesus. It was the battle at Gettysburg and the death and destruction across that battlefield that he finally consecrated his life to Christ. And he said yes, I do love Jesus. So just before the battle at Gettysburg, he's a troubled man. He recognizes that people are reading the same Bible, they're praying to the same God and they're invoking God against the other side, and that those prayers cannot possibly be answered. And so what he did is he declared he had a proclamation. It was a proclamation of fasting, humiliation and prayer. And it wasn't a prayer God help us beat the other side. It was God help us get on your side. It was God has a side and our nation needs to get on God's side. And so that was his proclamation, that was his prayer for the whole nation let's get on God's side. And as soon as he did that, where he had been losing I think there was something like nine losses to two wins, leading up to this moment where he had the national day of the proclamation of prayer, fasting and humiliation. So he's done that. And then it flipped Two losses, nine wins and the war is over. So that was the turning point of that civil war, when he prayed and said God, we need to get on your side.
Speaker 1:Third one, general Patton, during the Battle of the Bulge. This was a turning point in World War II. We had a line that we had been pushing across. The Allied troops had been pushing across Europe. There was a breakdown in that line where Hitler's troops had come through, the Germans had come through, the line broke through and they pushed about 80 miles to the other side and then they turned around and went back at the line from two directions and so our line of progress was about to be broken and destroyed and the call for help was to General Patton to come and aid these troops at that critical moment, that critical place. And so Patton's on his way.
Speaker 1:Patton was, you know, called Blood and Guts, general Blood and Guts, and he was used to winning, winning, winning, winning, and so he's making his way through. Our tanks that we produced at that time were a substandard quality and size and capability to the German tanks, and so our tanks against their tanks would be a loss. But we put aircraft in the sky and so our aircraft were destroying their tanks and that's how we were able to make so much progress. But there was this terrible weather condition. You know, europe is just a rainy, nasty place in the wintertime and so there was terrible weather and it was wet and soggy and Patton could not advance to that place and he's lamenting Every time he moves from town to town.
Speaker 1:He finds the church in that town that he's just bombed and destroyed and taken over and pushed the Germans out. And he walks into the church and he finds you know, they've got statues all over the church. And he finds a statue of Jesus and he starts giving a battle report to Jesus. Well, jesus, we're beating the Germans over here. We've killed however many over here, we're destroying their tanks. Over here we're having a tougher time. I could really use your help over here. So he's given a battle report, making his appeals to Jesus from town to town.
Speaker 1:He's a praying man. For all his faults, he's a praying man. And so you know he's having this weather condition and he's struggling with this. And he asks one of his chaplains, the head of the chaplains. He said do we have a prayer for weather? And the chaplain says I'll check. He didn't know. So he comes back to him, said, sir, we don't have a prayer for weather, but I'll write one. And he said well, patton says well, do our troops pray?
Speaker 1:Does our military pray? He said well, of course they do. They're in foxholes. There's no atheists in foxholes, they're all praying. He said, no, do they all pray? Are they praying? Do they have the same voice? In other words, are they praying the same thing? Are they in one accord, praying for the same thing? Are they united in prayer? And the answer is no, we don't have that. And so what happens? Patton writes a prayer. He puts a prayer card out to 250,000 troops so that they would pray with the same voice, pray in one accord, pray the same thing.
Speaker 1:And one of the lines out of that prayer? At the end of it he said that, armed with thy power, we may advance from victory to victory and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish thy justice among men and nations. In other words, we're getting on God's side and we're appealing to God for help. In his personal prayer he's praying to Jesus. He said if you'll give me four days of good weather, I will send so many Germans to heaven that your bookkeepers won't be able to keep up. So he asked for four days of good weather. He was granted six, and in the six days of clear skies they pushed the Germans back, turned the tide of the battle and the end result is we won and defeated that military. It was an evil time, evilness, evil time, evilness, evil time.
