Transcription
So it's a great privilege to have with us Jamie Winship. I want to just bring them up right now, and let me just give you a quick little prayer, and then we'll we'll get started. So let me pray for you.
Where they keep the servants, thank you. You've given Mears to hear, you've anointed his ears, you've given him a heart to obey. Thank you for his boldness and his courage. I pray, Lord, that even now he'd have ears to hear. That we thank you in advance. God, give us ears to hear, give us hearts to respond. We pray that, Lord, something new in our hearts would happen this weekend, something that we didn't even think could happen, but you'd do a new work. Give us each a desire to follow you, no matter what the cost. We thank you for your servant, your blessing upon him. Jesus name. Amen.
Yeah, thank you. Wow. Yeah, thanks. It's an honor to be here, really is. What a, what a privilege to be here. And I really appreciate that set that you all just did. That was so, that was kind of old-school, you know, which like, I thought it was popular music, but it was kind of older, but I loved it because, um, the the tone that it set was kind of how my heart felt. Even among the fish-throwing thing, I felt kind of somber and because of the seriousness of, I think, what's going to happen in this group in the next couple of days. Thing is really serious. Like, I, like I just, I was thinking about just sitting there and asking the Lord what he wanted to say, what he wanted to communicate. Which is funny because when the CIA director was asking me like, "How do you do what you do?" And I said, "You're not gonna like it." And he, yeah, and he said, "I don't care. I'm looking at your casework. What are you doing?" Well, "We need people to Jesus." He's like, "You're right, we don't like that." And but still offered me the job anyway. So they were desperate. And we're gonna have to hire Jesus, I guess. I don't know. You know, we're not.
So I said, I was thinking, I was just thinking in this kind of, kind of a down mood, right there, a down spirit. But it's like Tozer said, in the Christian walk, to go up, you have to go down. Like that's the way you go down, and he lifts you up. God lifts you up. You humble yourself, he raises you up. And I was just thinking through kind of times in my life, and me and Donna both going through from way back when, just out of the Academy, and we just got married, and all that. Sin, just through the years, 25 years we've been married, 33 years, but 25 years out in the Muslim world. And just, it was almost, it was a joke with our kids, like, "Every country moved to, the government collapses." That's what happens once we get there. And, "Oh, they have a police force?" "Oh, no, they don't. It collapsed because we're now here." And, and I just started thinking through the stuff we've been through. And, um, this is, this is the Psalm that came to my mind. Psalm 61. If you know this Psalm, David says, "Hear my cry, O Lord; listen to my prayer." All the great prayers in scripture, they, they sort of give commands to God like that. "Hear me, listen." Daniel says, "Act," when he's praying. "Act, God, hear us and act." And I liked it. I love the way they do that. We're going to talk about why they can do that, how it is they can do that with such confidence, instead of, "If it be your will," you know, this kind of thing. But so David says, "Hear my cry, O Lord; listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge." You, he's, it's evidence from his past. You have already been and have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. He's praying based on experience, all knowledge of what's seen, not what he's read in a book. I heard some speaker talk about, otherwise he wouldn't be able to pray with this kind of command and intensity. "Hear my cry; listen to my prayer." And then he says this, "From the end of the earth I call you." From the end of the earth. What does he mean? What's he saying there? He's in both of these phrases, "From the end of the earth," "Take me to a rock that is higher than me." From out here. And from up here, talk. He's saying, "It's what I need. I don't even know how to think of it. I don't even know how to ask for it. I know it's beyond what I know. And it's from places in this world I've never been and I don't know about. It's beyond my rational mind. Take me to that very real place and speak to me there. Not from what I know, I already know it. But in this situation, I don't know what to do. How do I know what to do? How do I know how to know what to do? I don't know. Take me to a place higher than what I know." And guess what? He will. He does. And you won't know. Could you'd ever been there yet? Tonight, I'm telling you where God wants to take you. Tonight, and tomorrow, the next day, is a place you don't even know how to ask how to get there because you've never even known about it. This is why I want to be a believer. I mean, I want to go to heaven when I die. That's a piece of it. But I want to know what I don't know. And I want to know how to know it. And I want to know what now. Now, "Hear my cry, listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will call to you. When my heart is faint, lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for you have always been my refuge, my strong tower, always."
