A (17:14)

Awesome.

B (17:18)

Now you know what God wants more. Now he wants 10 prayers answered, then he wants a hundred, and pretty quick you won't have anything to pray over your life. Because you prayed all that, you got all those answers, you're blessed. And now he's going to be able to say, well, pray for that one and pray for this, and I'll give you this assignment. Amen. So that word more means additional. But then it not only means that it doesn't much in more this Greek, it not only means additional. So if I had one of those little cuties. Is that what you call them? Those little mini orange things? You know, I like the big one anyway. Well, you have one of those and you produce 10 of those. Well, that's more. But there's another meaning. He wants that thing to get bigger. That's. That's implied. They're not just more of the same kind and quality and type, but bigger. So you go from that cutie piece of fruit to that big ripe Florida cow. I don't know, you guys grow oranges around here or not. Doesn't matter. Amen. You know what I mean? So more additionally and much more in size, in scope, and that's going to require progress. Amen. We're going to have to gain ground. You know, Jesus said, one of the laws of the kingdom revealed in Mark, chapter four is the law of progression. That's what I call it, the law of progression. He said, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear, then they put in the sickle, then you get a harvest. Now, we'd love to all go from seed, little seedlings to full corn in the ear, but there is a process to progress. I said there's a process to progress, and you might as well just get on board with the program. You're gonna have to go from a seed to a blade. And don't try to be the full corn in the ear. Just enjoy being the blade. You're not ready to get up and speak. You're not ready to take the microphone. You're not ready to lead an intercessory prayer group yet. Just come to church. Just come to church. Say amen. Bring your Bible, be on time. Polish your shoes, bring your tithe. Sign up for a helps ministry position. Be faithful. Well, I did that for a whole year. Well, aren't you sweet? A whole year. What did Brother Hagin say? God ain't got no instant pudding. Isn't that about how you said it? God ain't got no instant pudding. What's that mean? We like instant everything. We bring that mentality into the body of Christ. I'm born again. I've been in services, different cultures. Not trying to be critical, but I've been in different church cultures. And there's something to be loved in every, you know, way people do things. But in some of these cultures, you know, I've seen where someone gets up and, I mean, they were an intravenous drug user last week, and now they're born again. And they get up in the service, said, I want everyone to know I have accepted a call to ministry. And then they preach next Sunday. Oh, that's not right. That is out of order. You're barely a seed, man. First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. You know, it's just real easy. You read in your Bible and you don't realize by turning one page, you turn 25 years, 20 years, 30 years, 50 years in history. So in Acts, chapter nine, we see Saul being converted on the road to Damascus. You turn the page a few times, and he's an apostle. Do you know that's not how that went down. That is not how that went down. Everybody. Now, it says in Acts 9 that after he was filled with the Spirit, three days after his conversion, received his sign that he. He immediately began to preach. You know, that should be all of our testimony. You get born again, you ought to start preaching. Amen. Not in front of the masses. Amen. To preach simply means to publish, to proclaim, to tell it. You get born again. You should go tell somebody, whoa, look what Jesus done for me. And begin to preach that. And that's what Paul did. But if you read Galatians and you read Acts and you piece things together, Amen. Right after that Damascus experience, it says he spent three years in Arabia. You know what Arabia is? It's a desert. It's a wilderness. It's sand. Amen. He's not on tbn. His book isn't blowing up on Amazon. Then he came in for two weeks and met some of the apostles in Jerusalem. And then it says he went to Syria for 14 years. Years. Amen. What was he doing all that time? Making progress. Making progress. This is one reason why many do not make progress. Because the process of progress is private. And to make advancement in God, you have to be willing to do it day by day, day by day, day by day. With no spotlight, no metal. Know that a boy. They didn't see you pray. They didn't see you read your Bible. They didn't see. They weren't part of that conversation where the Holy Ghost came in with fire and said, I want this changed tomorrow. Like now. Never say that again. Get that attitude out of you. Right? Amen. But here's the thing about progress. Paul said to Timothy, he says to it here that your profiting, your progress might appear to all. Real progress is observable. Real progress is visible. Your pastor doesn't even really have to be very spiritual to see progress in people. The fruit of progress is public. It is evident. You don't dress like you used to dress. You don't talk like you used to talk. You don't carry yourself like you. You don't have the problems you used to have. Your attendance, your hunger, your faithfulness, all of that. You don't just. Huh, that's me. Insta push, insta Christian. How many