Speaker 1:One of the things that led up to George Washington and our side declaring independence from Great Britain was a revival George Whitefield. George Whitefield started off in Great Britain and he's a revivalist, but he comes to America and he's preaching up and down the East Coast and by the time he had lived his life and preached his last breath, 80% of Americans had heard his voice. And how is that possible without the internet, without television, without radio? 80% of Americans literally heard his voice. Benjamin Franklin was so enthralled with his voice that he's stepping off, trying to understand. How does this voice carry the way it does? Benjamin Franklin, being the scientist, is trying to understand how far the sound travels, how fast it's traveling. How can these many people hear? And he was just amazed at this man's booming voice. Eighty percent heard his voice and it was his sermons.
Speaker 1:It was the preacher, the revivalist, preaching these sermons that led to the Declaration of Independence, that led to us having a nation. It began with a revival the Second Great Awakening Charles Finney was a revivalist preached the Second Great Awakening that led to these awakenings. And these revivals did not lead to peaceful times there was a civil war after this to peaceful times. There was a civil war after this, but it required an awakening of people to push back against something that was very evil in that day and recognize that God has a side and people are asleep and we've got to wake up and we've got to be salt and light and help people get onto God's side. And here we are, at the opportunity. I look at this nation, I look at what's just happened in this nation.
Speaker 1:Against impossible odds, we've got a president that won, and not just a little bit. He won the popular vote. He won the electoral vote. Places that were blue are turning red. People are waking up to the nonsense, to the evil of the day. Waking up to the nonsense, to the evil of the day. Forget about the man for a minute, because the man is a tool. There is nothing perfect about Donald Trump. He is not the right. You know, if you want righteousness, you've got to put Jesus in office. But he wasn't on the ballot. But Jezebel was on the ballot this time. So people had to make a choice.
Speaker 1:There is a dividing line and people are waking up. You know there was a dividing line when John the Baptist started preaching. There was a dividing line. He was preaching repentance. He was not a politically correct person. He called them a brood of vipers and he's just insulting as can be and people. They're breaking down to repentance. What shall we do? What shall we do? Repent, bring forth meat worthy of repentance. I'm going to baptize in water, but the one that's coming after me, he's going to baptize with fire from heaven, with the Holy Ghost from heaven. Prepare, ye, the way of the Lord. So Jesus is coming, and what do we ought to be doing is we ought to be preparing the way of the Lord with the voice of a John the Baptist in a day that's dark and evil, and not be worried about what people think about us.
Speaker 1:And so, in all these cases of prayer George Washington, abraham Lincoln, blood and Guts, general Patton they prayed and there was extra time given. There was time to get across the river and escape. There was time to end the war, to end the fighting and to heal a nation and bring people back together. There was six more days to defeat the Germans. And so there was a break in this. And I look at what God did. I look at the mercy of God. They tried to assassinate Donald Trump.
Speaker 1:God saved his life. We've talked about how God saved his life. If he saved his life, could he not also have saved his ear? God did not go. Oh crud, that was so close, we almost lost him. There's a whole message in that right there. But God spared that man's life and he's been marked. His ear has been pierced, he's been marked for life, for the purpose of life, and he's a tool of God. And here we are with an opportunity a little bit more time. We almost lost this nation. We came that close. And so what do we have? We have a little bit more time. What do we need to be doing?
Speaker 1:Proverbs 21, 22 says that a wise man scales the city walls of the mighty and brings down the trusted strongholds. Claire was talking about my God votes a few minutes ago. We never imagined or dreamed that we would be doing what we're doing. God called this church a regional center, talked about governmental authority, legislative authority, executive. We're a church, and God's saying these things about what this church is from an early time and nobody knows what in the world does that mean?
