Chosen Vessels | Pastor John Greiner

A stirring journey through Acts 9 highlights how ordinary believers become chosen vessels for extraordinary assignments, using Ananias and Saul’s divine encounter as a picture of courage, obedience, and revelation that unfolds step by step. With powerful reflections on carrying the name of Jesus, enduring opposition, and yielding as earthen vessels filled with heavenly treasure, this teaching calls every listener to recognize their God-given mandate for this generation. Woven through it is a deeply personal testimony of calling, prophetic confirmation, and transformation, creating a compelling invitation to embrace purpose, walk boldly in faith, and allow God to pour His power through a willing life.

Transcript

Opening Prayer And Confession

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Lift our Bibles up and wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad. Say this together. Say, Heavenly Father, I am so glad to be here today. I'm coming from the standpoint of being blessed. I'm coming from the standpoint that I have been given authority. And so, Lord, I feed my faith today on your word. I open my heart to receive revelation that will bring me into a higher dimension. You said, Behold, I make all things new. I want to discover the new things, lay aside the old things, and enter into a new place with you in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. Be seated and let's turn in our Bibles to Acts chapter 9. Acts chapter 9. And we're talking about Ananias, the disciple. Verse 10. There was a certain disciple at Damascus. You know, Damascus is no longer Christian much. I mean, it's all the Christians have been driven out. There might be a remnant there. But back then, you know, we had disciples. And so there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the street called straight, and inquire in the house of Judas, for one called Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he prayeth, and hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting or laying his hand on him that he might receive his sight. And then Ananias answered, said, Lord, you must be confused. Could this be true? How many of you have questioned? I know, don't look so innocent. And he answered, Lord, I've heard by many of this man how evil, how much evil he's done to thy saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way, go thy way. For he is a chosen vessel unto me. Everybody shout, chosen vessel. To bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. And Ananias went his way and entered into the house, and putting his hands on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, hath appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me. Now see, Jesus didn't tell him that he'd appeared to Saul. So that was that came as he went his way, and more revelation came to the disciple as he began to obey something he didn't understand. He got the full picture on his way. Are you following me? He has sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. Jesus didn't say one thing about him being filled with the Holy Ghost. So you see, he got something added to his mission. He got something further information as he obeyed the Lord in something that seemed dangerous and maybe even foolish. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales. And he received sight forthwith and arose and was baptized. See, that wasn't, he didn't mention baptizing him either. But I mean, Ananias, he knew all the steps that needed to be taken, and he got him, I mean, he got him, he got him uh healed, he got him baptized in water, glory to God, and baptized in the Holy Ghost. And when he had received meat, he was strengthened. And then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus, and straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues that he is the Son of God. And so today I wanted to share a message entitled Chosen Vessels. Chosen Vessels. And that includes our children. Every one of these children that are in the service today is a chosen vessel. Because you wouldn't be living in the times we're living in if God hadn't chosen you. You're not some accident, you're not some random. God doesn't do random. It's our day to reach our generation. God has given us the mandate, the message, and the manifestation for this time. And it's up to each of us, individually and corporately, to uh reach our generation. This generation is different. And among this congregation there's different generations that are going to need different uh approaches. And we're gonna have to let the Holy Ghost change some of our thinking and change some of our actions. I believe that's part of the new thing that God is doing this year. He's giving us fresh information on how to reach this generation for Jesus. They need, they need Jesus. People need Jesus. As glorious as it was, I think. Read about, you know, John Alexander Dowie and Charles Finney and John Wesley and George Whitfield, you know, and John G. Lake or Daddy Seymour. I read about them in history, church history, and they're they're definitely fathers of the faith, but we can't copy what they did. We can't just