Transcript:

All right. Thank you. Man, it’s so good to be here with you guys and get out of the cold St. Louis freezing cold snow, put on a pair of shoes for real, not having to wear boots. Thank you, Daniel, Terry, thank you, James and your lovely wife. Stand up James and your lovely wife. Pastor James and his wife they’ve been hosting me and they’re just amazing people. I love you guys. Thank you so much. Give them a hand. It’s really important to remember God’s people are important.

Thank you for that message that you just brought to us. Strengthen the church and encourage each other. What a great message. What a time. I believe that’s what God has sent me here for is to encourage you as pastors and leaders and we know the responsibility that you have as a leader and a pastor, but you need to be encouraged, during a time like this, and during a season like this we all need to be encouraged. It’s been a very, very difficult time for us to really understand and comprehend what is what.

Let us pray first. Father, we love you. We honor you. Father, we thank you for the gift of life. We thank you for what you’re doing in this season. Father, we thank you for the trials. We thank you for the tribulations. We thank you for the struggle. In the midst of the struggle Father, we learn to persevere. We learn to endure, Father. It’s because of your grace and your mercy over our life. And we’re so thankful for it. We thank you as the body of Christ that we rise up as a church, we strengthen ourselves and encourage each other. We lift each other up Father and we don’t compare. We’re not in competition. We’re here to win souls. There’s dying people out there, there’s darkness in the time that we’re living in. Let us be a light in the darkness. Father, we send this petition up to you. We ask that you would seal it right now in the name of Jesus. Amen. And amen.

Well, thank God because I wasn’t always like this, you know? You can laugh about that. Give you a little bit about my story here. You know, I was a broken heathen, womanizer, alcoholic, drug addict, sinner, rich, famous, saved by grace. It was amazing where God will meet you, right where you at. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you’ve done, and what has happened in your life. If He wants you, He’s gonna get you.

I’m grateful for a praying mother. See, my mother went home to be with the Lord. She had breast cancer. She died at the age of 55. And she went home to be with the Lord about 25 years ago. And I just remember I was living the heathen life, separated, playing Major League Baseball, and achieving all these great things. And I remember on her passing and my sister finding a journal under her bed. And in that journal, she was praying to God that God knock my son off of His throne and save him. I don’t care about his career. I don’t care about his fame. I don’t care about his fortune. Save him. See, she didn’t get to see it in the natural but mama was looking in the supernatural and saying, “Look at him.” God did exactly what she was praying for. So some mothers in here sometime you need to understand. It might not be up to you to see it in the natural. All you got to do is keep praying and keep believing.

See, my mother was a believer over all of us because my father was alcoholic. He rejected me, he beat me. He said, I’d never mount to nothing. Came home for the last time when I was 14, pulled out a shotgun, said he would kill the whole family. So I need to tell you this story before I enter into what Jesus did. See, I was broken before I ever put the uniform on. I was wounded before I ever put the uniform on. I put the uniform on because my pain led me to my greatness.

My greatness would eventually lead me to my destructive behavior. Because you’re not well because you put a uniform on and you achieved things. Yeah. I was privileged to live behind community gates. My kids were privileged because of the lifestyle that sports gave me, but it did not make me a man. It made me a baseball player wearing a uniform. I didn’t become a man till I met this man named Jesus. See, I was a baseball player all those times that people were watching me and saying, “What was wrong with him?” But see, it wasn’t until I came to the place with all the broken pieces that I had in my life, and came to the cross.

After my mother had prayed for me, I came to the cross and I didn’t understand the cross from the beginning when I first came to it. ‘Cause I got radically saved at a Morris Cerullo conference in 1991. Power of God came over me right up he said, I had just signed the biggest contract of my life, I should have been happy, but I was miserable went to this crusade crying four nights in a row. All I heard was Jesus. And I was like, “Who is Jesus?” I got radically saved.

