I've been dispatched from God to share a word with you that you might hear what the Spirit of the Lord is saying to the church, that you might be edified. And people are logged in from all over the world to hear not teeny jakes. They don't want to hear from the potter's house. They want to hear from the Lord.
And I've got good news for you. I have heard from the Lord. And I have a word for you tonight.
And I believe it's going to speak right to you in a very... very deep place. I want you to go quickly to the book of Ezra chapter 3 verse 10 through 13. The book of Ezra chapter number 3 verse number 10 through 13. Stand for the reading of God's word. When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priest in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, took the temple of their places to praise the Lord as prescribed by David, king of Israel.
With praise and thanksgiving, they sang to the Lord, he is good, his love toward Israel in the world. endures forever. And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and families'heads who had seen the former temple wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid while many of us shouted for joy, they wept. No one could distinguish, check this out, no one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping because the people made so much noise and the sound was heard far away.
Can you say amen? Remain standing, I'm going to pray with you for just a moment. moment, but this Sunday morning I want to talk to you about three things. I want to talk to you about trauma, triggers, and triumph.
Trauma triggers. and triumph. Let's pray. Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on the word. Anoint me in such a way that I am effectively used by you today in a supernatural way.
I thank you for the prophetic inference. of this word. The entrance of that word giveth light, so illuminate the ears of the hearer, that they might hear what God the Lord will speak.
I thank you in advance for what you're going to do. Have your way. way. Not just in the building, but in us.
Have your way. Not just in the house, but in our souls. Have your way.
Have your way until there are physical changes, spiritual changes, emotional changes. Have your way until we leave the service. It was good for us to be in the house of the Lord today.
In the name of Jesus, we pray. Somebody who loves you. of them shout amen.
You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. On your way to your seat, say trauma, triggers, and triumph. Say it again.
Trauma, triggers, and triumph. Say it again. Trauma, triggers, and triumph. Let's start with what is trauma, because the funny thing about the English language trauma, we have one word that has a duality.
of meanings. The word trauma is often used in hospitals to describe the severity of an injury. It's also used at the scene of a crime when the police review somebody who has been assaulted. They say they have been, there's a certain degree of trauma has occurred, whether they have been hit in the head with a hammer or an ax or some type of brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal beating, the kind of thing so sad. savage.
It's almost unimaginable to those of us who are Who are able to live outside of those experiences, neither are we police officers or paramedics or people who are familiar with trauma. People in emergency rooms talk about trauma. They talk about the degree of trauma.
that has been exercised on a particular individual. But also psychologists use the word trauma. It is the same word, but it has a different inference. When a psychologist uses the word trauma, trauma, it is to describe an event or an incident and the degree to which it has damaged the soul. Now, if you can imagine a hammer hitting a skull as trauma, and they have the same word for an incident hitting the soul, then you can begin to identify through this imagery the severity that we ingest when we go through certain things.
You must understand, see, trauma triggers are the kind of thing that a psychological stimulus that prompts recall of a previous traumatic experience is something that stays with us a long time. There are different kinds of trauma. I want to talk about the different kinds of trauma because we don't all go through the same kinds of trauma. There's a chronic trauma. There's a kind of chronic trauma.
This results from repeated. and prolonged exposure to highly stressful examples. It includes cases of child abuse. It's prolonged.
It's gone on for a long time. It's repeated. That's chronic trauma. Acute trauma, this is a result from a single stressful or dangerous event. It's a one-time thing.
That's acute trauma. Chronic trauma perpetuates itself and goes on and on and on. That's trauma. It is a result from exposure to multiple traumatic events.
fits, trauma, triggers, and triumph. Now, the trauma are the things that happen to us that sometimes we say nothing about, and they are many, and we have trauma in our own lives that have just come upon us inadvertently, but then there are certain things that we go through that some people handle better than others. Some people have difficult handling certain kinds of traumas.
Some of us are so busy trying to manage the expression of the trauma to show that we're tough and it didn't get to us that we never resolved the trauma. And then a trigger comes along and a trigger can be anything. It can be the smell. If you were in a fire and all of a sudden somebody lights a cigarette, you smell smoke, it triggers and all of a sudden you start shaking, that's a trigger.
That's a trigger. But if you grew up in a... abusive home and somebody's yelling at a ball game and you hear them yell and all of a sudden you get nervous.
That's a trigger. It triggers and takes you back to somebody yelling at you in the house. There are certain things that trigger certain behavior.