use that and say we're gonna do it like Whitfield did. We're gonna do it like Wesley did. We really can't even go back to Pastor John Osteen, my spiritual father, and you know, T. L. Osborne and Kenneth E. Hagan and Orl Roberts and many others that are, again, fathers of the faith, gone on in glory, whose shoulders we do stand on. We stand on the shoulders of all that have gone through ahead of us. But we're gonna have to get from God what it takes, you know, today to pour out this anointing that's gonna cause people to get saved. You know, God chose Saul of Tarsus. Saul is a Jewish name, but it really means Paul. Saul is Jewish, Paul is Roman. And so he starts off. God didn't change his name, God, God didn't change his name. He he adopted the name of Paul in Acts 13 when he came upon Surgis Paulus, who was a good governor, and Bar Jesus, who are otherwise known as Elamus the sorcerer, had bewitched him, had was keeping him from the faith. He was ripe harvest, and and Saul or Paul was preaching there and wanted to get him saved, and he he noticed this sorcerer, and he pronounced judgment on the sorcerer. He said, Behold, you not see the sun for a season. He went away blind for a season, not permanently, but for a season to move him out of the way. And so that man's name was Sergius Paulus. So isn't it interesting? So Paul from then on adopted the name of Paul, which is your Roman name. You know, he was a Roman citizen. See, Saul or Paul, as he's known now, his name is Saul, you know. I mean, you know, like Shlomo. You know, Shlomo is a Jewish name, and I think it's Brian, isn't it? I think it means Brian. Well, you don't name your, if you're not Jewish, you probably were not gonna name your kid Shlomo. I mean, that's kind of a you know, dubious name, maybe for a Gentile. You'd probably name him Brian if you're gonna name him that, right? So he adopted the name of Paul to be acceptable to the Gentiles. He's the apostle to the Gentiles. Did he, did he witness to his nation? Did he witness to Israel? Yes, he did, to his hurt, but his main focus was the Gentile world. And so he adopted that. You know, that's what we have to do as chosen vessels, is we've got to get the right equipment for the people that we're talking to. And so he was chosen to bear the name of Jesus. And let me tell you something that I found out, Brother Osteen put this into me so directly. People don't mind you praying in the name of God. They don't mind you praying in the man, in the name of the man upstairs, or in the name of the higher power. But when you start using the name of Jesus, that's the dividing line. That's where people are either going to come down on your side or against you. But we all bear that name. And we bear it with great reverence and great honor. It's an honor to bear the name of Jesus. We have the only right in the world to use his name in prayer. Nobody else has the right to use that name but the church. And Jesus didn't say, Yeah, you know, it's going to be easy from here on. It's been a little bit of difficult. No, he said, I'm going to show him what great things he must suffer for my name's sake. You know, that doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun. That doesn't sound like, you know, I I've heard people just try to get people saved and they try to paint the Christian life as some kind of uh heaven on earth. Well, there are parts of it there are, but we that's we're not trying to sell people something easy. We're trying to get them saved. You're gonna have trouble. Jesus said you would. In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good courage, I've overcome the world. We have the Holy Ghost in us to overcome the difficulty. And so did Paul. But so uh he told him you're gonna suffer greatly, but over here in 2 Corinthians, or 2 Corinthians 12, 9, a persecution had arose about that name, about the name of Jesus. And it was so difficult that everywhere Paul was going, the Jews had raised power, you know, trouble for him. They'd hear about what next town he was going to and get go there ahead of him and generate all kind of trouble. And it was so miserable there for a while that Paul entreated the Lord and prayed three times. He said, There's been a thorn in the flesh. I've been given a thorn in the flesh. I've heard this preached wrong. God didn't give him the thorn. The thorn is with the territory. When you carry the name of Jesus, there's thorns that are going to come after you. And everywhere in the Old Testament that it mentions thorns, if you look it up, it's people. It's not sickness, it's not blindness, it's not arthritis, it's not cancer. A thorn in the flesh is opposition, persecution. And if you're the kind of person that's a people pleaser, well, maybe you need to change your attitude. Yes, you want to please people, but you're not gonna be breathless and disappointed when they're disappointed when you use the name of Jesus. You're gonna keep on using it. Are you with me now? I was praying one time for a group of mixed people, Jewish. It was a but way back there we had uh some meeting I was invited to in the woodlands. And uh it was a mixed crowd, and knew it was a lot of Jews