The culture is offering us counterfeit currency. It looks like the real deal.
It looks like the authentic deal, but it's fake truth. Dr. Tony Evans says cultural deceit can't hide from kingdom truth. God wants us so acquainted with the truth that it becomes obvious that's not part of it. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. No matter how much we desire to be a kingdom Christian, none of us has the power to actually do it, unless we get it from God.
Let's join Dr. Evans as he tells us how that can happen. When Jesus began his earthly ministry, he began with an opening phrase, the kingdom of God is at hand. All throughout his ministry, he kept talking about this kingdom, this place of divine jurisdiction. The reason why Jesus taught them about the kingdom of God so that they would teach us about the kingdom of God is so that we would understand the governance of God's jurisdiction, God's rule, so that when errant thinking, errant ideas, errant philosophies, errant social orientation, when errant things come in, we understand what the rules of the house are, the rules, the jurisdiction of the kingdom, because there is a competing kingdom.
The Bible says we have been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. He says there is a dark kingdom, an evil kingdom, a secular kingdom, and it wants to impose itself and change house rules, change the sphere of the rule of God. So he says, I'm going to teach you apostles about the kingdom. I want you, now that we've established the church, to teach the people about the rule of God.
Why? Because he wants us to experience the power of the kingdom. He doesn't just want the information of the kingdom. He wants the power of the kingdom to be made manifest based on the information of the kingdom. He says you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
The job of the Spirit is to bring the reality of the new jurisdiction into our experience. When Jesus was on earth, the expression of his deity always operated in the location of his humanity. So people got healed where he was. People got raised from the dead where he was. People heard the sermons where he was. In other words, where his body was, you saw the supernatural activity that he did, because he limited the activity of his deity to the location of his humanity. He was fully God, but he was also fully man.
And as fully man, he had limitations. He said, but I've got to go because if the Spirit doesn't come, you're going to be worse off. You mean I would be worse off if Jesus was here today?
Absolutely. If Jesus Christ was here, we would all be clamoring for his attention, because the superstar, the King of Kings has entered the building. But the problem is, the problem is because of the limitations of humanity, he could not go to everybody's house at the same time. It would be impossible, not because he's not divine, but because he limited his eternal spiritual activities to the limitations of his humanity. Jesus never went more than 300 miles from the place of his birth.
He was localized in his humanity. So he says, I'm going to send you another of the same kind. I got to leave because when y'all disperse, I want to go home with everybody. And because I want to go home with everybody, I'm going to send an invisible power source to be available to you as though it were me. The Holy Spirit is the continuation of the work of Jesus on earth on his behalf, so that he could be everywhere at one time. And his purpose is to empower the kingdom's work in the life of his people.
That's his purpose. You shall receive power. All of us have electricity, which means you have power. Your appliances only work because of the power of electricity. Your lights come on because of the power of electricity. Your heat, your cooling works because of the power of electricity. You are attached to power if you have electricity in your home, as we all do. You are connected to power.
In other words, there is power access. Assuming your refrigerator is plugged in, assuming your toast is plugged in, assuming your lamp is plugged in, that doesn't determine whether you have it. That does determine whether you experience it. If you have come to Christ, you have the Holy Spirit, that doesn't mean you're experiencing it. You have been attached because the Bible says that you have been baptized by the Spirit of God.
First Corinthians chapter 12, you've been dumped, just like the physical baptism, the spiritual baptism, you've been placed into the body of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit that has entered the life of the believer. If you have a working refrigerator, it has been constructed to work by electrical power. If the refrigerator is not working because it has not been plugged in, you can't get mad at the electric company and say, y'all not doing your job.
You can't get mad at the manufacturer if the refrigerator has been constructed properly. You can only blame yourself from nonconnection. That's the only one you can blame is yourself for nonconnection. Our lack of power is due to our lack of connection. Why? Because there's nothing wrong with the company.
The company is perfect. There's nothing wrong with the construction because every believer receives a new nature and that new nature is already set up to receive the power from the company. So if you've got the power of the company, and if you're a Christian, you have the new nature, but there is no power, it's because there's a plug-in missing. Because you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, when the Holy Spirit is doing His work in and through you. I found out I have a problem.
I found out yesterday. I don't like cold. I don't like cold.
I don't even like cool. I like hot. Okay? I prefer hot.
I will drive with a hundred degree heat with the windows down to get fresh air because I don't want air conditioning blowing on me a lot. Okay? So that's just my faux pas. Okay?
So I don't like them. So I went to turn up the heat in my house yesterday on the one side of my house, and it didn't come on. I put it up higher. It didn't come on. It didn't come on.
