 Hey everybody stay standing I gotta say I am just so privileged to be a part of this amazing conference you know I was on the phone with Lisa right before I came tonight's service and she said John I believe Lee Cummings is one of the smartest men I've ever met he is a brilliant strategist and I'm just so thankful that you're here last year when I was here with Bethel you weren't here and I was so sad that you weren't here so I was so excited that you and Jane we're gonna be here tonight and Lisa and I we just love and we value what you've done for the body of Christ you are amazing leaders and we are just so thankful for your friendship and what you've done thank you thank you and oh my gosh what amazing worship tonight I was over here just having so much fun worshiping and I don't cry a lot of times before I preach because I'm so focused but I'm sorry there were just tears in my eyes I love Corey and Annie and Anna Asbury wherever they are I love you guys they are friends they've been friends of Lisa's and I for years so when I got here I texted Corey and I said Corey are you leaving tonight please tell me you're leaving tonight and he said yes yes I said alright that's so good but anyway I'm so glad to be here look a lot of you guys don't know this but I'm a Michigander come on from the age of 3 to 15 I was raised in Whitehall Michigan you probably don't even know where it is we have yeah you do some of you we have 2,800 people and we are not a suburb so we are just a dinky dinky little town and I just love Michigan and I always love coming back because Michigan people are just some of the coolest people in the United States trust me I've been all over in the United States you guys are it man I'm so glad to be with you tonight so listen I'm family don't look at me as a stranger don't look at me as a guest okay so you got Papa Lee, Mama Jane, Uncle John is in the house right come on anyway listen I just I just have something so burning in my heart for you tonight and I really believe it's a prophetic word it's out of a new book that I've written and I am just I am believing God that tonight is going to be a night that all of us are changed forever not only from the worship which I've already been changed because of the worship but because of the word and before I pray and get into the word I want to do something I know some of you a lot of you probably here don't know me and some of you do know me well the best way you can get to know me is the people that I love so deeply and dearly is my family introducing them to you and for those of you that do know me well I just want to catch you up we've been busy we've had two weddings in the last seven months so let me show oh there they are oh my gosh that is my amazing amazing gorgeous best friend wife of 37 years of marriage I told Lisa a few months ago as a baby if you were single I'd be still on your trail so and we have four sons and over on the left is our oldest son that's his wife Juliana they've been married 10 years and you see those four little ones those are my G babies you say what in a world is a G baby I'm way too young to be grandpa so it's G daddy and G for short and then Arden Arden is our baby he got married to Christian Christian is an she is an Auburn girl and she is now on our team and she is amazing direct to camera so you'll see her a lot on messenger news and then my mom sneaked in there she's 92 years old and sharp as a tack I'll tell you what I could tell you stories after stories about my mom she's hilarious next to my mom is the only left available but dear boy come on I need a michigander daughter-in-law come on you know what to do all right use facebook twitter all that you know instagram y'all can laugh tonight can you right okay all right and then Austin and Jess Austin's our second born he got married to a pack 10 girl and so she's from Seattle and you know Arden and and Austin got engaged four days apart and they both looked at us and Bavir's don't believe in long engagements including me and they said we want to get married right away this fall and we're like your mom and I are scheduled all over the world we are gone so much this fall you can't he said we will so Arden and Jess got married on a Monday night in Seattle that's the first Monday night wedding I think I've ever been to and Arden and Christian took our only weekend off the lease and I were going to spend together but anyway it was a lot of fun so that's my family and you know the more I've loved my family the more I realized how much God loves us because we're his big family can you say amen amen now I'm gonna ask you a question I want you to be honest you want to message for me tonight or you want your life changed forever which one that's a good response you know I could be the greatest communicator on the planet but if the Holy Spirit doesn't touch these words you're just getting information and I'm not coming all the way here today on these flights to give you information I want to see transformation and by the way I got to say it is so good to be here with my friend uh David Perkins and my friend Les Peach Camp where are you guys you you somewhere aren't they amazing men of God is that Brandon is that Brandon and Brandon Corvier I didn't know you were here anyway it's just I feel like this is a big family reunion tonight this is so cool but anyway um if you really believe and I want you to be honest you really believe the Holy Spirit can change you forever put put up your hand if you really believe that okay now put up your other hand because the Bible says we don't have because we don't ask right so let's believe God father in the name of Jesus what an amazing conference this Holy Spirit you've done so much in our midst and I'm asking that you would continue I'm asking that you would do what you love to do the most reveal Jesus to us in a way like we'd never ever known him before I'm asking that you would invade this sanctuary tonight that Lord as you do this for us that it will be a night that will never ever be the same again we're asking this in the name of Jesus that we would go from glory to glory and faith to faith and I'm asking that it would be done in here on earth as it is in heaven and for this we give you all the glory and all the honor and all the praise and all the thanksgiving and it's in the mighty wonderful majestic holy awesome name of Jesus that we pray and everybody that agrees shouts come on in advance give him praise for what he's gonna do tonight amen amen you can be seated watch this you want to know how