there, and there was a Jewish person sitting right behind me, and I'm I'm charged to pray. So I went to the Lord and I said, Lord, I am not gonna pray without using the name of Jesus. I just, I mean, I but I don't want to offend all these Jews. I mean, they're here, they're Orthodox, they're wearing their little beanies, I call them, whatever they call them. And uh, you know, I don't want to go out of my way to offend them. He said, just pray in my name and pray in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So I said a Holy Ghost prayer, and I prayed in the name of Jesus, and I prayed in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And I went and sat down, and the guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder. He said, I'm so glad you prayed like that. Thank you. Oh, but we're not gonna dishonor the name of Jesus just because there's Jews in the audience or anybody else in the audience that doesn't like the name of Jesus. So he prayed three times to take the thorn away. Oh, it's so hard. He's suffering. I mean, remember one time they they stoned him and drug his body out of town, out of the city limits, and his and his staff stood around him and raised him from the dead. He went right back in the town where they drug him out a few minutes before. I mean, that's pretty tough. You don't get stoned and die without some kind of pain and without some kind of difficulty. But God healed him and raised him. I mean, it's amazing what God did with Paul. And he'll do for you if you'll be bold enough to be a vessel of it of honor unto him. About to say chosen vessel. So he said, Look, my my grace is sufficient for you, and my strength is perfected when you reach the end of your human ability. And so then Paul said, I'd rather, I'd rather gladly therefore glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may dwell on me. I mean, you know, we ought to not be so complaining about the fact that maybe the waitress, the devil in her, hates the Jesus in us. I mean, you know, sometimes that happens. Sometimes you go somewhere and for no reason somebody's rude and ugly, and there's no reason for it except the devil in them hates the Jesus in you. Well, you know, just praise God. We ought to rejoice. It'd be worthy to suffer shame for his name. So God has chosen us, and we are chosen vessels. Everybody say, I am a chosen vessel. And John 15, 16, Jesus speaking to his disciples, and this is you know the night before he was crucified, you know, John 13, 14, 15, 16, and then that was that last supper, and then he crucified the next day, so he had some important things to say. And one of the verses there, verse 16, John 15, 16, he said, he said, uh, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. And I've ordained that you go and bear forth fruit, and that that fruit may remain. And that whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give it you. And the word ask there means not just prayer, but it means to make a demand. We're here sometimes to make a demand for the devil to leave somebody alone. We're here to make a demand on sickness and disease to leave. Are you with me now? But that's our job. We've been chosen for that. That's our job. That is our job description as a chosen one. And uh let's look at 1 Corinthians 1, because this is something I got a hold of way back, and of course I heard it ministered on, but I spent some time looking at it myself, thinking about it as it uh as it uh concerned me. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 26. For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. God has chosen or called the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised. Let me stop right there. All the word things can also mean beings. It means words, it means beings, it means things. It means a lot of things in the Greek. He's called base people of the world and people that are despised. I wouldn't be doing the scripture any harm by saying that. Base people of the world and things which are despised, be people which are despised hath God chosen, yea. And and things which are not to bring to naught things that are. You know, our job is to bring to naught the things that we're watching on television, all these demonically inspired protests, all this uh uprising of the sinners about half this country are so lost they don't know. And God is separating right now the wheat from the tares. We're gonna get a harvest out of it, but I tell you, there's a lot of those people are gonna go to hell. You might as well understand that. And that doesn't give me comfort because every one of them that goes to hell, Jesus died for them. We can't tell who's gonna get, I mean, some of the worst ones. Look at look at Saul of Tarsus. He's killing Christians. And God interrupted him, and God intervened for him on that road to Damascus and appeared to him. It was so glorious that he lost his sight. Praise God. In 2 Corinthians 4, let's turn over a few more pages here. Talk about chosen vessels. I really want to get this into you here in our year of new things. Because there might be some things about that that you've never considered. You've never seen yourself in the light of a chosen vessel. You've never seen yourself in the light of having having been given a mandate that God expects you to complete. And I'm believing that this year, those of you that have not discovered that will discover that, and you'll get busy. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts and uh to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have, not gonna have, we have this treasure in earthen vessels. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. Going back to 1 Corinthians 1, he says, not very noble, not many wise, not many rich, not many are called. Why? Because they're gonna take credit for what they do. They'll say, Well, I was picked because of my rep uh my uh resume. I have a really great resume here, and God picked me to do this and that and the other, and God delights in taking nobodies and making them somebody. God delights in making the lowest of the low and exalting them and pouring out the richness of his treasure in a dirt vessel, an earthen vessel. Now he talks about gold vessels and silver vessels later, but right here he's talking about an earthen vessel. That's just a cheap, everyday piece of glassware. That when it was dropped, it broke, and then you just I walked on the top of one of those mountains, and it was just thousands of little shards of broken pottery. And I picked a few of them up and brought them back, you know, from that day. People used to drink out of them, eat out of them. They made them, then they made their own dishes. Are you with me now? In Luke 16, let's turn over there, talking about being a chosen vessel, and what do we contain? Well, it's it's uh treasure, it's the treasure. We have treasure in earthen vessels. Uh Luke 16. He's speaking to his disciples. Jesus is. I'll back up to verse 10. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much, and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. So you see, you've got a testing as a Christian. You've got God's gonna God's gonna see just how faithful you are over the things that he's done for you over his the things he's blessed you with. And if you're if you're faithful over a little thing, it just seems like so slight, so little. Because he starts us all off like babies. You know, a baby has to learn how to talk, a baby has to learn how to walk, and so do baby Christians. They have to be taught. And if they're faithful to be good students and they successful, then God will give them a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more, and they're faithful over little, they'd be ruler over much. But the ones that just never want to get out of kindergarten never do. Now, I've seen people in kindergarten that are 70 years old, been saved 50 years. If therefore you have not been Faithful in the unrighteous mammon. It's talking about your money. I said that's talking about your money. If you're not faithful over your money, as as as what does that relate to? The kingdom. Because everything you have came from him. I had a post on tithing, and oh, I mean, I had a lot of people coming against me on tithing. Oh, tithings, Old Testament. Well, tithing is not for us today. And I I answered one of them, a real good answer. Nobody even touched it with a 10-foot pole. That's how backslid the church is across this country. Nobody tithes anymore. Not in this church. We wouldn't even be here if we didn't have a church full of tithers and givers. So if you're not, if you're not faithful over your money enough, if you've decided, no, God doesn't get the first, I'm going to have a budget, and then what's, I'm going to put him in the budget down, down, you know, below, you know, my Macy's account and my gasoline bill, and I'll I'll pay him. I'll I'll give him a little leftover. That's not that's not worth anything. You're unfaithful. A faithful person is tithing, and then giving over and above the tithe, that's where the giving starts. Tithing is not giving, tithing is returning what belongs to him. And that's how you tell God, I honor you, I love you, I obey you. The tithe of tithe is Bible. And I pointed that out, the New Testament uh verses that have to do with the church tithing. I got no comment. So he says here, therefore, if you've not been faithful in the unrighteous man, and who will commit to you your trust the true riches? What's the true riches then? Money, no. The anointing, the treasure that we have in earthen vessels. And I believe that's why this church is doing things that much bigger churches, much older churches have not done. I mean, this this church is is making a uh a pretty big splash across this country. Are you are you proud? No, I'm not proud. I'm just talking about I know the value of the treasure that's in these earthen vessels that it that assemble here. And so, really, what what we have to be is we have to be yielded vessels. In other words, a vessel is something you pour out of. And if we contain something and God wants us to pour out, then we've got to be ready for Him to grab us and pour out of us that treasure. That's why we all need the baptism of the Holy Ghost. You're not going to do very much without it. You can do some things, but you can't do everything