Praying to Change Things | Pastor John Greiner

John Greiner picks up Sunday night with a message called Praying to Change Things, tying it back to the corporate anointing he'd been teaching on that morning. He revisits Acts 4 and Acts 12 to show what happens when a church prays with one voice, then moves into stories from his own church's history: turning down an easy building deal because God told him to build instead, a vision that pointed him toward 92 acres of land, and a scramble to find a new building in 90 days that came together the night before the deadline. He shares a striking vision from 1998 involving fire, judgment, and blood, one that lined up with real events in the days that followed, and connects it to years of praying over elections, wars, and threats against Houston.

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Opening Charge And Shared Confession

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Wave those Bibles around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad. Let's say this together. Say, Heavenly Father, I thank you, Lord, for Sunday night. I'm answering a dare by my pastor. He double dog dared me to come back on Sunday night. So here I am. Feed me. My mouth is open. My heart is receptive to revelation knowledge that will give me the victory in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, let's look at uh we read some of these verses this morning, but I want to circle back around. Tonight we're gonna pray, we're gonna share a message entitled Praying to Change Things. Praying to Change Things. And really the con the uh basis of this is not necessarily your personal prayer life, but corporate prayer. I want to hook up to the corporate anointing. Uh I wound up uh the third message on understanding the anointing this morning. Of course, the anointing within, the anointing upon, and then the corporate anointing where they all come together and the church has uh all of us are fit together and compacted, and we have a divine supply that we all supply as lively or living stones,

Acts 4 And One-Voice Prayer

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Peter said. So let's look at Acts chapter 4. We mentioned this this morning as a as an example of corporate prayer and what it did in the early church. They uh we'll start reading verse 23. They were threatened not to preach and teach in the name of Jesus after the man at the gate, beautiful, the lame man who was over 40 years old. Everybody knew him. It was a notable miracle, and they could not deny it. Everybody knew the man, everybody knew his condition, and everybody knew the before and the after, and they couldn't say a thing against it. But they were jealous and they threatened the apostles not to treat, teach, and preach in that name. And so then in verse 23, and being let go, they went to their own company. See, there's there's they didn't just do it by themselves, they didn't pray this prayer by themselves, they did it in the church. It's corporate prayer, it's corporate anointing. And reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them, and when they heard that, they lifted up their voice. Not voice as voice. There's only one way that a congregation can pray with one voice, and that's if the Holy Ghost is in charge. Because otherwise you're gonna have this one pray in this way and this one pray in that way, and it shows in our unknown language what was prayed. And I heard uh Brother Hagin teaching on this one time, and he said, you know, we don't know just how if this is an interpretation of the tongues that they prayed. We know they mostly prayed in tongues. But someone may have had the interpretation and prayed that in their language, or, you know, someone prayed that prayer and they all agreed in other tongues. Either way, either way, it's powerful. We'll see what happened to this prayer. So they lifted up their voice and one accord and said, Lord, thou art God, which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that therein is, who by the mouth of thy servant David hath said, Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ, for of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, now their name and names. Both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever they thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto my thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. Now see, they'd already been filled with the Holy Ghost, they got filled again. That's the proper thing to happen in a church service. You ought to get filled again in a church service. And the multitudes of them that believed, see, they had believing prayer. They believed. They didn't just pray in the air. They were believing what they prayed was going to have an effect. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul. See, again, it takes the Holy Ghost to do that. You can there's no way you could get a crowd that big, and it was a big crowd. How big a crowd was it? Well, we know that 3,000 people were saved on the day of Pentecost plus 120 in the upper room, so that's 3120. And then Peter, uh, 5,000 men got saved after that miracle and the gate beautiful. So that's at least, I think, conservatively speaking, 20,000 people. So you you're talking about 25,000 people possibly could have been in this prayer meeting. Maybe half of that, maybe one-third of that, maybe tenth of that. Still a lot of people. And it says they believed they were one heart and one soul. Neither said any of them, and all of the things which they possessed was his own, but they had all things common. And with great power, word power there is supernatural power, dunamis, with mega dunamis, gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and mega grace was upon them all. And neither was there any among them that lacked, and we got covered that this morning. I mean, they I mean, the people were so filled with love and concern for each other that if one had uh something they could sell and help the ones that were destitute, that's what they did. So prayer to change things, corporate prayer was made. And they lifted up their voice.

