Priscilla Shirer speaks at the 2018 Passion Conference for TBN’s Praise. Gain strength and wisdom for your spiritual battles as Priscilla boldly calls out the schemes placed against you, and the distractions we all fall into when we don’t know how to effectively wear the armor of God. WATCH full Praise episodes for free on the TBN app: https://watch.tbn.org/praise
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he wants you to point fingers at him or
at her at your boss
at your parent at that particular
professor or your r.a
in your dorm he wants you to think it’s
that advisor or it’s that financial
problem anything
flesh and blood because he knows as long
as we’re looking at the flesh and blood
we will direct all the wrong weapons at
the wrong culprit
i cannot even begin to tell you how
excited i am
to be here
thrilled finally to be a passion this
is my first time being at passion
i i’m the new kid on the block
thank you for making the new kid feel
welcome it is a privilege to be a part
of what god has already been doing
through this movement for these years
these decades that god has been sowing
seed into the lives of
of you y’all don’t even know
what it is that the lord has in store
you can’t even imagine i’m trying to
tell you that whatever is in your mind
right now about what god
might do with your life it is too
small for what he’s actually planning to
do
too small you cannot fathom
what god has in mind for you the reason
why i can say that
with that much boldness
is because while there are 30 plus
thousand of us that are gathered
together in these three arenas and then
those that are on the other side of the
screen in their homes
thirty thousand sounds like a big number
unless you consider the fact that with
seven
plus billion people on the planet
the fact that he’d let us be the ones
that are recipients of what he’s done
over these last
few weekends really it’s just our last
few days really it’s just a drop in the
bucket 30 000 sounds like a lot but in
the grand scheme of all the people
that could have been here y’all he chose
us
that means he intended for you to know
you’re an arrow that your expectation is
that you’re getting ready to go places
the likes of which you could never
imagine oh i like y’all y’all talk back
to me
i go to that kind of a church where they
talk but you know i go to the kind of
church where
if the preaching gets really good to us
we might throw something
at the pastor a shoe
a baby anything might go flying up there
y’all are my people y’all came to have
church
so i have three boys um it’s a little
bit scary to me that they are
nearly and will be very soon in the next
few years will be
about your age three sons the
distinguishing characteristic about my
boys
is that they are giants they are huge
boys
my 15 year old is six foot two inches
tall
he wears a size 14 men’s shoe my 13 year
old is about
six one he wears a 13 men’s shoe
and uh they tower over me i have a nine
year old who’s coming up in the ranks
with his brothers they are
tall boys somebody can help me feed
these people
and one of the distinguishing
characteristics about or what makes
their size
work for them rather is that they do
love sports so whatever sport is sort of
in season that’s what we’re playing at
the time
my second son for a lot of years he’s
into basketball now but for a lot of
years
baseball was this thing and i enjoyed
that i enjoyed baseball season
i liked going out there for spring ball
i liked spring ball because you go
sit in the cool of the evening while
your kid is practicing i remember all
those years of
of little league when he was just coming
up and we’d sit out there in the
cool of the spring evening under the
lights of the bleachers watching and
practice and enjoying just
uh that whole atmosphere i like spring
ball so much the only problem with
spring ball is that it is going to
become summer ball
and i don’t know what happens where you
live wherever you’re coming from but i
can tell you in dallas texas which is
where i still live
and where i was born and raised in
dallas
texas in the summertime it doesn’t warm
up slightly
it gets hot i’m talking about slap your
mama hot
that kind of hot the kind of hot where
you feel like
the sun must be mad at you about
something like you did something to the
sun and the sun is trying to get you
back
all summer long that’s what it feels
like and you’re sitting out there at a
game trying to enjoy your kid’s game and
it really still is okay when there’s
just
one game the problem is that at the end
of every season there’s a tournament
so you got to be out there on a thursday
at 8 00 am and 10 a.m and noon and 2 p.m
and then depending upon how your kids
team did you’re gonna have to come back
on friday at 8 am and 10 a.m and then
they give you a little lunch break but
you got to come back
for the 2 p.m game the 4 p.m game and
then if your kid’s team had the nerve to
do well
you got to come back again on saturday
for the 8 a.m game and 10 a.m
and noon and 2 and man you’re sitting
out there under the blazing sun
trying to be happy that your kid is
doing well
really you’re wondering if it’s ever
okay to pray they lose so you can go
home
i will never confirm nor deny that i
have ever done that
but i will tell you that we were sitting
