The Gospel of Mark: Fasting

All right. Man, what a great video. That sounded official. I don't know whose voice that was. Sounded like something off of PBS, doesn't it?

Sounded too classy for this place. All right, great. I love that video.

Sign up for One Day with God. We need your help. We're going to be reuniting these individuals with their kids, and it is an incredible, incredible experience. Good morning, Cross Assembly family, and can we say hello to our brothers and sisters at North Raleigh as well. Would you greet them? And eventually, we may be greeting our brothers and sisters at the Benson campus. If that everything gets going, it'll happen.

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Of course, I'm not doing email now, so I was so surprised last week. Some of y'all gave me some of the funniest cards I've ever gotten. Y'all gave me last week some incredibly sentimental notes that really touched me. You gave me that. It really blessed me.

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We'd love to talk to you. In 1 Timothy 4.7, Paul likens the Christian walk and Christian discipline to go into a spiritual gymnasium. In fact, he says, exercise yourself unto godliness. And that word in Greek is gounotzo. We get the English word gymnasium from that. Just like you go to a physical gym for your physical body, Paul says you need to have a spiritual workout to build up your spirit, man.

You know, it's kind of easy. When I was young, I'd go to the gym, you know, because you want to look good, right? And now at my age, I'm just trying to stave off death as long as I can. That's why I go to the gym. And there are two kinds of exercises. There is aerobic or cardio, kind of build up kind of build up your cardiovascular system. And then there's strength training, you know, lifting weights and building your muscle.

Those are the foundations of a good workout. And a few years ago, I found something called, I don't know if you've ever heard of this before, it's called pre workout. It's like a powder.

And there's all different kinds of brands. You put it in water, shake it up, drink it. You don't have to take pre workout. But it does take you if you're into cardio, it helps you run a little bit longer with cardio. If you're into lifting weights, it might help you lift just a little bit more. You don't have to take it, but it does take your exercise maybe to another level.

I look at and watch this. Praying is your spiritual cardio. Being in the Word of God, reading and memorizing and meditating on scripture, that is your your strength training.

You've got to have both. And I look at fasting is almost that pre workout. You don't have to do it. You realize you don't have to fast. Nowhere in the New Testament are we commanded to fast. You don't have to fast.

And yet it just does something. It bumps that spiritual workout to a whole nother level. And so today I want us to talk about fasting. So go to Mark chapter two, we've been going through the Gospel of Mark. We're now Mark chapter two, where Jesus is asked about fasting. It says the disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting.

Then they came to him. They came to Jesus and they said, Now, look, why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? Jesus said to them, Well, can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.

But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the new piece pulls away from the old and the tear is made worse. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins, or else the new wine bursts the wine skins and the wine is spilled and the wine skins are ruined.

But new wine must be put into new wine skins. So let's look at the background of this passage. Look, Jesus is just minding his own business. And two Jewish groups come up to him and they say, Why are your disciples not fasting? The two groups are the Pharisees. The Pharisees, we tend to think the Pharisees maybe as being the first century equivalent to pastors. They're actually more than that.

We'll talk about this later. The Pharisees combined religious leadership and governmental leadership. They would be roughly equivalent to the Taliban in Afghanistan today that combines religious Islam and the government. Now, the Pharisees fasted two days a week. They fasted on Mondays and Thursdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Here's the interesting thing. You know, the Jewish people are only commanded to fast one time in the Old Testament. On the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, they are too fast. That is the only prescribed fast in the Old Testament.

One day a year, these guys say, but we're more spiritual. We fast two days a week. Why your disciples, Jesus, not fasting like we fast. The second group that seems to have a problem with Jesus's disciples, and this bothers me, is the disciples of John the Baptist. John the Baptist disciples said, yeah, John the Baptist taught us to consistently fast. Your disciples aren't fasting.

Now, here's the reason it bothers me. There is a running tension between John the Baptist's disciples and Jesus's disciples in the New Testament. See, John the Baptist was just not an ancillary figure. There is a Jewish Roman historian called Flavius Josephus.

