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Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Developing For Prosperity, Part Three | Morgan Dufresne | World Harvest Church | Murrieta, CA
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Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message. I want to pick up where we were last week. We have been talking about prosperity, God's prosperity plan for our life and laying a foundation with that prosperity plan. I you the Bible talks about and the Scriptures talk about that Jesus was made poor so that you could be made rich. Amen. We've got to deal with the thinking of poverty and the mentality of lack and always having that will always live beneath. We have to deal with these thoughts. We have to deal with living and yielding to these thoughts. Does that make sense? Catching ourselves? Sometimes you need the help of the Spirit, the help of the Holy Ghost even to show you and to point out to us and to highlight, to shed light on where we may be thinking. Beneath God's plan and beneath God's standard, there's the standard of heaven, that God has asked us to come and think like Him. He has given us permission as his children to think like Him. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you're thinking too far beyond your place in this life. You're not of this world. But we are in residence here. And God is expecting us, as we reside here, to bring his power, his glory, his presence. Amen. Through our faith and expectation, we are to bring the fullness of his plan to pass while we're on this earth. So we've got to think like him if we want to bring his plan into fruition. Right? He can't work his plan through those whose minds are not and whose thoughts are not thinking his thoughts and thinking his ways. Amen. Let's start. First, go to third John, because I want to read this. With the understanding, The understanding that we are expected to think like God thinks we're expected. Expect that of yourself. Amen. Expect that of yourself to think like Him. When you put that demand and that expectation on yourself to think like him, then it will stir the desire to find out how he thinks, not just what he thinks. How does God think? When you approach a situation and circumstance, God sees it one way. But because we are natural beings, we have a physical body, we're still living in this world that is full of darkness. There's going to be a pull on us to think a certain way, to respond a certain way. The flesh is going to want to move in a certain direction and act a certain way. The mind, if not renewed, is going to quickly pull in the direction that's not of God because it has not been born again and made new, it's still of the old man. So I want us when we read this, John, and I want to read it out of the amplified. Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in every way. In every way. John says, I want you to prosper in every way, say every way. That's how God thinks. Every way. You should be prospering in every way. Way. You should not be okay with suffering less than in any way, in any circumstance, in any opportunity, even should you come up short and come beneath the fullness of prosperity. Meaning don't settle for a measure of symptoms and sickness in your life. Don't settle for a measure of defeat. Don't settle for lesson in your family and in your home in every way, say every way. This means we're going to have to look at all of our ways and ask ourselves, am I prospering in every way? And we're going. We've been looking at, we've been talking about what prosperity, even what it really is, because it's so much more than just the money. That's immediately what that natural mind goes to. Because the natural mind finds comfort when all the financial needs are taken care of. But how many of you can say in your life, I know I can, that I have faced circumstances where money was not going to meet the need. Can we all agree to that that money was just not going to cut it, that there was prosperity and there was things that we would have really enriched our lives and blessed us that money could not really buy, right? That our joy would have been full with something that money just couldn't, couldn't get us. So when we say in every way, I want us to keep in mind that you may be facing a financial need, you may be facing a physical need, you may be facing even emotional, mental. There are mental needs, there are things that the enemy will bring, thoughts that he'll bring to our minds that will cause us to wake up, go to bed, go throughout our day, and we'll struggle with these thoughts that really take us to a place of lack, you know, that we. He's wanting to bring us down into thinking the way the world thinks, the way the world sees themselves. And your. You're not equipped in your own power to overcome the devil's thoughts. You're not, you know what I mean? You are not able on your own. You know, I said something to my husband yesterday about a thought, you know, that had been coming. And he said, well, how are you doing? And I said, well, to be honest, I'm just trying to out think it. He goes, well, that doesn't work out so well. You know something to that effect. Cause we know, you know, we know probably he could see it on my face. But in any arena of your life, in any thing you may be facing, settle it now. In my thought life, there is no, no answer that I can find if it's not God's thought that's going to bring me out. But he says, I want you to prosper in every way. Every way. And that your body may keep well, even as I know your soul keeps well and prospers. So there's the key to prosper in every way. It means that the soul must be prospering in every way. Well, your soul has a lot to process throughout