Victorious in Afflictions, Persecutions, Tribulations: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 Isaiah 18. Why God’s people are victorious in afflictions. We’re going to go to Isaiah chapter 43, verses 1 through 3, and we’re going to see there that God makes four statements. He directly makes four statements himself that explain, totally explain, why Christians are victorious in afflictions. Afflictions is misery, pain. And in the Bible, afflictions can come through sickness, poverty, persecution, acts of war, acts of God, or self-inflicted. How many you know, a lot of us go through our own afflictions, we self-inflict them. And so, but God’s people are going to be victorious in these things. Verse 1.

▶ 0:58 Number one, “Thus saith the Lord who,” number one, “created and formed you.” I created you. In the New Testament we call it being born again. “Anyone in Christ,” if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation, “all things are passed away, all things are made new.” Why? Because God personally comes to us when we come to him, and he births us by the Spirit and by the word, and we become a new creature, and therefore we can be victorious in afflictions. In Galatians 4:19, “I labor in birth again till Christ is formed in you.” You see, Jesus is forming us, and the Bible says in Corinthians that we come into the same image of Christ.

▶ 1:54 “By the Spirit of the Lord” we are changed, transformed, metamorphosed into the same image of Christ. See, he’s fashioning us into his image, not your pastors, not the great mighty man of God in the earth, but we are fashioned unto the likeness, the character of Jesus Christ. And so therefore we can handle afflictions when they come, pain and poverty, whatever, whatever faces us, we can handle it, be victorious, because he, number one, has created us, and he, number two, has fashioned us and formed us. Then he says the second reason is, “Fear not.” Don’t be afraid, “for I have redeemed you.” Now I remember when I first read the Bible through, and I came to Isaiah, I understood a little bit about chapter one, I didn’t understand beans till I got to Hezekiah

▶ 2:51 and the 185,000 getting killed, because I already read that in the book of Kings. But when I came to chapter 43, I understood that I needed this. I was going through things that I needed answers for, and this part of Isaiah just exploded to me. And uh, one of the things here, he not only formed us and created us, but he says, “Don’t be afraid, Dave. Don’t be afraid, church. I’ve redeemed you.” I’ve purchased you. Anyone that purchases something, when you purchase a car, you take care of it because it’s an investment for you. You purchase a gun, you take care of it, it’s an investment. You don’t lay it out in the rain, let it rust, and all that. You know, you take care of things. So God’s going to want to take care of us, he’s purchased us, we’re his property. Amen.

▶ 3:47 And that just really just ignited my, my spiritual growth when I was younger. “I have called you,” number three, “by your name. You are mine.” He, again, “I’ve redeemed you, you belong to me, you’re my property, and I have personally come to you, Dave Kincer, and revealed myself to you, drawn you to me. I personally called you by my name, Dave Kincer, come, come over to the kingdom of light.” Aren’t you glad God’s a personal God? Hallelujah. Yes, I belong to him. Satan is not my problem, the kingdom of darkness is not my problem, I belong to Jesus, and nobody’s big enough to mess with him. Number four, “When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers they shall not overflow you.” And this is what was happening in my first year of, of salvation. I was struggling

▶ 4:53 a lot of times because I didn’t understand things, and a lot of times because people didn’t want anything to do with me, uh, my old friends. After I changed, they left me, and I had to learn to let them go, and it was painful, I didn’t want to lose friends, but I had to make a choice. I had to keep serving God. And so I needed, I needed this verse, this chapter in Isaiah to confirm and ignite me as I went through these things. The waters is talking about, 1 Peter 3:20, “In the days of Noah, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure, baptism, now saves us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Now, when I was in China, I asked a lot of questions, and one of the questions I asked is how quick someone should be baptized, and over there they waited six months to a year to baptize them. Folks, that is not Bible.

