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
Apostolic Lifestyle
What if the key to personal growth and faith development lies in understanding the Word of God as the world changes around us? Join us on a transformative journey as we explore the significance of this spiritual milestone year, drawing insights from 2 Corinthians and 1 Timothy. Discover what it means to live an apostolic lifestyle, overcoming the challenges of carnality and embracing your divine role as both king and priest in God's kingdom.
Wave your Bibles around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad. We're going to get into the Word together. Let's say this together Say Heavenly Father, I thank you for your holy written Word. Lord, you've magnified your Word, above all your name, and I thank you for it. Give me eyes to see, ears to hear and understanding in my spirit, so that my faith will grow and be anchored in your holy word about all the things that are before us this year. In Jesus name, amen. Let's look at second Corinthians, chapter 10, and then first Timothy, chapter one.
Speaker 1:If you were not here this morning, I urge you to get the media and listen to the message, and I read the prophetic word that I delivered on the morning of January the 5th, the word for our church. This is the year of milestones, and I read the prophecy and we preached about how I got that, and so you need to know. If you weren't here, you need to hear everything I said about it. And this message tonight is entitled the Apostolic Lifestyle. The Apostolic Lifestyle, and it's meat, so you're going to have to chew some meat. I'm going to try to cut it up into bite-sized pieces so you can just kind of think about maybe a steak finger basket at Dairy Queen. I'm going to try it. I can't cut it all the way up in little tiny pieces, but I can get it in steak finger form and then you'll have to do some chewing. Okay, can y'all know how to chew on the Word and get it in steak finger form, and then you'll have to do some chewing. Okay, can y'all y'all know how to chew on the word and get it into you? Amen, it's called meditate. But also I wanted to say that we're going to have on the app. The church app is going to under events.
Speaker 1:I think Claire said there is a link that you can click on and you can go to the prophecy and you can. Uh, is it printed? Is it a printed thing that they get or is it an audio file? I can't hear you. Okay, pdf, so you could print it out, possibly. Okay, but I want you, I want you to get that, because faith, you know we need to have, we need to anchor our faith. This year, the year of milestones, god wants to do some milestone things in your life. Plus, it's a milestone year anyway, our 30th year. We're going to celebrate next Sunday.
Speaker 1:2 Corinthians, chapter 10, did you find it? Verse 1. 2 Corinthians, chapter 10, did you find it, verse 1, now I, paul myself, beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ who, in presence, am based among you, but in being absent I'm bold toward you, but I beseech you that you may not be bold when I am present, with that confidence wherewith I think to be bold against some which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. You know they were critical of Paul. You know Paul was. You know he's correcting them.
Speaker 1:They're carnal, he told them in the first letter you're carnal, you're body ruled. The word carnal means body ruled. You let your flesh run you, and that's the biggest enemy of the church's being able to do what it's supposed to do. I'm talking about the church. The body of Christ is carnality. Carnality can never do the will of God, it can never please God, and so the church exists to get rid of carnality and to mature the believer. So he's saying this but though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they're not of the flesh, but they are mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ and having in a readiness to revenge, all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. That sounds kind of ominous there.
Speaker 1:That last verse, we'll get into it later. I'll give you a different NLT version of verse six. All right, and then first Timothy, chapter one. We had this morning on 2025, the year of milestones, and I'll read it to you again. Paul is writing to his son in the faith. And uh, first Timothy, chapter one, verse 18, this charge the word charge means mandate. This mandate I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that you, by them, might war a good warfare. There's that phrase again war a good warfare, war a good warfare. So the apostolic lifestyle.
Speaker 1:So I teach frequently on the apostolic, because this is a house of royalty and majesty, it's an apostolic house with a prophetic river. Apostolic just simply means sent. I made this point this morning. Did Jesus say go? Jesus said go. So we simply means sent. I made this point this morning. Did Jesus say go? Jesus said go. So we've been sent. So the entire church, the entire body of Christ, is an apostolic work. Jesus is the apostle and high priest of our profession. We are apostles. We've been sent to change things. We've been sent to be salt and light. We've been sent to preach the. We've been sent to be salt and light. We've been sent to preach the good news all over the world, not just in some parts, but all parts, the political part. You know, I made these points this morning and so I like to teach on the apostolic, because a lot of people, just you know, they've never heard it, they don't know about it, they're kind of intimidated by it, frank, you know, and really it has to do with being a king and a priest.
