 Good morning brothers. So good to see you with my glasses on. I'm never going to live that one down. I know. Amazing week so far. Praise be to God. I don't know about you, but when it started right at the beginning with with Bishop Scott for me, I sat there and I listened as he began to just challenge us with this idea that we have, we've moved to a place in ministry where we are managing Jesus. The minute he said that, I was like, okay, you've got my attention. And then he began to expound on regaining a new understanding of who the Lord is and remembering who he is. And he went into the litany, remember? He started describing the Lord and all the things that he had done and not just things a little way, but all the way and just one after the other. He just kept going to scripture reference, scripture reference, scripture reference. And the more he kept expounding and listing each of those individuals, incidences, my heart just began to go yes, yes, I felt this huge fire beginning to just burn in my heart. And then the same thing again this morning when he was preaching, man, have that Holy Spirit coming out like that and just igniting the hearts just because he was proclaiming truth for me was just a very profound experience. And that was just the beginning, but it was a great way to start. But I got to be honest with you, when I started and I heard him, everything in me wanted to say yes, yes, I want to take that vision. Yes, I want to believe that Jesus did all those. And yes, I really do believe, but immediately, I mean, immediately the enemy began to start working. Immediately came and said, come on now, you really can't, you can't buy into all of this. You can't go back to your parish and in your ministry and actually begin to live as if this is real. Can you? I mean, what will the people think? I mean, if you actually, are you really prepared to throw yourself out there like this? Are you really prepared to die on that sword? Are you really ready to go out there and show the world that you really believe that Jesus is real? No, no way. What will your parishioners think? I mean, if you put yourself out there and you really begin to start proclaiming truth, what are people going to think? I mean, it's tough enough coming to a Steubenville PDS conference when you look at each other and the temptation is to immediately measure and judge each other. I know that happens, because I experience it. So how could we do that? I mean, really, we can't really put, I mean, I can't really put myself out there in this talk. I mean, what will Franciscan think? They may not ask me back, which I'm sure they've been tempted numerous times. I was talking with someone back in the sacrament, in the sacristy offices back here, the chapel offices, and I said, you know, given the 20 year history that I have here now, pretty much 22 years, I think half of the rules placed on conferences are because of things that I have done and cause so much trouble for Dave. And I wasn't trying to break rules. I was just like, this would be really cool if we could do this. And then they're sitting there going, Ralph, but I'll be honest, I was convicted in terms of realizing that the moment, the moment I dared to believe that we could jump out there and put ourselves out there and actually be men of the Word of God. The moment I began to doubt. So there's this profound truth that this wise priest taught me that I want to share with you. It's something that's become a very powerful part of the ministry that I'm blessed to be able to do. He said to me, Ralph, the anointing of God is always in the tension. The anointing of God is always in the tension, the tension of doubt, the tension that makes us begin to wrestle with, well, what's going to happen if I really put myself out there? If I really do believe everything that the bishop was proclaiming about Jesus Christ, everything the Word of God says, and I begin to live that discipleship, what's going to happen? And it just becomes too easy to say, yeah, yeah, no, better safe than sorry. Why does that happen? Why are we so quick to go down that road instead of taking this road? I mean, this is a, this is a beastie road we've gotten this week. This is a kick button, take no prisoners kind of road because you know why? Because he's proclaiming a God who calls commands, commissions, empowers us to go and simply live that. Why do we soften it? Why do we shield away? Why do we want to say it, but know that if we do the moment it comes out of our mouths, we're in trouble. At least we perceive to be in trouble. I'll tell you one story. I went to a parish and I'm basically a full-time missionary evangelist. I do a lot of parish missions and retreats and staff retreats and stuff like that. But I was at this one parish and I won't tell you where, but it's a small town out in the middle of nowhere, single Catholic church. I come in and I preach the weekend homilies and it's time for communion and I'm at my station and I start distributing communion. And the moment I, this woman walks up to me and I go, body of Christ, she goes, amen. And this minute she was done, I experienced, I'm grabbing the next toast, but in my mind I'm going, what the, was that? Body of Christ, body of Christ. And I keep going through and through the rest of the people in my line, five more women came up, body of Christ, amen. That was Saturday night. Go to bed praying that night, but what was going on? What is happening? No word yet. No, no description, no nothing. The Lord is just quiet. So