Transcription
To all of our guests that are here tonight, we're so thankful that you're here. I'm going to go to 2 Kings chapter 4. 2 Kings chapter 4. Thank you for listening to me on that earlier deal and and understanding. Thank you so much for that.
Um, 2 Kings chapter 4, verse one. Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, "Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and that the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen." And Elisha said unto her, "What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in thine house?" And she said, "Thine handmaiden hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil." Then he said, "Go borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbors." This, this, this next line right here is written a little differently because it's 1611 King's English, but he's saying they've got to be empty. They don't need to have anything in them. "Borrow not a few." Borrow not a few. "And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full." And she went from him and shut the door upon her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her. And she poured out. And it came to pass that when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, "Bring me yet a vessel." And he said unto her, "There is not a vessel more." And the oil stayed, or the oil quit. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, "Go sell the oil, pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children on the rest." What a retirement plan!
All right, I want to, I've, I guess this is the only time I've ever done what I'm fixing to do. I'm about to preach a message by request. All right. They, I didn't, um, this is not what I planned to preach tonight. This is not what I purposed to preach tonight, but my kids, Savan and Matt, Dylan and Olivia, and my wife, they all got on me today and told me to preach this tonight. I've never done that before. I guess I'm getting old and weak, but I'm going to preach by request tonight. And this is going to be the title of my message: "The Lord of What's Left." The Lord of What's Left. God bless you. You can be seated.
Would you lift your hands and ask the Holy Ghost to speak tonight? Hallelujah. God, in the name of Jesus, talk to our hearts and our minds, our thinking, our spirit. Speak in this place tonight in the precious, precious name of Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
Now, in the scripture that I read in your hearing, Brother Brian Henry did such a tremendous job using the scripture just a few services ago. But I want to go back to it, and I, I want to preach to you about an amazing story in the Bible. This is, this is one of the most amazing stories in the Bible. And I have been, I've been preaching this message for, uh, somewhere around 35 years. I preached this message the first time. This is, this message I'm about to preach is an old message that I preached as an evangelist just about everywhere I went. My wife told me today it was one of her favorite messages when we were evangelizing because she got to hear the same sermons over and over and over again wherever we went. And any of y'all that ever criticize a preacher for that, obviously have never preached. Because if you have a tool chest full of tools, you're going to have a full few tool tools in that tool chest that you're going to be partial to because they work. And if a tool works, you use it again. It'd be silly not to. And, uh, no one ever gets on to the singers for singing a song again, but they think a preacher ought to have something brand new every time he preaches. And we do. It's a brand new anointing. I've never, I've never preached a message that it turned out the same way twice because when God takes over, that thing takes a life of its own. And sometimes that means it turns out real good, and sometimes it means it, you wonder what happened. But that most of the time has to do with the crowd because there's two anointings that a man operates under. One is a vertical anointing; it comes straight down out of heaven. And the other's a horizontal anointing, and it's pushed onto that preacher from the pews. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
And so, I, I want, I want to preach to you for a few minutes about the Lord of what's left. Now, this, this is an amazing story because this lady was the wife of a prophet. You, you would expect her, you would expect this woman to, you, you'd expect her to know about miracles and you would expect her to know what God can do. Her, her husband was a prophet. He worked, operated in the prophetic. I mean, that's, Elisha knew her. This was, this is one of his prophets that has died. And she calls Elijah in, Elisha in, I'm sorry, and begins to tell Elisha that she's lost it all. That's the story is that she's lost everything. Everything has been lost.
Now, man, this is, this is so vital and this is so important that you grasp this and get a hold of what I'm saying. She's, she's lost it all. Now, what stands out to me in this story is that our faith is always for other people. And when it happens to us, we tend to forget everything we've been telling other people. Because if someone else would have come to this prophet's wife, this pastor's wife, this preacher's wife with the same story that she was given, this Prophet Elisha, she would have given the same advice to them that Elisha gave to her. But when it's you, when it's you that had the loss, it seems like all memories of everything God's ever done, somebody steals it out of your file. Oh, come on now. There is a, he, listen to me. He's not just a killer. He can't just kill your dream. It would be wonderful if that's all he did. If he just killed your dream, but he don't do that. He also robs your God file. And all of a sudden, you can't remember one miracle, one deliverance, one answer. And it's as if you're facing the first problem you've ever faced, and you don't even know if God can deliver or not. It's like you've never heard a testimony. And you've never heard, can anybody testify that you've been there? And she calls the prophet in, and she sounds like a brand new convert that's never had an experience with God before. "I have lost it all. I've lost everything." Here's her very words. "I don't have anything left." That's what she said. That, that's the very word that's cor-, that's recorded in the Bible. "I don't have anything left." And then she don't want to lie. And she said, "Well, I mean, there's a pot of oil." What's that? Well, obviously, that pot of oil was a lot because a bunch of that gave her a retirement. Oil must have been worth something because that's the very thing that he used to totally change her life, totally turn her life around. But her story was, "I have nothing left." I mean, not a thing.
