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Dufresne Ministries Podcast
God Confirms His Word With Signs Following | Nancy Dufresne | Georgetown, TX | Tuesday PM | Miracle Crusade 2023
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Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Who was it that was saying? I think it was Pastor Chris Cody. He was quoting, I think C.S. lewis that said, joy in the kingdom is serious business. Amen. Because it gets you to the other side of everything that opposes you. And it's. I heard Pastor Mark Hankins say this. He said, rejoicing is a harvest tool. Listen to that. Rejoicing is a harvest tool. You harvest your healing. Rejoicing. You can harvest your peace. Rejoicing. You can harvest the wisdom of God. Rejoicing, Rejoicing. Amen. You can harvest revelation. Rejoicing. You can harvest finances that are needed. Rejoicing. You can harvest rescue for your family. Rejoicing. Amen. And I appreciate the Holy Ghost giving us this demonstration because this isn't the fulfillment of what he's trying to work. He's demonstrating what you can do at home on purpose. On purpose. Just on purpose. Amen. People say, well, I'm not comfortable with that. You know, I'm not really that kind of an expressive person. We're not talking about your personality. We're talking about tapping into a flow. And that flow is in you. You don't have to wait. You don't have to wait for that flow to move you. You can move the flow. Smith Wigglesworth would make this statement. It made religious leaders mad. He said, if the Holy Ghost doesn't move him, what's that mean? We're authorized to initiate some things because of the greater one in us. We don't take over and do the Holy Ghost job. We don't do his part, but we can make it conducive for him to manifest. And that's what he's talking about. Paul told Timothy, stir up the gift. What's he saying? If nothing's moving that you need moving, you're authorized to stir it. Amen. So we are to become skillful that when we leave this building, we don't leave this in the building. Amen. You know, I love the question that Dr. Sumrall asked Smith Wigglesworth. It was a brilliant question. He said, brother Wigglesworth, how do you get up in the morning? That's a great question to a man who walks with God, to a man over 20 something people raised from the dead under his ministry. That's a question for someone who knows God. And he says, I jump out of the bed every morning and dance for 10 minutes in the Holy Ghost by choice, not by feeling, by choice. Why he's choosing his flow for that day. Every day we're choosing a flow. Every day we're choosing a flow. And it was demonstrated tonight how to choose your flow. Amen. Thank God for the Word. I said thank God for the word. Hallelujah. You got your Bibles with you tonight. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. And you know, these things don't just happen so we can say we felt something. The Holy Ghost moves to do a work. Some of you will go home tonight and realize, hey, something in me changed. Something that was out of order, just came into place. And many times it happens inwardly first. But you know, something in me. Something in me shifted. Something in me laid hold of something. And it'll show up out here if you'll just magnify what's happening in you. Amen. Turn with me to Mark, chapter 16. Mark, chapter 16. We're going to. Before I came tonight, the Holy Ghost gave me a sermon. And pulling from some of the things that brother Joel ministered on yesterday morning, but the Holy Ghost just giving me a direction for it in my part. And we read. I think it's so interesting. We read the Great Commission, which we should. It's a job description for the body of Christ. But I want you to look at verse nine first. These are the verses preceding the Great Commission. Mark chapter 16, verse 9. Now, when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. Notice this. She's still free. I so appreciate that he said her condition when he found her, because she's not that way anymore. Verse 10. And she went and told them that had been with him as they mourned and wept. See, it matters what you hear when you're in mourning and weeping, right? And they. When they had heard that he was alive and had been seen of her, so they heard, he's alive and I saw him. This is no unsound woman. This is a woman who traveled with them, followed Jesus earthly ministry. They had experience with this woman. She knew him. So they heard. She told him, he's alive and I've seen him. And when they heard that, their response, they believed not. That's what they chose. They chose not to believe. Believing is a choice. It's not a feeling, it's a choice. After that, verse 12. After that, he appeared in another form unto two of them as they walked and went into the country. And they went and told it unto the residuer, the Rest of them neither believed they them. So they chose again not to believe. Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat. And when he appeared to them, he upbraided them. He rebuked them sharply. He upbraided them with their unbelief. So he repeated to them what they chose. You chose not to believe because he upbraided them not for their unbelief, but with it with their unbelief. Look at this. And hardness of heart. Because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. Look at what is two things connected, unbelief and hardness of heart. Jesus has just risen and they're already in unbelief and hardness of heart already. Why? When you choose unbelief, hardness of heart is the result. We know this. Our heart is the soil that God's word is planted in. The Word calls God that we are his ground. He's the husbandry. We're God's garden, as different translations say. What's that mean? Our heart is the soil that that word goes in. And the quality of the soil determines what happens with what's planted in it. So Jesus said that the soil was hardness of heart. Their hearts were hard ground. When ground is hard, anything that comes out of it is less than what it could have been. Unbelief turns the heart hard, making it difficult to get the word in. Just in looking at what one expert said about hard ground, because hard soil is tough to penetrate. It restricts. It restricts deep rooting systems and can cause shallow plant roots. Well, what happens when you're shallow