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Hey, good people, this is Torre Roberts. Blessings to you and welcome to the ONE Podcast. I'm excited that you're here. ONE is a community of dynamic and vibrant thought leaders, preachers, teachers, and just a community of wonderful people all together. And we're excited to bring you this weekly podcast from our Services from ONE in la. If you haven't been the One, I encourage you to check it out. You can go to One the Word one O N E online and find out all about the service times and all about the teachers and all the philanthropic things that we have going. I believe you're going to be blessed to be a part of it. And speaking of being blessed, we're getting ready to get into a teaching right now that I believe is going to bless you. So tune in, enjoy, and I'll be back with you at the end.
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Ezekiel 37, verse 1. The hand of the Lord came upon me. This is the prophet talking. There's also the prophet talking. The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley. And it was full of bones. Where are the bones in your life? Some of you are standing amongst them. They are scattered around your feet. You are very aware of the things that have died. Loved ones you hoped would be healed in their earthly bodies, who received their healing on the other side instead. Jobs lost, plans changed, relationships destroyed. This isn't metaphorical. The things were actually lost. See, we've been preaching about victory for two months, and God has given us mighty words about moving with a word when we don't have a weapon and how to fight through the valley of Here we go again. That keeps being carved into our lives. The valley that makes us believe that we will never get the victory. He taught us to sing on our way into that valley. Sing in the valley. Sing after we get out of the valley. He taught us to have joy in the victory, and that provision was attached to the victory. But this is a different kind of victory today because in all of those battles, the fight was still on. But this prophet is shown by the Lord, an open valley, and it's filled with bones. In other words, they lost. Some of us have had some battles that we lost something. Yeah. And we don't. We don't preach about that enough. We just go on and hope the next one's going to be a victory. We write a story about why it went that way. But we're going to go and deal with our bones today. Verse 2. Then he caused me to pass by them all around. And behold, there were very many, many in an open valley. And indeed they were very dry. This thing been dead long enough for the skin to rot off the flesh to rot off the bones. It's just bones left, and the bones are very dry. And he said to me, son of man, can these bones live? And the prophet answered and said, oh, Lord God, you know that'll preach right there. Because the prophet didn't know it looked very dead. Yet he had the wisdom to not tell God the answer. You don't look at the answer and give the answer. The answer. Watch yourself. He is God. He is, I am that I am. He's the answer to all things. So you don't give the answer to the answer, especially when you don't know if you really actually know the answer. And so he said, oh, Lord, you know, God knows there's so many things he knows. He knows what you're scared of. He knows how you feel. He knows what you're grieving. He knows what you're up against. He knows what you lost. He knows what died in your life. And he knows what that changed inside of you. Oh, Lord, you know, you know that. Go down to verse 11. Then he said to me, son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. This is a corporate message. Everybody's bone might come from a different place, but everybody got some dry bones. They indeed say, our bones are dry. Our hope is lost. That's the real death. Our hope is lost. And we ourselves are cut off. Too often we actually believe that the part of our life where the battle was lost, where something died, must now be mean. That that part of us is cut off. For those of us who've been walking with Jesus for a minute, our lives are such that where else am I going? You know, when I was growing up in churches, talk about backslide and don't backslide. And like in my early years of commitment to Jesus, that was a little bit of a danger. But now it's just like where I'm going after all these years. All my friends follow Jesus. My schedule is built around Jesus. I write books about Jesus. I preach. Where am I going? Backslide. Where? And so maybe you're not like that because of the length of time you've been walking with the lord. I'm from 19 years old to this moment of 52 years old. Maybe you haven't been walking with them that long, but you walked with them deep enough to know you ain't got nowhere to go. You Know it'll be worse without them, but yet you got these dry bone piles and you don't know what to do with those losses, those failures, those disappearances, those unanswered prayers, the desires that didn't get got. And so you cut off that part of your story, put it in that junk closet where you push everything and then lock the door. And if everybody like, what's this? Don't open that because the skeleton bones will fall out. Not the secret skeletons, the failure skeletons, the dead parts of your walk with God. You put it in there and then you write a story about why it didn't work out so that you can stay with God. Oh, I hear some folks that been there with me. And that story doesn't even have to be congruent with his character. Most of the time it's not. It's just written to help me manage my own pain around the thing. The 17th breakup rejection is protection. That's your story. Oh, we tell some stories. Oh, I'll get there. I'll get there. And so we feel cut off. Our hope is lost. Verse 12, he tells the prophet, therefore prophesy and say to them, and this is me prophesying to you as God told me to do today. Thus says the Lord God. Behold, O my people, this is God talking right to you. Today I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you into the land of Israel. In other words, bring you into what I promised. I'm talking to you through the spirit of God. I will open up your grave and bring you out those dry bones is not the end of the story. Story. The last word belongs to God. In verse 14. I will put my spirit in you. And you shall what you will what declare it you will what you shall live. I speak it to every person in this room. I speak it to every person under the sound of my voice. I speak it in the spirit