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Joel Osteen (1:34)

Hi this is Joel in Victoria. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast and thanks for supporting the ministry. We believe you're going to have an awesome 2024 healthy, productive and favor filled. God bless you today and enjoy the message.

Victoria Osteen (1:48)

Well, God bless you and welcome. It's always great to come into your homes. We love you and we know God has great things in store for each one of you and if you're ever in our area, please stop by and be a part of one of our services. I promise you we'll make you feel right at home. But thanks so much for tuning in and again thanks for coming out today and I like to start with something funny each week and I heard about this man. He was on vacation in Jerusalem with his family. All of a sudden his mother in law died. He went to make arrangements to get her body back home and the consulate said it'd cost $5,000 to have her shipped and $150 to have her buried right there in Jerusalem. After deep thought, he told the consulate he wanted to have her body shipped. The consulate said, well, boy, you must have really loved your mother in law. He said, no, it's not so much that. I just remember a case here many years ago where they buried somebody and on the third day he arose and I can't take that chance. All right, now, I'm blessed to have a great mother in law. Beautiful, anointed. Hold up your Bible. Say it like you mean it. This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do. Today I will be taught the word of God. I boldly confess. My mind is alert. My heart is receptive. I will never be the same. In Jesus name. God bless you. I want to talk to you today about God's hedge of protection. We hear so much in the news about terrorist threats and violence in schools and how cities are becoming less and less safe. Just recently I saw a big report on gang violence and how it was spreading across the nation. I read an article that talked about how dangerous the freeways are and how many people are being hurt in accidents. If we're not careful, we'll go through life in fear instead of faith. But the scripture talks about how God has placed a hedge of protection around his children. It is a barrier that cannot be broken without God's permission. That's why in the book of Job, Satan had to ask permission to test Job. He wanted to, but he said, God, I can't touch him or his family, his property, his business, because you've got this hedge all around him. It'll help you to stay in faith. If you'll realize as long as you do like Job and do your best to honor God, then you too have a hedge of protection that cannot be penetrated without God's permission. It is not subject to a terrorist attack, to a drunk driver, to a crazy accident. It's subject to the most high God. You remember the rapper MC Hammer? He used to have a popular song that said, can't touch this. Can't touch this. Well, that's the way you are to the enemy. Can't touch you. Can't touch you. When you realize the Creator of the universe is watching over you, you won't go around worried, thinking, oh, it's so dangerous, I'm afraid to drive on the freeways. Crime is so bad. No, you'll Say, like David, I will fear no evil. I will fear no accident. I will fear no crime. I will fear no terrorist attack. I'm not worried about what someone can or cannot do to me. The Lord is my protector. The Lord is my shield, my strong tower, my defender, my fortress. Whom shall we be afraid? Psalm 121 in the message translation says, your guardian God is right at your side to protect you, shielding you from every evil. He guards you when you leave and guards you when you return. He guards you now, and he will guard you always. Friends, there's no reason to be afraid. There's no reason to go around worried, thinking about what might happen. Your guardian, God, is watching over you. Our son Jonathan is learning how to drive. He's 15 years old and just recently got his learner's permit. That means that he can drive as long as there's an adult in the car. I've been riding with him a lot lately, and I must say that my prayer life has increased greatly. Jonathan has helped me grow closer to the Lord. But it's easy to be worried and think, well, I wonder what's going to happen. Lot of crazy drivers. I hope he's okay out there. Now, when we dwell on fear and talk about what might happen, all we're doing is putting our faith in the fear instead of faith in Almighty God. And some of you are living way too worried. Worried about your children, worried about your safety, worried about accidents, worried about not getting sick. Listen, if it's not your time to go, you're not going to go. The enemy does not have the power to end your life. God has you in the palm of his hand. Nothing can snatch you out of God's hand. No accident, no drunk driver, no terrorist, no sickness, no bad break. God controls the whole universe. I know a police officer. He was responding to a call late one night for a break in at a home. When he got to the house, he ran around the back and a burglar was hiding in the bushes. This burglar was high on drugs, didn't know what he was doing. He stepped out and shot the officer, point blank range, right in the chest. They rushed the officer to the hospital, took him into surgery. The surgeon discovered that the bullet missed the main artery in his chest by less than 1 16th of an inch. He told the family afterwards, if he would have been a fraction over, that bullet would have ended his life. Come to find out, the bullet hit the man's badge and it caused it to ever so slightly change the course of the bullet. What Am I saying, as a child of the most high God, you have a hedge of protection that cannot even be penetrated by a bullet. You have a guardian, you have a defender. Quit worrying about your safety. Quit worrying about accidents. God said, no weapon formed against you will ever prosper. And I realize that we can get out from under God's protection if we're not living right, not honoring God, if, if we're doing things that are foolish, we can certainly bring trouble on ourselves. It's like this man I heard about. He was driving