He lived at about the time of Christ, and much of what we know about first century Israel outside of the Bible comes from this historian Flavius Josephus, and it's interesting. He actually talks about John the Baptist more than he talks about Jesus. So John the Baptist, again, he's not an ancillary figure, and there's this tension.

Does that bother you? Because John the Baptist knows Jesus is the Messiah. He already said, look, I'm here to prepare the way for Jesus. So why are his disciples upset with the disciples of Jesus? You know, what I've often found is many times religious leaders can get along with each other. It's their followers that have a problem with each other, and here's an example of this. Back in the 1700s, there were two prominent religious leaders. One was George Whitfield, great powerful preacher, but he was a Calvinist, and then John Wesley, another great preacher, and he's an Armenian, and it would be kind of like in our day like Billy Graham, and who would be? I don't think Billy Graham has a counterpart now.

Who's another prominent preacher? Let's just stick with, okay, so you have Wesley and Whitfield, okay, and they could get along with each other. Their disciples could not stand each other, their followers, and in fact, there's a story that one day a reporter sat down with John Wesley and said, Wesley, there's all this tension between your people and Whitfield's people.

Let me ask you a question. John Wesley, do you ever think you'll see George Whitfield in heaven? He said, no, I don't think I'll see him in heaven. This reporter's going crazy. Oh man, this preacher's saying to this other preacher, this guy's going to hell.

He said, but let me finish. He said, in heaven, I think George Whitfield will be so close to the throne of Jesus Christ, and I'm going to be so far in the back of the crowd, I don't think I will ever see George Whitfield in heaven, and it kind of squashed this tension between their disciples, and that may be what's going on here with John the Baptist as well. So you understand what they're saying to Jesus. These two groups are saying, we fast.

Yeah, we don't eat food a couple days a week. Why do your disciples not fast? Now, I love Jesus's response. Jesus doesn't say, hey, why don't you mind your own business?

Because did you know that's a biblical principle, mind your own business? We see that principle like in John 21, where Jesus is talking to Peter, and he says, now, Peter, when you get old, here's what's going to happen to you. Here's what's going to happen your ministry, and when Jesus gets through telling Peter what's going to happen to him, you know what Peter says? He said, hey, what about John the apostle?

What's going to happen to him? Jesus says, hey, what is that to you? You follow me. Implication, Peter, mind your own business.

You shouldn't worry about what's going to happen with John. You worry about yourself. Romans chapter 14, Paul's talking to Christians, and he says, you're criticizing other Christians. Who are you to criticize that person? Who are you to criticize that person? That person is God's servant. That person doesn't answer to you.

That person answers to God. Mind your own business. Matthew chapter 7, Jesus says, why do you worry about this speck of dust in your brother's eye when you've got a telephone pole sticking out of your own eye?

Mind your own business. But Jesus is nice that day, and he doesn't say mind your business. I also like his response. Jesus didn't apologize. He didn't say, I'd like to issue a statement. I sincerely apologize for anybody that we may have offended by not fasting. It was never my intention to offend people. He doesn't do that.

Creations, let me tell you something. We apologize way too much in this culture. Now I'm about to violate the first principle, mind your own business.

I'm just, I'm making an observation here, okay? But this past week, a Christian school here in North Carolina made international headlines, and I feel so sorry for that principal, bless her heart. I seriously, I've been praying for her. I felt burdened for her all week, because here's what happened to that Christian school. Three people are supposed to get baptized at school in their chapel service, Christian school.

Spirit of God fell, and 100 kids came forward and got baptized. And then there were some parents that raised holy grief over that, because hey, you didn't call us. You didn't ask our permission. You need to get our permission before you baptize our kids, and the school apologized. We're sorry, hindsight's 22.