planted? It doesn't take much to uproot you. A little bit of heat and you're dried up. Because you've got no depth going down to draw from deep waters, Seeds are slower to germinate. Why do things take sometimes longer than they ought? In our lives, we're going to have to check the soil. Don't check the seed, check the soil. Seeds are slower to germinate and planting is more sparse and irregular. Another one said many plants are not able to grow in hard compacted soils. These soils do not drain well. Anybody ever hold on to offense? Unforgiveness? They don't drain well. Compacted soil, making that soil hard. Things don't fall off of them easily. If you have a hard time letting go of something, it's because the wrong thing is compacted. Not letting go of stuff, holding onto it, holding onto it. I'm so glad God talked to us last night about change. Letting go, letting Go making changes. These soils do not drain well. You can spray poison on soil, but if the ground is hard, it holds it. If it's loose, if it's been worked, it can easily be. Someone can come along and just pour water on it and it just dilutes it away. But compacted soil won't let it go. These soils do not drain well. So plants that need well draining soil may rot and die. Plants with delicate, non aggressive roots can have a hard time establishing in compacted soil. We're the custodians of our soil. You've heard me talk about. My husband loved being a preacher. But if he weren't a preacher, and he always wanted to add this to his preaching life, he wanted to be a cowboy or a rancher. Cowboy, rancher, farmer, all of that. He loved all of that. So when he got to be around my dad, who was a farmer, he always enjoyed going to see the crops with my dad. Because my dad several times a day would drive to his farms and check his crops. And my husband made this statement to him. He said, kenneth, isn't it wonderful? You just plant a seed and you get a harvest. And daddy said, that's not true. In other words, city boy ought not tell the farmer. He said that's not true. He said it's not true. Look over there at that farm across from mine. He said he doesn't take care of his seed, he doesn't take care of his soil, he doesn't get the weeds out. And he planted seed. But it's not going to produce because of how he treats his soil. Other words, you can't just throw money at bad soil and get a rich harvest. And it's a misnomer to think that you can believe me. I believe in sowing seed. But the ground determines whether it's thirty, sixty, hundredfold. To produce hundredfold, you gotta be hundredfold ground. To receive hundredfold, you gotta be hundredfold ground. And listen, we all need to be claiming hundredfold, but don't leave out hundredfold ground. Meaning this. You do the right thing every day. You do the right thing every day. You think the right thing every day. You say the right thing every day. You believe the right thing every day that turned you into hundredfold ground. The word doing its work in you. Amen. So we don't want our heart to be compacted soil. Why? It gets hard like concrete. Yeah, hard against the right thing coming in. Plants need well draining soil. It has to be loose, loosened up, turned over. Don't kick against when God starts Dealing with you. Because he's trying to help aerate that soil. He's trying to bring up the minerals and the nutrients and the richness of the soil. Moving it around constantly. Amen. Notice Jesus was not pleased with them. He said he upbraided them with their unbelief. He severely rebuked them because unbelief brought about in a very short amount of time. Hardness of heart. Their hearts were already hard. The thing that makes it so outstanding. These are the only ones left to carry out the assignment. The hard hearted ones in unbelief. No wonder he rebuked them sharply. Heaven's entrusting you with something and you have let your heart already. Already it's in this condition. Wow. Because he hasn't even said to them what he's came to say. He didn't come to rebuke them, he had to rebuke them. But he came to assign them. But he had to deal with their issue. The foremost issue was their heart. Because if they don't deal with that heart, the assignment will fall flat. Verse 15. And so he said to them, now, now comes after he's rebuked them. They're in unbelief. They are. They are in unbelief. Their heart is hard. Verse 15. And he said unto them, verse, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents. And if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. So he's giving them their part. This is your part. You go and you do all these things. Power will back you up. Amen. The power of that name. Right, verse 19. So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth and preached everywhere. Now look at this. The Lord working with them. The Lord working with them. He never intended they go do this alone. The Lord working with them. What was the work that he did with them? The next phrase tells us confirming the word signs following, that's the work that he did. That's his work to confirm the word. Our job is to preach it. Our part is to preach it, declare it. His part is to work it. Jesus said, my Father, in me, he does the works. So in the Great Commission, man has a Part. God has a part. Man has a part. God has a part. Now, to carry out this great commission, the condition of their hearts were going to have to be addressed. They must have faith. They must be tender hearted, not hard hearted. How do you become of great use? Brother Joel was talking this morning about being usable. Everyone is of great value. Everyone. Why? Because of the price paid for you. The precious blood of Jesus, the high price of that blood. Everyone is a great value. Everyone. But we also want to make ourselves of great use. He made us of great value. We make ourselves of great use. He made us of great value. That blood made us of great value. We make ourselves of great use. How are we of great use? Believe and be tenderhearted. Believe and be tenderhearted. Tenderhearted. What's this mean? That if God moves you, you're impacted by that. You don't treat it lightly. You don't dismiss it. You don't get in a place like this and decide whether or not I'll participate. I'm tender hearted when I recognize God. I'm getting in. I'm getting in. Don't get in. The only way you know to get in, watch those who