I'm just praying, lifting this up, Lord. Obviously, you're, you're allowing me to sense something. You're something here. So Lord, show me what you want me to see. What's going on? Next person comes up, Sunday morning, two more masses, five women, first mass, same thing. Second mass, six more women. Now I'm like, okay, you really got my attention, Lord. Now I'm praying in the afternoon because I start the mission Sunday night. Now the pastor decided he was, he was going to take the afternoon off and he wasn't going to show up until just before it begins, which is fine. It's good. I'm glad he's taking a break, but I'm in the midst of prayer. And, and I'm like, Lord, what is going on? What, what is happening? And then he finally responds. I mean, prayer and he responds and he says, Ralph, the spirit of incest is in control of this town and this church. The men are sexually, incestually abusing the women. What do you do with that? Really? Oh good. Let me just go tell everyone. Hi. Do you, do you know that there's a spirit of incest and control of your parish? I mean, yeah, could you imagine? Like, yeah, sure. Great. So anyway, I'm praying. I can like, okay, that's all he told me. So I went on and I, I, I just began my mission night. I was preaching my mission and just kind of listening, Lord, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to say? And I'm going through the whole process. And then next thing you know, the Lord says, proclaim it. Now, I haven't had a chance to talk to the pastor. So what's the enemy doing? Oh, you can't do that. Are you kidding me? You're going to do this and the pastor has no idea that you're, that you're going to, sure. Yeah. He's going to throw you out after tonight. Because what's he going to do? What would you do if I did that at your church? I know what you're all thinking. Note to self, do not ever invite Deacon Rao to your parish. Oh, hell no. Right? Because that's what's going on. And I'm sitting here thinking, oh no, you can't do that. The pastor has no clue. You could never do that. Proclaim it. But Lord, now, now I have a history with the Lord asking me to proclaim things because that's how my porn addiction came to light with me proclaiming it to my youth group on a retreat. So I learned my lesson that time when the Lord says, proclaim it, I don't argue with God anymore. But understand what happens when that puppy goes out, you can't get that in. And I have no clue what God is going to do. And I'll be honest, I was really afraid, but I'm not going to mess with God and telling him, no, I don't think that's a good idea. God, look, really, I don't think that's a good idea. And Lord, I'm not feeling really comfortable about going this route. Could we try something else? Like proclaim it. Now, with a very strong authoritative voice as you know, God does. So I said, you know, I usually don't do stuff like this, but I just wanted you to tell you, I have never experienced the spirit of incest in a church as strong as I've experienced it here. Gone. And then I just jumped back into everything else that I was doing because that night was proclaiming Jesus Christ. I was obedient. And I did what the Lord told me to do. And that was it. So I just kept going on with the charisma. And then we did an altar call. And some people came to know the Lord. And then we did like, you know, sometimes they do socials afterwards, a little coffee and you can't make this stuff up. So I'm there and I'm sitting there with them. And one by one, you know, people are getting coffee or a little punch and cookies and stuff. And I've got coffee and randomly people start coming up to me, particularly the women one on one without making sure anybody else is around. First woman comes up to me and goes, Deacon Ralph, I want you to know that what you shared about incest tonight was absolutely right. We are hurting here. She was gone, took a couple more people, next woman came up, next woman came up, total confirmation. So I just kept going through the mission, you know, because you show up, you kind of have an idea of what you're doing. Until the Lord tells you to do something, then you realize you are not in control anymore. The days of managing God at this point are gone because God has a divine appointment with this community. And he picked me to be the guy that's going to be the one there. That could be any one of us. And so I'm sitting there. And finally, as we're praying for the last night, we're going through, we did a night on spiritual warfare, we did a night on the Holy Spirit. And the night that I thought we were going to have was nothing like we had. I showed up ready to go and the Lord like he's done so many times. I got up to here to get the talk and he took a left turn. And now I'm just following. But here's what the night ended up like. I told the man, I said, you need to make a decision whether or not this church and you and your families are going to stand for Jesus Christ. And if you are brothers, it's going to cost you first. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to invite all the men to come up. The Lord is in the blessed sacrament. We didn't bring him out and put him on the altar. He's in the blessed sacrament. And this was one of those churches that kind of has elevated levels of, you know, where the sacrament is up high and there's a couple more steps and they're there. And I said, what I'd like each of you men to do is if you're willing to go there, I'll show you how to break this hold on your parish. But you've got to decide and you need to do it tonight. So brothers, I want you to get out of your pews and I want you to get as close to Jesus as possible and I will lead you in a renouncing prayer of the spirit of incest and we're going to keep this sucker out of your church. Brothers, are you ready to go there? And without a response, they started getting up and they all moved over and I'm standing over here to the side kind of towards the Lord, but the entire sanctuary was filled with men, kneeling. And I said, brothers, are you ready? Yes. And I'd like you to bring all your sins to the Lord right now. You bring them and you say them in silent prayer and as I'm looking at them bowing their heads, I'm starting to see tears of men and I'm looking out in the audience and every woman's eyes are crying. They are weeping, deep weeps, deep weeps as the spirit begins to start moving through and starts cleansing their hearts and starts doing radical work on the men, radical work. I couldn't believe what I was watching, but the Lord was showing up and he had a divine appointment with that church. He heard the prayers of his women, his daughters who were suffering greatly because of the power of the men that was being twisted and misused for the glory of Satan and the whole church knew it and the church would do nothing until that night. That church radically changed as you can imagine that night. The lightheartedness of the men, the freedom, and I imagine, Father, I come in, I stir the pot and then I leave. You're welcome. But Father, I suspect had like non-stop confessions after that because I encouraged them. I said, this was great that you brought your sins before the Lord, but you need to make sure you got to get to confession and you need to get rid of all of this stuff and cut the chains. Cut the chains, close the doors, don't let these suckers back in because if they come back, you know it's going to be even stronger. What kind of God do we serve? I believe, brothers, that if you're very much like me, when we were younger, we grew up and we didn't know anything about the spiritual realm as little kids, although maybe as kids we could see spirits and demons. You hear stories about that, you know, angels. But one of the things I think that happens to us as a kid is that when we go through a difficult or painful or scary thing in our lives, it doesn't even have to be necessarily traumatic, but scary. A voice saddles up next to us, a spirit, the spirit of fear. And that spirit of fear comes and says, oh yeah, yeah, no, no, no, that was really scary. Yeah, yeah. We don't ever want to be put in this situation again. So you listen to me and I'll take care of you. I'll protect you. And it is a voice that always brings alarm to us. It's a voice that tells us, be careful. No, we can't go there. No, we can't do this. And the problem is, is that as we've grown up in this world, apart from God, learning about God, then drawing close to God, is that that voice is still there. But we've grown accustomed to that voice. We've grown accustomed to making that voice, that spirit, a spirit of counsel, a counseling spirit, a spirit who gives us counsel on what we should do about any given thing. And our problem is, is that we're in this really serious battle between learning to hear the voice of God and the spirit of counsel, which is the spirit of fear. I know the church doesn't teach this, but I do. I'll tell people, you know, the Catholic church doesn't say this definitively, but I really believe, you know how we have guardian angels? We have a guardian angel assigned to us. I believe we have a demon assigned to us. And if that's not true, then at least let me say that the demon that hangs out around me knows me really, really well. He knows what buttons to push. He knows exactly what things to do. He knows how to send me on a tailspin. He knows exactly how to do those things. And I'm so accustomed to hearing that voice, that that is the voice that I trust is where maybe some of our problems lie. We are not accustomed to learning and knowing the voice of the Lord yet. Jesus told us we cannot see the kingdom of God when he was talking to Nicodemus, unless we are born of a spirit. But if to be born of a spirit means that we are awakened to the spiritual realm like Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. When he talks about no one knows the mind of God except the spirit that is within God, and therefore no one knows the mind of an individual. So we were given the Holy Spirit so that we might know the ways and understand the ways of God. It is impossible to see or know or hear the spiritual realm of God without the Holy Spirit. It cannot be done. Those aren't my words. Those are the Lord's. But then the Lord goes a step deeper with Nicodemus and says no one can enter the kingdom without being born of water and spirit. We know water is baptism. But do you know what I'm surprised as I go out and I teach that? Most people don't understand that baptism is our death. We die of baptism. Isn't that true? I have been crucified with Christ, Paul says. The life I live is no longer my own. It is Christ that lives in me because he loved me and gave himself for me. So I'm dead. I unite myself to Christ's death on the cross so that I might be united with him in his resurrection. Isn't that what we profess to believe? I mean, isn't that what the truth that the bishop was telling us about who Jesus is, is all about? Isn't that where the hope is? But then why don't we live it? Why don't we live like we're dead? Because