Speaker 1:And now we're taking churches into capitals, into state capitals, into cities of, into the city of the mighty, into the place where the mighty are, where the rulers are. We're bringing pastors and churches and congregations into state capitals across this country and we're tearing down strongholds, things that have been there for a long time, demonic things that need to come down and be torn down, and that's beginning to happen. Those. That's the time of revival. We are not the only answer to revival. We are one piece of this puzzle, but I see the puzzle pieces getting together and becoming assembled in place. And when you assemble puzzle pieces in place, then you start to get to see the picture of what God is doing, and it's spectacular.
Speaker 1:And so a wise man scales the city walls of the mighty and brings down the trusted strongholds. There are some strongholds that need to come down. There are some things that need to crumble in our lives, in our homes, in our local community. I'm not talking about national anymore, I'm talking about your realm of influence. There are things that need to be torn down. There are places where the devil has been operating in our lives, in our workplaces, in our schools, in our areas, in our domain. You know we're charged by God from the beginning of time to subdue the earth and have dominion over it, and then we've neglected it for all this period of time, and now we're in a position where we need to once again subdue, which means to take it by force, because we've lost ground on this thing. We've got to take back what's been stolen. We've got to take back what's been lost and then have dominion or rule over it with the authority that God has given us, and so there are some strongholds that need to come down. People are waking up to this stuff.
Speaker 1:Woke is not as popular as it seemed to be. The whole transgender movement, the idea that a man, a grown man, can call himself a woman and then compete in women's sports against top-tier swimmers, women swimmers and beat them and call himself a champion. I mean that's ludicrous. We don't need to be arguing this stuff, and our side's been arguing, arguing, and when you are, when you argue with an idiot, you start to look like one, and so we got to stop arguing and stop start asserting, start asserting what's right, declaring what's right. We don't argue with them, but let's take back what's been given up, what's been lost.
Speaker 1:You know, there's a reason that the devil is attacking so much the procreation, the identity and the covenant of marriage, the procreation of the man and the woman. A man and a man cannot produce a baby. A woman and a woman cannot produce a baby. We've talked about this stuff before that. When a man and a woman are joined together under the covenant of marriage and become one. Only then can they begin to reflect the full image of God. We're created in His image. We started out as one human, a dom, and God split that into two parts that, under the covenant of marriage, come back together and then we get to exhibit the identity of God, the image of God. And so the devil's attacking that with homosexuality and a man and a man. That's not the image of God. A woman and a woman not the image of God. And you can't procreate, you can't produce a new human spirit, and so he's attacking the procreation, he's attacking the identity. A man thinks he's a woman and calls himself something other than what God created him to be, and a woman, vice versa. The devil is attacking this stuff and he's attacking what God designed the family.
Speaker 1:Claire was looking at this this morning in Genesis 12, 3. God says I will bless those who bless you and I'll curse those who curse you. And in you, talking about Abraham, the covenant that God cut with Abraham, in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And Claire had a revelation moment this morning when Pastor said these words God blesses families. There is blessing in families. Blessings run through families. When people violate what God intended for families when they violate that. There is no blessing in that the devil's been attacking this stuff is no blessing in that the devil's been attacking this stuff. It says the blessing comes through families and the devil's been inspiring alternatives and calling them families. They're counterfeits.
Speaker 1:Two men adopting a baby is not a family. There is no covenant of marriage there. It's a violation, it's a counterfeit, it's wrong. And there is no blessing in that. God blesses families. What's a family? A man and a woman and their procreation. There's a covenant there. It doesn't even have to be their procreation, it can be their adoption. We're brought into the kingdom of God. We're brought in by adoption and through adoption we receive every heavenly blessing. He's our heavenly father by adoption, and so you know there's a covenant. And then there are kids and that's where the blessing is.