God has planned for you without it because Jesus commanded the disciples to wait for the baptism of the Holy Ghost. So it's not optional. We people that's optional. No, it's not optional. Quit saying it's optional. It's when you don't, when you see it and you reject it, you have sinned. It's in the Bible. You you you might you might wrestle with it. You've been brainwashed, religiously brainwashed. I heard a famous Baptist preacher right here in Houston. He's dead now, thank goodness. Oh, Pastor, why didn't you say that? Because he needed to get off the scene. To get on television and say speaking in tongues is of the devil. How dare you? How dare you say that? Getting stirred up now. Praise God. Let me check my heart. Oh, it's record. Okay, no problem. Hallelujah. Come on, let's lift our hands. Lord, we thank you for the treasure in these earthen vessels. And we're yielded vessels. We're not concerned about being gold or silver or anything. We're just concerned about yielding, yielding, yielding, yielding, sensitive, God inside minded. I haven't given my testimony in a long time. There's many of you who have never heard it. It's one of the most unusual ones I've ever heard in my life. I've heard a lot because I was in full gospel businessmen fellowship. It's built on testimony. So I've heard businessmen all over the country give their testimonies. They've had some good ones. But I wanted to share with you when I discovered that I was a chosen vessel. And so if you'll allow me, I'll read from a piece of paper where I transcribed the uh, it was a prophetic word. I didn't even know anything about prophetic words. And in the prophetic word, it had words of knowledge. That's a knowledge about a God's knowledge about a person, place, or thing in the present or in the past. Also in this, in this uh that I have to give you were words of wisdom, futuristic things that hadn't happened yet, and uh discerning of spirits. Now, when this occurred some 40 odd, 45 years ago, I was in a state of depression. I wasn't sleeping. I had dread in my fear, like a pit of my stomach. My business was not doing well. Uh just a lot of things had lined up. I had discovered that God was healing today. I did go to a healing meeting downtown Houston at the Houston College Sealum. And the only way in those days that I would accept something had to be in the Catholic Church. I had come back to the church. I'd left it a long time, but I came back. Gladys came back with me, and we we were going to Catholic church, and God knew where how to meet me, how to reach me, and he put me in front of a Catholic priest, a healing priest. And he did miracles that night, and I couldn't deny it. So I but I didn't get saved. I didn't, it didn't move me to the next step of yielding to him and getting saved. So I'm still lost. And so my brother-in-law and sister lived in the subdivision, and they talked about a couple. He he, my brother-in-law worked with the man at Chevron, and he and his wife lived in the neighborhood, and his wife was had prayed for a guy with cancer, a guy that I knew, and he was healed, and that she would, she had really a healing gift. And I didn't doubt it, even though she wasn't Catholic. I didn't doubt it because I knew that God was doing that kind of thing. And uh and I didn't doubt it. So uh we arranged to go to a Bible study at Christ the Good Shepherd Catholic Church. You don't usually have Bible studies at Catholic churches. They had a Catholic evangelist come to town just for that purpose to try to get Bible studies going, talking about the importance of reading your Bible. He was Catholic, charismatic. I didn't know anything about that at that time. I didn't know anything about tongues, I didn't know anything about prophetic, I didn't know squat. I'm lost. But we went to the meeting with this couple, and Gladys and I, and my sister and brother-in-law, six of us. And she kept talking about, well, the Lord spoke to me the other day, the Lord told me, uh Lord showed me, the Lord, the Lord, you know, I hadn't laid hands on this, and just talking like miracles and God or just a dime of dungeon, and she hears God all day long. And I'm just going, and I didn't doubt it. I think, you know, if I hadn't been exposed to this Catholic priest, I would have doubted everything she said, but something that just opened up in me, and I didn't doubt, I wondered now, I mean, I was scratching my head. What kind of person is this that hears from God all the time? But uh my brother-in-law said, Look, you know, you notice something different about me. You know, I went to, I went, had she met with me and we had a uh a meeting, and she said and he said, Everything's different now. I I I've changed, John. And he was trying to tell me that he was born again, but he didn't know how the words, didn't have the words to tell me. He said, You really need to get a meeting with them. A meeting, yeah. And so she brought that up when we were dropping them off. She said, I sure would like to meet with you. Uh and so we lined it up for that Friday, and I chickened out. I I just could not do it, man. I mean, I didn't I didn't know what I was signing up for. I