the day. We are not called to just sit at home and read scripture and be, you know, not be functioning productive. Proverbs. We don't have time to go there this morning in Proverbs where it talks about what we're supposed to be doing with our hands and putting, putting our hand to work and doing something. But we can, through this process of what's called meditation. If we can't be in the Word with the Scripture, the Word can be in us. You see that if you can't be in the Word, you can't have that Bible. Maybe you've got to take care of the affairs of life. The Word can be in you. That the spirit of God, that when you read the scripture, the spirit of God grabs hold of that scripture with you. And as you meditate on God's Word and what he said, the Holy Ghost can do a work, begin to do a work with that Word. Amen. So that you prosper in every way. And this is what happens is, you know, we, we run to service every week maybe. And because we've got to get in God's presence, we've got to get where God is speaking to us. And we have not been prospering in our soul because we don't realize God can be talking to us every, every single day. Those answers being revealed to us every single day. This is what John is saying is prosperity, is that your mind is so renewed, so equipped with his words, God's words, God's ways, his direction, that even if you're not here in a service and you don't tangibly feel the presence of God, his presence is in you because his words are in you. Amen. It's his words that bring us up. As Brother Copeland said, it's his words that bring us up out of whatever it is that's trying to keep us down. So we've got to take his words and make them so valuable that we cannot separate prosperity from his words. That prosperity and God's word that we see every time we. You know how you have the cartoons and the cartoon sees dollar signs, you know in their eyes, right? That every time we see God's word, dollar signs, we don't separate provision and prosperity and health from the word of God. So that we're not running to man to meet the need, but we see. Every time I pick up my scriptures, I just cha ching, cha ching, cha Ching, right? Because the more full I get, the more my mind prospers. Then in every way, prosperity can flow to me. When every thought thinks his thought, his thoughts, then in every way can we prosper until every thought. Well, that's impossible to have every thought. How am I supposed to think every thought? Because the process of renewing the mind and meditating on his Word, it does something besides just give you something to memorize. The scripture says it becomes engrafted into you, though his word becomes a part of you. That when opposition comes from within you flows. God's word, not trying to get an answer from outside, becomes engrafted. So last week, but I wanted to have this as our launching place. So that we can see in every way, prosper in every way. And that your body may keep well, even as I know your soul keeps well and prospers. So we must first, because prosperity in our mind, really, he's placing that ahead. He's saying, I'm expecting that you're prospering in every way just because your mind is prospering in every way. So let's get consumed first with prospering our thought life. Can we agree to that? Prosperity. Thought prosperity starts with the thoughts in our mind. And we talked about there's this great. There's always going to be a battle in your life and settle it now between the thoughts. Because the devil has access to your mind. That is his great battlefield. And he is hoping that you will surrender to him in your thought life first. You'll give up, you'll quit. You'll be okay with a certain level of living, a certain standard. What sets the standard in your life is your mind. Your mind will set the standard. A renewed mind sets a standard that the scriptures outline that God has set his standard. Well, I thought my heart will set a standard. No, because there's many. There's many believers whose lives look and reflect beneath Right. Can we say that even our own at times? So if our heart set the standard, then we would have no work to do. There's no fight of faith. There's no. There should. There would need to be no instruction to take God's word. Right? And to use that word and to activate that word in our lives, we would not have any. Have to make any effort. As dad Hagin says, we'd float around on flowery beds of ease if our heart set the standard, right? Your heart will always agree with God and his word. It's your mind that is going to be the battleground. So we can look at our lives. And our lives will not always reflect our hearts. They're going to reflect our thoughts. And we just. Just an example, right? And I'll tell on myself. I won't tell on you. So don't. You don't even gotta look, you know, what do they say? Sus, you ain't gotta look. Sus. Puppy's like, oh, my Gosh, I'm only 36, man. I'm only 36. You know, there's been times I have responded to my spouse in a less than loving manner. Right? Well, my heart didn't set the standard for that. Okay. My carnal mind set the standard for that situation. And then out of my heart had to flow sincere repentance. Don't ever say, oh, yeah, that's what I mean. My heart doesn't set the standard. But we can get to a place where our mind never interferes with our heart. Amen. That our mind is never a tripping place for our heart. And that as God's word becomes engrafted into us, it's God's word in our minds that allows us to live in our hearts. The more you fill your thoughts with God's thoughts, then the power that's on the inside of you, what you've been empowered to do can come out. That light that's on the inside can come out. What we're endeavoring to do, it's not real difficult. It