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In this transcription, the speaker discusses the importance of humility and not promoting oneself in the church or ministry. They mention that encountering God does not necessarily mean being called to a specific role or ministry. The speaker also emphasizes the power of words and the authority of the church to govern and make decrees. They highlight the significance of the Bible as the foundation of faith and the importance of testing everything against it. The speaker talks about the indwelling and infilling of the Holy Spirit, which provides greater wisdom and insight than the sons of Issachar had in the Old Testament. They also mention the need for wealth in advancing the kingdom of God. Continuing our series that I'm calling Apostolic Centers Advancing, where we left off last week, well, before I do that, where we left off, I did talk about ambition last week being, you know, even Chuck Pierce, I think it was, calls it a mean demon. But what I didn't mention was what God desires out of us, and that's humility. You know, ambition kind of, I don't know if it's a direct opposite to humility, but if you're humble, then being promoted in the church, maybe even in your job, whatever, whatever it might be. God makes it pretty clear that He raises up and lowers down, and He makes a way for your gifting, and we don't. I'm very thankful that I learned that quite some time ago. I can't say that I figured it out, because every time we figured it out, it really was God that got through our thick heads. We think we figured it out, but we didn't figure anything out. That's the kind of loving God we have. He's patient with us, and He waits for opportune times when we're actually listening, because sometimes we think we're listening, but we're not. But when we're flat on our backs, we only have one choice but to look up. So, but I learned, because I made the mistakes of trying to promote myself when I was younger, I learned early enough to know that that ain't the way to do it. There are millions of Christians around us who think that's the way to do it. There are pastors in churches who, I'm sure, probably shouldn't be there. Probably you're doing something, maybe their gifting is something else. But the thing is, especially American Christians, we get filled with the Holy Spirit, or we have an encounter with God, and we think the next day that we should be in the ministry. But that happens more than you think. I run into things, not necessarily run into people face-to-face, but I read about and hear about people who get miraculously healed of something, and then a week later they start a healing ministry. Well, the two don't necessarily have to go together, do they? Are you called to do that? That's the question that you need to answer. Miracles should be normal. It should be commonplace in the church. So if they're supposed to be commonplace, and the Bible makes it pretty clear to me that they're supposed to be commonplace, and we'll be talking more about that even today if I get to it, but if something's commonplace, then why are we putting such an emphasis on it after the fact? There are so many people, like I said, they have some kind of an encounter with the living God, and all of a sudden they're a prophet, all of a sudden they're whatever. And that may be the case. I'm not saying that that doesn't happen, because it does happen. But I think most of the time that was just an encounter with God. He wanted to change your life. He didn't necessarily want to make you an apostle. You know, not everybody in the kingdom of God is a five-fold minister. I don't know if there are people out there teaching that, because mainly the people that I read and learn from don't teach that, but you know, if there's people out there teaching that, then they're teaching it incorrectly. Not everybody in the kingdom is going to be part of the five-fold ministry. But there are other ministries mentioned in the Bible than that, you know. So, make sure that we keep our focus on Jesus, and make sure that we keep it, you know, it's just something, this is just something that came to mind last week after the service, that I was like, oh, I should have said that, and I didn't, so I'm making up for it now. So where we left off last week is, don't look at the town council, don't look at the Westmoreland County Commissioners, don't look at our governor, don't look at the federal government. We are the governing authority in La Trobe. God calls us the Ekklesia, and I had a big, long series on that a couple years ago, and it comes back up, of course, you know, I say stuff like that, because if you're going to talk about the kingdom, if you're going to talk about the apostolic, then you have to talk about the Ekklesia. It just goes hand in hand. Ekklesia was a governing body in the Roman culture. They made laws and rules and things of that nature. So, God doesn't name us the Ekklesia just because he thought it sounded cool. He named us that because we are supposed to be a governing body. I talked about this when I did the previous Kingdom series, whatever that was, six months ago, eight months ago, that Dr. Mark Kaufman up in Newcastle is a really good example. He just said, no, these terrorists, the Muslims, aren't going to be taking over our town. So they left, because he got his people praying. They mobilized. They started making decrees and declarations, and they had to leave. They had to leave. So we're the governing authority here. Whatever we proclaim and decree will come to pass. Now, we have to be careful that we're proclaiming and decreeing the right stuff. A lot of people are saying the wrong things, especially over themselves. You know, you got to watch yourself talk when you talk about yourself. Be very careful. Don't say things about yourself or really anybody else. But I think we're more guilty of saying bad stuff about ourselves than about other people. Christians, we're pretty good. We've learned to say nice things about other people. The golden rule and all that, that you probably learned when you were two, but you forgot by the time you were three. Mine. But be careful of what you're saying about yourself. Words have power. For all intents and purposes, in the kingdom of God, Latrobe is the capital of Westmoreland County. For all intents and purposes. You know, the early church fathers and the early church, and even Christian thinkers up into the probably 1900s, early 1900s, had no problem saying that the earth is the center of the universe. They weren't saying that astronomically, necessarily. They were saying that spiritually, because God