They don't need to apologize. I'd like to say this. If I were the head of that school, I'd say if you send your kids to a Christian school, just assume we're going to try to make them Christians. And if you don't like it, pull them out and enroll somewhere else. But we've saved your kids from a devil's hell. You ought to be thanking us instead of griping at us. These parents were like, they hate our baptism. Well, 100 kids were baptized in that same baptistry. What about all the water and COVID?

What about COVID protocol? We should have talked about Coke. At any rate, Jesus doesn't apologize. Jesus doesn't explain himself.

Jesus doesn't apologize. Here's what Jesus tells them, verse 19. He says, Well, can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.

Do you know what he's saying? He's like, you don't fast at a wedding reception. I'm the groom.

I'm here with these guys for a couple years. But the day is going to come where I'm going to die. I'm going to be buried. I'm going to rise again, and I'm going to send to the right hand of the Father. I'm going to leave these guys one day.

And when I leave them, yeah, then they can fast in those days. But the groom is still here. And incidentally, Jesus calling himself the groom may be equating himself with God, because twice in the Old Testament, God compares himself to being a groom.

Interesting. You don't fast at a wedding. My daughter recently married a young man who was in the military, who was in the army. And both of them loved Jesus.

Both of them walked with the Lord. But before he was deployed, he got the word, I'm going to be deployed. She said, Dad, can we just have a quick outdoor wedding? Now, for years, I've been thinking, how in the world am I going to pay for my daughter's wedding?

And this is cheap. I'm like, outdoor wedding? Yeah, let's do it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And she said, well, should we pray about it? I said, yes, let's pray. Yeah.

Jesus said to it, let's do it. And so I thought I'd gotten out a lot of money here. I thought, great.

I don't have to pay for this thing. And now I've just been informed a couple months ago from my wife and my daughter. No, no, no. We're going to have a big reception thing with all of our family. And he's going to invite all of his military friends.

And, Daddy, you're not off the hook. We're going to have a big reception. And I looked at the guest list. And I said, well, am I feeding everyone in all four branches of the US military?

This is crazy. And I asked her, I said, if we're catering this, where do I get the food from? Here's what she said. She said, well, no, when we were dating, he'd drive up from Fort Bragg. I'd drive down from Raleigh and we would meet at a restaurant called Redneck BBQ. And she said, is there sentimental value there? I want Redneck BBQ to cater my reception. The Bible says, raise up a child in the way that she should go.

And when she's old, she'll not depart from it. I was, all right, let's do it. Now, if we get there that night and nobody's eating.

And I said, what's going on? If they said, well, we're not going to eat tonight, we're all fasting and praying this evening. I'm going to say, no, you're going to eat the barbecue before nobody leaves till this stuff is gone. You don't fast at a wedding reception.

And that's what Jesus tells these leaders. The groom is here and we ain't fasting. But the day's going to come when I leave, yeah, my disciples will then fast. So how do you fast?

How do you do this? You know, Matthew 6 16 says, when you fast, implication, it's assumed that we'll fast. Matthew 6 17, disciples, when you fast, implication, you're going to fast.

And so how do you do this? Number one, very simple, just give up food. Now, look, I know that there are different kinds of fasts. Technically, I'm on some kind of quasi electronic fast where I don't do texts and emails. But fasting is supposed to be sacrificing something. And since I hate emailing and texting, I'm really not sacrificing. Anyway, some people say that's a fast.

Others, you know, I'm not going to watch football this season. That's going to be my fast. Technically, literally, the word fasting in Greek means no eating. So I'm talking about, here's what I'd like us to do. Unless you have some kind of medical situation, let's give up one meal this week.

Can we just practice this and try this? You don't have to if you don't want to. But I'd like all of us just to pick maybe one meal this week and say we're going to fast. Implication, we are not going to eat. Again, if you've never fasted before, don't go on a seven day fast this week. Let's just give up one meal. But how do you do this?

Number one, you give up food. Secondly, you do it privately. Matthew 6 16 through 18 is very clear about this. Facebook spirituality kind of gets to me a little bit. Here I am kneeling down in my prayer closet. I want everyone to, and you're doing a selfie of you praying. You do understand Jesus said don't do that, right?