Four Steps That Shift Outcomes

SPEAKER_00 6:09

It's how much agreement. See, when love plus unity equals miracles, when you have that going on, there's miracle power. Number one, in that prayer, they magnified God. Number two, they reminded God of his word. Number three, they spoke to God of the situations that existed that fit the word. See, they're not crying, they're not begging. They based the, they magnified God first. And then they came and they they brought the word. This is what your word says, and this is how this situation fits the word. This is exactly what they're doing now. Then they asked, they made their request. Lord, give us boldness to preach thy word. With signs and wonders be done in the name of Jesus. Boy, that's and God answered that prayer. And so uh things change. Everybody say things change. Everything changed when they prayed. Um

Acts 12 And Prayer That Opens Gates

SPEAKER_00 7:08

so then another example here in Acts 12, we again mentioned that this morning. I'm gonna get into some of the things that we've prayed around here. And for those of you that are newer, you might not have heard some of these things, but might help you understand what kind of church this is and why we are the way we are. Um Acts 12, verse 1, about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. He killed James, the brother of John, with a sword. And because it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. Then were the days of unleavened bread, and when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep them, keep him, intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people. And Peter therefore was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. In earnest and sincere and earnest prayer. Instant and earnest prayer was made. And so when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, the keepers before the door kept the prison, and behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him. And a light shined in the prison, and he smote Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly, and his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he said unto him, Cast your garment about you and follow me. And they went out and followed him, and he did not know what was true, what was done by the angel. I mean, Peter's kind of in a trance. He's kind of just beside himself. He doesn't even know what's real. He's kind of just he got smoked, he got hit in the hit in the side, you know, and he's he's kind of startled. And uh he just thought he was seeing a vision. And when they were past the first and second ward, I mean they had to go past all these soldiers. The first and second ward, these are the other soldiers that are keeping Peter, you know, more than just the guys that he was chained to. And uh they came under the iron gate that leadeth unto the city, which opened them of his own accord. And when they went out and passed on through one street, and forthwith the angel departed from him, and when Peter was come to himself. See, Peter was come to himself. He was in a like in a trance state. And then he he winds up at the house where they're having the prayer meeting, and uh, you know, the little servant girl Rhoda comes to the hears him knocking. Everybody else is they don't even hear the door, but Rhoda heard the knocking outside. She goes, Oh, it's Peter! Well, it can't be Peter. That's how much faith they had to pray. You know, they they thought it was his angel. They had more faith that it was Peter's angel. Well, indeed, Peter's angel broke him out of prison. They were half right. But the angel had disappeared and left Peter by himself. So um, so the prayer opened the gates, see, an angel escorted Peter to safety and brought judgment to Herod. We didn't read that part, but later on, Herod goes to Caesarea Philippi and gives an oration, and people just so impressed with his uh speech that they said, it's a voice of a God and not of a man. And he just received all that worship. And uh an angel standing by smote him, and he was eaten with worms and died. Well, why did that happen? I believe the prayer had a lot to do with it. Did they pray in their natural understanding for God to kill him? Well, the angel killed him. We don't know what kind of angel. I mean, really, the angel smote him and then he died. I mean, you know, he opened the door to Satan. You know, as far as I'm concerned, God's not in the death business, God's in the life business. So it wouldn't be accurate to say God killed him. But God set him up to die. He did set him up. Are y'all with me now? So, um uh, you know, over all these years, we're you know, in our 32nd year of existence, we've had many opportunities uh to enter in for prayer to change things, and I wanted to start tonight with a few uh very uh I call them momentous occasions where prayer uh changed things and kind of set this church on the pathway that all these years ago that it stayed on and we're on