just, but then, you know, again, I don't know who was praying for me, I but I I finally called. I said, Yeah, I'll come. So on a Friday afternoon I went, not knowing what to expect. They had me sit down in an easy chair, uh recliner, kind of rock back and close my eyes, relax. It's hard to relax. I was nervous, you know. I just didn't know what I was in for. And she said, just take some breaths and just try to try to relax. I'm gonna talk to you a little while. And and uh and she began and she pushed a recorder, so she recorded everything I'm reading to you on a tape recorder. And she delivered it in a very slow and gentle manner. She never raised her voice. It was very gentle and very, it was paced. Uh she'd give a statement, and I had time to let that statement hit me, and my mind would think something before the next thing was said. It was it was an amazing experience. And it's amazing for me just to even see it again. John, I see you walking with Jesus along a beach. He's holding your hand. Now she said that, and so I just saw myself in my mind's eye. I don't call it a vision, I just imagine myself doing that, walking along a beach, holding hands with Jesus. He's holding my hand. And I guess it was this hand because he was next to the water. And so we're going along, uh, and and then he says, My beloved brother, come and walk with me where you think you cannot walk. And we turned and we walked on the water. And first of all, I was I was amazed that we were doing that, but secondly, when he she when when she and I knew it was her talking, but it was him talking. Do you get it? In other words, I received it, I automatically started receiving it as if he was talking to me. And when he said, My beloved brother, I said, beloved brother, doesn't he know I'm a sinner? And that's the first time in my life that I'd ever admitted to anybody or to myself that I was a sinner. My beloved brother, come and walk with me where you think you cannot walk. I have a way for you which is beyond your understanding. Your sense of adventure will be satisfied as you go where I go, as you think what I think, as you do what I do. Do not think that you are here by coincidence. I have chosen you, my brother. I have chosen you twice to stand tall. And this day my power will be imparted with you, so that as you lay hands on the sick, they too shall recover. They too. What do you mean you mean what do you mean also? They also will recover. So she was referring, she didn't know, but see, I had seen Father Eorio lay hands on the sick and they got healed at that meeting. So it's like she didn't know any of that. It's like the Holy Ghost is reminding me, hey, look back where you saw it, just like he did it, that's how you're gonna do it. Are y'all getting this now? You too, they too shall recover. You shall mend the brokenhearted, you shall preach the gospel to the poor, you shall preach deliverance to the captives, you shall set at liberty them that are bruised. About this time, my mind is exploded. About this time, I've I'm just on tilt almost. It's beyond what I can kind of take in. You have wondered what I have been calling you for, and you have felt confused. But that is because my voice was from afar and you could not hear it clearly. Forever banish your wonder if I was calling you to the priesthood, but I am calling you to the ministry. Now, I'll stop there. It's the first time in decades that I'd thought about being a little boy, four years old, and in Galena Park at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, and South American missionary or missionaries to South America were there talking to us. And I'm four. What can I understand? I just remember my little heart burning and knowing that God had his hand on me, that I was, and as a Catholic boy, I'm thinking priest. That's what I'm thinking. And then later on in my growing up years, when I got to be 12, you know, I'm a I'm an altar boy and I'm I'm around the things of God as far as Catholic Church. I'm there morning mass, you know, Sunday Mass, funerals. I mean, anything that needed to have an altar boy, I was there. In fact, I trained altar boys. I became the president of the Knights of the Altar. And so I asked the priest one day was on me. I was wondering a minute, what, because I had I had met Gladys see at that age. And I knew when I saw her that I would never be married. I mean, I would never not be married, I would not be celibate. Even at that young age, I just knew that that was not a life. I said, look, you know, I I the nuns think I should be a priest, and I'm, you know, I'm I'm could is there anything else I can do? How about me being a brother? Oh, it's the same, it's just as hard to be a brother as, you know, like they they have brothers and they have fathers. Brother. No, it's just a lower class of ministry, but you still have all the requirements. No, you might as well go to seminary and be and say he was selling me on being a priest. So, so yes, I was confused. See, she didn't know that. But it's starting, it's starting to click. My mind hadn't thought about it in decades. And all of a sudden, here he's stirring these memories up and stirring these things