Triggers can be subtle and difficult to anticipate. You have to understand that you don't know that the trigger is going to come till it comes and you don't know you're going to react the way you react until you do and then you do. A trauma trigger may also be called a trauma stimulus.
a trauma stressor, or a trauma reminder, because what the moment it triggers slowly takes you right back. It could have been 20 years ago, but it takes you back to what has happened before. Now, you must understand that when God starts talking to us and teaches us about life, he is clear that life is going to be traumatic, that they that live godly shall suffer trauma, persecution. You know, I've been in a lot of situations You're going to go through certain things. Certain things are going to happen.
I know you're looking for the kind of faith and the kind of message that says nothing will ever happen. But certain things are going to happen in our lives. And our faith is proven in how we recover.
You can't have triumph without conflict. If you're going to have triumph, you've been in a battle. You can't be a winner if you're not in a fight.
I'm wondering, just let me take a quick... poll, how many winners do we have in the building? Winners, winners, winners.
Only if you've been through something now. Some of y'all haven't been through something, so you can't win because you haven't been in a fight. But if you had to fight just to be where you are, to sit...
where you're sitting, to be how you are, to have what you got, to do what you do. If you've been through a fight, you need to take a moment and celebrate the feeling of victory that I am triumphant. I am triumphant. We don't do that enough. We don't celebrate our victories.
We nurse our wounds. We admit our trauma. We identify our triggers, but we don't celebrate our triumph.
We're not good at celebrating our triumph. As soon as we survive something or overcome something, we're off to the next thing without developing the ability to appreciate what we've done. But God teaches us in the very first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, when God created the heavens and the earth, each day, even though the day did not finish the task, he stopped and celebrated and said, and it was good.
And the evening and the morning was the second day and God said it was good. He took the time to celebrate himself. Let's do that again. Let's celebrate ourselves right now. Just celebrate something that God has done.
We know from the creation story. that ultimately there is a process that leads to the promise. We know that there's going to be a process that we have to go through in order to get to the promise. And in the process, you have to learn how to take baby steps and celebrate baby steps and appreciate this little bit.
I haven't finished creating the world, but I created light today. I haven't finished creating the universe. but I created grass today. You have to learn how to celebrate yourself. No, we won't do that.
What we do is look for somebody to celebrate us. We're so busy searching for somebody to celebrate us that we don't celebrate ourselves. And what I want to teach you this morning is you draw into your life a reflection of who you are.
If you are abusive to yourself, you talk badly to yourself, you attract people who reinforce that. If you celebrate yourself, you will draw people into your life who also join your party and they celebrate with you. Are you following what I'm saying?
You must then begin to realize that we go through trauma, we all have triggers, but we have trials. The problem is sometimes we are in a perpetual state. Of trauma and triggers and we don't take advantage of the triumph. We clap a minute and we're through.
We say thank you and we're done with it. We say oh that's a good thing and we go on. The trauma lasted for six months. The triumph lasts for six minutes. We ought to have at least as long a celebration as we had frustration.
That ought to take up the rest of the service right there. Then I'll take the whole rest of the service just dancing and jumping and shouting and praising God. Because we have gone through enough.
I said we have gone through enough that when we come out triumphant, we ought to praise God. I'm not talking about triumphant because we won a race or we completed a marathon or we won an election. Sometimes triumph is just being here.
Triumph don't require a new car or a new house. Triumph just says I'm still here. Triumph says I made it. Triumph says they tried to take me out and look at me, I'm still standing.
Triumph is every birthday you get to have. When the enemy wanted to kill you before you ever even got here. And look at you.
Triumph, that's why I wear my gray hair. I earned this gray hair. I went through something to get this.
I'm not going to hide this gray hair. This is my triumph. The devil didn't want me to live long enough to have gray hair.
Some of the people I went to school with died before gray hair. I'm going to wear my gray hair because it is my triumphant crown that I made it through something. Somebody clap in this place if you hear me. With all of this information in mind, let us look at this text.
This text is really the first message I've been teaching a series about the temple. And I've been teaching a series about the progress of children, Hebrew children going into captivity and them going into bondage. Each week I have laid on the foundation. This is the third deposit on that foundation. But actually it is the first message that I got.
It is this message that provoked the other two. And I had to give you the groundwork to cause you to understand. that these people here, what all they've been through.
We learned that they were drug out of Jerusalem. If I forget Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. We learned that they hung their harps by the willow trees when they got to Babylon, and they wept when they remembered Zion. We learned that the men had been castrated, and the women had been raped, and they asked them to sing the Lord's song.
And they said, How can I sing the Lord's song in a strange land? We learned that they spent 70 years in Babylon, away from their culture, away from their way of life, away from their religion, away from their faith, unable to find a place to live. to offer up a sacrifice, unable to openly express their faith toward God.
