Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for the word? Well, I'm gonna bring
Speaker 1: it in just a moment, but first let me make
Speaker 1: sure everyone is aware of what we mentioned earlier that
Speaker 1: we are in a season of giving and generosity and
Speaker 1: reciprocation and sewing. It's our year end offering time. Yo,
Speaker 1: my class just got lower. We love to guill, We
Speaker 1: love to gill. And y'all know, every year I ask
Speaker 1: God to give us a word to rally around, just
Speaker 1: something to believe that he's doing. We've had so many
Speaker 1: different words through the years. But this year, the Lord
Speaker 1: told me that we would focus on his favor. So
Speaker 1: this is going to be our favor offering for twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the year of the Lord's Favor. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't get that memo. Well. Luke four nineteen said
Speaker 1: that when he unrolled the scroll, he said the spirit
Speaker 1: of the Lord has anointed me, even in the midst
Speaker 1: of great adversity, to declare blind eyes open, captives set free.
Speaker 1: Where's my three people that came to agree with the
Speaker 1: word of the Lord? He said, it's a year of
Speaker 1: the Lord's favor. So you've got to choose how you
Speaker 1: want to frame your life. Nobody can make that decision
Speaker 1: for you. And I bet if you look back over
Speaker 1: this last twenty four hours, you can frame it with
Speaker 1: God's favor. If you look back over these last seven days,
Speaker 1: you can frame it with God's favor. Can frame it
Speaker 1: with frustration. Remember how the dishwasher broke and you called
Speaker 1: your kids over and they wouldn't do it, so you
Speaker 1: slapped them across the room and then you felt bad
Speaker 1: about that. Or you can remember all the things that
Speaker 1: it went right this week and hold on even when
Speaker 1: you were wrong. Wow, but God's grace was there for you.
Speaker 1: And that's what I like to do when we end
Speaker 1: the year. So our global family, we're inviting you. December
Speaker 1: thirteenth is the date that we've set. Of course, calendars
Speaker 1: mean nothing in twenty twenty, the year of our Lord,
Speaker 1: but it's still the year of the Lord's favor. So
Speaker 1: between now and then, get your best gifts. Some of
Speaker 1: you never give. You just consume, consume, consume. You're never
Speaker 1: going to get much out of it. That way, you
Speaker 1: get fat, but you won't get faith. We build our faith.
Speaker 1: I know I said the word was coming, but that
Speaker 1: felt like a word right there. So thousands will do it.
Speaker 1: Thank you to all of our tithers who have enabled
Speaker 1: us to go through with all of the plans that
Speaker 1: God had this year to reach the world. Gospel is
Speaker 1: bear and fruit, but our favor offering. You go to
Speaker 1: Elevationchurch dot org for that and even just this week
Speaker 1: our Convoy of Hope Outreach caravan. We get fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars this week to help with Park two Honduras for
Speaker 1: the category for Hurricane Now. Each week we're just going
Speaker 1: to show you what God did through your giving and
Speaker 1: I know that you'll respond. Happy anniversary. By the way
Speaker 1: to our Blakeney location, it's ten years, ten years of
Speaker 1: amazing ministers. Zeke, did you ever come over to Blakeney. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're a newcomer, a mere babe, a mere babe in Christ.
Speaker 1: You know we're at Blakeney, but we've had some amazing ministry. There,
Speaker 1: shout out John and Beth Hargett, Dan and Diane Horner,
Speaker 1: John and Denise Richter, Randy and Mary Angel. What's up
Speaker 1: Randy Angel? That dude gives the most violent hugs. Randy
Speaker 1: Angel just picks you up. And he's a chiropractor when
Speaker 1: he hugs you. He's not licensed though, just breaks your
Speaker 1: back when he hugs you. I'm so glad you're over
Speaker 1: there today so you don't have to break my spine
Speaker 1: with your hugs. And we thank God for our campus. Pastors,
Speaker 1: Paul and Leah's your bid? Come on, let's thank God
Speaker 1: for all of our location. Hey, what campus? Are you watching? Problems?
Speaker 1: Put it right there in the chat. Put your city,
Speaker 1: your state. It may not be an official campus, but
Speaker 1: we ordain you today into the Gospel ministry to receive
Speaker 1: the word of the Lord. How many are ready to
Speaker 1: receive it? Amen? You're not gonna believe what God gave
Speaker 1: me for today. Look at Isaiah fifty five and I'll
Speaker 1: let you sit down. Hey, stand up, even if you're
Speaker 1: in your living room. Get your heart ready. Send a
Speaker 1: signal to your central nervous system system. We are about
Speaker 1: to do something. We're not just gonna hear something. We're
Speaker 1: gonna walk this out. So stand up wherever you are
Speaker 1: and prepare your heart to hear God's word. I love
Speaker 1: this in Isaiah fifty five, verse eight. For my thoughts
Speaker 1: are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways,
Speaker 1: clears the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth,
Speaker 1: so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
Speaker 1: thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow
Speaker 1: come down from heaven, and do not return to it
Speaker 1: without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish,
Speaker 1: so that it yields seed for the sower and bread
Speaker 1: for the eater. So is my word that goes out
Speaker 1: from my mouth. It will not return to me empty,
Speaker 1: but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose
Speaker 1: for which I scent it. As the rain, verse ten.
Speaker 1: So is my word. And I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you from an interesting thought today that the Lord gave me.
Speaker 1: And I know he gave it to me, and I'll
Speaker 1: tell you why in a minute. But I'm going to
Speaker 1: call this sermon wasted rain. Wasted rain, please be seated. Oh,
Speaker 1: the Lord gave me this one. He confirmed it. He
Speaker 1: confirmed this message title wasted rain. I was kind of
Speaker 1: feeling up in the air about it, and I'm recording
Speaker 1: it on a day where I woke up and it
Speaker 1: was really really rainy outside, and I thought, well, that
Speaker 1: could just be a coincidence, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Because I decided to preach about wasted rain. Then my phone,
Speaker 1: I was looking for my scripture to look it over again,
Speaker 1: and my phone did you just phones? Really now we're
Speaker 1: recording this, maybe you're watching it much later. But it
Speaker 1: came up it said emergency alert. I'm preaching on wasted rain,
Speaker 1: and it says the National Weather Service is giving a
Speaker 1: flash flood warning in effect for this area for the
Speaker 1: next couple hours. Even the National Weather Service knew that
Speaker 1: God wanted me to preach this to you today. Huh.
Speaker 1: Rain Chunks was texting me, said I'm sorry about the rain,
Speaker 1: as you know might be. I said, oh, don't apologize.
Speaker 1: God sent this to confirm his word to you, and
Speaker 1: he wants to talk to us today about wasted rain.
Speaker 1: As the rain falls from the heaven and waters the earth.
Speaker 1: So is my word, God says through the prophet Isaiah,
Speaker 1: who prophesied. Of course, during the reign of the King
Speaker 1: in the year King Uziah died. I saw the Lord
Speaker 1: he prophesied rain during the reign of King Usiah. Now
Speaker 1: it's interesting because I used to always pray this scripture
Speaker 1: before I would preach. I still pray before I preach,
Speaker 1: but I don't pray the scripture anymore. I'm gona tell
Speaker 1: you why I was praying it, like it was a
Speaker 1: magic trick. I would always before i'd come out to preach.