So I was thinking of that prayer. And here's, here's my word from God to you. Here's, here's what we're gonna do. God wants to take all of us, and this is for me too. He wants to take us into a new place. A new place going forward from today, tonight, into a new place, a new position, a new, I don't know, place in your spirit, a new location, a new identity, a new profession. I don't know what it is, but it's a new thing. I don't think you know what it is, but we're going to figure it out together. That's what we're going to do together.
So what, when I was, I was thinking about this, and I was praying, and I started to think about these really specific events in my past. One, when I was a rookie police officer, and my squad, we were a young squad, two and three years on the department. And we worked a horrific murder scene. It was this brutal murder scene. And it was so bad that those of us on our squad that had to work it, we could, we were completely silent all through the shift, in roll call, silent. The next night, coming in, silent. We were just, we couldn't even say, we didn't even know how to talk about what we saw. And we had this older sergeant. And you know, you got to have these, killed, experienced guys. And he would just say to us, "Be quiet." That's what he would say when we started to try and talk about it. He goes, "Shh. This deserves silence. Never." I like, "Really? Be quiet. You don't know what to say about this. This is a place you don't know. The devastation that you just walked through. Don't talk about it." Like, "Sigh." And I was just thinking about that incident. And I remember coming home and telling Donna about it and just saying, "I'm just gonna try and describe a little bit of this to you. I don't want you to say anything. I just want you to cry." That's what I told her. "I just, I just want you to weep when I tell you this." And she did. It's like, "Damn, why am I thinking about that?" It's like, these are situations where I walked in and I just said, "Jesus Christ, where are you?" And this, like that, not in vain, believe me, calling out.
And then further into my career, and Christmas Eve, we have this robbery in progress. And I see, I see the guy coming away from the scene, moving through these trees. A uniformed officer is coming through the trees, doesn't see the guy. The guy attacks the police officer, a uniformed officer. I'm in plainclothes. I'm running down, I'm streaming to the uniformed officer, like he's right there. And, and he kept, the assailant gets the police officer, knocks him out, just beating him up down. And I run down there and get in, our big fight, and get the guy. And all of this. And sometimes a guy, get him in my car and everything. And I'm driving him back. And the protocol, the informal law of the street, is when someone does that to a guy on a squad, he's not the gut, the officer wasn't on my squad, but you take that person to the squad of that guy's from and you drop them off and you drive away, and they exact justice. That's the rule. That's the street law. And I'm in the car, and I'm mad, and I'm bleeding from the, I have blood on me from the blood of the police officer and this guy. And he's in the back. And the guy's talking to me. And I'm so mad. And the God says to me, "Pull over and let this guy go." I didn't even slow down. You know, I think, "That's not God." God would never say something like, "I mean, is there anywhere in the Bible God says stuff to people and they go, 'Uh-huh'?" It's the whole Bible. He does that. That's how you know it's him. Like, and so I do whatever you good Bible guy does. I start explaining to God the rules of the police department. Like, "You obviously have never been in the police department, because you would never say, 'Let this guy go.' It's so strong. Let him out of the car. Stop right now. Take off his handcuffs and let him go. This is, this is for the safety and the protection of the city. Let this guy go." I'm like, "I will, Bill. What, what they were gonna do to him, they'll do to me if I let this guy go." But I'd let him go. I did it. I was thinking about that incident. I'm like, "Jesus Christ, what are you saying to me? You're talking from a place that I don't even understand. Let him go. You see this devastation, and you just say, 'Be quiet in front of me. Don't talk about this. Don't take a side. Just keep your mouth shut.'" Wow.
And then, so I let him go. And that was an interesting one to explain to the CIA later, was why I did that. And, and then later, then recruited in, and all that stuff goes on. And then in Indonesia. And, you know, our first time there in the university, and they come and say, "You're under arrest for assaulting Muhammad." And it's 10 years in prison. And there's nothing you can do about it. And I can't get off the island. And I call the US Embassy, and they're like, "Good luck." And that was the end of that. And, and I'm sitting with Donna, and we're like, "Our kids are little, and there's nowhere to go. And it's 10 years in prison. And there's nothing I can do." And I can't speak because I'm not a Muslim. Not let testify. No emotional testimony for me because they hate my guts because I've offended. I'm the whole time I've been there. And so, "Jesus, what do you do? Like, what do you do? Like, we came here to serve you. And obviously, you don't get that, God, because if you got that, I wouldn't be faced in prison for 10 years. I'd be blessed in writing amazing books about how awesome we are." [Laughter] "And I'd be speaking in really big, famous places, not remote mountains." [Laughter] [Applause]
So, and so then you go through that. And then, and then we, you know, then we go to Baghdad. And in one day, our whole team is killed in one car. And like, they call me, "Did people in this region know?" "Yes, you do. Come identify the bodies because we can't recognize them." And we go, and it's our team, my team, my people. And I have to call their families. "I'm sorry, 20, 23-year-olds. Hold our team." And I got to go back and tell the rest of our team, "Oh yeah, they were all killed in one day." This is gonna, we were just there. We just got there. "Jesus, what in the world are we supposed to do? Take me to a place higher than this, because I don't know what to do."