know how to get in and imitate it. Because sometimes people only know the corporate, quiet, reverent way. And we don't diminish that. Absolutely. We've had services already this week of great reverence. It started out on Sunday night. Great reverence. But there are expressions and there are, in David's words, sounds. And we need to be skillful. When everybody is rejoicing and shouting, that's not the time to go. I praise you, Lord. Be tender hearted. Meaning don't be stuck the way you're doing it. And I won't do that because I don't like that. Tenderheartedness means if God's directing it, I'm on it. I'm hooking on. That's a tender heart. Amen. It's tender. It's tender to what God's doing. Ah, he's doing this. I'm doing this. Ah, he's doing this. I'm doing. Hard hearted is concrete, set, immovable, hard to work with. I don't ever want to be the one the preacher has to preach past. Seriously. I have had people in times past moved to different parts of the building so we could have a better service. Why? Because if you have to preach past somebody, they're blocking others. They're blocking others. Amen. In our church, in our church in times past when we needed to get into certain places, I'd say Put such and such on the front. They help me. Why? They're tender. They pay attention. How that word is moving them. They let that work in. They get that in. They get that in. They're not hard hearted. And letting that water of the word just bounce off of them. Run off of them. Amen. They're going to. These disciples are going to have to run out. Unbelief. How are they going to do that? They're going to have to deal with their heart. Romans chapter 4, verse 20. Romans, chapter 4, verse 20. You know the passage and just for time's sake, we'll only quote part of it. But Romans chapter 4, verse 20. Talking about Abraham. He staggered not at the promise of God through what? Unbelief. What's he mean? Staggering. One day I'm believing, one day I'm not. One day I'm rejoicing. One day I'm sad. One day I'm up on it, one day I'm down on it. You never know what version of someone you're going to get who is in unbelief. How come we know Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever? Well, because he's the Son of God. No, that's not why. It's because he's a faith Lord. And faith makes you consistent. Faith makes you the same. Your movements are the same. They're always faith movements. They're not staggering movements. So how do we know we're growing when everyone who knows us knows what version they're going to get of us regardless of what we're facing? Moodiness, gone. Ah, wouldn't that make life sweet? Well, I'm just going through it. Well, keep going through. But you choose how you go through. Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. What do we know about Abraham? He was not hard hearted. Unbelief is hard heartedness. Notice that. Unbelief is hard heartedness. When we choose not to believe, we chose a hard heart. We chose to let the word bounce off of us instead of take root in us. How does the word take root in us? As we're doers. We're doers of that word. Amen. So we know Abraham was not hard hearted. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith. Strong in faith. Strong in faith. Strong in faith. Strong in faith. Why? Giving glory. Giving glory. Giving glory. What's that mean? Getting loud, Creating your own sounds. Instead of just adopting the sounds of the circumstance. You author the sounds around your life. You author Them you choose, you choose either. Weeping, depression, sorrow, rejoicing, praising, joy, you choose. I so love what one grandma prayed. She invited all of her family for Thanksgiving to her house and she cooked them all a dinner. And there were children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and I loved her prayer. She said, father, thank you for the sounds in my house. But she chose her sounds. If you don't like the sounds in your house, make a choice. Make a different choice. Sounds of circumstances are not what you have to choose. Just because they're heard doesn't mean you have to choose them. How you treat sounds you hear matter. David before he faced Goliath. David Ellis was referring to that David. Goliath did a lot of talking, but David had the last word right. Goliath came out every day and made sounds. What he did in the face of God's people, that army, he just came out and made sounds. That's all he did. He didn't take one and say, today you die as a and take another one the next day. No, he just came out and made sounds. And they hid from sounds. Sounds. And an army is not trained to hide from sounds. They might go into hiding out of strategy, but not out of fear of sounds. Right. So they hear sounds and they're hiding day after day after day because they had no skill over sounds. David as a teenager comes up, he hears the same sounds. The difference is they listened day after day. He didn't. When he heard it, he took action. The longer you listen to sounds, the more sounds will move you. They'll talk to you and they'll move you off of the sounds you want in your life. And David's brothers were embarrassed by their posture when their teenage brother came because they said, you've just come to spy. Well, you're defensive for a reason. You're hiding. But here's a sandwich I brought you. They got defensive and started accusing him because he wasn't responding like them. They accused his heart. Naughtiness of heart is what they were. Hard hearted in unbelief hiding. And when somebody came who wasn't hard hearted, they mocked them. Yeah. So David hears the same sounds they did, but he didn't hide. Why didn't he hide? He knew how to handle sounds. He said to King Saul, I'll go fight him. I fought a bear, I fought a lion. Do you know before he ever fought the lion, before he ever fought the bear, he heard their sound and he did not pick up and tuck tail and run to daddy and get daddy to come do something about These sounds. He did something about those sounds. He ran at them. He ran at them. I saw. I'm not. Please, I'm not giving wildlife counsel here, but I saw a video. I watched it. There were two guys, it was posted. They were out walking. They were up in the mountains and the one guy was further down the road and they were videoing their walk. You know, it was beautiful country. All of a sudden the camera is panning and