THE GLORY IS DEPARTED

good morning church how's everybody doing we're glad to see all of you want to welcome you in-house and online i hope you're ready for some church we're going to do some announcements this is my sidekick kiki she's looking all fashionable i got this at a thrift store y'all that's awesome fifteen dollars that's right well we're gonna start off with some announcements okay tomorrow morning monday morning six a.m bible study men's bible study at courtney's at courtney 6 a.m okay here's another big announcement the iron man meetings there's no more for the rest of the year i know that sounds like a big thing but no we always take december off because there's so much travel so much family coming in town all that stuff i really want the guys to spend time with their family so december no iron man meetings we will pick it back up in january i'm excited for the new year and what god is going to do in the iron man so no more iron man meetings for for this rest of the year our global vision young adults just had our friendsgiving yesterday it was so much fun we got food mom even like deep fried like three turkeys it was all gone but with the leftovers we did go out and feed the homeless afterwards so hooray for that but we also have a christmas party coming up the details are yet to come but i'm super excited about that we do have bible studies every saturday so if you're ages 18 to 25 and want to get plugged in to a young adult's like-minded friend group please come see me or my husband also my mom i'm sorry miss ty her bible study is cancelled on tuesday due to thanksgiving she wants everybody to have good food good family great times so no secret place meeting on tuesday okay youth there is no youth in the month of november jessie and brittany had their baby a bouncing baby boy jace wyatt jones seven pounds three ounces we are super excited for them so no youth for a little while i don't know when it's gonna be picking back up but they need sleep probably i'm sure so anyway no youth we need volunteers really bad so if you are looking to volunteer and get plugged into your church if you could go to the booth in the back of the tent my left your right and see miss cali or mr scott and get plugged in we need it in the kids ministry like nursery the um the younger kids and then the like fifth graders we need all volunteers for that also our media and production team could always use more volunteers am i missing any pastor david yes what's your favorite thanksgiving dish i put her on the spot i know come on i don't know deviled eggs i mean angel egg yes angel yes y'all i am so excited that it's thanksgiving week that's one of my favorite holidays if you can't tell i like to eat yes yeah so man i'm excited i hope all of you have a wonderful thanksgiving as well and don't forget oh we have a wednesday night service yes we are going to have wednesday night service here in the 10th i'm glad pm yes we are having our wednesday night there is so see you guys wednesday god bless 
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 all the songs 
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 guys 
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 good morning church i said good morning church how y'all doing today it's a glorious day to be in the presence of the lord do you believe it i don't want you to waste any time this morning let's worship together come on come on 
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 come on 
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 who could carry that 
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 till i made you come on 
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 and all my failures i try 
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 come on he called my name 
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 to your glorious day if you call my name yesterday 
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 is 
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 now your freedom is home that i know 
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 come on 
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 out of the darkness to your glorious day 
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 come on put your hands together 
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 i wasn't you called me 
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 and when you call my way 
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 into your glorious day to your glorious day 
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 come on trash 
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 oh 
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 has he made you brave today come on 
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 i have heard of you king of heaven 
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 is 
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 come on 
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 have you heard the lord speak your name recently 
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 i have heard the song of love that you see so i will let you draw me out beyond oh 
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 is 
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 oh you make me break yes you make me pray and no fear 
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 will you call me 
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 the promises you make make me 
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 is 
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 you are for us you are 
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 is you are foreign 
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 how many of you feel like you could use a little holy spirit brave how many of you feel like to make it through this next week you're going to need lord to move on your behalf 
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 but let's not waste a moment together in worship cause you make me pray only you make me break or you call me up beyond the shore 
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 the promises you've made 
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 oh 
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 champion of heaven he made a way 
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 well let's give the lord some praise in his house this morning church we came to worship jesus christ in this tent yes we did aren't you glad you belong to a brave church amen thank god for courage we got some soldiers rising up in god's army in his house give the lord a shout of hallelujah today god bless you hallelujah you may be seated all over the house if you're glad to be here shout amen good to have you the tent is heated amen and i'm glad of that and we got the new heaters in just yesterday and i appreciate you being patient but it feels great in here to have such a good crowd and we love you we honored to host you today and we're just going to look forward to what the lord is going to do in our midst here's one of the things i love to do every single week matter of fact it's one of my favorite part of the entire service all right first of all before i get to that i want you to welcome our online community because they are watching by the tens of thousands right now all over the world and they make so much of this possible they're so faithful we love you guys we thank the lord for you you're such a blessing but how many of you today are not from the great state don't stand yet not from the great state of tennessee now we know a lot of people move here it is amazing the number of families we keep our real estate agents in business around here because we have so many people that move here just for the church it's unbelievable to watch what the lord's doing but if you are here today for this service and you flew here or you hitchhiked here or you walked here or you drove here just for the purpose of being in this one service and you are not from the state of tennessee i want you to stand up all over this tent all over this team look at this look at this holy mackerel all the way around to this side over here people everywhere praise the lord you may be seated and this is every weekend it's unbelievable every single weekend we have 500 first-time visitors and they're always different visitors if everybody would just keep showing up every weekend we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves amen as you notice out there we have a lot of work going on getting that final acre cleared so we can make more room to park people because we are totally out of parking and to answer the question that we get every single week online and every single day here on the campus when are you going to build this is our building right here amen we're not worried about building no building we're just going to keep making parking we're not going to mess up what god's doing he's doing it in a tent this is what i call old school new school right it's high-tech redneck but it's like billy graham throwback sawdust trail i like it it's a blessing and so uh we're honored that you are here and it's just working and god is doing a beautiful beautiful work i want you to read your hands and your heart and your mind as we go into a moment to be released in the spirit of generosity we want to give we want to be faithful and we're always very upfront and open and honest about everything we were able just the other day to close on the ministry house just right down the road amen the lord gave us five more acres in that house we paid cash for that and we went from that little wedding chapel down there with an acre and a half to now 17 acres right here of parking plus the five acres and the house and god's taking care of all of it and we're using every single centimeter of it for the glory of god and for the expansion of the kingdom amen it's not about our campus it's about his kingdom our campus is just a conduit to the kingdom amen church and so we want to be faithful as we give of course you know we've been given so much to the nation of israel we've been given so much to single moms and blessing people we got some cool stuff coming up even on some wednesday nights and let me highly encourage you if you don't come on wednesday night it is just as exciting as what happens here on sunday the crowds might not be as big but it's filling up i mean absolutely unbelievably on wednesday nights and just our prayer meeting has been beautiful and so i'm just excited because everything that god is doing here it's something that god is doing and he's changing lives and people are still parking and people are still coming in and it's just it's unbelievable to watch what the lord's doing we're trying to figure out uh what we can do we're we're working with nascar right now so we can get some of these uh risers in the back right and so we're gonna have some aluminum risers so we can get about five or six hundred more people in here without having to invest in all the chairs it just makes a lot more sense and i believe in just using every single available opportunity to expand god's kingdom amen to preach the gospel and i know that's why you're here and so we're honored to host you today and i appreciate it so very much and so let's be faithful in-house online globalvisionbc.com g-i-v-e-give and we want to give and we want to be faithful obviously there's always obligations but here's one thing about our church we always want you to know we give more away in a month's time than we spend on ourself and we don't apologize for that because we believe you can't out give god amen you just can't you can't out give god so we're glad everybody's here and we're glad everybody's watching but if you want to go to a church that's stingy and just saves all their money you can go to one down the road don't come to this one we give give give give give give give give because god always gives it back and we love to bless people i know we're known for being bold and i know we're known for you know sometimes standing against some corrupt politics and i know that we're just that way right we're known for that but one of the things we're also known for is giving is generosity is loving people and blessing people right where they're at not where you want them to be in the next five years but where they're at right now and so this community has a very polarizing idea of our church you either love us or hate us there's no gray area there's no middle ground but there's one thing even the haters cannot disagree with and that is we do a lot for this community and we thank god for it god put us here for a reason and we want to reach every available person broken person help every addict every homeless person that we possibly can and so that's why we're giving today and so let's pray and uh our band is actually going to go ahead and sing the third and final song and then we'll get up and we'll introduce our special guest today i know you're excited about that and we're going to have a glorious time father we come to you in jesus name and we ask that you had blessed this offering both in-house and online lord like you took the fish and the loaves and you broke it and you blessed it and you multiplied it and gave it unto the disciples and they distribute it to the people i pray lord as you break and bless this offering that we would use it for the furtherance and the expansion of your name your glory your gospel and your kingdom lord i pray that you would bless everything that is said today everything that is sung every testimony that is given the message lord all of it we just want to say thank you for allowing us to gather in this tent thank you for all the people that are here all the people that are watching but father we want you to be honored for every bit of it so lord bless this offering as only you can thank you for what we've already sung thank you for what we will sing what we will see what we will hear lord we are honored to be in your presence today thank you father from my heart as a shepherd thank you for a group of people that are brave and courageous and willing to say enough is enough we are going to obey god rather than man thank you for the privilege of pastoring such an amazing group of people so father bless this time in jesus name and all of god's people said god bless you as you give 