made the earth his home and God made us to take care of his home. So spiritually, the earth is the center of the universe. There's no other planet. They can look all they want. They're not going to find another planet with life on it. If there were, God would tell us in the word. And I have not seen that in the word. So that doesn't mean I'm perfect. I'm just saying if you find that, let me know that God said, there's another planet that has people on it. You're not. No, he makes it pretty clear that we are a special creation. Man is a special creation. And he put the earth in such a place that if it were to move on its axis, even a little bit, if we were just a little bit closer to the sun, a little bit further away, we are in the perfect place for life. Perfect. There is no other place to put the earth that would work out the way it's been working for 6,000 years. And that is all the longer we've been here. Somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years. But I think it's more like 6,000. Because we're in the seventh day. We're in the third day, but we're also in the seventh day. But I could preach for weeks. I'm not going to do that. God is seated here. He is seated here, right here. So we are the capital of Westmoreland County. That was basically what I was starting at the end of last week. Didn't get to, I don't think. Now moving on to the new stuff, what we need to move forward as the church, what we need is already given to us. What we need is already in the Word of God. If we didn't have God talking to us, if we only had the Word of God, we still have all we need. If we only had the Bible, we're good. Because the Bible covers anything we could possibly encounter. The Bible talks about the future. So when we encounter things in the future, we can say, oh, okay, that's what that was, that's what that is. Okay, so we kind of know we're on the right track. Or maybe we know we're on the wrong track. Whatever it may be. So we're not elevating, and you'll never hear me elevate the spoken Word of God over the written Word of God, because even God said the Word is the basis. The Word is the foundation. You have to test everything he says against the Bible. He even tells us to do that. So no way are we elevating personal prophecy or anything like that, words of knowledge. No. They're not above the Bible. They have to be backed up by the Bible. It doesn't necessarily have to be word for word, but the Bible's got to back it up. So we can move forward if we just had the Bible, but the great thing about God is we have his voice also. He can speak to us, he can speak to his prophets, he can guide us and just give us wisdom that no demon could ever possibly get. I kind of figure the demons are so self-interested that if they were to hear, if they were as a demon standing right there listening to my sermon, it would go in one ear and out the other, because there's no truth in them. So I don't even think they can even pay attention to any righteousness. I don't think, even if they could, they probably couldn't remember it because there's no good in them. But no enemy from hell can get the wisdom that we can get from Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, it talks about the sons of Issachar. They knew the times and seasons, right? They knew the times and seasons then, but Jesus changed everything. You and I are greater than the sons of Issachar because we've got the indwelling and infilling of Holy Spirit. That's greater than what the sons of Issachar had. Now the sons of Issachar also did something more than just times and seasons. They knew how to get wealth. They knew how to open up the doors to wealth. And everybody knows it takes money to do things in the kingdom. It does. It takes money to operate a church. It takes money to operate a soup kitchen. It takes money to give clothing to the homeless. It's just the way it works, you know. So, we need to be able to open up some wealth, and kingdom advancement takes a good bit of wealth. Whoa, that just changed. I don't know if that's a change for the better or what, but I think you can maybe hear me now, or you could. Now with the sons of Issachar, in the tribal lineup, we talked about this about a year ago, the tribal lineup that would be around the Tabernacle of Moses, it would be different as they were moving, but when they stopped it for the evening, the tribes always went to their specific spot around the Tabernacle of Moses. Issachar was positioned between the tribe of Judah, who were the worshipping warriors, and Zebulun. Zebulun was the tribe that controlled wealth. So, Issachar is in between worship and wealth. So, they knew how to intercede in order to shift. I said shift. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. At least I didn't say pivot, which I just said. But they knew how to intercede, so they knew how to accomplish things, so whenever they needed something done, the people came to the sons of Issachar. But that's us. That's all of us. Right? Hopefully you get that. That's always been God's will for us. He really does desire us to prosper in every way, not just financially. He says even as your soul prospers. He wants us to prosper. That is His desire. I know starting with the Catholic Church probably all the way back in the single digits, you know, 8, 7, 8, 9, maybe even earlier AD, and this vow of poverty thing, that's not in the Bible. I hate to break that to any Catholic priest in here, but there's no vow of poverty in the Bible. That was man's made up baloney. Quite the contrary. There's a lot in the Bible, Old and New Testament, of how much God wants us to prosper, and that having money is necessary. You've got bills, right? I don't know anybody that doesn't have bills. How are you going to pay that if you don't have money? I've heard from a lot of people, you know, that pastors should never get paid and all this stuff, because the leaders of the early church weren't paid. And I'm like, how do you know that? How do you know they weren't paid? I don't remember a scripture that says they were or weren't. I'm just saying, how do you know? And then there's the scripture that says a workman is worthy of his hire. Does that account for everybody but pastors? And they're like, you should never tithe. The church should never tithe. Well, then how do they operate? I mean, living by faith is fine, and I'm all for it if you really want to do that, but it's very difficult. Now, we do live by faith here, and God has provided for what we have needed in this church. Believe me, we wouldn't be here if God hadn't gotten us through the first few years. It was touch and go. I've talked