Speaker 1:The book of Revelation said we're kings and priests unto God. Jesus is the king of kings. Who's he the king of? He's the king of our. We're the kings, he's king of. We're the Lord's, he's Lord of. And so in that we have a domain. Kings don't beg, kings don't ask, kings make declarations, kings make demands. You know what the king says goes, and so, yes, we're not the king, we're under him. But you know, the church needs to take a more active role in releasing authority, god's authority, and of course it's all subject to the Word of God. We can't just make it up in our carnality. See, that's why carnality is so bad, because people try to they say God told me, but really God didn't tell them, their flesh told them, circumstances told them, amen. So GWC is a regional center with governmental authority.
Speaker 1:He let me know that a year and a half into this work, I mean I'm just innocent, you know, went behind the ear of pastor, just started pastoring. I mean I'm getting my feet wet real quick. I mean it's like you know, get encountering a hornet's nest on a 20-foot ladder. You know there's no place to go. You know, when you come, you're on a 20-foot ladder and you come face to face with a hornet's nest, I I mean you're in deep problem. You got deep problem.
Speaker 1:I knew a guy that I went to Lakewood with for years and years and that's what happened to him. You know, bless his heart, he's a general contractor but somehow, someway, somebody didn't show up on the job and he gets up on a 20-foot ladder and gets into a bunch of hornets and he falls off that ladder and to a bunch of hornets and they, he falls off that ladder and I mean he, he fell on the sidewalk and he died four months later and I just thought what a waste. I mean golly, there's no way I'm going to get on a 20 foot ladder. I don't care what I have. I don't even get on a step stool anymore. I mean I stay on the ground. You know what I mean At 78, I just don't think I need to get on a ladder for any reason. But anyway, all right.
Speaker 1:But we have a governmental authority. I mean, when I saw that, when I saw that vision of a star and I thought about Marshall Dillon, I thought about Matt Dillon, I mean I'm, I confess I mean that's, and I looked at that badge. It looked like a badge. It looked like a marshal's badge. Like you know, I like gun smoke. I watched all the gun smoke episodes.
Speaker 1:When I was a kid I had my own cap pistol. It looked exactly like a .45. They outlawed those. They were manufactured in Texas I can't remember the town up in East Texas. They made them and I'm telling you they looked exactly like a .45 that Wyatt Earp or anybody would draw out of a holster. And I had one when I was six years old, and people you know hold up convenience stores and banks and everything else and they were just a cap pistol. They look
Speaker 1:so real. But anyway, I saw that Marshall's badge and I thought what am I seeing? What are you saying? We're a new sheriff in town. I kind of chuckled I shouldn't have chuckled. I mean, this is a vision I'm having, I don't know. I just didn't even know where. I was there for a minute and then that thing came and lit down just right there in the center section. That's how big it was on a five-acre piece of land. I was looking for the church, to buy some land to build a church on, and then away. I zoomed up way up in the sky till that circle with a star became like a mark on a capital, on a map that you'd see over Austin or even Washington DC. And I thought what are you saying, lord? Are you saying you're going to make Glorious Way a capital? And he just said regional center. And as I prayed about that regional center, he let me know I came out
Speaker 1:of one. I talk about this in the message this morning, so get the message and you hear all the rest of this that I'm talking about. But I'm talking about, you know, here all these years later now, from 1996 to 2025. What are we doing? We're having? We're planting the flag of heaven in state capitals all across the country. I believe we're going to go from sea to shining sea. I think we're going to go all the way to Greenland. Maybe Greenland will be part. Maybe Canada will be the 51st state. The Gulf of America I like the way it sounds Gulf of America Pretty cool. They'll sell a whole lot of new maps. All the new maps will have to be reprinted. Your iPhone will have to get updated because it says there on Google Maps Gulf of Mexico. It'll be Gulf
Speaker 1:of America. So Paul here speaks of war and warfare here in verse 4 of 2 Corinthians, chapter 10. And he's telling the Corinthian church he said you know I've got, you know I'm in the flesh, but I don't war after the flesh In 2 Corinthians 10, verse 4. So the word war is a. Let's start with warfare, verse 4. 2 Corinthians 10. The weapons of my warfare are not carnal, they're not of the flesh. Word warfare there means it's a greek word stratia. It means military service. It means an expedition, a campaign. It means an apostolic lifestyle or career. An apostolic lifestyle or career Look notice how apostolic is is linked to military. See, the body of Christ is the army of the Lord, he's the captain of the hosts. I mean, you can't get away. You know Paul told in