▶ 6:05 And a lot of people teach that baptism has nothing to do with salvation. This verse tells you different. Let’s read it again. “In the days of Noah, eight souls were saved by,” what? Water. “In like model and like example, baptism. Water baptism now,” what? “Now saves us.” How can you tell me that baptism has nothing to do with salvation? Did John the Baptist say, “Repent and be baptized for the remission of sin”? Were there two things that needed to be done? Yes. Jesus, when he came along, did he say, “Repent and be baptized for the remission of sin”? Two things had to be done, and he added one thing to it: “I believe the gospel.” Do we need to believe the gospel, trust in the gospel? Yes. You see, people will defend their denominational doctrine above scriptural truth.

▶ 7:18 And so, and water baptism is just as important as the sinner’s prayer. You ask God to repent, and then you get baptized, bam. And so I had a big debate with him all the time over there about water baptism. I said, “You’re robbing the people. You are robbing the people with your ignorance of the Scripture. Baptism is a powerful work.” Now, in this scripture he’s talking about “not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Christ.” He’s talking about coming out of the water, the resurrection of Christ, we have a good conscience. And see, I understood as a young Christian that water baptism was my signature on the contract, and Jesus’s signature on the contract, the new covenant. And so when I went through anything, I could go back to my baptism and I could say, “No, God’s going to finish the good work he began in me. God’s gonna, he’s gonna keep forgiving me, he’s going to keep cleansing me, I am going to make it, because I’ve been water baptized, I put my signature on the contract, and he always keeps his word.” Can I hear an amen? Water baptism is very important.

▶ 8:31 And that first year I was going through a struggle, Mike hit it last week, well, you know, the king of Egypt could come after, and he didn’t want him serving God even after he’d let him go, he still was after his people. And that’s what Satan did. “You had nothing really happened, you weren’t really born again, you know, you’re just making a fool out of yourself.” How many went through that as a young Christian? Man, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that only a few of us went through that. I know this book, and I know Satan, how he works. Now, the waters, of course, is talking about the Red Sea here, in Isaiah. Egypt was after them, they were afflicted in Egypt, okay, and “through the rivers” is talking about the river of Jordan, 40 years later they had to go through the river of Jordan. The Red Sea parted and they went through it, river of Jordan piled up in heaps in the north until Israel got across, and they were afflicted by the wilderness, and see, both baptisms delivered them from the affliction and the pain of what they had been going through.

▶ 9:48 Are you there? Hallelujah. And so I learned that. You know, these afflictions, they’re going to be, but God is going to deliver me out of every one of them, and I learned this in Isaiah, and then I found it all through the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians 10:1-2, “Our fathers were under the cloud, they passed through the Red Sea and were all baptized.” See, passing through the Red Sea is a model of water baptism. Noah’s judgment of water was an example of water baptism. Are you there? Water baptism is very important, and people that don’t get immediately baptized, they’re just missing it, and people that don’t believe that you need to get baptized

▶ 10:41 as part of your salvation plan, they are just wrong. So if you haven’t been baptized, I’d get baptized next Sunday. I’m serious. The thing that helped me, an old man in the Assembly God church led me to Christ, and he knew how to do it, took me right through the Scriptures. I knew what was happening, the power of God through the word that he was bringing to me and making me read delivered me. I got, say, I got born again that night, that load of sin went off of me that I didn’t even know I had. I didn’t know I had a burden of sin, it was gone. He said, “Son, you got to get baptized next Sunday.” “Well, okay, whatever.” What’s next? Whatever. The first thing was good, second thing, huh, whatever. I didn’t even, they didn’t even, they didn’t tell me what a baptism was. I tell people what baptism is so they understand. I got in that baptismal pool and the power of God came all over me, the presence of God just flooded me, but they didn’t teach, you know, other than tongue, some kind of, they didn’t teach you about the power and the presence of God.

▶ 11:51 But see, they came under the cloud, that’s the presence of God, and through the sea, the waters, the water baptism. The presence of God in water baptism is a powerful thing, church. And the Red Sea parting, the Bible says, was a model of water baptism. Hallelujah. And if nothing today, get your baptism doctrine right. You know, we pass on error to other people, we read error and we pass on error without really finding out and experiencing these powers in God, these principles. So, I’m delivered from the afflictions of sin. See,

▶ 12:43 Pharaoh, see, was the master, the slave master of Israel, afflicting them. They’re going through afflictions and pain and misery. Sin is also a slave master, and Jesus comes and delivers us from those slave masters, and part of it is not just being born again but being baptized. It’s a package. Could I hear an amen? “Let God be true and every man a liar.” Yeah, we need to get back to the Bible. All right, now, “When you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon you, for I am the Lord thy God.” Okay, now, Deuteronomy 4:20, “The Lord brought you out of the iron furnace.” Out of where? Who is the iron furnace? Egypt.

