The Danger of Political Idolatry and Spiritual Elitism

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[00:04:55] Anybody happy to be in the house of God? Anybody just a little bit kind of thirsty for the water in the well. How sweet it is to be loved by you. Look at somebody. If it ain't the somebody you want to say it to, just kind of look around them a little and say, he loves you through me right now. And then look at the other side. So they ain't quite
[00:05:45] sure if you ever saw them or not how sweet it is to be loved by you lord how sweet how sweet it is to be loved by you lord and one another you know no matter what somebody looks like standing beside
[00:06:20] you they gotta look better than some folk you've seen at work and school this week this has got to be just a little bit of a step up right here tonight thank you lord for the step ups in your
[00:06:32] house where you can be seated our children i'm so glad you were in here they may be staying i don't even know but i want you to worship as sienna comes to minister and dance to us i'm so grateful
[00:06:50] for our worship and arts academy so grateful for miss jasmine teaches techniques and skills and protocols but she does it from a worshiping heart and soul and that is so amazing would you let the children know we was glad to have them in we let you in here tonight every night and

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[00:07:17] every morning worship now with sienna on my song when i don't have a melody lord you are my strength i have troubles make me weak wanna take my time and say words cannot say of your love explain
[00:10:29] Would you stand? Lift your hands. Let's just worship him right now. Lord, we thank you. We

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:11:08] praise you, Lord. Hallelujah. Lord, you're never changing. Always the same. God, we worship you

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[00:11:16] tonight. You give life. You are love. You bring light to the darkness. You give hope and you restore every heart that is broken. Great. He gives life. You give life. And you are love.
[00:11:59] You bring light to the darkness.
[00:12:06] You give hope and you restore every heart that is broken.
[00:12:19] Oh, great are you, Lord.
[00:12:28] It's your breath in our lungs.
[00:12:33] So we pour out our praise. It's your praise. So we pour out our praise to you, Jesus.
[00:13:34] All the earth will shout your praise Our hearts will cry and these bones will sing Great Lord, the earth is crying All the earth will shout your praise Our hearts will cry and these bones will sing
[00:14:09] Great Lord, all the earth will shout your praise, our hearts will cry, and all the earth will shout your praise, our hearts will cry, and these bones, they'll sing great are you.
[00:14:57] so we it's your breath and i so we pour out it's your breath and i love so we pour god it's your breath in my lungs my lungs lord i pour out my praise i pour out my praise god it's your
[00:15:47] breath in my lungs my lungs pour out my praise pour out my praise it's your breath in my lungs pour out my praise to you only with that breath begin to praise him and magnify glorify
[00:16:19] hallelujah you're worthy hallelujah we praise you glorify king of kings and lord of lords you are great and greatly to be praised hallelujah hallelujah our praise on him he's poured out so

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:16:46] much on us it's our honor to sing praises to him to tell him what he means to us I love being in the house with you. I love being in the house with people who are hungry for more
[00:17:01] of him, who were just chomping at the bits to get here and not thinking, Oh no, it's Thursday night again. I thank my God for the remnant of God that resides in this house. Thanks be to God.
[00:17:17] We're hungry for a word. We know we haven't come close to arriving. There's always so much more of him i'm speaking tonight uh i i was going in one direction and all of a sudden yesterday
[00:17:31] morning i just completely switched directions and it has nothing to do with any of that back there so when i tell you it's hot off the presses and i don't even know what the pages say hardly that's
[00:17:41] the truth but i feel like this is where i'm supposed to go tonight i'm talking about unrelenting boldness in a brazen world. When you think about boldness in scriptures, who comes to mind? I'm asking you, who comes to mind? Who? Paul, Joshua, Samuel, Jeremiah, David, the
[00:18:13] Hebrew boys, Elijah, Jeremiah.
[00:18:19] There's so many of them.
[00:18:21] When I think about boldness and I think about that boldness that I won't replicate it in my own life, my top three would be Jeremiah, Daniel, and then Elijah.
[00:18:38] Oh, Elijah.
[00:18:40] elijah teaches us what it looks like to stand all by yourself with a boldness for god that disgraces and dismantles and completely disarms the enemy i desperately want to live in the boldness of elijah that's the line that's the barometer where i judge myself these days with a jeremiah and
[00:19:10] Elijah a Daniel Elijah you may not know this is written about 28 different times in the New Testament now he's an Old Testament prophet but he's written about more than any other Old Testament prophet in the New Testament in fact he's in the New Testament right at the Mount of Transfiguration
[00:19:33] that we just visited a few days ago hope we stood on the mount of transfiguration where Elijah stood in the new testament and bishop many weeks ago was talking about Elijah so the pieces that he's
[00:19:47] touched I'm not touching tonight because you're a mature people and you got it but we know that Elijah's name means Yahweh it's God want the enemy just like when he has to say Elijah I want the
[00:20:05] enemy to choke on my name every time it comes out of his mouth. I want the enemy to need and peps it and want him to choke because he knows who I am and who got his kind of name. The devil doesn't
[00:20:30] even want to put our name in his mouth. That's Elijah. You know the story. During Elijah's lifetime, nearly all of God's people, the ones living in God's promised land have turned their backs on the one true God. Now there had been a steep decline for the last 100 years. Don't tell
[00:20:59] me God's not patient. Don't tell me that in the old Testament, he's not grace. Don't even try to tell me. It's been a hundred years of God's people that have been delivered miraculously by his hand
[00:21:12] time and again for a hundred years. They have turned their backs on God. They have removed all the altars unto the one true God and erected altars for Baal. God's land, the promise he gave
[00:21:29] to them has become a cesspool of Baal worship and he's still letting them breathe he is so patient with me he is so patient with us Israel's king Ahab married he's so wicked he marries the daughter
[00:21:54] of a priest of Baal.