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 by the weight of your sin jesus is calling 
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 have you come to the end of yourself 
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 jesus is calling 
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 oh come to 
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 i was born with jesus christ 
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 leave behind your regrets and mistakes come today there's no reason to wait jesus is calling 
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 bring your sorrows and trade them for joy from the ashes and your life is born jesus 
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 the father's arms 
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 was born with the precious blood of jesus christ oh come to the 
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 was born with the braces blood 
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 oh what a savior isn't he wonderful 
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 christ is reason 
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 bow down before 
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 christ is reason 
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 is oh come to the altar the father's arms are open wide forgiveness was born with the precious blood of jesus christ 
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 jesus christ 
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 oh jesus 
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 bear your cross as you wait for the crowd to tell the world of the treasure want to hear just the voices saying oh what a savior oh what a savior 
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 for he is lord 
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 isn't 
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 for he is 
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 forgiveness 
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 amen how many believe there's still power in the blood amen you may be seated all over the house again we want to say thank you for being here we're honored by your presence and the lord is he's going to do some great things in our midst and you know it's it's been a privilege as the pastor of this church to you know watch the growth and things but because of the platform that the lord has given us and you know we always say us right it's not greg locke's platform it's god's platform and god give it to us this is the base this is this is global visions platform and and god has allowed us to to travel the world and the crowds at this point where we're going to preach are really just unbelievable and the people that we get to meet and the lives that we get to see just transformed by the power of the gospel it's just amazing what happens when you dig your feet in the ground and you take a stand and you say i'm not going to be moved i'm not going to budge i'm going to get a backbone and i'm going to do what god says it's amazing the doors that the lord opens and you know we have had some amazing guests people that have become friends of mine that i've just had the privilege to to just really get to know and get to meet and see them behind the scenes it's one thing to see people on the stage but to know the reality of their of their life and their family and their marriage and all of that it's just beautiful you know we've had i know roger stone here on a couple of times and roger had a great conversion experience and people like well you know we we don't believe roger and i feel a little bit like barnabas when nobody believed the apostle paul and so we came alongside we said you know what this man has a conversion testimony and we brought him to our church twice now and the lord has blessed his life and healing his wife of cancer and just beautiful to watch what the lord is doing in in roger's life and roger has become like a grandfather to me and he calls me on a regular basis and he sent me a message the other day and he's like you you need to amp up security son i had a dream about you didn't turn out well that didn't sound real good amen but nonetheless roger loves me enough to say things like that and of course we've had charlie kirk here we've had some some great names some big people here and it's been beautiful and you know it's just cool to watch because sometimes you see people on a screen or they're singing or they're in some show or some movie and you wonder what their life is really like and then you get to know them and you get to hear them speak and you find out there are people out there that god's given a great big ginormous platform to that believe just like we believe amen and they're not sold out they didn't drink the leftist kool-aid they're not sold out to the to the world and to the culture and they're still standing up and they're still pushing back thank god for people like that and so today for me is kind of a surreal day okay i'm 45 i'm not saying he's old or anything like that but today is kind of a surreal day for me because i'm telling you i grew up with some dukes of hazard pajamas on my body amen yes sir i did i sit over there and watch it man that waylon jennings voice would tear my nerves up on that to be continued nonsense make the jump for pete's sake just make the jump gotta wait till next friday my hind leg you know then of course you know all the new woke channels you know they don't want to carry the dukes of hazard because it's racist that's so nonsense right so nonsense maybe we ought to shout yee-haw instead of amen today amen but here's what we're going to do all right service be a little bit longer today but that's all right we'll still get to some preaching a little while and they're gonna sing some songs for us and testify a little bit and talk about what the lord's been doing with them they actually in louisiana have a cowboy church and on december the 11th i believe it is i'm doing their christmas special man we're going to be out there have a great time we'll pack that place out and we look forward to that we'll be back here for the morning service under the 10th uh but it's beautiful so look the band kind of surprised me amen they kind of they kind of dropped this one on me and shocked me and i love it and i this morning i was like is that what i think that is so global vision here's what i want you to do i want you to get on your feet i want you to welcome john schneider to the platform and listen how the band is gonna bring him up 
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 that's just a little bit more than the law would allow you want a solo come on waylon 
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 look at that guitar 
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 making their way 
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 we're all good old boys and girls we wouldn't change if we could we're still fighting the system like a true modern day robin hood yeah we're fighting the system like a true modern day robin hood 
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 one more time we're fighting the system like a true modern day robin hood 
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 and all god's people said ye ha that's the uh the new redneck standard uh bible that uh we're gonna put out and y'all were saved y'all were saved real good okay listen this is my great friend cody mccarver here cody mccarver part of a fantastic band for years and we've been traveling now actually for years cody was part of confederate railroad and uh i've been trying to talk him into dropping the railroad part because you know i'm just not so sure about that but before you sit down i want you to know something you're not here accidentally i guess i just said get up you don't have to get up it's still a free country right 
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 you can do whatever you feel is right whatever you know in your soul is right you can do that like worshiping right like not capital do you realize that every one of you are here and this wonderful man and his family are here because they said no 
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 one of the most important words in your life as you get older you will realize there's only so much time and there's only so many things you can actually get done so the most important word you can learn today is no hey can you run over to the so-and-so and i'm going to spend time with my children no 
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 i'm going to spend time with my children you spend time with yours and let's see how that works out okay one thing before you sit down and i want you to think about this god is up to something 
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 and we are part of it 
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 so i want you to say it and i wa and when you say we i want you to say aye god is up to something and i am part of it you ready everybody god is up to something and i am part of it okay i guarantee that you know in your heart and soul right now as you stand here no matter how confused you pretend to be you know exactly what god made you to do 
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 in god's circumstance because god is up to something 
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 that i am part of what is that you know people talk about getting a perspective change let me show you something a perspective change that alters the rest of your life does not have to be this 
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 a perspective change that alters the rest of your life most of the time i'm 61 is this that you even see that 
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 that's all you need so when you pray pray for a slight perspective change because i'm not sure we're built to handle a big one okay please be seated god is up to something and you are part of it cody we're going to do these hands i i recognize that okay go for it 
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 before we sing this song i want everybody to hold your hands up and look at them when you think about how important they are you wouldn't have got here this morning so easy without them would you this song's called these hands 
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 these hands have seen the struggles they've weathered every storm helped me crawl and taught me how to fight 
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 been steady and they've shaken they've done a lot late night praying you could say they've done a lot and you'd be right 
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 but they've never parted waters never made the blind to see never turned the water into wine or been nailed to a tree oh but someday when they fold up and i finally breathe my last that's when these hands are gonna hold the hands that have these hands are gonna hold the hands that have 
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 these hands held on to mama and she was letting go and i held them high in a sunday morning song they held a beat up bible and they fought for my survival and they tried to do more right than they do wrong but they never parted water never made the blind to see never turn the water into wine they never been nailed to a tree well but someday when they fold them and i finally breathe my list that's when these hands are gonna hold the hands of the head 
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 sometimes it's hard to believe he can use them even though they never fed 5 000 or wiped the tears from mary's face they never saved a soul or made them home ain't never roll a stone away and i finally breathed my last that's when these hands are gonna hold the hands they have 
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 these hands are gonna hold the hands that have 