Speaker 1:one verse. He said you know, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. You know, paul called us soldiers of Jesus Christ. We're soldiers of the cross. We're in the army. That's why it's so silly for us to choose a church in the flesh. We ought to go where we're assigned. You in the army, you don't get to choose the general. You don't get to choose the platoon or the company or anything else. You're assigned buddy, and you better do what you're told. And yet in America, you know, we have such freedom, we float around just whatever we want to do. I'm tired of that church. I've heard everything he's got. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to do a bunch of grasshoppers. That's not what God wants. That's not what God wants. That's not in order. No, that's not what God wants. That's not in order, no, no, we're living an apostolic lifestyle and so it implies hardship and danger. You know. That's why he said endure hardness as a good soldier. You know, you're a soldier. You get into things that are just tough on
Speaker 1:the battlefield. I think about Patton man. He had a hundred mile march in the wintertime to move to Bastogne. He went from one battle to another battle in the no hot food, no hot, nothing, a hundred miles. Why did they do it? Because they were afraid of him. They didn't do it because they loved their country. They didn't do it because they loved anything. They did it because he ordered them to do it. See, where's the fear of God? See, where is it? Where is the fear of God? See? I don't think that we ought to be afraid of God, but we ought to be afraid to disobey him. We ought to pray enough to know where we belong. That's my point. So we're going to have a new members class coming up in early February so people can discover where God has ordered them. I mean, I just want the people that belong here, I want the people that are assigned to me. That's what
Speaker 1:I want. So, and then he says that we might war, a good warfare. Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. Verse 3,. That word is a verb war, stratuomi. It's kin to stratia and it means to serve in a military campaign to execute the apostolate or the apostolic with its arduous duties and functions. It means to contend with carnal inclinations. So this warfare, then, is not really it's not even really warfare against demons, so much as it is warfare against wrong thinking in the saints and, yes, in
Speaker 1:society too. Yeah, like what's been going on with the woke business and all of the stuff about the COVID. They found out every single thing was a lie. Everything, the masks, everything, that includes the jabs it was a lie. It's still a lie. It's a lie. It's not a vaccine, it's experimental gene therapy. So if you take the jab, you're giving your body over to this gain of function research which Biden just funded a whole bunch of billions of dollars for more. What is gain of function? Gain of function is finding out how viruses can be engineered to affect human beings. It's germ warfare, folks, is what it really is. And we funded it. We gave all of the results to China and they made it there. It's really an act of war, is what it is. But we, the Democrats, allowed it All of our letter agencies, national Institute of Health, fauci he's a multi-billionaire because of it. It's all about the money, folks. So we're here to confront that. Are you with me now To contend with carnal inclinations, in other words things that are of
Speaker 1:the flesh. Verse 4, strongholds, pulling down strongholds. What's a stronghold? It's the Greek word okiroma. It means fortress or castle. Sometimes things can be put in your mind so strong, and then it's my experience that demons play a part in that and that they put it, the thought. See, it's in reverse order. He pulls down strongholds, casts down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the night, every thought. So thoughts become imaginations, and if you don't deal with the imagination, it becomes a stronghold, it becomes a fortress. Demons are able to cement it into place to where you can talk to somebody all day and they think they're a woman in a man's body. Why? Because they have got a stronghold. Their only way to get that out of there is they've got to get delivered from that demonic power and then they've got to be persuaded,
Speaker 1:and it's. You know, time is running out, folks, and if we're going to allow this to be propagated through our medical people and propagated through our government, and propagated through our military, and propagated through the Department of Education into our schools and to our libraries, you can see where we have just lost control and the spirit of this age has invaded. And whose fault is it? Well, it ain't God's, so it must be ours. We didn't do the job. We read our Bibles and we just go over that. We haven't been taught, we haven't been shown what the