Can I just shoehorn this in? That's exactly where God wants you sometimes. Because if you can get back what you've lost, you can blame the miracle on your ingenuity. If you can get back what you've lost, you can make, you can blame the miracle on your abundance. If you can get back what you've lost, you can blame the miracle on whatever it is that you regained. But if He works a miracle out of nothing, then you can only say, all you can say is, "Only God." Somehow, He sometimes He likes to put you in a position that you have to say, "Only God." If it had not been for Jesus, if it had not been for the Lord. You know, sometimes He wants you there. Sometimes He just puts, not because He don't love you, but because He does love you. Sometimes He puts you there not because you've done anything wrong, but because you've done everything right. And He can't show you a miracle. He can't show you His hand. He can't show you His greatness until you have to say, "Only God." My God, have mercy. We're, we're so limited that we think the only way we can get there is because we've done something wrong, or we've made a mistake, or we've made God mad, or we've upset God. That's not what it is. Sometimes He does it because He loves you and He wants you to have more faith than anybody else. He wants you to have a testimony that nobody else has. He wants you to have a testimony that no one else can lay claim to your testimony. All of a sudden, it's not a mundane testimony anymore. All of a sudden, it's not an average testimony anymore. All of a sudden, you got a treetop tall testimony. Now you've got the testimony to beat all testimonies. Sometimes He wants to set you apart. He lets you lose everything not because He loves you, but because He trusts you. Job didn't lose everything because he was a sinner. He lost everything because he was a saint. Job didn't lose everything because he was unfaithful. He lost everything because he was faithful. Job didn't lose everything because God was mad at him. He lost everything because God was, he was special to God. Oh, you're not, you're not hearing me preach. He didn't lose everything because God didn't trust him. He love-, he lost everything because God trusted him more than anybody else on Earth. Man, he didn't, he didn't lose everything because God didn't like him. He lost everything because God wanted him to have his own book in the Bible. Yeah, that's it. His name wasn't going to be a part of a book. His name wasn't going to be a part of a story. He wasn't going to be mentioned in somebody else's book. He got, oh my God, he took everything from him and left him with nothing so that he can give him a book with his name on it. Yes. Wow. My God. He's not written in the book of Kings. He's not written in one of the prophets. My God, he's got his own book. It's the Book of Job. And the only way he could get there is he had to lose it all. He had to lose it all. He had to lose everything in order to have his own book. My God, have mercy. Sister Cobb, I couldn't find my notes. I hope I'm doing good. Go ahead. You don't need them. I searched all day trying to find the notes of that message. I never did find them. I don't know where they went. I'll tell you one thing, y'all don't ever say I got Alzheimer's. I'm remembering this message from 30 years ago completely from memory.
What if God wants you to have your own book? What if God wants you to have a book with your name on it? Wow. My Lord, have mercy. When you turn to the Book of Job, you start reading, you got to understand the only reason there's a Book of Job is because somebody lost it all. There wouldn't be a Book of Job if somebody had lost it all. But I'm preaching to you about the Lord of what's left. Woo. My God, have mercy. Well, that was a good message. How have I pastored here 27 years, hadn't preached this.
And so, this little woman is telling the prophet, "I don't, I don't have anything." And I, I can almost hear Elisha, you know, maybe I'm reading things in. If I'm reading things in, forgive me, but I can almost hear Elisha get a little irritated with her because all she wants to do is talk about what she's lost. All she wants to do is complain. You, you can almost tell when she's telling him, yeah, that he was the last on her list. She's already told Susie, she's already called Jill. I mean, it's too rehearsed. She's already called to complain to everybody that would listen. "I've lost it all. My husband's dead. They're coming to get my boys." I mean, she's already got all the mileage she can squeeze out of it. And said, "Well, I guess I'm going to have to go tell the prophet. I can't think of anybody else to complain to." I thought I lost my batteries there. Y'all got so quiet. And when she starts in with the preacher, he hears it in her tone that she's getting just a little too much out of telling this, and he shuts her down. And he says, "Hey, have you got anything left? I can't work a miracle out of what you've lost. But if you got something left?" Yes, sir.