if we're dead, what are we worried about? For real. I'm just asking. And then if we're born of the Spirit, not only are we dead, but now we're alive in Christ in the Spirit, and we're now given access to see what God is doing. We start beginning to perceive stuff. I mean, that's how it happened. I had a baptism in the Holy Spirit, and I had the Holy Spirit come upon me on my conversion day, the day that I found Jesus. And then later on, I had a formal praying, laying on of hands, and I was given the gift of prophecy. But there are other gifts that have been developing, and have become to realize that the Holy Spirit isn't going to give you everything right now. He only gives you what you need for the call that he gives you at any given moment in any time, at usually the time you need it. I didn't need to know and be sensitive to sermon of spirits until a woman came up to me and she was bound in a spirit of incest. But I didn't know I had that gift. The Lord gives you what you need when you need it. So when we go through life in the Spirit Seminars, sometimes we're sitting here thinking, well, there was no bells and whistles. There was no bangs. There was no booms. Just wait. Just wait. Because the day is going to come when you die to self and you take on and live for Christ in His Word, when we do that, all of a sudden, things start to happen and change. We change, which is really what has to happen. We change. And when we change, people watch us. And then they say, you got something that I want, and I want that, and I don't even know what it is. We change. What does that look like? What does it change like that look like? Let me give you this fun story because we've been talking about doing Lectio Divina. So let's do some Lectio Divina, shall we? Let me take you to a scripture passage. You know it very well. We're going to go to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 14, verse starting at verse 22. You know the story? The title there says, Jesus Walking on Water. It's one of my favorite passages. I've been chewing on this for three years. Because there's something here we are missing as a church. And it has to do with this fear thing, huge fear thing. So it says, I got bigger print on here so I can read it, but I'll use my glasses. Immediately, He made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side. This is, they just finished feeding the 5,000. Remember what Jesus does there, by the way? In case you're ever wondering like, who am I? I got nothing. I'm just a lowly hobbit deacon. What do I have to offer? What does Jesus do? The crowd, the apostles come to Him. We got to send these people away because they're hungry. And Jesus says, you feed them. 300 days wages won't be enough to feed this crowd. Give me what you have. We got five loaves and two fish, but what can we do with that? Because this is the Jesus the Bishop was telling us about, right? People have no clue who I am. Give me what you got. You give me what you have, brothers, and I will feed thousands of people. Quit telling me you got nothing just to give me what you have. And if you give me what you have, we can feed thousands. So then He sends them on the boat. You guys go ahead. I'll catch up. Can you imagine if you're one of the apostles like, well, if we take the boat, Lord, how are you going to get there? I'm just trying to, again, put myself in. I'm trying to think like one of the apostles. I wouldn't say it to him. I'd probably mumbling to a brother. Do you know how he's going to get there? Because he said he's going to catch up. Okay. He tells us, he orders us, it's getting the boat, we go, and you know the story. After you dismiss the crowds, Lord went up to the mountain by himself to pray. Another big clue right there. When the evening came, he was there alone. But let's just understand that Jesus sent him in the boat because he had a divine appointment for them. He wanted to give them something precious, something extremely valuable that they desperately needed because, frankly, we all desperately needed. So he sent them on the head. But by this time, the boat battered by the waves was far from land for the wind was against them. And early in the morning, he came walking on the sea. Now, we got to stop for a second and just kind of connect the dots because, you know, we can, we can always be brutal on the apostles and say, you guys are stupid. I mean, I can't believe, hello, of course, it was Jesus. But if we were out there on the water with them, most of us, a bunch of us would be fishermen. And we've lived all our lives like we have today in the 21st century, according to what God created in the midst of creation. He created natural law. And there are laws, laws, rules that dictate and guide how our existence works. And a bunch of those guys are fishermen. Many of them have jumped over the gunnel of a boat and jumped into the water. And every single time to the every chance they had to do it, every time they jumped over the gunnel, they always went into the water. Why? Because natural law teaches that the buoyancy of water cannot sustain the weight of a man. It is impossible. So the guys are being tossed back and forth on the sea, and all of a sudden they see Jesus walking out on the water to him. They see him, but he's so far away, they're not quite sure it's dark, right? Maybe the moon's out, maybe it's not, but the waves are coming. By the way, just for fun, because we're, you know, trying to put ourselves into the text. When they see Jesus walking on the water