They even had their names changed, their food was changed, their diet was changed, and they endured this great affliction for 70 years. In Ezra, the good thing about Ezra is they are coming out. They are coming out.
They have survived it. Many of them, no doubt, have died in Babylon. But several of them have lived long enough to see the happy ending that we all wait on. And they're all coming out to go back to Jerusalem.
Some have stayed in Babylon. But the majority have gone back to reclaim their rightful place. God has brought them back full circle. Is there anybody in here that God has brought you around full circle?
You went through some stuff. You lost some stuff. You were tested. You were tried. You survived it.
You overcame it. And God brought you back full circle. Those full circle people give God praise at strange times.
Yeah, yeah. Full circle people will get on your nerves praising God. They'll praise God. They don't need a new house. They don't need a new car.
All they need to do is remember where God brought them from, and they will give God the praise. They will leap up in the service that you can't see around. around them.
They will holler and get on your nerve. They will dance right on top of your pocketbook just because God brought them around full circle. They will sing of the goodness of the Lord. They will testify of his mercy and of his grace. They will tell you whether you want to hear it or not.
God gave me this house. God brought me through. God gave me this dress. God gave me these shoes. Are there any full circle people?
Take about 30 seconds and give God some praise. for bringing you back around. Oh, won't he bring you back around?
He brought them back around. He brought them back around. He brought them back around. That's why you can't kill yourself in the day of adversity. Because if you kill yourself, you kill your future.
He brought them back around. The amazing power of this text is that God brought them right back out. They said when the...
the Lord turned again our captivity, we were like them that dream. I preached about that last week. Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our heart with singing. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. The celebration was they saw the end, not just the sowing, but the reaping.
They saw the conclusion of the whole matter. They got to go back to their land, to their place, to their birth. It is still to this day the most important thing to Jewish people.
It's the sustenance of the nation of Israel. They got to go back to Israel. They got to go back to Jerusalem, the city of peace. And there they celebrated God. The only thing about this text that mesmerizes me is the amazing power of the text.
Is that you have two different groups that converge on the same situation. Having two different reactions. to the same experience.
They are two different groups only divided by age. They're all Hebrews, but it is interesting to note that they are having a completely different experience. The young men who had been born in Babylon and had nothing to remember shouted when they got back to Jerusalem.
When they saw the rebuilding of the second temple, it looked like victory and triumph, but the old man was not. The old men wept. The old men wept. They cried.
How can two people have the same experience and have a totally different reaction to it? How can they have a completely different experience because they have been in the presence of the same event but they react differently based on their perspective? The young men had been in Babylon all their lives.
That was all they knew was the way of life of being a captive in Babylon. They had adapted to their environment. They had gotten used to it.
But the old men had sworn that if I forget Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. So the old men endured Babylon. By holding on to the memory, to the memory of being in Jerusalem. Now you must understand, there's been a lot of stuff going on. King Hezekiah has lost control.
Nine of the tribes of Israel have been destroyed, not to be seen again. Then you see Judah, the remaining tribes, coming together, amassing and coming back, kingless, but not faithless. kingless but not faithless temple-less but not faithless broke but not faithless they lost their income but they had not lost their faith they had lost everything that pertained unto them we're talking about about 722 BC they lost about everything they had but they came back rejoicing they are the southern king kingdom of Judah and they are praising God. Now they are raising money to reconstruct Solomon's temple. You remember Solomon's temple.
Solomon's temple was that amazing temple that was so glorious and so flamboyant and so opulent and so palatial that when you walked into Solomon's temple, there was no more breath left in you. It was amazing. When the queen of Sheba saw it, she was speechless. She was spilled out by Solomon's temple. Solomon's temple.
had a labor in it that was 15 feet wide and so shiny and so covered with gold and brass that when you looked in it, you could see yourself. Solomon's temple had a court where the women gathered. It had columns of ivory and silver and gold, and all of that was destroyed in the battle.
I want to talk to some people who've lost some stuff. You don't understand what it feels like to lose until you've lost some stuff, especially when you're a man. something you thought was wonderful and you thought was amazing and you lost it. They lost it all.
The temple was completely ruined and destroyed and they came back to ruins. At the time of our text, they're trying to rebuild. And the Lord spoke to me to preach this to people who are trying to rebuild. They are trying to rebuild on the ashes of what you used to be.
They're trying to rebuild what is called Zerubbabel's temple. It is the second temple and they're trying to build it up and they run out of money. They laid the foundation and they ran out of money.
They've run out of influence. They've run out of power. Ezra and Haggai were sent as prophets to encourage them so that they could get finished.
And when they got it all built up. They started shouting and dancing. They started rejoicing. Marcus, give me some old Hebrew music, some good old Hebrew music.