Speaker 1:And so you know I'm looking at all this woke stuff and woke by its. Just think about what that is woke. They're calling something awake that's absolutely asleep. It's just a blatant lie. And so you know when I hear this stuff, we have to answer this, but let's not get arguing with this, but let's answer the God of this world, the demonic powers of this world on those issues, and to do that you have to be lit and salty and you can't be worried about what people think about you and what you know. We're drawing a dividing line. John the Baptist warned that he is taking the grain. He's got his winnowing fork in his hand where he would throw up the grain and the chaff blows away and the wheat he gathers up and brings into his barn and everything else gets burned. And so it's a judgment time, it's a separation time, it's identifying whose side you are on. And so we are agents of that. In this time, in this time of revival, we are agents, we're drawing a line, we're bringing people to a point of decision to come over and make a choice whose side they are on.
Speaker 1:And I started the service off by reading Psalm 24, verse 7, lift up your heads, o you, you gates, and be lifted up you everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in. And and I read this this morning, before the morning church service, when we met together as a team in the message bible it says wake up you, sleepy city, wake up you sleepy people. The king of glory is ready to enter. There are people sleeping, there are cities sleeping, and the King of glory is ready to enter and the people are not ready for him to come back. They are not ready for the coming of our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ. We've got to get them ready. That means we've got to be waking people up. Sleepy cities, sleepy people. The King of glory is ready to come in. We've got a lot of work to do.
Speaker 1:Ephesians 5.14,. I don't remember if we got down this far or not, but really it's quoting back to Isaiah. But it says awake you who sleep, arise from the dead and Christ will give you light. I think we did read that earlier. We can't be afraid of what people think, can't be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ and what it says. When we speak these things, they're not our words and you know it'll help us. When we get to a point where you don't have anyone to please except him, then nothing else matters. I can offend the entire world, but if I made God happy, I did good. You know, jesus is called a stone of stumbling and we're stones in that same construction and so we're stones of stumbling for people To one. Well, in Romans 1.16, let's look at a few verses here.
Speaker 1:Romans 1.16 says For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith, and then verse you know we quote that one a lot. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God to do salvation. Verse 18 says For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. There is such a suppression of truth in unrighteousness today, and the wrath of God is being revealed against that. You know, to one, we're a fragrance, and this comes out of 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14.
Speaker 1:Now, thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ and through us diffuses a fragrance of his knowledge in every place. And so when we live our life and we're light and we're salt and we're going and we're not ashamed of the gospel of Christ and we tell people, you know, hey, that's wrong, that's not right. No, you can't be in this bathroom space. No, you can't compete with my daughter on her sports team. You are a grown man. You cannot do that. That is not right. You're a bigot, you're a hater. Call me whatever you need to, but that's not right. When you're speaking the truth, it's a dividing line and through us, you're diffusing.
Speaker 1:And on Christ's side, it says now, thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ. In other words, we're in a position. He's leading us in the win. We're on the field playing the game and he's leading our team and he's leading us in that win. Another touchdown for Jesus. Go ahead and spike the football. He's leading us in the wins here, but we can't be afraid to play the game.
Speaker 1:And along the way, we're diffusing a fragrance of his knowledge in every place. And so that we can't exclude we can't do this in some places and exclude some other places. We can't say, ooh, I can't do that in my workplace. Ooh, I can't do that in school. Ooh, I can't do that in the state Capitol. Ooh, I can't do that in the grocery store. I mean, name the place.
Speaker 1:It says every place. We're to diffuse a fragrance of his knowledge in every place. And then it says in verse 15, for we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. So there are two groups of people that are detecting the fragrance that we are diffusing in every place. The one group is those being saved. So people are going to detect the fragrance that we're diffusing in every place and they're going to get saved. And then there's another group that's perishing. They're going to be like, oh, I can't stand that. And they go the other way and they're perishing. Some are going to get saved, some are going to perish, and it's not for us to really be that concerned with it, because we are to bring the truth, to be His emissaries, to speak the truth in love. But people have a choice and we draw the line and say get on God's side and they're going to do it or not. But we've got to go on.