and because the boat is being tossed by the winds, yes? So what's the waves like? Is it a nice, calm, glassy sea? No, the winds are like, you know, moving like, so is Jesus like going like when he was walking on one of those big moons, right? Is that what Jesus is doing? Or is he walking flat, calm? I mean, it doesn't say it. We have to into it into the text. What do you think? Brandstorm with me? What do you think? Is he bouncing? His water's calm. At least that would be the impression, right? So the apostles are in the boat and they're watching Jesus walking on calm water. What the... is going on, right? How is this unbelievable? How is this happening? But they know that it is impossible to walk on water. See, here's the part that I think we're missing. Is it, yes, Jesus is a man born of Mary, we know, but he's God. He's everything that the bishop was talking about. He's accomplished all those things. He is everything. In fact, he's the one who created natural law so he can do anything he wants. That's why we call him supernatural. We call him supernatural, but do we live our lives like he actually is? Do we really live our lives like God really has the ability to command us to go do something radical and then watch him feed the thousands? Because I think that the people don't see God because we're afraid. We're afraid to go out there with him. He's already out there because he said he'd never leave you or forsake you. So what do they do? According to natural law, it must be a ghost. It's a ghost, but the Lord speaks to them, right? Disciples saw him walking on the sea and they were terrified saying it is a ghost and they cried out in fear. There's that voice again. Who are they paying attention to? They just saw Jesus feed 5,000 people, but yet they pay attention to the voice of fear. So Jesus comes and, but immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, take heart. It is I. Do not be a see there's something to this, isn't there? There's something to knowing the truth, the correlation between knowing the truth, our experience of fear and now Jesus moving into the realm of our lives and we're having a tough time reconciling how do we live supernaturally in the natural world and why is it so hard to do so? But Jesus immediately speaks and says, do not fear. Peter is the one who connects the dots. And it says, you know, the title, it says Jesus walks on water. But to me, I think the greater amazing part of this is not Jesus. We could expect that from him like he's God. But Peter, Peter's the one that I've been zeroing in on because man, I wish, you know, I know the Lord told him, you have a little save, but I wish I had that faith because Peter sitting here and he connects the dots. We just left the Lord earlier this evening and he fed 5000 people and he's just walking on the water and I heard his voice and dog gone and it doesn't sound like Jesus. So obviously, if Jesus can walk on the water, then Jesus can make me walk on the water. Now, how does he respond? Master, if it is you, Lord, if it is you, he says, command me to come out to you on the water. Interesting choice of words. Command. Why did he say, ask me to come out on the water? Remember what I said the other night? When the Lord commands, he always provides. Command me to come out on the water. Now, for fun, if you were one of the 12 apostles on the boat, what would you say to Peter at that point? Come on, just for fun. Are you nuts? Good luck. What else? What? Yeah, right. Can I have your cloak? What would you, what would you be thinking if you were one of the 12 on that moment and Peter says, command me to come out of the water onto you? I know, right? Give me some of that. We'd all be on the edge of the boat. What are you, stupid? Come on, Peter, you know, we've all been bouncing. We've all gone over the rail. We all know that we go over the water. It doesn't hold us. But then Jesus responds and what did you say? Come. So here's the point, brothers. In Peter's life, he gets to this point where all of a sudden he is like on the edge of the gunnel and the boats bouncing up and down and Jesus is standing calm and it's right here at this moment. We've heard the truth this week. We could say we know the truth and we certainly say we believe it is true. But there's a huge difference between saying we believe and actually be living. It's true and it's that moment where we're sitting on the edge of the gunnel of the boat where we make that decision. Do I go? I mean, you're feeling everything the boat's feeling. Satan's doing everything he's doing to you. You're crazy. You're going to go into water. Risk will not work. This could never work. This is going to blow up in your face. We're not. You could even die because the boat could just be blown away and we don't know how to find you. It's dark out there. All these different things that could come. Satan will give you a bazillion reasons why you should not do it. That voice will tell you don't do it. And then comes the moment of where the rubber meets the road. And here's the crux. Like here's the thing that I've really been kind of praying through all week. Because this is what I've been struggling with. Another place in the gospel. Jesus after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Jesus meets the apostles the first time, right? Only Thomas isn't there. And then the apostles, a brother of Thomas, come to him and say, we saw the Lord and you know the story. Thomas says, unless I can put my fingers, right? You know the story. So Jesus