I ran to the wall, dislocated my shoulder. I didn’t have a foundation. Didn’t have a discipleship. Which most people don’t get any more in the churches today. It’s discipled. And guess what happens? You go back to the familiar. I went back to the familiar for another 15 years. See, one thing I do know about God, God didn’t reverse the call of my salvation. He allowed me to go through the process that I had to go through. I’m not encouraging anybody that you should go 15 years being separated from God. And I went over, like about 15 years separated until God used my wife that you saw up there, Tracy to lead me back to the Lord. And that would restore me forever.

And I remember when I came back 18 years ago I remember all my former teammates and players, the first saying was saying, “Well, yeah, let’s see how long this will last. Yeah. He’s gonna serve God.” Well, yeah, it’s been 18 years and they’re still waiting for me. So it’s something about coming to have the real conversion with Christ when you get to that place in your life. You guys should know that, you pastors and leaders here you know I don’t have to tell you but the conversion is a process and it takes time for wanting to come to know God and have a relationship with God.

Because the Bible says “My people perish because of lack of knowledge.” There was no knowledge and understanding of the word. So I was perishing because I didn’t know the Word of God. You know, I just knew His name, but I didn’t know His power denied His power, but I knew His name. See, there’s something great about knowing the power of who Jesus is and just not just His name. See, when I had to come to the place of being surrendered and sat down, God has set me for seven years. A

fter returning back from a lifestyle of brokenness, and He found me in the pit and He was calling me to a pulpit. Little did I know that He wanted me to be in a pulpit to preach the gospel. I said, “You got the wrong guy.” He said, “No, I got the right guy.” I said, “I’m not qualified.” He says, “No one is qualified, I qualify to call.” Here is thinking that I need to be qualified to preach the gospel. He says, “You’re not qualified, but the Holy Spirit is gonna ascend up on you. And He’s going to teach you the Bible supernaturally, saturate yourself with Him, and He’s gonna teach you the Bible.” And that was a little bit over 18 years ago.

And then He called me 13 years ago to preach the gospel. I was like, “You really got the wrong guy if you want me to preach the gospel.” But guess what? I finally put my ego to the side. As a man can understand if I can put my ego away, which is a three letter word easing God out. If I can put that to the side, then God can use me. If I could walk in humility and humble myself, walk with meekness. When you think about Moses he had a speech impediment, but he walked with God with such great humility and meekness, God used him mightily in the lead to Israelites out of bondage.

You think about what God does when one humble himself. When he comes to a cross and understands the symbol of the cross, and understands the blood on that cross is Holy blood, and that blood brings about a revelation inside of you, and brings about information that you don’t even know about because it comes from the kingdom of God. And then you come to the place that understanding that God has called me to do so far greater than I can ever imagine. What is it about? It’s about winning souls. It’s not about how good I’ve been, how bad I’ve been. It’s about winning souls.

When He brings the transformation John 3:30 he talks about, “He must increase but I must decrease.” If I come to the place of decrease and He increased then I’m able to do what God’s called me to do. Then I don’t have to brag about me. I don’t have to talk about my status. I don’t have to talk about the trophies. I could talk about the kingdom of God. I don’t have to talk about these world desires. Now people would be more attracted to me because it’s about the kingdom of God. It’s not because I had a uniform on, it’s because what God has done inside of me.

That’s the perfect plan that God has for all of our lives. And we look at the season that we’re in and we think about it. When things happen, glory, hallelujah. When things really do happen, COVID pandemic, storms, financial problems, sickness. When things happen, who do we lean on when things happen? Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust the Lord with all your heart. Lean, not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path.” He’s got the perfect plan already made out. All we gotta do is trust Him.

So many times we don’t trust Him, we wanna do it on our own. So many times I tried to do it on my own. I could do it on my own when I was playing Major League Baseball, hitting home runs and they’re cheering for me. But when I took off the uniform, I was like, “Who am I?” I had no idea. I had everything, but I had nothing. It wasn’t until I met Jesus, that’s when I found everything When I understood the symbol on the crossing in Calvary and understanding this man that went to the cross.