out there at a tournament so several
years ago
sun was blazing we were so excited for
the lunch break just because that meant
we would be able to go to a restaurant
where there would be air condition
and ice water that actually had ice in
it
we got refreshed we came back
we drove our suv up into the parking lot
opened up the back of the suv so that we
could pull out all the gear that we
needed
to go to the next game in the tournament
we were three days into the tournament
hot
sweaty they were doing well we were
trying to be excited about it
ready for the next game i was walking
behind my son
to get from where we had parked the car
over toward the dugout where the next
game was going to be played and so
i gathered up all the stuff you know the
ice chest that you have and the um
the umbrella that you might have to go
over your head and you know the water
bottles the
the backpacks the the baseballs the
mitts all that stuff and i was following
behind
my son my second son jerry jr is a
fairly gregarious personality
he’s outgoing he’s excited for a
challenge
so i could see that in his step as i
followed behind him i could see a skip
in his step his chin was up his
shoulders were back he was excited about
the next game
and i got to tell you he’s pretty good
in baseball he has a natural
knack for it i remember at 10 years old
was the first time
he got a good hit and sent it sailing
over the fence line at 10 years old
and i think it’s partly because of his
size just a lot of power behind the
swing a great as a first baseman
so we were really excited about his
success in baseball and
and i watched him as he kind of hopped
and skipped over to the next game
just excited about the next challenge in
the tournament
but because i was following behind him i
had my eyes glued on him and i could see
when something changed i could see that
as we took the short walk
from where we parked the car over to the
dugout i could see that his shoulders
started to hunch over and his
head hung down i could see that that
that skip that had been in his step it
changed he was kind of
walking like he was nervous he was
wringing his hands a little bit i saw
that he was looking around his eyes
darting and
looking a little bit sketchy i was
trying to figure out what happened to my
boy it was a short walk
from where we parked the car over to the
dugout and all of a sudden his
countenance had completely changed so i
started looking around trying to figure
out what was going on why
did he look so insecure and fearful all
of a sudden
i realized that as we were going toward
the dugout we were walking past
some kids from another team they were
all laying
on the grass underneath the shade of an
oak tree getting ready for the next game
as i passed them i could see this was
the team we were about to play next
kept walking and i kept getting a look
at these boys
and when i looked at them i realized
what my son’s problem was
we had faced this team before we had
faced them earlier in the season
and when this team had played my son’s
team earlier in the season they had
annihilated us it had been a complete
embarrassment a complete upset
this team right here y’all they were
serious baseball players
but we had to walk right by them to get
to the dugout as we walked past there
were two players they were talking to
each other one was whispering to the
other
i think he thought he was whispering but
we could hear him
he leaned over to the other one and he
said there goes that big kid from the
red sox team
is he the one that hit the ball and it
went over the fence
yeah he was the one at first base the
one that caught any of the outs that we
got in the game that was him
so that’s jerry shire
when my boy heard his name cross the
lips of the opposing team members
those shoulders that had been hanging
down all of a sudden i watched him pop
back again
i watched his chin go up i watched him
get a little swag
back in his step as he headed over
toward the dugout
in fact we had to bring him down a few
notches before the game started
it’s amazing really how your countenance
changes
when you really overhear and understand
what the enemy thinks about you when he
sees you coming
it doesn’t mean that the challenge goes
away it means that in the face of it
you’re different your stance is
different because you recognize
that when the enemy sees a daughter or a
son
of god coming his way he’s shaking in
his boots not because of you
but because of the holy spirit of god
that lives on the inside of me
i came to tell somebody today that even
if you don’t believe what it is that the
word of god
declares to be true about you you need
to know that the enemy does
he knows that every single thing that
god’s word
declares to be true about you every word
that has been declared
over you in these last few days of this
conference even if you’re not
convinced about it the enemy is he knows
that you have been forgiven
he knows that there is therefore now no
condemnation for those of us who are in
christ jesus
he knows that you have been given the
victory he knows that you have been made
competent by the spirit of god
he knows that there is therefore now no
condemnation for you
or for me no shame no guilt he knows
that you have not been given a spirit of
fear
