← Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Heaven Is Waiting For Our Words | Terry Mize | Campmeeting 2022 | Friday AM | Murrieta, CA
01:59:41
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message. Praise the Lord. Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Say this with me before you're seated. I know God is good. Say it like you mean it. I know God is good, and I know his word is truth. Amen. You believe that? Well, if you believe that, you can be seated. Praise the Lord. You know, so many people say, I know God's word is true. And that's not what Jesus said. He said, Father John 17, Father, thy word is truth. Wow. Thy word is truth. When I found that scripture as a teenager, it changed my life forever, because I thought, if I can find it in this book, I can make it happen. If I can find it in here, I can take it to the bank if this is the absolute truth. You know, we're living in an America today where we don't believe much in absolute truth, but this missionary still believes in absolute truth. Amen. Praise the Lord. Well, that was a surprise, Nancy. That's an old. My goodness. I need to redo that. I haven't seen that. I haven't seen that in a long time. That was my 40th year in ministry. I'm now on year 54, so that was a while back. And anyway, yeah, that was a surprise. But I just. I'm excited about the things of God. Appreciate that. And it's just such an honor to do what we do. I know there's a lot of ministries here, and some of you, my friends for a long time, and I just. I just. We just always had a heart for ministers, a heart for all ministries, and a special heart for those that are beginning, but a major, major, major love for those continuing, because not all that begin, continue. And so thank God for those that finish the race. Amen. So I appreciate you. You know, I do a lot of leadership conferences. God told me, like, as I said, when I was 18, he wanted me to minister to ministers around the world. And I knew that word was not for that day. I knew that I didn't. At 18, I had nothing to say to ministers around the world. And. And I knew that ministers around the world didn't want to hear what I didn't have to say. So I knew that I was. I knew that was my assignment for down the road, but that I would grow into it, but not for that day. You know, sometimes God gives us a word and we make a sentence out of it, or he gives us a sentence and we make a Paragraph out of it. But I knew this word is going to be my end result, but it's not for today. So we did a lot of other things, you know, before we were able to do ministers conferences, which is such an honor, and I'm delighted to have ministers in here today. And, you know, leaders. Leaders live in glass houses. Amen. Leaders are crucified by the unqualified. And yet, just because, you know, driving the nail through your hands isn't qualified to do so, it doesn't make it hurt any less. Amen. It's an honor to be a minister. It's an honor to be a leader. It's always an honor to minister to leaders. And it's been an exciting ride for the last 54 years. It's been a delight. And my wife Jackie, that I talked about a lot on that, she. She quit me. She left and she went to heaven. Ed quit and went to heaven. Renee's husband. Renee's husband Dean, quit and went to heaven. You know, and brother Copeland always tells me that Jackie left me for a better man. I don't. I don't. I don't know what Ed and Dean's problems were, but. But Jackie. Jackie. Anyway, we're still here, and we're getting the job done. Renee and I, as Nancy said, we had known each other 40 years whenever our spouses passed away. Her husband, Dean Garner, great guy, was my best friend for 40 years, my hunting and fishing buddy for 40 years. And so Jackie and I and Renee and Dean were best friends for 40 years and took vacations together and ministry trips together, and they pastored a wonderful church in Corpus Christi, Texas. And they supported me and Jackie and I in the ministry and missions. And so I'd blow through there several times a year and minister or whatever. And just tremendous. Just great, great friends for all those years. And all of a sudden, just two of them left, you know, so they just left us lemons. So we said, we'll just get married and make lemonade. I highly recommend you marry somebody you've known for 40 years. That way there's no surprises. You know, there's no. We only went on one date, and I said, hey, let's go to dinner. And we'd had thousands of dinners together, just never alone, you know, I mean, in 40 years, we'd had lots of meals together, and. But so we went to dinner, and I looked at her across the table, and I said, you know, dating is. Dating is to get to know somebody. And I said, I've known you for 40 years. I said, what am I supposed to say? Do you have any children? I helped raise your children. You helped raise my children? I taught your boys to hunt and fish, you know, along with Dean and then her daughter abigail, who's now 35 years old. Jackie and I were there the day she was born, and we're her godparents. And so I went from being Abby's godfather to being her stepdad. So pretty soon I'll be my own grandpa, I guess. But anyway, I said, you know, I don't need to find out what kind of food you like. I know what kind of food you like. I don't need to know what kind of movies you like. I know what kind of movies you like. I know everything there is to know about you. Let's get married. And she said, okay, let's do it. So we've been married almost eight years. So I tell everybody we've been married for 90, what, 95 years, because Jackie and I were married 44, and she and Dean were married 44. That's 88. And then we've been married almost eight. So, you know, that's pushing 100 years of marriage. So I guess we like it. We like marriage because we want to do it again. And I always tell everybody I was in the army, and I've been married twice, so I know how to follow orders. So. Praise the Lord. But it's. It's a real. Nancy, I'm beyond honored that you asked us to minister, and I appreciate that. I've just. I've enjoyed the meeting. Of course. Bill Winston and I go way back, good friends, and he just rung the bell every service, didn't he? I mean, it was just top shelf every time. And I didn't get to hear. Didn't get here in time to hear Nancy minister. But I'm assuming you're ministering tonight, right? Okay. So I'm looking forward to that. And, you know, Nancy's. Nancy's one of the. Well, I hate to say this, but there doesn't seem to be many Word of faith preachers around anymore. And Nancy's one of the few, you know, and I'm one of the few that we just. You know, there's an old Texas saying that says, dance with the one that brung you. And we. Word of faith got us where we got to, and we're going to go all the way with it. And I have pastor friends that I see every now and then around the country, and some of them will come up to me and they'll say, Brother Terry, you know, I'm just, you know, you know, I'm not word of faith anymore. And I always say, what does that mean? I don't even know what that means. I said, can you give me a definition of that? What does that even mean? That mean you don't believe the Bible anymore. You don't believe you're healed by the stripes of Jesus. You don't believe, you don't believe that you're prosperous. I mean, what is it define that for me, you know, Cause I've always just said, hey, you know, if you believe the Bible, you're word of faith. You know, the Lord gave me, gave to me as a 16 year old kid, 1966, I know that dates me, I'm 72 now, if you're trying to do the math. But God, I was the youth leader of our home church. The pastor came to me and I was 16 and said, Terry, I want you to start a youth group. This church never had a youth group. Why don't you start a youth group? And I said, okay, well you're the pastor, whatever you say. And I said, I don't know how to do a youth group, but you know, I've never been to one. But you know, I know, who knows, I'll ask the Lord. And so I just, not only did pastor give me the youth group, but gave me an impossible assignment because pastor said, now your range of your youth group is gonna be from 13, now I'm 16, 13 to what we call young marriage. Young marriage were younger then than they are today. But you know, but still, I mean 24, 25, 26 year old that are married and got kids. I'm 16, know nothing about any of that 13 year olds. So I've got a, I've got a range of. So I did a lot of praying. I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and God blessed it. I mean my youth group outgrew the pastor Sunday morning service and we man, we had miracles and healings and of course salvations and you know, and I was kind of the pastor. You know, I'd go drag these kids out of bars, they'd call me drunk, you know, at midnight and I'd go drag them out of bars. And I'd never been in, been in a bar in my life, but I went to a few after that, just dragging kids out. But anyway, I was in serious prayer one afternoon and just beseeching the Lord and I said, father, I don't just need a sermon for these kids. I don't need Three points in a poem. I need a lifestyle they can live by. I said, they're facing stuff that I don't even know anything about. Of course, back in the 60s and 1966, and of course California is a little more advanced than we were in Texas. So drugs hadn't quite got to Texas yet, but we were having the fringes of it, you know, west coast and east coast were already experiencing it, but it was getting to the Midwest. And so I said, they're experiencing stuff I don't know anything about. And I said, and these married folks are experiencing stuff I sure don't know anything about. And then these 13 year olds, you know, I've been there, done that, and don't, you know, and so I need a lifestyle. I need a lifestyle that they can take to the bank they can live by. And the Lord spoke to me. I always thought it was audible, but nobody else in the room to prove it, you know, but he said to me, he said, write this down. So I grabbed a pencil and an old bank pad, you know, from the bank, and just. And he said, you can talk like God. And I just wrote that down, you can talk like God. And I thought, that's strange. I never heard anything like that before. Again, this is 1966. I mean, there were no Word of Faith churches, there were no Word of Faith Bible schools, there were no Word of Faith books, there were no Word of Faith tapes. You know, I mean, 1966, I think brother Copeland just got, what just got saved like the next year or something. And you know, all my other Word of Faith friends weren't saved. Now, a lot of them weren't even saved then. Brother Hagin had just left the Assemblies of God that same year and gone into his own ministry. And so this is early, early, early days. And so I wrote down, you can talk like God. And then he literally explained to me over the next half hour or so and gave me what we now call today the Word of Faith message. I mean, he gave me all the foundations for it, all the foundational scriptures. And so from that, and I got up then and preached that on my youth service Friday night. And the place was packed. I mean, it was packed out. And I got up, you know, 16 years old, I got up and I preached. You can talk like God. And I gave them all the scriptures God gave me. Because God started with me in Genesis, said, let me show you how I talk in verse 3 and verse 6 and verse 9 and verse 14, and verse 20 says, and God said, and it was so And, I mean, Jesus took me right on up through Joshua. Joshua spoke to the, you know, said, sun, hold your place over Gibeon, thou moon, over the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stopped and time stopped. And, you know, I just went right on, right on, right on, right on through the Old Testament and right on into the New Testament. And, you know, what saith it, the word of faith that we preach. And you got faith in your heart and faith in your mouth. And Jesus said, jesus killed the fig tree with his mouth, and he spoke to the wind and the waves and spoke to devils and spoke to dead people. And I just took that all the way through, everything God had given me during that. I've still got those original notes from 1966. And when I finished, my closing statement was something like this. I said, so because of this, from this day forward, we're just not going to say anything until we know what the word of God says about it. We're not going to say anything about our health, about our finances, about our marriage, about our husband, about our wife, about our kids. We're just not going to say anything until we know what God said. Then we're going to say what God said. Because you can talk like God. And when I finish, Nancy, in unison, they said, blasphemy. Crucify him. Man, I was in trouble. And they took me to the back room to the pastor's office that night. I mean, the pastor and the deacons, the elders and my mama and, I mean, they took me to the back room and they said, you did bad. That. How dare you? Who do you think you are? What do you mean, you can talk like God? I mean, they, they. They read the right act to me and being 16 and being, you know, respectful and understanding the church and authority, and I thought, gray hair should speak and wisdom of years should utter knowledge. And, you know, and so I just thought, man, they've been doing this forever. And I just started. They must be right. I must have missed it. And so I repented to the pastor to, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I never. I'm so sorry. I said, you want me to resign? No, I don't want you to resign. I just want you to never do anything like that again. And so I waited. They all left, and I went and locked the church doors. And then I went down at the altar. Remember when you