about that before. It was touch and go every week, every week. We didn't know. We didn't know. But God came through over and over, and He continues to come through, and He will continue to come through, because I know that we are here for such a time as this. I know this. I have no doubt in my mind about that whatsoever. But like the sons of Issachar, He wants us to cross over into prosperity, and that includes personally also. You should be able to get everything that you need. If people help you, they help you. That's fine. Don't turn down help. If you turn down help, if somebody's trying to give you money, if you turn that down, then you just robbed them of a blessing. They're just being obedient to God, because I used to fight with people. No, no, no, no, no, no. Just that pious, super humble, no, no, no, no. I don't want your money. And then God pretty much took me back to the woodshed for that and said, you're robbing them of a blessing. Knock it off. Your pride is robbing them of a blessing, so don't do that. Many times, one of the reasons why we sometimes aren't as prosperous as we should be, and there are seasons in our lives where we're like this, but sometimes we choose to have our own way in a situation that ends up being a problem. Because we're supposed to be submitting to the will of God. But I don't know about you, but I've had times where I did not submit to the will of God. I wanted my own way. I had my own way. And I've had my own way, and it didn't work out well. That hardly ever does. So I'm assuming that at least one or two of you might have made that mistake in your life, you know. But maybe not. I don't know. I try not to presume. Even in a war season, and we're in a war season. This is a war season and a half. This may be the biggest war season the church has faced since, oh who knows, two thousand years ago maybe. I don't know. In a war season, God's army has to play by different rules. We've got to understand the times and seasons, and if we do understand the times we're in, the season we're in, God will lead us to triumph. But since God is advancing us into being an apostolic center here in Latrobe, since He's advancing us to that, if we don't listen to Him and do what we're supposed to in that vein, then it's going to take us longer to get there. But just like anything else, we all do have free will. But I want God to lead us to triumph. I like the word triumph, because it's more than just victory. It's making fun of your enemies after the victory. You've got to love that. I picture Jesus getting the keys from Satan of life and death, and then leaving. Because Jesus has a sense of humor. That's the only way that I can look myself in the eye at night and still sleep a good night with my sense of humor, is it had to come from somewhere, right? It couldn't possibly have come from me. There was a meeting back in the late 90s. I don't remember this meeting, and I usually find out about stuff like this, even if it's after the fact. But there was a meeting back in, am I still on? It doesn't sound like I'm on. Am I on? Are you on? Are we all on? Hello, am I on? So in the late 90s, there was a meeting in Seoul, South Korea, leading ministers from 200 nations gathered to pray. And these ministries, before that day in the, did I say late 90s or mid 90s? I think just 90s. Late 90s. Up until that time, these ministries were pretty much focused on the 1040 window. 1040 is latitude and longitude, and it encompasses the most unreached people groups on the planet at that time. We've made tremendous inroads on that, because I was learning about the 1040 window back in the 70s. And I know some of you might not even have been around in the 70s. Some of you might have been high during the 70s. I don't know. But I remember that a long way back. You know. The 1040 window is also the place, it's the most unreached people on the planet. It includes northern Africa, the Middle East, and a lot of Muslim nations and stuff. They're also the poorest of the poor on the planet overall also. So at this meeting, and Chuck Pierce called this the most diverse gathering in the history of the church. His words, that's pretty strong. The most diverse gathering in the history of the church. The prayers and decrees from that gathering did have a major impact, and gatherings before that, on what was going on in the 1040 window. For instance, Chuck was in northern India, Chuck Pierce, he was in northern India in the 1990s. This would be before this meeting. And he said, you could count the ministry leaders in northern India in that area on your 10 fingers. That's it. He went to northern India, had a teaching for the local church leaders, and there were under 10. Northern India. If you know anything about India, there's a lot of people in India. Only 10 church leaders is really, like, that's less than 1% of the population. Way less than 1% of the population. When he returned to that area in 2014, he ministered to over 1500 leaders. Pretty short period of time. Pretty good growth, you know, if you ask me. Now Chuck, at this meeting, they changed their focus. They didn't really leave the 1040 window, but they added another focus to their ministries, and they added the 4070 window. The 4070 window takes care of, from Iceland to Great Britain, through northern and western Europe and all of Russia. And the reason the Holy Spirit added that window was because some of the greatest wealth in the world is in that window. When you think about, yeah, when you've got Great Britain, pretty much most of Europe, and all of Russia, that's a, there's a lot of money there. So their goal was to stir up prayer in nations that had a church history and had previously experienced the Spirit of God, but then grew cold over the years, and the fire had gone out, which is very common all over the world. There have been, the reason we've needed two great awakenings in this country is because we grew cold, and God needed to fire us up again. We need to kick in the afterburners a little bit. So after this meeting, they sent teams to all 72 of those nations in that 4070 window to just like stoke up the fires of those movements, and they are, these ministries continue to do that to this day. In 2008, Chuck Pierce had a vision. It was a long vision, but it completely changed the focus of his ministry. I talked about this once before, but I didn't go into great detail. God showed him the United States, and He showed him the remnant, and where the remnant was located in the United States. Then God showed Chuck the strength of the remnant from state to state. As he watched, a troop began to gather in every state that formed