to those who cannot hear me. Every dead bone lying in the valley of this city, of this state of world. That trauma destroyed you and church pain destroyed you and abuse destroyed you. And you prayed for something you needed and it didn't come through. And you came to believe that this thing with God doesn't work. I declare it to every soul that said they'll never walk in another church door. I call this room packed with people who said they would never walk into another church door. If a trauma therapist gonna be a pastor, I call every trauma survivor who ran from God for their pain to walk in door. Live, live in the name of Jesus, the testimonies. Oh, that we're going to get service, support and connect team telling us how many people stopped them at the door. I said I would never go inside another church, but I had to come here today. I felt like I had to come here today because they were dead bones in the valley. Live. I will put my spirit in you and you will live. Say, I shall live. I will place you in your own land. Oh, my God. Your own land, literal land, vocational land, financial land, relationship land, family land. What belongs to you, nothing can take. What belongs to you, nothing can destroy. What God has called to you shall live in your own land. Oh, there are things that you have let go of and called dead. You pronounce them dead in an effort to not worry anymore, in an effort to show God you believed in him. I'm just going to let this go. God, if it wasn't your will for me, it's dead. I just didn't understand. He let it go. But a piece of you tried to die with that. But you shall live. And I will place you in your own land. And then you shall know not just when you won the victory in the valley, that you got a chance to be a part of fighting, but this valley of dry, dead bones. Only God can do this. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, says the Lord. Father, we receive the prophetic declaration that you have ordained for this day, this last Sunday, this last word for the 20, 25 Sundays. This is it. Thank you. That the last word is that you always have the last word. Thank you. That your word cannot return void. That when you speak resurrection, it happens. When you call us to live, it happens. Put us back together. Let us be a resurrection testimony in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. I'm gonna keep right on rolling. I'm gonna keep right on rolling. God didn't send me to teach you a lesson today. He sent me to prophetically declare something over you. Today you are gonna have to grip it for yourself. And it may be in a place. It will be in a place where it's hard because that thing feels so dead. You may not feel like doing it, but just start whispering after me, I shall live. I shall live. I shall live. Until you start feeling that resurrection power moving through you. Because many of us at some point in our life will have a valley of dry bones. And I love this prophetic declaration because in the Bible, we will not have the experiences that 95% of the Bible stories are about. We don't live in that time. We don't live in that place. I don't expect at least Satan to come and try and convince me to turn some stones into bread. I think that is unlikely, that I'll spend 40 days fasting in the desert. I ain't gonna say, never say never to God, because Lord knows he loved to come and walk with me. But we go into Scripture looking to understand who God is and what he wants us to learn. And what I love about Scripture is that every generation, there seems to be a new dimension of revelation unlocked because the Word is living. It's like a tree. It's always giving a new batch of fruit every year. And so for those who have taught us that that revelation and knowledge is dead, it has ceased. It's not true. I'm so sorry, but it's not true. Because God has an answer, a response, a move for every generation. When a tree reaches its full height, it will stop growing taller. But when it starts grow. Stops growing taller, it starts getting thicker. And that's how the word moves from generation to generation. It just gets thicker, thicker. Last generation didn't have the revelation about mental health and biology that God has given me. But it wasn't as necessary. That wasn't the church's question. And so every generation has different questions, and God always has an answer. It gets thicker and thicker and thicker. And so this declaration, though, today, is not about extrapolating from things in scripture that happened then that are unlikely to happen now, because this is not an actual literal valley of dry Bo. Ezekiel is given a vision to show that these dry bones represent the state of the people of God. And after a very long year, and the one before and the one before. And for some of us, stuff been off since 2020. Yeah. You're like, yes, Lord, we're allowed to be honest. God meets us there. And y' all know I'm a fan of the honesty. And it can feel like. And it feels like there's place in my life where it's like these bones. What is going on? And how do I explain this? It's very specifically important that it's bones, because bones represent the human spirit. Yeah. You're like, really? Here she go. Here I go. We can look in Scripture and see bones aligned with spirit. Let me show you where it says that. Ecclesiastes 11, verse 5. It says, as you do not know what is the way of the Spirit or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child. So you do not know the works of God, who makes everything. That is scripture. Aligning spirit with bones. Let's go to Proverbs 17, verse 22. A merry heart does good like medicine. This scripture was written way before biology, neuroscientists, behavioral psychologists found out that laughter actually does bring healing chemicals into the body. It was on this page. A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken what dries the bones. There's something about bones that teaches us about the human spirit. Our bones give us structure, how we stand up, our strength and our capacity to move, to run, to leap. We get that first from the strength of our bones. As we age, we know we have to do, well, y' all may not be as old as me, but we have to do more work to make sure that our bones don't weaken. Because if nothing else works, the bones gotta work. I should still be able to get up off the floor. I should still be able to take a run and walk across the room. My bones keep me strong, structured. Isaiah 58:11 says that the Lord will guide you continually. And in the King James, it says, and make fat your bones. I