We ask people, they were just like the Scribes and Pharisees, we didn’t know who He is. He says, “Father, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do. For they do not know.” That was me, I did not know what I was doing because I didn’t know the man on the cross that He would go to the tomb. And early Sunday morning He would get up and He would get up with all power and He would be resurrected. So that means when we decide to die, the old me, the womanizer. The rich man decided to die, I get to be just like Jesus. I get to be resurrected just like Jesus. Galatians 2:20 talks about it. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me.”

Christ Himself rule and reign over my life. There’s not anything great about me when you see me from this physical stand point, it’s the transformation that Christ brings to a life. That’s why it’s so important like He said, “To encourage each other, strengthen each other.” It’s time for us to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have the greatest time to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, it’s right now, God’s given us the greatest time. To win the lost right as we see, because they are there waiting for the miracle, and where is the miracle? It’s in us, it’s in us. It’s in us that know the gospel because the miracle, as in the gospel of Jesus Christ has been here forever. Unless we come to the place of understanding who we are in Christ, and why are we here, and the hope of what Christ is all about.

If I get my notes together here. I was like, “God, well, what do you want me to speak about tonight with a bunch of pastors? They preach every Sunday. Congregations, deal with people, deal with folks. What is it that you want me to talk about to encouraged them?” Well, the gentleman who spoke before is strengthening the body of Christ together, and don’t compete against each other, and compare ourselves. You know, because God has called us all for His assignment. It’s not ours. I think sometime we get, “These are my people. Those are their people.” No, these are all God people. We here to win them all. We hear the share the good news so that they can come to the place and find hope.

And where’s the hope? The hope is in Jesus Christ and what He’s already done. He’s already paid the price for us. He’s already given us an opportunity to be able to do what He’s called us to do. Preach the gospel to the broken and the lost. May we never forget that we were broken and lost at one point. God reminded me about me. Don’t ever forget. And I can tell you a great story when I did forget about my father, because I had hated him.

I kept him out of my life and my career and everything. And I went on to be successful and make millions of dollars and live a glorious life, and he was not in it. And there he was, he never got a chance to meet his grandkids or anything. And God has saved me. And here I was doing a men’s conference in California and God speaks to me on a Friday night. My father’s in the hospital down in San Diego. God speaks to me, He says, “Go see your father and repent to him.” I say, “What? The man that beat me and rejected me and left us for dead when I was 14?” God says, “Go repent to him. And don’t talk about anything that he did to you.”

I called my wife I said, “God is all over me.” She said, “Well, you need to go down that Sunday and do what He said.” So I go down there and see him in the hospital. And there he is. And I say, “I’m so sorry.” I said, “My life has been changed by the Lord. Will you forgive me for keeping you out of my life?” And he said, “Yeah.” And a tear came on his eye and I lost it. I just laid in his lap, and I just lost it. And God says, “Raise up.” There I was raising up. He says, “Now lead him in the Sinner Prayer.”

The man that rejected me, left me and my family for dead. There was God using me to lead him in a Sinner Prayer to the Lord. And God had to remind me, “How dare you not forgive him, and I forgave you?” How dare! I’m leading him in the Sinner Prayer. He accepts the Lord, he passes four months later. And God said the forgiveness was not for him, it was for me. He said, “That’s why you stayed broken all those years because you wouldn’t forgive Him.” I was immediately released.

See, we as people, we think that we have it all together because we in church. And then we don’t have these things and we never deal with these things. And God has told us to deal with some things and deal with them head on. And we never dealt with them head on and we wonder why we still struggling. And I was wondering, why was I still struggling? Why I didn’t have the victory that I have today. See, He released me immediately when I forgave my father and released him. He set me free and I went on to spring forward and I went on to do ministry, like never before.