down the freeway going 90 miles an hour in a 60 mile an hour zone. His friend said, man, you need to slow down. This is dangerous. He said, oh, I'm not worried about it. I've got the angel of the Lord with me. His friend said, no, the angel of the Lord got out at 65. But of course we shouldn't do foolish things. We shouldn't not use our common sense. But one thing I love about God is, even when we do do dumb things, even when we don't use common sense, God is so merciful, so full of loving kindness, most of the time, he'll still protect us and keep us from harm. I read about a young man, 21 years old. He was raised in church. He knew the right thing to do. But he started partying, drinking, running with the wrong crowd. The whole time, his mother back at home was praying and praying. She would constantly call him and encourage him to get his life straightened out. But he just wouldn't do it. And one night, after he'd had way too much to drink, some of his friends dared him to climb up a power pole. He was crazy enough to do it. He climbed up that pole 40ft in the air, as drunk as can be. When he almost made it to the top, he lost his footing, slipped and fell. As he began to tumble down backwards toward a certain death, somehow his leather belt caught hold of one of the metal rods sticking out of the pole and it acted just like a harness. It saved his life. He was dangling up there in the middle of the night. The rescuers came and got him down. The newspaper headline said, pants save drunk man from fall. That was the mercy of God. Leaving that hedge of protection. Parents, all those prayers you've been praying for your children, it does make a difference. They may still be acting foolishly, doing crazy things. Maybe they don't even deserve God's protection. They don't deserve God's goodness. But let me tell you. But because of your prayers, because of your faith, because of your goodness, God will protect them and keep them from harm. Every day we should get in a habit of thanking God for his protection. I never leave the house without saying, father, thank you that you have a hedge of protection around me over my family, over our ministry, over our property. I learned this from my mother growing up. We never went to school without my mother saying, father, thank you that your angels have charge over my children. My mother prayed every day that not one of us five children would ever break a bone. Do you know we all grew up playing sports, Very active, but not one of us has ever broken a bone. My brother Paul's nose, it's naturally that big. Psalm 91. If you dwell in the secret place of the most high, you will abide under the shadow of the Almighty. What does that mean, the secret place? It means stay close to God. Honor him with your life. All through the day, under your breath, you should be whispering, God, I love you, I need you. I trust you. God, help me to make good decisions today. When you're close to God, you're in the secret place under the shadow of the Almighty. The next verse says, I will say of the Lord, you are my refuge, you are my fortress, you are my God. In you will I trust. Then it goes on to list all these great promises of protection. But what I want you to see is it's not enough to just dwell in the secret place. You need to do like the psalmist and start saying of the Lord, father, I want to thank you that you're my shield, you're my refuge, you're my fortress. Lord, thank you for this hedge of protection around me and my family. I have a friend that works in commercial construction. He's one of our faithful volunteers. I see him here all the time. He's dwelling in that secret place. His company builds these big high rises, and he's a foreman. One day he was on the job site, standing right next to this big crane that they used to lift the steel beams into place. He needed some equipment back at the office, and he was going to radio them and ask them to bring it. But when he went to use his radio, for some reason it wasn't working. And that was odd, because it had been working just 10 minutes earlier. In fact, it had worked perfectly all day long. And he finagled with the radio five or ten minutes. Finally, he just gave up, started walking back toward his truck. He was going to go to the office and pick up the equipment himself. When he got about 300 yards away, he heard a loud kaboom. Sounded like an explosion literally shook the ground. He looked back and that massive crane, right where he was standing, it toppled over. There was a big mass of steel cable, smoke, dust going up in the air. He would have certainly been killed. What caused his radio to not work? The angel of the Lord. That was the hedge of protection God had around him. God was saying, I'm not finished with your life. I've got something else for you to do. Well, you say, joel, if God's so good, why didn't he stop the crane from toppling over in the first place? No, God is not going to prevent every accident. But he did say, I'll be your refuge. I'll be your fortress. I'll keep my shield around you. Was talking to a lady last week and she was very upset because somebody ran into her car on the freeway and it ended up totaling her car. She was complaining, didn't understand why that happened. I said, listen, you're complaining about the car. I would be thanking God that I'm still alive. If it had not been for those angels, if it had not been for that hedge of protection, she might not even be here. Be grateful God's not going to prevent every accident. Think about the three Hebrew teenagers, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They got thrown into the fiery furnace. God didn't deliver them from the fire. He took them through the fire. Do you remember what the king said? Didn't we throw three men in here? Bound? I see four men loosed and one looks like the son of the living God. They came out without the smell of smoke. It wasn't their time to go. God's hedge of protection can withstand fire, cranes falling, automobile accidents, gunshots, even falling off of a power pole. No power can stand against our God. I was talking to Bishop Jakes the last time he was here, and he told how one Sunday morning, as he was about