And it was that kind of praying that positioned her for his kind of solution. She wanted a son. God wanted a prophet. And when she was willing to align with God's heart, she got the breakthrough.
It's the process of living abandoned. Everybody needs that season in their life at some time where nothing else will do. Thanks, thanks. Nice to see you. That camera bar back there, I thought it was a tennis net.
I thought, man, we got tennis in here? That's awesome. That would make some people very happy. All right. Nice to see you.
I get here right now. this season about every other week. So I'm sure you weren't here last week, but it's nice you showed up when I was here.
So it's good to have you. And bless our online community. We're so thrilled to be able to have friends and family really around the world.
So we honor and bless you as well. Well, well, well, I do have some funny things to read. That seems to be, actually, in the first service today, I just kind of wanted to do that the entire time for about 30 minutes. And sometimes it's just that kind of a day.
And I'm not guaranteeing anything today. I just want you to know. And they're all old. So I'll just pretend they're new.
Actually, I have one new one. A man and his wife. His wife, his mother-in-law went on a vacation to the Holy Land. While they were there, the mother-in-law passed away.
The undertaker told them you can have her shipped home for $5,000 or you can bury her here in the Holy Land for $150. The man thought about it and told him he'd just as soon have her shipped home. The undertaker asked, why would you spend $5,000 to ship your mother-in-law home when it would be wonderful to have her buried here and spend only $150? The man said, I don't know.
The man replied, a man died here 2,000 years ago. He was buried here. Three days later, he rose from the dead.
I just can't take that chance. I'll give you another chance. A Baptist minister, a Baptist preacher went to see a member of the community, invited him to come to church on Sunday morning.
The man was a producer of fine peach brandy, and he told the preacher he'd love to attend his church if the pastor would drink some of his brandy and admit it in front of the congregation. congregation. In kindness, the preacher agreed, had a small glass. Sunday morning came and the man came to church. The preacher recognized him from the pulpit and said, I see Mr. Jones is here with us this morning.
I want to thank him publicly for his hospitality this week and especially for the peaches he gave me and the spirit in which they were given. All right, all right. Three friends from a local congregation were asked, when you're in your casket and your friends and congregation members are mourning over you, what would you like for them to say?
Daniel said, I would like them to say I was a wonderful husband, a father, a mother, a mother. spiritual leader and a great family man. Roger commented, I'd like them to say I was a wonderful teacher and a servant of God who made a huge difference in people's life.
Frank said, I'd like for them to say, look he's moving. I'm gonna do one more. I've never done this one before.
This is, yeah. Yeah, and this is, yeah. Socialism.
You have two cows, the state takes one, gives it to your neighbor who doesn't have a field to put it in. Communism. You have two cows, the state takes both, gives you some milk, then the cows die. Do it in neglect.
Fascism. You have two cows, the state takes both, sells you some milk, the cows die in the war. Nazism.
You have two cows, the state takes both and shoots you. This one is to offend everybody within reach. And then the cows are killed in the war.
Traditional capitalism. You have two cows, you sell one by a bull, the herd multiplies, the economy grows, you sell them and retire on the income. I have the whole front row is interceding for me right now. In the Nuremberg trials. One of the men on trial was asked the question, how did you get the people of Germany to buy into your deal?
I'm paraphrasing. And they said it was easy. It has nothing to do with Nazism. It has to do with fear.
You can control people if you can get them to be afraid. And the tool that the enemy has been using ever since, I mean way back to the garden, I mean it goes that far back, but there's been an intensity level that has increased dramatically in the last 18 months. And the effort to control the values of thoughts, the conduct of people through fear, is extraordinary.
I'm not a fan of socialism. I have friends who are, but I'm not one of them. Socialism is communism in diapers.
I'm not looking for any applause or any support. I just want to make some statements. And knowing that it'll sit well with some and it won't sit so well with others, but just at least we can maybe think. Socialism has an over- emphasis on government at the expense of human responsibility.