the guy in front of catches his walking partner at a distance and a bear comes up behind the second guy, full grown bear, fully charging, and without a moment's hesitation he heard the sound, he turned around and without hesitation he went cray cray on that bear. I mean, he went all out ballistic on that thing. And that thing was so stunned he took off. He took off and ran. How he responded to sounds was a life and death situation. That is so good. How David responded to sounds that day was a life and death situation. You're going to hear sounds that will try to strike fear. How you respond to that sound. Sound is a life and death situation. What's that mean? Your response needs to be immediate. Immediate. And if you. Anything that has lived with you too long, it was waiting for your immediate response and never, never got it. It might have gotten a delayed response, but a delayed response is a question. Questionable response. Amen. David was not afraid of the sound of Goliath because he already knew how to handle sounds. You're going to hear a lot of sounds in this life. You better be skillful with them and your sound better be better. As David said, you don't win big battles with small sounds. Yeah, so it says again. Abraham, Romans 4:20. Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but he was strong in faith, making sounds to God, giving glory to God, making sounds to God. Praising is a sound. It's a sound demonstrating your soil, The soil of your heart. Can't talk, but your mouth takes on what's in that soil. Amen. He was strong in faith, making sounds to God, giving glory to God. Look at this. And being fully persuaded that what God had promised God was able also to perform. That's what faith is. Faith is not trying to do the work itself. Faith is saying, God does the work. God does the work. God does the work. That's what faith says. God's working on that. God's dealing with that. God's handling that. He was fully persuaded that what God said, God performed. Now how do we know if we're in faith? Verse 21 and being fully persuaded. Faith means we're easy to persuade. We don't have to be coerced and we don't have to be hard nosed by somebody trying to get you on board. Faith means you're quick to believe, easy to persuade. It does not mean gullible. Easy to persuade does not mean you just suck down everything you hear that has somebody's sermon attached to it. It's not gullible. But when you hear the word, you don't just sit and mentally calculate that before you'll let that go in. You are easily persuaded. When the pastor says it, I hear that that's the word. Taking that, I'm taking that. He's not going to have to preach it to me for two months before I decide to let that in. I'm easy to persuade. When I hear the word, I recognize it and I open wide to it. Quick to believe and easy to persuade. You can't get fully persuaded unless you're easy to persuade. If you're hard to persuade, you'll never be full. He won't. He was fully persuaded. To be easy to persuade, we have to be tender hearted. Hard heartedness is not easy to deal with. I want to be. I want God to. I want to be easy to deal with. You know, tenderhearted doesn't mean you're perfect. It means that God doesn't have to land on you for day after day after day about something before you say, I want to be right. Right. I want to be right. I want to be tender. Tender, tender. Don't become what people become when they become hard hearted. All right, now, Mark 16:20, I'm flipping back because I said all that to address what Jesus was addressing with these disciples. They were hard hearted. Why were they in unbelief? They were not easy to persuade. They had two accounts, separate accounts by people they should have had confidence in and they decided they would not believe it. If you know there are times that God will maybe minister to us in a very particular way in a service. Maybe someone will call you out. Maybe your pastor will call you out and say something to you. Or God may have somebody call you and minister to you. I'm not saying that's wrong, but don't make that your number one desired way of hearing. That's a sign that you're not hearing at home. Many times when you hear someone ministered to, a lot of times God's confirming that for them because they're affecting a lot of people. And so God wants to make sure that they are sure footed in what they're hearing from him. So he may confirm that with ministers. But if you're just a believer and you say nobody's called me out in two years to prophesy, congratulations, you're hearing your tender at home that God doesn't have to. Many times, I know this in years of ministry, many times when God has me to deal with somebody and it's in a public, they are really on the edge of ruin. They're close to ruin. And as a last ditch effort, he'll go public to get their attention. Not to embarrass them, but to get their attention because they are so close to ruin. Because they're hard hearted, not to tender to what he's saying to them privately. So don't prize being singled out in a wrong way. Amen. Mark 16, verse 20. And they went forth. They did it. They did it. They evidently addressed their unbelief. They evidently addressed that hard heartedness of heart. Why? Because they went forth and preached everywhere. The Lord working with them. The Lord could not have worked with hard heartedness. He could not have. He could not have worked with unbelief. They made a change by a choice. A choice? Yeah. They went everywhere. They went forth and preached everywhere. The Lord working with them, not apart from them. With them, not apart from them. Alongside. As far as they went, he went. If they only went this far, then he can only go this far because he's only going with them. He's not going beyond them. If we want him to do more, then we have to do more. Amen. He can't extend past our faith. That lets him. Because he's working with them, he's keeping pace with them. I'm renovating Amy's castle now. We're still in the paperwork stage, the permitting stage out in California. That's a blessing. We're blessed coming in and we're blessed because we get to go out of that stage at some point. It'll be like a year and a half of that just paperwork stage. And in that God said to me, before we even started this process, he said, the supply will keep pace with your faith and their