They started dancing and celebrating. We made it. We made it back. We made it back.
We've come into our land and we've made it and we've overcome and we are here. This is it. We have arrived. We've got it.
We've made it. We've got it. We've made it.
Look at the temple. It's coming up. It's beautiful.
It's wonderful. It's great. It's wonderful.
But the old man said no. It's not what I expected. And it's not what I remembered. That little shanty thing over there you call a temple is a mere shadow of what we had before. And while the young men danced and shouted with glee, the old men wept.
They wept. When it looks like you're in a process, and instead of making progress, the process leads to digress. It's a tough thing to manage. The gradual exile release of the captive people of Israel and then finally coming together the southern kingdoms out of captivity, the restoration of the temple was a big disappointment because they had had better.
They had had better. And sometimes, whether you shout or whether you cry, Whether you cry depends on what you remember. Whether you shout or whether you cry depends on what you remember. I remember when my wife and I were dating and we went on the first date and she made me some banana pudding. And I said to her, what is this?
And she said, banana pudding. I said, you know, to me, to her, it was banana pudding. It was made out of box, you know, and it was vanilla wafers in there. It was good.
It was good. It's what everybody does with the pudding in the box. But to me, I remembered it from scratch.
So whether you like something or not or despise it depends on what you remember. What you see the old man's memory was triggered. It was triggered when they looked at that when they heard the songs was right. The song was right. Play the music again.
The song was right. We made it. We made it.
We made it. They said that's the right sound, but look! The trip- The trigger threw them back to the trauma. Oh, y'all don't hear what I'm saying.
The trigger threw them back to the trauma. Stay with me because I'm headed somewhere. The trigger threw them back to the trauma and they were... were reliving all the agony. Not only were they weeping for the lack of Solomon's temple, everything they'd been through came back upon them again.
And that's what triggers do. It brings everything on you that you've ever been through. And the old men were crying as loud as the young men were dancing. And the Bible says you could not distinguish one from the other.
What caused the old men to weep? Number one, the fear of losing what you remembered will make you weep. The fear of losing what you remembered will make you weep.
Number two, the grief that comes when you can't control your outcomes. There is a grief that comes anytime you cannot control your outcomes. And number three, the cumulative effect of past trauma and current change.
change. All of that brought them to weeping. Number four, the inability to find joy in uncertainty, especially at that age. There's nothing joyful about not being sure. That's uncomfortable.
And especially as you get older, you need to know where you're going to stay. You need to know where you're going to be. to know how things are going to turn out and they couldn't have joy in uncertainty. Number five, the assumption that what you were used to is the sum total of God's will.
will. In other words, they wept because they assumed that what they had was the sum total of God's will. And how can I be happy with less than God's will? Number six, the grief over the realization that my life has changed without my permission. Good God have mercy.
Is there anybody in here who whose life has changed without your permission. Nobody asked me, did I want this little shabby tabernacle? Nobody asked me about it. My life has changed without my permission.
The reason I am laboring with this text this morning, because it occurs to me that what is going on in this text is going on in our country. How can we have the same experience and two total different reactions? You got half of the country, give me my music, half of the country is dancing. Do America is split in half. We are seeing the same thing, but we're having two total different reactions to the same experience.
And it almost makes you wonder, am I missing something? Because how could this group be so glad and this group be so mad? How could this group be so happy and this group be so sad?
How could this group have so much joy and this group have so much pain? And they were all the same people. But their reaction triggered two completely different responses. The old men wept.
The old men wept because they had lost control of the outcome of their lives. They wept because they weren't in power. They wept because it seemed like they were declining and digressing from what they had envisioned the will of God to be. But the young men danced because the young men had been born. born in captivity, and they couldn't remember Solomon's temple anyway.
And to be free was enough to make the young men shout. They saw the second temple as progress. Number two, they shouted because they had no other point of reference. Number three, they shouted because they were willing to experience God in a new way. Oh, y'all don't hear what I'm saying.
Number four, they shouted because at least this was better than where they came from. And so they both converge in this text. But the trigger triggers a completely different response. I want to preach this text today because the old man's weeping is a picture, not only of the divide in this country, but it is also a picture of the pain we mask. Of the trauma that they had suffered for 70 years explodes through the trigger of this one religious.
These old men are not just crying about a temple. They're crying about all the trauma they have gone through over and over and over again, only to come out to this. I want to talk to you. God sent me to talk to you.
You call yourself being strong and being tough, but we have ingested a lot of trauma. We have ingested, our way of life has completely been disrupted. Our family gatherings have become perilous. To hug your grandchildren is to put your life at risk.
