Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 2: I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
Speaker 2: this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
Speaker 2: gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the message. This week, I have one more installment
Speaker 2: on Gates of Change and.
Speaker 1: It's in Second King seven.
Speaker 2: And I think this story for most of you will
Speaker 2: be unfamiliar, which is good. It's good because I'm praying
Speaker 2: that God will use it to speak to you in
Speaker 2: a personal way and kind of catch you off guard
Speaker 2: today and create change in your life. Here's what the
Speaker 2: Bible says, Second King, chapter seven, Verse wan Elisha said,
Speaker 2: here the word of the Lord. You've been listening to
Speaker 2: your doubts so long. You've been listening to your dysfunctions
Speaker 2: so long. You've been listening to your disappointments so long.
Speaker 1: But here the word of the Lord.
Speaker 2: This is what the Lord says about this time tomorrow
Speaker 2: a sea of a flower will sell for a shekel,
Speaker 2: and to see us a barley for a shekel at
Speaker 2: the gate of Samaria. And the officer on whose arm
Speaker 2: the king was leaning, said to the man of God,
Speaker 2: looks even this joker, even if the Lord should open
Speaker 2: the floodgates of heaven, could this happen?
Speaker 1: You know how certain.
Speaker 2: People always want to put limits on what God can
Speaker 2: do Taylor's secret. I actually love limitations. I know that
Speaker 2: usually in church they say, you know, take the limits off.
Speaker 2: I personally love limits. In fact, I'm calling this final
Speaker 2: bonus message in the Gates of Change series, Embracing limitation.
Speaker 1: Embracing limitation.
Speaker 2: I think limitation can be a good thing. I think
Speaker 2: it's a good thing that sometimes we limit our consumption
Speaker 2: on certain foods.
Speaker 1: Say amen, I'm a.
Speaker 2: Real strict person on my eating because I'm too wild.
Speaker 1: I'm too wild.
Speaker 2: I need the I need the uh, I need the
Speaker 2: what do they call it? The gutters on the I
Speaker 2: will I will bowl into the gutter every time if
Speaker 2: I don't have.
Speaker 1: Those little guards.
Speaker 2: So I actually do it where I'm not allowed to
Speaker 2: eat past a certain time or before a certain time,
Speaker 2: but during that certain time I can.
Speaker 1: I can do it. But I need limits. I need limits.
Speaker 1: Are you like me?
Speaker 2: Maybe I have no self control? I need limits. I
Speaker 2: don't even like restaurants with big Menus Cheesecake factory gives
Speaker 2: me heart palpitations. The menu looks like Encyclopedia Britannica.
Speaker 1: I can't do it. I need prozac to.
Speaker 2: Make it through my my my order and usually I'll
Speaker 2: get Holly to narrow it for me. I'll be like,
Speaker 2: can you tell me just three things that I might like?
Speaker 2: And can you just narrow the options for me? Because
Speaker 2: I can't do it. I like limitations. I like to know,
Speaker 2: even in preaching, when I go somewhere to preach, they'll say,
Speaker 2: take as long as you want, And I'll say, well,
Speaker 2: how long are the people expecting me to preach? Because
Speaker 2: I want to know how long I have to work
Speaker 2: before they tune me out because they won't. I can
Speaker 2: preach as long as I want, but they might not
Speaker 2: listen as long as I.
Speaker 1: Want to preach.
Speaker 2: Why y'all clapping about that? That was a little awkward
Speaker 2: while I'm saying that, Because limitation can be a good thing.
Speaker 2: It really can. It can be a good thing. And
Speaker 2: especially one thing that I love is when somebody tries
Speaker 2: to put a limit on me that contradicts what I
Speaker 2: believe God has called me to do.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's my ego.
Speaker 2: Maybe I have wounds from my childhood failed wrestling career
Speaker 2: that I'm still compensating for. But I like somebody to
Speaker 2: tell me that I can't do.
Speaker 1: Something I do. It fuels my faith.
Speaker 2: And when we were getting ready to start the church,
Speaker 2: one time I sat down with a guy and I
Speaker 2: was sharing my vision with him, and I was telling
Speaker 2: him that we were going to start a church. And
Speaker 2: I didn't have any better sense than to tell this
Speaker 2: guy my dreams. He was a little older and jaded
Speaker 2: because he had been disappointed in his life. And it's
Speaker 2: a dangerous thing you ready to write something down. It
Speaker 2: is a dangerous thing to entrust your dream to someone
Speaker 2: else's disappointments. And a lot of times that's what happens
Speaker 2: is we share our dream, Joseph, and we show our
Speaker 2: coat to people who are not really ready to receive
Speaker 2: what we speak, and so then if we receive their doubt,
Speaker 2: they will diss our appointment.