Speaker 1: I'm a little superstitious, not necessarily because I believe it's
Speaker 1: like luck to preach, but I don't know. I take
Speaker 1: it seriously. I figured, like, if you came into church
Speaker 1: and your life is in shambles and you need God
Speaker 1: to speak to you, and then he puts up some
Speaker 1: forty year old country boy from Monk's corner, we need
Speaker 1: a miracle to get this done. I'm doing the math,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, I need you, Lord. So I
Speaker 1: would always pray this so I could put the responsibility
Speaker 1: on God that Lord, what they need you have, I don't,
Speaker 1: but if you'll do it through me, I'll give it
Speaker 1: to me. And you can use that little trip parenting
Speaker 1: your kids, leading your team. Anytime you need to just
Speaker 1: tell God this is big and I'm little. Will you
Speaker 1: make up the difference? Clap those blessed, rainy wet hands
Speaker 1: if you believe that God will make up the difference. Amen,
Speaker 1: Your thoughts are not my thoughts, or ways are not
Speaker 1: my ways. And I would always pray that, No, say Lord,
Speaker 1: I thank you that as the rain falls from heaven
Speaker 1: and waters the earth, so she would be the procease
Speaker 1: for from your mouth. They accomplished what you sent to do.
Speaker 1: And it was in King James, how I did it well.
Speaker 1: I stopped praying that when I realized that for many
Speaker 1: years I had been praying it a little bit out
Speaker 1: of context. The prophecy in Isaiah fifty five is written
Speaker 1: to a specific people who will be taken into captivity,
Speaker 1: and they're being prepared for what they're not even going
Speaker 1: through yet. Now in the text I read is very beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's very peaceful as the rain falls from the heaven.
Speaker 1: You know, so beautiful, so peaceful. If you're like me,
Speaker 1: rain is depressing, but Holly thinks is peaceful. We argue
Speaker 1: about this all the time. It's just stay in bed
Speaker 1: to well. Anyway. We have different we have different interpretations
Speaker 1: of the rain. But in this passage. It says that
Speaker 1: the rain makes things grow, and it compares God's word
Speaker 1: to that. So it would be easy to read this
Speaker 1: scripture thinking that the context of it is God's promise
Speaker 1: for revival, and it is, it is, it is. He's
Speaker 1: the God of revival, He's the God of resurrection, He's
Speaker 1: the God of renewal. He's the God who sends the
Speaker 1: rain into the par arched areas of your life and
Speaker 1: brings about things that your mind cannot conceive by the
Speaker 1: power of his spirit. That's all true. But I guess
Speaker 1: I just saw a few years ago that it's less
Speaker 1: about what I say when I'm preaching and more about
Speaker 1: what you hear and then what you do with what
Speaker 1: you hear. Because in verse six, let's go to verse six,
Speaker 1: just before the passage I read, the prophet says, seek
Speaker 1: the Lord while he may be found. Listen to this
Speaker 1: call on him while he is near. Let the wicked
Speaker 1: forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Everybody say thoughts.
Speaker 1: Say it again, say thoughts, type it into chat thoughts,
Speaker 1: and put a little light bulb emologie or a mind
Speaker 1: blow emoji, just to confirm that you heard that he said,
Speaker 1: Let the let the wicked forsake their ways and the
Speaker 1: unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord. This
Speaker 1: is the biblic picture of repentance, to turn around the
Speaker 1: Old Testament maneuver by which we align our hearts with God.
Speaker 1: Thank you Lord for showing me that, because I thought
Speaker 1: that the context of this was revival. But the context
Speaker 1: of revival is repentance. Before the rain comes the repentance,
Speaker 1: he said, let them turn to the Lord, and he
Speaker 1: will have mercy on them, and to our God, for
Speaker 1: he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
Speaker 1: neither my ways your ways. As the heavens are higher
Speaker 1: than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways,
Speaker 1: and my thoughts than your thoughts, says the rain and
Speaker 1: the snow. But look at it again, he said, verse seven,
Speaker 1: Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Speaker 1: So here's what I want to say to you. How
Speaker 1: many of you love the Word of God. How many
Speaker 1: of you believe the word of God can change your life?
Speaker 1: How many want the Word of God to work inside
Speaker 1: of you today? Yeah? All right, Well, I want to
Speaker 1: tell you this first point, God's word does not override
Speaker 1: your thought process. He said that before the earth is
Speaker 1: filled with the rain, that will bring forth the purpose
Speaker 1: for which the word was sent. First, there has to
Speaker 1: be a forsaking before there can be a filling. There
Speaker 1: is a forsaking before there is a filling. And the
Speaker 1: reason that helped me is because I realized that a
Speaker 1: lot of times God has wanted to speak something to me,
Speaker 1: but I did not have room to receive it. So
Speaker 1: let me ask the question again, how many of you
Speaker 1: want to receive a word from God today? I do?
Speaker 1: I need his word. I don't just want it. I
Speaker 1: don't just want. I want to quest cookie after I preach.
Speaker 1: It would be nice, but I don't need that. I
Speaker 1: need God God's word. I need God's word for my dysfunction.
Speaker 1: I know you drop down out of the second cloud
Speaker 1: right there behind Gabriel and put your harp in the
Speaker 1: closet for church today. That's all right. I need God's
Speaker 1: word and I need God's to get God's word to
Speaker 1: give me direction. I really do, because I don't want
Speaker 1: to spend any of my time making decisions that I
Speaker 1: will spend more time cleaning up because I didn't first
Speaker 1: seek the Lord how many of you wasted some days
Speaker 1: because you didn't get God's direction for your life. You
Speaker 1: would have never had to delete their name out of
Speaker 1: your phone if you would have prayed before you anyway.
Speaker 1: So we understand this on one level that in order
Speaker 1: to receive God's word, there are some of our own
Speaker 1: thoughts that we have to forsake. God's word is free.
Speaker 1: Aren't you glad you don't have to pay for this?
Speaker 1: In fact, that's the context of Isaiah fifty five says
Speaker 1: you have no money, come, but it will cost you
Speaker 1: your thoughts. It will cost you your will, it will
Speaker 1: cost you your opinions, it will cost you your preferences.
Speaker 1: The word of God, somebody just put that in the check.
Speaker 1: The word of God, the Word of God. I love
Speaker 1: the Word of God. I don't know why. I've always
Speaker 1: loved it since I was a little boy. I liked it.
Speaker 1: It felt like, even if I couldn't understand what the
Speaker 1: preacher was saying, it just felt different than everything else
Speaker 1: everybody else was saying. Sometimes I slept through it, but
Speaker 1: when I woke up, I still liked it. And now
Speaker 1: I'm coming to the point of my life where I
Speaker 1: value it and I realized that God's word in different
Speaker 1: seasons of my life will come to me in different
Speaker 1: ways through different people. And well, the Bible tells us
Speaker 1: so much about the Bible. The best way to know
Speaker 1: about the Bible is read what the Bible says about
Speaker 1: the Bible. And yet at the same time, God's word
Speaker 1: can be so plentiful and our lives can be so pitiful.
Speaker 1: I read something. I normally don't believe anything I see
Speaker 1: in newspapers, and you shouldn't either, But I read something
Speaker 1: and this sounded accurate, so I'm gonna read it to you.
Speaker 1: This was from the La Times last year in February,
Speaker 1: and they were talking about a state that is so
Speaker 1: prone to droughts. You know, those of you who live
Speaker 1: in California, this may really hit home for you. But
Speaker 1: in February of twenty nineteen, this writer Hannah Fry, She
Speaker 1: said that California's wet winter has dumped you ready for
Speaker 1: this and estimated eighteen trillion gallons of rain in February
Speaker 1: alone in the state, eighteen trillion gallons in that month alone.
Speaker 1: But listen to this. Much of it is simply going
Speaker 1: down the drain. I'm about to preach the la times.