[00:21:59] Israel's king marries that mess and brings her all up into God's nation.
[00:22:07] The scriptures tell us Ahab began to rule over Israel for 22 years, but Ahab did what was evil in the Lord's sight, even more than any of the other kings before him.
[00:22:23] And as though it were not enough to follow the sinful example of Jeroboam he married Jezebel the daughter and he Israel's king Ahab began to bow down and worship of Baal first Ahab built a temple to Baal then an altar for Baal
[00:22:47] in Samaria in the capital of God's nation then he set up an Asherah pole which is the female half of Baal. He did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, more than any of the
[00:23:04] other kings of Israel before him. If you haven't married, I need you to put this little phrase that I'm about to put on the screen. I need you to take a picture and I need you to repeat it to
[00:23:16] yourself every day till you walk down that aisle. Who you marry determines what you will build and what you will birth with your life. There are people in this house that could stand up here
[00:23:31] and tell you because of their own experiences. They could teach a clinic on the reality of this truth. Who you marry determines what you will build and what you will birth with your life.
[00:23:44] That spirit of Jezebel, you hear people talking about, it comes from this woman, the daughter of a priest of Baal that got all up in God's nation with God's king and started getting people to
[00:24:00] she brings down Jehovah's true altars and begins to erect them for herself for her own preservation she seeks to this spirit is still going on today y'all it seeks to manipulate the word of God
[00:24:16] to bind it to restrict it to make it agreeable with our self absorbed sensitivities. I've said this before, but I'm at a place and it's especially gone on since around 2020, but, and I tolerated it for a bit, but I'm so sick and
[00:24:33] tired of it. I'm not tolerated anymore. I am so sick and tired of people who quote God's word that don't even obey God's word, trying to quote God's word in a twisted way to preach to me,
[00:24:46] the people that are living by God's word. I am so done with you. I don't have time to mess with you and you can mess with some Christians because they don't know the word, but I know the word
[00:24:58] and I've got your number and I'm not tolerating it. We as the mature body of Christ can't tolerate it. They try to put us in a corner and make us feel bad. They're, they're misquoting the word
[00:25:10] of God. They have no business with it in their mouth. They're manipulating the word of God.
[00:25:17] God's people are following Ahab and Jezebel, Lot, Stock, and Beryl.
[00:25:23] Church folk are twisting the truth in that time to fit their fancy.
[00:25:27] They have justified evil so continuously that they've lost all conscience.
[00:25:33] That's a dangerous place to be.
[00:25:35] You don't even feel the nudging of the Lord anymore.
[00:25:38] You are so cold to it.
[00:25:41] This is where they are.
[00:25:42] And God sends Elijah onto the scene.
[00:25:45] now Elijah is a nobody in the world's eyes like we don't even hear anything about him except in the first sentence where he's from and and his daddy we know he's a nobody he didn't have any
[00:26:00] credentials he's up against this nation this corrupt nation this evil king holding all the power and his manipulating wife Elijah has no credentials he has no influential family to speak of he has no powerful connections all Elijah had was Hanani I'm yours Lord I'm saying yes I'll go
[00:26:25] I'll speak for you I'll put my life on the line I'll stand before the powers of this age and say thus saith the Lord send me Lord I'm here that's all he had first king says Elijah the nobody
[00:26:42] went to the Oval Office and he told King Ahab, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, the God I serve, the one that you've long forgotten, there will be no dew or rain during
[00:26:58] the next few years until I give the word. Now we've heard the story of Elijah so long and so much that we completely overlook the boldness of this moment the risk he took the nobody
[00:27:14] walks past all the security walks straight into that oval office confronts the most powerful person in the land that could have his head chopped off before he gets a word out of his mouth and he looks him eyeball to eyeball and says you have rejected the one true God and I'm about to
[00:27:34] make you and all that belongs to you miserable. I'm about to make you suffer and you will be helpless. Oh, powerful one to do anything about it. The anguish and the torment will not be lifted
[00:27:48] until by God. I say, so talking about boldness and brazenness, God, let it fall on us. God, let it fall on us. God's waiting for the remnant that feels like a nobody that has nothing but
[00:28:05] Hanani in their mouth to say, thus saith the Lord and no God's got your back. My God, that's who he's called us to be. Listen, people come talking to you because you come to this Pentecostal church
[00:28:23] and they think it's so intense. This is the OG intense. We look like lambs by comparison, but this is what we're supposed to look like. I'm not apologizing for leaving it all on the field.
[00:28:43] That's what Elijah did. He knew God doesn't play and he wasn't about to play either.
[00:28:48] Listen, radical Christianity, they call us radical Christianity. It just means basic Christianity.