Speaker 1: I put that in for Holly.
Speaker 2: Holly dared me to put that in my sermon today,
Speaker 2: and I didn't get it at nine thirty.
Speaker 1: So there it is. Maybe you owe me some.
Speaker 2: Uh, but it's a it's a dangerous thing to speak.
Speaker 1: Something So here's here's what happened.
Speaker 2: We're sitting down having lunch, and I'm like, I'm.
Speaker 3: Gonna start at church. It's gonna be awesome. It's gonna
Speaker 3: be great. We're gonna we're gonna reach the city. We're
Speaker 3: gonna go to Charlotte. We're gonna we're gonna have church.
Speaker 3: We're gonna reach people. We'll break the rules. It's not
Speaker 3: gonna be all this tradition and religion. We're gonna do it.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be edgy, it's gonna be for church people.
Speaker 3: We're gonna reach people far from God. We're gonna beima.
Speaker 2: And the more I was talking, the more he stuffed
Speaker 2: his mouth and just smirked at me.
Speaker 1: Now scowled at me.
Speaker 2: He didn't look mad, he just looked amused. He was
Speaker 2: just smirking at me. And he's stuffing his face with
Speaker 2: French fries. You know, Oh, overweight pastor just deepness.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to color the story a little bit.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember if he was overweight.
Speaker 2: But what I remember is I went on and on
Speaker 2: telling him it's gonna.
Speaker 1: Be We're gonna write worship songs and.
Speaker 3: We're gonna do worship songs gonna touch the world, and
Speaker 3: we're gonna write songs that are gonna go around in
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 2: Oh and it's not just gonna be a white church.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be a lot of different kinds of people.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be white people and black people, and old
Speaker 2: people and young people and Presbyterians and Pentecostals and atheists
Speaker 2: and agnostics and just all kind of people and single
Speaker 2: people and marry people and divorced people. I'm going on
Speaker 2: and on, and he's just eating looking at me, mm hmm.
Speaker 2: And when I finished, he looked at me and said,
Speaker 2: not gonna happen, Bud, Not in the South, Not in
Speaker 2: the South, not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: To be fair, look down your role real quick and
Speaker 1: check your role.
Speaker 2: And I dare you to shout at the top of
Speaker 2: your little sanctified Sunday morning voice, somebody shouts happen. And
Speaker 2: as a matter of fact, I kind of hope that
Speaker 2: he watches this sermon on television, y'all excuse me for
Speaker 2: a minute, so he can see.
Speaker 1: Black people and white.
Speaker 4: People and Hispanic people and Latina people come on and
Speaker 4: loud people acquire people and big people and little people
Speaker 4: and young people, and old people and broken people.
Speaker 1: And all people altogether. Somebody's shad is happening.
Speaker 2: Is something because the limitations you embrace will regulate the
Speaker 2: blessing you experience. And when you allow beliefs to limit
Speaker 2: your God, because you're mind set is too small to
Speaker 2: accommodate the magnitude of His glory, you miss out on
Speaker 2: the very miracles that have your name on them.
Speaker 1: Please follow me for a moment. When the officer said.
Speaker 2: To the prophet, look, even if the Lord should open
Speaker 2: the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen? What he
Speaker 2: did is he closed the gate on the gift that
Speaker 2: God was giving him. So it was a desperate situation
Speaker 2: in the nation because the famine had been going on
Speaker 2: so long that within the gates of the city walls,
Speaker 2: the people had resorted to cannibalism.
Speaker 1: And I debated whether to.
Speaker 2: Tell you this, but it's right in chapter six, should
Speaker 2: you choose to read it, They had started eating their
Speaker 2: own babies. It sounds extreme, However, I think we can
Speaker 2: all see ways that at times we compromise the next
Speaker 2: generation when our value systems get shifted, and so as
Speaker 2: the value system has shifted within the nation. The favor
Speaker 2: of God has not been so much withheld as it
Speaker 2: has been held up.
Speaker 1: And here's the difference.
Speaker 2: When you read about famine in the Bible, you probably
Speaker 2: associate famine with drought.
Speaker 1: And usually when you see.
Speaker 2: A famine in the Bible, it is connected to a
Speaker 2: pronouncement by a prophet, like when Elijah said, there will
Speaker 2: be no rain or do in the land in the
Speaker 2: next few years except at my word to King Aha.