Humanism is the religion of socialism. Socialism worships at the shrine of human rights over human responsibility. And human rights are valuable, but they never can exceed human responsibility or you end up in a moral decline.
And it's vital that you and I understand what's at hand and to We battle not against flesh and blood. The goal is not to incite some sort of activist movement where we, you know, launch verbal abuses towards people who disagree. That's nonsense, because that's playing on the devil's field.
When you play on the devil's field, you can't win. We can only win on his field. And it's the beauty, the wonder of the gospel. The gospel has answers and solutions for every single human dilemma. There are people in their heart of hearts who want to succeed but don't know how.
And so out of fear, they buy into a system that promises them bread tomorrow. Here's the, I'm going to talk just a few minutes on this, and then we'll actually open the Bible and talk about something else. So I'll give you a chance to get cleansed by the word, and all of you that are hurt by my words, you'll recover, I promise. If somebody's in need over here, if I take your car and I give it to somebody who doesn't have a car, me as government calls that compassion, but it's not compassion until I give my car.
There's many things that slide under an illusion of compassion and justice, and they're actually the opposite. And my burden for this hour, for this day, is that as a people, we could be discerning and understanding what's actually happening. If you take the last 40 years and you look at history in the United States and in the nations around the world, you'll see a slow, steady march towards a one-world government. I'm not saying we're close to it. I'm just saying we're closer than we've ever been.
Here, let me just, if I haven't offended everyone yet, give me a moment. Give me a moment. I'm trying.
I'm trying. All right. So, with the mark of the beast, You can't buy or sell or do business.
And without a vaccine, they want you to not be able to buy or sell or do business. Now, I'm not opposing vaccines. I'm just saying, this is an interesting dress rehearsal for a bigger issue in the future.
And we've just got to be careful what we buy into. Not everything you buy into today that will bless you. Let me rephrase it.
Some of the things you buy into today will cost you tomorrow. Wisdom, the Lord said, the Bible says, the Lord prospers his servant, he adds no sorrow to it. So when the Lord does it, there's no balloon payment.
Does that make sense? There's not like, oh no, when is something bad going to happen? He doesn't work that way. When he imparts the blessing to somebody, it comes with sustainability in its system.
Socialism is funded by entitlement. And there are many of us in this room that would be 100% opposed to socialism, but have married the spirit of entitlement. And what you have going on on the inside is actually what creates the room for socialism on the outside. And it's walking with that kind of wisdom that resolve to honor the Lord with everything you are, everything you have, in a way that is responsible. The Lord is so interested in increase that when the guy who had the talent in Scripture, you remember the five talents, the two, the one.
He says, you could have at least put it in a bank and gained interest. Everything was about increase. It's not about what you are given.
It's about what you produce. And I realize that that can be taken to an extreme where we create a works-oriented environment. And I'm not interested in that, but it's still true.
It's still true that God rewards according to productivity. As we've stated a number of times, I know I've heard Chris do it. I've done it a few times as well, that the promised land is an interesting place because it wasn't where they went and sat on a beach, sipped iced tea, and waited for Jesus to return.
They actually had to go in, in the wilderness. They picked up the man off the ground. They followed a cloud.
Not much else to do. In the promised land, they had to plant crops. They had to harvest. They had to work with herds. They had to do all that stuff.
The point is, is we are never more fully alive than when we are walking in our divinest sight. assignment, producing things for his glory. That is what we are wired for. Now, it's the privilege of a culture to care for those who are disabled, especially war veterans who cannot hold down a normal job anymore. It is our responsibility to care for them.
Those who are mentally disabled, cannot function, it is the privilege. So I'm not poo-pooing all government stuff, but I'm just saying. socialism is like fire. I think I already said it.
It's like the fire of Proverbs. It never says enough. It never says enough.
There is no end to its increase of power. And this is where as a people, first of all, we pray. Secondly, I've heard Christians say, forgive me, because this is probably something most all of us have said, but I've heard people say, well, there's no political leader is my savior. Well, I don't know one Christian that ever thought of any political leader as ever being able to save them. But unfortunately, that statement is usually, not always, but usually made by somebody who doesn't want to vote.