to get dressed to come to his church, there was a loud explosion at his house. In fact, the whole back end of his house was blown apart. In his basement there were some big heaters and they didn't have the proper ventilation. It created this massive explosion. Normally at that time of morning he would have been back there getting dressed. But it just so happened a few weeks earlier, he decided to move the start time of his Sunday morning service from 8:00 in the morning to 9:00 in the morning. If he had not moved it an hour later, he would have been in those rooms that were totally blown apart and he wouldn't even be here today. Friends, you have a protector. The Most High God is watching over you. You're not just going through life on your own, hoping that it all works out. No. The Creator of the universe has put this hedge all around you that cannot be penetrated without God's permission. That means as long as you're in the secret place, nothing can accidentally happen to you. Now, I'm not saying that you'll never have an accident, but I am saying that accident will not be a surprise to God. Well, you say, Joel, I don't see a lot of this divine protection. I've had a lot of bad things happen to me. No, you just don't know all the things that God has protected you from. You don't know. God may have spared your life from an accident driving over here today. You just didn't know about it. God may have held back the forces of darkness last week and kept you from being at the wrong place at the wrong time. You just couldn't see it. I'm going to choose to live my life in faith. I'm going to thank God for what I can see and thank God for what I can't see. I'm going to thank him for the times where it's obvious that he's protected me. And I'm going to thank him every day for what didn't happen. Father, thank you that a car didn't hit me on the freeway. Thank you that I didn't get sick last week. Thank you that I didn't get bad news today. When we have the right perspective, we can thank God for nothing. I was watching the news a while back and a man was on the side of the freeway changing a flat tire. This police officer pulled over to help him out. This was all caught on video from the dash camera of the police officer's car. At one point, the man stood up to come over to talk to the officer. And just as he did, you can see this huge tire came off of an 18 wheeler going by 60 miles an hour. It comes into frame and plows through right where he had been changing the tire. If he had not got up at that split second to talk to the officer, that tire would have flattened him out. There's a lot of things like that where we can look back and say, father, thank you for the tire that didn't hit me. Thank you for the wreck that I didn't have. Thank you that my child didn't get hurt in the football game. Thank you that my daughter came back safely from camp last week. The more you thank God for his protection. The more you brag on God's goodness, the stronger that hedge will become. And God has all kinds of ways to protect us. I have a friend. He was involved in a situation that was very big in the press. At one time, it was the hottest news story around. And practically every news organization, every reporter was trying to get to him, to get his point of view. And the press wasn't very favorable toward him. So he wanted to stay out of it. And for the first several months after the big incident, he had to travel back and forth between two cities somehow. The press would always get word of when he was going to be at the airports. All these cameras would be lined up. But he said, joel, it was the most amazing thing. I would walk right by those cameras and not one person would recognize me. For three months, the press never got a shot of him. A reporter even went to his house, knocked on the door. He answered. Even at his own house, the reporter did not recognize him. He said, it was like God made me invisible to the people that wanted to do me wrong. Friends, God has all kinds of ways to protect us. God can make blind eyes see. Plus God can make sense. Seeing eyes become blind. God can cause you to become invisible to the people that want to do you harm. I want you to have this sense of security. You don't have to go through life afraid. You've got a guardian, you've got a protector, you've got a defender. Right now, every one of you has an invisible shield around you. You can't see it with your natural eyes, but if you were to be able to look into that unseen realm, you would see these mighty angels all around. They stand like powerful warriors, constantly watching, making sure that no harm comes near you. That's why it says in Psalms, don't be afraid of the terror by night, nor from the dangers during the day. A thousand may fall at your side and 10,000 at your right hand, but it will not come near you. That means it may get bad all around. You Watch the news and you're going to see violence and burglaries and accidents and terrorist threats on and on. But God is saying, don't panic. Don't be afraid. As my child, I've got you covered. It may get bad, but my angels are at work. I've got my shield up. Nothing can happen without my permission. My promise is, as your guardian, God, I'll watch over you and keep you from harm. I remember when my father went to be with the lord. It's been 11 years now. And I stepped up to pastor the church. I had never been in the public eye before, always been behind the scenes. And at one point, there was a lot going on. First off, I didn't really know if I could do this. Then some other people were talking. It seemed like from every possible direction, there was opposition and negative things were happening during that time. One night, I had a dream. And in this dream, I was running through an open field. There were planes flying very low all around. And they began dropping bombs right there close to me. It's just like it's right out of a war movie. I mean, those bombs weren't 15 or 20ft away. And when they would go off, the noise was deafening. I would just brace myself and get ready for the shrapnel to hit me. I knew it was the end. But somehow, every time the bombs exploded, the shrapnel would miss