gold is purified it's ground down beat down then it's thrown into a furnace melted down by a 2000 degree fire the heat increases impurities begin to surface things you never saw before they appear you scrape away these impurities and what are you left with refine pure gold the trials you face as a human being are the furnace designed to remove the impurities in us so the only thing that remains is what was placed at the core of us God's nature and character some of you are in the furnace right now all you see is the fire all you feel is the heat each day feels like a struggle and you want to give up you want to hit this news button you want to give up on that marriage you want to quit that job take the easy way out but you weren't created for easy you were created for victory when the fires of life are raging keep going hit always remember on the other side of pain on the other side of trial is your promise so i want to open up tonight and give you a little background um i was actually raised in church my parents took me to church every single weekend every sunday and but yet i had absolutely no relationship with god whatsoever and it was quite obvious i mean when i was in high school people were witnessing to me like crazy when i went to college they were witnessing to me one guy he actually came to my room and shared with me for two hours and after i got saved he told me he said john when i left your room after two hours of sharing with you about jesus i left your room in tears because you weren't even connecting but it wasn't until my sophomore year and athletics is a huge part of my background i played varsity tennis at Purdue University the only reason i didn't go to U of M or state was because i knew i couldn't start for their teams but i knew i could start for Purdue so and it was a good choice because i met Lisa and i got saved there right but anyway um one of the best athletes in the state of indiana was in our fraternity and i remember the night he came up my sophomore year and began to share jesus with me i remember he's sharing with me and all of a sudden i the realization hits me that the one who created the heavens and the earth really wanted to reveal himself to me personally i mean i blew my mind i mean that he actually cared for me deeply that he loved me uniquely that he would actually make promises to me as a father would to a son or a daughter and actually fulfill them that he actually had crafted a plan for my life and i remember in that fraternity i gave jesus my life and he became the lord the lord of my life and and what stood out to me about everything was his presence and let me explain something very important for you to understand the bible talks about two types of the presence of god there is the omnipresence of god there is the manifest presence of god the omnipresence of god is he's always there i mean david says where can i make my bed if i make if i live in the highest mountain you're there if i make my bed in the lowest valley you're there that's the presence of the lord that says i'll never leave you nor forsake you the other presence of god that is so real to the christian life is called the manifest presence of god that is when god reveals himself to your mind your will your senses your emotions that's a very real part of christianity jesus said i will manifest myself to you and not to the world right well that was what was overwhelming to me was the presence of god i mean i am not the crying type and i would be in services just weeping because the presence of god was so overwhelming i remember one time i was watching actually a form a a storm form in the distance and all of a sudden i was overwhelmed by the presence of god and i realized the one who created this entire universe was now my dad and it just it just was blowing me away and he was answering my prayers so quickly and so uniquely and i i'll never forget the time you know my cassette player broke just google it later it's prehistoric anyway um my cassette player broke in my car and i'm like oh my gosh i can't worship i can't listen to teaching what am i gonna do and i thought jesus said lay hands on the stick to recover so i put my hands on that i said you're sick i'm laying hands on you and you know i prayed and i put the cassette in there and it worked and it never broke again i mean i mean and i'm like okay this is christianity right but then after a few years the presence of god started seeming a little more elusive and he wasn't answering prayers as uniquely and quickly as he was and questions just started arising like god why does it seem like the promises aren't coming to pass that you're making to me so quickly in my life in fact why does it seem like i'm going backward from them in fact can i go one step further why does it seem like nothing is going right in my life and the overarching question was this god where are you now has any of a buddy ever thought that or asked that can i see his show of hands or am i preaching way over your head right now okay so you know where i'm talking about right so there was a there was a process that i didn't understand and that is this that god has a three step pathway to get every single one of us to our destiny how many of you know you have a destiny in god come on i mean david says in song 139 that every day of our life was written in a book before a single day began i mean that's mind blowing right there right our steps are ordered of the lord the bible tells us and there's not only major destinies there's what i like to call subplots sub destinies right i mean there's the major major one and there's the sub ones right well god in order to get us to that destiny that he's sending us to what he begins with is he shows us a glimpse of where we're going and he makes promises to us with jeremiah you're going to be a prophet to the nations with joseph it's a dream with david it's the prophet in the land coming and saying you're going to be a king one day right and i could go on and on i know i actually have a file in my desk drawer that has the prophetic words that have been given to me in the last 40 years of my christian walk and can i can i say this it's not a very thick folder because there's been a lot of words given to me but i only put the ones in there that i really know heaven breathed on but there's actually a sheet of paper with a word that is delayed it is dated july 1981 and you know there are things that god told me i would do in july 1981 are you tracking with me right now that i didn't start doing until i was in my fifties until