Or they just don't want to take godly counsel for how they vote. Alright. I need a drink before I finish this.
So we have a responsibility to understand, to articulate, now listen carefully, righteously resist, learn how to intercede and pray, to understand that the challenges are, to make sure that it's fixed in here first. I have the highest status you can get with... the airline that I fly with. They don't even tell you how you can get it.
There are statuses that you get by many miles, but there's one status they don't even tell you about. You have to be invited. I've been invited. I've been in there for years.
I'm thankful. And sometimes what happens is I will land late somewhere, and there's a short time between where I landed and where I've got to get, and they will meet me right off the plane with a sign. They say, you're Mr. Johnson?
Yes, come with me. They'll take me down onto the tarmac. They put me in a Mercedes.
They drive me to the next gate. It's wonderful. Until I'm really late on a flight, I've got a short time, and they're not there. Is anybody catching the picture here? All of a sudden, a gift they gave me is one that I expect.
I've been treated rudely on a plane once and I thought, I just need to pull out my status card to show them who they just talked to. What? I didn't do it.
I feel like it. One guy, oh goodness. I won't tell you what happened. He just was extremely rude. And he said, you're no different than any other pastor.
And I said, we'll see. Then I think he looked on his chart to see who I was and my status, and that guy could not do enough for me the rest of the flight. You know, you get into these places of favor and blessing and increase, and it creates an appetite. That if you're not careful, you can actually think you earned it.
Now I could say, I have that status because we spent this amount of dollars and that's how the airline takes care of those who spend that much money because of all the flying that I do. There's a lot of arguments you can make in your head for why you deserve something, and yet it's that entitlement that has actually created the spirit of socialism in the land. And if we can deal with it here, we'll be positioned correctly to deal with it out here.
Does that make any sense? All right, that's all I'm doing. I love my Bible.
Yes, I do. I love my Bible. I have friends that love their socialist government as long as they're being blessed.
But as soon as they say, you can't leave your house for two weeks, it's not as fun. And there's something about control that we've got to be careful we don't succumb to. And yeah, I'm just deeply concerned.
It's what I talked to the Lord about. That's what I pray about. And I pray that, I did an interview on a TV program here a week or so ago, and the gal that was doing the interview said, if you could speak to the leaders of our nation, it was a different country, if you could speak to the leaders of our nation, what would you say to them? And I said, get a backbone. Get a backbone.
Get a backbone. I'll tell you, I appreciate that, but I really am not looking for applause of any kind. I'm looking for thinking and responsibility. It's important that we know how to recognize the root of something that's in the political system without picking up a political spirit.
And as soon as you do that, you will get labeled. You'll be called all kinds of names. But people give labels so they can disqualify your voice.
And it's just going to take courage. I feel like what the Lord's wanting from us in this season is a baptism of courage to really pray in a new season. So that's, why don't you stand?
We're going to pray on that. Let you get all cleansed and cleaned up from what I just said. And then we'll get into the word. See what happens here.
All right. So, Lord, I do pray for a true baptism of courage that you'd help us to live with wisdom and understanding to know the times, the seasons that we are in. and what your response is to a given problem, not just what we arrive at emotionally through our own frustration, but true kingdom response, that we can be builders and not just destroyers, that we can be restorers and not just confronters. I pray for this in Jesus'name. Amen, amen.
All right, go ahead and turn to somebody and tell them you really needed that. All right, open your Bibles, if you would, to 1 Samuel, chapter 1, 1 Samuel 1. Now, there are many who would say... That Jesus didn't train his disciples in these kinds of things.
Instead, he taught them how to survive in existing governmental settings. And that is absolutely true. He taught how the employees should respond and the soldiers should respond and the slaves should respond and all that. He taught them how to do kingdom in the environment they're in. But I also remind you that he told them the kingdom of heaven is like leaven.
It is not leaven as a philosophy. It is leaven as that which helps to redefine the environment that you're in. He also said that we are light and that we are salt. And it's all three of these elements affect their surroundings.