So I got to get that looked at. That happened a few years ago where I had a problem where the heat wouldn't come on. So I called the air conditioning heating guy. He came over and I thought I needed a new unit.
He said, no, your unit's fine. It says your igniter is not lighting the pilot so that it's getting in through the unit, creating the flame to produce the heat. He says, I know you think there's a unit problem, but this igniter is just a little piece of thing. He says, but this little piece of thing gets everything moving. The parts are there.
It's all working. But because your igniter is not connecting like it needs to connect, the unit is not doing what it was created to do. God has given every believer an igniter to go into the new nature of the unit of your conversion to produce the kingdom of God results.
But if the igniter is not igniting, then the results are not occurring, so the power is not being realized. He taught the kingdom of God and he says, with this information I'm going to give you, the Spirit of God will produce power. Dr. Evans will have more for us on that power the Holy Spirit produces when he returns in a moment.
First though, I want to let you know that today's message is part of a powerful series of lessons Tony presented earlier this year called Unleashing the Kingdom. This is the first time we brought the 12 messages in this sermon series to our listeners here at the Alternative Broadcast, and we're excited to make them available to you now. In this collection, Dr. Evans takes you deep into Scripture to help you recognize that the kingdom of God is relevant and real.
It's here and now, and it's waiting for you to access all it has to offer when you live life as it ought to be lived. You can receive the 12 full-length messages in this two-volume collection on either CD or digital download when you make a donation toward keeping this Bible-based teaching here on this station. We rely completely on the generous support of listeners like you to allow us to carry these messages to a world desperately in need of God. And as our way of thanking you for that support, we'll send you the Unleashing the Kingdom audio series along with an added bonus, One Kingdom Under God, a powerful paperback Dr. Evans has written that embodies the central theme of these messages. All the details are waiting for you at TonyEvans.org, or you can call our resource center any time of the day or night at 1-800-800-3222.
That's TonyEvans.org, or by phone at 1-800-800-3222. Well, Dr. Evans, we'll come back with more of today's lesson right after this. The threat of global catastrophe looms over us, earthquakes, fires. It seems like the world is falling into turmoil.
Are you ready to face Armageddon? Dr. Tony Evans' latest book, Thy Kingdom Come, emerges as a light amidst the sin-ridden depths of our world, guiding you through the murky waters of uncertainty. Within these insightful pages, wisdom intertwines with revelation. You'll dive deep into the mysteries of enigmatic prophecy, where solace awaits the weary soul.
Dr. Tony Evans' unparalleled mastery and deciphering the complexities of Scripture will ensure clarity in the face of confusion and illuminate the path towards hope. Arm yourself against the impending storm, and let not the hour of reckoning catch you unaware. Be prepared for what's to come by picking up your copy of Thy Kingdom Come at TonyEvans.org. It comes with a bonus sermon series, Staying Right with God.
Do not be caught off guard. In John 16, verse 12, he says, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify me, for He will take of mine and disclose it to you.
All things that my Father has are mine. Therefore, I say that He takes of mine and discloses it to you. God has given every believer an access line of disclosure. That's what the verses say.
So let's walk through this. Jesus says, My Father discloses to me. I download from Daddy. When I download from Daddy, the Holy Spirit downloads from me. The Holy Spirit has a Google search engine.
He downloads from the Son and reveals it to you. Not only is it a download of data, but it is a download of data with a GPS system, because He says, I will guide you into all truth. So there is a GPS, there is a guidance positioning system at work in the life of the believer who is plugged into the Spirit. You're now in sync, and that sync will not only give you the information, it will give you the directions. He says, and it will guide you, steer you. Is there a qualification?
Is there something that has to be operating? He says, yeah, as long as you know the Spirit is the Spirit of truth. If you don't have kingdom truth, you don't get spirit power. A lot of people want spirit power who are not committed to kingdom truth. Once you abandon the truth, which is God's perspective on any subject, I don't care what the subject is, when you abandon that, you cannot then ask for the Spirit's engagement, power, presence, enablement.
He's not available because you're operating on false data. There is a virus on the line. Now, I know I didn't step way out here, so y'all tell me if I'm wrong, but it sounds right to me.
There's a virus on the line. And the moment that you, I, we, or us bring into divine jurisdiction the kingdom of God where He rules, I've said it earlier, your kids, your teenagers come in and say, but my friends said. And what their friends said is not what you said. They're saying something antithesis to your teaching, your training, and the jurisdiction of your kingdom.
You let them know your friends don't live here. This is not their house. So you can't expect me to accept their worldview in this house when it doesn't agree with our worldview. But we live in a world today where Christians are being culturalized rather than kingdomized. And you hear us buying into secular thinking, secular thought because we like it because it seems so right and fun, even though it goes against kingdom truth. He says the power of the Spirit is tied to the teaching of the kingdom.