just is going to take effort. We're endeavoring to take our minds and keep that those. The. The thoughts of our mind so clear and so much like God that the power on the inside can flow out. Then the life that's on the inside can flow out. The health that's on the inside can flow out. The wisdom that's on the inside can flow out. I need what's on the inside. The life of God that's on the inside. That's why we don't have to get reborn again. Over and over again. God has deposited his spirit. Jesus came to live on the inside of you. I've got to get what's living inside out. And the mind is the lid that holds that in. If it doesn't think like God, if it doesn't have life, if you don't have life in your mind, it doesn't matter if you have life in your spirit. I've got to get this life, this living book. Amen. The living word. I've got to get that up here. Amen. I've got to take the tool. The mind can be such a wonderful tool or it can be a weight that holds you back. Amen. Amen. Last week we were looking at the three. Well, the scripture says. Before we go any further, the scripture says, as a man thinketh, right? It's as he thinketh, not as he believeth. As he thinketh. I think we have been. We can be lulled into calling. And I believe it's. It's right. But we have been lulled into saying, you know, you'll hear the terminology, well, I hold fast to my faith. Or people call that they're born again. That's their faith. Right. That's a kind of a more religious term. But there is a faith in God. They're just saying what they're. They could be unsaved. They say, well, what belief or what faith are you? Well, I'm Christian, of the Christian faith. Have you heard that terminology? I'm of the Christian faith. And so we, we can be lulled into going, well, I. That's my belief. But really our belief system is most demonstrated in the way our thinking is right, because it's our thinking that directs our actions and our words. So yes, we are. We have faith on the inside of us. God has deposited his faith on the inside of us when we get born again. But that faith is really no good unless a man does something with that faith. What's trying is going to be a difficulty to hold that faith back. It's going to be your thought life. The devil is not, not your problem. No man at the end, no believer at the end of his life can say, the devil was my problem. The devil. The devil made me do it. No, he didn't. Your mind allowed you to do it. Your heart didn't agree, but your mind allowed you to go there. Your mind was okay with that style of living. Your mind was okay with talking that way. Your mind was okay with living that way. No believer will ever be able to use the devil as an excuse when he is the defeated foe. When their Savior, their king, did the work of defeating him and bringing every power that he had to nothing. We will never, never be able to use the devil as an excuse. And that's good news. Amen. But what does it do? It also puts the responsibility back on us to keep our thoughts higher and above our actions in line with God. We've got to be above and think above where the devil operates. He can be here in this world. You understand that? He is allowed. He has permission and the legal right to be on this earth. The legal right to be present, the legal right to bring a thought. But through our rights in Christ, I can remove those thoughts with God's word. Because His Word was given to me under a covenant through Christ's blood. I can take that Word and wash my thoughts with that word. Amen. I can wash my mind of those difficulty. I can take through the washing of the water of the Word. We're not washing our spirits, we're washing our minds. Cleaning our minds, ridding our minds of anything that would clog up the power of God and the plan of God to flow so that we can receive the wisdom of God. Now, we talked about last week, these three things. The foundations for prosperity, the foundational things for prosperity. Number one is reverence. Number two is obedience. And number three, reliance. Number one is reverence. Say reverence. Number two, Obedience. And number three is reliance. The Spirit of God said this to me. Greater reverence. When you have greater reverence, you'll receive greater wisdom. Greater reverence makes way for greater wisdom. What is reverence? Reverence is living like God has called us to live. Thinking like he has called us to think. Fellowshipping with God, honoring God, putting him first place, His Word first place. And we become a person trustworthy of his greater wisdom. The greater the what? Reverence. The greater the wisdom. You enlarge yourself when you. When you spend time. Well, the Holy Ghost is called the greater One. Right on the inside. He's the greater one. And when you spend time at the leading, you know of your heart because your heart always longs for fellowship with God. God is greater. Can we say God is greater than any circumstance in any situation we'll ever face? Do. Do we agree with that? Then why is it sometimes we struggle and have difficulties and that greatness doesn't seem to be so readily available the more we spend time? God has an answer for everything you face. He's got an answer. But if we'll pursue not just his answers. But his presence, then his answers will come so much easier. I look at it this way, the more I spend time reverencing God. I don't just mean, you know, in prayer and in His Word and in worship, but I mean letting my life reflect and living according to the word that I become a vessel. The Bible talks about holy, filled and flooded, doesn't it? God will enlarge you for greater wisdom as you reverence him and you honor him, even about your daily life. He'll you become someone that's going to. He's not going to take his infinite