▶ 13:38 You see, that 400 years of affliction, that slave masters’ control over their life. He said, “I brought you out of the iron furnace,” a furnace is a place where there is a fire, right? “And I brought you out to be my people and my inheritance.” Isaiah 43:10, “Behold, I have,” 48:10, “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have tested you in the furnace of,” what? Affliction. So the furnace of affliction was this furnace in Egypt. Who had them in slavery? Who were making their lives miserable and caused them to call upon God to deliver them?

▶ 14:35 So plainly he’s talking about the afflictions of God’s people. Amen. And we can be victorious through afflictions because he created us, he formed us, he called us by our name specifically, and he gets us through these things, he redeemed us, we’re his property, and we’re going to get through these afflictions. I don’t care if it’s financial, physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, you’re going to get through, and you’re going to be victorious. Is that a good amen? Yes. And that just changed my life that day when I hit this verse. I didn’t understand the rest of it before that, but I sure got this one, and it really came at a good time in my life. Now,

▶ 15:31 1 Thessalonians 3:3, “No one should be shaken by these afflictions. You know that we are appointed to this.” We’re appointed to what? Afflictions. We’re appointed to what? Afflictions. Now, when I got saved, everybody was saying, “If you believe in Jesus, nothing’s going to happen to you. You’re going to roller skate right into him. You’re going to skate through life, no problem.” You know, a couple of weeks after being saved, I had more problems than I’d ever had before, because now I see who I really am. Are you there? I didn’t know I was so bad. I wasn’t murdering people and committing adultery and, uh, you know, joining gangs and all that, but you’re still bad. “There’s none righteous, no, not one.” You come into his life, man, I got a lot of changing to do. Isn’t that right? And see, if we really get born again, we get into this thing, this is exactly how it works. You just join a church, you don’t know beans, you just say a little mechanical sinner’s prayer, you got nothing, born again. Don’t ever laugh at it, people laugh at it, don’t let them laugh at it. That’s how we become a new creature. And I don’t care if you’re a Catholic, a Baptist, a Pentecostal, a Lutheran, a Jew, I don’t care what you are, you get born again, you’re going to become a new creature, old things are going to pass away and all things are going to [unclear], got nothing to do with denominationalism. Can I hear an amen?

▶ 16:57 Thank you. Psalm 34:19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” How many? Many. Man, they were teaching me wrong back there, the faith camp. They were just totally out of it. “You’re going to prosper and everything’s going to be, nothing bad is going to happen.” The other, read the life of Jesus. Did bad things happen to him? Do you ever read the life of the twelve apostles? Did bad things happen to them? Yeah. Were they afflicted? Yes. Paul said God delivered me out of all my affliction, and he lists them. I had, I had afflictions with, with robbers, that affliction with countrymen, I was, I was stoned twice, and I was, you know, been in jail and beaten in prison. He had all kinds of afflictions, but Paul said God delivered me. How? Out of how many? All of them. And you live for Christ and you really preach the gospel, and people will afflict you because you are a threat to them. They want to justify their low level of Christianity as a high level, and you get to a high level, they don’t like you because you exposed them.

▶ 18:11 Are you there? Conflicts. Now he’s going to deal with conflicts. Two conflicts here: conflicts of right and wrong, and the conflicts of right people doing wrong, contradictory. Isaiah 43:3, [unclear], “I gave Egypt for your ransom.” I gave Ethiopia, the nation just below Egypt, for your [unclear], and Seba, a province next to Egypt in Ethiopia, for your [unclear]. And remember, Moses married an Ethiopian woman when he was down in Egypt, so Ethiopians were prominent in Egypt, they were right next door, and they came over and they were part of the Egyptian population. Do you understand that? Okay.