a glory fire river. Now I know the Loyal Hand is not a river. It's a creek. It's just a small river. But I knew before I heard about this that our house of prayer is supposed to be called the Loyal Hand House of Prayer. When I read that this troop from every state was going to form a glory fire river, I'm like, that's why right there. That's it. That's the reason. Sometimes you just be obedient to God, and then later, could be decades later, you find out why. Sometimes you won't find out at all until you get to heaven. God's God, if He wants to keep something a secret, He's allowed. I don't question that. So he saw this glory fire river, and Chuck asked God what this was. And God said, these are my triumphant reserve for the future. That's you, by the way. Every one of you is part of the triumphant reserve. This was 2008. That was quite a bit of time ago. We're well into it now. Many of the triumphant reserves are ones who've left the enemy's camp of religion to join into the kingdom of God. Yeah, I know. I was going to talk about that in a minute. Rough crowd. Now, Chuck was also shown that there were going to be many who would refuse to leave their religious structures because you're safe in religion. You know, that's their safety there. But this pretty much happens with every move of God, the Protestant Reformation. Every move of God, there are Christians that will stay behind, and Christians who will move forward, and people that will come to the Lord and be radical and really move forward. And then so many times, a lot of those folks badmouth the next move of God. It's just the way things are. Human nature is human nature. And if you allow yourself to slip back into human nature, and it is, I hate to, I mean, you guys, it's not a problem, but, you know, these Christians that are following a religion and they're voting yes to LGBTQ clergy and all this other stuff, you know, they're choosing poorly. So it is a choice what you follow, who you follow, what you believe. It's a choice. You have a choice. Anybody see The Matrix, the movie The Matrix? It's a good movie. You ought to watch it. I recommend it. Now, that doesn't mean that there's, that I'm saying there's nothing bad in it. I don't always remember the bad stuff. I'm just saying, there could be some swearing, you know, I don't know what else could be there. But there's a character in The Matrix that came out of The Matrix because The Matrix was sucking the life out of everybody in reality. But they didn't know that. When they're in The Matrix, they're inside a computer program and they think that that's reality. So this one guy joins the group. He's part of the group even before Neo shows up. So there's this one guy that it just gets too real for him. It gets too, reality becomes too real. And he says, I'll make, deal with the devil, but I want to go back to The Matrix. I prefer religion over the kingdom. I prefer being blinded and being deaf, dumb and stupid and following the safety of the religious structures that I want to go back. I don't like this real life stuff. It's too real. Send me back. And that's pretty much what a lot of Christians are going to choose to do when confronted with this move of God that is getting bigger every day. It's growing. I'm telling you, it's growing. Just wait. God also showed Chuck that there were going to be other Christians that would align around race and gender. And boy, have we seen that. Then God showed him the high places around the country. A high place is not a good thing. When you hear, see high places in the Bible, it refers to places where people go sacrifice other people to demons and the demons get power from that. And they usually do it. It's called a high place because they usually do it in a little bit of a higher elevation. If you're in Kansas, maybe the top of a building because it's flat. So there's only so many high places to go in certain places around the world. But every state, Chuck saw that every state had high places. It's where the demons receive worship and things from their idols, idolatrous altars. And of course, Satan is nothing if he's not strategic. These high places were all in very strategic places. I know for sure of two such locations that have high places that are main grouping, main headquarters to high places. Salem, Massachusetts, it might surprise you. Maybe it doesn't surprise you. But Salem, Massachusetts, big witchcraft area, huge. There's a high place there that's really high. Just saying. I've actually known some people that got moved there for one purpose, to fight while they're there. Another location is Sedona, Arizona. I don't know if you've ever been anywhere near that. But Sedona, Arizona is like the new age capital of the world. It's a high place and a half there. It's been written about in everything. And then, of course, Washington, D.C. That probably went without saying. If I was going to say name one place in the world where there's going to be a high place with some serious demon worship, you probably all could have said, yeah, Washington, D.C., no doubt. The sacrifices on these altars were empowering and keeping an atmosphere that was held captive by ruling hosts. The Bible talks about the rulers and those in high places. And he's not talking about Christians. He's talking about demons, different levels of the demonic. And they've been here longer than you and I have, obviously. Chuck saw that the enemy had ten, like there's already high places, right? But also the enemy has ten ruling centers across the U.S. Again, Washington is going to be one of those ruling centers. Salem, Massachusetts, high place, not necessarily a ruling center. But Chuck didn't name any of these. So I'm like, come on, Chuck, you're not being very helpful here. Let me know. I'd like to be able to focus my prayer a little better. But no, he didn't tell us what I saw. And I've heard him talk about this. I have two books where he wrote about this and didn't give us any specifics. But if I get a hold of him, I'll slap him for all of us. The ruling centers were communication centers. And they transmitted to lesser substations in that state. You ever wonder why the liberals always have the same talking points? Because it's coming from the same location. Hell. You ever wonder why it seems like the liberals have this wonderful machine that works really well? Because Satan's been working that machine for a long time. But here in America, the Christians are just not coming along. The Christians are just getting together. We've been separate for centuries. You know, we're late to the game, but we still win. How many times do you see your team get blown out