Okay. And so do it privately. And then number three, I just recommend you do this. Begin and end your fast in prayer. If you're just fasting one meal this week, I just recommend you just start that fast by saying, Lord, I'm now giving up food right now because of this. And I just pray for your presence to bless me in a powerful way as I give up this meal today. And then at the end of that time where you'd be eating, I would pray again.

Lord God, thank you for this opportunity to just begin and end in prayer. Well, now why fast? Why skip a meal? Or why skip several meals? What value is there in fasting?

Well, I came up with this little acronym for fast, F-A-S-T. F, jot this down, is focus. There's something about giving up food, I don't understand this, in this noisy world with all these voices, if you can give up a meal, it helps you to focus on Jesus, who he is, what he's done for you. Psalm 63 1 captures the heart of somebody fasting where it says, Oh God, you are my God. Early will I seek you. My soul thirsts for you.

My flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. Somebody put it this way, fasting is feasting on Jesus. Man, I love that. I love that. And in fact, I've read this this past week, I thought it was kind of interesting. Somebody wrote this, said, did you know that emperor penguins spend about four months fasting as they watch over, care for, and incubate their eggs?

You got that? They've just laid an egg, and these emperor penguins will spend four months doing nothing, not even eating, just staring at those eggs. If a penguin can spend 100 days not eating because it instinctually loves and is waiting for its baby penguin, can we not spend a meal or a day a week fasting out of our love for the Lord Jesus Christ? Then he says this, don't let the penguins beat us.

Isn't that great? Fasting, for some it's just a time to say, I'm shutting out the noise and focusing on Jesus. A is asking, I can't understand it and I can't explain this, but there's something about giving up a meal and calling on God, asking for what?

Asking for direction. I'm going to tell you, the greatest direction from the Lord, the greatest words from the Lord I have ever received was birthed out of a time of fasting. Hey, y'all may not realize this, y'all sitting in this building today as a result of fasting. I went off on a fast, remember back in our old location, I knew God was doing something, we'd outgrown that location, I prayed and fasted and God gave the vision for moving in here.

There's something about fasting that shuts out the noise where you can hear the voice of God. And so when you say ask, ask what Chad? Ask for direction. Hey, there's somebody here today, you need some direction from God. You're about to make a major decision about a relationship.

You're about to make a major decision about a job or school. And the greatest piece of advice I can give you is before you make a decision, spend some time fasting and listening to God. You see this all over the Bible. Acts 13, 3, the church needed some direction from God and it said they fasted and prayed and God broke in and spoke. Daniel 9, 3, Daniel is the leader of his people, he's trying to discern what God is going and in the middle of that fast, God breaks in and speaks very clearly to Daniel. Exodus 34, 28, Moses is receiving direction from God's people and he's doing it in the context of fasting. Acts chapter 10, Peter is hungry, he's wanting some food, he's on top of a house on a patio praying and they're cooking downstairs and he can smell it and he's hungry but he's giving it up and God breaks in and speaks to him about the conversion of the Gentiles. Luke chapter 6, Jesus needs direction. I've got thousands of people following me, which one's gonna be my 12 disciples?

And in Luke 6, he gets along with God and fasts and God speaks and says, choose these 12. There's something powerful about fasting, it gives you the ability to hear God in a way that you may not be able to in this loud and crazy world. When I say asking, let me ask God for provision. You're needing a financial provision from God. You're needing some type of something for God to break through.

I say, man, spend some time praying and asking and undergird that with fasting. One of my favorite stories. You ever heard of Dallas Theological Seminary? Dallas Theological Seminary is kind of, I guess, the preeminent evangelical seminary in North America and there's a few others like this but Dallas is one of the few that hasn't gone woke and crazy and all this kind of stuff. Great seminary. Chuck Swindoll was the president for a while but Dallas Theological Seminary was founded in the early 1920s and almost as soon as they had founded this seminary, things started to fall apart.