me. I never felt anything. Even in my dream, I was amazed that I was still alive. Now I ended up running to this small house, hiding inside in a room so afraid. I could hear the soldiers and these people going by that were trying to get me. And I was praying and hoping that they wouldn't check that house. But then my worst nightmare came true. They came bursting in the room. I was standing right there. They had their guns drawn. I thought, oh, well, I'm dead. That's it. But much to my amazement, they looked at me and then just turned around and went back out. It was like I had been invisible to them. And at that point, I woke up from the dream, and I felt a peace like I'd never felt before. I heard God saying, down in here, Joel, things may be exploding all around you, but I've got you in the palm of my hand. He said, you keep your trust in me, and no weapon formed against you will prosper. And now every time things start to come against me, I just remind myself what I'm telling you, that I've got a hedge of protection that the enemy cannot cross. Instead of being afraid, instead of getting discouraged, instead of talking about who's trying to make me look bad, who's trying to harm me. No, my report is, I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge, my fortress, my strong tower, my deliverer. He is my God. You talk like that, and fear doesn't have a chance. Not only that, the scripture says the angels hearken to the voice of the Lord. That means when you go around speaking words of faith, when you go out saying, father, thank you that you're watching over me, thank you that you're taking care of my children. Father, thank you that you'll help me to get to work safely today. When you do that, the angels come to attention. They say among themselves, listen to what he's saying. Listen to what she's declaring. They're speaking words of faith. Let's get busy. Let's go to work. The angels hearken to God's word even coming out of our mouth. I know this minister. He was planning a big event overseas at a nation that was very unstable. This country had a lot of violence and a lot of uprising in the past. But the government leaders invited him to come and hold this massive outdoor crusade, where they were expecting several hundred thousand people. The local leaders had been working on this project for over a year. The big week finally came. They had everything ready, the platform in place, the sound, the lighting. Hundreds and hundreds of volunteers and technicians had worked tirelessly getting it all prepared. Not only that, his ministry had spent many thousands of dollars advertising and inviting people to come. But the night before the big event, it began to rain. And it rained and rained and rained the next morning, still raining cats and dogs. By noon of the next day, the field was totally underwater. It would be impossible to have the event. Much to their disappointment, they had to cancel it. The minister flew back home to the States, very discouraged, thinking it was a big waste of time, energy and money. But about two weeks later, when the grounds finally dried out, the crew was there taking down the equipment and cleaning the grounds. One of the workers noticed something interesting in the middle of the field. The ground was disturbed. He saw cables and wires and boxes. He called the authorities over. Come to find out, someone had buried a huge bomb in the middle of the field. They were planning on blowing it up during the event. The authorities said there was so much firepower, it would have wiped out the whole field, possibly killing hundreds of thousands. The headlines in that paper said, floods saved people's lives. The true headline should have read, God saved people's lives. Friends, we have this hedge of protection. God can cause rain to protect you. He can cause your cell phone to not work to move you from danger. God can make you invisible to people that want to harm you. God can even use your belt to catch you and break a dangerous fall. And things may be exploding all around you, like I saw in my dream. But my encouragement is, don't be afraid because you're in the secret place, because you're honoring God. He's got you in the palm of his hand. He's saying it's not going to harm you. Years ago, there was a fire in Yellowstone National Park. And after the fire, these forest rangers begin to go through the park to get an idea of the damage. At one point, this ranger saw a dead bird on the ground with its wings spread out wide, literally petrified in ashes. It looked very stately, very majestic, almost like the bird was posing for a picture. Out of curiosity, the ranger took his stick and he moved the bird. And much to his surprise, three baby chicks ran out from under the bird's wings. That mother bird, sensing danger, spread out her wings to protect her babies. She could have easily flown away. The mother could have risen above the fire or the smoke, but she refused to abandon her babies. That's the way our God is. No matter how hot the fire, no matter how big the trouble, no matter how hard the difficulty, God will never abandon us. Psalm 91:4 says, he will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge. I want you to go out today knowing that you have this hedge of protection. The most high God has commanded his angels to watch over you. You are covered underneath his wings right now. Now, when those thoughts of fear come, don't dwell on them. Don't go around saying, I'm so worried. I'm so afraid. No. Say with the psalmist David, I will fear no evil, for the Lord is with me. Friends, you've got a defender. Almighty God has got your back. Now get up every morning and activate your faith in this area. You do it by saying, father, thank you for your hedge of protection. Thank you that your angels are watching over my children. Lord, thank you that you're my guardian, God, protecting me from all evil. If you do that, God promises he will guard you when you come and guard you when you leave. He will protect you now, and he will protect you always. Now I declare, every one of you will fulfill your destiny in peace, in safety, in victory, in Jesus name. If you receive it, can you say Amen?