Speaker 1: I'm just warning you. And then she goes on to
Speaker 1: say she quotes this expert and his name is Mark Gold.
Speaker 1: He said, when you look at the Los Angeles River
Speaker 1: being between fifty and seventy percent full during a storm,
Speaker 1: you realize that more water is running down the river
Speaker 1: into the ocean than what Los Angeles would use in
Speaker 1: close to a year. Did you hear that? And he
Speaker 1: said that it's He said that it's a waste of
Speaker 1: water supply, that so much water in a land that
Speaker 1: is so concerned about drought is going down the drain.
Speaker 1: And I don't know anything about environmentalism, but I've been
Speaker 1: preaching God's word long enough to God's people to know
Speaker 1: that some of you you have about eighteen trillion gallons
Speaker 1: of notes in your sermon notebook. Eighteen gallon, eighteen trillion gallons.
Speaker 1: Some of you, you know who you are. I know
Speaker 1: some of you just turned off for the first time.
Speaker 1: You weren't even trying to watch church today. It came
Speaker 1: up in your feet and you didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1: And here you are. But some of you, you've got
Speaker 1: eighteen gallon trillion, eighteen gallon eight how many eighteens? I
Speaker 1: can't say eighteen trillion gallons of truth? But what are
Speaker 1: you doing with it? What am I doing with it?
Speaker 1: I want a revelation. I want a revelation. God speak
Speaker 1: to me today, show me today, and he has and
Speaker 1: he will and he does. But so much of it,
Speaker 1: this is what the article was saying, because the systems
Speaker 1: can't handle because they don't know what to do yet
Speaker 1: with the runoff. And they said in the article they're trying.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're doing it yet or not.
Speaker 1: I didn't look at the update, but they said until
Speaker 1: they can get the supply to the place where it
Speaker 1: needs to be, there can be eighteen trillion gallons of
Speaker 1: downpour and still a drought. There can be eighteen trillion
Speaker 1: gallons of truth. Oh yeah, God's been trying to encourage
Speaker 1: you all week and you're discouraged. Why Why Because it
Speaker 1: went down the drain? And I wonder what God has
Speaker 1: spoken over your life in this season or a previous
Speaker 1: season that you've been letting it go down the drain.
Speaker 1: You know, how does it just goes down the drain
Speaker 1: into the Pacific pessimistic Pacific ocean, the pessic It said
Speaker 1: it all that water everybody say, all that water, what
Speaker 1: a waste, What a waste, All that water down into
Speaker 1: the pessimistic emotion ocean Pacific ocean, pessimistic emotions. I just
Speaker 1: thought some of you had been wasting the words that
Speaker 1: God has spoken over your life. It's one thing if
Speaker 1: you don't need to pay attention to people, people are
Speaker 1: always talking. You can even not pay attention to me.
Speaker 1: But when God speaks, that's how he supplies all of
Speaker 1: your needs. And yet so much of it goes down
Speaker 1: the drain. You do know that by the time that
Speaker 1: you finish hearing a sermon, the devil will have arranged
Speaker 1: three clever distractions to get you from digesting what he
Speaker 1: gave you and to drain you of the deposit so
Speaker 1: that you stay dehydrated in a state of drought. And
Speaker 1: I just needed you to know that it's not a
Speaker 1: shortage of God's word. You know what's weird. When I
Speaker 1: looked at that, I thought, yeah, listen, I want to
Speaker 1: teach you a little bit. I thought, well, if God's
Speaker 1: word comes, you know, like how we'd like to do.
Speaker 1: We just quote scripture over the top of struggles that
Speaker 1: we don't really deal with, and then God's word. Remember,
Speaker 1: it's like the rain, the rain. God's word is like
Speaker 1: the rain. Oh. By the way, it also says in
Speaker 1: scripture that God's word is like honey. It'll brighten your
Speaker 1: eyes God's word. When these are all things the Bible
Speaker 1: about the Bible, because the Bible interprets itself if you
Speaker 1: let it. And God's word is not only like honey.
Speaker 1: But one writer said, it's like milk. It's like milk.
Speaker 1: It's like pure milk. And so the pure milk of
Speaker 1: the Word of God can come in and nourish you
Speaker 1: in the infant stages of your faith. But then he said,
Speaker 1: at some point, you can't just be hanging out, you know,
Speaker 1: drinking that milk forever. You need to grow up in
Speaker 1: mature and get off the bottle. Lord, I thank you
Speaker 1: that the mature people can receive solid food. So the
Speaker 1: Bible is milk, the Bible is meat, the Bible is honey.
Speaker 1: You know what the Bible is this the food category. Everybody,
Speaker 1: Thank God. Everybody who loves to eat. Thank God that
Speaker 1: the word of God. Jesus said, man does not live
Speaker 1: on bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the
Speaker 1: mouth of God. But think about it, that does no
Speaker 1: good without digestion, just like the word of God cannot
Speaker 1: do what it was meant to do if you have
Speaker 1: a jacked up thought process. So if you are a pessimist,
Speaker 1: you will hear God's word always like it's for somebody else,
Speaker 1: or you will only hear the parts of God's word
Speaker 1: that reinforce your emotional biases. So if your heart is
Speaker 1: rooted in suspicion, you will transfer that same suspicion to
Speaker 1: the scriptures. And you will come to the scriptures thinking
Speaker 1: that you have life, but you will not know him.
Speaker 1: So we think like, oh, well, God can just put
Speaker 1: a word, and I can put it up on a
Speaker 1: post it note on my mirror. That's fine on a
Speaker 1: post it note on your mirror, but until it gets
Speaker 1: into your thought process, which the Bible calls meditation. And
Speaker 1: I just wonder what you've been doing with all the
Speaker 1: water God's been sending you as the rain falls from
Speaker 1: the heaven, as the snow. The Bible calls itself a sword.
Speaker 1: Did you know that that means you can fight with it.
Speaker 1: It's not only a sword you can fight your enemy with,
Speaker 1: but it's a sword that pierces you. The scripture says
Speaker 1: it's a double edged sword. So that means you don't
Speaker 1: go around attacking others with scripture versus that apply to
Speaker 1: their situations, the things you happen not to struggle with.
Speaker 1: But you know those Bible verses. It means that the
Speaker 1: Bible is at its best when it is dividing the
Speaker 1: bone and marrow and the soul and the spirit. That's
Speaker 1: what the Word of God can do. And I guess
Speaker 1: that's why I love it because it cuts through all
Speaker 1: the clutter, and it cuts through all the crap, and
Speaker 1: it cuts through all the cynicism, and it reminds me
Speaker 1: who I am apart from the layers of what life
Speaker 1: has tried to label me with. And I love the
Speaker 1: Word of God because it's a sword. Take up the
Speaker 1: sword of the spirit. In that this church, Holly used
Speaker 1: to do sword drills where yeah, and they would quote
Speaker 1: scripture at each other, competing for God's love and to
Speaker 1: see who could quote the most scripture like Pharisees. I'm kidding.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing. Get the Word of God in
Speaker 1: your heart any way you can. But it also says
Speaker 1: watch this, Not only is the Bible carbohydrates like honey,
Speaker 1: how many thank God that the Bible is carved that
Speaker 1: don't make you fat. And then that the Bible is
Speaker 1: a weapon. Not only it's a weapon, but it's a
Speaker 1: surgical instrument. But then I love this because I was
Speaker 1: reading about it and said it was a lamp. Thy
Speaker 1: word is a lamp unto my feet. Can we spend
Speaker 1: a little bit of time talking about why we love
Speaker 1: the word of God? Well, the Word of God says
Speaker 1: that the Word of God is a lamp unto my feet,
Speaker 1: not a floodlight, just enough to show me the next step.