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 gonna hold the hands the head considering the climate of today i want you to think about something we did a car show uh two days ago in sparta tennessee beautiful beautiful drive-in movie theater was wonderful and there was a gentleman there that had a 66 impala was gorgeous and uh he's 70 years old and every nut and bolt was polished the chrome was great the stainless you've seen these kind of cars it was a second owner second owner but he did incredible work on this car and this gentleman was one of those gentlemen with the short arms and i said to him 
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 is that forgive me the question but is your condition because of thalidomide and he said yes it is my my mother took the fertility drug uh thalidomide when the when she was pregnant or before she was pregnant with me and i said this just came out of my mouth and i said you know there there was no center for this there was there was no organization that told us what was safe and what was not and i think it was 1950s four or five yeah so it was early on in the 50s and i said what do you feel about the vaccine and he said i'm not against it but i'll tell you what every time i get a flu shot i'm sick for two weeks every time i get any any sort of medication that he takes his body treats differently so he said but you know what i learned to ride a bicycle i learned to play the drums he said everything anybody told me i would never do i put that first and foremost in my mind so so whatever it is that you feel like is holding you back first of all if you feel like anything is holding your back you're in the wrong tent okay all right right because this is this is not there is no weight on the heels of this tent all the weight is on the balls of this tent's feet right yeehaw 
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 okay so we had hurricane ida came over our house right smack dab over our house about two months ago and it uh it tore my mother's house down my mother is is no longer here she's up there and it tore her house down and we needed to clear it out of the way and yes a tree did fall on the general lee if you've seen that picture i know but he's he's resilient he's resilient but we had a mess where my where my mother's house was and we needed a lot of help so people came out uh to use a backhoe people came out to tear boards out because we tried to salvage what we could and when they came out if they needed hammers they got them if they needed nails they got them plywood two by fours glue excavator whatever they needed to do the work that i asked them to come out and do and they volunteered to do they had everything they needed even coffee even sweet tea which i just don't understand sweet tea makes my teeth squeak but they had everything that they needed 
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 in order to do the job at hand okay because in this scenario i was up to something that they were part of think about that for a minute let's do another song cody he's been teaching the band a song while i've been talking seamless you know i can't read the chords when you got that capo on there he made the very air that you breathe made the mountains and the valleys the rivers and the sea he is worthy be glorified so hit your knees look toward the sky and say hallelujah sing his praise say hallelujah 
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 for his amazing grace say hallelujah 
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 to the king say hallelujah 
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 everybody 
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 uh-huh from the cross to the tomb where jesus laid the son of god was dead but he rose on the third day he is risen oh he is alive 
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 say hallelujah 
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 sing it's race say hallelujah praise amazing grace for his amazing grace say hallelujah to the king to the king sing hallelujah everybody sing tell us about that word cody when i wrote this song i had no idea that the word hallelujah is the same in every language does anybody know that here today the word hallelujah is the same in every language so today we're going to sing it in hillbilly and knees cause a hillbilly everybody stand if you can if you're in this room and you can stand we come to church to worship amen the greatest word of praise is the word hallelujah and if you would sing with us 
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 hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah 
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 hallelujah 
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 hallelujah for his amazing grace 
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 hallelujah 
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 say is for his amazing grace 
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 hallelujah 
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 so there was this guy about three days into our restoration who i found in my father-in-law's shop rustling around and i said dude what are you doing he said i'm looking for a socket wrench and some 20w50 oil and i need something for my car i said okay but what's what's going on with the excavator over there oh i'll get to that i'll get to that but right now i need help with my stuff well he got coffee and then he got gone 
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 i didn't ask him to come and help with his stuff i asked him to come help with my stuff because we were in desperate need okay and we need people that are very experienced in very specific areas concrete forming concrete excavators plumbing electricity because you don't want to touch those wires back there if the electricity's on but if you're from the country you know that if the electricity is on and you have the company turn it off it's going to be a year before you can get through the red tape to turn that sucker back on so you got to have that guy or girl too that says whoa hold up on that car wash gentlemen right smoking the bandit hold up don't turn that off rather move it so we had people of all sorts of different backgrounds all sorts of different areas of expertise that came out to help us rebuild and i'm very happy to say that as we're sitting here right now or standing here right now there are people at john schneider studios that have put up two new sheds or not quite a tent we're thinking about it though because this tent came from louisiana 
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 so we will have our store back open uh hopefully right after thanksgiving um so if you if if i've entertained you in your life please go to johnsniderstudios.com and get a hold of something whether it's a movie or music or or whatever but know that that building was built again was built and put up and founded and and concrete and pilings we're in louisiana so you know it's got to be up high we had the generation pardon me the uh generosity of many generations of people that came in there and they all had a single purpose to help us do what we needed to have done so again i say god is up to something and we are part of it so when you pray today and tomorrow and forever i want you to move your perspective just a little bit check your soul and find out if you have not been inviting god into your circumstance because i believe that's the wrong way i think it's the other way around ask not what god can do for you ask what you can do for god 
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 i think everybody here knows believes is too small a word everybody here knows that you were designed specifically and uniquely to do something and you might have given that up when you were seven years old i never gave it up i've been i've been doing this since i was eight years old i wasted the first seven years of my life but i have known that this is the tool i am so this is what i am doing you know what it is i don't know what it is for you which is why you should never ever go to a christian and say you call yourself a christian have you ever done that if you ever have you are forgiven please don't do it again okay because we have only so many days and hours and minutes and seconds in our lives to get our act together i don't know about you but i don't have time to worry about your act with god and if i'm getting it wrong he'll tell me when i get there i don't need you to tell me i got it wrong brandon 
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 so we are born for such a time as this god has calling you to do something he has designed you to do something very specifically and it's not to be complacent it is not to capitulate it is to do exactly that which you were made to do each and every day to get this nonsense out but we have to thank god for the nonsense or we would not have i hate to use the word woken up they have awakened the sleeping giant and we must not right 
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 it's going to be hard nobody said it's going to be easy stop praying to have an easier day than jesus did amen jesus didn't have it so good why should you we got stuff to do we've got a country to to there's two ways save we have a country to get back and if that fails we have a country yes i'll say it to take back 
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 all right here's another song and then i'll go sit down because i want to hear this man preach i'm just fired up 
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 i was so angry when churches closed i was so angry i was i was saying to people i say what are you saying that your governor is bigger than your god why why and what can you catch with that bait you know after it's over and the government allows us to worship again then i want you to come and i want you to tithe give me an ever-loving break why would i tithe into that train wreck what are you gonna do with it 
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 this is not a time to be timid and you would you know that or you wouldn't be here but you've got to take and it's not arrogance either it's not it's yes we are on the winning side but we are on the winning side because god requires we do something 
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 the hero you are waiting for is you 
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 okay play it cody before i i don't know what i'm going to do i have to can i say something yes this song that we're going to sing is on an album that i did a few years back as was was on my album the other songs we did one zone saying hallelujah is on john's new gospel album and these hands is a duet that we just had a number one record with yes we did and um but he said god's up to something let me tell you before we sing this song i want to tell you about this song i was driving to sing it to church one sunday morning and um i wrote this on the way there and i was just sitting here and don't tell nobody i was driving and writing that's worse than driving and texting and when i got there i told the people in the church i said i'm going to sing this song i laid it on the pulpit and they laughed i said i wrote it on the way here and then i realized how powerful it was once i finally sang it god's up to something john said it over and over and over again 
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 here here's the here's the message behind this song i watch tv like everybody else i watch the news john was on newsmax this morning and i hear people talk about god i hear people talk about the evangelical vote when you run for office well we got to get the evangelical vote talk about god i went to nashville tennessee and i sat down with people in the christian music association and they told me i put the word jesus in my songwriting too much this is the christian music business okay i'm not lying i'm in church i sure ain't gonna lie in church the bible says no man comes to the father except through the son as christians as christians in this country right now i love the message that you give brother i i support you 110 the message should be do not let jesus go out of this country because satan knows the bible better than all y'all amen okay jihad hey he huh he knows the bible better and now y'all and he also knows that if he takes jesus out of the country then we don't have no way to get to heaven because we have to have jesus to get to heaven this is kind of a political song oh no and it kind of ain't it's a really really serious message if you would listen to the words of this i heard them on tv putting you down they talk about faith in god but they leave you out 
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 and politicians they talk about change when all we really need is a revolution in your name 
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 and is say jesus somebody say man we got to ride right home 
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 i seen a preacher on the street he was preaching your word 
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 people laughing and hating on him but they hated you first 