It came to the point of bankruptcy and almost folded. All the creditors were ready to foreclose on the seminary at 12 noon on a particular day. So that morning, the founders of the school all met in the president, Lewis Barry Shaffer's office and they said, let's fast, let's pray, and let's ask for God's provision. So while they're just fasting and praying, God, we're about to be foreclosed. The creditors are coming. There was one professor, Harry Ironside, H.A.

Ironside. When it was his turn to pray, here's what he prayed. He said, God, the Bible says you own the cattle on a thousand hills.

Have you read that before? God, you own the cattle on a thousand hills. Here's what he said, God, would you sell some of those cattle and give us the money and keep the school open? That was his prayer. Well, while they're praying that prayer, across campus, a tall Texan in boots and an open college shirt strode into the business office. Howdy, he said to the secretary, I just sold two freight loads of cattle over in Fort Worth and I feel God wants me to give this money to the seminary.

I don't know if you need it or not, but here's the check. The secretary took that check across campus, interrupted the prayer meeting, and gave it to the president of the seminary. When he looked at the amount, it was for the exact sum of the debt. And when he recognized the name on the check as that of the wealthy cattle farmer in Fort Worth, he turned to Harry Ironside and said, God answered your prayer.

Looks like he just sold some cattle. Isn't that great? Now, I'll say this. Now, you listen to me. Just because you fast and salivate and stop and name it and claim it and shall I lie and do all that kind of stuff does not mean God is obligated to answer you the way you think he ought to answer you.

You do understand that, right? Fasting is not coercing God into doing what God doesn't want to do. 2 Samuel chapter 12, King David has a little baby infant and that baby is dying and what does David do? He fasts and prays and said, God, please save this infant and the infant died. And when the infant died, you know what David did? He got up, washed his face, combed his hair, ate some supper, and they're like, what are you doing? You were fasting and the baby died. He said, no, I fasted and called on the name of God. God is God. He decided not to spare my baby and he's in control. I'm going to go on with my life.

See, let's take a quick detour here. I'm actually getting kind of tired of ultimatum Christianity. I'll follow Jesus if he'll give me this. I'll follow Jesus if he'll give me that.

Hey, why don't you follow Jesus because he's Jesus. He doesn't owe you anything. When I think about what he did for me and saved my soul and is coming back for me and taking me to a place where I'll live with him for eternity, I'm indebted to him forever.

He's not indebted to me. And so fast and ask, but God is still God. S in this whole fast thing is subdue.

Now, here's what I mean. Not to subdue sin, but to subdue the flesh. There's something about fasting that brings an overall sense of self-control.

And again, you see this in the Bible. 1 Timothy 4, 7, discipline yourself to godliness. 1 Corinthians 9, 27, Paul says, I discipline my body and I keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. See, you want to grow in Jesus, there's going to have to be some self-control brought in.

And fasting helps bring that sense of self-control. I love this great quote from Donald Whitney. He said, Godly people are disciplined people.

It's always been so. Call to mind some of the heroes of church history, Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Bunyan, Susanna Wesley, George Whitfield, Lady Huntington, John and Sarah Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, George Mueller. They were all disciplined people. In my own personal and pastoral experience, I can say I've never known a man or woman who came to spiritual maturity except through discipline. Godliness comes through discipline.

Isn't that powerful? And finally, T. Here's T. You fast to triumph. There are, there's some demonic issues going on with some of y'all. There's some spiritual strongholds in your life.

You're born again, you're going to, I got it. But there's some strongholds in your life, here's how Jesus put it, that can only come out by prayer and fasting. How much you want holiness? You want holiness enough to lay aside food and call on the name of the Lord? In fact, I love this great verse from Isaiah 58, 6. Is this not the fast I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? In other words, the fast I like is the fast where you come in bound by some spiritual issues and you call my name and I break those spiritual issues.