And then we come back into the US. And my, our son, youngest son's never been in public school in the US. He goes into his first day of middle school in a terrible public school system. He goes in his first day, he gets beat up and robbed his first day. And he's like, "That, I don't think, I think I should be in a private school. I should know." And I'm praying, and he's shaking, he's like, so horrified. His first day. And, and we take him home. And Donna's crying, and he's crying. And God says to me, "Don't you dare take that kid out of that school. Don't you dare." And I'm like, "Do you know I'm married to you? Tell her you say because I, Donna is Jewish, and that doesn't mean anything, but there are to talk to you. You know, sometimes their God said that." I, I didn't. But, and so, and so God says, "Don't you dare. You keep him in that school. Don't you dare take him out. Because he's afraid. He's in, he's a sixth grader. Keep him in that school. If you want racial justice in this place that you're, and you keep him in that school. Don't come to me and pray for this stuff and then run away when it, you have to do it." Take me to a place higher than I am. I need information from places I've never been before. Because this, if I tell any Christian parent that I'm putting my kid in the school and keeping them there, I am a horrible Christian parent, a bad steward of my kids. How dare you subject your child to that? It's like, you take him up and sacrifice him or something. That's not in the Bible. God, take me to a place higher than the way I think about things. Please, please, please. Because nothing changes when I only think the way I think.
So what I want to do, one more situation came to my mind. I was asking time about it. We go down into, we're invited into Southern Algeria, into the Sahara, among 250,000 Muslim Sahara, we refugees in a huge refugee disastrous situation. And a kite is trying to get in among these people. And we get invited down there. And here's the team that we encounter down there. One lady who, one older lady who, this is the loudest she can even yell, "Hi, my name is Janet." That's her. That's the leader. And she doesn't like to fly or travel. And she's the one that's there. And a team of 10 young people. And nothing's happening. And their question is, "Can you help us figure out what to do here?" Jesus, "No one lady and 10 young people with 250,000 fairly hostile Muslims living in the middle of the desert. Teach them what to do." No, we can't, unless you take us to a place higher than ourselves and tell us a way to do it. And he did. Ten young people, one lady, one of the best works I've ever seen happen in my life among Muslims. Then they did it. How? Because God took us to a place higher than ourselves. He took us to a place we didn't know how to do. We didn't even know how to ask what to do from God. And he showed us what to do. And what I want to do is walk through, "How do you know how to know?" That's what I want to do. And while we're doing that, we're gonna ask God, "What do you want us to know that we haven't thought about yet about me personally, and what you have for me starting tomorrow or tonight?" Here's how we're going to do it. I'm going to walk through Judges chapter six with you. Do it anywhere in the Bible. Let me just, I'm going to say this a thousand times. There is no formula for this. Let me say it again. There is no formula for this. Do you know I am saying that because people just want five steps to everything? That's all you want. "Give me five steps. Let me read the book. I'll watch the tapes. I'll go do it." Satan loves steps like that. He loves, um, five steps right into his clutches because when you have the steps, you don't need the spirit at all. All you have is human endeavor and a lot of sincerity. And he devours that. We're not talking about a formula. We're talking about an interaction with a personal God. That's what we're going to be talking about. Judges chapter six. So I'm going to go quick right now because I just want to get to one, the opening question of this process in Judges chapter six. So here we go. If you, I encourage you to take notes, just whatever strikes you. But I'm, I'm hoping you're going to hear some things that you don't know. I hope. And if you know all this, come tell me because I would love to meet you and correct you.