And when the Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth, knows that we're operating under divine jurisdiction based on divine truth, we now have access to Spirit enablement or power. Many people want to hear from Jesus, which happens through the Spirit, who don't want to be under the jurisdiction of the kingdom. They want to bring the kingdom of the culture into the kingdom of God, and then they want the kingdom of God to adjust to the kingdom of the culture. And so you hear them compromising their views, compromising their perspectives, because that's what they like. That's how they were raised. That's their viewpoint.
That's what they taught them in school and all that. The moment it goes against the kingdom of God, it goes against the Spirit of God. And once it goes against the Spirit of God, there is no power, because you're no longer plugged in, even though you have the equipment.
And when that happens, he says, you shall be, verse 8, my witnesses. When the truth of the kingdom, God's viewpoint, we come underneath it. We operate by it, even though we live in the culture.
We operate by the principles of the kingdom. When they want to teach the agents how to spot counterfeit money, they don't teach them that by showing them counterfeit money. They teach them by showing them and making them indoctrinated on the authentic currency. They make them so acquainted with the authentic currency that now they can recognize any counterfeit, because it's not consistent with the authentic currency. The culture is offering us counterfeit currency. It looks like the real deal. It looks like the authentic deal.
It looks like it's right, it's real, it's all that, but it's fake money. God wants us so acquainted with the truth that we can recognize the error, the lies, the deceptions, not because we know all of them, because they keep changing every month, but they're so acquainted with the truth that it becomes obvious that's not part of it. When that happens, when you see the Spirit of God manifesting itself, He says, and you will be my witnesses. Now, what does a witness do? They testify. When you're in court and you're a witness on a witness stand, you're giving testimony.
You're declaring something. When the Holy Spirit is doing His work, because you've come under the jurisdiction of the King and His kingdom, you're flying His flag over your life, home, family, church, your tree of influence, when the Holy Spirit begins to do His work, you gonna have a testimony. See, one of the reasons we don't testify is because we don't have a testimony. And if you don't have a testimony, you don't have anything to talk about.
You can't tell. You can't say to nobody, this is what God did for me. This is how Jesus invaded my circumstance.
This is how God turned something around. You gotta piggyback off of the testimony of other folk, because you don't have a testimony yourself. But when the Holy Spirit begins doing His work, because you've been tied and tethered to the truth of the kingdom, He says, you're gonna have something to talk about.
You're gonna have something to talk about. When God really does something, you can't keep it to yourself. You're gonna testify of who God is and what God has done. You'll be my witnesses. You won't have a problem sharing your faith. You won't have a problem talking about what the Lord means to you. You won't be ashamed of people criticizing you because you're identified with Christ and don't just stay generic God. You'll be able to say, if you knew what I know, you would tell it from the rooftop where I was and where He brought me from, what I was in and how He got me out.
You're gonna testify because you have experienced the power. Dr. Evans will return with a simple illustration to wrap up this message in just a moment. But first, if you're ready to experience the kind of power Tony's been talking about today, if you've never taken the step of asking Jesus Christ to be your personal sin-bearer and guarantee you a place in heaven for eternity, well, take a few minutes to visit tonyevans.org today. Click the link at the top of the page that says Jesus. We have some helpful resources there and a personal message from Dr. Evans that lays out the good news God has for each of us. Again, that's at tonyevans.org. Now a quick reminder about that special resource package I mentioned earlier, the complete Unleashing the Kingdom audio series along with the One Kingdom Under God paperback from Dr. Evans. We'll send the entire collection to you as our gift in appreciation for your contribution to the alternative broadcast. Just visit tonyevans.org to make your donation and request today. That's tonyevans.org or call 1-800-800-3222 where members of our resource team are always ready to help.
Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. We don't get to choose whether or not we'll have problems in life. They're inevitable. But tomorrow Dr. Evans points out the Bible does promise believers a unique and powerful way to deal with them. I hope you'll join us for that.
But right now, let's listen as he wraps up today's message. In closing, you know, we all have passports. If you travel, you have a passport. The passport identifies your citizenship. No matter where you go in the world, if you're an American citizen, you have an American passport. That passport will let them know in France, in England, in Italy, in China, I belong to America. Now, I'm in your country, but this a visit. I don't belong here. And my passport will testify that this is not home.
This is not where I live. Too many Christians are leaving their passport at home. When you go to work tomorrow, carry your passport. When you're in your community, carry your passport. When you're with your friends, carry your passport.
When you're hanging out with the guys, carry your passport. I'm with y'all, but I don't live here. I have another country. I live down here, but I operate from up there. If you don't believe me, here's my passport. It's in Jesus' name I make my declaration.