And so what the Lord is wanting for us is to not raise up a political movement, but instead to raise up a servant-hearted movement where we get into the systems and love people well and allow kingdom to truly bring about change. I'm just trying to identify some of the things that I feel like that the enemy has, he has... He uses justice and compassion as false fronts. for the real Trojan horse that brings in this onslaught of demonic chaos and loss.
And so I said I was done. Apparently I wasn't. Now I am. All right. All right.
I may talk about this again. I won't announce it ahead of time because I want to make sure you show up. So it'll just be a surprise. That's what it'll be.
I do believe that the Lord is giving us the opportunity, the invitation, if you will, to give birth to a new season. I believe it's of the Lord, but I do believe it's of the Lord. believe it will take courage in prayer.
Now we've talked about prayer more in the last year than probably any five years that I've been here. I know that I've done it over and over again. Many of the team, our Sunday night meetings have been focused on prayer.
and it's not an accident. It's tragic. In some ways, I wish I could erase everything everybody knew about prayer and start over because we've got it so confined to our religious activity that we've lost the fact that it's actually like breath.
It's breathing. When he said pray without ceasing, he's basically saying it's the same as breathing. Just do it all the time. Just make it the normal expression of who you are, where you're in in life.
All moments are good moments. moments to pray. And it's not special words.
It's not that sort of thing. It's not this professional sounding petition. It is a communion with God that sometimes has words. But I believe that the Lord, I feel like we're on the edge of, I keep standing over these edges. I have interceders praying for me just because I stand over the edge.
Yes. We're on the edge of a significant breakthrough in culture. in the manifestations of revival in a way we've never seen before.
And I feel like on the edge, not quite in the place of transition women where you push, but close to that point where we're about to get delivery to something that we've not yet seen before. And it will require courageous kind of praying that for many is going to be foreign to you. and so that's what I want to talk about not in any kind of a you lack here or something just an invitation there's a story with Hannah Hannah is this woman who's married, who has no children, and she wants children really bad.
And so let's just pick up the story in chapter 1. We'll just start with verse 2. I'm going to read quite a few verses, so just follow along if you would, please. And he had two wives. The name of one was Hannah.
The name of the other was Penina. And Penina or Penina, however... had no children, but excuse me, had children, but Hannah had no children.
Verse five, but to Hannah, he would give a double portion for he loved Hannah, although the Lord had closed her womb. And her rival also provoked her severely to make her miserable because the Lord had closed her womb. And so it was year by year, she went up to the house of the Lord. She provoked her.
Therefore she wept and did not eat. Verse 8, then Elkanah, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart grieved?
Am I not better to you than ten sons? A question she never answered. Smart woman right there.
And Hannah arose after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh. Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the tabernacle of the Lord. And she, being Hannah, was in bitterness of soul and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish. Then she made a vow and said to the Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant and remember, Remember me and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a male child. Then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life.
And no razor shall come upon his head. That was a Nazarite vow. And it happened as she continued praying before the Lord that Eli watched her mouth.
Now Hannah spoke in her heart, but only her lips moved. But her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she was drunk.
Eli said to her, how long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you. Hannah answered and said, no, my Lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord.
Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief, I have spoken until now. Last verse. Then Eli answered and said, go in peace. For the God of Israel, grant your petition which you have asked of him. This is an extraordinary story.
And it underlines, emphasizes to me, the purpose behind persistent prayer. Because we have biblically, I want to do this in a future date, we biblically have mandates to pray once and don't ask again. and we have mandates to pray and continue asking. And both, actually the one chapter apart, Jesus taught them both.
There's a purpose for each. Well, I don't want to get into the differences. is I do want to highlight this one here. The purpose for persistent prayer in my thinking is one of two things.
There are demonic powers involved and that persistence helps to break that down. The second is I need to be changed into the person that can handle and steward the answer well. A lot of the things that we pray for, if they were given to us immediately, we would not manage them well. would not manage them well at all.