Turning Down The Easy Offer

SPEAKER_00 11:50

today. And so the first one that I wanted to talk about uh happened in uh June of 1996. So the church is only a year and a half old. And uh so we were growing. In fact, that Easter, that first Easter, I mean, I remember cars coming in the parking lot and leaving. I mean, you know, we were just growing so fast. And uh, and so we just needed more parking. We needed, you know, we needed more space. We had our first building, it was a building a size that was 9,300 square feet, right on 1960. It used to be a uh when I used to eat there when I was lost and undone without God, I used to eat barbecue and drink beer in that same room that was our sanctuary. I mean, that's God's got a sense of humor. I mean, really. Remember, do y'all remember I'd pointed to that pole and I said, you know, Pastor, you used to sit right there where that pole is and drink beer, eat barbecue. See, I believe that you had to drink beer when you ate barbecue. There's no such thing as barbecue without beer. You had to have, they went together. But anyway, all these years later, I get saved. Here I am, our first church, right in the same, I mean, you know, God's got to be laughing. So uh anyway, uh, we're needing some space. So my uh our landlord, and that lease was a year lease, we're paying $5,000 a month on the lease. And so we had already paid, uh, we started off small, and then we accelerated, and by the time my you know, a few months after this, I think it was June, he called me and said, Hey, you're doing so well. I passed by there, and man, your parking lot's crowded. He said, Why don't you let me do this? He said, Why don't you go pick out five acres? I've got several tracks. Why don't you go pick out five acres and let me build you a metal building of 15 to 20,000 square feet? That's twice as much as what we've got. That's gonna be twice as much parking as we're gonna as we have. It's gonna allow for the church to be twice as big at least. Are y'all with me now? And keep the keep the lease amount the same if you'll sign a five-year lease. Well, you know, you'd you'd have to be kind of crazy not to take that deal. But you know, I've learned the hard way not to say yes to everything that comes along. I said, Well, that's so generous of you. That thank you. I really think that offer, you know, Shane, I'm gonna have to pray about this. Let me when do you need oh, I'm not in any hurry. I just want to put that offer out there to you. And so, you know, we started praying about that opportunity, and I mean immediately, God said, nope, nope, not gonna do that. I want you to build your own building. I can't say I was exactly jazzed, you know. But God just didn't want us to take the easy way out. He didn't want, I don't know, for whatever reason, he didn't want us to do that. So uh I thought, I so I went back to him. I said, look, I said, we we we just can't, your deal is so generous. I I really am, but but God's stopping me. I can't do it. But we are interested in your land. We we want to buy five acres, we want to build our own church. He said, Well, fine, whatever you want to do, that's fine with me. And he gave me a you know a little map of his tracks. And uh and so one day, Gladys and I and another couple from the church. Now, see, this is an extension of the corporate uh anointing, see, because we'd been praying about this at church, and now we're going out to investigate and look at the land that is available, and we went to the very first tract of land, five acres, on Haynes Road, right over here, right by behind Super Target on 1960, right down the street from our our building that we were in at the time. And uh we pulled up in front and I stuck out, and this other couple was standing over here, glad it's next to me, and they were sitting over there. I don't really remember why it was we invited this particular couple, but that that's who was there representing, you know, the church. And so we step out and we start looking at the property, and and I I don't know why I looked up, but when I looked up, I saw this vision of a star with a circle. Way up in the sky, just a star with a circle around it. And I I'm sorry, but I'm just I just I was immediately reminded of Matt Dillon, Marshall, Matt Dental. I mean, gun gun smoke, you know, Marshall's badge is what it looked like. And way up in the sky, and then I'm looking and think, what am I seeing? And it just comes down in lights right on the five acres, like this, right in front of me. And it's about the size of the middle section, or maybe a little bigger. And I'm going, you know, I'm I'm not saying anything out loud, but inside I'm saying, what am I seeing? And all of a sudden, it's like I zoom out, out, out, out, and I'm looking straight down, way up from a way up where the star was before, way up there, and I'm looking down at it, and it became like a mark on a on a map that would denote a capital like Austin or like Washington, D.C. And so then I spoke out loud. I said, Lord, what are you saying? You're gonna make us a capital? I mean, I didn't understand what he's trying to. I knew it was God. I knew I wouldn't make it up. Everybody say corporate anointing. Do I stand in an office where I have discerning of spirits and do I have visions and dreams? Well, yeah, I do, but this was a result of the corporate anointing. So anyway, I said, Lord, what are you gonna do? You're gonna make us a capital? And he just spoke two words, regional center. So here we are, a year and a half old, and uh, and God had spoken to me, regional center, and I knew by that that we were, you know, we had five-acre faith, but we're probably gonna have to have more land than that. We're gonna be some, we're gonna be a place of uh executive, legislative, and judicial authority. That's what a capital is. That's where the capital of the United States of America, you know, the Democrats want to get rid of the Senate. They want to pack the Supreme, they want to wreck the entire country. They want to redo. I mean, I heard one of them say that he uses the Constitution as toilet paper. I think we ought to use him as chicken feed. But anyway, so I'll be as nice as I can be. All right. Isn't it amazing that we've got a ministry that that we're involved in going to the state capitals and having worship? I mean, God had this all in mind 30 years ago. And we prayed. And we see, we could have deviated, we could have taken that deal, we could have taken that that uh that that lease deal, and all of that would have been bypassed. I guarantee you, God would not have done that. He required us as a church to do something that was kind of didn't make much sense. Not everything you do makes makes normal sense to normal people. Sometimes God will have you do very unusual things. That was unusual to turn down that offer and to do what we did. But I went from five-acre faith to ten-acre faith. So about a month later I went to see our landlord and said, Well, you know, I looked at the five-acre, it's fine, but have you got a 10-acre track with maybe a uh adjoining 10-acre tract where we can buy the 10 acres and have an option on the other 10 acres and total at some point have 20 acres, and I think we're gonna have to have a little bigger building than a five-acre piece of land. He said, Have I shown you my 63-acre tract? I said, No. So he shows me this 63-acre tract, and I'm just, he had more faith than I did. And he gave me a price that was just ridiculous. I mean, I'm a home builder, I've been in the developing business, I know land, especially land around here, and the price per acre was wholesale. And it was a good deal, really good deal. A lot of money for a brand new church. I mean, a year and a half old. But we're talking about God's business. We're not talking about regular business. So anyway, um, I said, well, let me think about that. And uh he said, let me tell you what I'll do. He said, you know, I'll I'll I'll finance this for two points above prime. You don't have to pay anything down. Uh you don't have to make any payments for up to three or four years. I'll just carry the, I'll just carry it and it'll accrue interest. And you don't have to even make any payments if you don't want to. And then when you start making payments, you know, you know, you'll have some interest on there, but other than that, you won't have any out-of-pocket. I mean, he was making it very attractive. I said, well, thank you. I I'm I'm going, I'm gonna pray about this. When do you need it? Oh, I'm not in any hurry. You know, he kept, he don't care. It's not him. He doesn't care. So I went back, and uh, you know, so we began to pray about this. Are y'all getting this? A corporate prayer, talking about corporate prayer. This is impacting the church now. We've we've got to, now I'm talking to people, I'm talking to some of our some of our uh folks that that are there, and I'm telling them that God told me a regional center, and I and I'm I'm telling them about a 63-acre tract, and they all kind of went blank on me. Some of them didn't, I could tell some of them didn't like it, some of them didn't agree with what I was saying. See, again, a corporate anointing, they're starting to grieve the spirit now because they're not getting in agreement with what God wants to do. So, anyway, I didn't pay any attention to that. I just kept on and just wanted to win them over little by little.