▶ 19:03 Did God destroy Egypt? Did it kill a lot of people? Did he kill a lot of Egyptians? Yes, he did. “I will give men for you and people for your life.” Hallelujah. 2 Thessalonians 1:6, “It is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you.” Wow. Don’t mess with the church. The church that follows and pursues righteousness, not just a believer, and, and in China we met all kinds of people. We may have disagreements in other doctrines, but every one of them, Mr. [unclear] can attest to this, had that pursuit of righteousness. They had the high mark plan, and it was beautiful, right, Mr. [unclear]? It was beautiful. You know, we don’t have to agree on every jot and tittle, but we need to agree on Jesus Christ saving us from his sins, making us new creatures, and we pursue righteousness. Amen, that’s the thing. Now,

▶ 20:33 he goes on to say in Proverbs 28:4, “Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but to keep the law oppose them.” You say, “You don’t have to go out and witness door-to-door or anything.” That we need to, don’t get me wrong, but if you live your life for Christ, you’re going to be in conflict with those who don’t. You’re going to be in opposition, and I’m talking about believers also. Believers who don’t pursue the high mark of the calling of God, to love Jesus, which is keeping his commandments, doing right, they’re going to be in conflict with you. And so you live your life, you’re going to, all you have to do is go through the day, live in your life for Christ, and you’re going to be at war with the enemy. Isn’t that beautiful?

▶ 21:29 Hallelujah. Yeah, you may be too timid, like me, to share Christ with anybody. I broke that within a year, but, but you know, just living, just making that decision for Christ, you’re in conflict with people. Ah. Now, in Noah’s day, did God destroy the whole earth and save Noah? Did he give people that Noah might live? Are you out there? Okay. Job, was he afflicted? Yeah. Lot, did God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, kill all the inhabitants, babies, children, everyone

▶ 22:25 and delivered Lot to live? Yeah. Are you understanding this scripture? I’m telling you, there’s a time coming before Christ returns that this world is going to be shaken by the power of God and his jealousy for his church. And Isaiah is making this very plain. That’s why Christ isn’t coming today, that’s why he isn’t coming tomorrow, that’s why he isn’t coming when these people predict it. They don’t know when he’s coming, but he’s going to manifest himself before he comes, and he’s going to show the world his church is glorious. Hallelujah. Amen. And the people who want to harden their heart and all that, they’re going to pay, they’re going to pay a price. Okay, did he slay 185,000 Syrians

▶ 23:21 to deliver Jerusalem? Yes. Herod, did he smite Herod with worms? Yeah. Yeah. Did he smite the sorcerer on the island of Cyprus with blindness? Yes. Did he kill the Roman soldiers who had, was given the responsibility to watch Peter, and Peter was delivered by an angel? Were those soldiers killed? Church, we don’t have a skosh of an idea how much God loves us and what his [unclear] intention is for his [unclear]. But one day the world is going to have this. Hallelujah.

▶ 24:20 Don’t mess with the church. The church that is pursuing righteousness, I don’t care if they’re Catholics, I don’t care if they’re Protestant, I don’t care if they’re a Jew, if they’re pursuing Jesus and righteousness, don’t mess with them. They may not believe everything you believe, but those two things are the priority things. Could that be an amen? No. Then he says, “You are my witnesses.” A witness is an evidence, a witness is a person that experienced the event, they’re the proof that someone’s guilty or someone’s innocent. And in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, “You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be,” tongue-talkers. You shall be Baptists. You shall be Pentecostals.

▶ 25:17 You shall be Catholics. It’s not there. Why do we put that word in there? You shall be what? Witnesses. Proof that I’m real, proof that I can do what I set out to do, you are my proof. Hallelujah. And I speak in tongues, but that’s not the proof. 1 John 3:7, “Don’t be deceived, he who practices righteousness is,” what? Righteous. Well, I’m righteous by the blood of Christ. Well, wonderful, but that doesn’t help your wife you’re beating up.