[00:28:56] Obedience looks so radical these days because we are living in such a self-absorbed church, not world, church, that obedience looks radical.
[00:29:09] Elijah, he did not care what people thought of him.
[00:29:13] Listen, children, I have gotten to the place.
[00:29:16] I do not care what people, I care what my God says about me.
[00:29:22] I care what my family says about my walk with the Lord.
[00:29:25] I care about what my hope sees in me.
[00:29:28] And the rest of it, I'm putting it out on the field.
[00:29:31] I'm just putting it out at the trash.
[00:29:34] Elijah didn't care what people thought about him.
[00:29:37] He didn't coddle their sensitivities.
[00:29:40] He would have never been elected into an office.
[00:29:43] He likely had family members that were loyal to this king.
[00:29:49] He likely had family members that were entrenched in the politics of that day.
[00:29:55] But not Elijah.
[00:29:56] he stood all by himself he cared about one thing and one thing only what is God saying can we get there people of God can we get there can we refuse to sell out and have allegiance to
[00:30:16] any political party to any political figure can we stop and stop feeling that we gotta marry one of them. None of them are going to get it all right. Can we just stop and look at every policy
[00:30:30] and look at this policy and says, how does this policy align with this right here? It's all I care about. I don't care where you came from, what your name is. Does the policy align with this?
[00:30:43] And if it aligns with this, you've got my vote. And even when that policy aligns with this, the next decision that person makes may not be full, may not be biblical, but we got to find
[00:30:59] the one that makes more, the policy decisions that align with his word than the others.
[00:31:05] That is our allegiance. Our allegiance only is to our God and what he has spoken as Ahab and Jezebel lead God's nation off of a cliff into bail worship, shallow people of God dropped like flies it was obscene we're watching it right now even the remnant of god in that hour
[00:31:33] the true prophets that still said they believed in god they're hiding out in caves afraid for their lives when i tell you elijah is standing all alone in this moment he's standing all alone he walks in all himself into the king's chambers and he gives it to him with both barrels thus
[00:31:58] saith the Lord. Can I tell you that where God leads, fear loses all authority. If God's leading you there, fear loses its capacity to hold you. Hope's 42 that was just in a war zone.
[00:32:20] God was leading us. There was no fear on us whatsoever. Fear collapses. It has no authority on us it had no authority on elijah elijah knew he was god's voice to a nation that had turned
[00:32:37] their backs on their source and their sustenance do we know that do we know people of god that we are god's voice to a nation that has turned their backs on god we've got to carry this kind of
[00:32:51] boldness that speaks truth to power no matter if our family and friends ridicule us if they don't understand us. If they misquote us, if powerful people threaten us, we've got to speak truth.
[00:33:04] If we have to stand alone, our allegiance must rest only in him. When you feel like you're standing all alone for God, you'll never stand alone. You don't need a crowd. You just need Jesus. Turn around and tell somebody that you don't need a
[00:33:27] crowd. You just need Jesus. Scripture every time the crowds vote, they vote the wrong way. You don't need a crowd. You just need Jesus. Elijah makes this direct assault on their God of rain and said, it ain't going to rain till I say so by
[00:33:54] God. This was not arrogance. This was boldness. He had heard the word of the Lord. He did not walk in arrogance. Somebody could look at this and seem that you're reading it all wrong. He answered to
[00:34:09] God alone and he had no fear. And once he said what he said to King Ahab, God said, go, get out of there. This specific assignment is over. Move to your next. I'm leading you to your next.
[00:34:28] Listen, when God is your source, the end of your current assignment is often the beginning of a new expanding assignment. I know some people they'll say, well, I lost my job and you stay all of it.
[00:34:41] Maybe you lost your job because God knew you weren't going to leave any other way. And he's trying to get you to your next and you're all upset because this significant relationship ended sweetheart stop lamenting maybe just maybe god's trying to move you to the better thing he's trying
[00:35:01] to get you from where you are it's time to move on to your next he told elijah move get out of there i've got the next for you once elijah confronts the oval office the lord as bishop has shared
[00:35:16] many weeks ago he provides for Elijah for three and a half years in that drought everybody including the king is in a severe drought people are dying they have nothing and Elijah every single day
[00:35:31] is provided for by God Almighty with the brook and the raven then God sends him to Zarephath that Bishop talked about with the widow woman Ahab in all his power is hunting Elijah down like a
[00:35:44] wild animal every minute of the day with all of his resources. But can I tell you, as we hide under the shadow of his wings, God's enemy is powerless to uncover us. You just got to know
[00:35:59] where to hide. You got to know where to hide. After three and a half years, Elijah, this nobody, he comes looking for Ahab. Now Ahab's been looking for him for three and a half years and can't find
[00:36:16] him with all his resources. Elijah is hidden in God and has nothing or nobody on his side, but God.
[00:36:24] And he comes looking for Ahab and finds him and said, we're going to have a face to face. It's time to talk again. It wasn't arrogance. It was boldness. It's what we're called to stand in
[00:36:39] people of God. He knew God had his back. He was speaking for God and he knew God had his back.
[00:36:45] And so Ahab is summoned to go out and meet Elijah.