From Five Acres To Big Faith

SPEAKER_00 21:36

And then uh uh a few months later, we had a businessman in the church who had uh was in the oil tool manufacturing business, and and when he started coming to the church, him and his partner were uh uh four million dollars in debt. They couldn't pay the debt on their business, and they were going down to fulfill, they'd had to let all their people go. And he and his partner would actually go down there and and and and uh produce the tools that they shipped out to what few oil companies were needing them, because oil was down at like $6 a barrel. Can you believe that oil sold for $6 a barrel anyway? What is it now, 80 something? So anyway, it was just no business, and and the bank, you know, was giving them trouble. So he came to me and we agreed in prayer. You know, he and I agreed in prayer. And so after this thing with the land and everything, well, he he said, Pastor, things are better. I'm gonna I'm gonna put our business up for sale now. So we agreed again that his business would sell, him and his partner. And then a couple of months after this, I'll give you the land to 63 acres for this amount of money. Then this man uh and his partner sold their business uh for eight million dollars. That's a $12 million turnaround in about a year. I mean, you talk about your negative four to positive eight. That's $12 million in about a year. Can you say miracle? See, that's a miracle right there. So he brought a tithe. Him and his wife brought a tithe of their half, which was four million, which was the tithe was $400,000. And they brought it, and they said, you know, brought the check and presented us to us, and now, see, I've got a down payment on that land, and I had I had a real peace about going ahead and buying the 63 acres. I went from five-acre faith to 10-acre faith to 20-acre faith to 63.7 acre faith in the matter of about six months because of corporate praying and corporate anointing, and my vision is increasing. I'm I'm adopting God's vision for this church. And uh so I go back and uh I got an appointment with him and I and I put, we had 200,000 to put with it. We had a total of $600,000 to put down on a piece of property that was gonna, he was asking $1.25 million for. So that would leave us a $600, I think it was $650,000 uh uh debt. So a little bit anyway, do the math. But anyway, so yeah, $1.25. So six, one uh six hundred and fifty thousand. So so I was all I was pumped. I was by that time I was excited. And so I went into his office, I said, look, we've got six hundred thousand dollars, we want to we want to sign that contract and we want to put money down on that property. He says, Oh, John, I meant to call you this week, and I thought, oh no. And see, what I had was a first writer refusal. He told me, he said, if I if I sell it to anybody, if I get a contract, I will call you first and I I will sell it to you for what we've agreed on, no matter what my offer is. But and and so he had two offers for major home builders. One of them was Poulty Homes, and the other one was, I forgot what the other big major stock exchange people. I mean, they've got cash, they've got bunches of money. And they had offered him his price. And uh he said, the thing is though, John, it's gonna, you're gonna, you know, in order to have frontage on Spring Cypress, you're gonna have to have all 92.7 acres. There's two tracks, 32 and 63. You're gonna have to have, you're gonna have to have all 92.7 acres then. I just I just kind of almost fainted. I mean, you know, I thought, now I'll sell you the 63 acres, but you won't have frontage. Well, we've got to have frontage. And because the the county had changed and they'd changed their road, and you know, just all this typical politics that you get involved with. So I said, all right, well, let me let me sleep on it. Uh I said, I guess you've got some pre- Well, he said, I I can't give you a month. He said, I'll give you the end of the week. They're knocking on my door, they want to buy, and I'm gonna sell to one of them if you don't want it. But, you know, I'm I do everything I said I'd do. Yeah, they're giving me cash, but I'll still finance the whole thing. You don't have to have any down payment. I said, Well, I appreciate it, but we want to make it down payment. So anyway, I went back and God gave me the go-ahead to buy 92.7 acres. And really, when I announced that in church, I could feel this resistance. God began to cut people short that wouldn't buy into the vision of this church. I mean, they just were looking at it in the pure natural. They're business people, and they that's not wise. You know, we're in this church building, right? We're in this church building because we made those decisions 30 years ago. And it's the corporate anointing, it's not just me. Are y'all with me now? Talking about prayer that changed things. And so we did close on that 92.7 acres, and uh, and we started making $5,700 a month payments on land. I mean, well, for those payments. And I made sure, you know, that we that we paid on time every month, every month, on that land. And uh, and so then um uh so uh in in 19 uh I believe it was 1990.