I couldn’t imagine some of the things that God had brought to my life and where He’s decided to send me to do ministry. Because I finally made a decision that I needed to let go of some things for real. Do we truly all let go of some of the things, do the hard things that’s gonna bring about the freedom that’s gonna give us the release that we’re able to lead somebody else and help somebody else with joy to the Lord. See, I needed to get to a place where I wanted to help people, I didn’t wanna be a hypocrite no more. I didn’t wanna straddle that fence no more and say, “Well, I know Jesus, but I’m not living for Him.” But how can I get to that place if I’m not free?

It’s the freedom that comes with Christ, the true freedom that comes when you are truly liberated and redeemed. See, God rescued me. He redeemed me and He restored me to wholeness. He rescued me from my own self. He redeemed me by His blood, and He restored me to wholeness. He restored me back to the beginning.

See, understanding that I had become a descendant of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob not even knowing that God will provide for me because when I started this journey with God 18 years ago I was $3 million in debt and didn’t have a driver’s license. I was like, “God, you got a great sense of humor.” And He really does because He wasn’t concerned about what I had. He was concerned if all was gonna be well with my soul. I ended up in a Florida State Prison through addiction with a T17169. I ended up having cancer twice and losing my left kidney and my second surgery You can’t tell me Jesus is not a miracle maker.

The book of John turning water into wine, feeding 5,000, raising Lazarus from the dead, telling Nicodemus John three, “Unless one is born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” You can’t tell me He’s not the miracle maker. You can’t tell me He’s still not doing miracles in people’s lives. If they can see the witness of who we are and see the miracle of who Jesus is through us, they may get saved. If they can hear the love that we give to them because of the love Jesus has given to us freely, then they can get saved. But they have to be able to see us as a witness, not talking about it, not thumping people over the head, but loving them right where they at, meeting them right where they at.

No matter how far they’ve been down, no matter what they’ve made done to us. John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” If I allow Him to increase inside of me, I will be more Him and less than me. That would remove me out of the way. I don’t have to play any parts. I could just come up here and just be myself, because guess what? Greater is He that’s in me than he that’s in the world. The one that’s inside of me, supernaturally the Holy Spirit, He will speak through me. I don’t have to compare myself to anybody and be in a competition, I just have to operate in purpose because that’s what God calls us for, to operate in purpose.

I remember when He called me 13 years ago to preach, He says, “I want you to go study Billy Graham.” Billy Graham was the greatest soul winner, evangelist, preached the gospel. Have we gotten away from preaching the gospel and gotten more concerned about status? Branding ourself? Why do we wanna brand ourself when Jesus is the greatest brand? What is wrong with us? When we understand who He is, He’s the alpha, He’s the Omega, He’s the beginning, He’s the end, He’s the King of Kings, He’s the Lord of Lords, He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our negligence.

Why do we wanna brand ourselves when we don’t even compare to what He is? I’m going to stay with Jesus. I’ve tried everything else from a worldly standpoint. You can’t confuse me with the world, I had it all but I know ever since I’ve been with Jesus I know my life has been different. I know I’ve been able to love people and help people. I know I’ve destroyed a lot of people and hurt a lot of people. You know, my first two wives and the kids, six kids, I was able to go back when my life got changed to tell them, “You know what, I’m sorry. I was a bad husband. I was a bad father. I’m sorry.” And they cried. It hurt them. But God gave me the grace and the mercy to be able to go do that. And you know what I found out doing that? That I never wanted to hurt anybody else ever again. And ever since, my life has come full circle with the Lord, Jesus Christ. I’ve never had to hurt anybody again. Because I realized that it doesn’t have to be about me, it has to be about this book here.

Everything that I was looking for has always been in this, just took forever to pick it up. But it bought me life because it taught me from the beginning of Adam and Eve and me understanding that I’m a sinner without a Savior. And when we realized that we are sinner without a Savior then we got a chance of getting saved. But if we don’t tell people that you need to repent and turn from those wicked ways, you can never get well. See, I could have stayed where I was at and the devil had a field day with me, torturing me, tormenting me. But Jesus made it clear in John 10:10. He says, “The thief does not come except to steal, kill, and destroy.” He says, “I have come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly.” What is the abundant life?