Speaker 2: And God withheld the rain from the heavens, and God
Speaker 2: cut off the source of supply so that the people's
Speaker 2: hearts would turn back to him. Now, in antiquity, people
Speaker 2: did not regard famine and drought only with agriculture or
Speaker 2: weather conditions. In antiquity, people regarded the rain as a
Speaker 2: sign or symbol of the presence and blessing of God,
Speaker 2: because blessing was associated with life and life with blessing
Speaker 2: and without rain, there can be no life. And so
Speaker 2: where there is no blessing, there is no life. Where
Speaker 2: there is no rain, there is no food. Where there
Speaker 2: is no presence of God, where there is no worship,
Speaker 2: there can be no life, no strength, no hope. However,
Speaker 2: this is a different kind of famine that was not
Speaker 2: created by a drought.
Speaker 1: This famine started with a siege.
Speaker 2: Ben Adad was an excellent military strategist, and so when
Speaker 2: he surrounded the northern Kingdom of Israel, which was known
Speaker 2: as Samaria, what he did of common military tactic was
Speaker 2: that he cut them off from their supply. And when
Speaker 2: he cut their line to their food supply, it wasn't
Speaker 2: that he eliminated the food. It was that he prevented
Speaker 2: them from accessing it. And so, since the devil cannot
Speaker 2: prevent God from blessing you, his only alternative is to
Speaker 2: put you in a state of spiritual siege, so that
Speaker 2: you cannot access the blessing that God has freely given you.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we are starving not because of something that God
Speaker 2: did not supply, but because of something he supplied that
Speaker 2: we cannot cease. When the enemy puts you in a
Speaker 2: state of unbelief, it.
Speaker 1: Blocks you from your own blessing.
Speaker 2: And King Jehoram had the wrong people around him at
Speaker 2: this time. We saw it in the text the Officer
Speaker 2: verse two, on whose arm the king was leaning A
Speaker 2: side note for all the students, be careful who you
Speaker 2: lean on. He was leaning on man who would not believe,
Speaker 2: who would not connect to the prophecy by faith, and
Speaker 2: when you lean on people who insist on dragging you
Speaker 2: into their dysfunctional way of thinking. This might be only
Speaker 2: for five people, but sometimes something you lean on in
Speaker 2: one season that props you up can paralyze you in
Speaker 2: the next season. And sometimes we build in our lives
Speaker 2: support systems that are unable to accommodate the weight of
Speaker 2: what God is speaking to us. So be real careful
Speaker 2: who you lean on. Ask somebody, can I lean on you?
Speaker 2: Because see, I don't want to get in the middle
Speaker 2: of a famine and be leaning on someone who doesn't
Speaker 2: have faith. For the life that I'm trying to live,
Speaker 2: I can't just be surrounded by people who refuse to
Speaker 2: believe that better days are ahead and that greater things
Speaker 2: are in store. So sometimes I have to restrict access,
Speaker 2: and I can't just be around anybody, and I can't
Speaker 2: just listen to anything, and I cannot believe everything I see,
Speaker 2: and I certainly cannot believe everything I think. So sometimes
Speaker 2: I've got to shut it down, and sometimes I got
Speaker 2: to mute some people, and sometimes I got to spend
Speaker 2: some time in the presence of God, because my signal
Speaker 2: to noise ratio has caused me to miss the provision
Speaker 2: of God, because I'm leaning on the wrong people and
Speaker 2: listening to the wrong voices.
Speaker 1: This is the word of the Lord.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying be mean to people, just don't lean
Speaker 2: on them. Lean on the everlasting arms, lean on the
Speaker 2: promises of God.
Speaker 1: Build your house.
Speaker 2: On a solid foundation, not the shifting sands of people's opinions.
Speaker 2: And the man on whose arm the king lean said,
Speaker 2: could this happen? Responded he said, you will see it
Speaker 2: with your own eyes, but you ain't getting none of it.
Speaker 1: That's the new new international version, new.
Speaker 2: New I was just thinking how sad that was that
Speaker 2: it was a day of deliverance and the top advisor
Speaker 2: to the king starved to death.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, he didn't.
Speaker 2: Even get the chance to start, because look when the
Speaker 2: people went into the enemy's camp and plundered the enemy's
Speaker 2: camp in accordance with the word of the Lord. Verse
Speaker 2: seventeen says, now the king had put the officer on
Speaker 2: whose arm he leaned, in charge of the gate. Question,
Speaker 2: who have you put in charge of your gates?
Speaker 1: What regulates your thoughts?
Speaker 2: What regulates your belief, what regulates your self image. Look,
Speaker 2: he put the man in charge of the gate. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of revelation in this message. I'm gonna give
Speaker 2: you all of it I can, but you will need
Speaker 2: to lean into this message because sometimes you have put
Speaker 2: a past experience in charge of the gate to your future. Listen,
Speaker 2: and when you let your past experience regulate access to
Speaker 2: your future, you will always be stuck in a stage
Speaker 2: of life that can no longer accommodate what God is
Speaker 2: speaking in this season.