So Judges chapter six. Here's the beginning. We're going to do the beginning of it. Judges chapter six. "The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian for seven years." Okay, I want you to listen to these lengths of time. Seven years. Not like, "Oh, that was a week. That's awful. Let's figure out what went wrong." Seven years. Before they went, "Huh, this is horrible." I know people that live 50 years and died and never say that. Never. It's like, "Well, it's not going any better than this." So whatever, "Can't change our world thing like that." So seven years. So they did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian for seven years. And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel. And because of Midian, the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains, in the caves, and the strongholds. For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midian and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them, and they would camp against them and devour the produce of the land as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel, no sheep or ox or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents. They would come up like locusts in number. Both they and their camels could not be counted. So that they laid waste and the land as they came in. They laid waste to all of the resources of Israel. Every year, Israel's strategy in this situation. Here's their strategy. Can you imagine them here together? Wow. Okay, so Midian last year, Midian, the Midianites came up. So we planted. We worked real hard all year. We worked and we worked and we worked, and we sowed and we planted. And now we're ready to reap. And Midianites just came in and took everything. Huh? What are we gonna do next year? Well, let's hide. That's brilliant. That is, you didn't have to think long to think of that, did you? Nope. That was right there the whole time. I just knew, hide. And then what will we do? We'll just hide. And we'll hide in caves. Let's make comfortable caves to hide in, you know. Um, you call them man caves or whatever you want to call them. We'll hide that, um, um, up in the mountains, you know, away from like the public, up in the mountains. And, um, and we'll make them into strongholds. We'll call them strongholds. Their satanic strongholds, but their strongholds. And we'll hide in those strongholds. Here's their strategy. When the bad guy comes, we'll hide and wait till he steals all of our stuff. And then we'll come back out. And then what will we do? Well, then we'll work again for next year. And then when they come next year, we'll hide again. And we'll do that every year. And the enemy will own you because all you're doing is surviving. It's all about self-protection and self-preservation. Interesting, because when Jesus comes along later, he makes her, really, we love the promises of Jesus. We love them. Here's one of his big promises. If you seek to save your own life, I'm gonna make you a promise, you will lose it. I promise you. Like, "Yeah, another promise. I'm putting that in the book." Do you understand the promise? If you seek to save your own life, if the goal of your life is self-preservation, I promise you, you will lose your life. Here it is. What are you gonna do about that? I'm gonna make a cave. I'm gonna put a big-screen TV in it. I'm gonna have a door that opens and closes if I just go like this. And I'm just gonna hide there and pray to God that the end comes and all these bad people get killed. That's my strategy. That's their strategy. What is that? Who thought of that strategy? Satan. He thought of it. They didn't even think of it. That's how deceived they are. They didn't make it. That's just insane. This strategy. What is your strategy in the world? What's our, what's our strategy as a country in the world? What are we talking about doing?
Here's the interesting thing about this passage. So, so the judges, you know, the book of Judges is seven judges, seven different situations. And if you, you know, kind of go through the whole Bible, there's, there's people that write a lot about this idea. But the idea of sevens in scripture, and the seven things on the cross, and the seven days of creation, and the sevens all the way through scripture. And they're, they're really interesting. You can read about that. I'll give you resources to read about that if you want to. But there are seven judges, and there's seven different strategies against Israel through each of the situations. So they are going to say, I wrote them down here. So the first, the first one is the Arminian, the Arminians are the ones that come in first. The Armenian curse. The next one is the Moabites come in. Third, Philistines come in. Fourth, Canaanites come in. The Midianites is what we're looking at. There's Jotham's curse. And then this, the Ammonite curse. There's seven different situations. Each of the seven different situations are seven strategies of the enemy against particular identities of rulers. Okay? So in a lot, a lot of us would say there's seven redemptive identities in scripture. And so the seven judges, the seven attacks of the Philistines and the Amorite and all are aimed at particular leadership identities. Not all of them are leaders, but particular identities of who should be running the situation that aren't doing it. You'll see what I mean in a second. So when that, so when the army, or mean, or Midianites come in, they attack the people where the identity in the community of the prophet. When the Moabites come in, they attack the identity of the people in the community that are servants. When the Philistines come in, they attack the identity of the people in the community that are teachers. When the Canaanites come in, they attack the identity of the people in the community whose identity is exhorter. When the Midianites come in, they attack the identity of the people that are the givers. When, when Jotham is there, they come in and attack the identity of people who are rulers. And when the Ammonites come in, they attack the people whose identity is mercy. Very strategic enemy attacks on very specific identities in the culture. And it ruins the culture. And it takes a particular judge of that identity to rise up and liberate them. That's how important your identity is in your community. And you don't even know it. Which is the great skill of the enemy. You don't even know what you don't know.