Peace, joy, wisdom, knowledge, power is far greater than the stuff. I think people get confused with what the Scriptures are but they don’t understand the Scriptures that’s why they don’t have the victory over the enemy. Because they’re trying to compare who you are and your Christian walk to an earthly standpoint. What we see because we see somebody else have all these things we think, well I should have all these things too. That does not mean anything because they have all these things. If you don’t have the Savior, you have nothing. You just accumulated a bunch of stuff. That’s all it is. There’s so many people decide to go after their self instead of going after the Savior. And we got to get back to being able to witness to them that is the Savior, Christ Himself who rules and reign.

Who is He? He’s the Messiah. There is no one greater than Him. I don’t care how successful we see people, celebrities, athletes, you’re not greater than Jesus. Jesus is a greatest man I ever met. He got up from the tomb. I’ve never seen anyone else get up. I buried my mom, my sister, my father, they hadn’t got up, but Jesus got up. Something’s wrong with a society that don’t know Jesus. Because the society has made us believe all these earthly things is good. No, you better taste and see that the Lord is good. We’ve been tasting all this other stuff and thinking all this other stuff is good. It’s just the set up from the enemy. He’s setting us up to deceive us. Jesus said it in John 10:10. “He’s setting us to deceive us, make us believe that he’s good.”

We gotta get back to the power and the symbol of that cross, Calvary. That’s where it’s at. It’s already done. He’s already completed everything. Everything, everything, everything, everything that kills us, Jesus already killed it. Not some things, everything. He’s already killed it for us. I know because God let me live to see both sides from the fame and the fortune. Because somebody better start preaching the gospel to Hollywood and telling them, “You’re going to hell.” I’m not afraid to tell folks. I don’t care if you don’t like me or not. I’ve been there. And I know it’s forever, there is no return.

See we playing games in the society that we live in instead of telling people what this book says. There’s a heaven and a hell and it’s real. The devil won’t accompany. I’m sure not going to be your company devil. Once about a time, you had me as your company, but not today. You know, the victory is mine is through Christ Jesus, my Lord, what He’s already done, He’s already paid the price. Why? Because He’s the way John 14:6. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes through the Father except through me.” Everybody’s trying to get somewhere to God and they won’t get to Jesus. He said He’s the way, He’s the gateway to everything that’s lacking in our life.

Boy, I’m so grateful for my mama praying for me. That was a beautiful woman. Her prayers came to pass. See, I’m not qualified to preach the gospel but the Holy Spirit is. I don’t have an education I played Major League Baseball for 17 years, and God met me right where I was at and all my broken pieces. And it was not a overnight miracle. Some people say suddenly you’ll get this miracle. No, it wasn’t an overnight miracle. It was a process.

Sat me for seven years with my wife today, Tracy. And I was like, “God, why are you always speaking to Tracy?” He was like, “Well, she spends time with me. When are going to spend some time with me?” There I was, she was spending time with God and she still to this day, spend time with God. She wakes up every morning at 5:30 in the morning to go be with God. I was like, “God, I’m not getting up at 5:30 in the morning.” But I had to start spending time with God. And I made my time at night with God. And that’s where I got the revelation because the revelation is in this book.

The revelation of who you are in Christ is in this book. It’s not in anything else that I thought I had because I went to every doctor, I went to every lawyer, but they couldn’t fix me. When I came to the symbol of the cross and yield myself, and committed myself, the revelation came in my life because Jesus is the only one who has the power to wash you and make you new. Nobody else can make you new. Maybe you can go buy a new car, get a new house, be happy for a week. That house, car be like overweight. But Jesus, Jesus is good everyday.