Speaker 1: Not gonna happen.
Speaker 2: But what if I had listened to him, we wouldn't
Speaker 2: get to hang out today. What if I had listened
Speaker 2: to him, I would have built me a little white
Speaker 2: church with some little white people, and it'd be about
Speaker 2: fifty of us, and we would just preach to the choir,
Speaker 2: and we wouldn't change anything, and we wouldn't touch anything,
Speaker 2: and we wouldn't have Epham watching all over the world.
Speaker 2: The devil is a liar is happening, and it's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Within or without you. You might as well get in
Speaker 1: on it, because it's here preaching. My watch off my wrists.
Speaker 2: So if somebody says, happening and what a horrible thing
Speaker 2: for it to be happening right in front of you,
Speaker 2: but you don't experience it. The man on whose arm
Speaker 2: the king leaned stood in the gate, and while the
Speaker 2: people were running to the victory, the Bible says, they
Speaker 2: trampled him in the gateway.
Speaker 1: He died in the gate of what was possible. Y'all
Speaker 1: give me a minute. I don't really know what to do.
Speaker 1: It's a little too minute. Touch somebody say, get out
Speaker 1: of the gate till twelve people sucking he it.
Speaker 2: My love, Tom, come on, twelve people, get out of
Speaker 2: the gate.
Speaker 1: Oh, nobody coming to help me either. Buck, I don't
Speaker 1: need you. I don't need you. Buck, and do this myself.
Speaker 1: I started with week one.
Speaker 2: I was saying, get back in the gate, but I
Speaker 2: heard the Lord saying, this time, get out.
Speaker 1: Of the gate. I said, what is it? He said,
Speaker 1: make a move.
Speaker 2: You hear all this teaching, you, hear all this excitement. Ah,
Speaker 2: that's good, but you got to get started. And he
Speaker 2: died in the gateway. He blocked his own breakthrough. He
Speaker 2: saw it, but he did not experience it because he would.
Speaker 1: Not believe it.
Speaker 2: It is our unbelief that blocks our blessing, not others.
Speaker 2: Some of us we block ourselves by blaming others, and
Speaker 2: so we stay locked in prisons of offence and we
Speaker 2: miss blessings because we would rather blame somebody else than
Speaker 2: believe God.
Speaker 1: See, let me preach this.
Speaker 2: You cannot believe God and blame them. At the same time,
Speaker 2: you can't believe God and blame others.
Speaker 1: Either you believe.
Speaker 2: That what people meant for evil God means for good,
Speaker 2: or you don't. If you believe God, it means there's
Speaker 2: nothing life can do to you. There's nothing people can
Speaker 2: throw at you. There's nothing they can say about you,
Speaker 2: think about you, or lock you out of that will
Speaker 2: keep you from receiving what God is a signed to
Speaker 2: your life. So here's the announcement, Elisha. You can have
Speaker 2: your breakthrough or you can have your blame, but you
Speaker 2: can't have both. When the king came to Elisha, he said,
Speaker 2: this is God's fault that we're in this famine.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the lord's fault. It was the fault of
Speaker 1: the leader.
Speaker 2: And sometimes we will not lead our own lives and
Speaker 2: take initiative for our own repentance, so we block our blessings. Boys,
Speaker 2: do you hear me. We block our own blessings, not
Speaker 2: the devil, our disbelief. God's going to do it. The
Speaker 2: other day, a great man of God was encouraging me.
Speaker 2: Great man of God. If you made a list of
Speaker 2: the top five people in the world, he would be,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, somewhere in the top ten. But I
Speaker 2: respect him so much. Now why I respect him? He
Speaker 2: has longevity and ministry. And he was introducing me to speak,
Speaker 2: invited me to speak, and he got up to introduce me,
Speaker 2: and the things he was saying about me, they were
Speaker 2: so nice and encouraging, I thought he.
Speaker 1: Was talking about someone else.
Speaker 2: It was a kind of introduction where he wasn't just
Speaker 2: speaking like he wrote a book or he pastor to church.
Speaker 2: He was saying things that he saw in me and
Speaker 2: how God had called me and our ministry and a
Speaker 2: voice to the generation, a bridge to reconciliation, just things
Speaker 2: that while he was saying them, at the same time
Speaker 2: that he was affirming me, watch this, there was another
Speaker 2: There was another voice, not on the stage, but inside
Speaker 2: my soul. You ever had this happen, Like somebody is
Speaker 2: trying to affirm you, trying to love you, trying to
Speaker 2: validate you, but you cannot receive that because your gates
Speaker 2: are blocked. There is something in the way called you
Speaker 2: that will not allow you to receive the love that
Speaker 2: God is trying to give you through someone else. And
Speaker 2: while he was saying these things about me, it's almost
Speaker 2: like the more he said good about me, the worse
Speaker 2: I felt, because what I thought is he doesn't know me.