but a power and love and of a sound mind
and y’all he knows that in the end
we win
and i’m saying what ashamed it would be
for the enemy to believe more about your
potential than you do
what ashamed it would be for us to go
out of here
with all of this inspiration that we
have been given this
investment of god’s word that he has
gathered us together over the course of
these days
to worship in spirit and in truth and to
hear his word declared
true over our lives what a tragedy it
would be
for us to walk out of here and still
live like we were
before we came through these doors
so what the enemy will do is scatter
challenge in front of your life because
listen you’re going back home to
challenge y’all do know
we going back home in a little while
right and don’t we wish we could wake up
to this
every single day don’t we wish that we
could
have god’s word spoken over our lives
with this much authority and power every
single day and be in the presence of
leaders who can
lead us into the presence of god and
worship every single day
like this but the reality is we’re going
back home
the challenges of your university campus
the challenges of your home your
relationships your friendships
on your job those challenges will be
sprawled out in front of you with
you get home and let me tell you
something what the enemy hopes
is that the sight of them will cause you
to shrink back in so much
fear and insecurity that you’ll never
step up to the plate of being who god
has called you to be
listen if you’ve placed faith in jesus
christ i hope you know
that the enemy understands he cannot
destroy you
he knows his chances are over of
destroying you so he is going to spend
the rest of his time
and the rest of his energy just trying
to discourage you
trying to distract you so that you’ll
shrink back in fear and insecurity and
not
step up to the plate and be
who god has called you to be
it is at least in part to this end that
the apostle paul gives us a passage of
scripture
that has become a lifeline for me
in fact i was talking with christine
yesterday chris and i have known each
other for a very long time very close
friends and she was asking me
what i was going to speak on i had
several thoughts of directions that i
was
leaning toward but in the end we
as we were talking the question came up
if there was only one thing you could
say to them
if there’s only one message that you
ever have the opportunity
to tell these students these young
people that will be gathered together on
this occasion what
would that message be and there was one
thing that immediately popped into my
heart
and my mind for you at the end of this
year’s passions
passion conference it’s the words of the
apostle paul
he writes them in the book of ephesians
listen let me just tell you quickly
before i read this passage you got
if you’ve not read the book of ephesians
you’re gonna have to read the book of
ephesians
y’all listen it’s it’s like for real
the apostle paul y’all know he was a bad
boy he gave us most of what would become
the new testament
letters written to first century
believers that now disciple us and help
us to mature as believers and as the
body of christ
and scholars say that of all of paul’s
writing really the cream of the crop the
cherry on top of the cake
is ephesians because in the book of
ephesians y’all he just spends the first
half of the book just rehearsing who you
are as a daughter or a son
he wants to make sure you step up to the
plate rise to the occasion of who
you’ve been recreated in christ to
become those of you
who place faith in jesus christ last
night who stood
to your feet at the end of pastor
louie’s message and you place faith in
jesus
listen the old has gone and the new has
come
you’re a daughter your son and you have
full rights and privileges that have
been granted to you
the apostle paul wants you to know what
is the hope of his calling and choosing
you
he writes in the first and second and
third chapter about the treasure that
you have
he wants you to know about the mercy
that has been lavished upon you
the grace that has been given to you he
wants you to know that if you’ve been
rejected by everybody else
you’ve been hand-picked chosen and
adopted by the one true god
he wants you to know that if you’ve dug
a pit of sin for yourself
that is so deep you can’t find your way
out of it
that the mercy of god is so great and so
grand
that it can reach down into any pit and
snatch you up out of it once and for all
in fact paul gets so worked up that by
the time he gets to the middle of the
first
chapter he bursts out in a prayer and he
says
i’m praying that the eyes of your heart
would be open
so that you would just know what is the
hope of his calling and choosing you
and after going over and over and on and
on about the lavishness the richness the
grace
the mercy the goodness the adoption that
has been poured out over us the
forgiveness
that has been granted to us he’s trying
to figure out how do i
close this letter to make sure they step
up to the plate
how do i put an exclamation point on
passion 2018 to
make sure that what god has given them
they don’t hand
over to the enemy as soon as they walk
out the door
and the apostle paul writes these words
to us
in ephesians chapter 6 beginning in
verse 10.