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 and we need revival and we need all your children to stand up for you we've got to 
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 somebody say jesus peter 
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 oh 
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 and come together like a mighty rushing wind and come together again and again we've got to 
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 we've rise to rise somebody say jesus jesus somebody save me 
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 so don't be the guy or girl that's looking for a socket wrench and some 20 w50 oil in god's business okay he'll give it to you because he loves you but i think he'd rather you be doing his work here so next time you pray pray father in heaven show me what my part is in what you are doing today right now in this circumstance because we're pretty simple we can't handle what god needs us to do tomorrow because sufficient to the day is the evil thereof sufficient to the day i'll paraphrase is the work thereof i'm not talking about works to work yourself into heaven you're already there you got a ticket you got a front row seat don't worry about that what i'm talking to are those who can say jesus is my lord and savior and he's got something for me to do that i must do before i get out of here and guess what if you are in the process of doing that my wife had stage four breast cancer she was not done if you are in the process of doing that which god has you here to do guess what there ain't nothing that's going to come against you 
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 it can't happen so have a wonderful wonderful holiday know that you are in the right place you are encouraged you are you are empowered by this room this man's ministry that god has given him so that we can remain awake we must not go but we can't even take a nap right now okay for such a time as this you were mysteriously wonderfully and individually fashioned don't waste your design i love you god bless you thank you pastor much appreciated 
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 he's a lot taller than i am hey amen give him one more round of applause wow isn't that beautiful thank the lord wow thank you thank you thank you cody wow thank you band for jumping in thank you waylon amen what a blessing well i want to invite you to first samuel the fourth chapter today for just a few moments and i tell you we've heard a lot of word already we've heard a lot of jesus talk already and that is a beautiful beautiful thing i told you when you get to know somebody you find out who they really are amen and uh that was so beautiful i know you enjoyed that and and i know our folks online enjoyed that let the haters say what they will amen we'll just keep rocking on we're going to jam for the lamb and just keep watching the lord do some great things in our midst listen money can't buy what the lord's doing in this tent i'm telling you he just can't it's an unbelievable thing to be a part of and by the way let me say this talk about knowing somebody and money can't buy and all of this you know you you you think you know i hobnob with a lot of people and some of them i would never have in this tent someone i'll probably never even have coffee with but uh let me tell you something these folks are known all over the world right all over the world not a dime was ever mentioned about coming to talk about the lord and and sing they didn't say oh i gotta have this great big we're gonna take care i'm gonna be a blessing to him amen because that's what we do around here but they didn't ask for a pen he didn't ask for gas nothing just hopping at rv travel all over and they didn't ask for one they just oh we gotta have we gotta have green eminem's in the green room and you know we got we gotta have listen i know preachers that way i know gospel singers that way man they're cantankerous people to be around i mean unbelievable but these folks just been kind and just been pleasant didn't ask for a single dime i believe they're really out there just to glorify the lord and save this nation amen i really believe that and we're honored to have you we are honored to have you and i appreciate you so very very much well first samuel chapter 4 a very unusual passage and i'm not going to preach for a very very long time i know i say that and then i get stirred up amen and i preach for a while but uh i'll try to i'll try to give you the same promise that elizabeth taylor gave her 10th husband i ain't going to keep you very long praise god and so we won't be we won't be here under the tent for a long time but some of you flew a long ways and drove a long ways to hear the word and so we're going to certainly give you the word of god i want to invite you to stand out of reverence for the reading of god's word first samuel chapter 4 we'll use much of this text in the narrative but for time's sake we're going to begin in verse number 18. first samuel the fourth chapter the 18th verse and it came to pass when he made mention of the ark of god that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate and his neck break talking about eli the priest and he died where he was an old man and very heavy and he had judged israel for 40 years and his daughter-in-law phineas his wife was with child near to be delivered and when she heard the tidings that the ark of god was taken and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead she bowed herself and she travailed for her pains came upon her and about the time of her death the women that stood by her said unto her fear not for thou hast borne a son but she answered not neither did she regard it and she named the child ichabod saying the glory is departed from israel because the ark of god was taken and because of her father-in-law and her husband and she said the glory is departed from israel for the ark of god is taken thank you for standing you may be seated father i pray right now in the mighty name of jesus that you will take everything that's already been said culminated together with what i'm going to say and you would be honored you would be glorified and our lives would be transformed both in this room and around the world for those watching we want you to do something for us that we cannot do for ourself make the bible plain we pray in jesus name and all of god's people said and ye hall and so in this passage of scripture in first samuel chapter four we have a very unusual confrontation that has happened against the israelites and the philistines and you know that all throughout the chronicles of biblical history the philistines were the arc nemesis the arch enemy to the israeli people that's where the 10-foot tall giant goliath came from and the bigger they are the harder they fall and sometimes we look at that story and here's all the people standing around looking at david and they're saying have you seen this man he is too big to kill he said have you seen this man he's too big to miss are you kidding me and so it's a matter as our brother said of simple perspective so anytime you see the philistines in the bible they're wicked people they're never good people they're never godly they're never casual about their wickedness they are very overt and cavalier they hate god and they hate god's people so when you get to this text something strange is about to happen now for time's sake we don't have time to develop the entirety of the chapter but i want you to back up if you would to verse number five in verse 5 it says and when the ark of the covenant of the lord now stop and look at me for a moment in the old testament the ark was the representation of the presence of god it was the representation of god's shekinah glory when the ark showed up god showed out it was a holy relic and so the bible says when the ark of god came into the camp okay so they're bringing it there watch this verse six and when the philistines heard the noise of the shout so when the presence of god entered the arena as it were the people began to rejoice the people began to shout the people began to worship and when the philistines the enemies heard the noise of the shout they said what meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the hebrews and they understood so they figured it out that the ark of the lord was come into the camp and the philistines were afraid for they said god is come into the camp now these people recognize something very very quickly when the presence and the manifest power of god entered into the camp of the lord the people rejoiced and the enemies were afraid so the enemies immediately came up with this sinister plan what we have to do is separate the people from the power we have to take away the presence from the people because the presence is what gives the people power and if you take away the presence you take away the power of the people are you tracking with me this morning and so the philistines devised this sinister plan that they would go to war with the israelites of which they had done four or five other times already at this point in history and this time they decided that they were going to strike at the heart of the institution they were going to strike at the heart of the people of god they knew that if they were going to win they had to strip from them the very thing that meant the most and the bible tells us in not so many words as we go down through the text that they came in and they took says it four times they took the ark of the covenant they removed the physical manifest presence of god from the people and all of a sudden discouragement crept in anxiety stress the pressures of the world crept in because it was immediately known in the camp that god is no longer with us now hear me and hear me well let me throw on the jake brakes and slow down so you understand what i'm not saying i'm not saying that a physical relic today is the power of god i'm not saying that this tent is representative of the power of god i'm not saying that a local church building or a sound system is representative of the power of god but let me tell you what the enemy figured out the enemy figured out the only way he can destroy the people is to separate them from the presence of god and so what happened is the enemy came in and stole from us what meant the most and now you have people all over america that are depressed you have anxiety in the spirit of suicide at an all-time high and people don't know what to believe there is riots in the streets there is chaos there is violence there is wickedness there is immorality and we wonder why are we losing the battle because we forgot the power comes from the presence and so what happened is the sinister crew decided that in order to take over the nation in order to be able to destroy the people of god we have to remove from them what matters most that's why hebrews 10 25 is very plain not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is but so much the more as you see the day approaching now i'm not real smart but don't amen that i'm real stupid either listen as we see the day approaching means that what we're doing right now should not be lessened the closer we get to the kingdom of god it should be heightened and increase the more we get closer to the coming and the kingdom of the lord jesus christ and so in this context they slip in under the guise of night you read it sometime in your devotions hope you read your bible other than what i tell you to and so they slip in they steal the ark and immediately immediately the people began to be destroyed so what happens as you get to the end of the context that we read a moment ago we're going to pick up the reading in verse 18 after the ark of god was taken you have this man by the name of eli it says and it came to pass and thank god it never comes to stay it always comes to pass when he made mention of the ark of god so a fedex boy as it were runs to eli the priest and says did you hear extra extra read all about it the ark of god has been stolen the ark has been taken from the camp of the israelites the power and presence of god has been removed and therefore we are losing the battle and he went to tell the priests and the bible says when he mentioned the ark of god that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate and his neck break and he died this is the priest he was an old man and heavy and he judged israel 40 years now look if the holy ghost goes out of his way to tell me you're heavy you big you big baby are you big the holy spirit could have said yeah you know he was a decent another holy spirit said he was heavy this guy's big he's been feeding himself for a while he's sitting up on the gate he's sitting up on the on the city's terrace if you will he's looking out he sees this fedex postal boy run up and the guy says we're losing the battle the ark is gone and when he heard that the power of god had been destroyed when he heard that the presence of god had been violated and molested the bible said that he fell over backwards and broke his neck broke his neck his boys also by the way were in the same email hoffney and phineas these wicked