When God says to me, "Let that guy out of the car, on handcuff him and let him go." I'm like, "Do you know what this is?" What I said, "Alert, do you understand? Do you know what's gonna happen?" He's like, "Yes, I do. You don't." Do you get that, Jamie? You don't know. But you're praying to me, yet before every shift, "Oh God, help me to be a police officer in the kingdom of God." But when I tell you how to do it, you correct me and say, "It can't be done because you'll get in trouble, because you'll lose your job." Oh, so we're not all that. I'm not really worried about the community. Are you? You're more worried about your job. Wow. What kind of prayer? That's why I can't look at God and go, "Hear me and act. Listen and move." I can't do it because I'm not telling the truth right here. It's already, I'm not even telling the truth right here. Good prayer. Impress the other guys on my squad. Not very much. But like, do you understand what I'm saying? You're, we don't know what we don't know. We're saying things we don't know. And because we don't know, we're not living in truth. We're completely deceived. Well, I wish I could go a long time on that. We'll do it sometime. So I'll see, Becca, they're back into the passage. So that, so the Israelites are planting, they're preparing, they're building up a resource base to give, to give out to the community, to cause the community to grow and prosper. The givers. And every time they're ready to give and hand it out, the enemy comes in and steals it all away. And they're broke again. They're in poverty again. And no matter how rich their country is, they seem to be less, they seem to be more impoverished year after year. Like, "How can the Midianites just walk in and keep doing this?" That's their question.
"So after seven years, Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord." Oh, you, that only took seven years. Okay. But, but listen. And I want to say this respectfully. But when you hear this kind of thing, like, "If we just turn to God and repent, and God will heal our land." Be careful because again, you're telling the steps of how to get God to act like he's some kind of animistic deity. If we turn this way and say these words, he must heal our land. No, no, no, no, no. That is wrong. Because you know who's in charge of that process? You are. I am. Say these magic words to God and he's got to move. Untrue. False. How do you know what to say to God? This is breathtaking hope. Get ready to write this down. How do I know what to ask God? You ask him what to ask. Here's how. Jesus says, "The Father knows what you need before you ask him." So ask him what you need. "Don't tell him what you need. Ask him what you need." "Here, Officer Winship, is what you need to do. Let that guy go. That's what you need to do." "I don't think I need that." "Oh, here we go." "Okay, all right. Okay, all right. See you at the next quiet time when I'm in charge, which might be seven years from now at this rate. Do you see? And you'll be a police officer. And who cares? You did what every other nice, good police officer does. Average. Very average. Lead on, nice."
So here's what happened. So Israel cries out to the Lord. "When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites." What's motivating them to cry out is their present circumstances. That's what's doing it. This is how God works. He uses present pain to lead us into the real truth, which isn't the present pain. That's what he's going to do right here. Let me say that again. He uses the present situation and pain to lead you into the truth of the real source of the problem and heals you at the source. It's not the present circumstances that's the real problem. Ever. Never. Think of Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman. This beautiful thing Doug Coe does about becoming a fountain. What Jesus walks up to the Samaritan woman. It's, we were so funny how we talk about these things. He's sitting there. He's a Jewish man. A Samaritan woman walks up to him. And this is what he says to her. He doesn't say it like a British actor would say it. It's not, "Oh, woman, did you give me a drink?" Like, and she's like, "Oh, you're so wonderful to cross cultures and reach out to me with the redemptive analogy that I understand." That's how we preach it. Like, "Where is that? What were, where was that happening?" Here's what he says to her. "Hey, get me a drink." That's what he says to her. It's like me going into a Walmart in the south part of Houston where all the Muslims live, finding a Muslim married woman and going, "Hey, walk over there and get me a Mountain Dew out of the cooler, will you?" That's the same thing that Jesus is doing to this woman. It's his offensive. And she, she doesn't go, "That's why." She doesn't say that. She goes, she goes, "How is it that you, a Jew, sit here naming two categories and teams?" She starts naming the