 In the book of Malachi chapter 3, we are once again talking about the baptism of fire. It says here, But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like laundry's soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver. That they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness. God Almighty's likens our relationship to him with a goldsmith's relationship to gold. And I'm going to share with you quickly for those of us who don't know exactly how that works. When a goldsmith comes and gold comes to him, it's in a raw form and the gold comes and the goldsmith needs to attend to this gold, to refine it, to purge it so that it can be pure. The goldsmith first of all has to put up the heat. He puts the gold on top of fire and the fire is so hot that the gold changes from a solid form to a liquid form. When that gold changes to a liquid form, he increases the heat even more so that every impurity that was in that gold will rise to the surface. This is deliverance. This is so similar to how deliverance works. When the fire of God comes, the impurities come up to the surface. And the goldsmith cleans and wipes off all the impurities from the top of the gold. And do you know how a goldsmith knows that this gold has now been refined? I have now finished my work with this gold. It has now been purified and can be used as gold should be used. He bends over into what he has been working on. He looks down and he sees his own perfect reflection. This is deliverance. This is why we are delivered. We are delivered for the reflection of Jesus Christ to shine through our hearts, to shine through our lives, so that when we go out, people look at us and say, wow, what's so different with you? What is going on in your life? It's Jesus. Jesus has refined me. And it's not until Jesus refines us. It's not until the goldsmith refines the gold that he can put it and pour it into molds and use it as he likes. And he will say, this piece of gold, it was once dirty and unpurified. Now it's pure. Let me pour it into my mold and make a jewelry out of it. Let me make a ring out of it. Let me use this to create this thing out of gold. That is deliverance. God Almighty can't use us at our fullest potential until a refiner's fire goes through our life. That is why we are here, so that we can be raised up to deliver others, to show the reflection of Jesus Christ in our life and say, yes, I was once like that, but now I am my fullest potential. Now I am gold for the glory of Jesus Christ, hallelujah. We are coming to the end of this sermon. I need to still touch on one area, and that is the post-deliverance. In the book of John 5.14 and many other places, it says that after your deliverance, you still need to work on your journey with Jesus. The biggest change for me after my deliverance, it was, in fact, when I received my deliverance, I thought that I would never have another nightmare. That was genuinely what I thought. I thought that now it's going to be a perfect life, and I'm going to be in heaven on earth. But you know what happened? After my deliverance, shortly after that, I still had another nightmare. You know what the biggest difference was? That nightmare was not coming from inside. The thief was now outside making noise, telling me that that dream, it still has power over you. But when I woke up, I realized these nightmares that has caused depression, these nightmares that have caused anxiety, these nightmares that have caused me to have emotional tendencies, it's gone. It's just an empty shell. That is the biggest difference. When you receive deliverance, attacks may still come, issues and situations will still come. But as long as we keep going and follow Jesus Christ, he's going to see us through. In the book of Mark 10, it says that when blind batimus received his sight, he immediately followed Jesus on the way. When you receive your deliverance, you need to take a step and follow Jesus on the way. If you keep standing still, it's like on a treadmill, you're going to go backwards. You need to keep walking, keep moving, because the hardest target for the devil to hit is a moving target. And if you cannot follow Jesus Christ physically, because he's no longer around, follow people that follow Jesus. Find a living church, find people around you that have come further than you. They can encourage your faith. You cannot go one day without relating with a brother or sister in Christ and say, this is the issue at work, it's tough. People are not encouraging my faith. And they are there to help you, to mentor you and tell you, well, this is what Jesus says. One last thing that I want to touch on before we go into prayer. It is the fact that when we receive our deliverance and we walk with Jesus Christ, it's going to be rough from the beginning. Many times we take small steps and we're learning and we fall and we get back up. But at some point in our life, we begin to walk by ourselves. Jesus is leading and we are following in his footsteps. From time to time, the devil will come and he will strike you down. You fall down on your knees. You are struggling with guilt. You're struggling with shame. You're struggling with, does Jesus still love me? And the devil is counting down. He's saying, yes, I got him down. I brought him down. He's no longer walking on his path with Jesus Christ. You know what the Bible says? The Bible says for you and I as Christians, here is where we are strong. This is where we are the strongest on our knees. Whatever happens in your life, mistakes come, you may do things that you think God can never forgive. Wow, I was delivered from that exact thing and I did the exact thing again. Back to your knees. Back to your knees. This is where Jesus Christ will help us. This is where Jesus Christ will come and meet us. As long as we come to him and say, I don't give up, I messed up, but I'm here again, God. I know I messed up, but I'm coming to you again, God. As long as we come back to our knees, he's going to pick us up. This is the strongest position that we have as a Christian. Hey guys, just want to say thank you for being a part of our amazing life group today. I just want to let you know that this June 28th through 29th, we're going to have our Freedom Weekend and I really, really encourage every single person to sign up today and be a part of that amazing weekend. You will never regret that decision.