Speaker 1: I love the Word of God like that. God can't
Speaker 1: be memorized, calculated, or predicted. He certainly will not be
Speaker 1: confined to the GPS coordinates of where we thought he
Speaker 1: would show up at this age in our life. But
Speaker 1: the Word of God is a lamp to my feet.
Speaker 1: Jeremiah said it's like a fire. He also said it's
Speaker 1: like a hammer. You want another one. There's so many
Speaker 1: of these I go all day. The Bible also calls itself,
Speaker 1: and some of these we love, some of them we don't.
Speaker 1: It said, it's like rain, as the rains fall from
Speaker 1: the heaven. I don't know if you can hear it. It
Speaker 1: It was raining so hard before I came to appreciate today.
Speaker 1: I thought it might make a backdrop for my sermon,
Speaker 1: and I would just say, yes, Lord. Some people didn't
Speaker 1: even come today because of the rain. The real ones came. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why I like the rain in church. I thought,
Speaker 1: you'll be happy. I was ragging on you. But but
Speaker 1: but I gotta be honest with you. And I told
Speaker 1: you this already. I like honey, I like a sword
Speaker 1: if I'm the one holding it. I like all of
Speaker 1: those things that we just mentioned. But that rain. And
Speaker 1: then did you notice this? It said? And snow. We
Speaker 1: live in North Carolina. This church is all over the world,
Speaker 1: but in this part of the world, if you ever
Speaker 1: come here, I'm not talking about like a blizzard. I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about a blanket. I'm talking about not enough
Speaker 1: snow to make a minuture. Snowman, you can't even make
Speaker 1: a figureine. You came from Toronto, aren't you from Toronto?
Speaker 1: Do you think it's hilarious when it snow's here? See,
Speaker 1: y'all know what to do with the snow. We don't.
Speaker 1: So I thought, I like the Bible being honey, and
Speaker 1: I like the Bible being a sword. So I can
Speaker 1: her like the devil. You picked on the wrong one today, devil,
Speaker 1: not today's satan. I like all of that stuff. But
Speaker 1: the snow is inconvenient, the rain is inconvenience. So I
Speaker 1: wonder will some of the most effective things that God
Speaker 1: speaks over my life be some of the most inconvenient things?
Speaker 1: And I wonder do we associate God's word only with
Speaker 1: comfort and not realize that most of the words that
Speaker 1: He speaks that will really bring forth in our life.
Speaker 1: That's why they say they're going to bring forth if
Speaker 1: you forsake your thoughts. They're really good words from God.
Speaker 1: They're really good sermons. You have a hard time saying amen,
Speaker 1: you'd be saying that other Hebrew were that oh crap
Speaker 1: Hebrew word You ever read that in Hebrew? That's when
Speaker 1: God says something that you know. Now, I gotta change now.
Speaker 1: I can't feel sorry for myself. Now. I can't just
Speaker 1: be bitter. Now, I can't just hold on to this offense. Now,
Speaker 1: I just can't hold on to this grudge. Now, I
Speaker 1: can't just make this excuse. Now, I just can't blame
Speaker 1: these other people thinking about how God's word is so powerful,
Speaker 1: and yet I often feel so powerless, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to bring it to condemn you. But remember, just
Speaker 1: like the eighteen trillion gallons of rain that fell for
Speaker 1: a land that needed a God is always speaking to
Speaker 1: your life, not just right now. God is speaking to
Speaker 1: you through the insurmountable challenges that cause you to rely
Speaker 1: on His grace, much like Paul's thorn that caused him
Speaker 1: to call out to God. God is speaking to you
Speaker 1: through the people that stayed with you in your life.
Speaker 1: He's showing you that He's always had you, He's always
Speaker 1: got you. He's speaking to you. Are you wasting the rain?
Speaker 1: Because if your thought process is programmed by the world,
Speaker 1: you can't receive the word. So that's why I stopped
Speaker 1: praying Isaiah fifty five. I stopped praying about the words
Speaker 1: I was going to speak so much, and I just
Speaker 1: start praying God open our hearts to hear it so
Speaker 1: we don't waste the rain. It's so powerful. You know
Speaker 1: that every time God speaks, it comes with a purpose.
Speaker 1: That's what Isaiah said. He said, not only is your
Speaker 1: thought process the way that you receive God's word, but
Speaker 1: it is the purpose of God that is wrapped in
Speaker 1: the word. So when God speaks to you, it's not
Speaker 1: just so you can. I don't know how we do
Speaker 1: it sometimes like it's a sedative, but it's meant to
Speaker 1: be surgical, right. And when God speaks to you, this
Speaker 1: is what he said, As the rain and the snow
Speaker 1: come down from heaven, and do not return to it
Speaker 1: without watering the earth. And I heard one time somebody
Speaker 1: said what are your thoughts? And they were asking me
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts? And I heard him say what
Speaker 1: are your thoughts? I was like, ooh, that's deep, you know,
Speaker 1: because the thoughts that you water grow. I heard it,
Speaker 1: water your thoughts, like they were telling me. You know,
Speaker 1: I had a picture in my mind, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to water my thoughts. When you water the
Speaker 1: wrong thoughts and the wrong suggestions, they take over everything
Speaker 1: in your life. And this is why God sent me
Speaker 1: to preach it to you today. He said, you waste
Speaker 1: the rain when your emotions are overrun with fear and
Speaker 1: doubt and anxiety. And he said, when God sends his
Speaker 1: word verse eleven, because I like the sword, I like
Speaker 1: the honey, I like all of those things, and I
Speaker 1: prefer them. But he said, like the rain and the
Speaker 1: snow that you sometimes don't plan for. In the Old Testament,
Speaker 1: they connected the weather to God's favor, and they did that.
Speaker 1: So when the Lord is speaking about this, he's not
Speaker 1: just talking about it ruined your day at the beach.
Speaker 1: He has in mind the farmer who needs the early
Speaker 1: rain in October and November and then the latter rain
Speaker 1: in the spring, one to Germany and one to make
Speaker 1: the harvest possible to be reaped. Both are necessary. So
Speaker 1: the Lord is saying through Isaiah, as the rain falls
Speaker 1: from the heaven and does what it was meant to do,
Speaker 1: So is my word that goes forth out of my mouth,
Speaker 1: It will not return to me empty, or one translation
Speaker 1: says void. Okay, So God's voice, when it speaks into
Speaker 1: your life, it doesn't return to him void. It accomplishes
Speaker 1: what he desires and achieves the purpose for which he
Speaker 1: sent it. And I read that to you because a
Speaker 1: lot of times the reason we will think we're receiving
Speaker 1: the word of God is not the real reason, but
Speaker 1: we don't know that until later. So whatever God has
Speaker 1: spoken over your life, and I don't mean like some
Speaker 1: people say when I say that, they just have in
Speaker 1: mind this very like this very Pentecostal version of God
Speaker 1: speaking over your life and all of that. No, I
Speaker 1: just mean the things that God has said about you
Speaker 1: that are true, who you are, your identity, and him
Speaker 1: as his child. The purpose is that He has for you.
Speaker 1: I want you to know that when God sends a word,
Speaker 1: he sends it for a purpose. I was talking to
Speaker 1: somebody the other day, and I know you know this
Speaker 1: about me, so please don't laugh when I say it
Speaker 1: or hurt my feelings. But I have a tendency to ramble. Well,
Speaker 1: I was rambling to this person the other day and
Speaker 1: they looked so bored and I could feel it. And
Speaker 1: do you ever just keep talking and you won't shut up,
Speaker 1: and you know you should shut up, but you can't
Speaker 1: shut up, and it's like where's my shut up button?