[00:36:50] And when Ahab saw him, he exclaimed, so is it really you, you troublemaker of Israel?
[00:36:57] You're making us all suffer.
[00:36:59] It's all because of you.
[00:37:01] Can I just tell you when a nation turns its back on righteousness, God's remnant is the living reminder of what the nation has forsaken.
[00:37:10] That's our mandate.
[00:37:11] The deceived ones now see evil as good and good as evil. Consequently, they deemed the rescuers as the troublemakers. That's where we are. People of God, they need us. They need us desperately. The only way evil can survive is to
[00:37:30] attach itself to good because if it stands all by itself, it destroys itself. They need us desperately, but they call us the troublemakers. We're the rescuers by God. Uh, Elijah replied, I have made no trouble for Israel you and your family are the troublemakers Ahab for you have
[00:37:52] refused to obey the commands of the Lord and you have worshiped the images of Baal instead now on God's land on God's promise now summon all of Israel to join me at Mount Carmel along with
[00:38:06] the 450 prophets of Baal that you've been putting on your dime on the government paycheck and the 400 prophets of Asherah who were supported by Jezreel. The literal thing there says who are eating at Jezebel's table. Now the view, the 42 will tell you and the 33 will tell you that Mount
[00:38:29] Carmel sets high. It's like standing at the top of the empire state building. You can see from every direction. I tell you, I've said it before and Bishop has said it, hell has come for the
[00:38:43] high places. And we've got to move within a boldness that we see in Elijah that has absolutely no fear of the enemy. And we've got to take back the high places and we've got to do it with such
[00:38:57] boldness. We've got to walk in such a way that we make them afraid that the nobodies make the powerful ones afraid because the power is actually on our side. No mixture in us exposes the enemy's
[00:39:10] impotence. When we're sold out to God, we've got our ear to his heart. We know what he's saying.
[00:39:18] We move in the timing of God, with the word of God, in the way of God, with no mixture. We expose the enemy's impotence. He is impotent to bring you down and bring down what belongs to you.
[00:39:33] Elijah speaks to God's people that have wavered. He gets them up to the top of Mount Carmel. The reason they've come up there is because they're all starving it's a drought it's a famine they're
[00:39:44] believing somebody's going to bring some breakthrough so they get to the top so Ahab summoned all the people of Israel and the Baal prophets to Mount Carmel then Elijah stood in front of them and said how much longer what are you doing how much longer will you waver
[00:40:05] hobbling between two opinions if the lord is god follow him and if bell is god then follow him but the people were completely silent these are people that had been at the altar that had sung i surrender all these are people that had given come and put their offerings on
[00:40:32] the altar raise their children in the things of God and they had gotten so disconnected they had moved themselves so far from the altar of the Lord step by step by step by step that Elijah
[00:40:48] tries to remind them your God what are you doing get it together and they stay there and stand they're completely silent. Such cowards. Then Elijah said to them, I am the only prophet of the Lord who has left. Every one of you were standing here. You weak need cowards. You've
[00:41:16] lost your testimony. You've lost your faith. You've lost your way. I'm the only prophet of God that stands here. But Baal has 450. Asherah has 400. This is God's land. This is God's gift to us. Elijah stands all alone before 450 Baal prophets, 400 Asherah prophets, and the Jewish
[00:41:44] people who used to love Yahweh and serve him and live their whole lives for him. They've completely lost their way they've blended into culture so much that they have become the sick culture and yet this brave prophet speaks directly to their souls he says how long will you waver
[00:42:03] the hebrew word for waver there means sink essentially elijah is asking them how long will you sink and drown in the cesspool of your own sin and still they stand silent my god i want elijah's boldness lord let me live this bold all my days
[00:42:30] elijah tells the crowds he said you call on the name of your god and i'm gonna call on the name of the lord and the god who answers by setting fire to this wood he is the one true god elijah
[00:42:48] lets the male worshipers go first calling on their god listen you got to go home and read I can't even go into the night. It will make you laugh till you cry. 1 Kings 17, 18, go home and
[00:43:01] read it. It's hilarious and pitiful. How many of you know fake gods cannot come to the rescue?
[00:43:12] They begged their gods all day long, but nothing. Then it's Elijah's turn. I'm moving through this fast. You got to go read it. And I mean, and you think, I know the story, go read it. You'll get
[00:43:27] something new out of it every time. Then it's Elijah's turn. What's the very first thing Elijah does when it's his turn? He repairs the altar. He repairs the altar for Yahweh. There is no move
[00:43:47] of God without the altar of sacrifice. There had been offerings to Baal there time and again. That place had been so defiled. Elijah had to consecrate that space back to Jehovah God. The very first
[00:44:02] thing he does is repair the altars. I ask you and I ask you and I ask me, what mess has happened on the landscape of your genealogy? Some of it you may know about, some of it you may not,
[00:44:19] But every family, every human bows at an altar of some kind.
[00:44:25] We must repair our family's altar unto the one true God.
[00:44:30] It is incumbent upon us to repair the altar.
[00:44:36] We don't even know some of it.
[00:44:37] I know some of the mess back there in my family.
[00:44:41] It'll make the hair stand on the back of your head.
[00:44:43] But there's some of it I don't even know.