this decade now somebody's probably sitting there going but whoa whoa whoa wait a minute i haven't had any glimpses i haven't any promises well can i can i just be really honest with you right now my bible says that god rewards those who diligently seek him in faith my bible does not say god rewards those who casually seek him in wonder and doubt you might want to check up on your seeking level i mean just just just just a little check up there you understand what i'm saying it'll get better in a minute okay so once he gives the glimpse the promise then the process begins now what's the process i've affectionately termed this process stage as the wilderness or refinement now why is the process so important because in the process god develops in us the character that is needed for the promise do you understand what i'm talking about now once we successfully navigate the process then the promotion comes that's the third step and that is the promise fulfilled peter writes about this when he makes this statement in first peter chapter one and the first five verses peter talks about heaven and you know one of the favorite things i love to talk about is heaven i mean so did the apostles but i i love what these guys did they realized hey we live in the here in the now let's just mention heaven but let's really focus in on the here and now right and all good ministers we do that right are you following me and so peter talks about heaven the first five verses but then he says in this you greatly rejoice in your inheritance in heaven that is uncorruptible but then he says though now so here goes to the here now for a little while everybody shout little while now now you know a little while to god is a little different than a little while to us you know you look at your friend you say i'm gonna be your house in a little while what do you mean you can be over there in 15 minutes right but i started thinking about this one day and i thought well a day with the lord is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day so i started thinking well then what's an hour to god and i divided a thousand years by 24 and i got 42.6 years so 15 minutes is seven or eight years yeah you're so glad you came and heard that tonight aren't you for a little while now look at this if need be and let me help you the need is there you have been grieved and the word greed means greatly distressed by various trials now i love this next verse look at this these trials show that your faith is genuine so when you successfully navigate trials hey you know what smile when you're in the middle of a trial smile because you know what that means you don't have counterfeit faith you actually got real faith that's good news right i hope it is being tested everybody say tested as fire tests and purifies gold though your faith is far more precious than mere gold so around that time period that i talked to you about where the presence of god started getting elusive i was working for a church in dallas texas we were probably the best known church in the united states we had 450 paid staff members okay and our church we didn't talk a lot about character about holiness and we talked a lot about faith receiving from god the promises of god and so i'm out praying one night and we had this field Lisa and i right by the apartment that we were living in and and the field was usually nobody was there at night or in the morning early and i was on out in that field late at night and the Holy Spirit spoke to me so clearly just like i'm speaking to you right now and i'll never forget he said son i'm going to begin to teach you how to deny yourself how to take up your cross and how to follow me i'm going to begin to do a work of holiness in your life now i was so excited that i literally left the field immediately ran back to the apartment lisa's taking off her makeup getting ready for bed i said babe babe god spoke to me he's going to begin to do a work of holiness in my life i said he's going to make me a holy man all these all these successes in my life you know because i watched so much sports on tv and i ate so much food i mean food was an idol i ate when i wasn't even hungry i mean i ate when i was happy i ate when i was sad i ate when i was excited i ate when i was i just ate and i i said all all the successes in my life are just gonna go away so you know what happened the next three months i ate twice as much as what i normally ate i watched twice as much tv twice as much sports and so after three months of this i walked back out that same field this time it was early in the morning i said hey god i don't get this um you said you were going to do this work of holiness in my life and i said lord i'm twice as fleshly as i was three months ago and the holy spirit said to me he said son that's because you've been doing it your way he said holiness is not a work of your flesh it is a product of my grace he said now i'm going to begin to do it my way now i had no idea what he was saying but over the next six months after that i started going through trials like i had never experienced before i mean trials so intense now and let me make this really clear how many of you know there are self-inflicted trials you know what i mean you do stupid things to bring trials on yourself right then there's trials you go through where you didn't do anything these are the kind of trials i'm going through okay and they're so intense that there's a statement that the prophet Jeremiah makes in Jeremiah 15 and you know what this statement he you know what he says he said why is my pain perpetual i i'm going to tell you i i woke up in pain i ate breakfast in pain i went to work at the church in pain i ate lunch in pain i worked that afternoon in pain i came home in pain i ate dinner in pain i went to bed that night in pain i woke up the next morning in pain it was perpetual and in the midst of these trials the six month time period i am like a terror to live with i mean i'm yelling at lisa for the stupidest things i have no patience for her i'm i'm irritated by my nine month old son i'm upset with my friends because they're avoiding me i wonder why the people i'm working with i'm really ticked off at because they don't they don't they don't have compassion for what i'm going through i'm really upset with my pastor because he's not saying anything to me i'm mad at everybody and i remember it got really bad and i i went back out to that field early in the morning like this is six months later and i said god why am i so angry why am i so bitter i i i wasn't