▶ 26:11 That doesn’t help your kid that you break their arms when you spank them. That doesn’t help your family when you’re squandering the money gambling on sports and, and drugs and other things. Hey, so you’re righteous by the cross, what good does that do you or anybody? Can I hear an amen? “He who practices righteousness is,” what? Righteous. “All born of God do not sin, for his seed,” what is the seed? Okay, Jesus and the word, yes. Say, Jesus is in us, the word is in us, so he cannot sin because he’s been born of God. Now what that really means: you cannot flagrantly, habitually sin because you’ve got Christ and the word gnawing at you, convicting you, and you repent and you get up, you do not continue in sin. Why? Because you were really born of the Spirit, that Spirit of Jesus and that Spirit of the word, and yeah, you may not be perfect today, but you keep changing. Why? Because that birthing is real.

▶ 27:28 Amen. And you’re just joined the church, there’s no power, but when you join the Jesus and his word, there’s power. Be convicted and live for him. Is that a good amen, church? Titus 2:11, “The grace of God offers salvation to,” how many? All. I’m not saved by grace, I’m not saved by faith, I’m saved by grace through faith, not of works, that’s in [unclear] both, okay. These people say, “By grace” and “Saved by grace,” I get sick of them justifying their life using the word grace. Let’s look at grace, how the apostles used it. Grace offers salvation to all men, but it also teaches us. So does grace have a doctrine? Yeah, it’s not just divine favor, it’s divine enablement by keeping the word of God.

▶ 28:31 Wow, that was good. Did you guys get that? See, grace has a [unclear]. That we say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, worldly desires. We say what? No. I’m not going to get drunk, I’m not going to take drugs, I’m not going to join a gang, I’m not going to beat up my spouse, I’m not going to, uh, not work and be lazy and not provide for my [unclear]. No, I’m not going to do those things. Grace says no. So when you say, “I’m saved by grace,” you have the power to say no. Hallelujah. Now,

▶ 29:25 and to live self-control. Every man and every woman wants to marry someone with self-control. Instead of shooting off their mouth all the time and displaying their anger and all this stuff, you know, yelling and screaming in front of the kids, arguing, which is just stupid, it’s fools do that. I’m just pausing, let it sink into you. Self-control comes from grace, as well as the Holy Spirit, as well as the Bible. And self-control is just controlling yourself. Work,

▶ 30:18 provide for your home, go to church, pay your tithes, worship God, seek God, raise your family, your kids, in the way they should go. You say, “Self-control.” “Upright and godly lives,” living right, living godly lives in this, what? Present age. Don’t give me this rapture stuff, don’t give me this any-minute-coming. Okay, you have a goal of God for him to bring you to a place where you live self-control, upright and godly lives in this present world, so that they see the light in you and come and inquire of your God and bring honor to Jesus Christ. And that’s much better than him coming a second time. Church, this present age he wants to bless your life, he wants you to make a difference now.

▶ 31:24 Romans 1:25, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, worshiping the creature,” the human being, “instead of the Creator.” Or the living animals, human beings, and as you know, they were talking about idols, making idols of birds of the air and animals and planets and all this, and they were talking about homosexuality, women with women, men with men. You see, they change what? The truth of God into a what? Lie. Is our Congress, are our governors, are our state legislatures changing the truth of God into a lie right now through this homosexual acceptance?

▶ 32:16 Amen. Are they? Now, in the New Testament, idolatry is greed. I don’t know if you’re aware of that, but that’s what the New Testament says. Are by money turning the truth of God into a lie by giving the, the illegal aliens freedom to come in, giving them welfare, giving them food stamps, giving people two years or more of, of, of unemployment pay so they don’t have to work. That is idolatry. “If a man doesn’t work, neither let him eat.” See, you got to know, you’re about us Christians have got to know our Bible. It sounds so sympathetic, these little kids are coming across our border, “Oh my gosh, it’s the,” and I heard on Fox News that it’s the Christian duty to help people. I said, that’s also the Bible duty to punish criminals, as homosexuals.