work. The supply will keep pace with your faith and their work. Meaning the more you do, the more he moves. The less you do, the less he moves. He is working with us. We determine progress, not him. As fast as we will go, that's how fast he will move. We go slow, waiting for this to happen, waiting for that to happen. He has to pause when you pause, he moves. When you Move. He runs when you run. He walks when you walk. God said this to me sometime back. He said you set your standard of living. I don't. You said it. What's that mean? He's working with us. He's working at our pace. He's working at our. At our reach. That's as far as he goes. But see, we want him to go on way ahead of us. Well, the blessing is in front of us, but only waiting for our arrival. Not doing something when we haven't yet arrived. It's waiting for our arrival. Sorry. Prepared. Waiting for us to arrive. It cannot work apart from us. He works with us. How come it's taking so long for me to get that house God's talked me about? Because you're taking so long. That's why. If God's talked to you about a house. Because listen, there have been times that God has said something to me about properties, and I know it's not time yet. You have to follow the Spirit. But if God has dealt with you and ministered to you and talked to you and you still don't have it, it's because you. You haven't moved there. He cannot go beyond you. Why? Because he's working with us. Praise the Lord. So if you want things to speed up and it's time for them to speed up, then speed up. Don't wait for him to speed up. He's waiting for you to set the pace. Your faith sets the pace of God's movement. God goes where you put him. Praise the Lord. So the Lord working with them. And what was his work? Confirming. Confirming the Word. Confirming the Word. Now we have to give him word to confirm. We can't give him just conviction and preach our conviction. We can't just give him what somebody else told us. But we're not sure if we're scriptural. I love what brother Keith Moore says. What do you have to have to be Scriptural? Scripture. Scripture. Because he can't confirm what he hasn't said. So if there's no confirming going on, and I'm talking to ministers and I'm talking to believers who are ministering to others. If there's no confirming, what are you saying? Because he can only confirm the Word. The Word. The Word. The Word. Not man's idea. The Word. Confirming the word. So if we'll increase the word we preach, then we have an increase of the confirmation and confirming the Word with signs following. So signs should move with the Word. Okay. We have our part in the Great Commission were to go forth and preach. You say, well, I'm not called to be a preacher. Yeah, you are. Yeah. You go tell God what somebody did for you. Go preach that. Go preach that. Go preach how he pulled your family out of the wrong place and put your marriage back together and healed your. Go preach that. Go tell somebody that. You don't have to give them 49 scriptures. They don't. Probably don't want them. But you can tell them the movement of God in your life and God will go with that. He'll move with that. So our part is to go forth and tell it, preach it right. But God has a part in the Great Commission. He has a part. The Lord has a part in the Great Commission. What is that? To work with them. Confirming, Confirming. Amen. The preaching and the teaching of the Word is to be with something, confirmation with signs or evidence that this is true. Amen. Jesus gave place. Now, this is where many miss it. They preach and teach, but they don't give place to confirmation. They're leaving out God's window or God's opportunity, as Brother Joel said, God's opportunity to confirm what was just preached. It's not complete and not the highest flow. When we preach something and then close our Bible and walk out. And we do not, we rob God from his part of the Commission by not allowing him the opportunity of how he wants to confirm that he can only confirm what's preached. If we're not having confirmation of something and we see the Word offers it to us, then we have to preach it because he can only move and work with us. What we preach, he confirms. What we don't preach, he doesn't confirm. Amen. I'm so grateful that I got to be with. I got to live with my Bible school. My husband was my Bible school. A man of the Word and a man of the Spirit. And we would be in services and he would say, did you recognize that? Did you see that? Did you sense that anointing shift? Did you? Thank God it was a privilege to have that from someone skilled in it. But I remember whenever, years ago, we were in the back room, we were attending a meeting. We weren't preaching in the meeting, and we were in the back room with the pastor of the church we were visiting. And the man who was going to minister that night and the man who was going to minister that night was talking about his physical problems. He was having. They weren't something that they had been at one time made him incapacitated a measure, but he could still function. But he was in the midst of this physical condition. And he was telling us about it in the back room when we went out to the service. He preached and preached a while. You know, hour, I don't know, hour and hour and 15 minutes, whatever. And then Ed said, when he started closing down his service, he said, do you sense that healing anointing come in. Ed turned to me, said, do you sense that healing anointing just came in? And the preacher took his Bible, closed it, and walked off. What? He did his part of the Great Commission, but forbid God to do his part by walking off and saying, done, you're done. God wanted to confirm what he preached because he preached a good word. Are we authorized to tell God, you can't have that opportunity? And Ed said to me, and I'll never forget it, and it rings truer today for me than any previous time, he said, that is why he's sick. That right there, that right there, he has told God, no, you do not get the opportunity to fulfill what I just preached. You don't get the opportunity to confirm what I just preached. It's dangerous to do your part and then not give place to God to do his part of the commission. Praise the Lord. Now, don't misunderstand me. Every service will not look alike. Every service will not look alike. Don't think it has to. Don't