even this angry before i got saved i don't ever remember being this angry what do i bind what do i cast out and the lord showed me right there he said son you don't cast out flesh you crucify it and so you have to understand i have an engineering degree from pretty university so god a lot of times will speak to me you know scientifically you understand what i'm saying so he said son look at your ring on your finger and this is a new ring that lisa gave us at 25 but at that time i had a 14 karat gold ring do you know what 14 karat gold is 14 parts out of 24 parts is gold 10 parts out of 24 parts is other metals such as copper zinc nickel etc right so god says look at your gold ring i said yeah yeah i see my gold ring he said um looks like pure gold done i say yeah looks like pure gold he said what happens if you put it in the furnace and heated up a couple thousand degrees i said well it liquefies he said then what happens i said well the impurities which are the lighter metals the copper zinc neck nickel etc because they're lighter metals the gold they begin to come to the surface he said they appear right i said yeah they appear he said you couldn't see them before you put the ring in the furnace could you i said no you couldn't see him before you put the ring in the furnace he said son you keep asking me where all this anger bitterness is coming from he said it's always been in there he said it wasn't visible to you but i knew it was there he said so i've allowed you to come into this furnace of affliction to expose these things he said now what you do with them will determine your future he said if you keep blaming your pastor your friends the people you work with he said it's just gonna go all right back down and we're gonna have to start this process all over again or he said oh or you can own it and he said if you own it and repent of it and quit putting the blame on everybody else he said i'll take my ladle and skin these things right out of your life i remember during this time i'm in the office at in my office at church and i actually had my own office and i remember closing the door and i literally just i was hurting so bad i just put my head up against the corner walls and i said god why do i hurt so bad inside and god said because you're dying and he said there's always pain in death he said do you want to know how you're gonna know when you're dead i said yes please tell me how will i know when i'm dead he said you won't hurt any more dead people don't have pain i said god would you please kill me quick so you have to understand god spoke to my heart and said son you're going to preach the gospel all over the world you're going to preach it to nations and it was 1985 and jesus was coming in 1988 and i only had three years left and so i thought i was ready i'm like god i have got to go now right not not go through these stupid trials but you see god knew that it would have been a disaster if he would have allowed me to do what he had called me to do at that time this kind of reminds me of like joseph you know joseph in the bible does anybody know who i'm talking about he's abraham's great grandson and he if you don't know about him read genesis 37 through 50 really it'd be a good thing to read tonight before you go to bed but you know when joseph god gives him these dreams these two dreams that he is going to be a leader and that actually his brothers would be under his leadership right but when joseph shows up in genesis 37 and the very first verse that it's written about him you know what it says he was telling his father the bad things his brothers were doing so you know we got we got a tattletale okay um if you go just a few verses later he is bragging to his brothers about man i am the favorite son and i got the dreams of leadership and y'all are going to be under my authority so he's a braggar and he's speaking down to his brothers so can we list this when joseph shows up we got a tattletale a braggar and somebody who speaks down to people if god puts him into that position of leadership right then you're going to have a very narcissistic insecure leader so god says okay you need a little refining here joseph now god does not author this he knows the end from the beginning you got to remember we are bound we're in this body we are bound to time i can tell you everything that happened this weekend this past weekend but i can't tell you anything about tomorrow because i'm bound to time right but god is outside of time and god knows the end from the beginning so god knows these brothers he says i'm going to use what these brothers are going to do for a little refining right so y'all know the story the brothers you know they throw them into the pit which for those of you who don't know pit is an acronym for preachers in training and then he sold as a slave to a foreign nation egypt and he now becomes a slave and one of the officers of the king of egypt's house a guy named potifer so i'm sure joseph is thinking in the first few months i'm gonna my dad is going to rescue me but there's no rescue from a father but here's the deal we read the story and as a westerners we don't connect with it and the reason we don't connect is we don't understand what those brothers really did in essence what those brothers did to joseph was worse than killing him see because everything everything depended back in those days of receiving your father's name and inheritance it was so important because when you're a slave in a foreign nation back in those days you will be a slave the rest of your life your wife will be a slave all of her life your children will be slaves all of their lives their children will be slaves and all your family will ever work for is somebody else's heritage you will never have your own heritage now it's one thing to be born a slave it is a totally completely different thing to be born the era of a very wealthy man and have it stripped away from you by your own brothers joseph is like a living dead man 10 years would you stop and think about would you go back 10 years some of you that's half your age now everything's going good because god always blesses his kids but underneath the surface something much worse is going on because the master wife gets the hots for joseph and this is amazing to me she doesn't approach him once or twice she approaches him every day now i'm sure this woman's gorgeous because she is the wife of one of the officers of the king she sent it in the best she's dressed in the best and probably has the seducing spirit up to her eyeballs but