Much of what we taste of the will of God in our life, much of what we inherit or taste or actually experience is determined by what we've become. Much of what we experience in our walk with the Lord, the breakthroughs, the answers to prayer, the extraordinary events that take place in our life, much of what we experience is determined by what we've become. And that becoming takes place often in that kind of praying.
It's the kind of praying that you're embarrassed about, but you just don't care enough anymore. Normally, you'd be embarrassed. It's the kind of anguish of soul. That it no longer matters how you appear to somebody else. It's not making a scene.
to get attention. It's not that at all. It's that I am so absorbed in that which God has put in my heart. I've got to have breakthrough or I think I'll die. You see that kind of praying throughout history.
If you've done any reading on some of the great revival, in history, oftentimes people would come to that kind of moment in prayer. They no longer cared about anything at all. They didn't care if they ever ate again. They just didn't care about all these things that two days ago maybe really consumed their attention. But at this moment in time, the only thing that matters is that thing for which God has laid hold of my life, and I will not settle for anything else.
And we have that kind of a moment here. Hannah doesn't know when her breakthrough will come. We know that it's been years. I would assume because of the way she's responding here that she has prayed the prayer to have children for many, many years.
We know her competitor, the other wife, has had many. So we know it's years of barrenness. I don't know how long.
I don't know what kind of prayer she prayed, but it would stand to reason that she's prayed this prayer before. But something happened in this praying It was, the old timers would talk about this kind of prayers is I was on the stretch. And the picture is, I was all laid out, reaching for that which God has promised. And there are many people, those who know better than you would tell you, you don't need to do that because it's already all yours.
And it's true. I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ. It is all mine.
It is absolutely true. Ephesians 1 declares it. John 16 declares it. It is all mine.
The problem is it's in my account and not my possession. oftentimes what is withdrawn from my account that he has laid aside for me is not released into me until I actually become what is necessary for me to become to not blow it with that blessing that God has given me. We've seen it throughout history.
Look at the kings in scripture. How many times did we see a king inherit the throne and then drive it into the ground within a few years of his reign? What happened?
He wasn't equal in character to the weightiness of his assignment. And it is sure destruction when that takes place. All of us have things in our heart that we've ached for. I doubt there's a person in the room that has not prayed a big prayer, a great thing that would happen in your life. in your lifetime, that you would see in your lifetime, that we would experience together.
And those are God-born prayers. But great things don't generally come out of prayers of convenience. There's something about costly praying. I don't mean drawing attention. I don't mean that.
I don't mean I'm on my next day of fasting and I know I'm gonna get, I don't mean that. I mean the kind. that it's you and the Lord.
There's something about difficulty that helps you come face to face with the reality. I really am in this to know him. I'm not just in this to be a blessed person.
And difficulty. that separates those two groups of people. Some, they're gone. As soon as the blessings stop, the glitter stops falling from the ceiling, the, you know, the, whatever it is, the next thing that they're looking for to happen, they're on their way to find another blessing. But those who follow Jesus, When difficulty comes, it's the time that we intensify the cry.
God, you said, you said, and here she is praying things she can't even utter. There was no words for her. She was just in anger. Her lips are moving, but her heart is in deep, deep anguish.
And she's later, athletes will say, I left it all on the field, which means I gave 110%. There's nothing else I could have done to help us win that game. It's all out on the field.
and it's that kind of a prying. We don't know if there was a crowd there. We don't know if Eli was even there the whole time.
He may have walked in after she was there for a while. We don't know. All we know is she put it all on the line and it was that kind of prying that positioned her for his kind of solution.
Because here's the deal. As Mario Murillo told us years ago, she wanted a son. God wanted a prophet. And when she was willing to align with God's heart, she got the breakthrough.
And that's what the anguish of soul does. It puts you in a position like Hannah. Hannah is now going to give back to God the very thing he gave to her. At the age of five, she takes Samuel, the son who came from this, to the temple to be the prophet of the Lord for Israel.
Extraordinary story. That's what Abraham did. He had to put Isaac on the altar.