in the first three quarters, but then in the fourth quarter, we win? So they have hell's communication network. And we don't really have that. But we've got angels and God and Holy Spirit. It's much better. They've just been doing it longer. And it seems like they've got a head start on us. Won't matter. Won't matter at all. We have so many tools that we're just now learning about, like the courts of heaven. I never heard that term until about ten years ago. That's a pretty new tool. And it works. And Daddy's working. Daddy's always working. Then God showed Chuck the covenant roots of America. But he said some of those roots are covered over by a thick, mossy, evil slime. But that thick, mossy, evil slime could be removed by prayer. I think in Pennsylvania, we definitely, obviously, historically have covenant roots here in Pennsylvania. And I think that slime has been removed a lot in the last few years with the prayer movement that has taken place here. Huge prayer movement. I don't think the slime is gone yet. I don't think so. But we're better than we were. Keep praying. Keep praying. You might not, I don't know if I ever talked about this here. Maybe years ago I did. We were in prayer one night and God showed me a picture of a person standing on the spot where the Greensburg courthouse is. But there was no courthouse. This was years ago. There was nothing there. It was just a hill. Nobody lived on that hill. If you know anything about Greensburg, it actually started in Hannah's town. Hannah's town was where they first started. So, whether Hannah's town was there or not at this time, I don't know. Because I didn't get a time frame. But it was before Greensburg existed. It was before the courthouse. Then the hill was just green. It was just a hill. And there was a person standing there. And I believe from what I saw, it was a guy, but that doesn't matter, that committed this area to Jesus Christ. He showed me that. And I have no doubt that that's a covenant root that we might not even be all that aware of. And I haven't heard anybody else talk about that. But that's neither here nor there. But I know what I saw. Chuck saw that some states had never allowed a covenant root to go down in their land. You want to talk about some states that seem to always make the wrong decisions, like California? They never allowed a covenant root to go down in California. There's no doubt in my mind. That doesn't mean they can't make one. There were also broken covenants that need to be mended before the roots can grow again. Some states had a covenant. It was broken, but it can be mended. He was shown orchards of contention. Orchards of contention, where different people groups in each orchard created a different kind of fruit. To me, that sounds a lot like the universities that right now are showing the fruit of anti-Semitism that has been running rampant in their classrooms since the 60s. The thing that boggles my mind are the number of Jews in this country that are still liberal, that follow the Democratic Party. The people who were chanting for them to die, right in front of them, and some of them that are chanting for Israel to die are Jews. Blows my mind. How can anybody be so stupid? So stupid. But God did say in the Word that His chosen people were a stiff-necked people. So, you know, they can be pretty stubborn, but that's just asking for your own death, is what that is. And also in that vision in 08, God showed Chuck a new evil communication system was being developed globally. Why do you think in 2008, when Obama took over, all of a sudden everything was about the one world government, the one economy. Everything that Obama did was to get us closer to being with the rest of the world. And whenever Biden took over from Trump, that's one of the first things he did was put those Obama-era rules back in place, because the demons want the one world government. That's what they want. Because it's easier for them to control us that way. Thank God Trump is against that. And I think right now he's closer to Jesus than he's ever been. Wouldn't you be? I mean, you get shot in the ear, could have been dead, those millimeters. That's a wake-up call and a half right there. But that system controls financial, legal structures. Chuck was showing this in 2008. We haven't seen lawfare like we've seen lately. Lawfare, where they're using the legal system to fight against us, because that's what they're doing. But God showed Chuck all this in 2008. It's all coming true right before our eyes that Chuck saw in 2008. How many years ago was that? 16? 16, right? 16. I'm a genius. Then God showed Chuck his remnant buildings. He said they looked like fiery, vibrant castles in strategic locations around the earth. Some states had one, but some states didn't have one. And God told Chuck they were freedom outposts for the future. Freedom outposts. This is a freedom outpost. And we're part of the triumphant reserve. I have no doubt about that. And I'll tell you more about that in a minute. When the triumphant reserve connected with the freedom outposts, they went in one way that came out seven times brighter and stronger. Did we just hear that this morning? Didn't somebody just stand right there and read that exact Scripture? Was that just me? Was anybody else awake when Joanne was at the mic? Do you think there's a coincidence? There's no coincidence in the Kingdom of God. There are 23 states. Chuck has shown this. There are 23 states in 08. I think there's more now. But in 2008, there were 23 states with covenant roots. And many of them already had freedom outposts. Pennsylvania, I believe, is definitely one of those 23. And God did tell Chuck that many others were going to form. Chuck believes that what God showed him in 08 was the rising of the apostolic church and the forming of apostolic centers in the earth. One major sign, he said this, I didn't say this, one major sign of a freedom outpost apostolic center will be a supernatural connection to Israel. Imagine that. In case you're watching on the radio, we have an Israeli flag here and we have a sign that says we stand with Israel. We always will, always have, always will. See, I don't know if you can see this, but this is a sign that says we stand with Israel. We always have, always will. See, what you might not know, some of you probably know this, but Maureen has been prophetically declaring this for quite some time. Thank you, Maureen, for believing, prophesying, praying this in. Keep praying because it's just started. It's just started. I mean, this is pretty recent stuff here. We're on the cusp of some pretty wild stuff. God showed me, all the