of you know you got issues, right? I'm under no illusion. You have issues. I have issues. I'm with you. One thing I love about the Master in his, you know, he's. He practices what he preaches. He has faith in you and he will begin to give you opportunity and begin to use you in ways he didn't before. Almost on credit, But if you, if you want to get where God wants you to go, then you have to just embrace a kingdom law, a kingdom lifestyle that will never end in this life. The law of growth, the law of change, the law of tackling you and God. I love what was said from a place of righteousness. Because a lot of Christians don't enjoy their Christianity. They don't enjoy it because they're aware of their issues. And then God Almighty reveals that he's very aware of the issues that you have and he points them out to you and says, I want them changed. You could very easily get into a place of self accusation and condemnation. But that's never God. That's never God. All of God's strokes are upward. I have been spanked by the Father. But after I got done being spanked, I was at a higher place, not a lower place. God's got a way of rebuking us without turning us against ourselves. You need to just settle in and know he loves you and you're secure in him. Like pastor said last night, you're safe with him. But if you're going to live a life that's pleasing to him, you cannot stay the way you are. You cannot stay where you are. I've observed this as a pastor, that many lives never develop. They never develop, they never gain any ground. And I've seen this in ministers as well. And the reason that they're never developing, they're never gaining ground is because they're always starting over. They're always starting. You ever met these people? They're always starting a new job. The Bible says you should guard yourself against fellowshipping. This is a paraphrase of people who are given to change. They're constantly changing pastors, changing churches, changing spouses, changing jobs. That's not God. Get that in your head. That is not God. Now listen, I'm not bragging, but I started working when I was about 14 and a half. I have been working a job of some sort, of some kind since I was 14 and a half. And if you were to put my life on a resume format, all you would see was slow, steady progression from one little level to the next. I have never been fired. I always left one job for a better one. I left secular employment to take a job that took me closer to full time ministry. It's not all been fun and it's not been fast, but it has been progressive. And you're never going to get anywhere by shooting yourself in the foot all the time. Amen. So you're going to have to get settled and you're going to have to get steady and you're going right. And I tell you what, plate, there's just such value on the ability to just come to church. Come to church. Amen. And be sweet and open your Bible and say Amen and put your tithe in and serve and just do it over and over and over and over again. We got precious people in our congregation. I love them. But they're in for three months and they're out for six and they're in there right? And they're always having the same old trouble. Amen. Praise God. I wrote this down. Future entry requires present day faithfulness. God's got more for you. God's got more for me. Amen. But it's Going to require faithfulness in present day or you'll never get there. I said, you'll never get there. Hallelujah. Let me say this before time runs out on me. Jesus went through this whole thing himself. He was born. He was born a human being. He's the Son of God. All that time. Amen. But the Bible says even Jesus, he grew. He grew in wisdom, he grew in stature. He grew. He spent 30 years preparing for a three and a half year ministry going back to Paul. You read his bio before he was mentioned as a prophet and a teacher, before you get to Acts 13:1 and 2. There was 17 years on the backside of nowhere. And during that time, it's hinted at in the book of Galatians, chapter one. He said, the gospel that I teach man did not teach me, that I didn't get this revelation from man. He said, I got it by direct revelation from the Lord. Direct revelation from the Lord. Well, how did that happen? Right by private times, desert times, nobody knows me times. I don't have an itinerary. I don't have a massive website. I don't have a bunch of phone calls. Private times of seeking God, waiting on God. Amen. We have the book of Revelation because John took time to be in the Spirit. We would not have the Book of Revelation had he not taken time. He was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. There's a lot of ways I could go with this, but I want to mention some of this. There is an element, a huge element to making progress. That is what we've been hearing all week. And that is there is no real progress in the plan of God to be had apart from hearing. Apart from hearing. And one of the things that I am so thankful for is the people God has put in my life who are out ahead of me. You know, Amber and I were talking about this on the way out here. You know, I've been connected with the Defrain family for 20, 25, 22 years. And so, I mean, there was largeness of ministry then to some degree, but not like it is now. Right. You know, I've heard the testimonies of the airplane engine being out. What are we going to do? And got to have 500,000 and the daily faith it took to just believe God for all of that. Amen. And I don't know, I'm just