love that. My bones have been getting really fat, actually, these last couple weeks. Glory to God. In other versions, it says that he will strengthen your bones. He will strengthen your frame. That's about spirit. And so when we see a valley full of very, very dry bones, something spiritual has died. It is possible for you to be moving around with your bones rotting. And after a while, in that area of your life, the bones get very dry. The opposite should be true. 2nd Kings 13. Nothing should be able to take away the vitality of our spirit. In Second Kings, chapter 13, there's the story ending of the story of the prophet Elisha. Some of you know there was another prophet named Elijah. It's always hard to mix them. People mix them up. Elijah, Elisha. I do it in alphabetical order. J comes before S. That's how I remember. Elijah was this prophet that Elisha looked up to. And he said, when you go to the Lord, I want a double portion of your anointing. And he followed him closely to get it. And he said, if you see me, when God takes me and you catch my mantle, you'll get that double portion. And so Elisha followed him closely, and he did receive that double portion. And now this is him at the end of a very powerful life. In verse 20, it says, Then Elisha died, and they buried him. And the raiding bands from Moab invaded the land in the spring of that year. So it was that as they were burying a man that suddenly they spied a band of raiders or robbers and they put the man in the tomb of Elisha. And when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet. The prophet was dead long enough for the flesh to be rotted off. Everything gone, nothing but a pile of bones. But just like Jeremiah said, the fire was so shut up in his bones that when a dead man accidentally touched him. Because they didn't go there in faith, like, oh, we're going to put this dead man on Elisha and see. No, they saw some robbers. They're like, oh, Lord. And they just threw a body into a grave and the body just happened to hit the right bones and they were actually resurrected. I want that kind of fire in my bones that there is no way for it to not be there. That even after his death. Oh, and can I tell you a little extra something about that? The number of miracles that are attributed to Elijah. When Elisha died, he was one miracle short of double the number. Remember I said he asked for a double portion. And so he was one miracle short of his death of doing double the miracles of Elijah. But after he was dead and his body had rotted, God continued to fulfill his promise and he resurrected a man from the dead with his bones. Don't you tell me his promises will not come to pass. Don't you you tell me that his word will ever return void. Do not you listen. Go down with your boots on in any situation. I don't care how dead it looks. I thought you said God was going to do X. He is. Even when it's so far gone. They looking at you like you need to be committed. He is God. Bones had resurrection power in them. That's how deep we want our God with us. So often we're trying to figure out how to get mess out of us, baby, get something in you. Lay on your face and pray in the spirit. I still believe that the Holy Ghost fills us and anoints us with power. And one of the manifestations of that is that we receive a prayer language that we can go to God with that we don't understand and you don't understand. But God understands if you. You have that prayer language, do not abandon it. If you want it, ask God for it. And you should want it. But we don't talk about it enough and we don't pray in tongues, on microphones like we used to because we don't want to run away. People who think we're weird. I don't care how many skits they make about it and how we can all laugh at it. Baby, don't you lose track of the power of the Holy Ghost. Because that's when we are moving beyond what we can do. Pray in the spirit. Pray in the spirit. And if you have not received that particular manifestation, that is not the only manifestation of the Holy Ghost. There is other powerful ways that he manifests in our lives in healing and prophecies and words of wisdom and knowledge. But the power prayer language is one of them. Other tongues is one of them. And so ask God. Amen. And so we have Elisha who raised somebody from the dead. But those bones are so important that they're not meant to be broken. When the Israelites would come and sacrifice a lamb for their sins, what was important was they did not break its bones that maintenance of it. Why? Because in the bones is the DNA. From the bones come the blood. And so the same way that Jesus extended from the Father. See, we struggle to understand this triune God that we serve. 1 and 3 and 3 and 1. And we don't understand it. But God has built so much in nature and in our biology to help us understand this force that we worship. Jesus extended from the Father. Just like blood is made in the bone. There's you with me. The blood is made in the bone. And in that blood are white blood cells which go out and heal things. That's like the Holy Spirit. One, two. Oh, you're fearfully and wonderfully made. The message of the King is in your body. Treat this body well. We made this whole thing about us being the temple of God, just about us not doing wrong stuff and that matters. But it's so much more. More than that. We are made in his reflection in Genesis, where it says we're made in his image and in his likeness. That word likeness is actually an architectural word. It's used later in scripture to describe a model of the temple that's small, that is used to build the big one. Yeah, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Our triune God is reflected in so many places. The respiratory system, Father. The circulatory system, the blood, Jesus, the nervous system, the Holy Spirit, Spirit. Three separate systems, but they're all interconnected. And if one of them stops working, the whole thing goes down. He's built so many messages in our biology. And so the bones though DNA is there. That's why we cannot have the bone broken, because that is the truth. It is your depth, it is your identity that is the spirit space of humanity. This morning I preached. I declared. I said that no seed would be lost in my bloodline. I talked about the fact that the way that I preach, sometimes I let out a holler and I can hear my own mother's voice. Like I want to be like, is she here? And I told them that when my daughter lets out a holler, how, my son said, she sounds like me. And she walked right into this service and went to jazz. And