way back in probably 2004, 2005, that when this movement really kicks in, it's going to be like a whirlwind. He used that term, whirlwind. I wrote it in my poo book. I have a Winnie the Pooh book where I put prophetic words and stuff in. It's my poo book. So, everybody else, come alongside Maureen and just pray about this, decree this, right here in Lake Trobe. We are a freedom outpost, apostolic center. God also showed Chuck there's a new leadership rising, and it wasn't just the younger generation. It was a mixture. The generations must work together, must work together. The older generation can't look down at the younger, and the younger can't look down at the older. Can't do it. And then there's all the generations in between. We've got to work together. We are making a choice to follow God no matter the cost. Many of the triumphant reserve are just coming off the shelf. Maybe they've been on the shelf for a while. Many were second timers. They met the God of grace, and now they're back. This happens. Many of the fallen, and they got up, and they fell again, and they got up again. Like Rocky Balboa said, it's not how hard you can hit. It's how many times you can get hit and still keep getting back up. Sylvester Stallone wrote that. Pretty smart guy. And by the way, the term reserve, as in triumphant reserve, that term reserve means a group who has been kept for future use. We knew, and Collette could back me up on this, I think, if she remembers me saying it, that we weren't necessarily in a desert season when we were in transition. We were hidden. It's not the same thing. We were, and now instead of hidden, I would say we were kept in reserve. Hidden from the direct eyesight of the enemy. Hidden from anything, thermal imaging, anything you want to think about. Hidden, you know, until it's time. And it was time when Leon called me And it was time when Leon called me that Thursday night and said, hey, we need a pastor. And I knew to say yes, because I knew it was coming. I just didn't know when. The term reserve means a lot to me. When I was, my last year in the Air Force, when I was in Sicily for a year guarding ground-launched cruise missiles, when we would go out to the field, I was part of a group called the Mobile Reserve. Imagine that. Something in my background that makes sense about something God's going to do later, but He showed me in the physical years ago, and I wouldn't even have thought about it. You know, that was like 1986 to 1987, I was over in Sicily. The Mobile Reserve, the way it was dealt with in the Air Force, the way we did it, when we guarded the cruise missiles. The cruise missiles were mobile. They were in trucks and launchers and everything. So they would leave the base and we would have to go with them, because these are nuclear weapons. You don't just let them tramp around the island. So the 44 men, yeah, mine only had men. There was one girl that showed up toward the end of my year there. She was like the first female to be allowed to guard nuclear weapons like that. When it went off base, we went with it, of course. We would move from position to position when we were off base, because we knew that the Russian satellites knew where we were at every second. We knew when the Russian agents on the island knew where we were at every second. Just for an example, we had intelligence that the Russian special forces was on the island all the time, watching us 24-7. We knew that. That's who I trained against. But I remember, we're going down the street, down the road in Sicily, going out to wherever we were going to stop. And I saw this lady with a babushka. She was a senior citizen, writing things down as we passed by. Why would she be doing that? She's a Russian agent. See, spies can be any age. And the older ones, they get away with murder, because nobody thinks they're spies, because they're 80. So we get out into the field. They put the nukes there. We built foxholes around the nukes. But I was very thankful. I'm not really sure. Maybe it's because I groused enough before that that my boss figured, don't let Smith dig a foxhole. That's probably more the truth than that finally somebody paid attention that I was an expert marksman on my records. Maybe the truth is in the middle somewhere there, maybe. Because in San Antonio, they couldn't care less. I'm like, okay, whatever. But then again, we weren't guarding nukes either. They want the right people in the right place. So we were the mobile reserve. That meant we slept during the day. And at night, when the bad guys would come, if they would come at this foxhole over here, we would get called in as that future reserve. We would be called on the radio, hey, we've got tangos at Echo 9. And that's when my group would go over and take care of it. And we did a number of times. This is training, of course. It was the officers and higher NCOs that pretended to be terrorists. But for two weeks, that's what I did. I slept during the day. We were supposed to sleep during the day. But if there's a chemical attack, and they would simulate a chemical attack, and you had to put all your stuff on, head-to-toe, the mop skier, we called it. It's 115 degrees, and you're wearing rubber, basically a rubber suit, head-to-toe. Let me tell you, it was not fun. It was not fun at all. But I would go and sleep in the communication tent that had air conditioning. Yeah, mobile air conditioning, even in the 80s, it existed. I don't know if the world had it, but the military had it. You have to keep the computers cool. Because if the computers don't work right, you could launch that missile and hit civilians and good guys, and you don't want to do that. So I know what it's like to be part of a reserve that has to wait and then withstand the enemy when the time comes. And if it's one thing that the church has been in in the last, I don't know, how many decades, we've been in kind of like a holding pattern. We've been fighting, but we've been kind of in a holding pattern. We really haven't made, until very recently, we really haven't made a whole lot of advancement. But what we've been doing is building up our muscles. Our faith muscles is what we've been doing. But the Triumphant Reserve is going to become a perpetual, advancing, overcoming troop. Each member of the Triumphant Reserve has come through some sort of a narrow place of transition. Probably, if I talk to you long enough, you could probably look back at a recent time where you came through some kind of a transition. Maybe there's still a future transition for some of us, I don't know. But each member can also go to the throne room, we can gain new vision, and