shows up the next time and Thomas is in a room and there's an interesting dialogue between Thomas and Jesus. We know that Jesus told the apostles three times that he was going to go to Jerusalem and he was going to die, but he was going to rise again three times. Guys, don't freak out. I'm going to die, but I'm going to come back. Okay. I'm telling you this so that you'll know when it happens. Thomas makes a decision with the gift he's been given with his free will. Thomas chooses to stick with natural law and not with the word of God. I, he says, will not believe unless you give me the empirical evidence that he's living. Otherwise, natural law still remains my truth. And so Peter, our Jesus walks in and he does, he peace be with you like he does in the group, right? Doors are locked. He's walking through walls. I can't wait to ask questions about that. But he walks through the door, the locked door comes in and immediately walks up to Thomas. There you go. Confronts Thomas directly because he knows Thomas is doing now something that he needs to correct right away and it's something that needs to be corrected in us. Come see, put your hand on my side and then he gives him a command and stop unbelieving. Stop. You have a choice. You have a choice to stand on my word or you have a choice to hold on to natural law, which is what you've grown up and you're most comfortable with. Yes, I know my word is uncomfortable and it should be. It should be because the world is not living the way I created it to live. What you understand is truth is twisted from the beginning and needs to be rectified and I'm here to do that. But that is the problem is that each and every one of us in our own lives are being put in our proverbial edge of the boat and we got to decide he says, come am I going to go or not? The boat's bouncing. We're experiencing in our lives like what Dave was talking in his talk when he when he decided to have the kids come back to campus and the whole world is telling them you are nuts and stupid. You're so like you don't care about these kids and all these different things that the enemy is doing. You're being tossed about, tossed about, but Jesus says, come what does the word say to do? Come and Peter makes the decision and he jumps. Now here's the cool thing is I'm sitting here imagining this. He jumps, lands on the water. What's the boat doing behind him? And Peter is going, what's up bros? And he starts to walk. Now we know the story and most people when they look at this text they're looking at when Peter takes his eyes off of Lord because that's what everybody eats a great part to teach. Take your eyes off the Lord and you're sick. We've heard that one but to me that's not the critical piece. See Jesus was far enough away that in the crowd they couldn't quite tell that it was him. It's not like if it was this close you'd be able to tell. Gosh he really is a physical Jesus there. They still can't tell so Peter had to walk far enough away from the boat and then it says that he took his eyes off Lord and he started to sink and it says that Jesus reached out and grabbed him so he had to have gone all the way to Jesus walking on the water before he started looking at the waves and then fell and Jesus caught him. All right so here's a question for you. It says Jesus caught him. What did he do with him? It doesn't say it in the text I want you to intuit with me. So the moment Jesus catches him he's like dangling in the water and Jesus has him above the water. How does Jesus get him back to the boat? Do you think that Jesus grabs him by the hand and just kind of drags him and goes I can't believe this guy and Peter's just like going or do you think that maybe he grabbed him by the hand and pulled him back up and then it says when they got back in the boat they walked together. Here's what I think. I think we proclaim that he's real but as the Lord allows us to enter into tests in our lives we struggle and fall back to natural law and in our weakness we diminish the truth. See here's the cool thing. When Peter chose to leave the boat and jump into the water his security was in Lord. What was the security of the other apostles? An inanimate object created by man. So we have to ask ourselves this question because it's a question we must bring to the people we call our call to minister to. What is your boat? What's your real security? Because if we're going to live the truth of baptism we've already died our lives belong to him so if we jump he said he'd catch us I'll never leave you or forsake you. He was already waiting on the water for Peter to come out and walk on water. Brothers I think we the church were created to walk on water. We just don't be living it but that is the healing. That's what we need. The healing that enables us to go back and listen to everything the bishop said and let that fire stoke up and then we we put on our ministry garb and we go out there and we open up a can of whoops something because we know that if the Lord commands us to go he always provides everything we need and remember what he said here's the other beautiful there's so many promises in the word of God. I promise to take all things and work them out for those who love me. So brothers he says take my mantle upon you. What's his mantle? It's a mantle of a relationship of love. Give me yours. Take mine on you and let us together go and you and I can feed thousands but I need you to decide Thomas. I need you to decide today. Either I am or I am not. I told you who I am. I am the great