I said, look at that. My bones can't be broken. Because if I allow my bones to be broken spiritually, if I release my identity from God, the faith that I have in him, who he made me, who he called me to be, if I allow my bone to be broken, then their bones will be broken. Are you crazy? You cannot allow what God has made you and who he's made you to be broken. No matter the circumstance, maintain what you know that you know that you know that you know that you know that you know that you know that you know that you know that you know that you know about God. That's why the prophet said, oh, God, you know, don't let the devil get anything from you that you know. Jesus, John, chapter 19, verse 31. This is Jesus hanging on the cross, and he's dead. He did actually die. You know what that looked like to his followers? I know that they scattered, but they were watching. They were listening. Only John was still there, next to his mother Mary, next to Jesus, Mother Mary. But the other disciples had scattered. But I can guarantee you they was listening. They were watching, they were hearing. Because I would imagine if it were me and I knew that this was going on, I would be watching, waiting every step of his suffering for the lightning bolt to come, for the angels to come rescue him, for the Romans to be wiped out. You've been waiting. I know it's coming. I know it's coming. And then he said, that's how we have gone with our valley of dry bones. We watched that situation and we came up with another explanation for how. Okay, but God can still do this. Okay, but God can still do this. Oh, maybe he can still do this. And then it was dead. Jesus was dead. Verse 31, it says, Therefore, because it was Preparation Day, that the body should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath. This was a tradition. We will viciously crucify you, but we don't want you hanging there on a Sunday morning, okay? Anyway. That the body should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath. For that Sabbath was a high day. So The Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. They would break the legs of people who were crucified so they would die faster because instinctively the body would use their legs to push up. Because crucifixion is actually a suffocation death. When your arms are stretched like this and your body weight is hanging, you can't breathe. And so they would push up with their legs, instinctively trying to get a breath. But if their legs were broken, they could not do that, so they would die instantly. And so he came and they said, break his legs. And so Jesus, who was crucified between two thieves, they came and they broke one of their legs and the first one of them. I'm in verse 32. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Can I tell you? It was a miracle that he was dead. Y' all gonna get that in a second. It was a miracle that he was dead. God allowed him to die because it wasn't going to be on them to actually kill him. In the end, Jesus could have hung there for days. It typically would take people three to seven days to die on the cross. But because it was the Sabbath, they wanted to hurry it up. Six hours was not long enough to die by crucifixion. But Jesus died because they didn't get to break his legs. It was God's movement that he died as fast as he did. And we think the death was a loss. He had to die then. See, he was in the hands of the Romans and it was up to them. They were there torturing him and whipping him and nailing him and pressing a crown of thorns into his head. And we can get to feeling like our enemy has the upper hand. And it's on them how long it takes for me to get out of this mess. But God said no. And Jesus was honest. He had a moment on the cross. He said, why have you forsaken me? And then he also said, into your hands I commit my spirit. Not his soul, his spirit. We want to be the people of God, who, even when it all looks dark, we can say how we feel and tell the truth of what we see. And also know that God is still God. I feel like you've forsaken me. And also I commit myself to you. Wow, that's some grown up stuff right there. But we press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling. Let me get back in this scripture, verse 34. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and immediately blood and water came out. That's a fulfillment of prophecy. First John 5 says, he came not by water only, but by water and blood. And he who has seen has testified. And his testimony is true. And he knows that he is telling the truth. So that you may believe, for these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, not one of his bones shall be broken. It was prophesied over the coming king, the coming Messiah, that because he is the Lamb of God, the same way they didn't break the bones of the lands they sacrificed, his bone would not be broken. No truth would fail. And so bones matter. So here we are back in this valley of dry bones. They are dry, but they are not broken. I want you to look for your dry bones and make sure that they are not broken. You may have some dry relationship bones. Maybe you prayed and the marriage actually didn't make happens. Maybe you were dating someone and you hoped that y' all would get married and it didn't work out again. Maybe you're in a family, you're trying to build a family and you're struggling with infertility and miscarriages. Those are actual losses, non reversible sense. In a sense, those are the ones that are hard. And then we start to tell the stories. And I think we tell the worst stories around relationships. I think we really do. We tell the worst stories around relationships. We say that if this person is desiring to be married and God hasn't provided this person yet, it's because God is holding them for something. What in the hostage situation is this he is holding, if that's what's really happening, five years and 10 years. And rejection is protection. Ten years in a row. How much? How much protection do I need, God? But we tell ourselves stories so that we don't have to face the bones. We can make up a story on why it can still go, I'm sorry, and I don't feel like we do this anywhere else in the body of Christ. Like we do it when it comes to relationships. We will say to other people, to people who are single and would like to be married, and not every single person wants to be married, but to those who do, we will say to them, God has the one for you. He's got perfect timing. He's just waiting for you to be healed. Anybody heard that story from my sisters? One more