up. Are y'all getting anything out of it? Forever banish your wonder if I was calling you to the priesthood. But I am calling you to the ministry, and this ministry that I and you shall put together, you will feel the joy and happiness as you walk in my light. And this light, and this begins the word of wisdom. This begins the futuristic. This light will so shine forth through you that those in darkness shall see. Your light shall draw to you people as a light draws moths. These people shall be brought to you by me, and they shall become your flock over which you shall be their shepherd. Do not feel overwhelmed, for you are not unprepared for this, as you may think. Again, futuristic. She's not talking about my life then. She's skipping ahead, the Holy Ghost is skipping ahead over my years of serving at Lakewood. You're not unprepared, as you may think, but I have prepared you over the years, and you have been a willing, obedient servant. See, again, that's futuristic. She's not not talking, that that word didn't really apply on the back side of that. I wouldn't, I was still lost. And God is speaking this over me. Jesus is. And now I have greater things for you to do. The things which I have done, you shall do, and greater than thee shall you do. Walk in the light which I have provided for you, and as you walk in this light, you shall fear no evil, for the power that is in you will clear the way before you. And now, my brother, walk in joy, walk in peace. Now she'll come back to the present moment. Walk in joy, walk in peace. Walk in love, walk in righteousness. As I wouldn't, walk in righteousness, walk in my name. My name which is above all names. And now my peace I give unto you, not the peace the world gives, but my peace I give unto you. Walk in peace. I went home, I was shaken to the core. Wet eyes were wet. I didn't know, I just didn't even know how to tell Gladys what I had experienced. I started trying to share, and then my sister and brother-in-law came over because they knew I was going over there, so they sat at the table and wanted to know all about it and were not that surprised about the pastor part. And I said, Really? She said, Well, you know, you got our father to go to church when you were 10 years old. Nobody else in the family could do it. They had more confidence in me than I did. And so that night, I have to I have to finish the story this way. Gladys was having a bad sinus headache. She went to bed around 9 o'clock. I was downstairs in the living room, sitting on the couch with my Bible and a handout that the priest had given us the week before. We didn't go back to the Bible study, but he gave us a list of scriptures to look up and to read before the Bible study the next week, and they were going to go through and discuss these scriptures. Well, I hadn't even looked at them. I just had a folded piece of paper. I opened it up, list of scriptures, about 10 of them, I guess, or so. And I'm sitting on the couch and I'm still trying to figure out what happened to me that afternoon. And I said, God, I just I don't know what to think about all this. That that woman spoke all this. Is it really you? I I I I it's so above anything I'd ever thought of. But I believe if it really is you, you'll show me through these verses. These are right out of your Bible. And I believe you'll confirm out of this list of scriptures whether this is really something I need to take heed to. And so I opened that piece of paper on my Bible, sat it next to me on my right hand, and I turned my head and I went like that. Boom. Just stuck my finger in the middle of the page in a random place. And I opened it to Matt and I saw Matthew 14. Of course, Matthew 14 is Jesus walking on the water and having Peter walk on the water. That was what this whole thing was led by. Boy, I mean, I my eyes opened up and I started, my heart started beating, and my hands started sweating. I said, Lord, I'm gonna have to do this again. So boom. I opened it up. It was Luke, excuse me, Mark 16, they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. One more time, Lord, one more time. I need one more time. Boom. Luke 4, 18, preach the gospel to the poor. Set at liberty them that are bruised. Preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind. I said, Lord, I know it's you. I know that was you today. I don't understand it, but I know it was you. And all I can say, I'm not that, I'm not that man. I'm not the man. I'm not the man. You're gonna have to make me into that man. I I'm I'm unable I'm unable to do any of this. You're gonna have to make me the kind of man you want me to be. And so I want to say, Jesus, you're my Lord. I give you permission to do whatever it takes to bring your plan to pass. And uh I felt such a peace wash over me. Said walking peace was the last part. I hadn't had peace in months. I couldn't sleep at night. I'd go to bed at 2 30 and wake up at 5 30. Go to Minimax, buy a six pack of beer to get me to the lunchtime. But all of a sudden I had peace and I slept like a baby. And the rest is history. I could go on and on about what happened right after that. But let's lift our hands right now for chosen vessels.