he says finally
you be strong in the lord and in the
strength of his might
he says put on the full armor of god
so that you may be able to stand firm
against the scheme somebody say schemes
against the schemes of the devil he says
we wrestle not we struggle
not against flesh and blood but against
the rulers against the powers
against the world forces of this
darkness against the spiritual forces of
wickedness that are in the heavenly
places
he says so therefore you might as well
just go ahead and
put down all the weapons of this world
that aren’t working for you anyway
and take up some weapons that actually
have some power
he says take up the full armor of god so
that you may be able to resist
in the evil day and having done
everything to stand firm
he says you ought to just stand firm
therefore
in these few verses of scripture the
apostle paul begins to introduce to us
a concept that has not been
at least in the context of thus far in
church
development at that time had not been as
overtly described as it is right now
in paul’s letter he brings up the topic
of spiritual warfare he says
you have an enemy he says i want to make
sure that it’s loud and clear there are
other places in the old testament and
throughout throughout the new y’all
where we can infer that we have a
spiritual
unseen battle going on but this is the
first time that an
author comes right out and says you have
an
enemy and he is scheming against you
that when you leave this place in just a
little while when i leave this place in
just a little while
you need to know that there is an enemy
he is against
you he is not for you he plans to do
anything and everything in his power
to stir up challenge in your life enough
to cause you to shrink back and not rise
up and stand
firm in the victory that you have been
given in christ jesus that’s why the
apostle paul says
stand firm
because you have an enemy an enemy that
wants you to think that just because he
is invisible he is also fictional
he wants to be chalked up to nothing
more than a caricature
a cartoon picture a myth a
character for a kid’s nursery rhyme he
doesn’t want you to recognize
the influence that he has over your life
possibly to
to cause you to never walk into the full
expression of god’s grace and goodness
in your life
he is sinister he is a master
illusionist and he is a deceiver
and he hopes to cleverly disguise
himself
behind life’s most pressing problems to
where you will forget he is even there
he wants you to point fingers at him or
at her
at your boss at your parent at that
particular professor or your r.a
in your dorm he wants you to think it’s
that advisor or it’s that financial
problem anything
flesh and blood because he knows as long
as we’re looking at the flesh and blood
we will direct all the wrong weapons at
the wrong culprit
we’ll think our money will work we’ll
think our rationale and logic
will actually work we think that the
diploma we’re about to
to achieve and receive we’ll think the
diploma will be work worth it
we’ll think that the connections will
work anything
natural cannot take care of the
supernatural
when your problem is unseen and
spiritual you need
weapons that work in that realm
so the apostle paul says you got to know
first of all that your enemy is not the
person you are sitting next to today
that your enemy is not your parent at
home your enemy
is not that professor that is difficult
to work with your real enemy
is not your boss on your part-time job
your real enemy
is unseen he is hoping y’all that we
will forget he’s there
he is the master deceiver so there’s a
little church around the
corner from my house in dallas
i’ve been taking my kids there since
they were little to harvest festival
that’s basically this church’s answer
to halloween so we will go there for
harvest festival
and this church has a good old-fashioned
trunk or treat
does anybody know what i mean when i say
trunk or treat
okay all right so trunk or treat for
those of you who are not
clear on what that is that’s when
members of the congregation volunteer
they volunteer to bring their cars into
the parking lot on harvest festival
night
so that they can open up the trunk of
their car so you go into the parking lot
all the trunks are open
and each person has basically crafted a
carnival game or some sort of fair game
out of the trunk of the car
so kids line up one trunk after the
other they play whatever the game is
and then most of the time whether they
win or lose the person that owns that
car gives them a whole bunch of candy
and sends them home we’re always so
grateful
so we stand in line one car after the
other waiting on bags of candy
and we play one game after the other a
few years ago
the biggest line the longest line at the
carnival wasn’t behind
a car it was behind the bed of a truck