This is not normal. This is not normal. Your sister comes over and you can't hug your own sister.
It's traumatic. It's traumatic because we have lost our family. hundreds of thousands of people dead. Some of them we knew, others we knew of them. And how can you expect me to act like nothing happened when I'm running around looking like a bank robber every day with a mask up to my eyes?
My mother lived and died and never saw this mess. My grandmother lived and died and never saw this mess. And yet we are the generation that have found ourselves captive. Captive by a virus. Captive by the...
...economy, captive by racism, captive by killings and shootings of our sons and our daughters, captive by plagues and distress. And because of the times we are in, the triggers are going off. Our relationships are collapsing.
Marriages are falling apart. Ministries are folding. Because of the triggers of the times that we're living in, while some are going in the business, others are going out of business trying to reinvent themselves and you're trying to act like it didn't hurt.
Of course it hurt. Can we be real this morning? Of course it hurt. Anytime you can't have a normal Thanksgiving dinner, of course it hurt. Anytime you scared of Christmas, of course it hurt.
Anytime you gotta get up your nerve to go in the grocery store, of course it hurt. And that trigger went off and those old men started screaming because of the trauma over and over again that they had suffered and suffered and suffered and said nothing at all. And God told me to tell his people, open your mouth, to open your mouth.
to not sit there with your lips glued together and let your soul implode in unexpressed agony that the ashanda there's something there's a release that god wants to do in this place this morning i mean a belly release i don't mean just a nice sunday morning sermon god wants to ventilate the trauma that has attacked your soul you've lost mothers and sisters and aunts and you're trying to smile and act like it didn't matter but god said tell my people to open their mouth and i know it sounds silly and i know it looks crazy and i know it's unorthodox but you are at home anyway open your mouth and just shout out a good crowd to god You can't go through this kind of stuff with your lips closed. You can't go through this and put on makeup and act like it didn't matter. You can't just keep getting your hair done and getting your nails done and act like you're okay.
I said open your mouth and shout out a noise to God. Oh! The reason the devil doesn't want you to say anything is that if you don't say anything, God can't answer anything.
God told Moses, I heard the cry of my people. There's something about crying out to God that gets God's attention. David said, this poor man cried and the Lord heard him.
The enemy wants to beat you and tell you to shut up, but the devil is alive. There's power in my cry. There's power in my cry. I love the Lord because he heard my...
I love the Lord because he heard my... I love the Lord because he heard my... I need a thousand people that's been to hell and back to open your mouth and just cry out to God.
Out of your belly right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cry out till you break out. Cry out till you break out.
Cry out till you get loose. Cry out till you get free. Cry out till hell gets nervous. Cry out till demons tremble. Open your mouth and cry out to God.
My world is changing. My government is changing. The White House is besieged. My house is running out of food. God said, tell my people to open your mouth and holler!
If you holler, he's gonna break something. If you holler, he's gonna deliver something. If you holler, you're gonna get a breakthrough.
You've been quiet too long. You ain't gonna beat me and keep my mouth shut. I will open my mouth to God! Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Do not be still. I will not shut up. I will not be silent.
If you hold your peace, the rocks will cry out. Open your mouth, I feel a breakthrough. I feel a breakthrough.
I feel a breakthrough. I feel a breakthrough. I wish we was in service.
I'd lay hands on every one of you. I feel a breakthrough. I feel a breakthrough.
I would lay... hands on every last one of you, on your sorrow, on your grief, on your trauma, on your depression. I would rebuke the enemy. Get out of her house. Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out, get out of there.
Get, get, get, get out. In the name of Jesus, loose that woman. In the name of Jesus, cry out. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I've been through too much.
I've been up too many nights. Can't sleep at night. Walk in the floor at four o'clock in the morning.
I will not shut up. Open your mouth and holler at God. I'm crying out for my children.
I'm crying out for my family. I'm crying out for my job. I'm crying out for my mama. I'm crying out for my sisters. I'm crying out for my brothers.
I'm crying out for my church. I'm crying out for my members. Open your mouth and cry out! It's silent too long.
We've been silent too long. You have been through things you've never thought imaginable. You never thought in all of your life you would have to endure what you have gone through in this past year alone. Just in this one year alone, you have endured more than what some people go through in an entire lifetime. And it's okay not to be okay.
It's okay not to be okay. It's okay not to be okay. It's okay to be stressed out.
It's okay to be disappointed. It's okay to be broken. It's okay to admit that we saw people climbing over a wall and it was frightening.
And we're still frightened. And we're still upset. It's alright! The old men wept because they remembered when life was not like this.