Speaker 1: And then you can't find it. And I was telling
Speaker 1: them all this stuff and it was really tm I too.
Speaker 1: I was telling him all about my past and when
Speaker 1: I was eight and all this stuff, and I didn't
Speaker 1: even know him that well. I was just going on
Speaker 1: and on and I said, I don't know why I'm
Speaker 1: even telling you all this, and they looked back at me,
Speaker 1: like I don't either, But you know what. God never
Speaker 1: says that. God never speaks to you and says it.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm telling you this. He's too
Speaker 1: intentional to do that. He doesn't waste his word. As
Speaker 1: the rain falls from the heaven and waters the earth,
Speaker 1: God said, every word I speak now, get this, every vowel,
Speaker 1: every consonant, every single jot, and every tittle. Look it up.
Speaker 1: That's the biblical language. God said, I will give you
Speaker 1: eighteen trillion jockson tittles, and every one of them has
Speaker 1: a reason. Every one of them has an assignment. Now
Speaker 1: I feel like preaching, even when God rambles its revelation,
Speaker 1: even when God says them, and this happens, sometimes you're
Speaker 1: just like, oh, I don't know. Listen. When my phone
Speaker 1: went off with an emergency warning today, I took it
Speaker 1: like God might not have been God, but God used
Speaker 1: even that. All things, all things, every word, all the rain,
Speaker 1: every drop, every drop. Listen to this, Listen to this,
Speaker 1: Lord David, to me like this. Every drop has a destiny.
Speaker 1: Every drop has a destiny. God did not send everything
Speaker 1: he sent into your life to leave you. Now have
Speaker 1: you been wasting the rain? Have you been wasting the rain?
Speaker 1: Have you been taking for granted what God has put
Speaker 1: in your life. I do it all the time because
Speaker 1: I think it's too accessible, and I think that makes
Speaker 1: me less grateful. I think it's sometimes bad for me
Speaker 1: that there's so many different things I can listen to,
Speaker 1: too many different words to choose from. I got I
Speaker 1: got faith fatigue from too many options. And yet when
Speaker 1: God was showing it to me that his word comes
Speaker 1: with the purpose, I was like, well, yeah, of course
Speaker 1: it does. The destiny of the seed is depending on
Speaker 1: the rain, and within that is everything we need to
Speaker 1: know about life, that there is a part of it
Speaker 1: that we can't control and a part of it that
Speaker 1: we can control. And in that marriage, listen everything that
Speaker 1: I told you. The Word of God is honey, milk, meat, bread,
Speaker 1: all of it. Sword One writer said that the word
Speaker 1: of God is like a mirror. Everything I just listed
Speaker 1: does no good without a response. Everything I just listened
Speaker 1: to go through them. Honey doesn't feed you if you
Speaker 1: don't eat it. Milk doesn't feed you if you don't
Speaker 1: drink it. A mirror doesn't help you if you don't
Speaker 1: go back and change clothes for God's sake, brush your teeth,
Speaker 1: and redo the thing that you need to do. That's
Speaker 1: what James said. He said, the perfect law that gets
Speaker 1: freedom is like a mirror and you look at it
Speaker 1: and just walk away and do nothing with it. The
Speaker 1: Word of God, it's it is, it is, It is relational,
Speaker 1: and it is dependent on your response how powerful it
Speaker 1: becomes in your life. This explains why some people will
Speaker 1: sit through a sermon and look at their watch because
Speaker 1: to them the word isn't worth very much. And other
Speaker 1: people they'll cry through the whole freaking thing. Somebody was
Speaker 1: on YouTube this week making fun of some of y'all.
Speaker 1: They said, the crowd so excited and there it sounds fake,
Speaker 1: sounds like sitcom. I don't know, it's not real, because
Speaker 1: you know there's a few people in there helping me preach.
Speaker 1: But I wish, I wish you could tell them what
Speaker 1: the Word of God means to you and how much
Speaker 1: you need it. It is my necessary breath. So when
Speaker 1: they say amen, when they shout, they're not shouting me.
Speaker 1: They're not shouting about a man. They're not shouting about
Speaker 1: an opinion. They're not shouting about a rhyme or a
Speaker 1: hickory vickery dark. They're shouting because when that rain hits
Speaker 1: your heart. It's been real dry this week, and I've
Speaker 1: been down, and I've been discouraged, and I've been in
Speaker 1: the dark. So excuse me while I praise Him, just
Speaker 1: for ten seconds, I gotta say amen, I gotta lift
Speaker 1: my hands. I gotta clock my hands like the trees
Speaker 1: of the field. When I receive the rain of the
Speaker 1: revelation of God. Can't sit there with my arms crossed.
Speaker 1: Sometimes God will speak to you and you feel something
Speaker 1: inside of you, something rising up from the inside, like
Speaker 1: the belly of the earth produces the seed and the
Speaker 1: form of a flower. Here comes the word producing in
Speaker 1: your Life's powerful because as personal, it's powerful because as personal,
Speaker 1: God has spoken some things to you. So I'm sorry
Speaker 1: for praising him. But the next time somebody criticizes you
Speaker 1: for it, look back at him in your best Millie
Speaker 1: Vanillion say, don't blame me. Blame it on the Blame
Speaker 1: it on the rain, Blame it on the word of God,
Speaker 1: Blame it on the presence of God. I can't help
Speaker 1: but get happy. Let me take this watch off so
Speaker 1: I can clap right. I can't help but thank God
Speaker 1: for everything that he saw me through this week. And
Speaker 1: when God sends a word, it serves a purpose. It
Speaker 1: serves a purpose because you serve a purpose. Because you
Speaker 1: are assigned by God and anointed by God, and I'm
Speaker 1: prophesying over your life, it will not reached. Boy, God
Speaker 1: doesn't waste words. God doesn't waste rain. He's got something
Speaker 1: in the earth that he desires to bring forth, and
Speaker 1: that's why he sent this word into your life. That's
Speaker 1: why you're watching. That's why you're watching so you can
Speaker 1: be watered, so what's inside of you can be reviewed.
Speaker 1: So I found out rain brings revelation, the reign of
Speaker 1: God's word. It doesn't make something new appear, It shows
Speaker 1: what was already there. That's why God's word comes alive
Speaker 1: in me. That's why I need to spend a little
Speaker 1: time with God every day. So what's inside of me,
Speaker 1: not what's around me, can control me and guide me
Speaker 1: and live in me, so I can forsake my thought
Speaker 1: and receive his Now, God has been speaking to you,
Speaker 1: but some of us can't receive it because we are
Speaker 1: so full of insecurity. One of my good friends was
Speaker 1: encouraging me the other day and I noticed on the phone.
Speaker 1: All I did the whole time was interruptive and try
Speaker 1: to change the subject. And this is somebody who's insight
Speaker 1: I greatly value. And they were telling me how far
Speaker 1: I've come, how much He's going on and on and
Speaker 1: on and on, and I'm like, yeah, what about those patriots.
Speaker 1: I don't even like the patriots anything to talk about.
Speaker 1: How's Cam doing over there? Said, I'm anything I can.
Speaker 1: I can't even take a compliment. I can't even receive
Speaker 1: encouragement because see, I'm too full of what I think
Speaker 1: I know about me and my limitation. So then watch this.
Speaker 1: This is what some of us have been doing. We
Speaker 1: start limiting our opportunities to the level of our insecurities.