try to make it look alike. But what we do have to do, if we're going to call ourselves Word and Spirit people, we do have to do our part. And we took time to do our part. When we preach, we're taking time of the service to do our part. Then we need to also give God time. Time. Give time. Because there will be people that will say, well, I want God to move, but if you take his time from him, then you have told him no time for you to move, even though you love him. And Ed would say this to us preachers all the time. Quit preaching past the anointing. You're preaching too long. You're preaching so long. You don't give the Holy Ghost time to manifest anything that's preached. And the people are already tired because you preached past the anointing. They have disconnected. And then you try to stand back and say, well, God didn't do anything. No, because you took his time. Ed preached that to us over and over and over again. These are serious matters because the commission cannot be fulfilled without our part and God's part. It's very serious. These are life and death matters to people who are leaders. I'll never Forget when Ed stood there and said, that's why he's sick. That's why. It's not because he had an injury. That's what opened the door, not giving God place in the service. Remember what Paul said in Ephesians 4, verse 27? He's talking about the devil. He says, neither give place to the devil. What's he saying? The devil can't take a place unless you give him a place. The same is true about God. He will not take a place you don't give him because he doesn't work. He does not force his way upon anybody, even a congregation, even a minister's service. He will not. Amen. Don't preach past confirmation time. He wants to confirm the Word. Don't preach up his confirmation time for your sermon. Don't take his confirmation time from him. Yet there have been times God has had me to preach on something and then he'll say, you're done. And then may. The next night is the demonstration of what was preached the other night. Because sometimes when you have multiple services, you have room so that each one has its appropriate time based on what God wants to do. So it does not have to be forced into a pattern of a lookalike service. And people say, well, Pastor Nancy, you're talking about healings and miracles and signs and wonders. But that's not my ministry. Jesus went everywhere teaching, preaching and healing because it was a package deal. And his teaching and preaching arrived him at the healing. He didn't just pick out the healing and say, I'm just going to do the healing. No, he taught, he preached, and there was healing. But the teaching and the preaching facilitated the healing. It gave place to it. Amen. So we're not authorized to decide that God won't be given that opportunity in a service to fulfill his part of the commission. If we're giving, if we're taking his place from him, his confirmation time from him, we have to say this. What's the condition of our heart? Are we tender hearted? Are we tender to his movement, him having his place in his way, or are we being hard hearted? I'm set. This is the way I do it. Well, praise the Lord. Can I say this? Just as ministers are not authorized to take time from God to take his opportunity from him to confirm it, neither are congregations. You think I'm just preaching to preachers tonight, don't you? Congregations are not authorized either to decide. God won't. Can we do that? Yes. But that doesn't. We won't have the full flow Deciding for him. Amen. We must both the preacher and the congregation, give God the opportunity of what belongs to him to confirm. Amen. We can only do that as we respond rightly. Both the minister must respond right and the congregation must respond right. The minister can respond and the congregation says, we're done. I've got such and such. Now listen. Sometimes preachers go, so long, congregations, you're done. I've been in services. I'm done. All parts of me are done. All parts. Upper, lower, all parts. My mind is mush. My hand hurts from writing notes and other parts. Are you still with me tonight? Because these things are critical to the era. Mark, chapter six. I won't keep you too terribly long. I will try to go as fast as I can. But it matters that these things be said and heard even beyond the walls. Mark chapter six, verse one. And you know the passage. You know it. And Jesus went out from thence and came into his own country. And his disciples follow him. And when the Sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing him were astonished, saying, from whence hath this man these things? And what wisdom is this which is given unto him that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? They didn't see these mighty works. He's telling them about them. Unless they had traveled and been in other cities where they had happened. But he's telling them testimony of these, so they're questioning that. Verse 3. Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joses and of Judah, and are not his sisters here with us? And notice this. They were offended at him. That was a choice. That's a choice of hard heartedness. Offense is always revealing the condition of the heart. Tenderhearted people reject offense. Why? Their heart is so. The soil of their heart is so tender that offense just drains right out past them. It does not get stuck in the hardness of the soil of their heart. So they were offended at him. But Jesus said unto them, a prophet is not without honor. Why were they offended? Lack of honor. It's an honor issue. Everyone you honor can never offend you. That's why God says in his word, honor all men. Why? Because honor keeps you off of the ground of offense. It doesn't mean all men are honorable. But you're honorable toward all men. To honor all men does not mean you're calling them honorable. You're being honorable because of who's in you, not because of how they're treating you. My man of God will never offend me. Why Because I've chosen already to honor him. My pastor will never offend me. Because I've already chosen honor. The pastor's family will never offend me. The church congregation will never offend me. The body of Christ will never offend me. I'll never go out and say I've been hurt by the body. I know I won't. I won't. Why? Because I honor the body. And if somebody does something