guys that used the church for very immoral ungodly practices the bible says that they were also slain in the battle but did you notice he didn't break his neck because his boys died he didn't freak out because hoffney and phineas were under the judgment of god he knew that was coming he flipped out because the power of god had been removed from the camp of israel and he knew that that was going to be the demise of the whole nation and he fell over backwards and he broke his neck so watch what happens in the same context verse number 19 it says and his eli's daughter-in-law phoenix's wife one of his boys was with a child and she was near to be delivered and when she heard the tidings that the ark of god was taken and noticed she mentions the ark first then her father-in-law and her husband were dead so that took second place if you will to the power of god she was more upset that the ark was gone she bowed herself and surveilled for her pains came upon her so her water broke she's getting ready to have a baby whether there's a doctor around or not and about the time of her death so she's dying in the midst of childbirth get the context the woman that stood by her said unto her fear not for thou has borne a son but she answered not neither does she regard it so she's dying and she now this she would be the woman that was helping her deliver the baby and she named the child check this out holds this baby up and says i think i'll name you uh ichabod king james got some weird words doesn't it i think i'll name this bouncing baby boy ichabod saying that the glory is departed from israel because the ark of god was taken why was the glory gone because the ark of god was taken and because her father-in-law and her husband and she said this is so tragic the glory is departed from israel why for the ark of god is taken she knew immediately that there was a shift in the atmosphere and this nation was not going to survive what was coming because it no longer had the ability to gather together in the presence and power of god and defend itself in the name of god and this woman knew that now the glory of israel was gone because the glory of god had walked out and she said to this woman who just died and gave birth to this new baby i'm going to name you ichabod because you're going to grow up and represent the fact there's no more power in israel now i'm well aware of the fact as a shepherd and a student of the bible what interpretation means i've given it to you but application is of equal importance because if the bible doesn't apply to your life what good is it this ain't the reader's digest this is the word of the living god and we've come full circle old testament history has repeated itself and we are living in a days when god almighty has written ichabod over the church in america because the glory of god's power and spirit has departed from us we know understand we know when to sit we know when to give we know when to be greedy we know when to raise our hands we know when to sit on them we know when to say amen we know when to say o me and we know all of the lingo and we show up at church whether god shows up or not and there's no power in our worship and there's no power in our singing and there's no power in our preaching i get the fact that i'm preaching to the choir because god's doing some stuff here but you better not take for granted what god's doing in this tent ladies and gentlemen this ain't a greg long show this ain't a global vision show this is god's show he's showing out doing only what god can do and i tell people all of this nation the day the sunday the wednesday the second we take an ounce of credit for it god will take it from us it's not about us it's not about our platform it's not about greg locke it's not about facebook it's not about likes and clicks and instagram shares and tick tock dances it's not about that it's about the glory of the lord and here's what you know about the church in america it's departed it's departed i never thought as our brother said i never thought i would see the day when the church would fight the church because it stayed open now let me tell you something i never had i never had a prostitute mad at me for keeping his church open i never had a window and a drunkard bebop in here i can't believe you kept here i ain't never had a crackhead get mad for keeping this church open but i get letters from preachers all the time oh brother lock you just need to take a chill pill we feel like you've shamed us i have every last one of them cowards i've shamed all of them every last one of them shame shame shame everybody knows your spineless name yes i've shamed you 
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 yes i've shamed you because the glory has departed from the pulpits and the glory has departed from the worship and the glory has departed from our churches how can we have the glory in a closed church the closer we get to the coming of christ the more we ought to meet together and the enemy found out the achilles heel and robbed the people of the ark so nowadays we have church just for the simple fact of having church we wonder why our teenagers don't want what we have when so many of us don't even want what we have we can't convince a lost and dying world that jesus works if we haven't convinced ourselves that jesus works if he's not working in our marriage if he's not working in our home if he's not working in my life then why would i get up and propagate a false gospel that he can do for you what he clearly doesn't even do for me and so in this context we see that the enemy was shrewd he knew there's no way we can win unless we strike at the heart of what they worship and they stole from them the presence of god now we understand look we understand that there is the eternal presence of god everywhere all at the same time god can be everywhere at once and the devil's mad because he can't be but in one place at one time all powers not given unto the devil all power was given unto jesus the bible says so the devil's got some power but he's got limitations okay the devil is like a dog on god's leash there's a devil but he's god's devil and he does god's bidding because he will be done when god says he's done but you have to understand he does have some power but we serve a jesus that has all power all glory and so we know that his eternal presence is everywhere but don't miss the fact that his manifest presence only shows up sometimes yesterday i i felt led of the lord to just put a quick post out on my little page on my personal page not even the big platform i said you know what i feel like i'm gonna just play some worship music and somebody thought i was playing it and singing it no i don't do that i leave that to them right i was playing it on a bluetooth speaker and so i brought some worship and i said it at 6 33 because the bible says seek ye first the kingdom of god it is righteousness matthew 6 33. so i said in 6 33 i'm going to walk under this tent and i'm going to pray i did it the other night i was just in here by myself and i didn't say anything about it to anybody and i thought i'm just gonna i'm just gonna see what happens if i put it out there an hour beforehand and see if anybody shows up i was shocked shouldn't have been i told my wife i said i found a new saturday night small group for our church that ain't gonna be too small i just played worship music it wasn't a chit chat it wasn't a fist bump fellowship i mean people just showed up walking we prayed literally every chair in this tent was touched last night by a prayer warrior people walked up prayed over the heaters prayed over the pulpit prayed over the platform prayed over the inside i mean just prayed and prayed people laid out in the carpet i was shocked i'm looking around like where'd all these people come from just to show up and pray so all that to interject and say this every saturday night from here on out at 6 33 we gonna have prayer under this tent you just show up just watch just let your kids run around we don't care they can run buck neck and bare foot all over this cold tent and we gonna walk around and pray and seek the face of god because i'll tell you something it's one thing to have a tent it's another thing to have his presence to have his presence so all of that to say this there are three major reasons in the text we're not going to reread the text there are three major reasons the people were in absolute destruction mode at this point because the ark represented three major things from god that the enemy stole from them and by the way the enemy has stolen the exact same three things ark or no ark church building or no church building we have been robbed we have been robbed of the glory of god in the american church which is too american and not enough church we have been robbed of the glory because the ark to these people represented three things number one it represented and i rarely have outlines and so when i do you might want to write something down amen because maybe i really got something to say today most of the time i just get up let the text be and wing it so a short pencil is better than a long memory so jot it down all right it represented the majesty of god that's what the ark was that's why people could not touch it that's why the priests had to put it on staves if you will on these long sticks and they would carry that's why a man by the name of aza what a name azza he walked up to the ark and god said don't you touch the ark it's a representation of the power of god and so the bible says that the ox got unsturdy in the ditch going across the creek bed and it started to fall over and in good sincere well-intentioned of his mind he thought i got to stop it and the bible said he reached up and he touched the ark of the covenant and god killed him now we look at that and we freak out because we have an american ideal of god we forgot how holy god is how righteous god is how separate from sin god is and a lot of people say well my goodness brother life how in the world how in the world could a loving god ever let somebody go to hell the better question is how could a holy god ever let somebody into heaven and the answer is jesus that's how he lets us in that's how he lets us in so he reached up to steady the ark and so the ark through the whole bible even when you get to the book of revelation it's still referred to as the power and the presence of god and so these people were immediately robbed of god's power they were robbed of the distinction of knowing what the ark represented and here we are full circle all these years later having forgotten just how majestic and holy our god is we have such a casual willy-nilly haphazard approach to the things of god god is holy always has been always will be in isaiah chapter six and verse one the bible says in the year that king uzziah died i saw also the lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple above it stood the seraphims each one having six wings with twain he covered his face with twain he covered his feet and with twain it did fly and one cried and said to the other holy holy holy is the lord god of host the whole earth is full of his glory and the post moved at the voice of him that spake and the house was filled with smoke the consuming fire power of god filled the whole room but the problem is the reason isaiah's life was radically changed before he ever in that context two verses later said woe is me he first exalted holy is he and the problem is we have exalted ourself above god in the church world we worship buildings we don't we we worship all of the activity on the screens we worship the backdrop we we worship preachers look here's what i believe i believe we ought to appreciate men and worship god but the problem in the american church is we started appreciating god and worship in the end i tell people all the time i know you drive here you fly here you walk here you cruise here you crawl here you ride a dog here i get it okay but if you're coming to this church because you just want to hear greg locke preach you're in the wrong one because it's not a greg locke show listen i love to preach i preach in my sleep ask my wife i preach all the time i love it i'm my own favorite preacher whether you like me or not i'll sign my own bible i'll buy my own t-shirt praise god i'll go back to the hotel pull out the gideon bible i'll sign the gideon bible amen pastor greg locke was here isaiah 61 1. so i love what i do but at the end of the day it's not about me it's not about you it's about the majesty of god it's about the glory of god and we have forgotten reverence for god in this nation and by the way that's a tactic and a tool of the enemy because when you dumb down people's thinking and they treat jesus just like one of the good old boys and they don't treat jesus like a holy righteous sovereign god of the universe the way that you perceive him is the way that you receive him and the church is powerless because we've gotten away from the holiness of god and the sinfulness of man you know people ask me all the time brother lock why don't we see the first great awakening why don't we see the second great awakening and i know everybody's talking about the third great awakening i'm not praying