I shared this with y'all a couple weeks ago, but I love this. This is from a Christian leader. He said, in 2006, I overcame an addiction to pornography that had me trapped since I was about 10 years old. I was very desperate to end the addiction, had been asking God to get me out of it. I prayed and asked God to free me from pornography day after day, week after week.

I asked month after month, year after year. I asked and I still was not free until I fasted. I fasted for seven non-consecutive days. I fasted for three consecutive days. During the fast, I ate nothing at all and only drank water.

And three months later, I did the same thing again. I fasted another three consecutive days, the same way as before. As I engaged in these fasts, my desire to look at pornography miraculously began to disappear. This was a miracle to me. My mind and my heart had been so corrupted, yet God through his son Jesus gave me mercy and grace to overcome this addiction through fasting. Isn't that great? Look, I can't explain it, but there's something about giving up food. I know you're giving up physical food and I know you get physically hungry, but in giving that food up, it's almost like God begins to give you a greater hunger for holiness.

I want that, don't you? How hungry are you to walk with clean hands and a pure heart? I heard this story years ago. Socrates was the philosopher was walking down the road and his young punk arrogant kid came up to him, said, you know, I'm thinking about pursuing wisdom like you have pursued wisdom. I'm thinking about becoming a wise man like you're a wise man. How do I know if I need to pursue wisdom or not? How do I know if I need to go on this path of wisdom? Socrates said, you really want to know?

He said, yeah. Well, they're walking by a stream and Socrates got that man's head and held it under water and bubbles are coming up and the guys thrash around and Socrates just holds his head under water. And finally, after a few moments, this guy's thrashing around and Socrates brought his head back up and he says, when you want wisdom, as much as you've just wanted air, then you're ready to pursue wisdom. And the fast thing is almost as if God is saying, when you want holiness and purity and freedom, as much as you want that hamburger, you'll know you're ready to pursue holiness.

There's something powerful about that. And so this week, I'm asking, and again, I don't, I'm not Moses giving you the law here, okay? But I'm asking all of us, let's just try this. Let's try to give up one meal this week. Can we do that? Now, look, I don't know how the whole diabetes thing works and my sugar can drop and I can go into a diabetic coma.

I don't know how all that works. I'll talk to your doctor if you're, whatever. But I'm just saying, generally speaking, we can all just give up one meal this week. And man, as you give up that meal this week, maybe it's just to draw closer to Jesus.

Hey, if that's all Jesus does through that fast, it was worth it. Maybe you give up that meal this week, because some of y'all, I really do believe there's somebody here like this, you're needing direction and God's going to speak and give you direction this week through that fast. Or you're needing provision and God's going to break in and give you provision this week. Maybe as you fast this week, maybe God is going to call on you to pray for our nation. I'm not trying to be facetious and I'm not trying to get an amen.

I'm just, I'm being very honest. I don't know what's going to happen to our nation. We are in a mess right now and we need supernatural intervention. Maybe on 9-11, today's 9-11, maybe today's a good day to fast and pray for our nation. But while you're at it and praying for all this other stuff, could you pray for us as a church? Because now it's a rainy day today, so I don't know what parking's like today, but on a normal sunny day, we're almost out of parking. We're almost out of space here.

I really thought when we moved over here I'd be able to kind of coast on into retirement and enjoy myself and now we're already packed out again. I just sense God's doing something in this place. I really, now maybe it's me, but as I've been engaging in kind of a quasi fast myself, I'm starting to hear things from God I think.

I'm sensing impressions and Jesus kind of put it the best right here. He says you don't pour new wine into old wine skins. A new move of God means everything is new.

You don't just kind of patch it up. There's a fresh new move of God and things change. I don't know. I just think God is doing something new. I've told y'all before, my favorite definition when you say no, Chad what do you mean by revival or an outpouring or whatever you want to call it? I heard this years ago.

Y'all heard me talk about this. This man was going to visit his friend that pastored a church in this little town. He said I went on the Sunday morning. The parking lot's half empty.

Walk into the church. The people on the platform singing are bored. The pastor is bored.