Everyday you wake up, everyday I wake up as a joy that He gives me another opportunity to wake up and worship Him, and to serve Him in such a way that I couldn’t never imagine. But it tells us in Romans 12:2 it says, “And do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our mind.” It tells us, “Do not be conformed.” Do not be conformed. Do not get comfortable. See, once upon a time I was comfortable with all this. But He’s telling me, “Don’t be conformed to that. Allow yourself to be transformed everyday.”

Because everyday I get up, everyday I get up, God’s got something new. I look for something new. And I remember when the pandemic came and I was just like everybody else, sitting, and waiting, and thinking, and waiting, and staying bed. And one day the Holy Spirit said, “You need to get up.” I said, “Really?” He said, “What’s wrong with you? You need to go about kingdom business. You don’t need to worry about these earthly things. You need to go on about the kingdom business and keep doing kingdom work. Because you do know God led. When you belong to Him, He lets you hear from His kingdom. But He won’t let you hear from it if you sit in there in a depression. Because the enemy’s starting to seek Him.” So he says, “Rise up, understand the kingdom.” Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then all these things will be added unto you. Then all these things, then all these things, then all these things will be added unto you.”

He’s got so much more to give to us when we do understand who we are, not what I do, but who I am in Christ. Not about what I do. This is a gift. This gift don’t belong to me, it belongs to the Lord. So I must use it for His glory to win the lost. Just like the other pastor was saying. Getting back to winning the lost is so important, it’s so critical, such an urgency now for us, all of us that has been given this gift, that’s down inside of us to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not anything else. I can’t make this feel good for you. There’s no feel good. I’d have to tell folks, if you’re not married, living together, shacking up, you ain’t going to be blessed. God ain’t blessing no mess. Hello.

I remember me and Tracy was talking about we were going to follow Jesus when we weren’t even married. And she woke up one day and she’s like, “I can’t do this no more.” I say, “Why?” She says, “I’m not sleeping with you no more.” I say, “What?” She said, “No, I’m going to follow Jesus. I don’t know what you’re going to do but I’m gonna follow Jesus.” And you know what that did? That broke us up and led me to the cross. And we’ve been blessed ever since, because we did it right.

And that’s for so many of us, you know that we see people who we know are struggling and know the real struggle, but when we help them, we don’t have to confront them in a harsh way we have to help them in a loving way to show them that God is really real when we do it right. Because if not, we’ve come to this place in our society today. And we’re just like, “The churches wanna be just like Hollywood. We wanna be friends with Hollywood because of their opinions and their thoughts.” Why? Because they have success? They’re not more successful than Jesus is. I can tell you that right now. I don’t care how much money you have. It does not compare to who Jesus Christ is.

And when we preach the gospel and be bold about the gospel and let them hear the gospel, and let them see that the gospel is real, maybe they get convicted, not for me, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, that he will convict their heart and that they will come to a place and they will ask God to forgive them. They will repent and turn from those wicked ways too. ‘Cause if not, we’re gonna see a lot of folks left behind and we have the ability to share the good news with them. And that’s the most important that I’ve learned in my life. It is the good news that changes one’s life. It is not anything else.

It is not how successful a man is from an earthly standpoint. That means nothing to God. See, when you go to the book of Ecclesiastes and you look at King Solomon and you look the richest, wisest man in Jerusalem, and you look at him saying, “It is meaningless under the sun without God.” Here is a man wise, had this great wisdom and knowledge who writes the book of Proverbs, and he goes back and he’s talking about is meaningless because he went the wrong direction. Went in his own direction.

I read the first three chapters of the book of Ecclesiastes. And I read the first three chapters the Holy Spirit told me, He says, “Look at how many times Solomon said, I in the first three chapters.” I think it was about 46 times to about 56 times, I can’t remember. He said, “I.” And I said, “Why do you want me to see?” He says, “He got offtrack. If he would’ve said God, he wouldn’t have never got offtrack.” But he was like, “I built this, I had this, I, I.” And that’s the downfall of every man, “I.” That was the downfall of me. I’m this great baseball player. I’m this. No one gets away. That’s the great fall of many athletes you’ve seen in the public eyes. They fall because it’s about them, it’s never been about God. And God says, “I will not share my platform with no one.” And He will not share it. And it is up to us as leaders and believers to share with those that sit in your congregation and people are struggling.