[00:44:44] I just have to plead the blood over all that mess and say, hell no, hell no, you will not have my family.
[00:44:55] Hell, you stop right there.
[00:44:58] You cannot trespass the bloodline and you shall not bring it upon my generations.
[00:45:06] It stops here.
[00:45:07] We've got to repair the altar for what you know about and what you don't.
[00:45:13] repair the altar. Elijah, when he's repairing the altar, he asked for the oddest thing.
[00:45:27] Elijah says to his servants, go bring me some water. Wait a minute. What are we in most need of right now? You, you want us to bring you water. Our family members have died. Our animals have
[00:45:45] died. Literally we have no water. And the little bit we have, you want us to bring it to you as an offering to the Lord. So they bring him water. And if you've been to Mount Carmel, you know,
[00:45:58] it's quite the distance all the way down as they, as they wait, they come back up with the water.
[00:46:06] Elijah said, go bring me some more, fill them again. They stand there and wait. I'm just believing Elijah's speaking in tongues. He's just praising God. He's just go on the rest of you with bad self. None of that worked. My God does go bring me some more water. He does it a third time.
[00:46:21] the very thing they needed most.
[00:46:27] It's the whole reason they were so desperate that they came to that place.
[00:46:31] And yet God's man said, bring me some more, bring me some more.
[00:46:36] Elijah used the very thing they were in greatest need of as an offering to the Lord.
[00:46:45] Some close to you covenant ones talking to the covenant ones would look at you because they don't begin to understand you.
[00:46:54] They think you're crazy, but they want your blessing.
[00:46:58] But they say you're wasting what you desperately need.
[00:47:01] Like, don't you have a power bill?
[00:47:04] Don't you need tires on your car?
[00:47:06] Why are you giving God the very...
[00:47:09] Understand how to repair the altar.
[00:47:15] And if you listen to them, you listen to them at your own peril.
[00:47:19] They think you're crazy, but as they watch a covenant life, they want your blessing.
[00:47:25] They want what you've got.
[00:47:27] An altar always requires a sacrifice.
[00:47:33] Can we bring God the thing we need most and turn it into an offering?
[00:47:40] Can we, people of God?
[00:47:42] Only then do we see the heavens open.
[00:47:47] Can we give to God that which we need most?
[00:47:55] I promise you, that's when the heavens open.
[00:48:02] Some of us wonder why God hasn't come through for us.
[00:48:04] could it be because we're still holding on tight to that which we need most instead of building an altar with it could it be my god people of god we've got to stop bargaining with him
[00:48:18] we've got to stop negotiating with him either he's lord or he's not stop wavering between two opinions. Elijah was one man standing against everyone else and he said, I will give to my God what every one of us need most. I believe him that much and you can't talk me out of it. Watch God.
[00:48:50] Elijah drenched the altar of wood. He drenched it so much it's impossible for fire to be consumed there, for fire to burn there. The scriptures say that Elijah, after he has drenched the altar with
[00:49:06] water, he begins to pray in front of all of them. Oh God, oh Lord, answer me. Answer me so these people will know that you, oh Lord of God, and that you have brought them back to yourself.
[00:49:19] It's always about redemption. It's always. God was working in that moment, still trying to bring them back to himself. I don't know how far your loved one has run. God is still working to bring them back to himself. Immediately after Elijah prays, the fire of the Lord flashed down
[00:49:45] from heaven and burned up the young bull, burned up the wood and the stones and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell face down on
[00:49:57] the ground and cried out, the Lord is God. Because one man had the guts to stand for God in the midst of peril. The scriptures say, then Elijah came in. People like to skip this part,
[00:50:23] but if you're going to carry the boldness of Elijah, we got to get it right. We got to do it all. Then Elijah commanded, I want you to seize all the prophets of Baal. Don't let a single one
[00:50:31] of them escape. So the people seized them all and Elijah took them down to the Kishon Valley and killed them there. You just saw the fire fall. You just heard me pray. You just heard me preach.
[00:50:54] You just heard me declare the word of the Lord time and again. And still you all up in your bail mess. Come on down here with me. We're going to take care of this. I wrote something on Facebook
[00:51:04] this week and somebody responded and they said, do you mean to tell me? Cause I was saying, you know we tend to look at everything these days through a political lens what's happened in recent days is prophetic if you know your scriptures you know that
[00:51:24] they could have some political components but this is deeply prophetic the lord himself is doing something and so someone got on and said do you mean to tell me that you think it's god's will
[00:51:37] for the leader of the islamic regime to be killed absolutely i mean like was this a real question do i need to clear this up for you like he has killed tens of thousands of thousands of thousands of
[00:51:55] innocent people and and it's like what dietrich bonhoeffer said with hitler dietrich bonhoeffer was a pastor and he two different times tried to be a part of the conspiracy to kill hitler because he said you keep killing innocent people at one point at some point we've got to take you
[00:52:13] out so that others can live because life matters my lord and then people talk about i should not get off on this but people talk about 52 children were killed in a school there in iran and they're
[00:52:29] blaming israel first of all israel didn't do that iran's own rockets misfired and killed their own people. But let's say that that wasn't the case. These people that are so out of reality right now
[00:52:45] that want to fixate on 52 innocent children, which is a travesty. But that's what you're going to talk about when for weeks now, tens of thousands of innocent children, women, I mean, small children have been tortured and murdered in the streets. And this is what your argument
[00:53:02] it is right now. Elijah took them down and dealt with them and walked back up. It wasn't arrogance.