telling you, we have an example. If you're paying attention, there's progress. I don't want what she has. I want what God has for me. Right? But I have we all have in her, her example. How did she make the progress that she has made? I bet she could get up here and talk about private, private, private, private, private, private, private, private. Doing the right thing when your flesh didn't want to. Getting up and praying when you, when your flesh wanted to stay in bed. Dealing with attitudes and mentalities, right? Amen. Just that personal, intimate, divine cooperation between God's daughter and her father, working it out, Jesus and the Holy Ghost, and just, you know, stumbling and falling and getting up, repenting and going again and never quitting. But you make progress. Are you with me? Amen. And one of the things that I see and hear constantly out of this ministry from her is turning, taking time, praying in the spirit. Our destinations are somewhat different, right? The paths are different, but the processes to get to the height of what God has for us, those are all the same. Those are all the same. It's just a matter of when we leave this place and we get in real clothes, right? We are our real selves. How do we spend the day? What do we do? You know, are we. Are we hearing from God? You know, some of those. There have been landmark, landmark moments, you know, for instance, I was sitting here last night thinking about, you know, my journey in building our building. And do you guys know that for years it looked like I was the biggest failure in Paducah? Literally, people would see me in town and go, oh, you're that guy. You know, we bought, we traded a very modest, formerly Trevathan's grocery store, Paducah converted into a church. We're thankful for that, bill. It was paid off. And we traded that for a piece of dirt in West Paducah with no utilities, no loan, no blueprints, and this very faithful, sweethearted congregation that will say, I'll go with you. And we bought this dirt at God's direction. Great piece of property where we're at today. And I said, I wished I hadn't of done it. I wished I hadn't asked him. I said, lord, you told me to build a building. I've got land, but I don't want to spend the next 10 years paying this thing off. What do I do? How do I make progress? How do I move forward? And he spoke right back to me and he said, sell your building. And I go, oh, man, sell my building? You don't buy a house till you sell a house. You know what I mean? You don't, you don't quit a job till you got an offer on a better job. Sell my building. He said, that's what you do. Sell your building. So I did. I did. Well, I got to move out. Easter Sunday 2006. I've got dirt and no building. We moved two blocks to the north, right up next to Red's Donuts. I mean, and that was the best. Hey, if you need a reason to come to the Paducah Miracle Crusade, it's not the best reason, but it's a good one. Red's Donuts telling you, you heard it here. And we moved into a 1940s, a frame shotgun style assembly of God church that they just moved out of. Blue Plexiglas windows, blue shag carpet. We had one potty upstairs. It was at the back of the sanctuary. And the way the door didn't open properly. So I'm preaching along. And if you open the door just right, I can just wave with you. You could say, you wave your whatever back there and you're with me. I am not lying. Musty Sunday school basement. We were there for a year and a half. I did not invite Dr. Dufresne. I was too embarrassed. Too embarrassed. It was seven years to the month before we moved into that building. Very gravel parking lot. Not a stitch of carpet anywhere except on the platform. Concrete everywhere. Our story is a story of grit. And stay with it. And I don't care what they call me in this city. I don't care what it looks like. And. And I did this number. I did this to God over and over and over again. Now, Father, you got. You got to help me because I have risked everything. I have put it all out there. I have risked my reputation. I have risked my congregation. I have risked my financial security for you, for your kingdom. And I just kept doing that. And doing like that was going to win me some points with him. And finally he stopped. He broke in on me and he said, son, there is absolutely zero risk in what you're doing. And that was a head scratcher. Maybe there's zero risk in what happened. Zero risk. I don't. I don't. Zero risk in what you're doing. I don't know about all that. You've got a perspective I don't have. And he said, that's right. He said, there is zero risk in what you're doing because there is zero risk in doing what I say. Doing what I say. He was basically saying he was ministering to me, but he's also telling me to get over yourself. Listen. There is zero risk to standing on by his stripes. You were healed. There is zero Risk to give and it shall be given back unto you. There is zero risk. But the rub is. The rub is, did you really hear? I preached a sermon one time. Now we had moved into a better building closer to town, but it was another church's building. So they said, listen, we're just subleased to you. You pay us a little bit of money, I'll give you an office. It's really nice. But we do Sunday and Wednesday, so I don't know what you're going to do. Well, we ended up doing Saturday night and Tuesday night and we did that for four and a half years or more. And I just saw the slow erosion of my congregation. I think we left Paducah, Jackson