The old men cried because they remembered the glory of Solomon's Temple. And they remembered Shekinah glory. And they remembered when we could worship together. And nobody wanted to know who you voted for. Come on somebody.
Hallelujah. I can remember when the church was not a party. It was not a political party.
It was the blood-washed, redeemed church of the living God. Somebody needs to cry out! Have we lost our minds?
If I forget Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. This foolishness is not the church. You don't break out windows and beat up people in the name of God. You don't murder people in the name of Jesus.
God said, tell my people to open your mouth. Stop acting like it's normal! This is not normal!
And the old men wept. And the Bible says that while the old men wept, the young men danced until the sound was not distinguishable. You couldn't tell the shout of joy from the pain of anguish. There's not a person in this room or a person watching me around the country who has gone through this year without being worried. about somebody without being worried about something without being cautious or scared or being sick or being stressed or wondering if you were going to survive or if you were going to be alive or if you were and you're going to tell me it's normal the devil is alive i remember this is not i have not lost my mind i remember when the white house was respected I remember when I could jog down the street and not worry about being shot.
I remember there was a time that things were different and there's a wailing in the soul. And the Bible says when Zion prevails... Sons and daughters shall be born.
Send for the women of mourning and let them take up a wailing. Oh no, no, put your stilettos up and take up a wailing. Death has climbed into our windowsill. How can we have nearly 400,000 people dead and nobody say nothing? Trauma triggers triumph.
I have to stop myself from watching my own TV if I hope for sleep. i have to cut them off because they trigger nightmares and dreams in your sleep i remember the old men wept not just because they lost the gold and the silver of solomon's temple it used to be a glory there used to be a glory that would fall on the house And when the glory fell on the house, the priest would lay prostrate in the floor. When was the last time you got saturated in the presence of God and the Spirit of God came on you so strong that you didn't care what you looked like and you didn't care what you got on?
Glory to God. There used to be a glory. That would knock you off a drum set.
That would make you stop playing an organ. That would make you burst out in tears. And away with this demon that's trying to turn you into a mummy. Open your mouth and holler! Yes!
Yes! In your house! Open your mouth and holler! And the old man wanted it back like it was. But I have come to learn that nothing will ever be.
The way it was. And as soon as you can accept that, you can live. Nothing will ever be like it was.
You can lie to yourself and tell you that 40 is the new 20. But it ain't. 60 is the new 40. We tell ourselves all those lies. 60 is not the new 40. Let me tell you what, 60 is 60. Nothing will ever be like it was.
And as much as I relate to the old men weeping, the text proves out that the young men were right. Because you see, the old men wanted to make it like it was, and God was doing something new, and God was doing something else, and God was doing something fresh, and God was doing something different, and you either get with it or you get left behind. In Haggai 2, 6-9, God says, this is what the Lord Almighty says, In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.
I will shake all... nations and what is desired by all nations will come and I will fill this house with glory says the Lord God Almighty the silver is mine and the gold is mine declares the Lord Almighty if I wanted the silver I could have got it if I wanted the gold I could have got it the glory of this present house will be greater Then the glory of the former house says the Lord God and in this place I will grant peace declares the Lord God Almighty and God says the glory of the latter house will be greater than the glory of the former house but you gotta understand that greater means different That God said, I own the silver and the gold, and if I wanted to build back what you had, I could afford it. God says, I am going to do a new thing in you as soon as I can get you to fall out of love with the old thing.
I'm going to give you another kind of glory and the glory of the latter house shall be greater than the glory of the former house. You see the former, the latter house had no Shekinah glory, had no Ark of the Covenant, but the latter house ended up having Jesus. And the reason God wants you to cry out is you cannot rejoice till you come to an end of your tears. You have to get the pain and the anger and the agony out so the joy can come in. Hannah couldn't have Samuel as long as she was full of bitterness.
God said it's time for us to let it go. To let the pain out so that the glory can come in. And that God did not promise you your plan. He only promised you His plan.
So whether you're the part of the country that's weeping over the election, or you're the part of the country that's dancing over the election, God says, I bring up one, and I take down another. I alone am God, and besides me there is no other. The Bible says the powers that be are ordained of God.
The ones you like and the ones you don't. I work all things after the counsel of my own will. Know why?
I'm God! And as soon as you accept that I'm God and that I can do whatever I want to do See the young men were open to change and the old men just wanted it like it was Triumph doesn't always look like how you pictured it. Victory doesn't always feel like what you thought it would feel like. Some of you have won but you don't feel victorious because you had an idea of what it would feel like. But are you open to something new?
God said, I'm still in charge. I'm still the boss. I am still your God.
You are still my people. I will do what I will do. I will move what I will move. I will heal what I will heal.