used to have altars in churches? I went down at the altar. I laid on my face and cried and repented all night long and said, father, I'M so sorry. I am so sorry. Please forgive me. I didn't mean to blaspheme against you. I'm so sorry. I never meant. I thought you told me something, and I repented. And a year and a half later, I was in the jungles of Panama and I'm eating monkey and other stuff. Like I said, we lived wildcat style. No catch, no eat. If I didn't catch anything, shoot anything, catch anything, we didn't eat anything. One day I was so hungry, I was out. Marcus. I was out hunting, trying to find something to eat, and I couldn't find any monkeys. I went to all the usual hangouts, you know. And I listened for the. You know, nothing. And I looked for pigs and I looked for. You know, I looked for all kinds of stuff. I just couldn't find anything. And all of a sudden I heard a tapping and I thought, that's a woodpecker. Now, woodpeckers aren't but that big. But I thought I was hungry and I thought, that's a woodpecker. So I traced that down. Traced that down, traced that down. Finally found that fellow and he's up there just pecking on a tree, you know. And so I shot him. And a minute or two later, his friend started pecking, so I shot him. And Frank. I went back to the village and cleaned those rascals and now they're too little to eat, you know. I mean, you know, a leg wouldn't be that big, you know, so you can't have a woodpecker leg. But I needed some protein. And so I just cleaned them, gutted them, de feathered them, cleaned them, threw them in a pot of water and just boiled them and made woodpecker soup just so I'd have some protein. And anyway, while I was there, I got desperately sick, terribly sick. Now, the missionaries told me I'd get sick. My pastors told me I'd get sick. The church told me I'd get sick. And sure enough, I got sick and about died. I got yellow fever. My eyes were jaundiced. My skin was yellow. And of course, a lot of people died in Panama due to. Due to malaria and due to yellow fever and due to all that kind of stuff. But besides that, I got these sores all over my body. I had horrible. Every time I'd get cut, and I got cut a lot in the jungle. And we was building a house for the missionary. I'd go out in the jungle and chop trees down, carry them back on my shoulder, you know, and trim the leaves off. And we built him a house, a hut. And so I'd get cut and get stuck and get, you know, and they just never would heal. Not one sore ever healed, they just stayed sore. And because I'm in the tropics, you know, then you got insects that we know not of in America. And so they came and just set up housekeeping in those sores and, you know, had their babies. And so I was infected. I mean, I was in bad shape. And on top of all that, I had dysentery for three months. So I'm in pretty bad shape. And I went down there weighing 186 pounds, I think it was. I came home weighing 132 and my jaws are sunk in those pictures. You saw that. And my jaws are sunk in. My eyes were sunk back in my head. And then I had these sores all over my body. I couldn't remember what that was about. And if you push my body in, in my skin anywhere, if you push it in, it'd just stay in, it wouldn't spring back out. And the medical people today tell me that's from dehydration, from the dysentery. But I didn't know what it was from. I just knew I was in trouble. And one day the missionary came up to me that I was with. I was laying in a hammock in his house, in the hut and in my hammock. And I was just so sick I couldn't hardly move. And he said, and I'd always been strong as a nox, you know, I mean, if I grabbed something and moved it, it moved, you know, I was just a, you know, good old country Texas boy and I was used to, and I mean, I was weak as water. And so he looked at me with a furrowed brow, worried look and he said, harry, he said, son, I don't know what to do for you. He said, you need to go to the doctor. But he said, we can't get you to the doctor. He said, as you know, we'd have to put you in a canoe for seven hours just to get you up the river to the first village where we can get you across another river to another village where there's the first road where we can put you in an old beat up panel truck and get you 50 miles into the first town where there's a first doctor. And he said, you can't make the trip, you're too weak, you can't make the trip. And he said, I just don't know what to do for you. And I said, well, you know, we gotta do something. And he said, well, son, he said, you've got. You've got yellow fever. He said, I've seen that down here a lot. Your eyes are jaundiced, your skin's jaundiced. And he said, besides that, he said, you've got. You're not eating. You've got dysentery, and so you're not eating. Every time you try to eat something, you throw it up. And even water. And he says, so the last few days, you haven't even had water. And he said, you don't get some water, you're gonna die. And so I'm laying there in this hammock, Nancy, 5,000 miles from home, you know, 18 years old, love God with all my heart, and I'm dying for Jesus. And the doctors in the army told me later that I had tuberculosis as well. I got in all kind of trouble one day in the Army. I was out, you know, training, basic training. And they blew a whistle and my eyes. And I came over there and they said, get to the infirmary. The doctors want you in the infirmary. I don't know why I'm not sick. But I said, yes, sir. So I took off, went to the infirmity infirmary. And of course, the officers, the doctors were officers. So I went in there. Yes, sir. Reporting. And he said, myers, why didn't you tell us you had tuberculosis? I said, well, cause I don't. Never have. Yes, you have. I said, no, sir, I'm sorry, but I've never had tuberculosis. He said, you most certainly have. Said, I've got the X rays. I see the scars on your lungs. So I just walked out of there thinking. He said, you could have stayed out of the army. You wouldn't have to come to the army if you'd have told us that. And I said, but I haven't had it. And I just went out of there thinking maybe their machine was broken or he was mistaken. Took me several years. I thought, well, God didn't. Maybe I did. Maybe I had it and didn't know it, and you healed me. I mean, who knows? But anyway, he said, so you've got to have some, you know, water, and you're not taking water. He said, you're going to die if you don't. And he said, and you've got all those sores that run in pus and blood all over your body. And he said, I don't know what that's from, but that's not good. And so I looked at him laying there in a hammock. I looked at him and I said, so I've got yellow fever. That's the only thing I keyed on. And he said, well, yeah, you got yellow fever, but that's not most of your problems. Your problem, you know, you're gonna have to drink some water and eat. And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, but yellow fever, I was looking for a name. I was looking for something, you know. I said, yellow fever. I've got yellow fever. He said, well, yeah, yeah, you've got that. Among other things. I said, never mind the other thing. And I just said about halfway up in my hammock because all I could do from strength wise. And I said, yellow fever is just a disease. I said, and I can fix a disease. He said, what do you mean? And I said, well, Jesus said, lay hands on the sick in the name of Jesus and you shall recover. And I said, here's the hands, held my hands up like this. I said, here's the sick, put them on me. And I said, so in Jesus name I shall recover. And I mean, from that point I began to recover. I didn't have an instant miracle, but I began to get better. And that day I took a little water, and the next morning I took a little water and a little rice. The next day I took a little more rice. I began to get. And so by the time it came for me to go back to the States, my visa had run out. I had to go back and renew my papers. I'm gonna come right back and be home two weeks and come back. And so I went home. And I don't know if America would let you off the airplane now looking like I looked then. I was a nasty looking critter, you know, I was just skinning, but had on the same clothes that I had when I went down there because, you know, no place in jungle to buy clothes. So. And I'm just pulling, you know, pulling my belt as tight as I can. I actually had it tied with a rope. Just, you know, just. And jaws sunk in. I sunk. I mean, Jackie was my fiance then she picked me at the airport and she was horrified, you know, she said, I sent a man down there and brought a boy back. You know, I said, she's, this is bad. And she didn't know if she wanted to marry me or not. And I didn't blame her. And so it was Wednesday. So you go to church Wednesday. So we went to church that night and the pastor said, oh, Brother Terry's back From Panama and back from the jungle. And he about died for Jesus. Isn't that great? And they all clapped, you know. And I'm sitting right over here on this side, over here. And I remember during the service, I just crossed my legs. I just put one leg over the other. And when I did, just the pressure of my trousers on my. Caused one of those sores to burst and ooze through my pants, through my trousers, you know, just blood and embarrassing. I got up and went to the bathroom, you know, and cleaned it up. And that night, Jackie and I went out to get Coke or hamburger or something. I said to her, I said, darling, I said, you remember year and a half ago, two years ago, when God gave me a. I thought God gave me a message and the church didn't like it, I got in trouble. She said, oh, yeah, I remember, because our pastors were her aunt and uncle. She remembered. And I said, I'm not so sure they were right. I said, I'm not so sure God didn't show me something. Because I said, you know, I could have done a lot better job for God in the jungle if I hadn't been so sick. I said, there's days I needed to go preach to those. Those tribal people. And I just couldn't do it. In fact, one day I was so weak, and I said, I've got to go preach to these. I've got to help these people. And I. We had a horse there, so I went over and, you know, got the horse and got the saddle and just barely got the saddle up on his. And I'm a Texan man. I've. I've saddled horses. I mean, you know, and here I'm just trying to get this. And just pulling the scent strap tied the girth strap. I passed out. I've never fainted or passed out in my life before, since. But just putting that exertion, that strength and just pulling it, I just passed out. And when I woke up, I'm laying flat on the ground, the horses looking at me like this, you know. So I got up and pulled the saddle off of him, and I crawled back up in the house, in the hut, and went back to my hamlet. And I just said, I could have helped more people if I hadn't been so sick. I said, and I could have helped more people if I'd had some money, you know, When I went back into Panama City to get supplies, if I could have bought some supplies, that would have been nice. And I said. I said, it doesn't make Sense to me that God would kill his missionaries. I said, that's lousy military strategy. I said, no general kills his troops. And I said, God can't hardly get anybody to go to the mission fields. And when finally somebody says, I'll go, then he kills them. I said, just somehow it doesn't seem. I said, I think God said something to me. And I said, I'm only going to be here two weeks, as you know, and go back. And I said, but I said, if something doesn't change, I said, my missionary career isn't gonna be very long. And I said, that's fine. I said, if God wants me to die for Jesus, I'm happy to do that. He died for me. I can die for him if that's what he wants. Hey, that's not a big deal. I said, in fact, they don't even need to ship my body back from the jungle. Just bury me in the jungle and go on with it. That's not a problem with me. You know. I say, it just doesn't make sense. What good would it do? Who would it help? And I said. So she said, what are you gonna do? And I said, I'm gonna lock myself in a room tomorrow. And I said, I'm not coming out until I hear from God. And I said. I said, you know, if I don't hear from God in two weeks, then I'll come out of the room and go back to. Go back to the jungle and either live or die for God, whatever. I said, but I'm gonna go hear something. And I said, I'm not coming out until I hear or until it's time to catch an airplane. And so I went to the room and locked myself up. And I said, lord, you're going to have to talk to me. It's as if, Nancy. Like he said, and not too nice a tone of voice either. He said, I've been waiting for you to ask. And I said, well, I think you talked to me. I think you told me something. Church tells me you didn't. I need to get this settled. And I told Jackie, I said, whatever I hear from God when I come out of there, that's how we're going to live. If you marry me, that's how we're going to live. And so he said, turn to Romans 12:2. Well, you know, I knew what that said. I just quoted it to him, you know, don't be conformed to this world. Be transformed by the new end of your mind. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And he said. I said, Turn there. I said, yes, sir, yes, sir. And I. I turned there and I read it to him out loud. And I said, see, it says just what I told you it says. I said, what's your point? And he said, my point is you need to change your thinking. I said, there's nothing wrong with my thinking. He said, oh, yes, you have stinking thinking. First time I'd ever heard that phrase. All the preachers written books about it and tapes about it. But you've got stinking thinking. I said, I do not have stinking thinking. I said, that says, don't be conformed to the world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. I said, I don't think like the world. I got saved when I was six. I've been filled with the Holy Ghost forever. I've never lived out in the world, lived in sin. I don't think like the. I think like the church. Which was true. And the Lord said, that's exactly right. You think like the church and the church has stinking thinking. And you need to change your thinking and start thinking like me. And that was one of those epiphany moments where the instant he said it, I didn't have to think about it. I just knew, this is truth. This is truth. Amen. And I tell you what. He gave me five scriptures that now you all know them frontwards, backwards and sideways. Back in 1966, the church didn't seem to know those scriptures, but now they're the crux and the foundation of the word of faith message. But he gave me Romans 12:2. Then he said, turn over to Joshua 1. And he said, I told Joshua to do three things and. And then if he'd do those three things, he'd be prosperous and he'd be successful. He said, and if you'll do those three things, you'll be prosperous and successful. And anybody else will do those three things. They'll be prosperous and successful. So I turn over there and I said, you said three things. What are those three things? I went over there and it was, talk like God, think like God, act like God. Isn't that right? He said to Joshua, let not this book of the law depart from out of your mouth. Or talk like God and thou shalt meditate therein. How long? Day and night. And what did God really mean by day and night? What he really meant was day and night, or think like God. He said, and then that thou may observest to do, to be a doer. Do according to awl. Longest word in The Bible, all that's written therein. And then thou shall have. Thou shall make thy way prosperous and thou shall have good success. And I had never heard anybody in my church in all my growing up years talk about successfulness and prosperity. Not for Christians. And I literally said to the Lord, I said, father, seriously, can it really be that easy? Can it really be that easy? And the Lord said. I said, can it really be that simple? That's what I said. He said, simple, yes. Easy, no. Yes, that's right. Amen. He said, it's just that simple. But he said, it's not that easy because you're going to have to change your thinking and you're going to have to change your talking. Then he led me to Jeremiah 1:12. I watch over my word. I hasten my word to perform it. All of heaven's watching the Word all the time. All of heaven's watching all the time to see what you're going to say. To see if somebody, some man, some woman, some boy, some girl somewhere on the earth is going to say something in line with the Word or do something based on the Word, so they know what they're supposed to do. See, heaven doesn't know what it's supposed to do. You know you've got angels, right? Just because you grew up doesn't mean you don't still have angels. But I've always said this. For decades and decades, I've said, you know, angels are. Angels are underworked and overpaid because they're assigned to you, but they're watching you and listening to you 24 7. So they know what they're supposed to do to see if you say something intelligent, meaning based on the Word of God. Because all that other stuff you say, they don't care about. And watching you to see if you're going to do something based on the Word, then they know what they're supposed to do. But most angels are just laying on a lamppost, chewing on a toothpick, waiting for you to say something. One angel looks at another and says, my guy hasn't said anything today. Is yours? No. It's been 16 weeks since my guy said anything in line with the word. Heaven doesn't know what they're supposed to do until you say something. Renee and I have our own YouTube channel. Some of y' all may watch that. Some of you have told me you do and put out a new one every Thursday. And embarrassingly enough, yesterday I was watching it. It comes out every Thursday, so I was watching it yesterday. Embarrassingly enough, we're on week 1615 of spiritual authority. We've been talking about spiritual authority for 15 weeks. And, you know, the church just hadn't scratched the surface of spiritual authority. We're supposed to be running this place. God said in Genesis 1:26, after he'd create everything else. Then he got through with all the birds and the flowers and the trees and the oceans and the stars and the moon, all that stuff. Then he said, now let us make man, men and women, mankind. Let us make man in our likeness and in our image. And let them, them men and women, let them have dominion. Now, we use the word today, faith and authority and power. But he used a stronger word. He said dominion. He said, I want my bunch to dominate the place. I want them to be the dominating factor. And then he gave us categories. He said, I mean, over the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, the beasts of the field, and over all the Earth. That means tornadoes and hurricanes and wildfires and tsunamis and earthquakes, right? Dominion, dominion, dominion. Dominate. And somewhere along the church has gone to sleep with that and forgotten that we're not the little mealy mouth, sissy fied church, but we're the dominating factor on the planet. You know, I hear all these different people, politicians and everybody else today, you know, movie stars and everybody saying, we've got to save the planet. Who do you think you are? You can't save the planet. You know, there are some fools think they can save the planet. Other fools think they can destroy it. Man can't destroy it and he can't save it because it belongs to God. The Earth is the Lord's in the fullness thereof, and all that dwell therein. Amen. And contrary to popular belief, he is going to destroy it one of these days. Oh, he is going to destroy it. But we are to be the dominating factor. Amen. I mean, dominate. Dominate. But we're going to have to do that by speaking the word, saying the word, declaring the word, acting on the word. Amen. I love it where he says, let us make man our likeness, our image. You know, every time we had a baby and every time we had a grandbaby, I was there and I'd pick that little sweet thing up and look at it. And then I've delivered a few babies that I didn't want to. First time I was 18 years old in the jungles of Panama. Didn't know where babies came from, but I delivered one. Hey, I'm talking 1968, man. Now, I know your kids can watch TV today. They can watch the whole thing. I can watch the whole bird. Back then we watched Lucy and Desi and Leave it to Beaver and, and those folks slept in pajamas in twin beds. And I watched westerns. And so when they came and told me, hey, this girl's 13 year old girl down here, wife number five with this guy is having a baby. I said, congratulations. They said, no, no, no, you gotta come. I said, I don't gotta come, no, you're the missionary, you gotta come help. I said, no, I don't. And they said, you have to come, you're the missionary. So I got up and went down there, didn't have a clue what was going on. I got down there into their hut and the husband's butchering a pig five feet away from where she's having a baby. And she's squatting down on her knees with her feet under her. And I said, I don't think that's right. I said, I think you're supposed to lay down. And she went, I said, okay, okay, nevermind. And they came to me and they said, what do you want us to do? Well, hey, I know the answer to that. I watch Gunsmoke, I watch Ponderosa, I watched John Wayne, I said the same thing every western doctor ever said on tv. Boil water. Exactly what I said. I said, boil water. I thought, what's the matter with you people? They came back in a little bit, brought me this big tub of smoking water. I mean boiling water. They said, what do we do with this? I don't have a clue. Somehow I knew I was going to have to cut something. So I took my hunting knife that I'd been skinning monkeys with and threw it in the boiling water. And I found some string. Because I knew somehow, I don't know how I knew this. Somehow I knew I was supposed to tie something up. And so I, I threw the string in there. And then when it got cool enough, I washed my hands. But it was hot for a long time, you know, delivered this little baby girl, cut the cord, tied it off, cut the cord. And the dad wouldn't name it, he's mad cause she's a girl. And so I asked him, what's the baby's name? He said, I went back the next day, I said, what's the baby's name? I went for five days in a row, what's the baby's name? He said he didn't care, he's mad, mad at her. And I said, if you don't name this Baby, when I get here tomorrow, I'm gonna name her myself. He said, fine. I came back the next day. What's the baby's name? He said, you name her. I said, all right. Her name's Deborah, after Deborah in the Bible. So he said, all right, fine. Name's Deborah. But, you know, I've had to do some missionary stuff like that. And every time I had one of those little babies in my hands, mine or my kids, my grandkids, or the other babies I've delivered here and there, I've looked at them and I said, thank God they're made in God's likeness, in God's image. Because I've seen some ugly gods around the world. Now I go. I go to India a lot and have for decades and decades. The Hindus have 330 million gods. I know it goes right over your head as an American. We don't think like that. 330 million gods, and the best God they got is a guy named Ram. And Ram has an elephant's head, and he's got lots of arms and hands everywhere. And I've always said, thank God he doesn't look like Ram. God made us in his likeness, and it's in his image. You know, I've gone to those Hindu temples, and there are these gods like this. And sometimes I'll have an arm broken off, maybe two, and it'll be laying over there in the corner. And I've gone into the priest and said, excuse me, who builds your gods? Well, our priests build our gods. I said, well, that's interesting. I said, in Christianity, our God builds our priests. And I said, I see your guy here is missing a couple arms. I see him over there in the corner. Who repairs your gods when they get broke? Well, our priests repair our gods when they get broke. I said, well, that's interesting. Christianity, our God repairs our priests when they get broke. But God said, I made us. He made us in his image, his likeness. And he said, and I want them to be the dominating factor. Amen. Christians are living so far beneath their privileges, so far beneath their dignity. We're the people of God, called by his name. Isn't that right? I guess I ought to quit circling this airport and preach on something. I didn't ask you what the time limit was, Nancy. The longest I've ever preached in one service is ten and a half hours. I don't feel that particular anointing today. But neither did I then. Boy, you'd like it. You'd like it if God did it. Nobody wants to go to church and hear some guy stand up here for a long time, flopping his jaws. But if the Holy Ghost is doing something, boy, we'll just. We'll just stay forever. We were talking about that last night. Brother Hagin used to always say this. He'd say. He'd say, the miracles happen and the Holy Spirit shows up. When the unbelieving believers leave, You say, like on Sunday night when the service is going and it gets, you know, time to end, and the unbelieving believers go home and the believing believers stay, that's when the miracles happen. That's when the Holy Spirit shows up. And, you know, back in those days, days we made fun of the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, all those folks, because we said Sunday morning, said, man, they're fighting each other to get to the restaurant by 12. But by the time we get there at 2:30 or so, the restaurant will be cleared out and we can just go in and eat. But now we try to beat them. The church has fallen a long way. Amen. The church has fallen a long, long way. I believe the day's coming, Pastor Nancy, when the. When the sheep. The congregation comes to the shepherd, to the pastor, not the other way around. I believe it's going to be the sheep come to the pastor and say, pastor, we need more church. This isn't working. This one hour a week business is not working. We ought to be able to look around and say, this isn't working. Well, see, it used to work, but that's when we went to church and made it a priority. You know, I thanked Chantelle this morning and I thanked Morgan this morning, said, I've just enjoyed. I appreciate you ladies getting those kids to church all week. These little kids come in here looking like they stepped out of a catalog, you know, out of a bandbox, you know, and in church. And I just appreciate that. I just honor that, raise those kids right. And, boy, Jackie used to walk in these meetings. Our four little kids, you know, they just looked so perfect, and she looked perfect and everything. And people would come to me and they'd say, boy, your kids always just look so. Like they just stepped out of a catalog. Here we are missionaries, you know, and I say, yeah, but you ought to see the hotel room before we left. It looks like it blew up, you know, But I honor you mothers that do that. Jackie used to say to me, she said, terry, I feel like I just get up, get me ready, get four kids ready and go to church just to beat kids. She said, I just get to church, I Gotta take this one out. And I get that one back in here, and I gotta take the other one out. I get that one back in here, I gotta take the other one out. I used to. I used to teach my kids that. I said, now. Cause mom and I are on the platform. I said, you