it was really clever
a huge truck had been parked in the
parking lot
and they’d put a step ladder right at
the bed of the truck so that a kid could
walk into the bed of the truck
they had attached a tabletop which was
about the same size as the bed of the
truck
they had attached it to the side of the
truck cut six holes into it
put some fabric some drapery over it and
out from those holes every few seconds
a puppet would pop through they gave the
kid a huge plastic mallet and the job of
the kid
was to run up and down the inside of the
bed of the truck as he tried to
hit the puppets on top of the head it
was a homemade whack-a-mole game is what
it was
and it was the longest line me and jude
at the time he was like four jude is my
youngest
me and jude are standing in line we’re
waiting on our turn behind us there’s
another kid
he’s with us his mom he’s probably four
or five as well
and y’all he was hysterical because he
was annoyed at this whole situation and
he was making sure she knew it
he was first of all annoyed because mom
i don’t understand why i got to stand in
this long line didn’t we come to the
carnival to have fun this ain’t fun
standing in line ain’t fun i have an
idea mom how about this
how about i go play all these other
games while you stand in line and hold
our place and then when it’s our turn
i’ll come back and join you in life
but he was not only annoyed about the
line the four-year-old was also annoyed
because mom i don’t even understand this
game
why in the world would i waste all my
energy running up and down the inside of
that truck to hit the puppets on the top
of the head if when i hit them on the
head they’re gonna disappear but then
they’re just gonna come back as soon as
i hit them on the head what’s the point
of this game
so everybody in the line is laughing
hysterically because this four-year-old
this five-year-old is
talking so much about all of his
frustrations finally
he gets so frustrated that he works
himself into a frenzy to where
all i saw out of my peripheral vision
was a four-year-old flash
running past me as he ran forward and he
grabbed the drapery off of the table
top and pulled it clean off underneath
there were three adults with puppets on
each hand
that day we all got a good laugh but we
also got a good lesson
there is always something you can’t see
influencing what you can and if you
spend all of your time your energy your
effort trying to hit
at what you see popping up in your life
you’re gonna be so frustrated
and by the way exhausted because as soon
as you take care of one thing another
one is coming back
unless you do what the apostle paul says
pull back the curtain and let the enemy
know we got our eyes on you
and we’re going to use some weapons that
actually work back there behind the
curtain
y’all i wish i had learned this when i
was 18 19 20
21 years old that that person that
physical problem
isn’t really where you need to invest
your energy
pull back the curtain use the weapons
that actually have power
the apostle paul wants you to know that
the tactics of the enemy are serious
business and so he uses a specific word
to describe them
he says schemes
listen to me he knows your weaknesses he
knows how to dangle what carrot at the
right time
in the right way to make sure you are
snagged in particular
have you ever wondered or found curious
that that particular carrot is always
dangled in front of you when you are
most
tired when you are most vulnerable
when you happen to be most hungry
most alone most weak that particular
carrot the one that wouldn’t mess with
your friend because it’s not her deal
it’s not
his deal he’s not enticed by that but
the one that entices you
always shows up at the right time y’all
that’s not coincidence that’s a scheme
the enemy is trying to derail you he’s
trying to make sure
that you don’t walk in a manner worthy
pleasing of the lord that you
come in here but that you don’t go out
of here
the purpose to live for the glory of god
he’s trying to trip
you up not only for his own benefit but
because he does not want you having
access
to everything that you are privy to as a
rightful heir to the king of kings and
the lord of lords
it’s a scheme so if he’s got tactics
we need tactics the apostle paul
outlines them for us i’m just going to
read them to you because he says in
verse 13
you need the full armor and here’s what
they are verse 14
he says make sure that your loins are
girded with truth
then he says you need a breastplate and
the breastplate is called righteousness
and then he says in verse 15 you got to
have something for your feet if you want
any hope of being able to move forward
successfully
so your feet need to be shot with the
preparation of the gospel of peace
and then not only that but he says there
are some flaming missiles of the evil