Esther story, one more Ruth story, and you might slap somebody. How, Ruthie, can I get. Where is this man? How much perfume can I bathe in? My God. We have this natural need to be in relationship. We were created for relationship. And so it's the only place where these lies against God flourish like this, in the body of Christ. How many people who've been following Jesus for a year or more, since you get. How many people are here that have been following Jesus? I'm going to give you a year or more, okay? No pain. If you're following less. I'm just saying they have a little more experience. Just a little. And in the time you've been following Jesus, how many of you have had a cold, surgery, sprained an ankle, got a bruise? Anything has happened. Okay, when that happened, did you say. Well, I know the Bible says healing is the children's bread, but God must not have health for me. I got sick, so he must not have health for me. Nobody. Because we don't do that. We understand that we live in a fallen world with messy things and some things don't work out, and that it actually isn't that it is God, it's that we live in these fallen bodies, but when it comes to relationship, we blame God. Y' all are catching it now. The enemy intentionally does this to wedge you or put a wedge in your relationship with God in that space. Because if you believe that God would hold hostage something that you deeply desire to get you ready in some way that you have no blueprint for, no information about. And now you hoped that you would have children, and maybe you don't have children because you wanted to get married. And now you're 35 and you're 40, and you're 45 and you're 50, and those egg things are real, so there can be losses. Maybe you were believing God to heal someone that you loved who was ill and they died and they came along with the well, God needed another choir member, basketball player in heaven. No, he doesn't. We make up these stories to try and make some loss worth it. And it's a lie. It's just a loss, and it hurts, and it's awful, and it's painful. Don't make up a story that will make you have to serve a God that doesn't exist because of the character you attributed to him so that you didn't have to stand in the valley of dry bones when your identity bones die. It could be that I thought I would be this, and now I'm that. I thought I would spend my career in Academia, not preaching. All my life, I knew I would preach, but I thought I would primarily be over there. And when God told me to leave my job in 2019, well, he told me in 2018. Took me till 2019 to do it. Gratefully, he didn't kill me in the process, but it felt like I had to let my dreams in that area be dead. And I accepted that. I said, well, God, I will give you whatever you want for my life. And so I grieved it. And that became a dry bone valley for me. Whatever identity you may have, the person you were before the trauma, how do you ever get back to them? Before the sex abuse, before the anxiety attack, before the relational loss, how do you get back to who you thought you were when that has changed, something has died. Maybe your faith has changed because of those deaths. You struggle to believe God for certain things. But because like I said before, we ain't got nowhere to go. We shrink our relationship with God. We don't talk about that particular topic. We don't pray about that particular thing because we just let it be dead. We live our life in another space. But there's a valley over there behind my shoulder in the back full of dead bones. I don't read that scripture like I used to. When the preacher uses that verse, I just kind of zone out because that one's just not for me. Because if I actually had this conversation with God, it might be an argument. So you just shut down. Maybe your emotional life is dry bones. You haven't had joy in years. Pastor Ed preached about joy and a victory. You would love to have that, but you don't remember the last time you felt joy. And you're scared to hope for it because you're scared if it comes, it won't stay, because it always seems to leave. And so that hopelessness is there, and you feel like I'm just cut off. Whether it's your job, whatever it is, I am here to tell you today that God told me to prophetically declare that he is calling your dry bones to live. He is calling your dry bones to live. If you're saying, but how, that's the point. If you're saying, but what do I do? That's the point. A message can seem almost confusing when it's preached. If I don't give you three things for you to do. But this is a situation where you can't do anything except choose to identify honestly where your dry bones are and be obedient to the word of God and say, I receive what the prophet is telling me my dry bones will live. I command these dry bones to live right now in the name of Jesus, as a prophet of this house, I'm speaking it over you. Dry bones be resurrected. Dry bones come together. Dry bones live. In the name of Jesus. Dry bones live. I speak it over me. Dry bones live. The word of God is powerful and it's true. Let's go back to that scene in Ezekiel so we can see how he called it. Because I want you to continue to prophesy this over your life and ask God to show you what valley you need to be applying this word to. Because you may have your eye on one thing, because something else is so dead, it's so very dry, it didn't even come to your mind today. That's how gone it is. And you have to be willing to allow God to do it his way. I said earlier I had to leave my job. When I met Bishop Jakes for the first time in 2017 and he gave me a word from the Lord to go out into full time mental health ministry. I knew in that moment I said, if I'm still at my job in two years, it'll be a miracle. But the next year when God told me to leave, I was like, eh. I didn't want to do that because all my dreams were in that space because that is what I believed I was called to do. I'm called to look at biology through the lens of scripture and write these theories and I wanted to write textbooks. That was my dream so I could change the way that the word of God was taught because it was taught inside of the science. I wanted to train therapists to do it that way. That was what I believe I was called to. And so when you get into the place where you're like, everything I believe that God called me to do, I had. I'm running a program, built it from scratch, designed every course, hired every professor, trained every intern. This is it. God called me to do this and now I'm supposed to just leave? What will my next dream