guys sit on the front row. And we didn't send them a children's church or that course thing. We wanted them in the big service. And so I said, now you sit on the front row. And I said, because we're not with you because we're on the platform. I said, we can't correct you, so you watch us. And I said, if I ever snap my fingers, then you're in trouble. I said, the first one's a warning. I said, if I ever do it twice now, you're in trouble. And sometimes I would just get excited preaching and snap my fingers more. Those kids, They'd say, who did it? Who did something? What'd you do? I didn't do anything. Praise the Lord. They've left these up here. I guess I'm supposed to say something about them. Spiritual authority, which again, I never get through with. There's 11 CDs in there. And that's kind of my bread and butter around the world. You're more of a video person. This is video. That's audio. This is video. That's five hours of teaching on there. This is our newest thing, Legacy Volume 1. These are just four sermons here that are not really sermons or lifestyles that God gave me somewhere around the world, some foreign country somewhere where there was a crisis and God gave me a word to change history or change the nation. And it's done it. And those will bless you. Since It's Legacy Volume 1, I'm assuming, and Renee did this. I'm assuming there's going to be a Volume two or three or something, but. And one of my favorite. One of my. One of my favorites is Faith Anchor. I was preaching at a church in Florida years ago that. A partner church of ours, usually in America. I give our partner churches his first option for me to come preach. I'm there every year. And I was there one year and two years ago. And I said, now, Pastor, my secretary told me, you want me to minister on spiritual authority this week? And he said, yeah, I do. That'd be great. And I said, okay, great. Then he came to me about an hour or so later, and he said, terry, never mind that. He said, what I'd really like you to do is just preach what you want to preach. Just preach what the Holy Ghost tells you. I said, that's a novel idea. Cause usually I'm told what to call preach and what they want me to do, you know, and that's okay. I said, seriously, really, I can do what I want to. I can really do what the Holy Ghost wants to do and I want to do. He said, oh, yeah, yeah, do it. And I said, I'm preaching on faith. If I got my druthers, I'm preaching on faith. I'm going to dance with the one that brought me. I know faith. I know how to do that. And so I came in and started preaching on faith. I think Basics of Faith is the album out there that's got that on it. But anyway. And the whole time I'm preaching this, I'm thinking to myself, this is really good. I wish I could take notes, man. I didn't know I knew this. See, preachers, when you preach on something, the Holy Ghost will preach and tell you stuff you didn't know you knew. Anyway, those will bless you. They'll help you. And then again, remember that we do have our. Our YouTube program. In fact, if y' all would go to YouTube, it's free, and just click on there, subscribe, it would help us. Doesn't cost you anything. And if you don't know how to do that, get a grandchild to help you. And it's free. And when you do that, it makes really. It doesn't mean much to me, but it impresses YouTube. They think more important. You know, I know we're important, but they kind of watch that. And then there's a picture of a bell there, an icon of a bell. You click on that, they get all excited. So anyway, that's. If y' all do that, that'd be great. And then Jackie and I, years ago, started. Renee and I are still doing it. We started a foundation for humanitarian aid called jmicf, Jackie Meyers International Children's Foundation. And so we help orphans and widows and disaster. Disaster relief and hurricanes and tsunamis and stuff like that. Just because I'd gone to so many disasters over the years trying to get into a country to help them during a disaster. And they'd say, well, who are you? And I'd say, well, I'm Terry Mizen. I'm a minister. Oh, no, we don't need ministers. You know, we're digging people out. I said, I know. I came to help you dig people out. And they said, no, thank you. So we started a humanitarian aid deal, and I printed up little cards and said, I'm the CEO of a humanitarian aid and I got money. So, you know, they like that. They say, well, come on in then, you know, so. And then every year we do a big push for Christmas just to send to orphans. And so this is out there on the table if you'd like to pick one up. It's not a fundraiser. Not one thing in there says, please give us any money. No, it's just a report of what we did this last Christmas. And we gave to over 40 orphanages and in 26 nations and paid for widows and roofed some houses for widows and dug water wells around the world and bought some vans for orphanages. And then since Ukraine started, we bought a van for missionary there to bring people out and bring supplies in at $5,000 a pop. And so we. Anyway, we're involved in a lot of that stuff. And so that's back there, but let's get into something here. I rode that other horse along. I might all just keep riding it, but maybe I can mix it with a couple of things here. I was in South Africa numbers of years ago, and I was preaching for a friend of mine, guy I'd known for a long time. And he's part of a big organization in South Africa that at one time was Word of Faith. And so I thought it still was. And I preached at the Bible school way back in the early 80s, and along with every, you know, every other, you know, Brother Copeland, Jerry and everybody else had preached there. And. But somehow during the. Over the years, the head of that organization had a headbutting or falling out with Brother Hagin. And so they just said, we're not Word of Faith anymore, which I don't even understand, but I didn't know that at the time. And so I got up and preached a good faith message in this church and talked about raising the dead and gave some. Taught on faith and told some missionary stories which they wanted me to tell. And when church was over, we went out to lunch with the pastor and he said. He made this statement to me, he's dead now. He's in heaven now. But he made this statement to me. He said, terry, that was such a wonderful, wonderful service, wonderful anointing, good miracles. He said, he has ducked his head. He said, it's been a long, long time since anybody has stood in my pulpit and preached something like that. I said, what do you mean something like that? He said, well, you know, it's just been a long time since anybody told me that my faith would have Something to do with my outcome. I said, what? What? I said, my first question is, why not? You're the pastor, it's your pulpit. He said, yeah, but I don't have liberty. I'm part of the organization, I'm told, you know. I said, well, I think I'd find another place to preach. And he said, actually, you'd be hard pressed. I was talking to Bill Winston about this this week because they love Bill in South Africa and he does a lot of stuff in South Africa. And he said, you'd be hard pressed to find a pastor anywhere in South Africa that preaches faith or that believes that their faith would have something to do with their outcome. I said, well, what about the Bible school? Oh, no, they quit doing that years ago. Years ago. Had to fall in that way. So I don't know how in the world Christians think they're going to make it. And quit trying to do all this new stuff and start going back with what works. Man, I don't know about you, but I like stuff that works. And so let me just share a little bit with you. Not a sermon, not a sermon, not three points in a point. Let me just tell you how faith works. Now, Bill was talking all week about speaking, speaking, speaking, speaking. Well, faith. And he said last night, enacting. So faith is always speaking, enacting, always. It's always going to be talk like God, think like God, act like God, and then you'll have the same results that God has. Amen. And so the Lord gave me those five scriptures all those years ago. I think I quit Jeremiah 1:12. But then you go to Psalms 138, verse 2, and, and the Bible says, God has exalted his word even higher than his name, right? And Then Proverbs chapter 4, starting at verse 20, says, My son, attend to my words, attend to them. There's a difference in just having a 25 pound Bible on the coffee table that you pat lovingly and dust off religiously or light a candle to, or you actually attend to it. You know, if I'm going off on a missions trip for four, five, six weeks and I ask some neighbor or some brother to come by and feed my dog while I'm gone, and take care of my yard while I'm gone, he says, sure, I'd be glad to. And then I come home after six weeks and the dog's starved and the grass is up to here, and he comes over saying, brother, I drove by your house every day, prayed in tongues. Well, thank you, but that's not attending to it. God said, attend to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Let them. Them what? Them words and sayings. Let them not depart from what? From your eyes. Boy, those early days, early, early days. I'd just go around like this. I say, lord, I'm not going to let this depart from my eyes. I'm not going to look at the problem. I'm going to go look at the answer. He said, incline your ear. And I'd do it like this. I'd go, terry, get your ear in the word. Get your ear in the word. You know, incline your ear to my sayings. Don't let it depart from your eyes. Joshua said, don't let it depart from your mouth. Amen. Guard it in the midst of your heart. Then he tells you why. In verse 22, he says, for they, the words and sayings, they are life. L, I, F, E. They are life to those that find them. Not just that, have them laying around, but find them in their health or medicine to all, all your flesh. God gave me those five scriptures and it revolutionized my life. I came out of that room just in a day or two, and I said to Jackie, I said, I got it. I know how we're going to live. I said, I'm going back to mission fields here next week, and I'll never be sick again, and I'll have money. And we had this thing going on about being engaged, where she had told me several times, she said, melina, she'd say, I need to go pick out my china pattern. I said, baby, missionaries don't have China. Missionaries go to China. They preach in China, but you don't have China. When I came out of that room, I said, baby, you order all the china you want. I don't care what. You just get all the china you want. I don't care. And I said, you marry me. I said, we're not going to be sick. We're not going to be poor. I said, we're going to take the gospel to the world. And, you know, we set out on a quest to prove that. And I think now, after 54 years, I think we've proved pretty well established a track record that this stuff really works. But all of heaven is watching you and the world all the time. Every day on our program, the intro of our program every week, it's an excerpt from me preaching. And I make that statement. I say, all of heaven is watching all the earth all the time to see if a man, a woman, a boy or a girl somewhere speaks the word of God or acts on the word of God. And when they do, heaven moves. And that's just how faith works. That's how faith works. You know, 2,000 years ago, when the writer of Hebrews was writing Hebrews, nobody knows who wrote Hebrews. A lot of people think the apostle Paul did. That's okay with me. I'll ask him when I get to heaven. Did you write Hebrews? But we'll find out when we get to heaven. But anyway, whoever it was did a good job. And they were writing and inspired by the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost looked 2,000 years down in the future and said, say this, write this. And so he wrote in what we call chapter 10 and verse 25, he said, forsake not, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as some do, because a lot do. A lot have forsaken it. He said, and even more so as you see the day approaching. Well, I present to you that I don't think today is just approaching. I think it's here. We need church and church and more church. And we need pastors that are more afraid of God than they are of the congregation. God never intended for the sheep to dictate to the shepherd what to preach. And he never intended for the church to start looking like the world. Sometimes I see pictures of churches. I see pictures of a nightclub and they look the same. I was so glad to walk in here the other night, you know, and y' all were singing and you had the lights on. We preach in so many churches that are just dark. We took Renee's 94 year old mother with us to church one day down in Texas and they set Renee where she's at and sat me on the inseat and sent her 94 year old mother just on the end seat across the aisle, I mean, six feet and I couldn't see her. It was so black in there, so dark, I could not see her. I tell these pastors all the time, I say, there's nothing in the Bible about God in darkness. God's always light. And Jesus said, you're the light of the world. And I've asked, pastor, I said, why do you do that? Well, the people say it gives them more intimacy. I say, baloney. I said, I know why they do it at the bar, in the nightclub, because that woman you're with is not your wife. I got that. I know why you turn the lights out, but at church you ought to have the lights on. With God, there's no variableness there's no shadow of turning. We're the light. He wants us to come to the light and for, for us to keep trying to act like the world and, and look like the world. I don't know what we think we're going to gain because I guarantee you the world can outworld