one
that he fully intends to send sailing
into your path
you’re gonna need a shield and the
shield is your faith
and then you know there are lies there
are strongholds that he’s going to try
to erect in your mind you’re gonna need
something to protect your mind
he says you need a helmet and the helmet
is your salvation
but not only that he says that you are
going to need
a sword really a dagger of the spirit it
was about 18 inches long or so the one
the apostle paul
is referring to you need a dagger so
that when the enemy is all up in your
space you’ve got something close at hand
to make sure that he stays at bay you
need a dagger of the spirit
and the dagger is called the what
the word of god but y’all he doesn’t
stop at those six can i just say that
there is one more in 18
verse 18 traditionally it’s taught as
six i really believe there are seven
pieces of armor
because in verse 18 he says pray
it says pray
[Applause]
not like you know a prayer or a day to
keep the devil away
not like a prayer over your meal just
cause
that’s what your mama did and your
grandmama did and that’s what you’re
supposed to do
not something quick and casual
fervent prioritized prayer
y’all you can’t have victory if you
don’t pray
do you hear what i’m saying to you
prayer is the key
that unlocks the resources of heaven so
that they can be unleashed
on planet earth prayer is the key he’s
actually given you
to get all the good stuff down here
because i don’t know about you but
i don’t want to wait to get to heaven to
experience all that god has for me any
bits of heaven
he plans to give me on earth i want it
right now
prayer accesses the bits of heaven he
intends to give you now
and prayer listen prayer is what pushes
the kingdom of darkness back
it’s what pushes it back that’s why
jesus said my house shall be called not
a house of good preaching
not a house of good singing not a house
of great spotlights and production
not a house of great cafes i hope you
have all of that
enjoy it but jesus said at the end of
the day my house better be called a
house of prayer
because spotlights and fog machines and
great singing and great preaching
that won’t necessarily push the kingdom
of darkness back
but when my people who are called by my
name when they will humble themselves
and when they’ll pray he says then i’m
gonna hear from heaven
i’m gonna heal the land the enemy will
have to bend the knee at the name of
jesus in prayer
so pray
there’s one other piece of armor i
couldn’t get by without talking to you
about it for a few moments
y’all still awake everybody again
it’s in verse 14. he says
put on a breastplate called what
righteousness righteousness
jerry and i live in a fairly rural part
of dallas fort worth
we like it that way close enough to the
city we can get there quick
but it’s quiet and lazy we live on a
little two-lane sleepy road somebody’s
got some horses over there
there’s some cows over there and one of
my closest friends
lives across the street that’s why we
like it because she’s got a pond
in the front of her property so i’ll get
the boys and the two fishing poles i
bought on sale at the local walmart
i have a tackle box too that i got on
sale there because and you know we need
things we need extra hooks because the
boys always lose the hooks
extra bobber thingies you know because
we need extras of those
i also have gloves in the tackle box
because you all know i don’t mind going
fishing but i ain’t gonna actually touch
no fish
so we walk across the street with
whatever hot dog meat we’ve got left
from the week because you know we’re
professional fishermen so our hot dog
meat is our bait
we walk across the street we stand in
this little cove underneath some trees
and we fish just right there most of the
time
just a little sun perch stuff like that
we can catch quick in an hour we can
catch like 10 or 12 fish just a little
quick
easy little fishing trip every now and
then though i’m feeling adventurous
what that means is is that we will get
into my friend’s little row boat they
bought on craigslist it’s metal
it’s not a big deal it’s just a little
it’s sea worthy it can hold us up that’s
all we need
i’ll swim we’ll uh row out into the
middle and we’ll fish from there every
now and then
but i always think twice before i do it
and here’s the reason
because in order to get in it we first
have to turn it over
they leave it upside down as they should
to drain water while nobody’s using it
so i gotta turn it over to get in it and
what i do know for sure
is that when i turn this thing over
something is either gonna hop out from
underneath it
something’s gonna waddle out from
underneath it or worst of all oh
something’s gonna slither out from
underneath that boat because the
environment under there is moist and
damp and