Speaker 2: The problem with you is you've got too much dirt
Speaker 2: on yourself. And the problem with you is you think
Speaker 2: you know yourself better than God does. The moment the
Speaker 2: revelation hits your life that the only one who knows
Speaker 2: you completely is the same one who loves you unconditionally,
Speaker 2: you will be unstoppable in the Kingdom of God. And
Speaker 2: while he was sitting there affirming me and saying things
Speaker 2: about me, the devil that will, slithering serpent that came
Speaker 2: crawling up the eve talking about did God really say
Speaker 2: he was placing limitations? It was my own limitation. It
Speaker 2: is hard for you to take on giants when you.
Speaker 1: See yourself as a grasshopper. It's hard for.
Speaker 2: You to come out of a famine when you are
Speaker 2: living in the depths of your own frustration.
Speaker 1: And even when I preach.
Speaker 2: Sometimes some of you play me off and hold me
Speaker 2: off and cross your arms and close your heart and
Speaker 2: you lean back, and it is your way of shutting
Speaker 2: the gates.
Speaker 1: But you are missing the miracle.
Speaker 2: Because you feel unworthy. But God never predicated his blessing
Speaker 2: on your worthiness.
Speaker 1: Perfection is not the price of admission to.
Speaker 2: The Kingdom of God, nor to the great works and
Speaker 2: mighty things that He has called you to do in
Speaker 2: the earth.
Speaker 1: I feel annoyed to tell.
Speaker 2: You today, imperfection has never stopped God from blessing anybody.
Speaker 2: The only thing that blocks your blessing is unbelieved. But
Speaker 2: I dare you to shout right now, loud enough where
Speaker 2: that devil can hear you.
Speaker 1: I believe I am the righteousness of God. I need
Speaker 1: you all this shout. My voice is tired. Shout. I believe.
Speaker 2: Elijah said you'll see it, but you won't experience it.
Speaker 2: He doesn't say how he ever, knows how. God doesn't
Speaker 2: give you a lot of the details. Sometimes I wish
Speaker 2: he did it be super nice, but he doesn't. All
Speaker 2: he says is this time tomorrow the famine is going
Speaker 2: to be over.
Speaker 1: How's he gonna do it? What are we gonna get
Speaker 1: some manna from heaven. A little flashback Friday famine flashback,
Speaker 1: because remember we're there in willerness the job.
Speaker 2: Drop down a man out of heaven and say, a
Speaker 2: man out of having what's it gonna look like?
Speaker 1: How's he gonna do it? This time?
Speaker 2: You might be surprised how God bless us and delivers
Speaker 2: the nation. Because the Bible says, oh, I love this
Speaker 2: part right here? Can you tell that I love what
Speaker 2: I do to preach to you? Because I really feel
Speaker 2: like I've been cooking this all week and we're about
Speaker 2: to eat something right now.
Speaker 1: I mean I smell it. Who smells good? Verse three.
Speaker 1: Now there were four men.
Speaker 2: Everybody say four four four number of creation in the north, south,
Speaker 2: the east, and the west. You know, winter, spring, summer, fall,
Speaker 2: four represents creation. So there's a creative miracle on the
Speaker 2: horiz And now there were four men with leprosy at
Speaker 2: the entrance of the city gate. Now contrast emerges. I
Speaker 2: got somebody in the gate who doesn't believe, and then
Speaker 2: we've got a group of men.
Speaker 1: They are outside the gate.
Speaker 2: Not because they're coming back from whole foods. This is
Speaker 2: a gated community in the sense that these men. When
Speaker 2: the white, flaky spots started showing up on their skin,
Speaker 2: they had to go to the priest. Leprosy was used
Speaker 2: to refer to a wide variety of skin diseases in
Speaker 2: this day, from the most moderate being a change in
Speaker 2: coloration to bloody sores. And since leprosy is a progressive disease,
Speaker 2: eventually maybe your fingers start falling off.
Speaker 1: But it's also a contagious disease.
Speaker 2: So when you start to see the sun and you
Speaker 2: are pronounced ceremonially unclean, they move you and quarantine you
Speaker 2: and position you outside the gate. And now your only
Speaker 2: hope of survival is to beg because you can't even
Speaker 2: carry on a normal conversation. If you approach somebody, you
Speaker 2: have to announce your condition before you engage, And so
Speaker 2: to even get into the gate, you would have to
Speaker 2: start hollering within about ten or twenty feet.