then we pave the way for others to follow. We are pioneers. The pioneers went before the rest of the population. They blazed a trail. We're blazing a trail for this area. Not too many churches in West Winona County that are teaching the kingdom. Not too many. There's a couple. I already said that. What do we got here, 53? You're not going to get to that anyway. All right. You don't want to miss next week. I'm not going to get to a really good part today, but you're not going to want to miss next week, just saying. Psalm 149, one of my favorite scriptures, it tells us that praise, worship, found, and dance will actually set a new order in the earth. It's what it says. It will set a new order in the earth. It will wreak vengeance on the nations, chastisement upon the people, bad people, bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron. It's in there. And to execute upon them the judgment that is written. Well, there's a lot of judgment for the enemy in the Bible. It's been written, and it will happen to them. No matter what happens, Jesus is going to return. The demons are going to go into the lake of fire at some point. It's going to happen. There's no human free will to that. Jesus will return, and He will judge the wicked, and the demonic powers will be chained, and then whatever your end time theology is, lake of fire at some point, and then whatever. But Psalm 149 is the reason we've seen an explosion of spirit-filled praise and worship in my lifetime. Again, you and I, we're here for such a time as this. In the last 40 years, before my lifetime, there really wasn't such a thing as praise and worship music. There were hymns, and before hymns, basically, there were what they used to call Negro spirituals, and I learned a good bit about them. Their communication while they were in the fields as slaves, they prayed to God all the time. They sang to God all the time. It's what got them through. So now we've got this thing called praise and worship. We've got groups like Hillsong, Integrity, Vineyard, Jesus Culture, Bethel, Paul Wilbert, Chris Tomlin. You look at Spotify, and there are new praise and worship groups popping up every day. Every day. Well, that's not a coincidence either. That's part of the time we're in, and it started in the late 60s. The two main, I call them progenitors, kind of like just a 25 cent word that means ones who started this whole thing. But the two main progenitors of this praise and worship explosion, one I even hate to admit, one was Maranatha, the other is Bill Gaither. I hate to admit that Bill Gaither was on the cutting edge at one time. Sorry, I just hate to admit that. Because all he sings now is southern gospel old fart music. He was cutting edge in the 70s. Cutting edge. My mom played him all the time. Played Maranatha albums all the time. When it comes to praise and worship, they ruled the 70s and even into the 80s. So I got to give them proper credit. Some of my earliest childhood memories was mom playing those worship albums all day. Maranatha. In Maranatha, 99% of Maranatha songs were scripture. Word for word, scripture. You can't beat that. You can't beat that at all. Groups like Lamb, Evie Tornquist. That's really going back. Am I the only one who remembers Evie? On the wings of a snow white dove. And Kenneth Copeland. Kenneth Copeland was a big singer before he was a big preacher. My mom had Kenneth Copeland albums. I remember them. The man could sing. Probably still can. He just probably doesn't. So I was set up at an early age to be a worshiper all of my life. Set up for it. I understand that. In like manner, so has my daughter been set up to be a worshiper. Their kids, fourth generation Christians, will be set up to be worshipers. When it comes to my daughter, you know, I do what she does just slower. I know you guys know this, but what happens in God's house is much more important than what happens in the White House. Much more important. The last election was supposed to teach us that. And I think most of us caught that teaching. It wasn't fun. And the country has really taken a step backwards, but it's nothing that can't be overcome. The church, the kingdom of God determines the direction of this country. I don't care who's in office, anywhere, governor, wherever. I don't care. We determine the direction of this country. But as you can see, the American church is in pretty desperate need of change. Two out of three Americans aren't saved. That's 200 million people. 200 million unsaved in America alone. Only China and India have more unsaved than America. I was kind of surprised to see that statistic. Couldn't believe it. Still have a hard time believing it. But that statistic came from Gideon's International. They've been doing this a long time. I trust them. Campus Crusade for Christ also had been doing evangelism a long time. They estimate that it takes 1,000 laymen and six full-time pastors to lead one person to Jesus. That's, of course, average per capita and all that kind of stuff. So we get one saved person led to Jesus. And to do that, it takes the combined work effort of 1,000 laymen and six full-time pastors. That's ineffective evangelism 101. Ineffective evangelism 101. Of those who do get saved, only 5% are in church a year later. 5%. That statistic has been that way my whole life. Every time I read statistics about Christians in America, that 5% a year later has never changed. It has to change. But it has not changed in my lifetime. If we apply that 5% to the first church in Jerusalem in the book of Acts, from the 3,000 that were saved at Pentecost, only 150 would have remained a year later. But it grew and grew and grew. It did not shrink at any time until the third, 300's, the fourth century. There are 18 million unchurched Christians in America. Going to church just isn't worth the effort to them. And that's a shame. It really is. I do know that the church has hurt a lot of folks. I've been greatly annoyed by churches in my lifetime, so I get it. This one is startling. This one just blew my...it was like that picture of that guy in front of the TV and just getting blown back with all the noise. Not one county in America has seen a net increase in church attendance in decades in my lifetime. Not one county in America has seen a net increase in church attendance in my lifetime. That's astounding. One of the main reasons is there aren't any new believers. They're just moving from church to church. In western Pennsylvania, if you go to any church and ask for a raising of the hands of who was a Catholic, you're going to see 90% of the hands go up. About 20 to 30 years ago, the Catholic church noticed the