for a third great awakening i'm praying for the greatest global awakening that we have ever seen in the history of the world because god said in the last days i'm going to pour out my spirit upon all flesh it won't be a baptist deal it won't be a catholic deal it won't be a pentecostal deal it'll be a god deal ladies and gentlemen it'll be a god deal but they say well how come we don't see the same movements that those men back in the day billy sunday d.l moody how come we don't see revival like that because somewhere around oh the middle 1900s we decided to change the message we went from the holiness of god to the sinfulness of man to writing a bunch of self-help manuscripts that make us look good and make god look like a cosmic bully and we've forgotten how holy he is and when that ark now they got it back thank god but when that ark was removed and went across the river to the philistine camp the people knew the majesty of god had been disrespected but here's something else they knew that was robbed from them the message of god does anybody care to take a gander at what was inside the ark of the covenant you see the presence of god surrounded it the golden cherubims that looked upon each other but did not touch and their wings spread across the top of that golden box the bible says that that's where the glory of god rested on the mercy seat but you know there was something inside the ark of the covenant two things in fact the tablets the decalogue the ten commandments thou shalt thou shalt not thou shout thou shalt not by the way can i say this god did not give us the ten commandments to keep them he gave us the ten commandments to show us that we can't keep them without the grace of the gospel of jesus christ because all have sinned and come short of the glory of god you're a mess i'm a mess and if the pope got married his wife would tell him he's a mess too he ain't perfect nether we're all in a mess and so when that ark was taken the message the decal the power of the if you will word of god had been removed from the presence of the camp the message shifted and somewhere another that's why you're quiet because you know where i'm going somewhere or another in our culture we shifted the message we thought if we made it more palatable more people would come but here's what happened we made it more palatable so when the pandemic showed up everybody shut down the churches because they were comfortable with nonsense to begin with covet did not cause problems in the church it exposed the problems that had been there for decades 
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 covet didn't cause cowardice covet exposed the cowardice that was already there it didn't create problems it manifested the problems that had been there for a long long time and somewhere or another we thought to ourself well if we dumb down the message if we make it easier to understand easier on the ears and if we if we go through life not saying words like repent and we don't use bible if we just change it all more people will show up and guess what they did the mega churches grew all over the united states i've preached in many of them a lot of them wouldn't spit on me if i caught fire now but nonetheless i preached in many of their big buildings and guess what they're empty they're hollow as a gourd no power no homes being put back together no crack pipes being laid down at the altar no baptismal celebrations i preach in churches all over america and one of the first things i do not to be critical but to prove this point one of the first things i do is go find in that church their baptistry and nine times out of ten it's full of christmas decorations and spiderwebs because we don't see any converts getting baptized because nobody's getting saved in the average church if somebody walks the aisle to get born again by the grace of god we flip out it's like a deer in the headlights it's like driving down the road seeing a wreck that's not really that much of a wreck and the traffic jam is not caused by the wreck it's caused by all the rubberneckers looking at the wreck right so if somebody actually gets right or gets saved or gets healed or gets delivered or gets set free something happens off the bulletin in our churches all the rubberneckers are like what and we flip out over something that should be a regular manifestation of god's glory in the church we've become so against the book of acts that when the book of acts happens we think it's wrong all of you know my transition okay all of you know i love every church i preach in regardless of the size and and i'm honored and humbled by the platform that he's given us but you know that i was baptist born and baptist bred and when i was gonna die i was gonna be baptist dead that is all i knew that is all i knew and i still preaching a lot of baptist churches and i have a lot of baptist friends and you know i for whatever it's worth i've got a degree from a baptist cemetery i mean seminary but nonetheless it's like the curl on the pig's tail is cute but it don't make no more ham okay don't make no more ham whatsoever so i came out of that you know you do realize 15 years ago we were global vision baptist church i'm not best merchant baptist i'm not miss merchant pentecostal i'm not misfortune what i'm besmirching is the fact that i missed it for so long because i read the bible through the lens of being a denominational person not through the lens of how the holy ghost was trying to teach me so my message has shifted through the years i've had to change some things through the year and i had to recognize you know what god uses people because he wants to not because you like them or dislike them and so in this context we see that the miracles the message the majesty all of it when it got in that bucket as it were when it was in that ark of the covenant the people came they said we got to get rid of it they stole it they went across the river and the people's hearts sank and eli died and the chick died and said oh okay this lady is now going to raise this kid oh this is ichabod the glory is departed what a prophetic word for where we are the glory has departed there's been a shift in the message you know what let me just say this while i'm thinking about it sometimes i know i'm only 45 but if i don't say it now i'll forget in five minutes you know a lot of times people a lot of times people talk about some of these mega churches and stuff and they're like well you know these churches are only growing because of the music let me say this did you know in some cases they're exactly right and that's not a bad thing here's why and i'm not going to call a bunch of names i know i do sometimes and stuff like that i don't feel like it we got guests on what we can okay but look some of these churches really are growing because of their music because here's the deal do you know why those churches are filling up with eager starving hungry people because what happens is they theologically get fed through the lyrics in the music because what the pastor preaches is man be pamby nonsense so the churches do grow and so i know we oh my goodness them churches just growing because they got good music well maybe we ought to rejoice in that because at least those people are getting fed theologically somehow because their pastor is just standing up saying absolutely nothing that means anything as far as credibility theologically is concerned and so maybe we just need a different shift of perspective to understand that god is moving and god is working and what we're finding is that people are starving because the message has changed that's why you're here you're here because the message is trying to remain pure because the message is trying to remain right and it's not about me being right it's about god's glory being vindicated nobody and i mean nobody showed up today because you thought we were going to have a plush building if you did you had to watch a video before you show up next time okay nobody showed up today because we got tile floors no we got whatever this fake carpet is and cedar chips in a 20 000 square foot tent that leans this way downhill now from my vantage point i like it that way because our church leans to the right say amen right there huh 
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 we ain't playing them leftist democrat games 
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 but anyhow you didn't show up because you thought i was going to get up here and compromise the gospel you showed up because you knew the gospel was going to be proclaimed in power you knew that people are hungry for that they're starving for that every city i go we've been going to three and four states a week now thank god i am home for 14 days and don't know what to do with myself and my wife's like oh my goodness i'm about to run him off in a few days but everywhere i go people stand in line i mean hundreds of people you've seen them they stand in line and here's what they say oh my goodness i hadn't heard preaching like that in 30 years my question is what's your pastor been preaching what do you mean you ain't heard preaching like that in 30 years i get it stylistically and i know i'm fast and i understand that and people like that you know pizzazz and charismatic personality but my question is what do you mean you've not been fed like that in 30 or 40 years where do you go to church a garage mean we have got to get to a place where the message means something to us because here's what i know about our church and i'm gonna move on and i know this and this gives me such such unbelievable respect for the people that i pastor here's what i know about our church promise you a dollar to a donut promise you we could never have any celebrity guests we could say next week we ain't gonna have one song in this tent we could leave all the heaters off we could probably leave the lights off not have no high-tech redneck screens and not even live stream now we will livestream don't freak out we'll get letters over that one we could just show up next week and get me up here to preach for 40 or 45 minutes and you know what happened i promise you not because of me but because of him because the message i promise you this place will be packed like it is right now because it's not about the music it's not about the mechanics it's not about the machinery it's about the message and people are hungry for the message and the message is still the same jesus jesus jesus he's the sweetest name i know that's the message church that's the message that's the message that's the message 
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 but then i give you this and and we'll go to some baptismal celebrations and try to beat the methodist of the chinese buffet amen you see not only did that ark represent the power and presence of god not only did the tables of stone on the inside represent the power of god hey by the way this is interesting whole another message don't have time for it but did you notice that the top of the ark of the covenant is called the mercy seat but the law was on the inside you know why god always elevates mercy above the law you better remember that next time you try to be critical in people's life he always elevates mercy above the law always but you know there is something else that was inside the ark of the covenant there was a rod and some manna both of which as we said a moment ago represent the miracles of god that's unusual i have an outline but to have one that's alliterated with all m m wow we're doing something today i feel like a real seminary phd preacher of our damn nation amen so it left and there went the majesty it left and there went the message and it left and there went the miracles because the rod that budded and the manna that they ate every single day for years was a physical manifested provision of god and eli falls over and breaks his neck because now he represents the fact and understands that the miracles have walked right out of the nation of israel and without miracles how dare we call ourself a people that believe in a supernatural god here's what i hear all the time well i can't wait till we get back to normal get that mess out of your we are never going back to normal we are never going back to normal because they already know who they can control now and who's not going to be controlled who's going to be a problem we talk about that all the time so look get all this mindset oh i can't wait till things go back to regular they're not i'm not looking for regular i'm not looking for normal i'm not looking for natural i'm looking for the sudden work of the holy spirit to do a supernatural work in our heart to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think according to the power that works in us greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world if god be for us who can be against us the lord is my shepherd i shall not walk he maketh me to lie down in green pastures he leadeth me beside the still water yea say yea though i walk through the valley of shadow of death i will fear no evil why because god has not given me the spirit of fear but of love and a power and of a sound mind and i still believe we serve a god of miracles we still serve a god of miracles this is a house of miracles 