Why is that? I'm going to tell you why. Because talking about what you've lost just keeps dousing your faith. When you talk about what you've lost, it, it's a faith sucker. When you talk about what you've lost, it strips you of hope. It strips you of joy. It strips you of peace. When all you can talk about, hey, you can talk for years about what you've lost. I've seen people circle what they've lost for a decade. I've seen people circle they've lost for 20 years. The people that, that I've pastored that never have a miracle, never get anywhere, never have any joy, are the people that's hung up on what they've lost. God have mercy. That's all they can do. They want to get you, you can't get over their house and get a good cup of coffee and talk about the Lord. They got time to talk about the Lord. They want to get you over there and talk about the husband they lost, the house they lost, the business they lost, the car they lost. You'll never get a miracle talking about what you've lost.
All right. In fact, somewhere you got to get sick of discussing what you've lost. Somewhere you got to say, "It is enough. It is enough. I have circled this mountain long enough." That's what happened to the Hebrew children lost in the wilderness for 40 years. They circled the same mountain. And they circled that mountain, and they circled that mountain until finally the man of God stood up. Read it in your Bible. He said, "You have circled this mountain long enough. You can't get into Canaan's land, the land of promise, circling this mountain." If you're going to go into the miracles of God, you got to quit circling this mountain. And I came to preach to somebody tonight, not to be rude, but not to be unkind, but to tell you, it's time for you to shut up about what you've lost. It's time for you to quit talking about what you've lost. It's time for you to quit discussing what you lost. It's robbing you of faith. It's stealing your miracles. It's taking your joy. Because God can't do anything with what you've lost. But if you got anything left, is there anything left in your house?
Let me tell you something. It just happened to be a pot of oil. That just, it's just happenstance. He could have done it if she had said, "All I have is one dress." He could have done it if she had said, "All I have is a piece of rope." He just said, "Well, go get it." Oh, my God, have mercy. You, we're going to make you enough rope to pull in every ship in the Middle East. That's right. To off every boat. You're going to sell rope. My God, have mercy. You, you're going to sell rope till you put the rope vendor out of business. That's right. It wouldn't have mattered if it had been a scarlet thread. She'd have found every Rahab on the planet. It didn't matter what it was. That wasn't important. Because he said, "Have you got anything of value left?" Have you got anything sellable? That's not what he said. He said, "Anything." It doesn't matter the value. If it's worth everything or nothing. Man, if God can step out on nothing, my God, have mercy. Stand on nothing and speak to nothing and make an earth full of fish and oceans and seas and people and trees, then He don't need what you got. That's just your faith. He just wants you to be a part of the miracle. Oh, oh, my God, have mercy. You missed what I just said. He could have done it without the pot of oil. He just wanted her to be a part of the miracle. He wants you to be a part of the miracle. He want you to have some skin in the game. He want you to have some investment in the process.
It don't matter what it's worth. And He's such a God, a prophet, the prophetic. He's such a God that sees the future. That one day, months before she reached in there and started to use that pot of oil, and God said, "Huh, you leave that there. Your husband's still alive. That's right. Everything's still great in your life. But you're going to be needing that." My God, have mercy. She's going to fry fish. She said, "You know, I don't feel like frying fish. D, I think I'm going to make some beans." I'm just going to leave that pot of oil. And never a time in the next three months did she find any use for that pot of oil. Because every time she reached for it, God said, "I hope you're just moving it. We ain't using that." That's right. Man, we got a process for that's going to be a lot more than a kettle of fish. Right. Woo. We got something coming from that. It's going to be a whole lot more fried chicken. Do, man, we're not going to use that for wings. We like wings, but that ain't going to be used for wings. Yeah, we're going to use that to make your own story in the Bible. 6,000 years from now, they're going to be talking about your faith. They're going to be talking about your pot of oil. Woo. I gave Job a book, but I'm going to at least give you a story. You're going to have a story. It's going to take that pot of oil to get you there. But hey, I got to get you down to nothing before that pot of oil. See, that pot of oil won't mean anything but fried chicken unless I take you to nothing. That pot of oil won't be a story in the Bible until I get you to nothing. I got to get you to nothing before I can put your name in the book. I, I got to get you to nothing before I can put your story in the word. You got to be down to nothing, and then that pot of oil is going to mean everything. It, it's going to mean everything.