Speaker 1: Unclean, unclean.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine if you had to announce your condition
Speaker 2: to people out loud before you.
Speaker 1: Met them, you would have no friends. I'm serious.
Speaker 2: If you had to externalize things that people don't know
Speaker 2: what's wrong with you, some of y'all would have to announce,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know, Amazon addict, Huh what if
Speaker 2: you had to announce everything that was wrong with you
Speaker 2: you had done a loss perversion?
Speaker 1: What would that be like? What would it be like?
Speaker 1: I talk bad about you the other day, but Hi,
Speaker 1: how you doing? I can't stand you announce their condition?
Speaker 2: And they're outside the gate and they're isolated, and they're desperate,
Speaker 2: and they're not welcome, and they're starving, and the doggie
Speaker 2: bags have stopped coming because the people inside the gate
Speaker 2: are going to take care of themselves first and foremost.
Speaker 2: And they're outside the gate and there's four of them,
Speaker 2: like those four men. You remember the New Testament, don't you,
Speaker 2: because Jesus was preaching. Maybe we'll preach about it in
Speaker 2: my next series. And so many people were in the house,
Speaker 2: nobody could get in, but there were four crazy men
Speaker 2: who were a friend to this man, and so they
Speaker 2: got creative and they don't you try this if you
Speaker 2: come to Elevation.
Speaker 1: Church and it's full.
Speaker 2: They ripped the roof off of the house and lowered
Speaker 2: I promise security will wrap you up.
Speaker 1: But this was Bible Times. They ripped the roof. I'm
Speaker 1: sitting an overflow, Yes you are.
Speaker 2: They ripped the roof lowered the man down, and the
Speaker 2: man got healed because of the faith of four crazy men.
Speaker 2: Now watch the crazy faith so much, say crazy faith.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say this right now.
Speaker 2: I don't mean to offend you, but some of you
Speaker 2: have way too many limits on what you will and
Speaker 2: won't do to obey God. You have too many limits,
Speaker 2: You have too many conditions. You don't want to look weird,
Speaker 2: you don't want to be different, you don't want to
Speaker 2: stand out, you don't want people to talk about you.
Speaker 1: And so you're starving inside.
Speaker 2: But these men, they didn't have the option to stay inside,
Speaker 2: and they couldn't stay.
Speaker 1: Where they were.
Speaker 2: The Bible says that they eventually, after many days of this,
Speaker 2: said to each other, why stay.
Speaker 1: Here until we die? What a question?
Speaker 2: In other words, it is complacency that kills us. It
Speaker 2: is our willingness to stay in places where we are
Speaker 2: starving because we fear the repercussions of our obedience, and
Speaker 2: so we don't join an E group because we're scared
Speaker 2: of being seen, so we stay in isolation.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna push these E.
Speaker 2: Groups today, and we die outside because we won't let
Speaker 2: anybody in. But they didn't have that option anymore. They
Speaker 2: did not have the luxury to sit back and wait
Speaker 2: and see what God would do. They no longer had
Speaker 2: the luxury of patience. So they said to one another,
Speaker 2: we can't stay here, and if we say verse four.
Speaker 1: We'll go into the city.
Speaker 2: The famine is there, so we can't go there, and
Speaker 2: we can't stay here. So we only have one thing
Speaker 2: left to do.
Speaker 1: Let's go.
Speaker 2: Somebody shout, let's go. You didn't shout at shout, let's go.
Speaker 2: So let's go over to the enemy's camp.
Speaker 1: And surrender. If they spare us, we live. If they
Speaker 1: kill us, at least we die quick. Because I'm hungry.
Speaker 1: Let's go. Let's go, let's go. We can't stay here.
Speaker 2: And we can't go there because we're outside the gate.
Speaker 2: Here's what I love. If you've ever felt like an outsider,
Speaker 2: raise your hand right now. If you've ever felt, yeah,
Speaker 2: like an outsider, that surprises you, right, because where are
Speaker 2: the insiders? If we all feel like outsiders? That was
Speaker 2: kind of weird. How more of us feel like outsiders?
Speaker 2: Here's good news for the outsiders. These men were on
Speaker 2: the outside of the city gate because of their condition.
Speaker 2: But what I love is God was using their condition
Speaker 2: to position them in the place so that they would
Speaker 2: not be comfortable enough to stay.
Speaker 1: And their condition here's what I love. I love a
Speaker 1: preaching to you. I'm appreciate this whole point just to you.
Speaker 2: Their condition position them to be God's secret weapon to
Speaker 2: save the whole nation. I am trying to say that
Speaker 2: sometimes the thing that.