every single day he resists and what's really amazing to me is he didn't have a connect group he didn't have a lee Cummings bringing the word of god to him every single sunday but he resists he resists and you know something that i love is the apostle paul wrote to the flippian church and made a statement but when most of us read this statement and i did for years we read it as the paul saying it to the flippians but in reality it's really god saying this to us so look at these words paul says as as you have always obeyed in my presence even so much more now obey in my absence work out your salvation with fear and trembling see we don't get what the fear of god is the fear of god is not to be scared of god it's to be terrified to be away from him the fear of the lord is to be terrified not afraid terrified to be away from god joseph's got this see it's really easy to obey god when you're in the midst of this kind of worship when kory and the team are leading us in worship oh my gosh i'll do anything for you jesus but what about what about thursday night when your kids throwing up all night long and you got the presentation of your life at the office at eight a.m in front of the board what about someone gossips about you tells a total lie and the authorities that your company believe it and you lose your dream dream job and you didn't do a thing wrong are you still gonna obey god because i'm going to tell you there's this little thing that i like to call being passive aggressive do you know what passive aggressive is it means you get it somebody another way and it's kind of like okay god how could i lose this job and all of a sudden now you go on a drinking binge because you're really mad at god i know nobody can relate to this only i'm the only one that's ever done that so i know i'm way over your head right now but people actually some people in other places actually do that but joseph joseph doesn't do this he just keeps resisting think about it you've gone 10 years you've lost everything because of your brothers they're the ones that are wicked in your eyes you're the ones that you're the one that was godly and 10 years now you're a slave and there's no hope of a father's rescue anymore so now the stage is set they're alone in the house she comes to him and i can only imagine she's prepared for this she's got a little cleavage showing a lot of cleavage showing she's got a leg outside one slit of that dress and she chose just right and she comes nestles up in close to him and she goes i'm all yours nobody's here nobody will ever know and i love what this young man does he flees sexual immorality she's got a hold of him that garment rips he runs out of the house stark naked she's a scorn woman and her scorn turns in well her hate her her lust turns into hatred now she blames him for the very thing he ran from when you are a slave in a foreign nation and you have raped tried to rape the officer of the king's wife they throw you in the dungeon and that's exactly where he was put now here's a problem seven months ago i preached in a prison called angola it's the largest prison in the united states it's in south louisiana 6200 inmates every one of them are in there from 20 years to life no parole can i tell you that prison was a country club compared to a middle eastern dungeon i have been in a few middle eastern dungeons they are usually hewned out cisterns in other words they used to hold water they're dry but they're still very damp they're underground and the average cistern is about four feet tall so you can't even stand in it okay now you don't get a mattress like they did in angola you sleep on bedrock that's damp you have no pillow you don't have a toilet or a sink so that means you live in your waste the bible says they hurt his feet with fetters and laid him in chains until the time that his word and that word his word means the prophetic promise that god made to him came to pass the word of the lord tested him then they give you what's known as the bread of affliction you'll find it first king 17 what is the bread of affliction dying is too easy so what they want is they want you to live so they give you just enough bread and just enough water to keep you alive so you can suffer and they just hope you'll get a disease or something like that so you can suffer even more because you don't get doctors like our prisoners do that's where joseph is they've hurt his feet with fetters stop and think about this with me all he's done is obeyed god all he did was proclaim the dream that god gave to him and that got him the pit and slavery then he does exactly what the word of god says he flees sexual immorality and that gets him the dungeon so every time he obeys god his life conditions get worse now you're a foreign slave you've right you've been accused of raping the king's wife they are leaving you in there to rot and then god listen to me god then brings the greatest test to joseph you know what the greatest test is he brings two men who had dreams the night before a butler and a baker what's the test the test is this can joseph proclaim to these two men the faithfulness of god when he hasn't seen a shred of evidence and in his own life in 10 years in regard to his personal promise think about god says you're going to be a leader and your brothers will be under your authority but he's gone from pit to slavery to dungeon if joseph would have been like a lot of us he would have looked at those two guys and said he had a dream last night how'd a dream once leave me alone dreams don't come true if he would have done that he would have died in the dungeon saying god is unfaithful he doesn't keep his promises but the fact is god is faithful and he does keep his promises he proclaims the faithfulness of god to them the butler is promoted but he forgets about him so he's two more years in that hellhole more years are you tracking with me and all the guys done is obey god see we base our success on immediate on immediate results well i guess i must not be obeying i guess god doesn't care if i get drunk if joseph did that he'd never would have proclaimed the faithfulness of god to that butler and baker you know what the bible says that joseph remembered the dream you know that word remember you know how we use the word remember oh i just remember man i got an appointment no that's not what that word means the word remembered means the entire time he kept it right before him he kept it right before him two years later the kings got a dream the butler goes oh my gosh i forgot about that guy