▶ 33:24 Isn’t that right? You can’t use the Bible in one area and then distort it in another area. That was good. Hallelujah. Now, who was full of grace and truth? Jesus, right? And you see, when we mess around with grace, we’re messing around with who Jesus is. When we mess around with truth, we’re messing with who Jesus is. And the same glory that Jesus has is the same glory the church has, and what is that? Grace that says no to ungodliness and worldly lust, and grace that says yes to self-control and living right.

▶ 34:21 Folks, that’s good, that should make it plain to you. Hallelujah. Then he repeats, “I will do a new thing, remember not the former things, I’ll make rivers in the desert to give to my people drink.” He repeats it, you can go to those lessons and learn that. “These people have I formed, fashioned for myself, they shall show forth my,” what? Praise. My honor, my boasting, and what is, how do we do that? By living right. Amen. And if we mess up, we, we repent, we get up, we keep going. Now, [unclear] he’s going to hit the hindrances to victory over afflictions. Number one, “You have not called upon me,” Isaiah 43:22

▶ 35:17 through 28. “You have not called upon me.” You know, people go to church to be entertained in America. People go to church in third world countries to exist, to survive. They don’t fake prayers, they really pray just for food, clothing, and shelter. See, they don’t have the abundance. They really worship Jesus, they’re genuine, they don’t stand there like a knot on a log, they worship Jesus because they need him and they love him. America is really, in a large portion of a Christian America, a big difference. A very big difference. They won’t call upon Jesus. They don’t have time for prayer in a service, they gotta be out so that the next crowd can come in, so there’s no time for prayer. Corporate prayer is important in the Bible.

▶ 36:13 Amen. We won’t call on the Lord, we’re too proud to bend our knee, raise our hands, as the Bible says, “I would that men everywhere lift up holy hands without anger, without doubting.” Get the hands up. Amen. That’s giving recognition to a sovereign one. When we near, when we do these humiliating things, it’s recognizing that there’s a higher power than us, and that is Jesus Christ. Higher authority, we’re the peasants, he’s the power. Number two, “You’ve grown weary of me,” you’ve been weary of me, impatient with me. Isn’t that what Israel did in Egypt? They got impatient with God. Moses came down and they got impatient. Yeah, I know none of you this morning ever get impatient.

▶ 37:19 I know you’re just perfect Christians. You don’t want to get impatient with your spouse, you get impatient with God. “God hasn’t changed him yet. God, how come you don’t straighten that spouse of mine out? I’ll do it for you, you [unclear], son of a [unclear].” When the Bible plainly says that bad words and good words don’t come out of the same fountain. That was good too. Hallelujah. There’s something wrong with the source when you do that, you understand? Hallelujah. So we get impatient, we get tired, and so we take matters in our own hands. If God wants to straighten my kids out, I’ll straighten them out.

▶ 38:15 Burn them, I’ll stab them. I’ve dealt with burnt kids, stabbed kids, whatever. Beaten with a razor strap or whatever. Number three, “No burnt offering.” Now I mean, you know that in Leviticus, as I just read Leviticus this week, there’s five offerings. The burnt offering is the covering for sin, the meal offering is the remembrance, it’s the remembrance offering. There, you remember that the burnt offering covers your sin. Who’s our burnt offering? Jesus Christ. We don’t do animal sacrifices because he already did it. The meal offering reminds me that Jesus Christ still forgives, still cleanses and delivers from sin even though I’m saved. And then you had the thank offering, the peace offering. That’s where you just thank God, “Thank you, Lord.” “I will enter his gates with thanksgiving in my heart.” You see, the way into the presence of God is thanksgiving. Hebrews, the last chapter, says, “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise,” that thank offering, that peace offering, and then explains what it is: “the fruit of our lips giving thanks unto God.” If you are a silent saint, you’re not a growing saint.

▶ 39:41 You got to learn to lift up your lips. It’s a sacrifice, because you don’t want to do it. Man, it was humiliating when they said, you know, “Lift your hands and, and, you know, praise God.” Oh gosh, this guy died a thousand deaths. But I had to get to the place where I wanted God or I wanted myself. Then you have the sin offering and the trespass offering, the guilt offering. How many know your sins are forgiven? How many still get some guilt over sin? Yeah. See, God knew that, so he had a guilt offering. He comes and kills the guilt that you haven’t let go of from the sin offering.