Speaker 1: You hate is the thing that God will use.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the thing that makes people not like you and
Speaker 2: reject you is the very thing I'm about to fall
Speaker 2: off the stage that will cause God to select you
Speaker 2: and choose you and use you for a breakthrough.
Speaker 1: Does anybody believe.
Speaker 2: Then? To show the pillers rejectives? Way, y'all leave and
Speaker 2: I'm preaching good. Somebody shouted, you know, God's.
Speaker 1: Use an unlikely people.
Speaker 2: If they had been inside the camp, they would have died.
Speaker 2: It was the fact that they were not allowed in
Speaker 2: the camp that led to them.
Speaker 1: Look what they did. This is so stupid what they did.
Speaker 1: It makes no sense. It makes no sense.
Speaker 2: Sometimes, in order to see what God has spoken come
Speaker 2: to pass, you can't be so focused on making sense.
Speaker 2: Your senses are killing you. Living by what you see
Speaker 2: is killing you. Living by what you feel is killing you.
Speaker 2: Living by what you hear is killing you, and they
Speaker 2: had no choice. These are not the people who come
Speaker 2: to church to check it off a list because it's
Speaker 2: a nice thing to do, and their grandma would be
Speaker 2: proud if she was still alive today.
Speaker 1: These are the people who.
Speaker 2: Come to church because I need God to survive. These
Speaker 2: are not people who come to church so they can
Speaker 2: get a good parking space, perhaps on Tuesday morning. These
Speaker 2: are the people that come to church because I.
Speaker 1: Can't make it.
Speaker 2: I live and I breathe, and I move, and I
Speaker 2: have my being in Him. And that dusk, before the
Speaker 2: light came, they got up and went to the camp
Speaker 2: of the Aramias. And when they reached the edge of
Speaker 2: the camp, watch this nobody was there. God had already
Speaker 2: displaced their enemies.
Speaker 1: All they had to do was show up.
Speaker 2: See, they went to surrender to the enemy, but the
Speaker 2: enemy had already surrendered to them. When will we realize
Speaker 2: that when we run from the devil, we are running
Speaker 2: from a defeated f Oh. See, the Bible says that
Speaker 2: he is already under my feet. So all I have
Speaker 2: to do to have the victory in my life is
Speaker 2: to take another step. Now, I want to apologize to
Speaker 2: John Gray because he preached so good last week. But
Speaker 2: he said something that I want to take a step further.
Speaker 2: He said, these gates are voice activated.
Speaker 1: I'm not correcting him.
Speaker 2: I'm simply adding in addendum they are not only voice activated,
Speaker 2: they are motion activated. See God moves when you move,
Speaker 2: the title runs. When you take your stand, when you
Speaker 2: put on your sealed of faith, the fiery darts of
Speaker 2: the wicked one will be quinched. So when when they
Speaker 2: got to the edge, care somebody say.
Speaker 1: I'm moving, I'm moving. I'm moving.
Speaker 2: I'm not dying here. I'm not dying like this. I'm
Speaker 2: not living in this mess. I'm not passing this on
Speaker 2: to my kids.
Speaker 1: I'm not going out like this.
Speaker 2: I'm not startling with my God owns the cattle on
Speaker 2: a thousand, who's not like this? For the Lord had
Speaker 2: caused the Aramians to hear the sound of chariots and horses.
Speaker 2: God casts the enemy to hear an army that wasn't
Speaker 2: even there.
Speaker 1: When he lies to release the word of God.
Speaker 2: When you make a declaration of faith, it goes before
Speaker 2: you into your future.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, why not shall right now?
Speaker 2: Because when we praise God, the devil gets a.
Speaker 1: Panic attash and he has to turn loose. I saw it.
Speaker 1: I feel like the price.
Speaker 2: I'm real sorry if you don't like it loud like this,
Speaker 2: but somebody is starving in this church today. And it
Speaker 2: wouldn't be so bad if you were starving and there
Speaker 2: was no food. But when Christ died to give you life,
Speaker 2: and the thief came to us, kill, steal, and destroy.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but I can't stand by silent while the
Speaker 2: devil white silad generation.
Speaker 1: I can't stand by silent.
Speaker 2: While teen suicide is in an all time I I.
Speaker 1: Can't stay silent. The gates of hell won't.
Speaker 2: I believe.
Speaker 1: If we stay silent, we die. If we hide our leprosy,
Speaker 1: it kills us.
Speaker 2: God nuse somebody who wasn't even allowed in the city
Speaker 2: to save it. God's gonna use all of you who
Speaker 2: feel unworthy, and all of you who feel not good enough,
Speaker 2: and all of you who have been ostracized, and all
Speaker 2: of you who feel limited.
Speaker 1: That's how God works. It's through your limitation.