Speaker 1:truth is. So, imaginations, what are those? Well, a logismos logic. Imaginations, what are those? Well, a logismos logic. Reasonings, thoughts, arguments, mindsets in ourselves and others. All right, let's keep your place there and let's turn over to 2
Speaker 1:Corinthians 4.4. And let's look at this, verse 3, 2 Corinthians 4, verse 3. And Paul is talking again and he's saying but if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. In whom? The God of this world, or we could say more correctly, the God of this age, the God of this age has blinded the minds of them lest they receive the glorious gospel of Christ. So the reason why people don't get saved is because the God of this age has blinded their minds. Yeah, pastor, I believe that devil, that's right. The devil is the God of this age. Well, yeah, but it's really not the devil. The devil is the God of this age, that's true, but that's not what the Greek here is saying. That's why you need a concordance, that's why you need teaching. That's why you need to get the real truth of it. I mean, we just say the devil, the devil, the devil, then we're not zeroing in on exactly what the God of this
Speaker 1:age is. Let's find out, because I've got a Greek book, the Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament. I'm not a Greek scholar, but the guys that wrote that is a whole bunch of Greek scholars and this is what they say about the God of this age. Listen to what it is. It's all that floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, hopes, impulses, aims and aspirations at any time current in the world. Now, see, now you can really begin to see these ideas, these aspirations, these lies about gender bender and all of this transgender stuff and all of this COVID stuff. You just look at it. Look at really just liberalism
Speaker 1:in general. I kind of laugh at all the feminazis. You know the feminazis. They said, oh, women, we're just equal to men, we can do it all we want back in the labor force, we want to be paid the same amount of money we want to. And then they weren't satisfied when they got on the labor force. They kept working and they're not really designed to work in corporate America. I mean they have nervous breakdowns, their families fall apart. There's no mother there. They're not designed. They're designed to be mothers. They're designed by God to be the queen of
Speaker 1:the house. Now, if you're a career woman, I'm not criticizing you. I'm saying where we went wrong as a society, because what was it? It was the God of this age and we let it happen. The church went along with it. Are you with me now? I'm not criticizing you. You'd go ahead and be a career woman, but at least understand the danger that you have in doing that. You're going to have to balance some things in your life because you can't just quit being a mama. You can't be. You can't quit being a wife that's molded after your husband, to support him. That's what your, your purpose. Your meat for him, m E E T, appropriate for him. You support him. Well, if you've got your own career, then you've got this attitude. See, I've seen it. I mean this attitude. You know it gets in the church, you know, and it's got all this. And so now you keep going and
Speaker 1:keep going. Well, we want equal sports. Okay, they got equal sports. Now they don't have equal fan base. The fan base is not real big on watching girls play anything. So you don't have a. You do not have 105,000 screaming fans watching girls do anything. You do have them watching guys play football at A&M. They pack the stadium out every week, and so what happens to the girls? Well, I think girls ought to be able to compete and I think girls ought to have really good facilities, but the money's got to come from the boys. Well, okay, we'll do that. Okay, that's what we've been doing there
Speaker 1:for now. All of a sudden. Now we had this attitude all along we're just as good, we want to be firefighters. We're just as able. We're just as strong. We need to be able to be on the police force. We need to be on. We need to be firefighters. That's what we should be able to do. We
Speaker 1:should be. I'm a 98 pound girl, but I should be able to go and fight a fire. I can fight a fire just as well as anybody else, but you can't haul me out. Especially five years ago, when I weighed 50 pounds heavier than I am now, you would not be able to haul me out of a fire. I would not be comforted if I saw a 98-pound firefighter woman trying to lift me out of a burning house. I would want the big guy, I would want the biggest, strongest guy. See, you see how crazy
Speaker 1:this is. It went on and now what we've got? We've sown that seed and now we've got men dressed like women, competing in girls' sports and beating the living daylights out of them. And now, all of a sudden, women are, it dawned on them. They are stronger, they are meaner, they do hit harder about the Olympics. And the girl that got hit by the transgender, you know, and she'd never been hit like that. She refused to. I don't blame her. I wouldn't want to box