Ninety Days To Find A Home

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Everybody said mix faith with your prayers. So in 1999, we uh we had the we we moved out of that old building that we were in in '98 and uh moved into Champion Forest Baptist Church down the street, which is now Christchurch. And uh they we we just moved out of that old building because again, we ran out of room and we hadn't been able to build a building yet on our brand new on our property. And so we just we made a deal and we leased their building from them. And it was uh, and then they sold the building out from just literally sold it out from under us, and we only had 90 days to move. So that was another time when when the corporate anointing, when we were praying, see, we're believing and we're praying, you know, and then when people don't get an agreement, what happens? They're grieving the spirit, just like we talked about this morning. They're going against the grain, and it causes a separation. Not uh not every not every uh shrinkage is bad. Sometimes people need to leave and go wherever they need to go so that we can all have agreement. Agreement is more important than numbers. So uh we were praying about how to get out of that of that building in 1999. Uh, you know, it was uh we had 90 days to move, and boy, we had a lot of we had prayer, we were praying and praying and praying. In fact, I called some some uh ladies that that Gladys and I knew that were drunk Ruby. Anybody remember drunk Ruby? We called her and another woman that uh uh worked for Brother Copeland's uh missions department, and they were prayer warriors. So we called them and came, they came down here, and we walked up and down the sanctuary in that in that Baptist church praying a couple of nights, you know, and just we really had to hear from God about how to how to find another building. I mean, you ever try to move a church and find another church building in 90 days? And so it came down to the fact that we had to be out on Thursday and now it's Wednesday night service. And uh, we still don't have a deal. I had looked at the Seventh-day Adventist Church down uh in West Houston, seventh day, and I didn't have a witness. I mean, it fit the bill. It was available. They were there on uh Saturday. We could come and be there on Sunday, and we could be there on Wednesday night. So it was going to work out just fine. And everything was just, it was pretty expensive for the rent, but it was available. God wouldn't give me a witness, so we couldn't pull the trigger. So here we are, we're running all the way out of time. And it's Wednesday night, and we're having a Wednesday night service, the last one in this building. We don't have a church building, we don't have a place to move yet. So I stood, and and God told me before the service started, he said, I tell you what, I want you up on the platform. I don't want the praise worship team up there. I want you in a microphone and tracks. Nobody up there but you. And so I didn't understand that, but that's what I did. They kind of looked at me funny. I said, No, I won't need you tonight. I'm just gonna be up there by myself. So I led worship beside them by myself. I preached, and then I, at the end of the service, I announced, okay, we'll call you. We're gonna have church Sunday morning. We just don't know where we will call you. God's gonna open the door for us between now and Sunday. Well, they didn't believe that. See, they didn't believe it. Why did I believe it? I believe because God's word doesn't fail. God's this is God's work. This is God's church, not mine. I'm just a caretaker.

unknown 31:06

Thank you, Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

I'm talking about some of the prices we've had to pay and some of the edges we've had to move into, right on the edge of disaster, seemed like. And yet God came through. So anyway, the next day we had still some stuff to get out of the building, and we had to work. But that morning, that Thursday morning, the elder from that Seventh-day Adventist Church, Dr. Pagani, he's a medical doctor. He was the elder that I had dealt with. And he was the one that gave me the price, showed me the building and everything. And he called me, and it'd been a month, and he called me. He says, Pastor Griner, this is Dr. Pagani. Where are you? We need you. He said, We need you, and I dropped the phone and started crying, you know, because I said, No, we need you. And finally had the witness. I mean, the witness hit me so strong, I thought, uh, you know, it's kind of like Peter, you know, I didn't know where I was there for a minute. And so we were able to be in that church the very next Sunday morning. And a lot of those folks, you know, that didn't want to, they they thought I was a fool for buying that 92.7 acres. They thought I was a fool that we didn't buy that decrepit old building down there that still got old air conditioning. I mean, I wouldn't have it for anything. They they they paid three million dollars, it was listed for six and a quarter. So they they found another Baptist church to give it away to. They wouldn't give it away to us. I'm glad they didn't. Now I think I would have been really tempted if they'd have told me we'll sell it to you for three, but I'm glad we didn't do it. Are y'all getting anything out of this? I'm talking about some supernatural things. God, God changes things. Um, I wanted to talk about this. I think I have time to share this one more testimony. We have so many uh others that I don't have time to share tonight, but I really wanted to share this one. I hadn't shared it in a while. And uh it really is, along with all these other things that happened. Uh, this is before we moved into the Champion Forest Baptist Church, and we were still in the first building.