wisdom and his great wisdom that he has and give it to someone who won't know what to do with it. This is what we see with Solomon. Solomon asked for wisdom because he knew what he was going to do with it. He was going to honor God, honor him through the temple, honor him through everything that they that his Father had told him he was called to do. He was going to take God's wisdom and use it. Oftentimes we can get God's wisdom, know his wisdom, and we'll just take that wisdom or we'll take that knowledge and we'll take it for our own gain instead of recognizing and understanding that he's got a plan. It's not just about us. So the more we reverence him, the greater increase in wisdom, greater obedience. You want to have a. You say, well, I need to hear from God for my life. What did he tell you to do before you reach this point? Greater obedience means an increase in his leadings and direction. If you're quicker to obey, you'll be quicker to hear people say, I just can't seem to hear. I just can't seem to get direction on this. Well, did you obey the last instruction? What was the last thing he told you? What was the last thing? You know, sometimes we can be looking even for increase in our life financially and we didn't sow and give into the last thing he told us to do. And then number three, he said, the greater, a greater reliance on him gets a greater flow of power. And we see this all throughout the scripture. This those who relied solely on their God, he came and he undertook for them. He worked his plan. Those who just. Well, let's go there real quick because I want us to see this. If you'll turn with me to first go to second Chronicles 29. Go to 2nd Chronicles 29. I. I love in this passage, in reading about these different kings that came and went and some, some reign longer, they, they were able to rule longer. Some, you know, they'd say two years, you know, three years, and they'd be removed. They didn't live reverent lives. But King Hezekiah, he began to put back everything that had been idols had been built. The people were worshiping false gods. And Hezekiah came in with the reverence of the Lord and God's instruction and God's word. And what he did is he began to establish first. He begins to give offerings and bring sacrifices. Before he takes anything down, he begins to give reverence to God. He's got to get the presence of God back. Notice that was his pursuit. And that was the first thing that we see here that he did, that he pursued. In chapter 29, he puts the. The Passover back. He cleanses the temple. He's got to get the presence of the Lord back. You've got to have the presence of God in your home. You've got to have the presence of God in your business. And I'm not saying that you're. There's a cloud, a glory cloud, or there's anything, you know, some, you know, wild manifestation. It's simply the honor for God that you honor him with what you have. You honor him with your thoughts. You honor him with your words. You honor him with your actions. You remove anything that would consume your time and become an idol and become a greater interest to you. No, we don't worship idols the way that they had. We're not looking to bail. We're not looking to have come together and make sacrifices to false God. But what you sacrifice in your time shows what your God is. It shows exactly who you worship. Oh, no, I worship God. You may worship him on Sunday morning, but true worship shows up what you say and do and where you go and how you think. It's your manner, as it says in the scripture. It's your manner of life. Worship is your manner of life. So when we're talking about worship, when we're talking about reverence, don't just completely dismiss Sunday morning service. Just, just dismiss it. We're not even. I'm not even talking about Sunday morning. I'm talking about your manner of life when you leave this place. Their manner of living was so far off. And Hezekiah comes back and he says, no, it will not be that way. He begins to establish again how they should be living and what they should be doing. Go to Isaiah. Actually, I want us. Actually, we talked about this last week. He said in verse 36 of chapter 29, Thus, Hezekiah rejoiced in all the people because of what God had prepared for the people. Because of what God had prepared for. It was done. Suddenly notice God had something prepared for them. But it took a man getting rid of everything else everybody was worshiping for God to bring what he had prepared. It wasn't just them preparing something for him, he had something prepared for them. I'm interested in what God has prepared for me. How about you? And today you can make in your personal life, in your home, in your business, in your thoughts. Thoughts. You can make some sudden changes if you decide to, if you choose to. And we saw that with Hezekiah when the prophet came because he'd gotten prideful, what did he do? He quickly turned his face to the wall, he repented and he got back in that right place with God and God gave him more life. So you can quickly. I like that about Hezekiah. He did things quickly. Quickly. Those who reverence God are quick responders. They don't think it out, they don't try to process it out. They don't try to judge it out based off their past experience. They quickly obey God, they quickly respond to his leadings. They quickly make changes when they see in the word that God says to do things a certain way. They are quick to be obedient to that, to that word. Hezekiah was quick to respond as the king, and therefore everyone else was able to be blessed by that because God had something for the people, he had something for them as a nation. But it took one man quickly changing the direction that they had been going. What direction are you