Speaker 1:him either. I've watched a lot of women's MMA. I like I've converted from boxing to MMA. I like MMA. You can judge me if you want to. I watch it all I can. And I see women came on the scene a few years ago and I was interested to see how they do. But they are nothing like a man. They do not have the strength in their, in their punching power or anything else. They're real athletic against each other, but they're no match for a man. Are you kidding? You might die in there. So isn't it kind of see? This all comes from the spirit of Antichrist. Are you with me now the God of
Speaker 1:this age. So Paul's apostolic anointing was sent to destroy false apostles and teachers. He confronted those. It's an anointing wrong mindsets. They had the wrong mindset in churches Even in his day. We've had wrong mindsets in churches this day. We were sent to confront the wrong mindsets. We
Speaker 1:stayed open. During COVID we sued the governor. We refused to be. See, that's apostolic. It's apostolic to go and have capital worship. And now it's not even that hard to find people to agree with us. I mean, at first it was kind of hard, but now, man, people are just, they're excited as soon as they hear about it. See, god's moving. I'm telling you right on the edge of a great revival in this country. But let's keep in mind that warning that God issued right on New Year's Eve. I mean, we can't get complacent. We've got to strike while the iron is hot. We've got to make hay while the
Speaker 1:sun shines. Now let's look at verse 6 in 2 Corinthians, chapter 10, that problematic verse that looks kind of ominous. He said I'm going to punish you. You mess with me. I'm going to come back and punish you. That sounds kind of ooh. What does that mean, boy? That doesn't sound like church. Where's the love? Where's the love? Remember what his purpose is. He's an apostle. He's sent to destroy. Isn't that what Jesus did? Jesus was always destroying religion. He was destroying carnal religion and religious thinking all the time. He would do a miracle and contrast it with their stupid traditions and poke his finger right in their eye and they'd get so mad. You know, when he stood up on in Luke 4, 18, and when he entered the ministry at 30 years old 30 is a ministry age. See, this church is coming into its own at its 30th year, just like
Speaker 1:Jesus did. Jesus stood in his own hometown. He said the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor and so forth, five different kinds of people. This day is this scripture fulfilled. In your hearing? What was that? He was doing? Warfare for the word. And then he sat down in Messiah's chair. They didn't like it. They got mad and they tried to throw him off the brow of the hill. I've been right there. I've been right there to see that cliff. It's a long fall down there. They wanted to throw him off the brow of the hill and he just walked. He probably disappeared. But verse six, and I'm gonna read it out of the NLT. Let me read it in the King James and having a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. Listen to the NLT and after you have become fully obedient, we will punish everyone who remains disobedient. So we've been warned, and let's be obedient to
Speaker 1:God's warning. Let's be persuaded that those lightning bolts hitting those places of renown in our country Think about the Empire State Building. For many decades it was the tallest building and of course, they surpassed it with the Twin Towers. They were the tallest for the longest time. Now the One World Trade Center is not even the tallest. I think the tallest is over in Indonesia, or maybe I don't know Abu Dhabi, I don't know. They've got some tall buildings out in the, in the Muslim world. I mean, why'd they do that? Well, they doing that because they have pride. They want to build the tallest. It's a symbol of an, of national pride is what it is. And so, when the twin towers fell, what did we say? We quoted Isaiah 9-11. You know, the bricks have fallen down, but we're going to rebuild with stone. We're going to build bigger, we're going to build
Speaker 1:back taller. We shook our fist at God as a nation. When 9-11 happened, we did not repent. We did not ask how this could happen. God, what is we need to repent? See back in the old time, the church. Whenever there was a tornado or there was a flood or any kind of natural disaster, they always repented. They always went to God and and they repented of their sin. They asked God to forgive them because they depended on God to hold back these kinds of extremes. And when those extremes hit and did damage and especially somebody died, that was the way the church was wired back in the
Speaker 1:frontier days. But we've been so sophisticated now we don't even think about that. We don't even think about how God you mean God allowed it. Well, yeah, god allowed it. He's the only defense we have. He's the only one. We can't defend ourselves. You can forget about this iron dome. Yeah, that's great. I'm glad to hear about it. I don't know how many trillion dollars that's going to cost, but you know what would help. Better is if we just all repented and had a revival and we get back to one nation under God. I think our president's got that in mind. But amen, are y'all with me now? So he's pleading with them now and letting them know so that he doesn't have to punish them later. Well, pastor, I don't understand this. Well, there's lots of examples. How about Acts, chapter five, ananias and Sapphira? You ever read that chapter in your Bible? What did they do wrong? Well, they lied about an offering In the early church when Jews