perfect for critters do you know what
i’ve noticed every single time we turn
it over something comes out
and never once have i had to write a
golden sealed invitation and send it
into the brush nearby
to invite the critters to come and join
us at one o’clock today you’re welcome
never once have i had to invite them
because the environment created by the
upside down boat
is invitation enough
righteousness is right side up living
that invites the sunlight of god’s favor
and blessing upon your life
unrighteousness
is upside down behavior that is out of
alignment with the truth of god that
you’ve been sitting underneath
for the last few days it’s behavior that
is out of alignment with the truth of
god
to where you don’t have to invite the
enemy and come and make himself at home
in your life you just keep living upside
down
and the environment created by upside
down behavior is invitation enough
listen to me you can pray against the
enemy till you’re blue in the face
but if you and i leave passion and we do
not walk in holiness
we do not live in a lifestyle that is in
alignment with the truth of god we will
have wasted our breath in prayer
paul says somebody’s got to live right
it’s flat out straight up
holiness it’s holiness
it’s a word that our our grandmothers
and our grandfathers back in the good
old days when you went to church and you
sat on a wooden pew
it’s before some churches became so
pre-seeker sensitive
i remember y’all i went listen i’m off
track listen i went to a church
and they said we are a pre-seeker
sensitive church and so we actually
want to sort of uh in a way they said
dull
down the actual literal name of jesus
just so we can get people
in first then we will we will be more
direct later on i said oh you have
invited the wrong person
because there used to be a day in time
where it was just black and white
where there were fewer gray areas and
tolerance yes come as you are but don’t
stay as you are
holiness brothers and sisters i implore
you by the mercies of god
to walk in a manner worthy of this
calling by which you have been called
that every bit of truth that you have
received this weekend to align your
lifestyle to it
to not determine that you will still dig
your heels into the ground
and live immorally or speak immorally
or do the things habits and lifestyles
and choices and relationships that you
know
are outside of alignment with the truth
of god turn the boat right side up
so that you can invite the favor of god
on your life
the apostle paul says righteousness is
your breastplate
the roman army in the first century they
had many pieces of armor as you know
but the breastplate would have been one
of the most critical
the reason why was because it obviously
protected the most vital organ they had
their heart
the heart is the lifeline for your
physical well-being
all of the blood flow the vitality the
energy that you need to function
in every level of your life comes from
the vitality of your physical heart
what the physical heart is to the
physical life your spiritual heart is to
your spiritual life
all of the vitality the energy that you
need to be
who god has created you to be to have
fervency in your prayer life
to follow him with passion and with fire
to read the bible and not just be ink on
a page
but you hear his voice speaking to you
to have clear reception
between you and the holy spirit you need
a vital
spiritual heart that’s why if i were
your enemy more than
all else i’d be after your heart
because one shot to the spiritual heart
will wipe you out
your spiritual heart is comprised of
four things your mind the way you think
your emotions the way you feel your
ambitions what you purpose to do
and your conscience your conscience is
not
the voice of god but your conscience is
like this wiring
that helps this microphone amplify my
voice the the conscience
is the microphone that the holy spirit
uses to help you
hear the voice of god so if i were your
enemy i’d be after your heart because if
i could get to your heart that would
mean
i would have automatic access to your
mind now i could tinker with your
thinking
i’d have automatic access to your
emotions i can mess with the way you
feel and make sure
they’re out of alignment with the truth
of god i can mess with your ambitions to
where
what you want to do is totally out of
alignment with what god
wants you to do and more than all else
i’d want to make it sure i have a shot
to your heart so that i can
short-circuit the wires between you and
the holy spirit
now you can’t even hear god speak to you
because you didn’t have a breastplate on
the apostle paul says holiness is your
breastplate
holiness blocks you from a full frontal
attack of the enemy
holiness keeps the enemy at bay to where
when he comes looking around for some
people
that he can infiltrate some upsell side