headed this morning? Is it a reverent one? Is it a casual one? Notice everything when you read through chapter 29, when you read as he begins to establish again the Passover. As you read these things, there was nothing casual about the effort of reverence, nothing casual about being reverent towards God. What has changed in our society today? There was nothing casual. And if the. If those who have no life in them can be disciplined when it comes to reverencing God and have everything in order and have certain things set in place that they do on certain days and they dress us certain way and they have the priests in certain places and everything is done according to the instruction God has given, what has changed? We're still talking about prosperity because you know what God did for Hezekiah when he someone tried to rise up, another king tried to rise up against him. God did the work, God provided the spoils. God. All they had to do was Go in and gather up the increase. If you fight your flesh, you're gonna have to fight for increase. You know what I'm saying? If you're always trying to decide whether or not I'm gonna go, go, you know, with my flesh on this, and no, I gotta go back and no, I want to go this direction. I know it's gonna be a fight. If you want to just gather up God's spoils, then you better get in God's presence. Reverence brings his presence and his presence brings the supply. We see this with Paul and Silas, don't we? What was money going to do for two jailbirds? Nothing. They are in jail, locked up in the dungeon in the dark. And you know what else? People before them had already been Christians before them had already been become martyrs. I don't know where our expectation would have been at that point. But Paul knew one thing. Get in the presence of God, because money, the church could not come and buy them out of prison. In fact, he had been receiving offerings while he's in jail, and it did absolutely nothing for him. So this time was no different. When Paul and Silas were in there, money was not going to deliver these two. It was turning their face to God and looking up prayer and praises to get God's presence. All they did was draw out of that reverence. They didn't criticize, they didn't complain. They didn't turn to their flesh. They didn't exalt. They didn't even. They didn't even look at themselves. Look at what we're doing for Jesus. We're suffering for Jesus. They got their attention back in the direction after they had suffered. They turned their attention back to where their help comes from. But if we can live lives and see, this is where. Where Paul had gotten it right. Paul had always been living with his attention on God, quick to obey. When God says go, go this direction he would go. When God says, don't take this one, he wouldn't take him. When God, he was accustomed to living by the leadings of the Spirit and leadings come by honoring God, honoring the last leading that he gave. Obeying the last leading. So I. I'm always under the inclination, you know, that I believe Paul, you know, he probably had a leading. God's going to do something. God's going to do something for us. He knew the scriptures. He knew how God delivered Daniel out of the lion's den. He knew how God delivered Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Why? Because their reverence for God Wouldn't let them bow their deliverance. No amount of money was going to buy Daniel out of the lion's den. No amount of money was going to pay to have the three Hebrew boys give them a couple more months out of the fiery furnace. No amount of money would suffice. And this is what we have to understand with our own lives, is there's going to come times where prosperity is not going to mean money for us. It's going to mean deliverance. It's going to mean a miracle that only God can work, that we need his presence to show up. And so Paul no doubt looked back and realized, okay, Daniel wouldn't bow. He continued to pray. The three Hebrew boys continued to reverence and worship God. Therefore, my deliverance out of this prison is going to come the same same way. Amen. And this is what I say when. When we go back to what God originally said to me at the start of this series was prosperity is not just confess confession. Paul and Silas did not confess themselves out of prison. Chains be loose, Chains be loose. Chains be loose, Chains be loose. Break off in Jesus name. Break off in Jesus name. Did they. There was no faith confession while they were in there. There was no, you know, three point. Gotta say this, gotta say this, gotta say this. I'm not diminishing that. But you understand the Holy Ghost will lead you what to say. And in one, you there. The thing is with confession is you can say something one time. We can get so full and so obedient and so reverent to God that one time Daniel didn't have time to confess the lion's mouth shut. But because of a reverent lifestyle, the presence of God followed him. You can get to a place where you're so reverent of God and his instruction and how you want to live your life, how you want to talk, how you want to act, the things you want to see, the places that you want to go, that God's presence resides on you and will deliver you. And you don't have to say a word. Amen. Daniel didn't say a word. He just continued to honor God. This is prosperity. This is what makes us the head and not the tail. Reverence God put, well, I don't want to go that direction. Go with me. If you would. Let me look at a passage real quick. Quick and see if I want to go this direction. Hezekiah, when he go with me, if you would go to first. Let's go to first kings, chapter 15. First kings, chapter 15. And I want you to see something here. There was another king. King. King