street at about, I don't know, that easter Sunday, about 126 people. And my lowest Sunday during that seven year period was 67. And it looked like everything I had done was working in reverse. And he says there's zero risk in what you're doing. And I was just, I'm almost done. I was, I was stuck. You know, Brother Hagin said, you know, your ministry, high centers, you know, you can, you can just, you know, you know what a vehicle, high centers, the wheels are spinning, but you're not going anywhere. There's no contact with the pavement. And that's where I was. And let's just close right here in Zachariah. We'll just close right here in Zachariah. Now I'm trying Zachariah. Now I feel like just don't check out me because for all of us, but especially ministers, there's something here for us. This is a very familiar passage. But you know, you've heard about Zerubbabel and this whole thing. And God had instructed them to build and to rebuild the temple and they had started and they got so far as they got the foundation laid, you know, just like me, we had our plumbing stub out done and we laid. We had enough money to eventually pour the foundation. And it was a bare foundation for a year and a half and it just looked abandoned. Tumbleweeds everywhere, you know, and they go, hear that guy? I thought that was abandoned. No, it's not abandoned. But I just tell you I was stuck, stuck, stuck. Amen. And you're going to come to a place if you're going to make progress, it's not just about hard work and it's not just about networking and it's not just about natural wisdom. If you're really going to make progress in the plan of God, you're going to have to learn this principle right here that we're ending with. And I just done everything. Banks were laughing at me. My staff was absolutely fit to be tied every time I told them about a new bank because they've got to go through all this rigmarole and provide all this paperwork and start all over. And we've done it about 90 times, and all we've gotten is a blankety blank note. And I just got to where I felt like I had done everything I could do. And I'm just stuck. It's up to God now. And one night I was in the sanctuary. I'd gone up late one night and I was praying. He dealt with me. And he said, now, son, you think you're just waiting on me because in the natural, you've done everything you can do. But he said, there's the most important thing that you can do you're not doing. And he said this to me, and I've said this here before, I believe, but I'm going to say it again. It just revolutionized my whole thinking. He said, son, for anything to get done down there, you know where I am here in this earth. He said, somebody down there has got to be in the spirit. Because I missed something. Let me quote it accurate. He said, for anything down here, down there to be done by the Spirit, someone must be in the spirit by the Spirit. Doesn't just happen without any human cooperation. And he said, you are not taking any time to get in the spirit. He said, Zechariah 4, 6. What does it say? He said, not by might. This was a prophetic word to a leader and to a group of God's covenant people who were trying to make progress and got stuck and they couldn't go any further. And so the prophet moved. God moves upon the prophet. And he said, listen, it's not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. He said, son, if this thing is going to get done, it's not going to get done by might. I said, I know that. I learned that. I have that. I agree with you. It's not going to be done by earthly power. I said, I know it. I am in. I got that too. He said, but the then what is there left by my spirit? And so I took that. And so I just began to give myself to praying in other tongues longer seasons and times of prayer, holding this assignment before God. And that was the thing that broke everything loose. Things began to pop, things began to happen leading us to where we are today. There are going to be times in all of our lives, but ministers where you just get stuck and it's like your car's on high center. I believe I had this right. Brother Hagin says when your ministry hits high center and you're just stuck, he said, the only thing that will fix that is praying in the Spirit. It's not going to a church growth seminar to employ some new strategy that's going to get you where you have in your heart to go. It's giving yourself to praying in the spirit. In Pastor Nancy's book, one of the words edify means to make progress. I think something along that line, yes, he that speaketh in an unknown tongue makes progress. And I would not be. Now I'm not where I'm. I'm not where I'm going to be, but I'm not where it was. And the progress I obtained, I cannot tell you. Just to echo what has been said already, the key has been hearing. And it was in times of praying in the Spirit that I heard that it's propelled me forward and that's going to keep on propelling me forward. And God said to me at the hotel, he said, there are people in the room who are behind. He said, there are people in the room who are in danger of being left behind. And he said, and there are a few others who have already been left behind. God's plan is going to advance. God's going to have his way. And if you want to be a part of it, you got to make progress. But I believe God can catch you up. You just got to eat some angel food. Amen. Pastor, thank you for the honor.

A (48:26)

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