in one day one day joseph is elevated number two man in all egypt and really number two man in the planet because egypt was the number one country in the world there's seven years seven more years of plenty and there's two more years of famine and here come his brothers add up the years it's 19 years and some of us are upset if our dream doesn't come to pass in one year 19 years later do you know what joseph life shows us listen to me listen listen no man no woman no child no organization no boss no demon can ever get you out of the will and the destiny of god for your life joseph's brothers said we are going to kill him and destroy this dream and see if that dream ever comes to pass god says oh yeah you think you're going to do that you're actually the instruments i'm going to use to fulfill his dream the only one that can get you out of your destiny this point your finger right here is you you know israel was only meant to go through one year of refining if you read your bibles exodus very carefully in in numbers you'll find our god only intended to be there one year but they had a problem okay and it was called you know can i just can i can i take a pause here for a second okay just give me a second here okay first grintians 10 says that israel is an example to us right and it says can you imagine being a pastor and having three million people in your congregation and only two adults in your entire congregation fulfill their destiny that's moses okay so first grintians 10 says they're an example to us to us that live in the last days right and it says there's five things they did to keep them out of their destiny right five things and so they let paul list these five things and it's like sexual immorality adultery idolatry tempting christ and then there's this funny one you know when i was a kid my little sister used to watch sesame street and they had this little song they sang one of these things just doesn't belong here you know they got a horse they got a elephant they got a car and then they got an alligator you know it's the alligator you don't ride on alligators you ride on the other ones right and i wanted to sing that song every time i read that chapter because the fifth one was complaining complaining in a list with idolatry tempting christ and i you know sexual immorality and boy i'll never forget the day i i mean i was i was a little upset i'm like this is out of place and the holy spirit said to me now listen he said complaining is a serious sin i said okay why i need the why why he said because complaining is an affront to my character because complaining says to me god i don't like what you're doing in my life and if i were you i'd do this differently he said it's a lack of the fear of the lord see malachi everybody say malachi do you know malachi even though he's an old testament prophet he didn't prophesied about old testament times he prophesied about the time of Jesus and our day the day of his first coming and the day of his second coming do you know do you know malachi said right before jesus returns there's going to be three human class three groups of human beings on the earth three two are going to be christians right the first group are believers who complain you got it the second group are believers who fear god and the third group are going to be the unbelievers because god makes the same he says your words are really hard against me and they say what have we said against you go to it tim i'm sorry look go the next one here's what they they're saying go ahead go the next one when these these are the words that god says you've been speaking against me when you complainers said it doesn't pay to serve god what do we ever get out of it when we did what he said what difference did it make in other words i'm going through all these you you'll find out jesus is going to come to his church first as a refiner's fire they're going through all these refining they're saying god what what good is it i'm obeying you so they have a totally different attitude than joseph are you tracking with me are you are you here okay now look at this click it from now on we will call the arrogant now that's the unbelievers we'll call them blessed this is what these people are saying for those who do evil they get rich hey i'm going through these trials and those who dare god to punish them they don't suffer any harm are you seeing this but then watch this then those whose lives honor god that's the fear those people like jane Cummings right watch this they got together and talked it over they're going through the same trials god saw what they were doing and listened in a book was open in god's presence and minutes were taken to the meeting with the names of the god fears written down keep going god says they're mine all mine they'll get special treatment sure is quiet right now when i go into action i treat them with the same consideration and kindness the parents give a child to honors them now look at this once more in other words you couldn't tell before once more you will be able to see the difference between the righteous and the wicked in other words the wicked looks so blessed the righteous are going through all this refining between those who serve god and those who don't when god dealt with me about this complaining stuff i literally put a watch on my mouth and i said okay i'm not complaining and i remember lisa and i got down we sat down we said we're going to discipline our sons for rebellion if they complain now there's some people thought we were extreme but all four of our sons work for our ministry so maybe it was the wisdom of god children is justified by their children by your wisdom right but anyway um but here's the deal i remember i was on a four-day fast and i remember waking up i think it was the third or fourth day i heard the holy spirit say i hear the complaining in your heart i didn't get out of i did not get out of bed that's why i literally rolled to my knees and i repented big time because i felt abandoned felt like god why aren't you moving i'm your boy i i serve you i get on all these airplanes god goes i hear the complaining in your heart because i felt abandoned i know nobody can relate to this tonight i'm so sorry to bring you a message this way over our heads but you know i just i'm using myself i'm helping me tonight okay you're just sitting in my counseling appointment right now he felt abandoned i'm sure joseph felt abandoned don't you think watch this video and by the way you'll recognize the music and one of my favorite praise leaders