teams. "How is it that you, Jew, how talk to me, a Samaritan, and a woman?" And the genders, the racial divide, the gender divide that your, your rabbi, you're a teacher, I'm a woman. Of all of the, all of the divides. She named starts naming them immediately. And you know why she does? Because Jesus triggers it on in her. He does it on purpose. He's saying, "Tell me the truth about really the thing about life." You can't. She won't. "I'm okay. Okay, then get me a drink." "How dare you, Jewish man? It's everything she hates about life. Jews, men. I'm down here by myself. I'm all alone. Men take advantage of me. They objectify me. There's nothing I can do about it. Woman, women think I'm lower than them. It'll never change. Nothing will ever change in my life. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. God, if there was a place different than this, higher than this, from the ends of the earth, that could come and get me out of here, where is it?" And there is it. Right there. And he's gonna do it like this. With this unbelievable statement. "Tour, thank you for telling you the truth about what you really think about life. You finally spoke the truth. That's called confession. You finally told the truth, didn't you? Now that you've told the truth, let's repent. Repent is, let's turn the whole thing upside down and make it right. If you knew who I was and the gift I am that God has sent to you because he loves you, and you're not a bad woman, you're a great woman, then you would ask me to serve you, and I will. Dear statement. You would ask me, the King, the Messiah, to serve you. And I will. Ask me to serve you. Ask me to serve you. Ask me, please, ask me to serve you, and I will. Because if you drink of me, you will become the fountain of living water. You win. Now, for who? All of them. All of them that think they're better than you. They will think God. The date that you were the woman that came back to them and told them about who I was, and you will be the historical transforming person in the history of Sumeria. Right now, Tuesday morning. Now drink of me. Come on. Ask me to serve you. I will. And she does. Pam. Redeem the world is turned right-side up like that. She doesn't know what she doesn't know. Ask me what you need, and I will tell you. Ask me, and I will do it. And it will change everything about your life, your identity, your vocation, your circumstances, all of it. But the thing you think is the problem is not the problem. You're deceived. Still.
"They cry out to the Lord." Watch. "When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites." What's motivating them to cry out is their present circumstances. That's what's doing it. This is how God works. He uses present pain to lead us into the real truth, which isn't the present pain. That's what he's going to do right here. Let me say that again. He uses the present situation and pain to lead you into the truth of the real source of the problem and heals you at the source. It's not the present circumstances that's the real problem. Ever. Never.
"So the Lord sent." And here's the first part of the process. A prophet comes. A prophet comes. What does a prophet do? He tells the truth. The truth teller. "The Lord sent a prophet of Israel to the people of Israel." And the prophet says to them, listen what he says. "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt. Have you forgotten this? Did you forget I do this kind of thing? You know, your life is terrible. I know it's awful. It's terrible. And it's all these obstacles. And all, I get it. But let me just, you seem to have forgotten my identity first. Here's my identity. I led you out of slavery. Everyone in this room that knows Christ, he led you out of slavery. You could never do it by yourself. There's nothing you could do to get out of it. And he led you out of it. Why? Because he loves you. Why? I don't know. I don't know. I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians, from the hand of everyone who's ever oppressed you. Why do you think that's ended? Who told you it only goes this far and then it's over? Who said that? When you get to Indonesia and you get arrested and they're going to put you in prison for 10 years, did I not work anymore in Indonesia? Because I only work in the southern part of the United States of America where I'm strong and you have a gun? Why? Why do you think this?" He's reminding them of what's true. This is true. "And I drove them out before you and gave you their land." How can you be in the situation that you're in now? How can you be in it? Do you know? Do you remember who I am? I'm the deliverer. That's what I do. Anything that you think tonight, any time, anything that you think, "If you just told me, God hears. Places in my life where I'm pretty sure you cannot deliver me." Then you're on your way to freedom when you make that statement. Do you understand