Asa. And I'm going to read these. I'm not going to read all of about, you know, King Asa's life, but King Asa, because it says here, if you'll look in chapter 15, verse 11. And Asa did right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David, his forefather. And it goes on to talk about what he did. Verse. Look at verse 14. Yet Asa's heart was blameless before the Lord in all his days. He brought things which his father dedicated and the things which he himself had dedicated into the house Lord. Silver and gold and vessels. So he begins to honor God. And he is one. Because different kings had come and they would serve God. And then some would allow the people to put up idols and turn to idol worship and turn their hearts against God. God. And God would of course, be disappointed and upset, and they would have to. He would have to allow them to have difficulties. But I want you to see this. Look here in verse 33 of chapter 15, it says in the third. And I'm going to just go through these scriptures. In the third year of Asa, king of Jude, king of Judah, began Baasha the son of Ahijab, to reign over all Israel in terms of 20 and four years. So ASA is king of Judah. And here's one king that's reigning over Israel. Now go with me. Flip over to chapter 16 in verse 15. And in the 27th year of Asa, King of Judah, Zimri reigned for seven days in Tirzah. The troops were encamped against Gibson, which belonged to the Philistines. Now go with me, if you would, to 16, verse 29. And in the 38th year of ASA, king of Judah, began in the reign Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel. And Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel and Samaria 20 and two years. So we see here as Asa reigns, what happened to those kings that would not give honor and reverence to God one by one, one by one, they're being. They. They were removed. They were killed. I'm not going to go into all of their stories, but it talks about how they were removed. When you honor God and reverence God, they're sustaining power. Sustaining power. Sometimes you don't need miracle delivering power. You need sustaining power. And we see that because Asa's heart was right towards God. Those whose heart wasn't, they were removed one by one. And he would watch kings over Israel. He was king of Judah. Kings over Israel come and go And Asa was still there, still honoring God, still having the things in place. What does it say? Is David his forefather? So notice reverence also has something to do with those who've gone before us. You see that Asa was a reverent man to God for the. Outlining the law, you know, outlining what they should be doing, the way David, because of David's covenant. And then, of course, Solomon. So different ones at different times would. Would step in, and some again, would go the way of idols, and some would come back to God and re. Establish, you know, the instruction that he had given to his people. And Asa did this. But I love how it does point out that because of his forefather. So it's wrong to just look at this present generation and think that we understand what reverence is based on what we live in now. Young people, listen and understand. You will not understand what true reverence is until you look back and see those who were sustained, who made it, who lived, who were successful. David was successful in his assignment before God, wasn't he? When it was time for him to go, he gathered everybody around. He lived an honorable life, an anointed life, because he was so reverent. He wasn't perfect, but he was reverent. There's. That's a. That's a huge key. He wasn't perfect, but he was reverent. And so you can't. Because it says, as his forefathers. And you'll see this with other kings, they would say, as their forefather, David, young people, old people, everybody in between. You can't just base reverence on what our generation sees right now, says Asa. He would look back at his forefather, David. He took his instruction of reverence and what to do based off David, not based off of what had been going on. That means that if Judah's standard was right here because of one king, he didn't just bring it up a little bit, you know, like a little notch and say, oh, this is way better than what we've been. You know, where we were. He kept his heart turned. He looked back. Now, Asa didn't get everything right. There were things that he could have done better. But know this because we have the helper, the Holy Ghost on the inside. We don't have to miss it at all. But I want us to see here. Let's be mindful of those maybe either still living or who have gone home to be with the Lord or what is their standard? What is their standard? Those who have demonstrated a life of holiness, a life of reverence, a life of honor. And God use them in mighty ways. Many people say they, they, you know, maybe we could say it's trending. I don't know, maybe it's a stirring of the spirit of God. But you know, many like to look at the lives of, you know, Smith Wigglesworth and Amy simple McPherson and because they liked the attention maybe that came and there's a measure of hunger there for miracles. But the understanding of how to walk in them is as simple as reverencing God. Reverencing God. You can't build a program for miracles, you understand? You can't build a program. You can't do a five step deal. You can't have, you know, the perfect show and the perfect setup and the perfectly orchestrated service to have the power of God in demonstration. It takes reverence, it takes obedience and complete reliance on God. And this is what we see in those that have already gone home is these three characteristics. Any great man or woman of God that did something that we have record of, you can see all, all three of these