Speaker 1: And all week, I promise you, God has been speaking
Speaker 1: to me and to you, and he's been doing it
Speaker 1: through some people, but you've cut it off. You wasted
Speaker 1: the rain. You wasted the rain. The only way that
Speaker 1: the rain doesn't work is that there's nothing in the
Speaker 1: ground to come forward, because the rain reveals what was
Speaker 1: already there. God, have you been wasting the rain? God
Speaker 1: has been trying to water his thoughts in your life.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why this year has been so weird, right,
Speaker 1: because it's been rainy, rainy, real rainy, not like rainy
Speaker 1: like Isaiah fifty five, rainy, rainy like Matthew chapter seven, rainy.
Speaker 1: Do you know the difference? All right, y'all need to
Speaker 1: see this. Be seated, Be seated. Have you been wasting
Speaker 1: the rain? Because look at this in Matthew seven. I
Speaker 1: was connecting it in my heart because the Lord told
Speaker 1: me to talk to you about wasted rain. And then
Speaker 1: I saw the context in which Jesus said it. Isaiah
Speaker 1: said that the rain came down like the word from
Speaker 1: God's mouth. What he speaks, his revelation, the truth of
Speaker 1: who he is, revealed fully in Jesus Christ, the word
Speaker 1: in Karn, the word mad flesh. When that comes, it's
Speaker 1: like rain that brings forth what was already there. And
Speaker 1: that's how it works in our life. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: return void, no matter what the enemy tries to do,
Speaker 1: no matter what happens in our life. But then I
Speaker 1: read where Jesus said kind of something like Isaiah, but
Speaker 1: it was a little different. I'm going to show you this.
Speaker 1: In Matthew seven, Jesus is closing a sermon we call
Speaker 1: the Sermon on the Mountain, and he's talking about the
Speaker 1: way God's kingdom works versus the way that the empires
Speaker 1: of men work. And he's contrasting that. And he closes
Speaker 1: with a picture. And I want to give you this
Speaker 1: picture and I want you to meditate on it today.
Speaker 1: This word is for you. If you're receiving it right now,
Speaker 1: say this for me, This for me, This is for me,
Speaker 1: because listen, I know God's word is powerful. That's not
Speaker 1: the question. Is it personal. Now Here's what it comes
Speaker 1: down to, and it's right here in the text. Jesus said, Therefore,
Speaker 1: everyone who hears these words of mine, now you don't
Speaker 1: have any room for the words of Jesus if you
Speaker 1: are so full of the words of the world. That
Speaker 1: was a real fancy way of saying, turn off your
Speaker 1: phone every once in a while and hear the voice
Speaker 1: that speaks from within, so you don't waste the rain.
Speaker 1: So you don't waste the rain, he said, everyone who
Speaker 1: hears these words of mine and puts them in to practice.
Speaker 1: The honey's no good if you don't need it. The
Speaker 1: lamp does no good if you don't walk by the
Speaker 1: light that it gives. The mirror does nothing but show
Speaker 1: you a reflection of what's there. It doesn't do the changing.
Speaker 1: It just gives you the opportunity for the change. Right,
Speaker 1: So the revelation requires a response. But that's what he said.
Speaker 1: He said that everyone who hears these words of mine
Speaker 1: and puts them in to practice is like a wise
Speaker 1: man who built his house on the rock. Underline rock
Speaker 1: in your Bible, put rock in the chat. Say rock
Speaker 1: to your neighbor. Rock. The rain came down. That's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened in Isaiah fifty five. Right, the rain came down,
Speaker 1: God said, like the rain comes down from heaven. Jesus said,
Speaker 1: the rain came down. The same thing happened, but the
Speaker 1: context is a little different. See in Isaiah fifty five,
Speaker 1: he's talking about that prophet is talking about the rain
Speaker 1: that comes from God's mouth as his word or the truth.
Speaker 1: But Jesus is using a picture. He said the rain
Speaker 1: came down. He's talking about not the truth but the trials,
Speaker 1: and both are represented by rain. This is like honey
Speaker 1: from the honeycomb. I'm telling you this is more worth
Speaker 1: than gold if you could get this. So the rain came.
Speaker 1: Everybody say the rain came, And how many can say
Speaker 1: the rain came to your life? This year. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: many can say the rain came inconvenience uncertainty? Now listen, listen.
Speaker 1: I know it's weird. Why are you clapping about that?
Speaker 1: Because the same rain, the same rain that Jesus is
Speaker 1: talking about. Here, Isaiah says, the word the truth is
Speaker 1: like rain. But then Jesus says that the rain comes,
Speaker 1: You're gonna love this. And the streams rose, and the
Speaker 1: winds blew and beat against that house. Yet it did
Speaker 1: not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. Now,
Speaker 1: now listen to this. This rain represents the trials of
Speaker 1: your life. You can plug in a divorce, you can
Speaker 1: plug in an eating disorder, you can plug in a
Speaker 1: wayward daughter who's not even returning your calls. You can
Speaker 1: plug in a emotional state that you yourself cannot untangle
Speaker 1: and you've been to three therapists and nobody can straighten
Speaker 1: you out. That's the rain. But God said the same
Speaker 1: way that the rain that comes from his mouth reveals
Speaker 1: what was in the dirt to begin with. The rain
Speaker 1: that comes through the trials of your life reveals what
Speaker 1: was beneath the surface the whole time. So what I'm
Speaker 1: really trying to say is rain brings revelation. Don't waste it.
Speaker 1: Don't waste it. Don't waste it. See the same rain
Speaker 1: that we will shout about, Oh God, the rain of
Speaker 1: your word. And she said, uh huh, there's another rain
Speaker 1: that comes, and it is the rain that comes to
Speaker 1: test whether what you heard is really in your heart.
Speaker 1: I really don't want to stop preaching. Can y'all take
Speaker 1: a little bit more, just a little bit more, Just
Speaker 1: a little bit more honey, just a little bit more bread,
Speaker 1: Just a little bit more, just a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Somebody's saying the chat just a little bit more. I
Speaker 1: promise you the way God showed this to me, he said,
Speaker 1: not only did I give you my words so that
Speaker 1: you could be a survivor of every storm that comes
Speaker 1: in your life listen to this, but so that you
Speaker 1: could be a steward, a steward of every storm, so
Speaker 1: that you don't waste the rain. Everyone who hears what
Speaker 1: God spoke and holds to it and builds by it
Speaker 1: and won't let it go, I mean, just won't let
Speaker 1: it drain into the Pacific emotion, the pessimistic emotion, the
Speaker 1: emotion of oceans that waste, the drain pipe, that drain
Speaker 1: of discouragement, that drain of depression, that drain of the spirit.
Speaker 1: It's all been draining out. You can't even hold a
Speaker 1: word from God for five minutes, draining eighteen trillion gallons
Speaker 1: of truth. God sin in Jesus Christ, his son, the
Speaker 1: word made flesh going down to drain. But the rain
Speaker 1: came to reveal what your house was really built on.
Speaker 1: When you hit a storm, become a student, because the
Speaker 1: rain will always bring your revelation. Isn't that crazy? Some
Speaker 1: things we only learn in storms, we really do. Some
Speaker 1: things we only learn by sitting with that negative thing
Speaker 1: and not running from it. In their temptation to always
Speaker 1: run from the rain, lenmpop this pill and I won't
Speaker 1: have to feel that. Then I won't have to deal
Speaker 1: with what caused it. Let me just go over here
Speaker 1: to this Yeah yeah, ok, ok oh, there went. I'm
Speaker 1: running from the emotion that God is trying to use
Speaker 1: to reveal what my life is really built on. Lord,
Speaker 1: help me say it as the rain falls from the heaven,
Speaker 1: as the rank. The rain came to show you what
Speaker 1: your house was built on. And it's been a rainy year.