Speaker 1:got saved. Many times they were disinherited and disowned by their families. If they lived in a family house, if mom and dad owned that house, they'd get kicked out of it. They're homeless now. They don't have any inheritance. They're persecuted for their beliefs. It's the same people that said crucify him. Crucify him. You know. You've got to understand who you're talking about. These people are rabid antichrist and their own kids suffered. And it's still that way today. I mean, that's why baptism is so important. When you baptize a Muslim buddy, his family turns against him. They don't mind a lot of things. But if you get baptized, man, that is the. That's the point that cuts the same with Jews. They'll allow you to talk about Jesus and all that. But if you get baptized as a Christian, you're disowned
Speaker 1:and disinherited. So the Holy Ghost moved on the early church and they all decided we're going to be a supply to these folks. They're part of us and they're hurting and we're going to go sell our houses and we're going to go sell our lands and we're going to go sell our houses, we're going to go sell our lands and we're going to bring the price of those things and we're going to lay it to apostles' feet and distribution is going to be made to everybody. Did they give it to everybody in the whole? No, they gave it to the church, people that needed help, and Ananias and Sapphira did the same thing, except that they didn't bring the entire price. They decided you know we don't have faith to do the whole thing. Ann, nice, I mean golly. You know I've been saving for a new Mercedes and we can't give the whole thing. Come on, let's get a grip. How about? Let's just tell them we gave it all but we'll keep back part
Speaker 1:of it? Well, how did Peter know that? Peter knew it by the Spirit. They acted like that. The Holy Ghost didn't know. Do you understand that, in the early church, for them to put that signal out there, that the Holy Ghost doesn't know what we say when we're alone? How damaging that was to the church. How damaging that was to
Speaker 1:the church. And so the Holy Ghost alerted Peter and said they didn't give it all. See, they didn't have to give it all. They didn't have to lie. They could have said look, we don't have the faith to give it all, we're just going to give this amount. Nobody would have said anything. Nobody had a gun to their head saying they had to give it all. But they wanted credit for giving it all and not give it all. Are y'all getting
Speaker 1:me there? So then, so you know, ananias Sapphira comes in and says hey, sapphira, let me ask you a question. Did you sell your property for this amount? She said yeah, and what? How in the world could you lie? You didn't lie to me. You lied to the Holy Ghost. She dropped dead right in his presence. And then her husband comes in a little while later and he asked him the question See, they had a chance to get, they had a chance to repent. They had a chance to get it right. You know, I'm so sorry. You're right, and I can't imagine why we did that. Please forgive us. Oh don't, there's no fear of God. They didn't have the fear of God. How would you like to be in the health ministry that's in the burial detail? I mean, they wound them up and buried them. I mean carried them out Another place talking about punishing
Speaker 1:Acts 13. I think sometimes we have way too. We have misplaced mercy on some folks. You have to think like God thinks Acts 13. Think like God thinks
Speaker 1:Acts 13. There was a guy by the name of Elamus the sorcerer who had bewitched the entire province where Paul was ministering. That means he's into witchcraft, the occult Very common, and he was trying to stop the governor of the province from being saved. And Paul turned to him and said you, enemy of righteousness, you child of the devil, will you not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now, behold, thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. Now, it wasn't permanent. He didn't strike him blind permanently. He said you're going to be blind. For what
Speaker 1:A season. And they had to get people to lead him off by the hand. He couldn't see nothing, he couldn't see. His hand in front of his face in broad daylight, struck blind right in front of everybody. And I'm telling you, the fear of the Lord multiplied and I mean that place got. They had a revival there. I mean people got saved and they got rid of this demonic power. See, this power was a demonic power that had to be confronted and defeated and removed from the scene so that the gospel, he could quit blinding the minds of the people that he had deceived. Are y'all with me now? He had to be punished. They didn't pray for him. Well, brother, I'm going to have to pray for you. No, he didn't pray for me. He pronounced judgment on him and of course it was really. That's mercy, because now he's still alive and he can come to grips with what just happened to him. He's blind and he's got some time to think. Alive and he can come to grips with what just happened to him. He's blind and he's got some time to think now and he can repent. We don't know whether he ever repented it doesn't say whether he repented or not but if he did, he could have had his