Speaker 2: These men were so diseased that no one was allowed
Speaker 2: to even touch them.
Speaker 1: Come here. He couldn't even touch them. And that's who
Speaker 1: God chose. So they went in the camp. Let me
Speaker 1: show this.
Speaker 2: They went in the camp, and they saw that the
Speaker 2: enemy was already gone, because a lot of times what
Speaker 2: you're scared from got what you're running scared from, God
Speaker 2: has already dealt with.
Speaker 1: But the enemy has you under siege, and.
Speaker 2: He puts a spirit of fear on you, because if
Speaker 2: the spirit of fear ever lives, you will find out
Speaker 2: who you really are in Christ. But when they got
Speaker 2: they saw that it was theirs for the taking.
Speaker 1: So now the first thing they did wasn't to pray
Speaker 1: and give God their glory. First thing they did was eat,
Speaker 1: and they went in. They went in this tent.
Speaker 2: And when they reached the edge of the camp, they
Speaker 2: entered one of the tents and they ate and drank.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no, no no no, no no no.
Speaker 2: And then they started carrying away the spoils, the silver, gold, clothes, vibranium.
Speaker 1: This is good, this is good, this is good. But
Speaker 1: then they went off and hit.
Speaker 2: Them, went off and hit them, because that's what you
Speaker 2: do when you're a leper.
Speaker 1: You high.
Speaker 2: That's that's what you do when you're ashamed, you high.
Speaker 2: That's when you do when you feel like an outsider.
Speaker 2: Remember the man in the parable that said, I was afraid,
Speaker 2: so I took what you gave me, and I hid it.
Speaker 1: The enemy wants to keep.
Speaker 2: You in hiding, and if he can, he give you
Speaker 2: a condition that will cause you to hide your gift.
Speaker 1: You hear this word I'm trying to preach to you.
Speaker 2: I wish I could sit down one on one with
Speaker 2: everybody in the church and say, what are you hiding?
Speaker 2: Because here they are. God has given them the victory
Speaker 2: and they're hiding it. And sometimes we hide because we
Speaker 2: are convinced that we are not worthy. And sometimes we
Speaker 2: hide because we are afraid of what might happen if
Speaker 2: we let our lights shine. But they had a revelation
Speaker 2: in verse ten. I believe it is nose first nine,
Speaker 2: and they said to each you know.
Speaker 1: This is not right. Here we are. We don't deserve
Speaker 1: to be here.
Speaker 2: This is a day of good news, and we're keeping
Speaker 2: it to ourselves.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: If we wait till daylight, if we hold this in,
Speaker 2: if we keep this to ourselves, punishment will overtake us.
Speaker 2: What you hold inside. When you don't show your issues,
Speaker 2: you die. When you don't share your gift, you die.
Speaker 2: You are dying because of what you are hiding. If
Speaker 2: we wait, if we sit on this, we die. If
Speaker 2: we expose our sin, we can be healed. If we
Speaker 2: hide it, we will die. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: A lot of us are dying on the inside because
Speaker 1: our issues are.
Speaker 2: Beneath our skin. So we stay outside the camp, don't
Speaker 2: tell anybody. Fine, I'm good, good, good.
Speaker 1: We post and we pretend to our thing. But they
Speaker 1: had a revelation.
Speaker 2: God is blessing us now and we have to share
Speaker 2: what the Lord has done, even though we're lepers, even
Speaker 2: though I'm imperfect. You know how preposterous it is for
Speaker 2: me to preach to you when I struggle, Like I struggle,
Speaker 2: I stand on this stage before you each week by faith.
Speaker 1: See what the thing about it is?
Speaker 2: What if the reason God chose the lepers to discover
Speaker 2: the treasure was because they knew how to make an announcement. See,
Speaker 2: once they found the goodness of God, they said, let's
Speaker 2: go at once and report this in the royal palace
Speaker 2: and then look at verse ten. So they went and
Speaker 2: called out because that's what leopards do. Only this time
Speaker 2: they were not shouting unclean, unclean.
Speaker 1: This time they were shouting let's go, let's go. The
Speaker 1: only one.
Speaker 2: Who can really shout the victory is the one that
Speaker 2: God has raised from the.
Speaker 1: Ashes up defee.
Speaker 2: So I want to give you an opportunity. If he healed,
Speaker 2: if he saved you, if he raised.
Speaker 1: You, if he's been good to you, if you have
Speaker 1: a testimony.
Speaker 2: If you are not a say I'm a gospel of
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: All the grateful people south right, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 2: this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2: You can click the link in the description to give now,
Speaker 2: or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
Speaker 2: and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1: You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2: You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
Speaker 2: share it on your social stories and tag us at
Speaker 2: Elevation Church.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. God bless you