you. They got great singers, they got great equipment, great musicians, man, they got great smoke and great lights. They got all that stuff. But if you're going to come out from among them and be separate and you're going to attract the world, why would the world want to come to you when you're a cheap imitation of what the world's doing? I mean, if I'm sitting here thinking, hey, I want to go to the world, then I'm going to look to Hollywood. I'm not going to look to the church. See, the world is never the world and Hollywood and Washington D.C. are never, never, never going to be won by great sermons alone. I'm for great sermons. Thank God for great sermons. Great anointing. They can't do the anointing. We got the anointing. Although sometimes you're hard pressed to find it in the church. But great sermons alone isn't going to do it because they have great sermons. They have speech writers to write their sermons, they memorize lines. They even have several parties a year and televise them just to congratulate themselves and pat themselves on the back for what great sermons they have. They get little statues and hey, So just great sermons isn't going to get it. It's going to take the supernatural because they cannot do the supernatural. In all my 54 years in the mission fields, I've always known, yeah, but I can walk in the devil's camp and I can do the supernatural. He can't do it. He's never been able to do it. I used to have pastors decades ago, good friends of mine, word of faith, Pastor Terry, you don't need to come in and tell miracles at the church. I said, you don't like miracles? Well, you don't need to tell them. I mean, you know, anybody, one pastor said, anybody can do miracles. And I said, well, you can't. I mean, this guy was a famous one word of faith preacher and a good friend of mine, good friend of Eds. And I said, I noticed that when you get somebody healed of a headache that you take 30 minutes and the church telling about it and you don't want me to tell about blind eyes open, deaf ears unstopped, devil's cast out Cripples walk dead, raised all that stuff. It's amazing how they. I said, you know why the Pharisees didn't like Jesus? Because he made them feel small. Nobody likes to be made to feel small. He exposed them for the Pygmies they were. And that happens in the church. You get up and tell some miracles with a guy that doesn't have any. Makes him feel small, so he tries to offset that. I had a pastor at a conference one time. Tell me. He said, I don't know why you think you have to get up and tell a miracle, you know. And I said, And I said, well, you know, too bad you can't. I was preaching for Norville Hayes decades ago. Norwell loved me and liked to have me in school all the time. And I was preaching there. And one of his administrators, I forget the guy's name now, he may be sitting here today, I don't know, but he took me out to lunch, said, can I take you out to lunch? I said, sure. And we went to lunch. We're sitting there at the table having lunch, and he reached in his briefcase and pulled out a book, and he said, brother Terry, I thought you might like this. Have the copy of this book I wrote. I said, well, of course I would sign it for me. And he signed it for me, and he handed it to me, and I looked at it. In the title, it said, you can raise the dead. I said, that's really cool. That's really great. I said, I'm glad you did this. I said, how many dead have you raised? And he said, well, none. I said. I said, thank you, you know, And I put the book away, and I was so amazed that we sat there for an hour and a half having lunch. Now, get this. This guy wrote a book on you can raise the dead, never raised the dead. He's having lunch with a guy that he knows for a fact is raised a number of dead. So I just assumed, oh, when he showed me the book, I thought, oh, that's why he wants to have lunch. He's going to pick my brain about raising the dead. He never mentioned it once. Never, never, never, never, never. I left that lunch and I thought, I don't even get that. Here's a guy that wrote a book on raising the dead, hadn't raised the dead, sitting with a guy that has raised the dead and didn't ask me one question. Well, see, we expose them for the pygmies they are, so they don't like it. Good work. Amen. We're the supernatural. It's the supernatural that's going to attract. You know, there's 10,000 church growth programs, but the best church growth program is the supernatural. Amen. You don't need the seven steps to this and eight steps to that and the three steps. While the seven steps don't work, you just need to. You just need to have the blind seat. They came to that blind guy that Jesus healed, and they said, don't you know that guy's a bad guy that healed you? And he said, hey, I don't know if he's a Republican or a Democrat. I don't know if he's good or bad. I don't know anything about the guy. I just know I was blind and now I see. Amen. That's F.F. bosworth said in 1950, that's the year I was born. He said, miracles are the dinner bell to the world. And they are. They are. For a Crusadesman, not many of us Crusadesmen left, I guess, but there are some, and they've always been my heroes. But to a Crusadesman, a Crusadesman is not teaching faith, not teaching the word. Cause you can't teach sinners. You have to preach. You can't teach. You have to preach. Nothing wrong with teaching Christians. But I can't walk into a. You know, I've had crusades with Hindus, with Muslims, with atheists, with Animists, with Buddhists, with Shinto, whatever they are, in whatever country I'm in. And I can't walk in that crowd of thousands and thousands, sometimes a hundred thousand, and I can't walk in there and say, now opened your Bibles, because they don't have Bibles. And I can't say, now turn to first Thessalonians. I have a clue what that is. And tonight I'm going to teach you the rhema and the logos. What? So I can't teach. I have to announce. See, the Gospel is always announcing declarative statements. The Gospel is never explaining. It's announcing declarative statements. Jesus is Lord. There's no argument with that. Jesus is the Son of God. God sent his only Son, Jesus to the world. Jesus was born of a virgin. They crucified Jesus. His blood paid for you. He shed blood for you. You're so valuable. He loves you and died for you. And they buried him. But the third day he rose again. That's all just declarative facts. And by believing on him tonight, if you accept him tonight, you can live with him forever. And then people get saved and we have miracles Blind eyes open, deaf ears, unstopped cripples walk. Amen. Amen. I've had people say to me over the decades and decades, say, brother Terry, would you teach me to win souls? I just can't seem to win souls, especially with my relatives or my co workers or something, can you? I said, well, I can tell you exactly why you're not winning any souls with those folks. Well, why? I said, because you care too much. I said, because it's your relatives. You're trying to be nice. Because it's your co worker. You're trying to be nice. So you're trying to explain the gospel and you can't do it. Nobody can explain the gospel. Billy Graham couldn't explain it, and he did a good job at soul winning, but he couldn't explain the gospel. He didn't understand it. You don't understand it. I don't understand it because it's a fact. It doesn't make sense. Faith doesn't make sense. Amen. God said to Noah, build a boat, it's going to rain. He said, what's rain? Didn't make sense. He's out there in his driveway for 100 years. The guy's 500 years old and builds this ark for 100 years in his driveway. Everybody comes by and laughs at him, makes fun of him. They leave in the morning, go to work, got their lunch pail. Hey, Noah, how's it going? Oh, it's going good. Praise the Lord. What are you doing? Oh, I'm building a boat. What for? Because it's going to rain. What's that? It didn't make any sense until the thunder rolled. Then they started running to the boat, but it was too late. God shut the door and no man could open it. And all they could do, Pastor, is they were scratching on that. Don't you know they were scratching on that door? Don't you know their fingers were bloody saying, girls, let me in. It's your mother. It's your sister. Open the door. Come on, guys. Eight people in the boat. This is your best friend. Let me in. Please let me in. Too late. See, that day's coming again. That day's coming again. Are y' all here? And all they could do is sing that same old sad song that the heathen have been singing for centuries and centuries and centuries out of Jeremiah 8:20. The summer's past, the harvest has ended and we're not saved. What a sad song that is. I can't sing it in agony of voice that they have, because I don't feel like they feel because I'm redeemed. They're not redeemed. I'm going to teach King David to dance step or two. He didn't know anything about when I get to heaven because he didn't even know what it's like to be redeemed. I do. Amen. But see, that day's coming again, it'll be too late. Does that make sense to you? One other sign of the supernatural and people forget about this, but I think it's one of the greatest signs of. Of the supernatural is Nancy, we give our money away. Nobody does that. That freaks people out. Freaks your relatives out when they find out you give your money away. Nobody does that. They tell you, hey, you got to get all you can. You got to, you know, store it in a can, then sit on your can. I mean, you just got to. No, no, no. Hoard, hoard, hoard. Live by the law of the. You know, I'm a missionary. I have to use simple examples. Out in the jungle in the past, you live by the law of the hoe. Y' all know what a hoe is? Live by the law of the rake, where you're pulling back to you, back to you, back to you, back. God wants you to live by the law of the shovel where you're going. Amen. God wants you to live in an open heart and open hand. Cause with a closed heart and a closed fist, you can't give, but neither can you receive. Amen. You know, When I was 18, we lived in the jungles of Panama and we used to catch monkeys. We'd kill them and eat them, but then we'd catch them too, because the natives would take them into Panama City and sell them alive. And so the way we caught them is we'd take a five gallon water jug, glass, where you can see through it, no plastics back then, glass, and put a couple bananas down in there and then tie that jug to a tree somewhere and then set it out in a known spot where the monkeys hang out. And pretty soon, here comes a monkey. This is a true story. And I've had several preachers hear me say this over the years, and they've told it like it was theirs or they've written it in books and they've used it for other examples, you know, on different reasons. But this, this is true. It really happened to me. I've really been there, done that. I'm not just preaching. And so here'd go a monkey, and he'd put his hand down in there and Grab that banana. But then he can't get his hand out. And he'd hear us coming, smell us coming, know he's gonna lose his life or his freedom. He'll scream and yell and holler and jump around, drag that jug around as far as the rope would let him. Never let go of it. And we'd get right up here and hit him in the head and put him in a bag, you know. Cause he just couldn't let go. He couldn't open his fist. God doesn't want you to live with a closed heart and a closed fist. Giving our money away is a supernatural thing. Yes, it is. And then expecting God to return it back. I just think it's so cool that God and Jesus, both in the Old Testament and New, told us all these things about giving and receiving, which just violates every principle of the world. And they thought it up. No preacher even thought it up. Jesus said, hey, give. It'll be giving you again. Good measure. Pressed down, shaken together right now. Jesus said, Mark 10, 29, 30. Say, hey, whatever you give for my sake in the Gospels be returned to you now. This life a hundredfold. Eternal life and life to come. Christians don't believe that, but Jesus himself said it. Paul told us, if we'd sow. Romans, 2nd Chronicles, chapter 9, 2nd Corinthians. Not Chronicles. Corinthians. Thank you. You know, he said, when you sow, you become the sower. Way back in the early 80s, Oral Roberts called me one day and he said, terry right up here at the office. So he'd do that quite often when he lived in Tulsa and I lived in Tulsa. He later moved to California. But a lot of times he or Evelyn would call and say, hey, run up for. Let's have coffee. Hey, run up for dinner or run up for lunch. I said, boy, I'd just dropped whatever I was doing. Jackie and I wouldn't. We'd go up there. And so he'd give me lots of good. Lots of little golden nuggets. I love fathers in the faith. Amen. I love these old generals. Fathers and mothers in the faith. Oh, my goodness, I could talk all day about them. And most of mine are gone now. I'm almost an orphan. I've got one left that's be a hundred years old at the end of August, still preaching. And Renee and I are flying down to Mexico City in August for his 100th birthday party. And he's been my spiritual father since I was 18 years old. So for 54 years. And then all these other Fathers I've had over the years. And like I said, I've only got two left. And like I said, one's almost 90, and the other one's about 100. And the others are gone. But I love these fathers. Anyway, Oral, he'd do that every now and then. And so he called me in the early 80s when I said, hey, you and Jackie come here at the office. I said, yes, sir. We just dropped what we was doing, ran up there, and he went and got an easel and set it in his office and told us to sit on the couch. And he preached us a sermon. We