I got somebody here. The reason your miracle, you've been praying, but the reason your miracle is pushing off is because all you want to talk about is what you've lost. All you want to talk about is what you've lost. All you want to talk about, "I've had loss. I've had loss. I've lost it." My God, have mercy. The preacher said, "We're not talking about that anymore. Have you got anything left?" Yeah. Yes, sir. "I don't have anything." "But, but, but a pot of..." He said, "Go get it. Go get it." And can you imagine? Imagine that money-hungry, money-grubbing preachers, they always asking you to give, aren't they? He said, "When you get that pot of oil, pour it out." "Pour it out." "It's all I got left." Yeah, but sister, you always give yourself out of nothing. That's right. You don't sting your way out of it. You don't hold your way out of it. You got to learn to pour, baby. If you can't pour, you can't have a miracle. If you can't give, you can't have a miracle. If you don't have enough faith to pour it out. And notice he didn't say, "Go listen to me." I know people. She had a folder's coffee can somewhere. She had a five-gallon bucket from Home Depot somewhere that was empty. Vessels she already owned. But the only way the miracle happened is she had to pour it out into somebody else's. You can't keep it in your house. You can't pour it into your son. You can't pour it into your daughter because you still keeping it. You hadn't given. Oh, my God. Until you pour it into somebody else's vessel, you got to pour it into somebody else's vessel. You got to trust all you've got left into somebody else. You got to get it outside your doors. My God. And then he, hey, he knew how people were. He knew when you ask people to strike the ground, they only hit it three times. He knew people petered out too quick. Yeah. So he said, "Go borrow." And then he remembered how humanity is. He said, "Borrow not a few." I mean, you can almost hear the smirk. Yeah, yeah. "Borrow not a few." Get out of your neighborhood. Get out of your community. Go beyond your s-. Go NE-, go to the next city and get some vessels. And all I can preach is my interpretation, but let me just tell you what I believe about it. I believe if that woman would have kept borrowing vessels, that's right, and kept pouring, that's right, and then her sons would have kept borrowing vessels and kept pouring, and their sons would have kept borrowing vessels and kept pouring, and their kids would have kept borrowing vessels and kept pouring, that 6,000 years later, somewhere over in the Middle East, we'd be talking about somebody that's been pouring oil for 6,000 years out of a little pot that you can hold in your hand. Right. God have mercy.
And so, I'm prophesying to somebody in this place tonight. Thank y'all for telling me to preach this message because I feel it now. It's on me. There's people in this house. This is your sermon. This is your message. This is your, it's time tonight to make up in your mind. I'm not talking about that failed business one more time. I'm not talking about that bankruptcy one more day. I'm, I'm through talking about that divorce. I'm, I'm, I'm through talking about what I've lost. I'm through talking about that car repossession. I'm, I'm, I'm through talking about some of you are worried because you lost your dignity. Some of you are worried because you lost the confidence of your family. Some of you worried because of drugs or whatever it was, drinking, alcoholism, just, just pure being young. You think you've lost people's confidence and family's confidence, and you've lost money, and you've lost bank accounts, and you've circled that, and you've talked about that, and it's kept you from walking into your destiny. And I'm preaching to you tonight. Tonight is the last night we're going to talk about what we've lost. Tonight is the last night we're going to talk about what we've got left. I just want to ask you, have you got one shred of hope left? Just one shred of hope. Have you got one shred of hope? Have you got one, one shred of faith? Just, just a little. Hey, it don't take a whole lot. Just use the little bit and you got anything left. You say, "I've got nothing left." Well, I got a little bit of faith. Is it mustard seed size? Isn't it just as big as a mustard seed? Do you understand what God can do with one ox goad? He can destroy a Philistine army. Have you got any idea what God can do with a jawbone of a dead donkey? Have you got any idea what He can do with a stick if it's stuck out over the Red Sea? Oh, God, you ain't hearing me. What about a prophet's mantle when it's held out over the Jordan River? What can He do with one rock when there is no water? He can feed three million Israelites with water. Man, they marched into Jericho, and they looked at God. They said, "What can we do against all these walls? All we've got is a shout." I wonder what your shout would do tonight. I wonder what would happen if you'd shout. I wonder what would happen if you would shout in this house tonight. My God, have mercy. Rahab said, "I hadn't got anything but a scarlet thread." My God, have mercy. They said, "We ain't got anything but two fishes and five loaves." And Mary said, "I'm nothing but just a little Jewish virgin." He said, "That's all I need to save the world." That's all I got to have to save the world. Mary, if you were great, if you were noble, if you were out of the King's house, if you were a princess, if you came out of the palace, somewhere they wouldn't blame it on me. But my God, when it's just a little Jewish girl, my Lord, have mercy, and she's a virgin and never known a man, they're going to have to say, "Only God." And I'm telling you, God's got you in the position. If you'd quit talking about what you've lost and give Him what you've got left, you know what they'd say? Everybody say, "Only God."