down
environments that he can fester in he
can’t find that with me
or with you because we’ve chosen right
side up living
aligning ourselves with the truth of god
breastplates in place securing us
against the schemes of the enemy
holiness is your breastplate
i came to tell you to live right
i came to tell you not to just have
heard all of this
to go home and live in accordance with
it
be ye holy
not by your power not by your might but
by the spirit of god
there is no relationship you’re in that
if it is out of alignment with the truth
of god that the holy spirit himself
won’t help you to sever so that you can
walk in holiness
there is no lifestyle you are living
that is too uh that you’re too wound up
in that you can’t break free from no
matter how you feel
in this moment you can walk in holiness
there is no way you have been speaking
no addiction that you have
no habit that you have been festering in
your life that you have been harboring
in your life that the holy spirit won’t
empower you
to break free from so that you can walk
underneath the banner the
favor of holiness in your life be ye
holy y’all listen
listen back in our grandmama and our
grandparents days
great-grandparents
they wanted to honor god more than they
wanted to impress people
see the problem with instagram and
twitter and social media if there’s a
problem y’all the problem is
we want this
we want to be impressive
and if i’m worried for our generation
it is that we are impressive
but we don’t have breastplates on
it is that we have the applause of
people and our selfies are perfectly lit
and we have a whole bunch of friends and
a whole bunch of instagram likes and
people are following us and the enemy is
thrilled because we have
sacrificed holiness
on the altar of impressing people
you gotta live for the applause of
heaven
you gotta decide i will not be
politically correct before i will choose
to be holy
i will not be impressive before i will
choose to be holy
i may not be the the person that
everybody wants to be around i may not
be
the most impressive but what i will be
is holy
because a time is coming y’all where we
are gonna see our savior face to face
and when we see him he will not ask us
how many instagram followers
we had he will not ask us how many
friends liked our post
he will not want to see the selfies that
we took when we see him
face to face he’s going to ask us did we
do business with his son jesus christ
and then
and then we’re gonna give an account
and i don’t know about y’all but i’m
looking for
well done
[Music]
i want a well done
i want jesus to look at me and say you
did the thing girl
not because they bought the books they
bought the bible study they saw the
movie
no you did the thing because you honored
me
whether with an audience of one or an
audience of 30
000 you honored me
i came to tell you brothers and sisters
walk with integrity
be in the dark who you are in the light
everything that your god has entrusted
to you over these last few days
the enemy does not mind he doesn’t like
but he doesn’t mind that you heard him
he didn’t mind you
came here what he minds is if you leave
here
and live by what you heard
[Music]
crazy father
if you’re here
[Music]
if you’re in this room stay standing if
you’re in this room or one of the other
arenas that were at home
and you know you were living in a way
that is out of alignment with the truth
of god your breastplate is not
in place you are open to full frontal
attack
by the enemy because you haven’t girded
yourself with
holy living and maybe you’re in a
situation where you’ve been trying to
live right but by your own strength and
power you just can’t seem to pull it off
and you need the holy spirit to do what
he does
to set you free to empower you to rise
up in victory to step
up to the plate and hit a home run for
the kingdom of god
[Music]
y’all remember y’all remember in the
lion king
[Music]
simba’s messing with the hyenas and he’s
like where and they’re like
seriously and he does it again
and they’re like you gotta be kidding he
does it again
[Music]
and they’re like no you’ll never take
us down you’re too weak you’re too small
you’re too puny
by yourself
he tries it one more time he lets out
his best roar but it sounds like
something big
and giant and it echoes off of the
mountains nearby and the enemy enemies
go running away not because he was the
roar
but because his daddy had come up behind
him
and mufasa had let out a great roar
the roar of the father is behind you
walk in victory
in jesus name amen
[Applause]
at tbn our mission is to use every
available means to reach as many
individuals and families as possible
with the life-changing gospel of jesus
christ thank you for helping
make the gospel of grace
go around the world without you we
couldn’t do it god bless you