A Vision Of Judgment And Warning

SPEAKER_00 33:19

It was uh on the evening of the 6th of August, 1998. And we were having Thursday night prayer. Gladys was always the one that headed up our Thursday night prayer, and uh she had a vision for it. And the purpose of Thursday night prayer was the church. We didn't really pray about world events, we didn't pray, you know, it was about the church. That was her heart. She's the mother of this church, and we're a brand new church. We've we've got, and so we it wasn't a time for us to have people come and have hands laid. It's not another church service, it's a prayer service, period. And so she would lead the prayer that on on Thursday night. And I would always go. And uh, and so we were all there. Jay was there, and Claire was there, and uh, I think Selena, I don't know if Selena, I don't know if Selena, she probably stayed home with the kids. But anyway, so we were there, and as soon as Gladys opened in prayer, I was in the spirit. I mean, I just, man, all of a sudden, I'm not in the prayer meeting. I'm a hundred feet above South Post Oak Road. It's not nighttime, it's daytime. I'm looking directly north across the street is William's Tower. And uh I'm thinking, what? And I'm look down, and here's here's here's South Post Oak, and I'm just kind of floating above the street, looking at Williams Tower, wondering, what in the world am I doing? Why am I here? And something caught my eye on the right side and looking down and across the street on the sidewalk was a uh, I call it like a pipeline of fire, was running down the sidewalk. And it was going faster than a walk. I mean, it's it's going it's trap, it's not real fast, but it's faster than somebody can walk ahead of it. And it's traveling down across the street, it stops in front of Williams Tower, turns and goes in the front door, goes over to the elevators, and goes upstairs and all the way up it the fire. I could see it going all the way to the top of the building on every floor. And I'm still in awe. I'm still wondering, what am I doing here? What am I seeing? What does this mean? And then I heard a voice that was outside of me. It wasn't inside. And I thought maybe everybody heard it. I don't think anybody heard it but me, but anyway, I heard the audible voice, and he said, I'm about to judge corporate America. And I thought, well, why do I need to know that? And what am I, you know? I'm still in awe. I just don't understand what in the world, what this visitation is all about. But in in this vision, I thought to myself, where did the fire come from? See, it came from my right, which is east. And it's coming down the road. So I wanted to know, I wanted to know where did the fire come, so I so I just looked. I'm still 100 feet above South Post, so I'm looking to the east, and in the very misty distance, is I can see the capital of Washington, D.C., the White House. And by that I knew that judgment was going to begin in the U.S. government first. And after God judged it, there was gonna come. And see, these are not final judgment. What's a judgment? See, I had to learn that. Nobody taught me anything about judgment at Lakewood. I brother Osteen never even talked about it. It's not a real positive subject for most people there, but I want to tell you what judgment is. Judgment is just God unveiling evil and exposing it. And so I, but I didn't know that at the time. He said, I'm a about to judge corporate America, but then when I looked down the street, I knew that judgment began down there and the government. And I knew that it was going to start there and end up in corporate America. God didn't even, God did not recognize global corporations, still doesn't. All these global corporations need to get right. They've given our jobs away, they've given our our stuff away. I mean, they wouldn't have anything if it wasn't for America. But anyway, I digress. So uh so this is just so powerful. I I don't even really know what to do. I'm I'm I'm seeing this, I'm hearing this, I heard this voice first, corporate America the other. I didn't hear any voice, I just saw the the outline of Washington, D.C. And so then I turned back, and now I'm in the room where we were praying. Uh I found myself standing there, and I don't know really what everybody else was doing. I don't know whether I said anything while I was in this trance or not. Uh how many were there that night? Anyone here that was there? Teresa was there, Gwen was there. Did I say anything during all this time? Did I say anything? When did y'all see me just standing there? I mean, you know, it's kind of weird. So when I when I came back into my consciousness where I'm in, and I know I know I'm in the room, but I felt something that was wet. I felt like I was standing in something wet. I looked down and I'm standing ankle deep in blood, rich, dark, thick blood. It's up to over my tops of my shoes. And I began to weep. I just went down like this, and I began to weep, and I and I began to try to pray. Oh God, all the blood of your soldiers that died in all these wars. And when I just made that mention, I heard that loud voice again from outside, not inside. Outside, no. I mean, I thought everybody heard the no. I heard it. And I shut up. And I couldn't pray for what I saw. I couldn't pray for the judgment of our government. I couldn't pray for the judgment of corporate America. I couldn't pray against it. And so I just said, well, Lord, I just, the blood of Jesus then. The blood of Jesus. And I went home and I was just, I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to take it. I had no revelation of what it was that I was, why I was shown that. So the next morning uh I wake up to the news that our two embassies in Africa, Tanzania and Kenya, had been attacked by Al-Qaeda, which was first major attack by Osama bin Laden. And over 200 of our soldiers died. I was standing in their blood five hours before, and God would not allow me to intervene. Are y'all getting this now? It gets kind of heavy. Well, you they were innocent. Well, yeah, they're innocent. That's the tragedy of America not obeying its covenant with God. This is the tragedy. People are dying because of it. And they're just, I mean, it's been going on a long time because we've drifted away. We used to be one nation under God, and we're not that anymore. And God is not killing people. He didn't kill those people. But He but when we drift away from under God, then we're no longer protected. I didn't know all that then. I didn't know all that. God had to teach me about his ways. Are y'all getting any of this now? Talking about the corporate anointing and how powerful it is. So uh I I looked at that and I just was sober. I mean, I realized that five hours in my, but I calculated between when those explosions went off in Kenya and Tanzania, and a lot more Africans died, but 200 of our guys died. And I'm standing in their blood. I mean, you don't talk about getting my attention. So anyway, uh I still didn't know what all to say. I don't even know if I ever told a church about it. I mean, I the prayer, I mean, I don't know if we visited that. I didn't know enough to talk about it, to be honest with you. And uh, and so the uh a few weeks later, I don't know exactly how long I could look this up, I was watching the evening news, and uh they were talking about a man that had previous to that night, it would happen earlier in the summer, he had uh uh uh violated the uh the security at the Capitol, which I saw in that vision, saw the Capitol, and uh this man had violated the Capitol security, had gotten in to the Capitol, and he killed John Tom DeLay's security chief of security and another man. Two men were murdered by this crazy person, and he never paid for it. I mean, they they eventually they they said that he was insane, they put him in an asylum. I mean, he deserved to be hung. But anyway, he broke into that, into that and killed those two men. So a few weeks later, see, I'd known about that, but I wasn't making the connection. But a few weeks later, after this visitation, I'm watching the evening news, and they bring up this man on the evening news, and so-and-so has been arraigned in Washington, D.C. for the murder of da-da-da-da-da, you know, the man's name and Tom DeLay's uh chief of security, da-da-da-da-da. And the Holy Ghost, that voice that I had heard from outside, he said, See, you can't protect yourselves. Can't protect yourselves. So uh by that I knew that this judgment was because our nation had turned away from God, had not been doing the right thing. You know, back then, I mean, you had you had uh slick Willie inserting himself into Israeli affairs and trying to make peace, land for peace deals. Uh, you know. George H. W. Bush did the same thing. Every time we have these politicians try to interfere with Israel and try to give their covenant land away for peace, then God's hand had now God's not mad at us, and God is not sending the trouble. He just simply is prevented from sheltering us from it. We have a covenant that's got blessings and cursings. Now, you and I don't, we're we're redeemed from the curse. We don't have any curses, thank God. But the country does. And the country, we are suffering because of the violation of these covenants. Are y'all with me now?