Speaker 1:The time is so short. We've been given a little bit of extra time and the time is so short. There is no time to waste. There's no time to relax. There's no time to celebrate a win and say, oh, president Trump's in office, everything is good, we're going to get our country back, everything's right with the world today. Oh, my state legislator, he's a Christian. We're going to be just fine. The job is so critical and so urgent right now. Blessed are those. When the master comes, he finds us watching and doing our job, not celebrating a win because we prayed and we got a few extra days and we think it's over. It is not time to celebrate.
Speaker 1:In all those cases of prayer, there were a lot more battles that were fought. After that. They were led in triumph in Christ. We got on the other side. We got some wins, but we don't stop playing the game. We have a little bit more time and it is so critical that we keep playing this game all the way through the end, verse 16,.
Speaker 1:So this is 2 Corinthians 2, 16. To the one, we are an aroma of death leading to death, and to the other, an aroma of life leading to life. And then Paul writes this. He said and who is sufficient for these things? Which one of us? We're leading some people to death and some people to life. Who is sufficient to do this?
Speaker 1:Well, the answer comes in the next chapter, in chapter 3, verse 5. He says not that we are sufficient ourselves to think anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also has made us sufficient ministers of the new covenant. Every one of you is a sufficient minister of the new covenant. It's not because of anything you did. It's not because you're a super great speaker or you have any wonderful talents, but because God is. Your sufficiency comes from God, who made you sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not as the letter. Not of the letter, but of the spirit, where we are lit by the Holy Spirit, for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. So we've got to stay lit and keep speaking His Word, lit by the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:Be that light that shines in every place and have words of hope, words of truth. Some of these words of truth are going to be hard. Some of them are going to be. You know why are you judging me? I am not judging you. You know, if you made up your own words about somebody and you, that's, that's you judging them, but you're not judging when you're speaking God's word about that.
Speaker 1:God said that's wrong. God said we can't be allowing this nonsense. It's wrong, and so we're not going to allow it anymore. We're taking back that ground. We're not putting up with it. We'll have more of what we allow. And he's given us the authority out of Matthew 16, 18 and 19. We have the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatsoever things you bind on earth or allow on earth will be allowed in the heavenly realm. Whatsoever things you loose on earth will be loosed in the heavenly realm. Whatsoever things you bind and loose here on earth has a corresponding spiritual effect in the spiritual realm. It binds and looses things in the spiritual realm. When we do things in the natural, there is a corresponding effect right there. And so now is the time you got to understand what the times are right now and recognize we are in a window of opportunity. It was God's mercy and we have a little bit more time. We asked for four days. I hope he gave us six days. We have a little bit more time. We asked for four days. I hope he gave us six days. We have a little bit more time.
Speaker 1:Do you think General Patton celebrated on the battlefield? Oh, we got good weather. Let's break, let's have some lunch, let's have a feast. We're going to have a celebration feast today. He didn't do that. He had the gas pedal on those tanks down to the floorboard, planes were taken off and going to the air. They were dropping bombs. They were getting mean, getting dirty, getting ugly and getting the job done, destroying the enemy. There's an enemy that needs to be destroyed. He's in our community, he's in our schools, he's in churches. Is he in your family? Have we given up ground in our own families? Take it back. Don't put up with this nonsense anymore.
Speaker 1:The time is now, and it's such a short period of time. I don't know how much time we have, but I'm so grateful for God's mercy. He gave us a little bit more time, and so we got to be busy so that we can be blessed when he comes and finds us so doing. I don't know when he's coming, none of us know. We're on the edge of a revival, and so let's get caught reviving everyone we can around us, breathing life into them, shining light in places that were once dark. Stay lit. Have an answer for the hope that lies within. Be salty. Don't worry about offending. It's not you who are offending. People get offended at the word. They get offended at Jesus. The same Jesus that they can get offended at can also give them eternal life. It's their choice, and so let's get busy, stay lit and stay salty, and let's get this done.