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 now sit down just for a minute and i'm gonna be done you cut into my time praise god in this transition all of you know there was a time in my life that i would have never said that publicly there was a time where john i'd have been like well you know miracles used to happen but i just don't think they still happen then all of a sudden they started happening people started showing up getting healed people started getting healed from cancer people's homes started getting put back together all of a sudden people were showing up here because they had a demonic influence and something was bringing to this place and all of a sudden they showed up and got deliverance got some help got some wholeness got some healing and i used to think oh my goodness that is so spooky it used to freak me out you know what freaks me out now coming to church not seeing miracle signs and wonders that's what freaks me out we ought to expect it when we come to the house of god we gotta expect that people are gonna be safe that the baptismal waters are gonna be stirred that god's going to show up and show out that homes are going to be put back together we got to expect that revival is going to fall amongst us but the problem is when the cart went out of town the miracle's left with it and somehow or another if we're going to be honest the glory of god has departed from the church world you see we think we got a political problem no we don't we don't have a white house problem we have a god's house problem judgment must begin at god's house at the house of god and if judgment begins with us how much more they that disobey the gospel of jesus christ second peter says and so at the end of the day your problem my problem is not your body your problem and my problem are cowardly pastors who won't stand up and feed the flock of god that is among them and say it's time to stand up it's time to push back it's time to fight it's time to get on your knees it's time to armor up suit up and boot up put on the whole armor of god because the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds we are in a fight fight fight church yes we are and don't you get nervous when a preacher comes to church and say that because when you go to the super bowl you don't say lose lose lose you say fight fight fight you know why because you want to be on the winning side and i know something i read the back of the book and i'm on the winning side i'm on the winning side the left don't win the socialists don't win nancy pelosi don't win huh the devil don't win the demons don't win godlessness does not win we win in the end and what this church is gonna have to be bedrock founded upon is the majesty of god the message of god and the miracles of god because you know this has been great for 20 months seems like 20 years it's been good but if you think god's done you're not paying attention this is just the beginning we put up that little 650 seat tent down there first sunday i told my wife i said it's crazy we're going to bounce around like bb's in the box car that thing first sunday they were everywhere second sunday they're everywhere we got that next tent i said uh we're done things seat eight hundred fifty nine hundred people i i'd preach cries like that all the time around america but we never had one like that at our church you might have a hundred thousand people watching online but you know you got 350 400 people taught us a tip come to the church bill and i get it and they came to me at that very first service and some of the staff said preacher we ain't gonna have big enough time we gotta get another one i said just bought this one so it's not gonna be big enough it wasn't a month we went from the 650 to the 850 to the 1250. i mean we put up that first red and white tent cnn went crazy oh look at the circus clown and put up a circus tent and call it what you want to call it what you want to god's ringing brother up in this place amen he's the ring leader he's a ring master in this church not me not you we'll do what jesus says so then we've been in that thing for just a few weeks and a visitor came by and prayed over me and said lord i pray right now that you would open pastor locke's eyes and let him understand this tent ain't big enough i thought what are you praying and sure enough we got to addition to it 
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 went to 1550 seats i've never seen anything like that not in just a small simple country church and we have we might have a great platform around the world but listen i'm just content just to be a simple down-to-earth redneck hillbilly middle tennessee nashville pastor i'm cool at the end you can take away all the fame all the book sales all the pizzazz all the excitement all the political rallies and i just want to be a pastor i just want to love people and preach the bible i mean that's what i like doing so then we got that extra addition and it was just sitting there and man people just kept coming and kept coming and kept coming 
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 and then all of a sudden one day i was driving around the campus and this up here was all trees and it was a mess and it was way more than a mess than the crooked deal that it is now it was a mess we'd bring in lots of field just to get this but i remember i went home and i said honey ain't going to believe this she's like oh what now 
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 i said i think the tent's in the wrong place and i don't think it's big enough first time i admitted it so i called him folks in louisiana and they said we got a big tent i said how big that's just 20 000 square feet that big huh 
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 i thought man alive we'll get that we'll we'll never we'll never even come close to halfway filling that thing up it's humongous we put three or four rings in it get some elephants get some clowns praise god i called him up he said it's 135 thousand dollar tent remember we bought it for thirty six thousand dollars cash thirty six thousand they can't put the whole thing up and i'll never forget that first sunday we come walking in and i thought there's nobody gonna show up that means we're gonna go all the way back to the 350 seat wedding chapel and every week every week every week every week every week now wednesday filling up filling up filling up i only say that to brag on jesus not on us or anything that we're doing but to say and to help you understand if we will keep him in his rightful place 
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 if we will stay true and pure to the message of the word of the living god this book we call the bible and if we will just expect and experience the miracle working power of the holy spirit i promise you as your pastor 
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 i promise you we have yet to see what god can do with a church that is fully surrendered to his will to his way and to his word and by the grace of god we will be that church get on your feet give the lord some praise in this house this morning hallelujah 
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 i don't know about any of you but i come here on sundays and it never ceases to amaze me not that all of you are here um but i look out and i see the goodness of god over our lives i feel a presence so so very sweet from the lord that it moves me to tears and i don't even like to cry but i feel like i've been crying for for a month now it seems like but i know that the lord is doing something in my heart and he's doing something in my husband's heart and he's doing something in this church and some of you have showed up here today not because you wanted to meet john schneider which is pretty cool by the way or not because you wanted to meet the pastor but because you truly are desperate for a move of god in your life you have these broken pieces inside of you and you don't know what to do with them and the lord is so different than people because his thoughts are above our thoughts and his ways are higher than our ways and so sometimes we can think that we have to do for god what we do for others like we bring our gifts to people in this season right like we're worried about oh what are we gonna buy everybody 
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 and today i feel the lord so strong in my spirit to say to you 
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 god doesn't need you to buy him anything because he's not like your kids or your friends or your parents or your spouse he is the creator of all things so he doesn't really need anything that we could go by him what he desires from us is just that us all of us all of our mess all of our sin all of our bad moods all of our joy every part of who we are is god's desire to know us to love us to minister to us and to make us whole you know in the book of colossians the bible says something really beautiful it says ye are complete in him the head of all principality and power 
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 and you came here today broken and the lord is saying to you right now you are complete in me in the work of my son the lord jesus christ that laid down his life for you you see he died for your guilt and your shame and your sin and your rebellion and your broken marriage and your wayward kid and your addiction and all of the things that you want to hide from everybody else that god clearly sees of you and he says to you today i have forgiven you and i have a gift for you because every good and perfect gift is from above so he sent down a gift from above just for you that you could obtain mercy and grace in your time of need and some of you are here today with a great need and you need a great wonderful savior the wonderful counselor the majesty on high that has came to meet with you exactly where you are today in all of your mess rooted and established in him in the faith not being able to be moved by what is going on in the world but coming to a place of surrender a place of humility 
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 coming today and laying it all out at the feet of jesus and saying lord i am broken but in you in you i am complete so today as we go into a time of prayer i want to encourage you 
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 that your brokenness is not your destination wholeness is your destination a life being lived in abundance through the lord jesus is your destination your identity is your destination your sobriety is your destination your restored marriage is your destination your prodigal child coming home is your destination because when the presence of god shows up prison walls begin to shake and strongholds begin to break and people come in and they receive love and they receive mercy and they receive healing and they receive wholeness because where the spirit of the lord is there is freedom where the spirit of the lord is there is freedom and father we have freedom in you lord we have freedom to be exactly where we are knowing god that at any moment with one breath with one word god that you could call the winds from the four corners of the earth and you could say draw bones come alive and lord that those dry bones would rise up an exceeding great army father to glorify you to lift your name on high to be still and know that you are god you will be exalted above the nations father lord we know that in you in you we are forgiven in you we have grace father we know that we are more than conquerors through christ who loved us that no weapon formed against us shall prosper 
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 that we can lift up the name of jesus and that you will draw all men none to you lord that we can speak the name of jesus and demons still tremble at his name lord that we have been given power and authority to trample on scorpions and serpents 