Sometimes you have to take the very thing you ache for. and realize, I just want to be a part of what you're doing. If I have to give it back, I'll give it back.
I just want to be in the center of the work of God on the planet. And I will put back into your hands the very thing you give to me. It's the process of living abandoned to him. It's the process of living on the stretch again, in that place where... Sometimes it's not even words.
Sometimes it's just the anguish, the pain of the heart. It doesn't mean we live in that place of continual discouragement or whatever. I'm not inviting people to that.
I'm just saying, pick your moments. And when God has put that thing in your heart, get before him and pour it all out on the field. Let it all be out there and lay hold of that which God has promised.
Every one of us need those kinds of things. of moments. I don't think that's an everyday kind of praying.
I don't. I wouldn't put that on you. But I would say everybody needs that season in their life at some time where nothing else will do.
Nothing. Nothing will satisfy. Nothing else will do. My cry for you and for me is for baptism in courage.
It's that backbone. It's that backbone to stand when others don't stand. It's the backbone that just says, you know what? I don't look like much of a winner right now, but I've come too far to quit.
I must hold to what God has said. And if I come to the end of my life and my cry was unfulfilled, then I pray my children will pick it up and see it to fulfillment. We all have a purpose for breakthrough in the earth. The Lord described us as salt and light and the kingdom as leaven to have impact and effect on surroundings.
It's not through political anger and that stuff. It's... It's by loving people well, but moving intelligently and intentionally to bring about change.
All right, that's probably enough. You survived. Congratulations.
You all get ice cream cone at the door that Chris will provide it for you. All right, let's stand together. We're gonna pray.
What's that? Giving the orders. What kind of ice cream you want? Sorry, Chris.
Sorry. Oh, Lord. Let's pray together for just, let me hear you pray. Let's pray together for a baptism in courage, a courage, a courage to be released over us as a people that affects our praying.
Lift your voices. Yes, Lord. Great courage.
Great baptism of courage, God. Great baptism of courage, God. Great baptism of courage, Father. Yeah, Father, I pray that you'd give us a fresh outpouring in the area of courage that as a people we could stand with a backbone that's not obnoxious but firm in the kingdom principles you've revealed to us.
I pray that, that they would be contagious. and that you'd give us understanding to articulate well. Give us that Issachar, sons of Issachar anointing that understand the day that they live in, the seasons, the times that we live in. And I do pray that there would be in the prayer life of this church truly the birthing of a new season.
The turning of a page, the turning of a page, the turning of a page, a new season begins. I pray this for the honor of the name Jesus. I want to ask one question before we transition.
Is there anyone here that has never made a personal commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ? It's what the Bible calls to be born again. It's actually to become a disciple.
It's to turn away from the way you've done life to the way he would have you do life. It's to follow him, to come to know him, to love him. I want to ask the question, is there anyone here? that would say, Bill, I don't want to leave the building until I know that I have found peace with God, that I truly have become a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. If that's you, just put a hand up real quickly where you are, because we're just going to take a moment to pray.
I don't want to miss you. So way in the back. Thank you. Wonderful, wonderful. Anybody else?
Anybody else, real quick? I know we have some online. We've had so many people come to Christ online. It's been one of the most amazing things. Sometimes when we were forced to not be together, I would sit here and watch if Chris was preaching, for example, and I'd be on the YouTube channel or Bethel TV and watch the people that would come to Christ.
Extraordinary. And we know that's true. Is there another one here?
Back over here is another one. Wonderful. Yes, wonderful. Beautiful.
Another one over here. Thank you. Wonderful. Beautiful. Another one right here.
Wonderful. The last one was blessing somebody, so I just took the high five. He's getting saved too.
All right. That's fine. That's good.
This is wonderful. I bless all of you. I'm going to ask those.
There's at least three, if not four, that put your hand up that I saw. I'm going to ask you to come up to the front right over here to my left. And there are people that we know and trust that I just want to bless you. That's all I want them to do. And if you brought this person, put their hand up, you can walk with them down here.
Church, why don't you bless them as they come? Come right over here.