be? Sometimes we don't want to move because we can't dream a different thing. I dreamed a dream and time gone by. Les Mis. Work with me, people. The loss of a dream is a hard thing. The Bible says that when it's deferred, it makes your heart sick. So I was sick when he told me I needed to leave that place. I tried so hard to stay that I gave up my position to someone else. But I was like, let me just stay and teach Adjunct courses. I gave up the job. He told me to give up the job. I gave it up. I wasn't the director anymore. I'm just gonna teach a couple courses. Child, can I tell you when registration time came around? The program only had, like, 50, 60 students in it at the time. When I tell you not one person registered for my course, not one student. Now, let me help you really understand this. We only offer courses that students needed to graduate because it's a new program. It was only. I founded the program, and so I know what every student needs next. So I only offer those classes. I was told to teach two of them. Not one student registered for my course. The woman I hired to replace me as director called me and was like, Dr. Anita. Well, they called me Dr. Graham Phillips back then. Dr. GP. We're so sorry. I don't know what's going on. No one registered for your class. Do you want us to assign you a different class? I said no. No. This a Jonah situation. If I don't get off this boat now, the whole program is going down. What I built will die because I refuse to allow. Okay, So I left the job and I let that be dead. But four years later, I did publish a book, but it wasn't a textbook, but it reached more people than a textbook would ever reach. And now academia is calling me because they read the book, asking me to come talk to them about the book. I thought my dream in that space was dead. I just trying to let you know you cannot imagine what the resurrection will look like. That is not your job. Stop trying to imagine how the resurrection. Resurrection will look, because that will limit you again. And then something else will have to die until you get your hands off it. And you stand there with your dry bones and your pain, and he says, live now. Stand with it and just say, oh, God. You know, because the resurrected version of you. My God. Maybe in that resurrected version, there is the marriage you dreamed of. Or maybe in that resurrected version, your life blows you away and you change the world at levels that you would not have had the time or the opportunity for. Oh, they didn't like that one. They didn't like that example. You can't feel it that way. And that's the problem. When you try to imagine it, you'll only go for what will make you feel like it worked. But God has a plan. His ways are not your ways. His thoughts are not your thoughts. This is what I can guarantee you when God resurrects you and places you in your own land, like he promised you will be so grateful. You will declare all day, every day. I'm so grateful for you. I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for not doing in my way. Thank you that that thing died. Thank you that you brought me this way. Thank you that you did this. And if you can't imag and what could make you thankful, you are in the exact right spot. I declare Live, live, live. In the name of Jesus. Yes, My God, my God, my God. I'm finished. I came here to declare something over you today. That the truth of God, your bones, your spirit would not be broken. Refuse it. If you can't articulate nothing else, just say, I believe God. I believe God. I believe God. I believe God. If you cannot honestly get it out your mouth that you believe him for a certain thing anymore because it's so dead, just say you know, because there's no more work for you to do. This is a victory in a valley that does not require your hand. Just a word from the Lord. Even if you go home. I thank you, God, and decide you don't believe. Doesn't matter. The bones did not have to cooperate with the word of the Lord. I'm excited for the testimony from those of you who went home and didn't believe it. Because the less you are involved, the more you know that he is the Lord and he is about to blow you away. Psalm 34. I'm closing with this declaration over you. Verse 15. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, not the perfect. The righteous and his ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. Don't worry about your enemies. Verse 17. The righteous cry out and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and saves, such as have a contrite spirit. And this is where we're ending. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. It's a fact. But the Lord delivers him out of them. And what else does he do? He guards all his bones. Not one of them will be broken. Hallelujah. Stand to your feet. He guards all their bones. Baby, we haven't called him the bone guarder. I thank you for the garter of my bones. He guards all their bones. Not one of them will be broken. Not one of them will be broken. My God, t what God has for you, not one bone will be broken. You have said some things and some folks looked at you like you were Crazy. And there are some family relationships, Jesus, us. And you have said some things that you know are the truth of what God said. And you have not received support for those things from the people you might want them from the most. Not one bone will be broken. And what you have spoken, that God has spoken to you, those words will not fall to the ground. What he said, he will do. And his word will not return void. And this valley is full of very dry bones. But God, that's where he goes. That's where he goes. And your, it is your swift obedience. Do you know how he got up here on the stage? I was standing over there and I heard that African drum sound in my spirit. And immediately I went, where's he? And I looked over here where you usually are, and you weren't there. And I was like, dang. And I looked away. When I looked back, you were there. And I ran over here. And as soon as I touched him, he took off. You have got to have that kind of obedience. And it's because you have that kind of obedience to God that he is going to resurrect every dry bone in the valley. When you had nothing else, you were obedient to God. You have sacrificed. You have been lonely. You have stood. And God said, I see you. And the change they say is impossible. Nothing is impossible with God. My God, my God. Swift obedience will change everything. My God, my God. Father, Father, Father, Father. You don't have to do anything specific except say, God, I