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 lord that we have the power of the resurrected king living within us lord that we can look at what is dead and it can come to life by the power of your name by the shedding of your blood lord we know that addiction is a reality but father we know that in you that addiction must flee that lord we can come to you father that you will take our broken pieces god and you will make us whole lord that when we bring our broken marriage or our way we're child that god that we know that you are faithful that you are the god of the valley as just as you are the god of the mountaintop and god that we can enter into your gates with thanksgiving and into your courts with praise because father you are worthy of it all you are holy and you are glorious and you are the majesty on earth and the whole earth is full of your glory for by you all things were created and if you all things were created you are the lamb slain before the foundation of the world we have been seated in heavenly places with you we are established and rooted we cannot be moved we cannot be moved we are looking unto jesus the author and finisher of our faith we are considering you we consider you today father in all of our lives god and all of our broken pieces and all of our disobedience god we come to you today in a life that is surrendered to your will and to your ways and god we say let it be done on earth as it is in heaven and god we glorify you we give thanks unto you for the joy of our lord is the strength for the joy of our lord is our strength and god we worship you in this place because you are holy god you are a holy god and lord we worship you and we honor you father you are the name above all names our messiah emmanuel wonderful counselor adonai you are our father you are the everlasting one you are the chosen one lord we worship you in this place god we worship you father in jesus name amen i like going to church and feel like i've been to church amen this has been beautiful here's what we're going to do if you are here today for our baptismal celebration make your way to my left and you're right miss billy and the team of volunteers will be there they'll get you signed up they'll get you a towel i know during this time often we have some folks that are going to be leaving are you able to stick around for a little bit for a little meet and greet over in the tent he'll be in the hospitality tent with my wife and i want you to make sure that you see them shake their hands let them know how much you appreciate them being here but if you're here to be baptized i want you to start making your way right over there but look we're not done yet i want our prayer team i want our folks that are willing to pray with people some of you right now you got to lay some stuff down and you're going to be having the invitation while we're having the baptismal celebrations they'll be on the screens i know folks try to get out and you know get to the restaurant all that we're not doing i'm telling you the lord's doing something in this place and so we got folks lining up over there to follow the lord and believers baptism people drive and fly from all over america they've watched us they got saved online they're coming for their their pastor to baptize them and so right now we're going to give them that chance if you want somebody to pray with you if you need somebody during this time to pray for you to lay hands on you to pray over you then you come right now and we got guys and gals that will be willing to pray with you you want to pray by yourself that's fine but i would be amiss if i didn't ask this one question every week we ask this question every single week all over this tent we ask this question i wonder if you are here today and you've heard the message and maybe you come to church i'm not asking you are you religious i didn't ask you are you are you good do you do good works not asking you are you wicked i'm asking you have you been born again by the grace of the gospel have you been saved have you repented and believed the gospel have you trusted jesus christ whom to know is life eternal so while these are coming while these are praying while our folks are getting ready for baptism just all over the room for a moment would you buy your heads with me every head bowed every eye closed how many of you right here sir ma'am young person how many of you would say pastor i'm going to slip up my hand because i'm not sure heaven is my home i'm not sure my sins are forgiven and christ is my lord and savior but i want to be sure i want to know that today above all things i want to know that today if that's you wherever you're at in this 10th i want you to slip your hand up high just so i can pray for you right now just slip it up god bless you god bless you thank you god bless you there in the back thank you god bless you here anybody else over here god bless you sir in the back thank you god bless you thank you anyone else just slip it up for a moment preacher pray with me pray for me god bless you god bless you god bless you thank you thank you thank you here's what i want you to do i don't have a magic potion i don't have any pixie dust i don't have a special prayer a prayer didn't die for you but a person named jesus did but i want to help you converse with the lord i want to help you carry on a conversation with god because he's interested in your faith in your belief in his son the lord jesus and right now by before the lord if you raise your hand i want you to say something to the lord like this father i know i'm a sinner and i know for my sin i deserve hell but i believe jesus died to forgive me i believe he was buried and that he rose again from the dead and today lord jesus the best i know how i receive you and you alone as my lord and savior forgive me of my rebellion cleanse me today make me a new creature and i trust you to take me to your kingdom when i leave this world 
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 while we're about before the lord i ask you this question all over the room how many of you say you know what brother lock i'm telling you right now before god i believe that i received that i've prayed to trust the lord jesus you didn't just come to get a little church you came because you needed forgiveness and today god spoke to your heart you talk to the lord you cried out to him in faith and repentance if that's you sir ma'am wherever you're at slip your hand up so we can rejoice with you all over the room slip your hand out god bless you god bless you god bless you thank you god bless you thank you thank you thank you god bless you now look you can wait to get baptized wednesday sunday or a whole year from now but as a believer the first thing you do is you let publicly people know what you just did privately in your heart we got folks you're going to be baptized you see a whole line of them right there every week it's like this every week if you want to go ahead and follow the lord in believers baptism right now make your way to that line if you want to wait and talk about it i get it but i say to you welcome to the family of god amen church give the lord a hand for what he's doing these folks are going to keep praying the band's going to play we're going to have some baptismal celebrations 
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 forgiveness was 
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 all right alden upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power and glory of his gospel it gives me a great honor to baptize you in the name of the father son of the holy spirit bear in baptism praise to walk in newness of life 
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 all right my young sister addie upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power of his gospel it gives me a great honor to baptize you before these witnesses in the name of the father son the holy spirit buried in baptism praise to walk in who is alive 
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 all right sister molly upon your public profession of faith in jesus the power and glory of his gospel it gives me a great honor to baptize you in the name of the father son the holy spirit buried baptism raised to walk and then it's alive 
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 hallelujah brother joseph upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power of his gospel it gives me a great honor before these witnesses my brother in the lord the baptized in the name of the father son the holy spirit prepared baptism raised to walk in newness of life 
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 profession of faith in jesus and the power of his gospel it gives me a great honor to baptize you today before these witnesses in the name of the father son the holy spirit buried baptism raised to walk in newness of life 
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 all right miss lois upon your profession of faith in jesus the power of glory of his gospel it gives me a great honor to baptize you in the name of the father son of the holy spirit baptism raised to walk into life 
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 brother daryl getting baptized on his birthday amen brother darrell upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power and glory of his gospel it gives me a great honor my brother in the lord before these witnesses to baptize you on your birthday in the name of the father son the holy spirit buried baptism raised to walk into this life 
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 all right young lady i'm upon your profession of faith in jesus in the private gospel it gives me a great honor to baptize you sir before these witnesses in the name of the father son the holy spirit bury baptism praise the walk and do this alive 
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 okay all right miss nationally upon your public profession of faith in jesus the power of his gospel it gives me a great honor to baptize you my sister in the lord the name of the father son of the holy spirit we're in baptism raised to walk into this alive 
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 oh i braided upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power and glory of his gospel it gives me a great honor my brother and the lord to baptize you today before these witnesses in the name of the father son the holy spirit read baptism raise to walk in newness of life 
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 all right miss robin upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power and wonderful glory of his gospel it gives me a great honor my sister in the lord to baptize in the name of the father son the holy spirit buried baptism raised to walk in newness of life amen 
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 is all right miss stephanie upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power glory of his gospel it gives me a great honor before these witnesses baptize in the name of the father son the holy spirit buried baptism praise the walking dead 
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 all right sister melissa upon your public affection of faith in jesus the fire of his gospel it gives me a great honor to baptize you my sister in the lord in the name of the father son the holy spirit buried baptism raised to walk and lead us alive 
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 all right sister amanda upon your public profession of faith in jesus in the part of his gospel before these witnesses it gives me a great honor to baptize you my sister in the lord in the name of the father son the holy spirit bear in baptism raise to walk in newness of life 
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 all right brother matthew upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power and glory of his gospel it gives me a great honor my brother and the lord before these witnesses to baptize you in the name of the father son the holy spirit bear to baptism raise the wall get us alive 
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 all right miss abby upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power of his gospel it gives me a great honor before these witnesses to baptize you in the name of the father son the holy spirit feared baptist and praise to walk and then it's the life 
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 all right my brother michael upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power of his gospel it gives me a great honor before these witnesses to baptize you my brother in the lord in the name of the father son the holy spirit baptism raised to walk in newness of life 
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 all right sister leanne upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power and glory of his gospel it gives me a great honor before these witnesses my sister in the lord to baptize in the name of the father son the holy spirit buried baptism praise to walk and then it's alive 
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 all right olivia upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power of his gospel it's a great opportunity to baptize you before these witnesses my sister in the lord in the name of the father son the holy spirit bearing baptism raised to walk in newness of life 
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 all right brother brian upon your public profession of faith in jesus and the power and glory of his gospel it gives me a great honor before these witnesses my dear brother in the lord to baptize you today in the name of the father son the holy spirit baptism praise 
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 yes it is 
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 of faith in jesus and the power glory of his gospel it gives me a great honor my sister in the lord to baptize you before these witnesses the name of the father son the holy spirit buried in baptism race to walk in then it's 
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 well give the alive some praise amen any good to us wow this is beautiful baptism after baptism we love you guys be safe out there again brother john is going to be meet and greet with folks my wife and i will be in the tent as well and we look forward to seeing you this coming wednesday night don't miss out god is on the move god bless you we love you guys