characteristics in them. Amen. They lived separated lives. And I know this can seem. Because the way things are today. There is so much of the world that can quickly get in us today because of social media, because of television, because of the way the news is. There's so much that can quickly fill. So much of the word can quickly fill you in your time, right? It's much easier. Back in the day, what there was, you know, he would come home. There's one news station. People didn't have interaction between one another, you know, carnality, extreme carnality. They didn't show things on the TV the way they do. You didn't see homosexuality the way you do. You didn't see the. I mean, even the dependence on drugs and pharmaceuticals and the direction of man providing for everything that you're ever gonna need that man, always man. Somewhere somebody's got the answer for you. And the dependency on natural knowledge. We can become quickly dependent on natural knowledge because so much of the world can quickly fill our fingertips and our eyes and our mind. And those that have gone on before us, they didn't have that option. They still had opposition, you understand? They still had opposition, but they didn't have that option. I think about Dr. Sumrall. He didn't have the option of getting on kayak and finding the cheapest ticket down to Australia to go and find Howard Carter, you know what I'm saying? Well, if I could just, you Know, just move this here and move that there. And then, you know, we could, you know, I can take out a small loan, and I'm not against these things, you understand? I'm just saying. He also, back in their generation, they had their own difficulties, but the reliance is still the same. Faith is the same generation to generation. But not only do we believe faith is the same, then that means we believe reverence is the same, honor is the same. Why is it that we want the same faith as those who've gone before us? The same miracles, the same signs, but we don't want to have the same reverence, we don't want to have the same honor, and we definitely don't want to have the same obedience because we are so much more educated and knowledgeable about how we can do church now, because we know what's going to reach this generation. Lord, help me that I never overreach the Holy Ghost and his instruction and how he wants to reap the harvest. Amen. And so history, even in the scriptures, history records that these men would say as their forefather David, as, therefore, as those who went before them, as their grandfather did, as, you know, somebody in the past, they look back to. For how to honor God. And now we see, you know, we're. We're seeing an uptick of discussion of, you know, miracles, people wanting miracles, people hungry because they realize this world has absolutely nothing to offer. We were forced in with this pandemic. We were forced, everyone was forced to evaluate where their reliance is and what their trust is in. So in the church to have a greater reliance because the government can't do it, man can't provide. You know, we've developed. Either you've developed a greater trust in man or less than you're either going to come out of this one way. And so we want the faith that they had to pick up and go into the unknown and buy the ticket when. When he didn't know where Howard Carter was. We want that kind of faith, but do we have the same kind of reverence? You know, that when his father said, no, you're not going to be a preacher, and he goes up to his room and he calls out to God and God sends him to the Scripture in Isaiah and he packs his bag and he leaves, never to return to his house. Why? Because he honored the word of the Lord more. It's not that he was dishonorable to his dad, but there was an assignment that his dad didn't have revelation of. There is going to be things that you'll get revelation of. And God is going to hold you to your level of revelation, not someone else's. You let people with less revelation be where they are. You have to live out the revelation that you have for your life. If you don't, they'll never come into greater revelation. Sometimes it takes someone seeing revelation lived out in your life for them to be able to believe it. Amen. And so we see as those kings began to fall away one by one. Asa still there. He's still there. He's still, still king. He's still reigning. Amen. And so this is just some things I wanted us to see. Because isn't longevity part of prosperity? Right. It's just another element of. Of prosperity. He had the longevity. Hezekiah had longevity as a king. David had longevity. Because these men honored, and we see those that would not honor and that dishonored. Many of them had difficulty after difficulty. Either they were removed or they caused great difficulty, heartache, heartbreak. There's another king. We won't look there, but he, you know, was so rebellious, so evil, and then suffered great hardship at the hand of another king and ended up turning himself back to God. And God was so merciful and reached out and delivered him. I don't want to get to that place where I need to be delivered out of a hardship. We will face tests and trials, but they don't have to become hardships. Amen. And you've got to believe that, that you can face a test and trial and it not be a hardship. Praise God for his delivering power, but also his sustained, sustaining. We can be sustained through any test, any trial, anything that comes our way, anything that, that this world may be going through, we can be sustained through the power of God. But it's going to be our reverence in him that keeps that power flowing in our direction. Amen. Amen. Well, I hope you're a help this morning. 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