had our own personal sermon from Oral Roberts. And so he writes out this whole sermon, I mean, page after page after page of this easel, of this sheet. And he preached on money and giving and sowing and receiving. And he said. And he went to that scripture I just mentioned in Corinthians. And he said. He said, when you release that money, when it leaves your hand, you become a so Er. And he wrote big letters, S O W E R. You are the sower you have sowed. Not the money you intended to sow, the money you wished you could sow, money you thought about sowing, but the money you've actually sown. You become the sower. And he has belabored the point for. For a while, you know. And he said, then God gives that. And so God thought all that stuff up. Amen. I'm sitting on the couch watching him do all that. And he. I guess he, you know, knew what I was thinking, because he said, you think I do this to everybody? You think this is how I get my kicks, right? Just calling young preachers in and doing this for them? And I said, yes, sir. I was kind of thinking that. And he's called his secretary in, Ruth Wilkes. Ruth had been with him for 300 years, I think. And Ruth came in the office. He said, Mrs. Ripps, come in here. And she came in. He said, see this? And she came around and looked at it. She said, yes, sir. He said, have you ever seen me do this before? She said, no, sir. I've never ever seen you do this before. First time he says, right. It's the first time I've ever done it. He said, would you like a copy of this? I said, you gotta be kidding me. Yeah, I'd pay money or blood, whatever. Yeah, I want it today. We just take a picture with our phone back then. He said, we'll have to send this downtown to an architecture firm that can copy something this big. You know. And so they did, and then had it delivered out to the house. But God thought those things up. That's a supernatural thing that violates all the concepts, right? Amen. I don't know about you, but I like the word. You know, when I was about 20, I don't know, seven years old, I was in Mexico. And my friend Wayne Myers, who's my spiritual father, that's about to be 100, Wayne said to me one day, you know, when I met wayne, I was 18, and he was like 45, and I thought he was really over the hill. I thought he was old. And now I'm 72, and he's, you know, about be a hundred. But anyway, he said, terry, I want you to go up here north to the state of Hidalgo in a little town called Tepia Pulco. And he said, I want you to preach at this church and say, I want you to stay two weeks. He said, sometimes you got to stay two weeks just to break through the unbelief and the stuff, you know, and then start having miracles. I said, yes, sir. So I went up there, and very first day, Sunday, I got there Sunday afternoon, preached Sunday night. And then it was Pentecostal and had 400 people in the crowd, most of them Otomie Indian. And they just sit there through the whole service. I mean, through the song service, through the preaching. They just never moved a muscle. They just said their body language was just. They were miserable. And I could tell they were miserable. I didn't know why this was miserable. I just thought, boy, this isn't good. And so I got up and preached. And they didn't say amen. They didn't say Hallelujah. They didn't raise their hand. They. It's a Pentecostal church, man. And they didn't even say hallelujah, Frank. A sweet little hallelujah. Nothing. And So I finished preaching. And what I preached on is Ecclesiastes 4 says, where the word of a king is, there's power. And then job 2228, you decree a thing, and it'll be established unto you. And so I preached on that. And I took them through the Scriptures and proved that you're kings and priests. So therefore, your words are with power. And you know, you're supposed to decree a thing. And I went through and tried to be there two weeks. They never said a word. You're miserable. I called them up for prayer after I finished, you know, and they came up and stood across the front, and I went down and laid. What, brother? Hagin. Used to say, laying empty hands on empty heads. And nothing happened. Man, they were just miserable. I mean, I put, there's nothing there. I mean, like putting your hand on a brick wall. Nothing happened. So we left and I stayed with the pastor. Back in those days, there's no hotel in town, no motel in town. I'd stay with the pastor and see his wife was cooking us a meal that night. And I said, pastor, what's wrong with your church? What is going on? I've never seen anybody so me. They act like they're at a funeral. He said, well, Brother Terry, I shouldn't have had you come. He said, I should have canceled these meetings. He said, this is a really bad time, meetings. And I said, well, Juan, what's going on? And he said, well, he said, we're an industrial town. He said, we're like Detroit is in America, so we build automobiles. And said we make good money in this town, in the next town over. And he said, but the plant here is closing this week. Wednesday morning, 9 o', clock, they're locking the doors and everybody's just depressed. And he said, the president of the nation has been up here and made speeches and said, it's going to be bad. The economy's going to be bad, but the government will try to help us, but it's bad. And he said, I should have canceled. So the only reason I had you come is because Brother Wayne called me and told me to have you come. And I said, well, that's the only reason I came because he told me to come preach. And he said, well, I'm sorry, this is a bad time. I said, was it a strike? He said, oh, no, no, it's done. So they've made the speeches, they've signed the papers, they're locking the doors. It's over. So Monday night, I don't know why they came back, but all 400 of them came back. And so I preached to them and they sit there miserable. I mean, just. And finally I stopped right in the middle of my sermon. I said, excuse me. Hello, everybody. Hey, praise the Lord. Everybody look up here at me. Can I have your attention, please? Hello. Look. Hello. And they, you know, kind of looked up and I said, pastor tells me that the plant down here is closing this week, Wednesday morning at 9:00'. Clock. And he says that because of that, y' all are losing your jobs and the economy's gonna go terrible. That the presidents of the nation's been up here and said he'd try to help you, but everybody's depressed and upset. And I said, what I need to know from you? I need to ask you one question. I need to know. And I said, how many of you would it affect directly if the plant closes? Either you work there, your husband works there, your brother works there, your dad works there. No women would have worked there in those days. But who somebody works there that would affect you directly if they lose their job. Almost the whole church raised their hand. I said, great, that's all I need to know. I said, I taught you last night that where the word of the king is, there's power. And I taught you to decree a thing and it'll be established unto you. I told you you were kings and priests and your words were with power. But I'm a king and a priest, and my words are with power, and I can decree a thing and it'll be established. And I said, I know. The president said it's closing. I know. The company says it's closing. The corporate headquarters says it's closing. The company in the States, the company in Mexico says it's closing. You say it's closing. Pastor says it's closing. I said, but I decree to you, as a man of God in the name of Jesus in the office of apostle that God's called me to that plant will not close down Wednesday morning nor thereafter. And if it does, you can tell everybody in these two cities the God of Terry Mize is a liar. And I said, if it closes down, I'm a false prophet. I'm not a man of God. You don't ever have to listen to me again. I said, in fact, if it closes Wednesday morning, I'll pack my bags Wednesday and leave town. I won't even be here Wednesday night. There's no reason for you to listen to me. I'm a liar. My God's a liar. I'll just go home, I said. But I'm not packing. I'm not leaving. I'm gonna be here Wednesday night. We're gonna have church. Not an amen in the house, not a hallelujah, nothing. So I finished my sermon. I called folks up for prayer. Empty hands, empty heads, nothing. Tuesday night. I don't know why I'm working, but they all came back. 400 of them. I preach. They sit there miserable. I stop in the middle of my sermons. Hey, everybody, look up here. Hello. Hello. I told you last night, I need to tell you again. I decree as a man of God in the name of Jesus in the office of apostle of God's called me to the plant's not going to close in the morning, nor thereafter. If it does, you can tell everybody in Tepia Puko Shidatsagun that the God of terri maize is a liar, and I'll pack my bags and leave town because I'm a false prophet. But I'm going to be right here. We won't have church. They sit there, nothing. Finished my sermon, called folks for prayer. Empty hands, empty heads. Nothing happened. But you know what? Wednesday morning, the plant didn't close. And Wednesday night, Nancy, we had some church. And there wasn't just 400 there. I mean, that thing was just jammed, crammed packed. People sitting in the aisles, people sitting along the wall. The windows were open. People standing outside, 10 and 12 deep looking in. And, I mean, we had six children that were deaf and mute, healed by the power of God. We had a little girl die that week. We raised her from the dead. We had a lady with a huge gorder in the center of her chest, and I reached over and cursed it, and it fell off. Had a guy with a stroke that drugged one side of his body. God healed him. I mean, just miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle. The pastor himself had had surgery before I got there and had a plastic bag hanging outside his body with tubes running into it. And the doctors had told him, the rest of your life, you can only eat mashed up like baby food, vegetables with no seasoning whatsoever. I mean, no chili, ni salsa, ni picante enado de esso, which is a death sentence to a Mexican. And back in those days, they didn't have, you know, food processors. I mean, she took that old stone mortar and pestle and just, you know, mashed up those vegetables. No seasoning of any kind on them. And three meals a day, she cooked me a normal meal and cooked him that three times a day. And he sat there and ate that stuff, and I sat there and ate good stuff. And one night during that two weeks of meeting, I turned around to him and I said, pastor, just sitting here on the platform, I said, pastor, you're healed by the stripes of Jesus. You go out and eat anything you want. He went out that night and ate barbecued goat and was completely healed by the power of God and was healed for the rest of his life. Amen. Now, driving home from that after two weeks and all those miracles and wonderful things, driving home or not home, I was going back to Mexico City. And I said to the Lord as I was driving along, I said, lord, I said, something bugs me about this meeting. I said, I heard myself say that that plant won't close down Wednesday morning nor thereafter. I said, I'm not sure what that means. I said, if that plant closes down in two weeks or two months or six months, people are going to say that's not a miracle. And I said, I don't know how long to keep my faith on this thing. But I said, you know, I'm wondering. And so I'm praying in tongues, and I'm driving, praying in tongues, driving, talking to the Lord. Finally I said, you know what, Lord? I said, I think 10 years would be more than fair. I said, I don't think anybody would argue if it stayed. If a plant stayed open 10 years, I think that's a valid. Nobody can argue with that. So for 10 years, I checked with them. That was January 1977. I checked with them until 1987. Still open. But I have friends in Mexico City. When I go down there and preach that actually still sell to that plan. They come up to me and say, brother Terry, the plant's still open. I mean, this is 2020, and it's never closed. He said, they tell that story all over town. Said they don't remember your name. They just say some young gringo missionary came up here and declared the plant wouldn't close. And it never has clothes, and they give God the glory for it. But see, we're going to have to speak a thing if we're going to operate in faith. We're going to have to declare the Word of God. God and act on the Word of God. So heaven knows what we're supposed to. What they're supposed to do, because they don't know what they're supposed to do until you say something and do something that's in line with the Word. A lot of y' all know my story. I won't go into it. It's already 12 o'. Clock. I won't go into details, but a lot of y' all know my story about when I was 24 years old in Mexico, living as a missionary, I picked up a hitchhiker just outside of Southeast. And he got in the car with me. I thought I'd give him a ride. And so I've got a tape of Brother Copeland's in the player on integrity of the Word of God. So Kenneth's preaching, and I'm driving to Guadalajara. And so I picked him up and he got in the car and I took off. And I'm just not paying attention to him. I'm just driving and pretty fast because it's a straightaway before I hit the mountains. And so I'm driving along there and I'm thinking in Spanish, because I'm thinking. I got. I talked to this guy in Spanish. He doesn't speak English, so I got a witness to him. And so finally I figured what I was going to say, and I turned to say it to him. And whenever I did, he just reached in his coat and pulled out a pistol, and he cocked the hammer on the pistol, and he reached over and slammed it