[00:53:12] He was doing the work of the Lord. Like I gave you every chance. God gave you every chance.
[00:53:16] This nation is turning back to God. Elijah then told Ahab, I hear a mighty rain coming.
[00:53:30] Now, did he hear a mighty rain coming? In the natural, there was no evidence of that.
[00:53:44] Elijah was speaking by faith.
[00:53:46] He was speaking because in the spirit realm, he saw rain coming.
[00:53:52] I tell you tonight, your proximity to God determines what you hear.
[00:54:02] Elijah knew God's word and he staked his life on it.
[00:54:06] He knew that God said back in Deuteronomy, if you choose other gods, I will shut down the heavens so that the sky will dry up.
[00:54:13] If you turn to me, I'm going to let rain return to the earth.
[00:54:17] Elijah knew the word of the Lord he had been intimately talking with the Lord he knew the word of the Lord and so he said I hear rain coming listen if we don't know God's word we
[00:54:28] don't know how to pray it effectively so many prayers go unanswered because they're not tied to what God has said we're trying to hold God hostage to things he never even promised Elijah knew the word of the Lord. He said, I hear rain coming. Elijah climbed back to the top of
[00:54:48] Mount Carmel. That's a hike, y'all. And he began to travail in prayer. He said, Ahab, you go on.
[00:54:58] I'm telling you, rain is on the way. Rain is coming. Elijah goes back up to the high place and begins to travail like he's giving birth to something. It's a travailing kind of prayer, like he is about to deliver a miracle.
[00:55:12] It says that his face is between his knees.
[00:55:16] I'm telling you, it was intense prayer.
[00:55:18] And he prayed for a little bit, and then Elijah sent his servant.
[00:55:22] He said, go see if you see any sign of rain.
[00:55:26] Now, Mount Carmel is big, and so it wasn't that he just ran out the back door and looked at the backyard and came right back.
[00:55:32] It took a while to survey the whole circumference, and he comes back to Elijah and said, I'm sorry master I don't see a thing he gets back down and starts praying again and said go look
[00:55:45] again Elijah does this six different times and there's long lapses between when the servant comes back to report what he's found I don't even know how many hours this went on but can you imagine what could have been must have been going through Elijah's mind I just put my life on the
[00:56:11] I just killed all the false prophets I promised rain and I'm standing here and all of us depended on this one moment and there's no rain but Elijah in all his boldness refused to quit
[00:56:24] no matter how many times the servant came back with bad news he knew Elijah knew rain was coming no matter what the servant saw he stayed with it and he travailed until it was accomplished
[00:56:40] can we stay with it until our prayer is answered no matter how many times we look up and see nothing happening in our favor can we like you knew it is not a man that he can lie he staked his whole
[00:56:57] life on the fact that god was going to do what god said he was going to do and so he stayed with it. He travailed the seventh time. The servant came back and he said, sir, I see not much.
[00:57:15] It's just this tiny little infinitesimal cloud. It's about the size of my hand right here. That's all I see, sir. Elijah said, that's all I need, sir. It's as good as done. And he began to act
[00:57:28] in faith in that moment, like the floodgates had already opened because he knew the bottom was about to fall out and it did rains came in torrential pour downpour God never does anything halfway it was torrential downfall Jehovah God humiliated the enemies of God in high definition
[00:57:52] why because of one man's obedience that looked radical that looked extreme and he did it in a high place where everybody could see it. This one man band's boldness turned many back to God.
[00:58:13] Elijah's boldness, it jolts us today, doesn't it? It challenges us as we stand in a world, in a church that is drifting all around us. Elijah has always spoken to my soul. He's always been one of my favorites, but it began to reverberate in me. I mean, deep in my bones
[00:58:46] in 2017, in a horrifically hard season of my life, when it felt like everything had been pulled out from under me, things were bad, really bad. And then they kept going from bad to worse.
[00:59:07] And how many of you know, sometimes you can feel alone when you're not alone, but you feel alone.
[00:59:15] I felt alone.
[00:59:21] And in that hard season, I laid in my living room with a broken heart, a grieving heart.
[00:59:32] And I was unable to get up and get myself busy doing something else because that's what I do.