Speaker 1: I don't mean because you've heard a lot of sermons.
Speaker 1: I mean, because you've been through a lot of storms.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna waste the rain? You gonna waste it?
Speaker 1: Look what happened to the other men, Just to show
Speaker 1: you how God's word is so powerful it can hold
Speaker 1: your life together. And there's no really reason why your
Speaker 1: life should be together. How many of you have a
Speaker 1: piece you can't explain right now in your life. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: when people ask you how are you so strong? Just
Speaker 1: blame it on the rain. I might retitle this sermon.
Speaker 1: I might put Robin fab up there and put them
Speaker 1: on the thing, and God said, are you real? Look
Speaker 1: at this? Are you really gonna let this storm? That
Speaker 1: only serve the purpose to show you that from the
Speaker 1: foundation of the earth, from the foundation of the earth,
Speaker 1: I was there holding your life, and I am what
Speaker 1: your life is built on. Because the same rain that
Speaker 1: showed the first man how strong this foundation was. Look
Speaker 1: what happened to the other man? Give me verse twenty six.
Speaker 1: But everyone who hears these words of mine and does
Speaker 1: not put them into practice, everybody who sees the honey
Speaker 1: but is not strengthened by it. Everybody who smells the
Speaker 1: bread but does not digest it. Everybody who fills sermon
Speaker 1: notebooks with cute sounding cliches, but never takes a moment
Speaker 1: just to walk it out in faith. Everyone who comes
Speaker 1: to church twenty years and still cherishes racism in their heart.
Speaker 1: Everyone who hears these words of mine men does not
Speaker 1: put them into practice. Well, that's like a foolish man.
Speaker 1: That's like a foolish man who has all this information
Speaker 1: no revelation. He built this house on the sand, and
Speaker 1: look what happened in verse twenty seven. The rain came,
Speaker 1: The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds will
Speaker 1: and beat against that house, and it fell with a
Speaker 1: great crash. The rain came to show you that you
Speaker 1: were building on the wrong foundation. Now, let me ask
Speaker 1: you that if something in your life is falling apart
Speaker 1: this year, week, this month, and God allowed a storm
Speaker 1: in your life, he may not have sentate, but he
Speaker 1: allowed it and everything fell apart, are you really going
Speaker 1: to go back now and build on the same faulty
Speaker 1: foundation that caused it to crash the first time? Are
Speaker 1: you gonna waste the rain? Are you gonna get wisdom
Speaker 1: from it? He said? The wise man went by. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm building you. Remember how the big, bad devil huffed
Speaker 1: and puffed. You remember the story are you Gonna Waste
Speaker 1: the Rain? One of my favorite Bible characters that illustrates
Speaker 1: this is called Elijah the tish Bike from Tishbe, because
Speaker 1: that's where tish bikes come from. My man spoke a
Speaker 1: word that resulted in a three year drought. It had
Speaker 1: already been dry six months. He said to Ahab, it's
Speaker 1: not going to rain. Ahab was the king who reigned R.
Speaker 1: E I g N reigned, who has so much potential.
Speaker 1: He was powerful. His military prowess was like Omri. His
Speaker 1: dad learned all of that from him, so he could
Speaker 1: do what he needed to do. The Assyrians didn't. By
Speaker 1: the time the Assyrians were done with this king, this
Speaker 1: King Ahab, they were putting his name on their monuments
Speaker 1: instead of attacking him. That's how powerful he was. That's
Speaker 1: how powerful he was. He was so powerful his government
Speaker 1: was always stable. But yet the Bible says that he
Speaker 1: took a wife who worshiped a different god. And this
Speaker 1: is not a sermon about marriage. Don't worry about that,
Speaker 1: Just worry about the times where you've allowed your heart
Speaker 1: to worship the wrong thing. That's what he did and
Speaker 1: the whole nation started getting comfortable with Bail. Worshiped Bail
Speaker 1: was the rain God. Bail was the Canaanite rain God.
Speaker 1: They thought he controlled the weather. He didn't. They found
Speaker 1: out real quick because when Elijah spoke the word of God.
Speaker 1: Somebody say the word of God, the word of God.
Speaker 1: When he spoke the word of God, the water stopped coming.
Speaker 1: God will allow in certain seasons of your life for
Speaker 1: things to be taken away so that you build back
Speaker 1: on the rock. Listen, listen. See if this hiss you,
Speaker 1: If this hits you, write it down. The rain revealed
Speaker 1: the rock. The rain came to reveal the rock. To
Speaker 1: know that my life needs to be built on something solid,
Speaker 1: on something stable. God sent the rain so that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't live in an unstable place. Yeah, that's why he
Speaker 1: allowed the rain to come, and that's why he allowed
Speaker 1: the rain to stop. Because he is God like that.
Speaker 1: He is yahweh. That's what Elijah means. Eliyahu, My God
Speaker 1: is yahweh Oh. Elijah had faith because God knew how
Speaker 1: to take care of him during the drought. Elijah never
Speaker 1: starved during the famine. Elijah never went hungry. He always
Speaker 1: had something. God sent him to an exact coordinate where
Speaker 1: he could be fed through the whole three years. And
Speaker 1: one day God said to a life, it's time now
Speaker 1: you go back to Ahab and tell him to stop
Speaker 1: wasting his rain. Ri Ei g An, stop putting the
Speaker 1: wrong person on the throne. You tell you tell my
Speaker 1: child stop letting worry. Sit on the throne in your heart.
Speaker 1: You tell my child stop letting what this cynical, sick
Speaker 1: world did. Y'all hear me last week? You stop letting
Speaker 1: those words have the throne in your heart. And he
Speaker 1: went up there on Mount Carmel, Elijah did and he
Speaker 1: called down fire from heaven and he killed all the
Speaker 1: false prophets. And I'm really rushing through this part. And
Speaker 1: it's real good, and you can read it on your own.
Speaker 1: You don't have to have the milk. You can chew
Speaker 1: this for yourself during the week. It might be a
Speaker 1: good little Bible study. Bible summarizes it in James chapter five.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a headline on it, where in
Speaker 1: verse seventeen he says that Elijah was a human being
Speaker 1: even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would
Speaker 1: not rain, and it did not rain on the land
Speaker 1: for three and a half years. James's being nice to
Speaker 1: Elijah here, because next he tells us again, he prayed,
Speaker 1: and the heavens rain. The heavens gave what heaven's gave rain,
Speaker 1: and the earth produced its crops. And then he stops
Speaker 1: talking about Elijah. He said, he prayed and it didn't rain.
Speaker 1: He prayed again, it did rain. But what he neglects
Speaker 1: to tell you, for whatever reason, that he only records
Speaker 1: this particular instance, is that Elijah prayed for rain and
Speaker 1: the rain came, just like he prayed for the rain
Speaker 1: to stop and the rain stopped, But then he ran
Speaker 1: when the rain came. It's the strangest thing After God
Speaker 1: showed who he really was to the nation, and Ahab's
Speaker 1: wife Jezebel found out about it, she sent a word
Speaker 1: to Elijah. Now I'm asking you a question. If you
Speaker 1: know the word that's powerful enough to control the weather,
Speaker 1: why would you run from the words that came from
Speaker 1: one human being? Isn't that amazing? What can make you
Speaker 1: back down? And that amazing? What can get you off?
Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing? What one little thought can keep you
Speaker 1: from trusting the God? Isn't it amazing? How we waste
Speaker 1: the rain. Ahab wasted his rain r e I g
Speaker 1: n because of the words that Jezebel spoke. Elijah almost
Speaker 1: wasted his rain our I A I in you'll pray
Speaker 1: for me? I could spell it because of the words
Speaker 1: that can from the same woman's mouth. What words have
Speaker 1: been sent into your soul to get you running from
Speaker 1: the very thing that you prayed for? And the Lord
Speaker 1: sent me here for you. Do you know how personal
Speaker 1: his word is? He sent me here for you to
Speaker 1: tell you to stop running from what you prayed for.
Speaker 1: He fled forty days away from the place where God
Speaker 1: had sent the rain. Remember, this rain is what they
Speaker 1: had waited for. This rain represented revival. He was needed
Speaker 1: in this space. He was needed to proclaim the word
Speaker 1: of the Lord to bring the nation back to God.
Speaker 1: And the moment that the sky grew black with clouds,
Speaker 1: he ran because of the words that were in the
Speaker 1: mouth of his enemy. I wish he had remembered he
Speaker 1: had a bigger sword. I wish we had remembered that
Speaker 1: no weapon that has formed against you has the power
Speaker 1: to withstand you. If the word of the Lord is
Speaker 1: with you. Let every man, let every insecurity, Let every
Speaker 1: disappointment be a liar. I'm not running from what I
Speaker 1: prayed for. I got so scared when churches started closing.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do, but I decided, I'm
Speaker 1: not running from the place where God put me for
Speaker 1: such a time as this. I'm not gonna waste what
Speaker 1: God gave me. You pray too hard for this. You
Speaker 1: survived too much to not steward this storm. And by
Speaker 1: the way, for every one of you who's been through
Speaker 1: a real storm lately, and the devil's been throwing rain
Speaker 1: at you left and right, and bad reports left and right,
Speaker 1: and discouragement left and right, tell him he wasted his
Speaker 1: rain because the storm all the storm did. He wasted
Speaker 1: his weapons, because all he did he showed me my rock.
Speaker 1: And I'm still standing. So stand up, Stand up? Are
Speaker 1: you wasting your rain? Are you wasting Some of you
Speaker 1: will take this word and do something with it. Some
Speaker 1: of you will take it and do nothing with it.
Speaker 1: And what you do with it is everything about what
Speaker 1: you get from it. The rain came one more time.
Speaker 1: We did it earlier, but I want you to just
Speaker 1: lift your palms again. Because there was a notice on
Speaker 1: my phone that said there was a flash flood warning
Speaker 1: in this area. And I believe that's coming to your
Speaker 1: house right now in the best way. We wrote a
Speaker 1: song a few years ago, said, hear the word roaring
Speaker 1: is stuff under with the new future to tell for
Speaker 1: the dry season is over. There is a cloud beginning
Speaker 1: to swell to the skies, heavy with blessings. Come on,
Speaker 1: lift your hands, lift your eyes, offer your heart. Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: open the heavens. How many no, he rains, he rains,
Speaker 1: he rains, he rains, he rains, he rains, he rains,
Speaker 1: he rains, he rains, he rains. Ahef doesn't rain. Jesus rains.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, open the heavens. And now we receive the
Speaker 1: spirit of God. Stay right there a minute. God said,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to release it. You won't receive it. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to love you. I'm trying to affirm you. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to direct you. I'm trying to speak to you.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to call you deeper. Every seed buried in sorrow,
Speaker 1: you will call forth. And it's that's what the rain
Speaker 1: is for, to show you what was there the whole time.
Speaker 1: It's still there. The seed's buried, but it's still there,
Speaker 1: just needs water, just needs worship, just needs time. They
Speaker 1: they waited upon the Lord shall renew their strength is
Speaker 1: still there. It's not gone. It's growing. It's growing. It's growing,
Speaker 1: it's growing. Ah. Here the sound, the abundance of rain,
Speaker 1: the abundance of rain. You are lord, Lord of the heartbreak,
Speaker 1: lord of the hardship, Lord of the storm. You tell
Speaker 1: it when to stop. You are lord, Lord of the seed,
Speaker 1: Lord of the harvest, calling our home now to rights.
Speaker 1: I want you to get ready, because it's raining right now.
Speaker 1: It's raining. It's raining. It's raining. It's raining, it's raining,
Speaker 1: it's raining. It's rain, and it's rain, and it's raining.
Speaker 1: It's raining. It's rain and it's raining. It's raining. Those
Speaker 1: aren't tears you've been crying. That's rain. That's rain. That's rain.
Speaker 1: That's rain. That's rain. That's rain, that's rain. It's it's
Speaker 1: all right. It's all right to hurt, go stop, it's
Speaker 1: all right to hurt, go run, it's all right to question.
Speaker 1: Just you commit to it. I'm staying right here, and
Speaker 1: with great anticipation we await the promise to come. Come on.
Speaker 1: I need a band every day thay Jesus is a
Speaker 1: body say come on the world on forecast, savor nor
Speaker 1: family paper in your process daper dora si that we received,
Speaker 1: no wasting, no waisting. You see we received something. Visire
Speaker 1: discuss eph rec know like that we received? Did you
Speaker 1: get the an out said it's a class flne. It's
Speaker 1: a class flne. It's on the paper. FI we recee
Speaker 1: I squeary see why the squeerie see explain I said
Speaker 1: it down. We say where you rec You just say
Speaker 1: we're receiving and received less said we received, were saved,
Speaker 1: we received, we received, we said we are saved him,
Speaker 1: were stay him? So do you receive it today? I mean,
Speaker 1: like really receive it personally for you that God's word
Speaker 1: is not going to return void, that He sent that
Speaker 1: word into your life for a purpose. You might just
Speaker 1: want to sit with that for a little while. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we hear a word from God and then we just
Speaker 1: move on to the next thing. Maybe just take a
Speaker 1: moment and let the reign of God's presence saturate your
Speaker 1: mind and your emotions and your will. And what step
Speaker 1: is God calling you to take? Maybe today is today
Speaker 1: you give your life to Jesus Christ. No more running.
Speaker 1: Maybe today is today that you commit that what is
Speaker 1: within you is going to come forth. Stop being so
Speaker 1: controlled and consumed by what's going on around you. But
Speaker 1: whatever that is that God is calling you to do next,
Speaker 1: I pray that He'll give you the faith. You know,
Speaker 1: when God's word is mixed with faith, that's when growth happens.
Speaker 1: And God is growing us in this season, he really is.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you because not only are we growing,
Speaker 1: but the Kingdom of God is growing. This ministry is
Speaker 1: growing every day. We're reaching thousands of people around the world.
Speaker 1: That's because of you who give. Don't forget that we're
Speaker 1: in the middle of our year end offering season. Rather,
Speaker 1: we're just getting started with it and you can give
Speaker 1: it Elevation Church dot Org. Some of you do that
Speaker 1: every week and that's why we're able to reach Some
Speaker 1: of you may want to begin to do that right now.
Speaker 1: Become a tither or a giver. We're giving around the
Speaker 1: word favor here for year in and if you haven't
Speaker 1: subscribed or ever shared a sermon, all those things do
Speaker 1: that because that's one of the ways that not only
Speaker 1: do we take the word in, but we get it out.
Speaker 1: So thank you for your partnership in the gospel, Holly,
Speaker 1: and I love you. What a privilege it is to
Speaker 1: minister God's word. And I declare over your life it
Speaker 1: won't return for it