that? Because you're telling the truth. "God, I don't think you can do this. I believe you can't do it." Here we go. Tell the truth. And I said to you, "Listen to this. Here he is. And I said to you, 'Here's my identity. Here's my identity. Here's my identity. Don't forget it. I am the Lord your God.' That's my identity. Don't forget it. The reason you're in the situation you're in is because you've forgotten that I am the Lord your God. That's the first thing. You walked away from. Then listen. He says, 'And I told you, here's, here's the source problem. It's not the Midianites. Has nothing to do with them. You shall not,' here's the word, 'fear.' Fear. Fear. Fear. You shall not fear the gods of the Midianites. You're afraid of the gods of the Amorite. What? Where are they? Who are they? The fear of the gods. And but you have not obeyed my voice." They don't even know where the problem is. "Their God." Get rid of the Midianites. "God, get rid of me." "Helping with the Midianites." The Midianites are not the problem. What's the problem? Your fear is the problem. Your fear of what? Of the gods of the Amorite. You know why they're afraid? The, what are the gods of the Amorites? What is that? Evil. They're afraid of evil. You're so terrified of bad things happening to you that you hide and you allow the enemy to take everything because you are afraid of evil. We are the people. We're the only ones that know what to do with evil. And we're afraid of it. We're lost. That's it. It's done. When we become afraid of evil, we're done. And we won't tell the truth about it. No, Lord, come on, bring revival. I can't bring revival to people who are dominated by fear. You can beg me all day long. I won't until you come to me and we get rid of the very source of your problem, which is fear of things and people other than me. That's your problem. That's our problem tonight. What? That guy. So I let, if I let that guy out, I'm telling God in every way, "God, you don't understand. I have to maintain my integrity as a police officer." Here's what he's saying back to me. "You're afraid." And I took an oath for this. "Bleep army afraid." And you don't understand that I did this. "Squad is not my squad. They could get me fired." Afraid. God just keeps telling the truth. He won't entertain falsehood. He won't speak back to falsehood. You're gonna watch him do this. You're gonna watch him do this with Gideon. That's where we're going. When you turn to God and say something to him that's not true, he just goes back onto the truth. "Oh God, you, you don't understand. You don't understand." Like, "If I do this." He's like, "You're afraid." "And I said, 'Tell me you're afraid.'" "And I will be right there with you. I deliver you. I'm the one that delivers you. Tell me you're afraid, and now let's just tell the truth, and off we'll go." "I'm not afraid, Lord. It's just that I'll lose my job." "And if I, but your thoughts called fear?" "No, no, it's not fear." "No, my wife won't understand." "You're afraid of your wife?" "No, I am afraid of my wife." Do you see that? Here's, here's what God cares about. The source. The source. The source. The source. The source. The source. The source. He wants to be your source. Your source of everything. And if he is not your source, you are your source. And if you are your source, you will not succeed. Because the enemy is not afraid of you. He is afraid of you with God as your source. Terrified. And so he will do everything to keep you from telling that truth. "Stem night. It's the Midianite. It's damn. It's damn. It's damn. It's them. It's them. It's not me. I'm trying." You don't have to try. You have to let me be the source, and I will do it. I will do it. Greater is here. That is immunity. That is in the work.
When I let that guy go, I mean, I tell this story when we're talking in small groups of police officers, and they're like, "You did not do that. You cannot do that." That's how strongly they react to this. It's insane. I know. It's like, it's like telling the musicians to walk around a giant wall and blow the clarinets, and that thing's gonna fall down. It's the dumbest military strategy ever. Can you imagine saying that in front of the Pentagon? "I have a strategy. I know how to get rid of Isis. We need a woodwind section." We need, you know why we won't do that? Because we're worried. We're so embarrassed by these. I mean, that's like embarrassing, man. When you say that, the guy's like, "Oh, so the prayer life's not really serious then, huh? All the stuff you're saying." Hold. So if you talk about, huh? So, hmm. Human endeavor. That's what you want. You want a five-step list from some famous person. Won't work. It never has. I won't do it. You don't need any of that stuff. You need him to be the source. Information is not the source. Jesus is the source. He's the source. And he will, he'll walk through all of this situation.