I will loose what I will loose because I'm God and beside me there is no other. I want everything that's got hands to lift them up and worship him into the praises of God. Come out of your belly and come out of your soul and out of your spirit.
And I want you to submit your plan and your purpose. and your way over to the Lord and let him take over because he's sovereign and he's God. He's gonna give you your joy back. He's gonna give you your dance back.
You're gonna rejoice in him. That's what it's all about. So...
Ahaha! He's gone! He's gone!
My God... He's gone! He...
So... So... He can do whatever he wants to do. You don't hear me. He can do whatever he wants to do.
Can you say yes to him? He wants to. Tell him yes!
Tell him yes! Tell him yes! God is God. I wish I could hear somebody praise him right now. The glory is here.
So, so great. Oh, oh, oh, oh, the Lord, the Lord, my God, He's sovereign, He's sovereign, you hear me, in trauma. He can do whatever he wants to do when he wants to.
God can do whatever he wants to do when he wants to. He wants to do when he wants to, how he wants to, God is God. Who am I to question his wisdom?
I am nothing. I'm nothing. Who am I? To question God's judgment, I am nothing.
Am I too to be offended by His ways? We allow that God is sovereign. Sovereign.
Yes, he is. He's sovereign. He's bigger than all your doubts. He's bigger than all your fears. He's sovereign.
The Lord. The Lord our God. My God. He's sovereign.
That's why you praise him. That's why you thank him. Do you receive it? He can do whatever, whatever he wants to do, whatever he wants to do, whatever he wants to do, but can do whatever he wants to do when he wants to. How he wants to become his sovereign.
His sovereign. Ah, yes. His sovereign.
His sovereign. He's sovereign. He's sovereign. Because he's sovereign.
He's sovereign. He's sovereign. Because he's sovereign. God. God is God.
God is God. Listen, we are the generation that God has chosen to go through this season and we will not fail him. It wasn't my mother's generation, it wasn't my grandmother's generation, it was this generation that he chose.
To fight this fight, to go through this affliction, to witness these times, and we will not bow, and we will not break, and we will survive, and we will be triumphant, because greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world, and the glory of the latter house shall be greater. Then the glory of the farmhouse. The Lord spoke to me he said I want you to start dealing with the pain my people are hiding.
He said I want that pain out of my people. Hey, God said I want that pain out of my people. And I want you to use everything I give you for them to get the release they need. He said they have been traumatized.
And now everything is a trigger. And one thing happens and it brings everything back that you've been through. God said, get that out. Get that out of you, stop ingesting that poison.
You talking about scared to take the vaccine? You ought to be scared to take this poison. This pain, this pressure, this stress, this anxiety, this anger, this mood swings, this disorientation. Enough! You're gonna have to pray in tongues till it breaks.
You're gonna have to walk around the house talking in the Holy Ghost until the devil have to turn everything. loose that he's got tied up in your mind and body. It ain't enough to be a church member now.
You gonna have to go ahead and be sanctified. You gonna have to go ahead and operate in the Holy Ghost. You gonna have to go ahead and move in the Spirit.
This is a demon! This is a demon after your peace, after your joy, after your contentment, after your life, after your love, after your mind, after your sanity. The devil is alive. You gotta plead the blood of Jesus.
You gotta plead the blood till the yoke breaks. Plead the blood till the door opens. Plead the blood till the money comes back.
Plead the blood till you get a job. Plead the blood till the devil backs out. Plead the blood till your body is healed. Plead the blood till you get your mind. Plead the blood, the blood, the blood.
I plead the blood. I plead the blood, the blood. I plead the blood of the land.
I plead the blood. Yeah! Yeah!
Yeah! Yeah! The blood of Jesus. The blood, the blood, the blood. The blood of Jesus.
The blood, the blood, the blood. The blood of Jesus. Lay hands on your own head and say the blood, the blood, the blood.
I plead the blood over my mind. The blood. I plead the blood over my memories. The blood. I plead the blood over my.
I plead the blood over my feelings. I plead the blood over my peace. I plead the blood over my rest. I plead the blood over my sanity. I plead the blood, the blood, the blood.
The blood, the blood, the blood, the blood. The blood! Ah! The blood! You're gonna have to get your grandma's Holy Ghost for this!
This kind of devil needs an old fashioned, old fashioned Holy Ghost power! I feel a shot of victory. I feel a shot of victory.
I feel a shot of victory. Yes! Yes! That's what I'm talking about.
That's what I'm talking about. We're gonna have to go far. I plead the blood, I plead the blood, I plead the blood over your house, I plead the blood over your house, I plead the blood over your mind, I plead the blood over your apartment, I plead the blood over your business, I plead the blood over your job.