issue, finally, and started doing their own evangelism and putting out their own materials and doing...copying some of the same stuff that we use. It's like, you're not going to get them back, buddy. It's not going to happen. They found Jesus. They're not going back to religion. I'm not saying the Catholic church is necessary. The Catholic church as a whole is bad, but the average Catholic is not. I'm just saying. We might get to next week why I'm a little bit down on the Catholic church itself. I'm not a little bit down. I'm way down on it. 80% of pastors are discouraged in their ministry, and many struggle with depression. But I have yet to see that broken down into spirit-filled versus non-spirit-filled pastors, because I can't see 80% of spirit-filled pastors being discouraged. I can't believe that for a second. I'm sure it's a higher percentage than we'd like to hear, but it can't be 80%. Those statistics, I just wanted to show you that the American church needs some help. We need revival. We need the third great awakening. Maybe not necessarily here. Maybe not necessarily in the churches that are doing it right. But they're doing it right because they're preparing for this awakening, because there's going to be millions of people that are going to need help. One billion around the world. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. I've got to finish up here. Part of our problem, conclusion number one, is that we have not been following God's blueprint as He outlined in the New Testament. We go to church in America and we assume that what we see as church is what God designed. It is not. It's not even close. I know that could have had to be eight. We assume that the day after Pentecost, Peter went out and rented a building, put a steeple on top, bought a bunch of hymnals, got Leon to make a sign that read, First Pentecostal Church of Jerusalem. 10 a.m. Sundays, you know, 7 o'clock Wednesdays. But next week you're going to see that the first century church had very little in common with the American church today. And that's where I'm going to leave you. So, Father, we thank You. We praise You. I thank You, Lord, that we're getting back to the origin. We're getting back to the way it is supposed to be. We lost our way. We let some people come in in the fourth century, and from there it just got worse and worse and worse. But in the last 500 years, You've been working very hard to give it all back, to get everything that we lost back. And I believe at this point, I think we've got it all. We've got what we need. That doesn't mean that tomorrow everything's going to be perfect. That doesn't mean that tomorrow 100 people are going to be, you know, knocking the door down. I don't know God's timing. I just know that we're here and we're going to be needed to help bring in and to help disciple the third great awakening. That's why everybody here has been born at this time. All of us could have been on this planet any other time in the last 6,000 years. God chose you to be here now. Don't take that lightly, and maybe don't get a big head about it either. Because if you've been with the Lord for any real length of time, it hasn't always been easy, has it? It's not always easy. And sometimes in revival, some of the greatest awakenings are met by some of the greatest persecution. I don't know how this one's going to play out. No idea. But we have chosen in this church to follow Jesus no matter what. No matter what. We will follow Jesus. We will follow what Holy Spirit is leading us into, what He is teaching us to do, telling us to do. Father, please keep our ears open. Help us to keep our ears open because I know that's our part of our thing. We have responsibilities. And keeping our Holy Spirit antenna up is one of them. We've got to hear God. And not just Sunday morning. All week, every day. We've got to hear God. But I personally believe that right now, it is easier to hear God than it was a year ago. Right now, it's easier to hear God than it was 10 years ago. And I think next month, next year, it's going to be even easier to hear God. I believe that the Kingdom of God and the church, the Ekklesia, we're moving into a thin place. A thin place is where the separation between heaven and earth gets so thin that there's almost nothing there. So there's no hindrance whatsoever. No hindrance. I liken it to God coming down and hanging out with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. See, even God likes air conditioning. Thank you, Jesus. We are yours, Lord. We are yours. And I don't want to say that with any ambition, anything of a big head, pride. That has nothing to do with it. It's not pride to know who you are and where you stand. The truth is the truth. From what we're hearing from God, from what we've read in the Bible, we're in the right position. Are we in the perfect position? We'll find out. We'll learn more and we'll move ahead. We are advancing. We are becoming an apostolic center in Jesus Christ. Thank you, Jesus. I ask that you would just continue to just keep an open heaven over this ministry. Just bring in your supply, your supply, your supply over and over. Just keep it coming because we're going to give it away. Because that's who we are. We get filled so that we can give it away. And then we go get filled again and then we give it away. That's spiritual. That's natural. That's everything. I just pray, Lord, that when those folks come in to get natural food, I just pray, Lord, that when those folks come in to get natural food, when they come through that door, Lord, give them spiritual food too. And I know our cafe volunteers, and quite a few of them are sitting in front of me, and I know they do give out spiritual food. Heard it. Seen it with my own two eyes. Give them the boldness to just say what they hear you saying. That's it. It's not difficult. We just say what He says. And if He's not saying anything, just say, we love you. Whatever. Give a hug. Whatever. There are people around us that their only human contact may be that short period of time at 530 on Sunday, Tuesday, or Thursday. I don't know. I know there's a lot of lonely people in the world. A lot. And most of them probably aren't going to tell you that. So, Lord, keep our antenna up so we can hear that from you, so then we know how to minister to people. So we thank you, Lord. Thank you for everything. Thank you, Jesus, for the cross. Thank you for taking our sin onto yourself and for making a way. You are the only way to get to the Father. And we thank you. We praise you. We glorify you and you alone. In Jesus' name, amen.
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