Speaker 1:sight restored. Possibly First Corinthians, chapter five, there's a young man that's coming to church with his mother-in-law Having an open affair, adulterous affair, with his mother-in-law. Such sin has not even been named among the heathen. And how dare you, paul wrote in his letter, how dare you allow that to go on? Don't you know a little leaven leaveneth a whole lump? And how dare you, paul wrote in his letter how dare you allow that to go on, don't you know? A little leaven leaveneth a whole lump. Why did you not rather hand him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit might be saved in the day of judgment? Because, see, if he keeps going down this road and he keeps going down this road, at some point he is saved. But at some point he's going to get hardened through the deceitfulness of this terrible sin and he's going to finally
Speaker 1:reject Christ. You know, you can get unsaved. You can make a decision to turn your back on Jesus. Well, how could that ever happen? You can finally get the thought moved into an imagination and finally give enough place to the devil to get that imagination into a stronghold, a castle, a fortress in your brain, in your mind. And now you decide in your own mind you know I don't need Jesus, I don't want Jesus, I'm not going to live this
Speaker 1:life anymore. And before he would get a chance to do that, let's turn him over to Satan to give him some trouble and get his attention. See, it's really mercy. It's what I call the velvet hammer. That's what I call it. I call it the velvet hammer. I mean, you know it's, it's mercy in disguise. I mean, really, he didn't die. He didn't say, you know, turn him over and kill him. No, he said, he said turn him over Satan. And we don't know what Satan did to him. Did he afflict his thinking? Did he have trouble sleeping at night? Did he, did he get some kind of disease? We don't know, doesn't say. But we know in the second letter that he said okay, y'all let him back in. See, he repented, it worked, it
Speaker 1:worked. See. This is why we have such trouble in churches, because nobody knows what kind of authority the church has to deal with this kind of thing. What's better for somebody to just backslid all the way till they're out of the kingdom, or could we punish people to a degree where they learn better? Are y'all with me now? Y'all are looking at me really woo, it's in the Bible and we could go in. 3 John. John talks about diatrophies. He's gonna learn not to blaspheme. I'm gonna teach him Makes. You wonder what John's going to do when he
Speaker 1:sees him. 1 Timothy 1.20, paul mentions two people. In fact, we were right there. Let's turn over there real quick, talking about the apostolic confronts and pulls down demonically inspired reasoning and arguments supernaturally. So he told Timothy, gave him the charge that you might war, a good warfare, holding verse 19, holding faith in a
Speaker 1:good conscience. Some, having put away concerning faith, have made shipwreck, and I'll give you a couple examples. Their names are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. So there you go. There's punishment. Is it permanent? No, it's designed for them to repent. It's designed for them not to go to hell eventually if they keep blaspheming. I mean, look, you can tempt the devil, but when you start tempting God, you're going to lose every time. Don't tempt God by your attitude of oh, I'm saved, nothing, I can do anything. God will forgive me one of these days. That kind of attitude is dangerous. And so
Speaker 1:the apostolic. And so what are our main weapons? I hope you're getting something. Are you getting anything out of this tonight? Well, I told you it was a steak finger basket. So all I can do is bring you the steak fingers and you're going to have to cut them up and eat them, be sure, and dip them in the gravy. Gravy's good, I still eat those after all these years. They're not as good as they used to be, but they're. They're make All After all these years. They're not as good as they used to be, but they'll make it All right. So two
Speaker 1:main weapons. Number one let's look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 2. Oh rabba katah satavadikea, praise God. This ties into my message this morning. It's why I'm dwelling on it. I don't preach it that often. Like I say, it's kind of it's meat and maybe you've never heard it. You might be kind of whew, but chew on it