The people watching them are bored. He said it was just lethargic. He said that was a miserable experience for me and he said I went and agreed to my friend. Talked to him a little while.

A year later, I'm going right back to that town. I said I guess I'm gonna go visit my friend again. He said I go to visit my pastor friend and when I walk into the church, he said the parking lot is packed out. He said I can't find a seat on Sunday morning. He said there's so much energy in the air.

The hair on the back of my neck stands up. He said I didn't want to leave that church. The worship was incredible. The preaching was incredible. There was miracles and salvations.

It was incredible and after the service, I asked my friend. I said man, what happened? Last time I came through here, this place is dead. Today, there's life and energy.

What happened? Best definition of revival I've ever heard. His friend said well the best way I can explain it is God got tired of the church misrepresenting him so he decides to step down and represent himself.

That's the move of the Spirit of God where God steps down and just represents himself and when God steps in the room, everything changes. I used to apologize for, I'm not in a Baptist church, now I don't have to apologize. I'm gonna apologize for being weird right now, okay.

I told y'all, don't check out on me here. I've been having weird dreams lately. Man, I've been having dreams. I had a vivid one a couple weeks ago of a young lady, come on now, a young lady with terminal cancer. I dreamt she was right, I think she was like right here and we prayed over her and she fell out. I'm not into falling out, I'm not, whatever, and she was supernaturally healed and in the dream the word got out and this place got packed out. I'm having dreams of cancer being healed.

Man, stand up with me. I'm having dreams of people with demonic issues like being delivered. I'm having these weird dreams of people with all kinds of family issues coming together coming together and the family is reunited.

I've been having dreams of dead people coming back to life, dreams of blind people seeing, lame people leaping, Spirit of God moving. I believe God has done it before and I believe He can do it again, do you? And so I want you to spend some time praying and fasting this week for this church for God to move in a mighty way. Lift your hands and lift your voices and let's sing to the Lord.

He can't do it, don't you tell me He can't do it, cause I've seen families reunited, I've seen prodigals return, don't you tell me He can't do it, don't you tell me He can't do it, I've seen troubled souls delivered, I've seen that it's finally free, don't you tell me He can't do it, don't you tell me He can't do it, I've seen cities in revival, salvation blood on the streets, don't you tell me He can't do it, don't you tell me He can't do it, I've seen glory filled in nations like the world has never seen, don't you tell me He can't do it, cause I know that He can, I believe you're the one, yes you are, you're the one, I'm here because I see, you're too good to know, I believe you're the one, don't you know, you're too good to know, I believe you're the one, don't you know, you're the one, you're the one, I've seen, you're too good to know, I believe you're the one, you're the one, I believe you're the one, don't you know, you're too good to know, you're the one, you're the one, I believe you're the one, don't you know, you're too good to know, I believe you're too good to know, I believe you're the one, you know, you're too good to know, you're the one you know, you're too good to know, I believe you're the one, you're the one, don't you know, you're too good to know, I believe you're the one, don't you know, you're too good to know, I believe you're the one, don't you know, Man, in the little room they had me go into between services, I was just praying. And I don't know, Lord put Daniel 11 something out of my heart that says, basically on the last days when things get rough, those who know their God will be strong and do mighty things. Y'all ready to be strong and do some mighty things to the Lord Jesus Christ?

I believe these are the last days and I believe God wants to do some mighty things. And when I look at y'all, sometimes I feel like this, I feel like I'm some general talking to his troops, sending you out to battle. We're going to fight a fight, it's not with guns and knives and bombs, it's the Holy Spirit, prayer and fasting, but we're going to fight a fight out there. Y'all commissioned by God to push back the kingdom of darkness and expand the kingdom of light. And I want to speak something over you that was spoken about, what, 3,500 years ago over an army before they took the promised land. God said, which means be bold, be strong, don't be apologetic, do not fear, do not tremble, for the Lord your God is going to be with you everywhere you go, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we pray, Amen and Amen. God bless you beloved, let's go change this world for Jesus Christ.