I could, I let that guy go. And I'm, I'm unleashing the handcuffs. And he's like, "What are you doing?" "I'm letting you go." He's like, "You can't let me go." Like, "Don't get on my team." While I like, walk away. He, he's positive I'm gonna shoot him. He's positive I'm gonna let him go and shoot him and say he ran away. My, like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do that. Didn't want you. Let me go. God told me to let you go. It's like, "I know it's dumb. I know. Run now. Run." [Applause] He's just looking at me. "That's dumb." I know. "He's on my side." God, your, we both think this is a bad idea. Both of us. Now we're like on, we're enemies and we're joining together to be against this plan. That's what we're doing. Anyway, he leaves. And sometime I'll tell you the whole story about that guy. That guy that I let go turned out to be one of the greatest human beings I've ever known in my life. And all he needed was that one chance to live it out. That's all he needed. And he did it. He, that guy changed the police policy on that whole incident. He did. He did it. Because when he left, he didn't run away. He came back. And he came back. And he stood with me to explain why I let him go. Here's how they expect. Finish. I don't know why. Let me go. So it wasn't that big of a help. But the thing was, you said, "God told him." Around. But me and that guy together did this. This is one of the reasons the CIA came to talk to me because of this guy. Me and that guy together did more to eradicate evil in our city than 50 police officers. Me and, took me. Yes. Me and him being that guy. Yeah. We worked so closely together. And that, the police department paid for his wife to go to law school. They were so grateful for his impact in the city. A guy that's getting arrested on Christmas Eve, later going to the graduation of his wife from law, Howard University Law School, because our Police Department, that should have arrested him, sent his wife through law school. That's how God works. That's what he can do with how many people? One person. You. One person that listens to him. And he says, "Stop being afraid of the gods of other places. Why are you making policy on the fear of gods of other places and blaming it on the Midianites? Build a wall so the Midianites can't come because they're ruining us." That's what they're saying. It's wrong.
Here's my question for tonight. I'm done. Here's my question for tonight. What are you afraid of? What in the world are you afraid of? That's the question I want. We want to go to the Lord tonight and say, "God, before we can take any movement forward with you, we have to be willing to deal with our deepest fear." And I'm telling you, you don't even know how to say what that is unless you let, like David said, "God, search me and know me. You search me and you tell me if there's any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. And I will praise you and I will shout about you." Tonight, going to the Father in the spirit and seeing God search me and know me. Tell me where I'm afraid to go forward with you. Because once that fear moves out of the way, it'll come clear to you what to do. And things that you want to do that you won't do. Don't. It'll start to open up for you. Not like he'll just do it like that and solve it all. No, no. He just gives peace. God, I, like, here's what I believe about you that's not true. I don't think you can do this. If I step forward, I'm going to be on my own, and you're gonna let me down. One, one more thing about those, that team in Algeria. We, those are 10 young people in Algeria. They've never been on the field before. They don't know what they're doing out there. We took them away for four days. Ten of them, five guys and five girls, young. We divided them up, guys and girls. We spent two days with each one. Me and another guy with each of the guys. "What are you afraid of? What are you most afraid of in life?" Forget Algeria. Forget everything. "What are you most afraid of?" They would talk. We would pray through that fear. They would lay it out there before the Lord. He would deal it, deal with it. He would take it away. That source. He replaced it with his spirit of power and authority. They gained their identity. We put him back together in a group. We didn't tell each any of them what the other one prayed about. And we just put cards up on the whiteboard of their real identity. You'll see this with Gideon. Just what God called him. While we were praying with them, we just put it up there. None of them knew the other one's names. And we looked at the whiteboard and we said to the group, "Who up there is your leader?" "What name up there is your leader?" And one of the names was lying. Like, "Lion." Okay, the leader. Okay. Who's next? Who, who should be out in front, like scoping out the place? Someone, the name that God called one of them was "Explorer." Explorer. Yep. He's out front. Okay. And we divided the whole team up by the name that God gave them in place of their fear. And when we had it divided up, ended at halfway through the process, one of them goes, "I know who that is. That's that's him." Right. They, "I, I know who the lion is. It's them." And the whole team was like, "Yeah, that's who we are." And we put them, and they went back into Algeria. Oh, unbelievable what happened with them. Unbelievable. Two years ago, the Algerian government asked for 30,000 Bibles. Algerian government, Muslim government, for 30,000 Bibles to hand out from their mosques. Why? Because these people replaced fear with their true identity and went out and lived just in each of their own true identities in a group of 10. And that's what happened. That's what you condemn. Wherever it is tonight, we've got to break through fear. We're gonna go out. Jeff can do this.
Let me just pray. Stop talking. Silence. Father, we so look forward to this weekend. Oh Lord, I do. I do. God, we ask in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, our source, and the Spirit, which connects us to the very mind of God. Take us to a place higher than ourselves. Take us outside of our mind, out to the ends of the earth. And Lord, would you speak to us?