receive it. I receive your word. In every one of my valleys of dry bones, the one I'm thinking of, the ones I forgot, I receive your word. I receive your word. Not one bone will be broken. That means that the generational blessings that have been ordained for you coming down from the DNA to generation to generation in those bones, it will not be broken. You will receive those blessings and you will pass them on. Thank you, Jesus. Be it by your biological children into your community. How you minister generations will receive what is in you. No bone will be broken. And that's why the enemy wants to break your legs. But if you will go ahead and accept a human in Jesus said, why have you forsaken me? But then he said into your hands, I commit my spirit. If you're in a situation right now, it's not a valley of dry bones yet. But if you keep on fighting against the death of the thing, it will be. It doesn't have to go this way. God, you be honest with God. I feel forsaken. I'm hurt. I'M brokenhearted, but I also put my spirit in your hands. Like Job said, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. See, it turned out, though, by the way, that God wasn't slaying him, was the enemy's work and his desire. But God knew that Job was unbreakable. He complained he was hurt. He wondered. He said, God, I don't know what's happening, but though you slay me, yeah, well, I trust you. That was him being unbreakable. What a thing to be able to say. Don't confuse your human pain and weakness for spiritual weakness. Don't do that. Don't do that. I said earlier. It's his righteous ones, not his perfect ones. In Job, chapter one, it says that Job said after he had all those losses, he said, that which I fear has come upon me. That means he was scared of some stuff. It said that he was scared that something would go wrong, scared that something would happen to his children, that he was making sacrifices for their sins day and night. They were grown people, by the way, not five year olds. These were adults out here doing what they shouldn't have been doing. And he was making sacrifice day and night. He was worried all the time. And he said, that which I feared has come upon me. So Job had a lot of fear, but the Bible still says that he was perfect and upright in God's eyes. So you gotta stop letting your human weakness be an indictment against your spiritual strength. The enemy will try to convince you that you're weak spiritually.
- [49:32]
B
Though.
- [49:32]
A
He slayed me. If he's slaying me, if that's even what's happening, maybe he's slaying me at the right time. Jesus died ill. He wouldn't be. You hear me Yet, Will I trust him. So we give him our dry bones today to be resurrected, but we also receive from him fresh strength and wind, the breath of life. Again, when the prophet spoke over those dry bones, God told him to tell those bones to come together and immediately heard a rattling sound of the bones coming into place. And then joints came on him and muscle came on him. And then he covered them in skin and they were alive. But they were put back together, but they weren't alive yet. And then he said to the prophet, call the four winds from each direction to come and breathe into them. And then they were alive. We can't. We're not just going to put it together. We're not just going to intellectually figure it out, work it out. We need the breath of life to be Returned God's spirit coming back into our spirit so those bones were no longer dry. What a beautiful thing he's doing for us. 20, 25, we can't lose some things died this year. That just puts him in line for resurrection. If it died in 24, 23, 20 to 1999, some of y' all was alive in 99, 2001, whatever. I see some church mothers in here. I'm not going to throw out Yalls year probably. But you know, they have continued to see God's goodness in the land of the living. And what a privilege. What a privilege. Lift your dry bones up to the Lord. Father, we thank you. We are willing to stand and receive this word. And Father, we are going to give you a seed to show our belief. So as we prepare to sow into this moment, whether you're in the room or watching online, it's the last Sunday of the year. This is the last word on a Sunday morning. Sow a seed into this moment, this resurrection moment. God is going to do something incredibly miraculous. We always want to be obedient, so we tithe because you told us to do that. And we give you 10% because it belongs to you. That's our obedience. But as we sow a seed, that's our choice. And so that amount is up to us. Unless you speak something specific, then we are obedient. So everybody listen for what God may be speaking to you right now. What do you want to put on this word? What would this resurrection seed look like? My God, let God speak to you and be obedient as we sow. My Bible says that when we give that he will give back to us. That people would give back to us. Pressed down, shaken together and running over. It says, shall men give into your bosom? And so as we sow. I know it has always happened for me that people will put money right in my hand or opportunities will show up. It happens with open doors. The email will come, the text will come, the call will come. The thing that you did not expect, pressed down, shaken together and running over, God returns it to us. There is so much abundance in the spirit realm and it is being unleashed to you today. So listen for this moment what God would have you sow. If you're watching online, listen for God would have you sow. I can say with confidence, we are a trustworthy house and we want to change lives. We're changing lives. I told you last week. Oh, I want to tell you again that we're working on getting a space for our Young people. Amen. The space that we had, we cannot use anymore. So we don't have children and youth right now. But we are working on this is so important. And so if you want to do something special to help us with that, whatever God tells you, I'm not going to ask you for an amount. And promise you a thing is we're not going to get crazy. Just be obedient to God. You'll never. I will never manipulate you spiritually ever, ever. I love God and you too much for that. And I fear God. But we are working on something. And so if God speaks to you specifically in that area, in person or online, let's do something for the next generation. No breaking bones, no disruption in the transmission of the legacy of this house. We want to minister to them. Okay. Lift your offering to before the Lord if you may buy cash or check. They're getting ready to