Speaker 1:a while. First Corinthians, chapter two, verse four Paul's writing to the same church, corinthian church. He said my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and power that your faith might not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. So his preaching to this carnal church. They were carnal, they were body rule. They had factions, they had, they had cliques. They had, you know, and they would brag. Well, paul baptized me, and so you know, I was baptized, this guy baptized. Now, they were they. They had a pecking order in their church and there was a lot that the Corinthian church came out of an occult culture. Their culture was occultish. They knew the spirit realm. They were acquainted with demon powers and used them on a regular basis. That's what you have to understand. And so, paul, when he came to them, he had to preach with demonstration. Demon straightened Demons got straightened and pulled out of people. When he preached, he had demonstration, he had signs and wonders and miracles, so that would give him a standing with the people, that they would begin to see that God's power was superior to the power of the enemy. And now they're on a point of decision. They've got to decide are you going to leave that life behind you? And some did and some didn't. And so therefore, you know he's got to teach them, he's got to show them what kind of church they are. And so, preaching the word or the truth with demonstration See, this proves what I'm saying is correct. Look at this person they just got delivered. Look at this person he just
Speaker 1:got healed. Demonstration of the Spirit is what is lacking in the modern church. We have these big churches that have no miracles, they have no supernatural, they have no Holy Ghost at all. It's sterile. And so then it's susceptible then to arguments and reasonings. And you know, it's just woke. It just invades a church like that and takes over and people are unable to really tell the difference between really right and wrong, good and evil. Because of what? Because of this stronghold they've got. So that's what, right and wrong, good and evil. Because of what? Because of this stronghold. So that's what is supernatural, what we do, the word that I'm preaching tonight is supernatural. It can go into someone and it can destroy that imagination or that
Speaker 1:stronghold, even. And then the second weapon we have which is supernatural and that's prayer, and that includes praise, yeah, petition, asking God for things. Crying out is prayer. Cry out the cry of faith. Praying in the Holy Ghost, praying in the Spirit that's what I like. Our prayer meetings. We do a lot of praying in the Spirit. Praying in the Holy Ghost, praying in the Spirit that's what I like In our prayer meetings. We do a lot of praying in the Spirit, praying in tongues, groanings and travailings. Some of us anybody in here ever had groanings and travailings in prayer. Some of you yeah, most of you haven't. Well, you know you can yield yourself in this year. Most of you haven't. Well, you know you can yield yourself in this year and you can experience that, because it's just another level of power
Speaker 1:that's released. Paul had to pray for the galatian church. That was his church. They were his kids and he left them. And they started getting all these visiting preachers coming there preaching on the law and getting them tangled back up to the Hebrew law. And they started trying to keep the law for righteousness. And he had to. He said all my little children, of whom I travail in birth again, till Christ be formed in you, he had to go on his face and just travail. He had to weep and and cry and pray for that church because they were so far off. He said, if anybody comes to you preaching another Jesus and another word, he said, let them be cursed. I mean he's strong man, I mean he stood up in that
Speaker 1:Galatian church. Intercession, romans 8, 26,. You know, the spirit helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what to pray for, as we ought, but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, and so groanings are mentioned in the Bible, but also just praying in tongues. The Holy Ghost helpeth our infirmities. What is the word help? It means to take hold together with against, take hold together with us against something. So that's why you know, on Thursday nights when we're praying for my God votes or we're praying for the church. You know we'll. We'll pray a long time in other tongues. Why? Because the Holy Ghost helps us to
Speaker 1:pray accurately. We don't always know. We know generally what to pray, but, and sometimes the Spirit of God can quicken us when we're praying about a certain thing. But we, the most reliable thing is just let the Holy Ghost pray through us and intercede through us and pray exactly and we're, and he's helping us, he's taking hold together with us against things that need to be corrected in the church. Oh, it's a mighty weapon of our warfare. Praise God. So welcome to GWC, welcome to the apostolic lifestyle. Amen, we're all soldiers in the army of the Lord. Amen. Did you get anything out of this? Let's lift our hands and thank God for the word Hallelujah. I would cut it up smaller if I could cut it up in little bite-sized pieces. Make it turn it into nuggets. Hallelujah.