hurtful, it didn't reach me. Because I'm in honor. I let it just go on past. The opportunity for offense will come, but honor rejects the opportunity to take it. Honor is the prevention to offense. Verse 5. Well, it says again. Let me finish. Verse 4. But Jesus said unto them, a prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, among his own kin and in his own house. So he's talking about familiarity. That sin of familiarity will cause you to drop your honor for somebody. And when you do, unbelief and offense will be the result. Verse 5. And he could there do no mighty work save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages teaching. There's only two things that the scriptures tell us that Jesus marveled at. This is one them unbelief. And the other one was the faith of the centurion soldier. He marvels. Only he doesn't marvel at your possessions. He doesn't marvel at your skill. He marvels at your belief, your faith or your unbelief. Marveling is you want them to marvel with their mouth open. But a smile with that open mouth instead of right. You can tell if it's a good marble or a bad marble. Captain Marvel. So we see this, and it says here, verse 6. And he marveled because of their unbelief. So what? We see three things running together. Offense, dishonor and unbelief. All of that makes for a hard heart. That's the outflow of a hard heart. Look at this. It says he could there do no mighty work. What do we see then? We see Jesus preached. What did he preach? The spirit of the Lord is upon me. He's anointed me to preach the gospel. This is what he preached. This is what he preached. So he preached the word to them and. And then you know what he did? He gave room time for God to confirm it. How do we know? Because he tried. He could there do no mighty work. How do we know he couldn't? Because he tried. He Tried. He gave room to God. But although he was responding to God, the congregation would not respond to the confirmation of the word he preached. They refused to respond. Right. So the last verse in verse six. And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages teaching why teaching Bible teaching is a cure for unbelief. How do you get unbelief out? Pour truth in. Pour the Word in. Pour faith in. He realized he's not mad with them and says, you know what? Just all of you just go where you need to go. No, he wanted to help them. Even though they tried to push him off of a cliff, he did not respond the way he didn't treat them the way they treated him. Why? Because he's honorable. How did honor respond to their dishonor? I'm going to teach them. I'm going to help them. And he went around the villages. What's he meant? He took them in pockets. Took one little segment at a time and taught them. Just went to the next community, taught them. Instead of getting them all together at once and trying to get that unbelief out at once. No, just take them little by little. Take a little bit here. You four ladies over here. Come here. I saw you in church. I saw you in that crowd at the cliff. Bring Bubba and Sammy with you, too. I saw them. He took them. Why? Because it's easier to deal with wrong thinking if you can get people separated from a herd of wrong thinking. And he took them in villages, communities at a time. These few streets, then these few streets. Put more work on him. Why didn't you just come to the synagogue? All of you get taught at once, but you didn't care. You wanted to wear the man of God out. Amen. But they just. Anyway, he worked with them. Aren't you glad God's still working with us? I've been so slow to learn some things. I've been so slow to see some things. But God is good and I rely on his goodness. And I don't get tripped up on my flaws because his goodness has just reached and helped me through those places of slowness and ignorance and all that. Two reasons why people don't respond, preachers and congregations. Number one, ignorance of how to respond rightly. They don't know how. They don't know what a proper response looks like. First Samuel, chapter three. Now, if you'll go quickly, we'll go quickly. How's that? Are y' all good? Still you still good? All right, You know the passage. How Samuel was in the temple. God, the Lord stood by him. Let's read. Let's read. Well, let me just say it. The Lord stood by him and said, samuel, Samuel. He heard him. He heard him. He recognized, someone's calling my name. He's a child at the time, so he's used to responding. So he runs to Eli. Eli's in a separate room. It's bedtime. He runs in there and says, you called me. He says, no, I didn't call you. Okay. So he goes back. This happens a couple times. It took a couple times before Eli recognized that God was in the building calling. Why? He's spiritually dull. He's spiritually dull, but he is available to Samuel. When Samuel keeps running in, every time he hears his name called, he runs in. He's responding, but he's responding in the wrong direction. If we're not careful, we can come to church and respond the wrong direction. Respond to. I wonder how hot those lights get. Responding, but wrong direction. One, two, three. All right, 11 times eight. That's 88. Okay. So there's. It's amazing where minds will go, right? If you're a designer, you're looking at the frilly stuff. If you're a construction guy, you're saying, I wonder how hot dogs ramps. I get. You know, you respond to different things based on your interests, right? So Samuel, he responds, but he responds the only way he knows. Run to the man who's in the temple. So Eli said he perceived that this was God. And he said, go lay down again. And if you hear that voice call you again, answer, answer. Every miracle has to be answered. Every healing has to be answered from you. You have to say, I receive it. That's the answer. To give it power has to be answered. And so he said, if he speaks again, say this. Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and laid down in his place. And this is verse 10. And the Lord came, look at this. And stood and called, as at other times. This was not the first time that the Lord has been present in the room and calling his name. But this is the first time he heard, heard what he came to say. Because he responded, right? How many times people come to church and they don't hear. They don't know how to respond. But if you'll stick around, stick around and watch those who know, imitate them. If they shout, you shout. You say, well, I'm just sincere. Don't be sincerely ignorant. Seriously. Well, I'm just being my real self. Well, be an educated self. Instead of an uninformed self. If you see people who know God and walked with God longer than you and have an anointing up on them and they're doing something, then do it. If they're going, praise the Lord, don't sit there, do what they do. Well, I'm not going to do it till it's heartfelt, till your flesh gets out of the way, your heart won't get anything. You got to get past your flesh. Yeah. Amen. Then Samuel answered, speak for thy servant heareth verse 11. And the Lord said to Samuel, he came to say something. When God manifests, it's to do something, it's to say something, it's to reveal something. And how we respond to it determines what we take out of the building that night. Amen. Well, praise the Lord. So people can not respond because they don't know how to respond rightly. Then some people don't respond because they have lost the skill of responding. Can you lose the skill of responding? If you're not around the move of the spirit, you can lose sensitivity. You can lose a tenderness toward it. And you say, well, Pastor Nancy, I haven't been around certain flows in a while. Then get around it. Because you don't learn it by staying away from it. You learn it by getting around it, being in it. Pastors, ministers, you got to get in it to take it home with you. You have to. You have to get around it. You have to. Why? These things are imparted. They're caught. They're not just learned in a book. Sensitivity is learned by responding. Amen. Then the second thing that keeps people, that keeps God from being able to confirm, is people just choose not to believe. They see something happen in a service and they question it. There was, I love the story of dad Hagin, a woman. There was a woman in a service that she was a denominational woman. She had never been in a full gospel meeting. She came up for healing, and she was healed that night, dramatically healed. So after the service, another woman came up and said to him, I wish you'd tell me something. Well, first of all, to approach a minister in that tone is always the wrong response. Tone matters. If you don't believe me, just try it with your parent. Right. Remember when you were growing up, tone mattered. Yeah. And so she I wish you'd tell me something. She said, I'm part of this church. I've been saved and filled with the Holy Ghost, such and such amount of years, and the Lord won't heal me. Tell me why he Won't heal me. And he'll heal that denominational woman. I mean, she was offended at what the woman received because she didn't have it. And I love what Brother Hagin said. He didn't preach a long sermon. He just said, why won't you agree with God? Because God told her you're already healed. She wouldn't agree. Wrong response. He can't confirm when we don't respond. She's wanting a confirmation without a right response response. Praise the Lord. Then go with me to Second Chronicles, chapter 16. Brother Joel went there the other day and we're going to go there yesterday morning. Second Chronicles, chapter 16, verse 9. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth. Look at this. To show himself, to show himself. To show himself. To show himself. To show himself. He's wanting to demonstrate his goodness. He's wanting to demonstrate his power. He's wanting to put. He's wanting to show. He's wanting to show. He's wanting to show. And he's looking. Who will let me show. Who will let me confirm. Who will let me confirm with a work what has been preached? Now he. Look at this. He wants to show himself. But look. Show himself strong. Strong. You think your circumstance is strong? Wait till he shows himself strong. You think there's a lot of pressure, of opposing circumstances. Wait till his strength comes into manifestation and he's looking to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is hard hearted. No, tender hearted, perfect. Toward him. You say, Pastor Nancy, I can't be perfect. Your flesh, your natural side, might never demonstrate perfection here, but you can have a perfect heart in imperfect flesh. Your heart can be perfectly right toward God. Perfectly right. Amen. Just by being tenderhearted toward him, responsive to him. Amen. It's important that we give God the opportunity to show Himself strong. It's good to preach a strong word, but it's a mistake not to give God to have the opportunity for a strong showing. A strong word without a strong showing is a miss. It's a miss in a service. Amen. Praise the Lord. Then this couple got to be around TL And Daisy Osborne a lot. I know Terry Mize did. He's told us some wonderful stories. I don't even know where they first went when they went on the missionary field. Was it Africa? India. They went to India and they went over there and by their own admission failed. Because they went there with a sermon, but no showing. And they recognized that the word without proof was not going to do anything in that country. So they came back home, got around some of the healing evangelists and started becoming a student of a flow where God was showing himself. And then they began to learn and become skillful at letting God confirm the Word. And then they went back on the mission field and changed the world. Not because of just the sermon, but because they did the Great Commission with God doing his part of the Great Commission, not just their part. When they went over with just their part of the Great Commission, they failed. But they had to go back and employ God's part with their part. And then they got earth shaking results changed nations. Why? Because God was so delighted to show Himself strong. God showing Himself strong is our credentials. Don't show up without credentials. You won't get in. You won't get in into some of these places and the things that God if we leave our credentials at home, you're not granted access. So we have to make sure that we not only bring the Word, we bring time for God to confirm. Amen. Are you helped tonight? We trust you've enjoyed this message. Visit us at defresheministries.org to learn of our upcoming meetings. Share your testimony, become a partner or visit our online store. 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