I am but you're hedging your bets. You're trying to keep yourself safe on one side thinking you can keep yourself safe on the other side and either you're going to draw the line and step across and come with me or you're going to stay in the boat. Now here's the other kicker. Remember the other day that and I'm just about done but remember the other day during the office of readings we got to read Gideon. Love rereading that. When I read it the Lord said pay attention to this because I want you to use this later. I'm like okay so I just started reading it's part of my reflections this week as well and Gideon was called to lead his people into blessing. The Midianites were attacking. They were being you know constantly just being run over because the Israelites had been in sin you know judges the cycle everything that goes on there but Gideon is called to go in and so what does the Lord do you know he says go to the people and you got way too many guys fighting you got like tens of thousands of guys yeah too many guys too many guys all right so go to the guys and ask the ones those of you men who are afraid to go into battle today raise your hands hypothetically saying right you guys go away isn't it interesting that when Gideon is getting ready to go into battle what does the Lord do the Lord says I will sift them for you still too many take your 10,000 men down to the stream drink by water right if they drink like an animal 300 of them those are the ones that are going to go fight near the animals right but here's what here's what he does now think of this put yourself in one of the 300 Gideon goes okay guys here's the plan we're going to go in we're going to we're going to attack these 5000 troops with 300 men so if you're one of the 300 you're like on but we just let 10,000 men go why would we do that I'd be asking questions like you know we'd be better with 10,000 I'm just going to say but what does he do he goes on and he's and and Gideon goes no don't worry don't worry we got a plan okay so here's what I want you guys to do drop your swords and your spears and your shields now come over here and out and I want each of you to grab a horn and a pot for real if you're one of the 300 you're like going okay what the hell is going on here this is this is not right but what Gideon does is he doesn't send 300 men into battle he says here's what's going to happen I'm going to go down to the edge of the camp I'm going to go down with my 100 we're 99 other guys and whatever you see me do you do and God will win the day brothers we have been called to lead our people into the blessing but we can't send them we must have the absolute assurance that God has our back remember what he did to get that assurance he put a fleece before the Lord but just to make sure that you're going to win for me let me put this fleece out and let the grass be dry and the fleece wet and then switch it around the fleece is wet and the grass is dry or however whatever the order was but he came back from there with absolute certainty that what God said he was going to do he did Jesus comes he says what he's going to do he does it we've been hearing Dr. Bergsma talking about Jesus said he was going to do this people said how can you proclaim that the Spirit of the Lord is upon you you're supposed to be able to that means you're forgiving sins and you can have power over demons and what does Jesus do he has power over demons he forgives sins he does everything that he said he was do everything he said he would do he did it all we must now do is decide are we going to do the faith of Thomas action or are we going to do the command of the Lord stop in your unbelief make the decision the choice to say from this day forward i choose to believe that he is the supernatural god that he is the creator that he is the redeemer that he is lord and king and i will then begin to do my ministry as if he's standing right next to me because he is that's what we need to do so wherever we are in the landscape of our lives what is it that we need most so that we can leave here this week and go home and light fires in our churches light bonfires why because we are a flame this is what we need to be crying out for this is the healing we need we need to be able to be men who stand in the gap and say here it comes because i think the church is going to wrestle with this for the next 15 years the baptism of the lord the baptism of the holy spirit is real and it is meant for us now why because without it we cannot stand and fight in the power of god as he commanded us to it's time for us runners to do a heart to heart with god and ask the holy spirit to come and to do the mighty interior work that needs to be done in every one of our hearts every one of us needs to be healed of faith why why because satan had to get adam and eve to commit and to be to doubt in god's goodness and his word before they would commit original sin this is the battleground it's within us it's with the demons right next to us who we need to turn around and go i rebuke you in the name of jesus christ and i claim the truth he has risen from the dead and you just need to go to hell i'm not going to listen to you anymore i renounce you spirit of evil i renounce you spirit of fear spirit of anxiousness whatever it is it's going on in that moment we can take authority over them and command them to go unless they are still our spirits of counsel and we won't let them down we will hold on to them and they're the ones who become on boats let's pray brothers