everybody has a hero okay mine's my dad yes i get it since mom died it's only been us he has a way of filling my life with color dad which one sometimes i don't understand his advice but i trust him and what always brought us together was our love for running one day i'll be faster than him and when i am i'm gonna win every marathon in the world what's wrong champ or at least that was my plan i'm losing my sight real quick read to me the lowest level that you can see on there what is called is interocular melanoma eye cancer unfortunately you will lose your vision that was the day my father disappeared dad wakey were you to run champ come on i thought he would always be there for me i guess i was wrong dad where are you you abandoned me where are you dad where did you go do you not love me anymore am i still beautiful are you no longer proud of me how could you leave me when i need you the most abby thinks i've left her and as much as it pains me to hear that she's right i've left her the best that we can do is save it the actual eye so that cosmetically she doesn't lose them that's my girl that's my girl it's my little girl there's support groups and i know this is a very difficult time no i've left her to realize she's more courageous than she ever imagined i've left her to discover how beautiful she is from the inside out i've left her to challenge herself in ways she never considered i've left her to discover how strong she really is it's me baby why did you leave me i was right here i was always here i was always here baby no one believes in you more than i do about how far you've come my dad says he gave me what i needed not what i wanted love is allowing someone to see their true worth and beauty i used to think my dreams were over i thought i'd never run again and even though i can't see my dad i know he's guiding me the entire way cried first time four times my team I want to i want you to think about this this video i want you to listen to the words of joe job is another one who went through something very similar that joseph went through listen to what job says and job 23 said look i go forward but he god is not there and backward but i cannot perceive him now look at this when he works see her dad was working she didn't perceive him the whole time he's working he's watching her he's she just didn't know he was there he didn't want her to know she he was there and when he works on the left hand i cannot behold him when he turns to the right hand i cannot see him but he knows where i'm going why because he plans it and when he tests me can we stop a moment there why is everybody have such an issue with tests can i can i answer that it's called midterms and finals but can i say this i flew over the Pacific Ocean a few weeks ago i am so glad the pilot passed the test because he and i didn't end up at the bottom of the ocean testing only shows you what's in you god said to israel i brought you into this wilderness to humble you and test you so that you could know what's in your heart he knew it was in their heart they needed to know what was in their heart i will come out as pure gold do you know gold in its pure state do you know it's actually tender do you know you can actually bend it it's flexible it's not inflexible do you know gold has a counterpart it's called brass do you know brass brass tarnishes because of the atmosphere gold can never tarnish do you understand when you go through his refining the world the atmosphere of the world can't tarnish you anymore pure gold is transparent you see right through it like glass the streets that haven't are made out of it do you understand when you come out as pure gold they don't see you anymore i see the treasure in you i think it's time that we see a whole lot more of jesus in the church you still with me what was joe's response the exactest the exact is jesus for i've stayed on god's path i have followed his ways and have not turned aside i have not departed from his commands but have treasured his words more than my daily food i i don't understand how people are actually making it and i think i do understand why so many are falling away from the faith right now joe's had a treasured his words more than my daily food yet most people get a meal once every sunday and if there's a conference they binge eat for a couple days but cannot cannot cannot cannot cannot suggest something go four months and only eat on sunday afternoons and eat a light meal and tell me how you're doing at the end of four months now here's what's really scary our physical body when we don't feed it it screams i'm hungry right and gets louder right do you know your spirit does just the opposite it gets quieter when we don't feed it i'm not i'm not against social media i use it okay i believe in it but i don't understand how some people can spend two hours on social media and they say i don't know i i just don't have time to read the bible who are you kidding only yourself do you know i've been saved 40 years i i turned 60 in a couple months okay i know i know don't say it i don't look at day over 80 but i i my favorite book to read is my bible i have all these colored pencils my bible's with me in my hotel room on my carry on note only luggage i love reading the bible because i say holy spirit show me something i've never seen before about jesus or your ways i'm going to close it with this i've never before told our team get this book out and get this message out as fast as possible because i believe it's a prophetic message when i got saved in 1979 the first six years of my christian walk i saw miracles that would literally blow this generation's minds i literally would watch guys and i'm the assistant to the pastor so i know this isn't phony i'm watching people walk in with red and white canes who cannot see at all and they walk out seeing i watch an ambulance pull up guys got 24 hours left to live paramedics wheel them down on a gurney with all the ivs on them and the guy gets healed instantly and pushes the gurney out we have a wall that has crutches canes and wheelchairs the grand wizard the klu Klux Klan sitting in our service just on a typical sunday night my pastor's walking down the aisle reads the guy's mail he had a gun under his seat he was going to kill himself that night if god wouldn't reel and didn't show himself he got saved i'll preach with him in prisons together he and i preach together after he got saved the guy's amazing jesus appeared in one of our services with two angels 800 people saw him on the on the on that balcony and when