into my ribs hard and reached up with his left hand and caught my collar like this. So I'm driving the car and he's got my collar like this, and he screamed at me and said, I'm going to kill you. Only in Spanish. Take away all my tire. And it made me mad. I'm 24 years old. I'm a faith guy, you know, I understand spiritual things and authority. And I said, I'm a man of God and got authority over you in the name of Jesus, you can't kill me. Well, that made him mad. He poked me at that gun again and yanked on my car. Said, I said, I'm going to kill you. And I said, and I said, I'm a man of God and I've got authority over you in the name of Jesus, you can't kill me. And so we're going down the road like this. Kenneth still preaching. I just let him preach. And so this went on for a while. And everything he said to me was a threat. And everything I answered him was the word which made him mad. You know, the Bible says a carnal mind. Is it enmity against God or an enemy of God? But that's not my problem, you know. And so I rebuked him in English and Spanish and tongues. And he kept cursing me. And finally he said to me, he said, what's the matter with you? Aren't you scared? No. Tiness miedo? I said, no, I'm not scared. I said, why should I be scared? All you've got is a loaded gun. I've got the name of Jesus. I win. Well, that made no sense to him. But remember, faith doesn't make sense. Amen. And this went on for a while. And I said to the Lord, Father, in English, I said, lord Jesus said in Luke 10:19 that he gave me authority or power over a double L. All the power of the enemy and nothing. I spelled it for God. N O T H I N G. No thing shall by any means hurt me. I said, that means this man, his gun his bullets cannot hurt me. And if he pulls the trigger, Father, then you must M U S t must do something with the bullets. Not for my sake. This isn't about me, but for your covenant's sake. For you're the covenant God that keepeth covenant. And Jesus said, nothing shall by any means hurt me. It's all about you and your covenants. It about me. And we went down the road and, you know, he picked up some microphones I had laying in the shed. I said, put those down. They belong to God. I said, everything in this car belongs to God. The car belongs to God, and I belong to God, and you can't have any of it. Well, that made him. Finally, he got so mad, he just said, pull off the road. Get off the road. So I pulled off the road into a cornfield. And he said, get out. And I did. And we met at the front of the car. He said, give me your money, your jewelry, your. You know. And he walked up close to me and I'm leaning up against the car and just praying in tongues. I don't know what to do. I'm just trying to hear from God. I just knew. Use the name, use the blood, use the word, use the covenant, use the power of the Holy Spirit, and then do it again. Use the name, use the blood, use the word, use the covenant, power of the Holy Spirit. Then do it again, then do it again, then do it again, then do it again. And Brother Copeland used to say, way back in the old, old, old days, he'd say, hey, this isn't a nine inning ballgame. We played, we win. So I thought, I'm just gonna keep playing until I win here. And so he walked up close to me and when he did, got up, I'm leaning against the car and he walked up close to me and I just stuck my finger in his face. And I said, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ from natural. And when I did, he hit me with that gun barrel. Just popped me like that, like that. Knocked me back over the car. It hurt. You knocked me back down. And then put the gun belt right on my forehead like this. And he's screaming at me and he said, shut up, Caillate. If you say one more word, I'll kill you. And I just pushed myself up off the car and just put my finger in his face past his gun like this, and just stepped into him. And I said, I said, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. You can't kill me. You can't hurt me in any way. And when I did, he just jumped backwards a couple of steps. We were nose to nose. He just jumped backwards, couple steps. It shot at me five times at point blank range and the bullets didn't hit me. In fact, I don't know whatever happened to bullets. Don't, don't know, don't care. I've never asked the Lord, how'd you do that? I don't care how you did it. I just know at that night there's a lot more detail to it that I won't go into. But that night I slept in my bed with my wife and my babies in Guadalajara. And that guy set up in the dark mountains of Mexico with a gun, wondering what happened. But what happened was the integrity of the Word of God. Amen. But see, heaven was listening to all this. Heaven's watching. And heaven said, hey, hey guys, look, look what happened to Terry. Oh, wow, wow, that guy's got a gun. Said he's going to kill him. What's Terry going to say? My angels are pulling for me. That's my guy. I think he's going to say something. So they're watching like this. What's he going to say? What's he going to do? And so I said the Word and did the Word and said the Word and did the Word and said the Word and did the Word and finally he got out and shot at me. But I'd already said, Father Jesus said, so if he pulls the trigger, you must, for your covenant sake. And so whenever that all came down, then heaven moved. Heaven moved. Heaven moved. I was in the jungles of Guatemala years ago. I took American medical doctor with me from Tulsa. A good friend of mine, still a friend of mine today, and medical doctor, I said, hey, I'm going to the jungle to preach. You don't go to the jungle and do some doctoring. He said, that'd be fun, let's do it. And so we went down to Guatemala and went out to the jungle. And while we were there I worked in a clinic with him and I translated for him and he taught me to give shots and give pills to the people in the clinic. And then at night we'd go to the river and take a bath and change clothes and walk over to the crusade grounds and I'd preach and we'd have miracles. And there's one particular night we had a bath in the river and changed clothes. Was going over to preach and our afternoon was. And here comes this couple man and woman with a little Tiny baby in their arms, Nancy tiny. And I saw them coming, and I thought, that's a newborn. That's a baby. That's a tiny baby. And the second thing I noticed, Morgan, I thought to myself, I said, I've never seen a newborn that wasn't in the fetal position. I've never seen a newborn. Didn't have their arms and their legs drawn. That baby's limp. And I thought, this is this not good? And so as we got closer, I could see little girl. And they came up to us and they said, we heard there's a doctor here. They say, we heard there's a man of God doing miracles. And they said, we heard there's a doctor here. I said, yes, this is a doctor right here. And they said, doctor, our baby's 13 days old and been like this ever since she was born. 13 days. 13 days. And he said, well, let's go back to clinic. So they took. They left, and I went on over and preached the crusade. And while I'm preaching the crusade, the missionary that lives there, he's in heaven today, but his wife's still there. I still communicate with her. But he came up on the platform, said in my ear, while I'm preaching, he said, the doctor says, get everybody to pray. There's no hope for this baby. She's going to die. And I thought, well, I don't want them to pray. They don't know how to pray, you know. So I just said this. I said, folks, there's a baby here at the clinic that needs to be healed. We need to watch our prayer requests instead of standing up and saying, pray for Aunt Susie. She's dying with cancer. We need to rephrase that a little bit. And so I didn't say, there's a baby over here dying. I said, there's a baby over here needs to be healed. I said, you agree with what I say, I'm going to pray, and you agree with me. I didn't ask them to pray. And so I prayed and I said, now, Father, I decree as a man of God in the office you've called me to, that that baby will live and not die and declare the works of the Lord. Yes. Well, I went on, preached, got people say, had miracles, had testimonies. Nobody's come to tell me about the baby yet. So when it's over, I walk back on over a few hundred yards to the clinic. And when I walk in there, I should have given the sound guys some pictures of this. That would have been cool. But when I Walked in, the doctor just got her laying on the table. And he's leaning over like this, and he's just dripping sweat. You know, we're in the tropics. He's dripping sweat. And he looked up at me and he said, terry, why'd you bring me down here, man? He said, I can't do anything with this baby. He said, I need a hospital. I need a pediatrics ward. I need machinery, I need equipment. I need stuff. And I said, buddy, you just don't got stuff. I said, you welcome to my world. I said, you know, we just got to believe God. And you got to do what you can as a doctor, and I'll do what I can as a missionary. And so we stood there and talked a little bit, and there's other details I won't go into. But while we're sitting there talking, she died. He took his stethoscope, did all that stuff and felt her neck and checked her breath. And he, well, she's dead. Well, I just scooped her up and held her up before God and started praying. And I'd raised the dead a number of times, and so I just went after that one. But it just kept on not working. And it just kept on and kept on. And I kept praying and praying and it kept on and I kept praying and kept on. I kept praying. And so finally, at 3 o' clock in the morning, I'm holding this baby. Cause I'd been holding her this whole time. And I'd talk to her and I'd say, baby, listen, princess, I won't bury you. I will not bury you. You hear me? You'll live and not die and declare the works of the Lord. You're healed by the stripes. You hear me? You're healed. I'd hold her out like this. I said, listen, listen, baby doll. You're healed. You're healed. You hear me? You're healed by the stripes. I'll not bury you. You'll live and not die. And it's been going on for a long time. And so I'm holding her like this. And he said. The doctor walked up to me, it's three o'clock in the morning. He says, terry, Terry. And he grabbed my arm and jerked and said, terry. And I said, what? He said, terri, listen to me, listen to me. She's dead. D E A D dead. I'm concerned about you. He said. You've been praying for her, holding her up for nine hours. I'm concerned about you. He said, put her down. Put her on the table. He said, let's go to bed and we'll bury her in the morning. He said, at least you got her parents saved hours ago. Something good's come out of this. But he said, you know, you did everything you could as a missionary. It didn't work. I did everything I could as a doctor. It didn't work. So now it just doesn't work. He said, I put her down. She's dead, Terry. She's dead. You understand me? She's dead. I said, doc, you leave me alone. There's nothing wrong with him. He's a good guy and he's a word guy. He just, you know, he just. And I said, you leave me alone. I said, I got a job to do. Now. If you want to go to bed, you help yourself. But I'm gonna raise this baby up. God, I'm not gonna bury this baby. And he said, terry, I said, no, no. Pray with me or go to bed. And so I kept on. And three hours later, at 6 o' clock in the morning, I said, devil, you might as well quit. Cause I'm not going to. I said, you might as well leave. Because I said, if you want to stay here, you're just going to hear the name of Jesus. The word of God, the blood of Jesus. I'm going to stick you with the sword of the spirit. I'm not stopping. I'm not going to bury this baby. I said, you have caught me in a situation where I am in spiritual authority. I said, I'm not in America. I love America, but I'm not in a hospital there. I love hospitals and doctors and nurses. I appreciate them all, but it's their house, their rules, their authority. Most of you pastors can say with me, you've been to the hospital, and they're sweet and they're nice and they're kind, and they'll give you about 30 minutes and they'll come very polite. Reverend, we need to do some things here. You need to go take care of the family. And I've said so many times, no, no, no. I need to do this. No. Reverend, we've given you half an hour and you need to take care of the family. They need you. I said, no, no, no. They said, that's your job. No, no. If I do this, then that'll fix that. They won't need me if I get this done now. Reverend, you have to go. It's their house. It's their rule, their authority. I'm not mad about it. I just understand the system. I could tell you 18 dozen stories along those lines. But I said, but I'm here in the jungle. This is my jungle. I said, this isn't your jungle. It's my jungle. I'm in authority here. I said, now, the parents had spiritual authority. Because all parents have spiritual authority over the kids. I said, but they brought it and gave it to the doctor. They didn't come give it to the man of God. And the miracles. They presented the baby in spiritual authority to the doctor. So the doctor had spiritual authority. Then the baby died. So nobody has spiritual authority. So then I took it. See, you need to understand something about spiritual authority. Every time you go into something, you need to understand when you have it, when you don't. And if you don't, if you can get it. Because sometimes you can get it when you don't. Or when you don't have it and you can't get it. So you might as well forget it and go to the house. And there are times like that. There are just times that you don't have it and can't get it. But that was one of those times. I said, you know, it