Stand and lift your hands and cry out to the Lord right now. Oh, God. Come on, everybody here. Stand to your feet. Throw your hands in there and begin to cry out with all that is within you right now. Come on, everything that's within you. Come on, everything you've got. Lift your voice, lift your hands, lift your heart. My God, my God, my God, my God, my God. Come on, somebody. Come on, somebody. Come on, somebody. Come on, cry out to the Lord. Somebody, come to music, please. I'm done. My God, have mercy. Woo. My Lord. I feel like a 27-year-old evangelist again. But not, but not enough to go back to that.
Let me tell y'all about Billy in the 1800s. Billy was rebellious. They thought he's going to turn out to be another Billy the Kid. His parents were worried that he's going to be a Jesse James. Billy wouldn't listen. Billy wouldn't obey. Billy was rebellious. He was angry. He was full of all kind of rebellion. At 10 years old, he went with his daddy into town, and his daddy had to go to the blacksmith shop to get work done on his carriage. He went in the blacksmith shop and began to talk about, talk to the blacksmith. He said, "I need, needs some work done out here." And so the blacksmith was working, working in his, in his kiln, or whatever they call it. I don't even know what they call that in the blacksmith shop. Forge. Thank you. He's working in his forge, and they had to leave the forge to go out and look at the wagon. And he turned around and said, "Come with us, Billy." And Billy shook his head no. Billy didn't want to go with them. He wanted to stay in the blacksmith shop. He said, "Okay, Billy." He said, "You can stay in this blacksmith shop, but don't you touch anything. Don't you touch anything in this blacksmith shop." They were only going a few minutes. They went out and looked at the axle, the wheel, or whatever it was that needed repair by the blacksmith. And while they were gone, Billy, typical to Billy, went over and began to pump up the bellows, getting that fire hot. And he walked and looked into that forge. And when he did, a big old hunk of iron ore popped out of that forge and hit him right in the face and burnt both of his eyeballs out of his sockets. Billy only got angry. He only got more rebellious. And he'd be heard to say, "I've lost it all. I've lost everything. If I don't have my sight, I don't have anything." Billy became what we would call today, probably, a suicidal, angry, mad. Finally, Billy changed one day. He decided if he was going to live, he was going to have to make the best out of his life. He began to go to a school for the blind. And it was there that Billy's loss became his greatest miracle. Because he decided he did have a brain left. He might not have his sight, but he hadn't lost it all. He could think.
I'm not going to drag this story out because I want to give this altar call. God's got a miracle for several people in this house today. But years later, you would know Billy. But if he hadn't lost it all, you'd probably never have known his name. In fact, his family said he'd probably ended up on death row or killed by a gunman at an early age. But you know Billy as William Braille because he invented the Braille reading system for the blind. But he had to lose it all. But somewhere, Billy had to decide, "I've circled the tree. I've lost it all long enough. I've got to use what I've got left."
Lift your hands all over this house right now. Come on, come on, come on. Holy Ghost is here. Come on. I've preached to people in this house. Woo. My God, have mercy. You listen to me. I'm fixing to prophesy right now, and I'm fixing to tell you, this is miracle country tonight. This building, it's miracle country tonight. These altars is miracle territory tonight. Somebody needs to come out of those pews right now and with determination, you need to start for this aisle, and you need to say, "I've talked about what I've lost long enough. I've circled the bush of I've lost long enough. I've circled the tree of I've lost long enough. I've circled the mountain of I've lost long enough. I'm going to that altar with what I got left. I do have faith. I do have the Holy Ghost. I do have faith. I do have hope. And God is going to take what I've got left."
Can I tell y'all something? Can I speak something to you right now? If Job had not lost it all, he could have never had double everything he ever had before. God can make double what you've ever had before out of nothing. But you got to lose it all before it can double. There's somebody here. You've been complaining about what you lost, and all you, what you don't realize is God was setting you up for a miracle. God was positioning you for a miracle. Hey, He wants to write a book and put your name on it. Lift your hands. Lift your hands. Lift your hands. Lift your hands. Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost. Where are you? Come on, come on, come on, come on, right now.