What? What? You better fight back!
Breathe the blood, I gotta breathe the blood, Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood.
Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood.
Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood.
Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood. Breathe the blood.
Breathe. Yeah! Peace! I'm gonna believe God with you.
If you're backslidden, it's time for you to come home. If you're a sinner, it's time for you to get saved. Can't you see? Can't you see? Can't you see?
Can't you see? You don't even need to read your Bible right now. Read your newspaper. Your newspaper will show you.
Can't you see where we are in history? You out there playing around for what? With who? Don't you know when to quit?
Enough! Talk about somebody hurt you. You stay out there, you're gonna know what hurt is.
Today is the day of salvation. Our prayer lines are on the screen. People ready to lead you to Christ, ready to pray with you, ready to give you the help you need, ready to minister to you, ready to be on your side.
I'm going to close this service. Holy Spirit said something to me. He never said this to me before.
I want everybody that can to give your address. I want you to give your address. If you 611-1611-2103, whatever your address is, I want you to give your address.
I want to pray for a peace to come over your address. I want everybody that can to just give your address. 1901-2110, whatever it is, I want you to show your address. Father, we cannot sleep in hell. We cannot live in chaos.
We cannot rest in confusion. I don't know what you're doing out there, but sanctify our house. Sanctify our house!
I don't know where this world is going, but ask for me in my house. When I walk in the door, I want peace to kiss me in the face. When I walk in the door, I want peace to be waiting on me.
Love and health around me. Joy and contentment beside me. When I lay down in the bed, let the angels rock me to sleep.
I make a commitment this day to release the bitterness, the pain, the anger, the trauma, the triggers. I'm gonna stop allowing everything to trigger all of that stuff and allow it to come up again and again and I keep reliving old stuff again. Enough!
I'm praying for my neighbors. I'm praying for my neighborhood, but for my house, you ain't coming in here. Every believer out there, we're sowing a symbolic seed.
It's not even the size of it. It's symbolic of the fact you ain't coming in here. Be God over my house.
Be God over my rest. Be God over my body. Every cell, every tissue.
Somebody's wrestling. Somebody's recovering. Somebody's got a positive test back. Get in every cell of their body and let your healing go all through their body.
Every tissue. Open up their lungs. Open up their lungs!
Open up their lungs! Somebody, the Holy Ghost said, when you hollered you don't even know what you released. Oh ho ho! HELL!
Open up their lungs! HELL! Open up their lungs!
Let them shout COVID out of their body. Let it come out of their lungs. Let it come out of their nostrils, out of their nasal passages. When they shout, Hallelujah!
Make it turn them loose. How! Somebody shout!
God's gonna give you your breathing back. God's gonna give you your oxygenation back. God's gonna give you your strength back. God's gonna give you your... Shall you?
Glory. That's what made my house. I will serve the Lord.
I will serve the Lord. I will serve the Lord. Trauma triggers triumph. Trauma triggers and triumph. Trauma triggers.
and triumph. Trauma triggers and triumph. Trauma triggers and triumph.
Trauma triggers and triumph. Trauma triggers and triumph. Trauma triggers and triumph.
Trauma triggers and triumph. Did you notice how I did it? I said, did you notice how it ended? It ended in triumph.
The glory of the latter house shall be greater. It shall be greater. It shall be greater.
Somebody said it shall be greater. I said, somebody said it shall be greater. shall be greater than the glory of the latter house.
God doesn't have to make it like it was to make it greater. Broaden your definition of what greater is and dare to believe that what's in front of you is greater than what's behind you. We're gonna keep working on this as long as God gives me strength. I'm gonna stand on this wall and I'm gonna preach this word. I'm gonna preach this word.
How? How? I'm gonna preach this word.
Till times get better, I'ma preach this word. Till fevers get out of my mouth, I'ma preach this word. Till demons run out of your house, I'ma preach this word.
Till you get strength in your limbs, I'ma preach this word. Oh God, I feel the Holy Ghost. Y'all look over me now, I feel the Holy Ghost. I feel the Holy Ghost.
I feel the Holy Ghost. I feel the Holy Ghost. I feel the Holy Ghost.
I feel the Holy Ghost. I feel the Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost in your house. Holy Ghost in your house!
Father, I pray that the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart may be acceptable in thy sight. O Lord, my strength, my redeemer. I pray that this message goes further than I can imagine, helps more than I will ever meet, heals people that I will never see. I pray that the trauma and the triggers receive their eviction notice. I pray that the people who hear this message will go into recovery right now and that everything they lost is going to come back around full circle and that their latter day shall be greater than their former day in Jesus name amen go with God