he disappeared he left an imprint of his face on the wall eight feet tall six feet wide and it stayed on the wall for a year and a half and gradually phased phased out i thought this is just christianity right but god spoke to me in the middle of this and he said this i've given my church a thimble full of my power to see how she'll handle it we didn't handle it well to see if she'll market it make money off of it use it to draw attention to herself use it to pull people to follow me we didn't handle it well so god said i'm going to bring her into a wilderness and we've been in that wilderness now for over 30 years and god showed me we're about to come out in the next next time period i mean it's not long but then he showed me something he said the greatest attack against you comes at the very end of your wilderness if you look at david he's in the desert for 12 years but it was the last couple days right before he's anointed king is hebron is when the amalekites stole everything of value of he and the 600 men stole their wives kidnapped their wives and children and now the last 600 people on the earth that believed in david wanted to kill him but he didn't faint if you look at jesus he goes into the wilderness filled with the spirit but he comes out in the power he's tempted by the devil for 40 days but the real heavy temptations happened at the very end the ones that were recorded in the bible the greatest attack against you comes against at the very end and god showed me he said son the sons of isekur understood the time so they knew what israel ought to do the bible tells us there is a purpose for every season you know i live in colorado i'm gonna close it with this people come to colorado right they love to ski they get the snowboard to get their skis whatever they're doing right they got all their snow gear they got their helmet their goggles they right they're so excited to get on the chairlift they go to the top of the mountain and they get off the chair lift and fall flat on their face why because it's summer they did the wrong thing in the wrong season what they should have had is a mountain bike there is a purpose for every season if you don't understand the purpose you don't know what to do and god showed me that strength in my people because i can't you can't afford any of us to lose our harvest we need you to not be like joseph's generation we need to be like joshua's generation because everyone completed their destiny and joshua was just generation except one guy named akon that's what i'm believing for did you get something out of this tonight did you get something out of this tonight i want every head bowed i want every head bowed i want every eye closed i want every head bowed every eye i'm talking to leaders tonight but i need you to be honest and not fool yourself i'm so glad you listened to my counseling appointment but now can you apply it to you some of you in here you're in the fire and you've been complaining some of you have been a little passive aggressive with god you're like why should i obey what good has it done me oh man it was so beautifully spoken i couldn't have thought of a better excitation than pastor lee gave i was in awe let me tell you all the prodigal had to do is just have a change of heart and say i've been so stupid what i've been doing and his father came running for him bearing gifts i'm not here to put shame on you at all i'm here to get you out of the behavior is keeping you from your glory that he has created you for if you say john i've been complaining maybe it's in your heart some of you it's with your mouth or some of you have gone to the point where you're passive aggressive and disobeying i want to give you a chance to repent that beautiful word called repent if that's you and you say john that's me you've identified me in any of those three areas i want you to just raise your hand up high right now just want you to be on wow look at all the hands okay if your hands raise only if your hands raise stand your feet i want to pray for you i've gone just a couple minutes over time and i believe the holy spirit can do a work right there where you're standing i don't need to bring you down i want you to just close your eyes and i want you to just put your hands up as a sign of absolute total surrender if you could see the face of jesus right now you would not see a disgusted look you would not see angry eyes you would see the biggest smile the most joyful eyes he is so delighted with your humility and your faith there's been reasons you've been complaining there's been reasons that you've even disobeyed but you realize tonight your response has been wrong and you're admitting it and he knows now the flood of blessing that will come there's no shame there's no guilt no condemnation that father came bringing gifts that father was celebrating that father as pastor liso beautifully said said let me walk you to the house and let me show you all i have for you that's what he's going to do with you tonight do you see his arms i see him do you see jesus's arms just close your eyes look at your heart look in your heart his arms are wide open and he he's ready to embrace embrace you not only does he have that smile the joy in his eyes but i see his arms out and i want you to say this to him from the depths of your heart dear father in heaven say it out loud dear father in heaven thank you for speaking to me tonight through your servant i realize that i have acted very unwisely but i've sinned against you by complaining even by disobeying and for this i'm so deeply sorry i ask you to forgive me and i ask that you would cleanse me with the blood of jesus for i've made the decision already to turn from this behavior and i will be faithful to you no matter how long it takes for your personal promises to manifest in my life i will stay faithful i will stay on your course i will hold fast to your word thank you for empowering me with your grace to walk a life that brings you glory and honor and jesus name just keep your hands up put put them up one more time one more time that's the presence of god right there there he is right there let's everybody stand just lift up your hands just for a moment here because he's here i want you to just i want you to whisper to him nothing fake nothing religious just say something to him that's it there's his presence again it's beautiful there's no condemnation in that presence there's no guilt there's no shame there's nothing but pure love father thank you so much thank him and let's give him praise come on amen