Covenant Responsibility And The Call To Vote

SPEAKER_00 43:47

That's why it's so important for us to do what we're doing, to wake up the church so that they vote. They don't just register, vote. Well, I don't know who to vote. Well, find out. What are you simple? You can't do a little research. You live in the greatest country on the face of the earth. You have no excuse not to vote. I know I'm screaming at the ones that vote. Why don't you do some screaming too? Maybe you need to holler at somebody. Get you a tube before and hit them up. No, don't do that. Oh, come on, let's lift our hands right now. Glory to God. I've gone on and on and on. And I could keep going. I said I could keep going. I mean, God has been so magnificent the way He's led us all these years. He's so faithful. We're working, you know, make a long story short. Now we do know that God's judgments are his mercy in disguise. I mean, he warns you. He warns you that that final, see, final judgment's not here yet. I'm telling you, if you miss the rapture, you're gonna experience the things you wish you didn't. And so is the rest of this whole world. They're gonna hate it. They're gonna hate that they didn't give their hearts to Jesus on time. The only way to get saved during the tribulation period is to be a martyr. That's the only way. You're gonna the only way you can live is to take the mark of the beast, and you're gonna deny it to Christ. So there's no salvation for you. And if you do not do that, then you won't be able to eat and you will starve to death, or you will be killed by all these other horrible things that the book of Revelation tells you what's gonna happen. There's gonna be plagues and storms and all kinds of things, uh, hailstones falling from heaven. I mean, there's some things that are gonna happen on the earth that we don't want to be part of. That's why Jesus' blood was shed to begin with. Are y'all with me now? So uh it's so important now as we go forward for the corporate anointing and not just praying, but every service is an opportunity for revelation to come. Every service is a time when God the heavens open and we can begin to see and know things that we don't always know. I mean, I many many of you have had that experience. I I know uh James and Claire both. I mean, they they sit here and I'm talking about one thing, and all of a sudden God starts talking to them about something else. I mean, the spirit of seeing and knowing comes in. I mean, you know, we've got to know what God wants us to do on all these doors that are opening. There, there many of them are God and some of them aren't. And we got to know which which ones to go through and which ones to leave off. Are you with me now?