[00:59:39] and the doctor's reports were bleak and I felt fragile because I was fragile and vulnerable and if you know me you know I'm a pull yourself up by the bootstraps kind of girl like I'm just
[00:59:56] not gonna stay down long but I I literally could not get up and in my desperation I thought about Elijah and that boldness in so many days, just laying in that living room by myself in the
[01:00:25] quiet. I never turned the TV on. I cried a lot. I just began praying to the Lord. And I thought, I want that kind of boldness that I see on Elijah. And I want to believe God for rain
[01:00:50] when there's no sign of rain i want to believe god for my healing i had i had believed god for my healing then i got knocked down again and i just thought i gotta i've gotta have this kind
[01:01:02] of faith god you gotta help me that is so immovable that is so unwavering that i'm hearing what the doctors are saying i'm feeling the grief that i feel that's so deep but yet i believe
[01:01:23] i believe that you can heal me when i see no sign of healing when i hear the doctor say nothing that's encouraging about it i want to be able to speak god's word no matter how ridiculous it
[01:01:38] sounds over my situation and so in that time when it was so that room felt like it was swallowing me up i decided i had done it for a few days and then i lost my mom so suddenly and that's when i
[01:01:54] just sat in the quiet i couldn't i couldn't do anything except cry and in that time i thought i'm gonna i'm gonna pick up again the passion translation of the psalms and i'm gonna read
[01:02:10] them out loud until they get into me everybody's got their favorite translations and i love my chronological bible you can't talk me out of it but bishop loves the complete jewish translation i don't get that version at all it's just i don't get it but he he loves it but in that season
[01:02:34] the psalms came alive to me in a way they had never come alive to me before and it was the passion translation and i just if i felt like that they were written just for me just for my
[01:02:51] situation just for me in that moment and I begin to gradually as I read them out loud this is important it didn't pull me out in a day it wasn't a quick fix but as I decided every day I'm going
[01:03:13] to do this when I feel like it when I don't I'm when I'm when I'm can't stop crying I'm just gonna still do it I'm just gonna still do it and as I kept at it gradually I could feel God pulling
[01:03:25] me up and out. I could feel his hand on me. And those words begin to speak so profoundly to me that I did take on the spirit of Elijah. I did believe God was going to get me up. I did believe
[01:03:47] I started reading Psalms. Like my, my, my husband said this one to me early on laying in that hospital. My bones will declare who is like you, Lord. My shattered bones will declare Psalm 35.
[01:04:01] That's the passion translation. This became one of my verses. I've passed through the fire and the flood. Yet in the end, you always, no matter what the doctors are saying, no matter what my body feels, you always bring me out better than before. Saturated with your goodness. These are
[01:04:23] the things I was fading myself. And they spoke so profoundly to my soul in that time. And just like Elijah, I had to travail in prayer. I had to stick with it. There was no sign of a miracle,
[01:04:39] but I knew something in here changed. Nothing out here changed, but something in here changed.
[01:04:45] And I knew my God was coming to the rescue.
[01:04:49] I knew he was going to raise me up better than I was before.
[01:04:55] It didn't happen in a day or a week or a month, but I wasn't worried anymore because I knew my God keeps his promises.
[01:05:04] I knew he was going to do it.
[01:05:07] And I'm telling you, so many of you in this house, you saw that season.
[01:05:11] And you know, God didn't just bring me up and he didn't just bring me out.
[01:05:17] He brought me out with ridiculous miracles.
[01:05:22] Ridiculous miracles.
[01:05:23] It doesn't even make sense.
[01:05:27] Ridiculous miracles.
[01:05:31] And I promise God that season as he's raising me up, I will move in the spirit of Elijah.
[01:05:40] I will walk.
[01:05:42] You've done too much for me.
[01:05:43] Just stay quiet now.
[01:05:45] I will speak in the boldness of Elijah.
[01:05:50] I don't care what anybody else says.
[01:05:52] I don't care what they think.
[01:05:54] I'll never be the same.
[01:05:57] You can be seated for just a moment.
[01:06:01] I'm almost through.
[01:06:02] I've just got to tell you this last part.
[01:06:04] And I haven't been the same.
[01:06:08] If you know me, you know I'm not the same person I was prior to 2017.
[01:06:14] I thought, God, I'll testify for the rest of my days.
[01:06:18] I will not back down I will tell the world every opportunity every door you open I'm going to tell them about you just three years later I went with my girl to Israel we were scoping out the place
[01:06:34] to take hope actually but we couldn't tell you then and we went to the top of Mount Carmel and it had been the first time I'd been there before but this was the first time since my incident
[01:06:46] and I don't even have words to tell you what that meant to me. I stood there knowing God's fire fell on me and the rains washed over my life in a drought and he humiliated
[01:07:03] the enemy in my life and I was so deeply moved.
[01:07:07] I stood there. I remember holding my Bible up and I thought I will live under your word. I will live surrendered to your word for all my days.
[01:07:15] I will tell the world. I will scream it from the mountaintops. I'll never be shy about it again i'll never wonder should i say something now if you give me this much of a chance i'll say it and then three years later we took hopes 33 there and to stand in that space
[01:07:35] with hope people that live with a boldness it it was just so incredible and then just a few days ago, hopes 42, we're headed to Mount Carmel. And I was sitting on the bus and, and I was recalling
[01:07:55] that season of my life and the miracle after miracle. Cause I thought I'm going to stand there and I'm not going to take it for granted. I'm be so intentional. God, you've given me this
[01:08:02] moment to stand here again. Most people will never stand here once in their life. I'm coming back again. I'm going to be so mindful of the miracle and mindful of the mantle you've put on me. Mindful
[01:08:13] of that boldness that I promised you I vowed to you I would carry all my days and so I'm thinking about it and we get off the bus to walk up the summit to get to the top of Mount Carmel and a man
[01:08:28] stops my daughter Pastor Kaylin because he thinks he knows her because she works with Eagle's Wings and he introduces himself and I heard him introduce himself and he said his name was Brian Simmons. And so I thought, oh, that's cool. I know another Brian Simmons. Brian Simmons
[01:08:47] is the guy that wrote the Passion Translation. And so I just let her go on with it. And he starts talking to me and he tells me that he is the Brian Simmons that wrote the Passion Translation.