But I do know one thing. If we give them the truth, it will set them free. But if we sugarcoat it to them, they’ll never get well. They’ll continue to straddle that fence. It wasn’t until I heard the gospel real from my wife, Tracy. She said, “When are you gonna take that baseball uniform off and follow God?” See, what happens is, people identify themself with what they do, instead of who we are and who He created us to be. He created us to be good. He created us to love each other. He created us to be together. Have we’ve gotten away from that? Have we pointed fingers? I always tell people then I remember, like I said, all my teammates, they were pointing fingers at me saying, “Let’s see how long that’ll last.” When you pointing fingers, those other three are pointing right back at you. We never catch ourselves. I had to catch myself. That’s why I don’t point fingers at people and don’t talk, I pray for them.

‘Cause I know one thing, prayer is the answer to all supplication. I know the prayers over my life came to pass because my mother prayed for me. My wife, Tracy prayed for me. When I was lost, and broken, $3 million in debt, she was pulling me out of the dope houses down in South Florida 18 years ago. She’s got 21 years of recovery. She was pulling me out of the dope houses and I was shooting dope, smoking crack. She says, “God’s got a plan for you.” I say, “Why don’t you and that God just leave me here and let me die?” She said, “You’re just not that lucky.” So I do know one thing, what am I saying?

I do know one thing, God is always gonna do what He’s always done before. He hasn’t done anything different. He always uses people to help people. That’s what He’s called us for. People to help people. And as I close and I talked about the book of John and about believing, and I talked about all the people, different people, Moses speech impediment, Peter denied Christ three times David a womanizer put his best man, Uriah on the front line to be killed. Jonah goes to, God told him, “Go to Nineveh.” He jumps on a boat, go the other way to Tarshish. Throws him in a belly of a fish three days and three nights. One thing I do know about God and what I love about Him is God’s got a plan. God’s in the business of changing everything and wrecking everything to make His plan work.

That’s what I love about God. His plan is for everybody. And we just have to bring the hope and the encouragement. So many that are lost today. We have to be the real light in the darkness. And just like you were saying, sir it’s the gospel of Jesus Christ. Have we gotten away from the gospel of Jesus Christ? Have we gotten to just a simple, “I wanna keep people. I wanna make them feel good. I don’t wanna make them feel uncomfortable.” Make them feel uncomfortable so they can get well. That’s the only way they’re gonna get well, they start feeling uncomfortable. ‘Cause as long as they sit there and they’re comfortable, they’ll never get well. Because we do know Lucifer, Satan himself is not playing. He’s on his job. It’s time for us to stay on our job.

Let us pray. Father, we love you, we thank you. We thank you for your Word. We thank you for this conference. We thank you for Daniel, Terry. We thank you for all that has a hand in this event to bring about your great message. Father, what is it always been about to you? Winning souls, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you for the great speakers, Father. Thank you for the pastors and leaders here, Father. I pray over every last one of them. I ask that you put a hedge of protection around them. No weapon formed against them shall prosper. They’re more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. Father, let them fulfill the promises over their life that you called them for. Let them fulfill it in such a great way. Let the anxiety or whatever, depression or everything that tries to come against them, we rebuke that right now in the name of Jesus. Father, I ask you strengthen them in the midst of this conference that they will walk out of here with a new zeal inside of them and they will run, and they will fly, and they will be everything that you’ve called them to be. Because Father, you are great. And everything that you make and everything that you create is great because it comes from you. And we bless you and we honor you. And we send this petition up to you and we ask that you seal it over this night. And we give you glory in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. Amen.