Praying Over Elections And National Crises

SPEAKER_00 46:37

So then we just go on and we in the year 2000, the presidential election. Remember uh Al Gore running against uh George W. Bush. So we prayed for Bush, you know. That was before we knew all about Bush, but we prayed for him anyway. He was a better choice than than uh Baby Huey, is what I call him. That's that's Al Gore. Look at him, and he looks like Baby Huey. I mean, he's as dumb as Baby Huey. And he would have been a horrible, he'd been worse than Clinton. I think he would have been worse than Obama, really. Horrible person. He's a horrible person. And so they got down, and guess what? And so we prayed, I'm at church, we prayed over that election, and where was it decided? It was decided in the Supreme Court. So anyway, God told me while we were praying, he said, you're gonna pray more after the election than you do than you are right now. And I thought, what does that mean? Well, that's what it meant. We had to pray while that thing was the hanging Chad, all of that. I mean, we took that and we began to pray over that. I mean, we took that and we changed it. I mean, you know, thank God. I mean, the Supreme Court is the why Bush got installed. And he was a better choice if you had to choose. He's a globalist, there's no question. He had his faults, but he was a better choice. And sometimes you don't get the ideal thing. That's another thing we're trying to fix. We're trying to get the Christians to step up to the plate and start running for some of these offices. We don't need these soft marshmallows. Um, and then, of course, you know, we prayed over uh our buildings and land when we had the 92.7 acres down the street. God opened the door for us to give that land back, have that $600,000 debt erased, and he gave us this uh 85-acre track of which we now have 10 acres, and we sold the rest of it off and paid off our loan. We're debt-free. It's a double miracle. Double miracle, all because we bought that land down the street that people got offended over and said that I'd lost my mind. It's okay. But I'm the one that has to answer to God for whatever we do. Anybody remember in March of 2003, we were in Seventh-day Church, and I said, we're gonna have an all-night prayer meeting next Wednesday night. And so we met and we had an all-night prayer meeting instead of the normal prayer, instead of the normal service. We just started praying at 7:30 at that church, and about an hour into the prayer meeting is when our soldiers hit Iraq. And uh, we were praying on the night of the Iraq invasion. And uh and God had us praying. I mean, this you know, you think about what God has done in this in this in this church. Here we are. We're not a mega church, we're not you know big in numbers, and yet God has used us in things that have been just uh nothing short of amazing. And uh we prayed all night long and covered our our guys in prayer. And uh I mean everybody was so worried about the uh uh Rocky Red Guard when they they were running for the hills. They're all a bunch of cowards. They didn't they didn't even show up. And so uh thank God uh no telling how many angels they probably saw. They probably saw all kinds of angels there and thought they were UFOs. All right, we won't get into UFOs. Well, I'll stay away from that wholesome. Praise the Lord. Um last

Interceding For Protection Over Houston

SPEAKER_00 50:10

thing. In 2009, we were praying. And many times, you know, my prayer in Galveston is an extension of praying here. And it's it's it's about the church. We're praying in response to the church. Yes, I'm I'm anointed to pray, I can hear from God on my own, but I consider it the corporate anointing. So anyway, we were I was in Galveston, and God showed me uh that we were gonna have another 9-11 type terror attack on five cities. And this is after Obama has been elected. He's not exactly an enemy of the Muslims. I mean, he's I mean, he gave I mean he gave how many billion dollars, I think, in cash, a plain load of hundred dollar bills he gave to Iran. I mean, that guy. If anybody deserves, well, anyway. Um so he showed me the 9-11 terror attack on five cities. He said, now if you'll pray, I'll protect Texas and Houston. See, I've known this about Houston, but Houston is number one on the, I mean, they would love to blow up the Houston ship channel. And this is the fourth largest port in the world. If they were to blow this port up, if they were to block it up, somehow sink a big tanker in the middle of it, it would it would interrupt the economy of this country. It would be it would be bigger than just Houston. It would be a massive blow. They hadn't been able to do it. Why? Because we're ruling over this, we're reigning over this thing. Houston is a safe and prosperous city, and God protects her from all her enemies. All I've got to do is say that. But you've got to believe it and say it too. So anyway, he told me, if you'll pray, I'll protect Texas and Houston. And so there were. There was the guy that had the shoe bomber, you know, and there was another one where they caught a bomb that was in a printer cartridge. It was shipped overseas, it was going to be on an airplane, and they interrupted it before it left. It was going to blow up when it landed here in New York. And they had another uh uh, let's see, the underwear bomber. I mean, he started his underwear got on fire on the on the plane, you know. It was a I mean, we we prayed and all that was exposed. And then, of course, the Fort Hood, uh, which was terrorism. Obama called it a workplace uh incident. Workplace violence. No, it was a terror attack by a Muslim who wanted to do jihad, and he and he, you know, he had all of those guys are disarmed. Here they're they're servicemen. Why can't they carry a piece on? I don't understand. Stupid. But anyway, they're unarmed, and the only people that had arms were MPs and they weren't in the room, and this guy shot a bunch of people up, and Obama made it so that the families couldn't collect benefits. And that still hadn't been corrected, didn't he? Father, right now, we want that corrected. Every one of the people that survived, the survivors of those people that were murdered by that freak. Lord, we want them to be made whole. They can't be made whole about the death, but they can at least collect the benefits that they ought to have. Call it what it is. It was terrorism. And we need to get that guy out of the insane asylum and put him in a firing squad. He's not insane. If he's insane, all of them are insane. So that's not the case. They know exactly what they're doing. So, you know, somebody came up and said, Well, Pastor, that didn't work. That happened in Texas, and I kind of felt bad at first. And God reminded me, He said, That's not Texas, that's federal property. That's that's not that's not that's not federal, that's federal property, it's not Texas property. So, you know, I hate to be a stickler for detail, but that's true. And he did uh protect us from that. Now I could go on and on. We've prayed away storms, we've prayed away hurricanes, we've prayed away

Final Exhortation And Blessing

SPEAKER_00 54:12

all kinds of things. Come on, let's lift our hands. Prayer to change things. And I want you to know that the same God that's in here corporately to change things can change things in your life if you'll just give yourself to prayer and give yourself to God's word and say that God is a covenant keeping God. If he said it, he'll do it. If he spoke it, he'll make it good.

unknown 54:33

Hallelujah.