[01:09:07] What? I'm about to walk up to Mount Carmel Summit, that place that has so much significance in my life the man who of all the people we could meet in that moment and she didn't approach him
[01:09:29] he came to her and it wasn't a minute too soon a minute too late it was at that moment that where our bus is right there to get god put the man who wrote the very translation of the psalms that i
[01:09:43] read daily in that season and to help me get up and out and stand on mount carmel where the rains washed over my life and I humiliated the enemy. My God. And then as Brian Simmons is talking to
[01:09:59] it, you're not going to believe this. In Israel where it does not rain, it starts raining.

[01:10:06] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[01:10:06] It starts raining. I'm not even kidding you. I'm not even kidding you. We stood at that place.

[01:10:24] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[01:10:24] I was so wrecked in my soul.
[01:10:26] Only God could have put all those pieces together.
[01:10:29] I knew it was God.
[01:10:31] I just kept standing there saying, I see you, God.
[01:10:34] I see you, God.
[01:10:36] I vow to you all over again.
[01:10:38] I'll move in the boldness of Elijah and the spirit of Elijah for the rest of my days.
[01:10:44] For the rest of my days.
[01:10:46] I tell you this in closing, I'm getting older and I'm getting more intense.
[01:10:52] And so some people don't know what to do with that.
[01:10:55] so I hear rumblings every now and then I hear rumblings of half-hearted lukewarm Christians tearing me with their words tearing this house now I'd be the first to tell you I'm not perfect not at all but when you're talking about my sincerity and my walk with God you're barking
[01:11:35] up the wrong tree because anybody that knows me knows like i'm i'm i'm sold out and i'm trying every day to figure out how i can be more sold out and so it used to bother me but i i saw this
[01:11:55] pattern with those people those kinds of people the pattern the recurring theme was that much of the time almost all of the time it was people that used to stand near the altar and now they've
[01:12:13] stepped back and that doesn't mean everybody that stepped away from the altar from this house is saying bad things they're not okay you can step back and step away listen if you come to this
[01:12:23] house from somewhere else don't come tell us all the bad stuff about your church don't just get in the glory of the Lord and worship him. Just, just don't, it's not helping anybody. But I've noticed
[01:12:38] that the recurring theme is that they're lukewarm and our surrender exposes the rebellion. Our intensity exposes their apathy toward God. And so I'm at this place in my life that those words don't bother me. I wear them like a badge. I know if I can lay my head down at night and know who I
[01:13:08] am in God and who he is to me and those that I love, it washes right off of me. Now, my husband will tell you that it washes right off of me. Now, in fact, when somebody is talking negatively
[01:13:23] about people of God, it tells you much more about them than the people they're talking about.
[01:13:29] when they feel like they've got to say something every time you get it you need to be asking yourself why am I feeling the need to get together there but in those moments I just the spirit of Elijah just comes up on me and I'm
[01:13:46] thinking you with your half-hearted self let's come on up to Mount Carmel let's let's repair the altar and let's see who is the one true God who is the real God and I'm not backing down I'm not afraid of your words I'm not afraid of your
[01:14:04] threats I'm not afraid of what family thinks I'm not afraid of what friends think I'm not afraid anymore God is calling us in this hour to stand you can't sit me down you can't shut me down talk about me talk about this house talk
[01:14:22] about the fiery people of God all you want I'm not be silent not running for office. I don't need your vote. I don't need your approval. I need God's approval. And if I've got that, I'm good. I'm good. I mean it. I mean it. Stand to your feet. I'm just saying this last
[01:14:49] thing to you. We've got to people of God. We've got to live undeterred, unrestrained. Keep pressing people of God. Let the scoffers scoff. Let the naysayers spew their poison, but don't you dare lose hope. Travail in prayer, then stand boldly. The cloud may not look any bigger than the size
[01:15:15] of your hand right now, but if God said it's going to rain, don't you even think about quitting until

[01:15:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[01:15:23] you see it with your own eyes because it's going it's going to it's going to rain do you believe that somebody is going to rain it's going to rain oh i'm god of heaven for this house i thank you

[01:15:51] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[01:15:51] Lord. For the boldness of Elijah that I believe you are placing on each of us as we walk out these doors tonight, God, we will not step back. We will not retreat. People cannot sit us down or shut us
[01:16:07] down. We are the people of God. Your word is in our mouth. And when we go where you lead, fear loses all authority over us. We will speak the truth in boldness. We will live the truth in
[01:16:23] boldness. We will declare that the rain is coming. We will repair the altars of our family and our generations and the fire will fall. And then we will pray when we see nothing because we believe,
[01:16:42] oh god that though we cannot see it rain is coming though we do not feel it in this moment healing's coming though we do not even have the capacity to see it in our eyes lord we believe
[01:16:59] deliverance is on the way help is on the way you are god and you cannot fail us you will not fail us we love you and we live in the spirit of elijah for all our days in the name of jesus amen
[01:17:16] bless you people of god choir in just a couple of minutes