come and worship and you can. The buckets will pass while we do that because we're going to worship some more. But lift your offerings to the Lord. Father, thank you for this word. We could never repay you, but we have the privilege of participating in the kingdom system of sewing and reaping. It is one more way that we can prove who you are. Thank you for that opportunity. We lay this seed on a dry bone resurrection, because you are who you say that you are. Thank you for the ways in which some of the most painful losses that we've suffered in our lives can be transformed in resurrection in a way that will escape us. I thank you, God, even as we walk through the rest of this holiday type season, that you're breaking the bands of grief in the name of Jesus. Grief is a holy feeling. It's a holy emotion. You grieved, but our human bodies can sometimes become overwhelmed in ways that break us too much in our hearts and so break the bands of grief where the enemy would want to use it to destroy. In the name of Jesus. I speak life in those spaces too. Thank you, God, for carrying us right on through this year. I thank you for the return on these seeds that we will see immediately and continue to see in the future. I thank you for multiplying us as a house that we will be able to do more and build more and go further because you have blessed us in Jesus name. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Stay right there. Stay right there. While they're go ahead and pass the bucket. You're fine. If you do not know Jesus, if your relationship with him is not live, maybe you've Never given your life to Jesus. Maybe as a child you did, and then your adult life, it has not been a part of your life. Or maybe it feels like something died and that relationship feels like it slipped through your fingers. But for some reason you're here today or you're listening on the online today, I want to invite you to come into intentional relationship with Jesus. If you're here today and you want to pray that prayer with me, just slip your hand up. Never. So, hey, you come here. Anybody else you want to intentionally get with the Jesus who was resurrected, who knows what it's like to die and come back? If you have been walking, we're walking with Jesus. And maybe you were so brokenhearted, you did walk away, but you're like, I need to be with him. Come on. And let's just reunite with Jesus. I want to pray for, for you. Come on. I want to pray for you. I want to pray for you. I am so. I'm so happy for you. I don't know how you got in here today and why it was today, but I'm so happy to be a part of it. Like, this is a privilege because this is a life changing day for you. I'm so happy for you. So happy for you. Hey. Hey, man. Hey, brother. Come on. Look. Look at that. You got some brothers with you. Hey, sis. Hey, sis. Y' all might as well get on in on this. You might as well get in on this last Sunday of the year. You might as well get in on this and start 2026 in on a firm foundation with Jesus. Honey, life be challenging, but with Jesus it's better because we always win. Oh, hey, baby. I got a baby here. Is there another one? Come and join us. Come and join us. I am so honored to be here to see God do this in your life. It is not hard to get in relationship with Jesus. We only just have to believe that he is who he says he is. Hey, bro. And y' all know I love my sisters, but extra, extra. I just love to see the men come and say. Because we know that change is the cornerstones of our communities. We need fathers and mothers in our community. We need our brothers and our sisters. My Bible says that if we believe that Jesus is the son of God, that he was born for us, died for us, rose from the dead, that we're one of his. It's that simple. He doesn't require you to come begging because he already paid the price. He loves the you. He's like a parent, a good parent. If a Good parent is looking for their child. When they see them coming, they're like, yes. They're not like, stop. You don't look, sorry. They're just glad to see their baby. He's so glad to see you today. And so I'm just going to ask you and you can affirm yes. And if it's not yes, don't say because you need to believe. Do you believe that Jesus, this is the Son of God? Do you believe that he was born in human form, that he let some people beat him to death for us? And that he rose from the dead literally. Like you're at a funeral and a dead person gets up. He literally rose from the dead. Welcome to the kingdom. That's it. We believe him. That's it. And he changes our lives. And I'm sure you, you've heard it before. Well, people are like, well, aren't we supposed to say sorry? I, I, I, I believe that he has forgiven you for all that has happened before this moment. The hard part is forgiving ourselves. And now that you're in relationship with him. Yes. There are ways that we try to live and we'll teach you that and, and show you that and read that in your Bible and you won't be perfect. But when we make a mistake, we fall short. We sin. We just say, God, forgive me. And he does. And then you, you just keep going. Sometimes that's hard because we haven't had experiences with forgiveness where people really forgive you. So it's hard for us to believe that he give forgives us that easy. But he does because he's pure love. Pure love is what he is. And so I'm so happy to have you here. If you are not currently attending one, if you haven't been coming or you don't have a church or a pastor, please come back. It matters who you're with. And if you don't have a pastor, I want love that job. I think it's the best job in the world. So I hope he'll be with you. And all these people let them know that they got family. All these people got your back. Amen.
- [61:06]
B
Hey, family. Well, I pray that you were just as blessed by this teaching as I was. I'm just so grateful again to be a part of a dynamic community for full of love, full of revelation and wisdom. One has been a movement that's been blessing people for over two decades and I'm so glad that you got an opportunity to experience it. I also have a podcast called the called it's right here on wherever you're listening to this Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening to this podcast, you can just look up the call T H E C A L L E D with myself, Terry Roberts. This is designed for entrepreneurs, leaders and business people. It's a weekly podcast and it will bless you. But hey, I enjoyed having you here. Meet us here next week. Check out the call. Much blessings to you. We'll catch you next time.