was the parents, they give it to the doctor. She died. Nobody has it. I took it and I said, so I'm in spiritual authority here, and I'm not being. And when I finished with that little speech to him, I guess he got discouraged and left because she started crying. And God raised her up and healed her of what killed her. Isn't that cool? You know what was cool, Nancy? Buddy Harrison had just started his church in Tulsa. Fcf And John, where you guys at? You may have been there that Sunday. You'll remember the. Anyway, and before I went to Guatemala, and the doctor went to his church as well. And before I went to Guatemala, I went to the sound guys. I went to Buddy first, and then I went to the sound guys. I said, I'm gonna be in the jungle preaching next Sunday. And I said, why don't we? And I said, the missionary has a ham radio. And I said, why don't we? You get the sound guys to rig a telephone to go all the way up to the platform. And next Sunday, I'll call you by ham radio from the jungle and just give a report. And I said, we'll call and get some ham here in America. Cause hams monitor the net. And I said, well, we'll get some ham on the radio, and we'll have him just get on the landline, call the church and patch us through. And I'll just talk to the church. And give you a little missionary report from the jungle. Well, little did I know that the report I was gonna have was that I had just that night spent 12 hours with a dead baby, and God raised her from the dead. So I called them about church time, Tulsa time, and gave them that report. Oh, my Lord. That church has about 2,200 people in the church in those days. And, I mean, they went nuts. They went wild. In fact, my wife was sitting there, she heard the report, and the doctor's wife was sitting there and she heard the report. And did you ever meet Bob Lemon? Bob. Mary Bell. I took Bob with me on that trip. Bob worked at Sears and Roebuck in Woodland Hills Mall in Tulsa, selling. In the automobile department, selling tires. And I came by and said, bob, I'm going to the jungle to preach. You want to go? And he said, yeah. And he quit his job right then and traveled with me for four months and then went to work for Buddy Harrison for years and then went in his own ministry. Bob used to tell me, he said, but, Terry, I told the baby story the other day, and I think I mentioned your name. I said, well, that's kind of you, but. So Mary Bell, his wife, was sitting there and heard the story. I mean, that church just went. I've still got the old cassette tape from that phone call. But, see, heaven was watching all that. Now, Terry, why did it take 12 hours? I don't have a clue. You ought to see the pictures of me. I could see, man, I had bags under my eye. I've been fighting hell for 12 hours and hot, sweaty, you know, but, you know, we won. And that little girl, whenever she got to be, you know, big enough to talk, about six years old, they started taking her to the villages and telling the story about how Jesus raised her from the dead. And she'd sing songs for Jesus. And then she grew up and got married and had three kids and still loves God and serves God today. She's in her 40s today, and once in a while I hear from her, from the missionary lady down there by a ham radio, you know, and talk to her. But I mean, miracle after miracle after, but it's always, heaven's going to be watching. This is how faith works. It's just heaven's. Heaven's always watching. Heaven's always waiting to see, what are you going to do? What's my guy going to do? What's my girl going to do? What's she going to say? What are they going to. So I know what I'm supposed to do. So the angels know what they're supposed to do. That's how faith works. That's what happened that night in Matthew, chapter 14, when Jesus, John the Baptist, his cousin, had been killed, been assassinated, been murdered because that perverted woman. And. And so Jesus was sad about it, and he went off to the seashore. He said, I want to be by myself. And he tried to get off by himself, and the crowd wouldn't let him go. And so they came with him as he had to preach to them. And finally he turned around to the boys and he said, guys, I'm going to stay and send the people away, and then I'm going to go pray a little bit and I'll catch up with you. Y' all get in the boat and go on the other side. I don't know how they thought you can catch up with them. Yeah, so they did. They got in the boat and left. So he finished with the people, sent them away. He went up the mountain to pray. And I've always said, if he had to pray, we'd probably do, too. And so when he got through praying, then it was late and dark. So he gets up and turns around and looks, and he had to look in the spirit. He can't see in the natural out there. And he looked and saw the boys, and they're out there in the boat. And the Bible says the wind was contrary. So they were having a hard time. And so he just thought, I'll just walk out there on the water and get in a boat with them. That's his whole plan, whole intention. I'm gonna walk out, get in the boat. So heaven's watching all this. Don't you know they were sitting there and whenever Jesus, you know, the people started bugging Jesus, don't you know, heaven probably said, oh, we said, leave him alone. I mean, John, just John, just now. Of course Jesus knows about heaven. He knows he's gonna see John, but he's still hurt. John's the only guy on the planet that understood him. He's his preaching buddy. He's a cousin. And. And so you know, the angels. Well, Jesus send the boys away. Told him he'd. How's he gonna join them? I don't know. And so Jesus sent the boys away, got prayed and everything. Now he gets up and looks, and there's the boys out there, and he just walks over to the edge and starts walking. The angels probably said, hey, look at the boss. He's walking on water. He hadn't done that before. That's Cool. So the angels are watching. They're all excited that boys are out there in the boat. And when he gets a little closer to him, remember they saw him and thought he was a ghost. Fear. Every time. Say this. Fear and faith cannot live in the same house. Well, you better get that. You better get that on the inside of you. Fear and faith cannot, cannot, cannot, cannot. They cannot coexist. They cannot live. You cannot live in the same house. And so he's walking on the water. They think he's a ghost. It says they were scared. Fear. That only enemy. Hell, the only weapon hell has. Fear. And so they said, it's a ghost. And Jesus said, whatever. Angels said every time they showed up in the Old Testament, New Testament, what Jesus always said, don't be afraid. Fear not. So Jesus said. Jesus said, cheer up, guys. Be of good cheer. It's me. Don't be afraid. And the angels are watching all this. They probably poke me to and say they think the boss of goats, they're scared again. Those guys are scared one more time. And then Jesus says, cheer up, it's me. Don't be afraid. Now that should have settled it. And he's going to walk and get in the boat and go with them to the other side. But Peter had an idea, and he stands up and he says, well, Lord, if it's you bid me come. Don't you know, the angel said what he just said, the boss just said, it's me. And now Peter said, if it's you bid me come. What's the boss going to do? Because if he doesn't bid him come, they're going to think it's not him. So he has no choice but to tell him come. Yes, sir, to come. Hey, you guys, stand up and get ready. Cause if the boss tells him to come, and should he actually come, we got to do something. We got to go to work. That's right. And Jesus stands there on the water and scratches his head, and he says, what if it's me? I just told him it's me. I just told him it's me. And he says, if it's me, bid him come. So, okay, Peter come. I bet there was a rustle of angel wings about that time. They stood up and said, hey, guys, come on. If Peter puts his foot out that boat, we got to do a miracle. How do you guys want to handle this? Y' all want to make Peter light or the water hard? What do you want to do? We got a. Right. We got to do something. So I've had People say to me, Nancy, over the years, Terry, why did, why did, why did Jesus make Peter walk? He knew he did. Ram, ram, ram. Jesus had nothing to do with it. Peter forced that whole thing. If Peter hadn't said that, Jesus just walked over and got in a boat. But Peter says, lord, if it's you. And so sure enough, Peter stood up and lifted his leg and went over the side of that boat and heaven moved. And I don't know if they made Peter light or the water hard, but they did a miracle that defied gravity in nature because that's what faith does. Faith overrides nature. Faith overrides gravity. Faith overrides water. Faith overrides fire. Faith overrides armies. Faith overrides bullets. Faith over. Amen. It never makes sense except to heaven and those who think like heaven. And I mean, when Peter's foot hit that water and he walked, he's walking just fine, looking at Jesus. But the devil, remember the devil, he's sitting on Peter's shoulder like he sits on everybody's shoulder. And his job is to get your focus off of the word or off of Jesus. Doesn't matter what he says to you. It doesn't have to make sense. He just has to get you to break your focus. So he's sitting on Peter's shoulder and he says, psst, Peter, the wind's blowing, right? The wind's blowing because it says Peter looked around and saw the wind was boisterous. Oh, my God, the wind's blowing. I can't walk on water. Well, you can't walk on water anyway. You go out here on a nice calm day to the pool or the lake or whatever, and water's like glass. You just try to walk on it. You can't. Wind doesn't have anything to do with it, but it never has anything to do with faith. Jesus. Faith isn't going to make sense, but neither is what the devil tells you. So Peter looks around, says, oh my God, the wind's blowing. I can't walk. And begin to sink. Didn't sink, began to sink. And then he, Jesus, he said, lord, save me. And Jesus grabbed him. But then Jesus dressed him down and chewed him out. Now, the church doesn't like to hear that. The church likes saying that Jesus is a little mealy mouthed, cystified, wimpy guy that just wouldn't ever say anything bad to anybody. No, no, no, no. Jesus dressed him down as he had dressed him up. The disciples down many times. And he said, peter, wherefore did you doubt what's wrong with you? Why did you doubt? Oh, you of little faith. Didn't he. Didn't they walk back to the boat together? Jesus didn't carry him. I mean, they walked together, got in the boat, disciples got all happy, went to the other side, don't you know? The next day around noon, they were sitting around the campfire having lunch, and those guys started talking about that. I mean, I would have. Wouldn't you? They said, that's the greatest thing that happened last night I ever saw in my life. There's the boss walking on water. We thought he was a ghost. And then Peter said. Then he said, come and Peter. Matthew might have said, I was right next to Peter. When he stood up to put his foot out there. I got goosebumps on my goosebumps. Thomas might have said, yeah, and I still don't believe it. You know, Judas probably said, I could have made some money off that if I'd have had an advance notice, you know. But anyway, how do you think Peter felt? He walked. God did. A miracle, A supernatural heaven moved for Peter. What did heaven do for those other 11 guys? Nothing. Not a thing. Not a thing. Heaven did nothing for them because they said nothing and did nothing. Had an old minister, he's been in heaven for decades now, but an old minister one time preached a message at our church, and he preached on, are you a wet water walker or a dry boat rider? And I walked up to him after service. I was a kid, you know, I walked up to him and I said. I shook his hands out. That was a great sermon. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. And he said. He said, terry, are you a wet water walker or a dry boat rider? And I said, I'm neither one, sir. He said, what? I said, I'm neither one. I said, I'm a dry water walker. Amen. I'm going to walk on the water and not sink. I need to let y' all go. Did you get anything out of all this today? My, my, my, my, my. Praise the Lord. I've enjoyed ministering to you. You've been gracious, and I've just been honored to be here. Stand up with me, Father. In the name of Jesus, Lord, thank youk for your word, Father. Heaven is watching, always watching, always 24 7. Always watching the earth all the time. You said, I've exalted my word even above my name. You said, you watch over your word to perform it. Heaven's watching to see if any man, any woman, any boy, any girl anywhere is going to speak your word, say your word, declare your word, act on your word. So heaven knows what to do. And then heaven moves and we see a great miracle. Father, as we leave this place today and leave this conference, after tonight's service, Father, we make a renewed commitment that we're going to talk about word and do the word and talk. The Word and do the word and talk. We're gonna. We're gonna do those three things you told Joshua. We're gonna think like God, talk like God and act like God. And we thank youk for it. For the supernatural. The supernatural that will attract the world. And we thank youk for it and give youe glory and honor and praise and majesty, dominion in Jesus name. And everybody said amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. We trust you've enjoyed this message. Visit us at dufresneministries.org to learn of our upcoming meetings, share your testimony, become a partner or visit our online store. This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Dufresne Ministries.