▶ 40:34 You still feel guilty. Hallelujah, isn’t that good? Yeah. “And honor me by sacrifices,” which is the peace offering, the fruit of our lips. Now, this is hindrances to victory over afflictions. We won’t humble ourself and call on God. We get impatient with God when we’re doing our own thing. And we forget the burnt offering, Jesus can cleanse us and forgive us, and the praise offering. You burden God with your sins, you’re accepting sin in your life. That’s a hindrance to victory over afflictions. But God comes and he said, this is powerful, church, this is so powerful: “State your case, state your cause, that you may be acquitted,” set free. He says, you know, you got sin in you, you’re impatient with me, you won’t call upon me, so just come and state your case.

▶ 41:42 All right, Moses stated his case. People, and all these people are, he stated his case, so what did God do? He came and gave himself the over 70 elders that caused him nothing but trouble for 40 years. And that’s what elders do in the church today, they are nothing but trouble if they are not a real elder, a Bible elder. They are nothing but trouble. They don’t have no spiritual growth to stand for righteousness and stand for truth at all, they just got a title. And that’s a good amen. Moses, when God wanted to destroy the people for sinning, he went and stated his case and said, “God, kill me instead of the people.”

▶ 42:39 And what did God do? He saved the people. State your case. You got a complaint, don’t go to body members. We learned last Sunday that when we start [unclear] complaining, we’re on our way back to Egypt. That was good last Sunday. That’s a sign you’re on your way back to the old life. Go to Jesus and state your case, complain to him. I remember as a young man, I’ve used this before, I’d been saved about three or four years, and I was, man, I was ministering at the prisons, at the juvenile halls, on the street corners, door-to-door, I was doing all these things. I had my guitar, my banjo, I put in tune, I was ministering, really soon, you know, hallelujah. But almost a year went by and I had not felt the presence of God, and this day I had to go minister, and I’m getting songs together, and I know there’s nothing in the songs, I know there’s nothing in my message, I know there’s nothing, because I know when there’s something.

▶ 43:43 And so I get mad at God. I threw my guitar down, broken, this was a thousand-dollar guitar back then. I mean, I was, I was stating my case like an idiot, but I was stating my case. And I went through the list, “Man, I’m saving souls, and I’m administering here, and I’m doing this, and I’m in the church, and I’m teaching Sunday school, and I’m leading the youth service, and I’m doing all this, and you’re not doing nothing.” That was my case. And that still small voice came to me and says, “It’s about time.” I said, “I quit, I quit.” He says, “It’s about time. You’re doing this all on your own strength, all in your own head knowledge. You left me back there.

▶ 44:39 You need to get back with me.” And just the tremendous peace and power, God come on me, began to weep. See why? Because I stated my case, I complained to him, and he come and set me free from my own initiated affliction. Are you there, Jeff? So don’t complain to people. If you’ve got a complaint, go to him. He can set you free. Powerful. We, we, we’re in sin, and he’s going to free us from those sins, we’re impatient, and he’s going to free us from that impatience. Hallelujah. “Remember me, who blots out your sin, remember me.

▶ 45:33 Don’t forget me.” Church, forget your pastor, forget your elders, forget the pope, forget the rabbis, remember who? Jesus Christ. “I can blot out your sin, I can do it.” Hallelujah. You know, we go through 12-step programs, seven-step programs, this kind of program, that kind of program, and Jesus is up in heaven’s, and, “Folks, remember me. I’m the one that can acquit you, I’m the one that can set you free, and I will if you state your case honestly before me. I will deliver you.” Remember, he can heal sicknesses, the physical sicknesses, the mental sicknesses, the emotional affliction.

▶ 46:30 He can improve your poverty level. You can have peace in the middle of battles. Remember, God created and formed you, God is involved in this, he come to you personally and called you by name, so you don’t have to be afraid. He’s not out to destroy you. I don’t care how bad of a Christian you are, he is not out to destroy you. Do not be afraid. He will finish the good work he began in you. Be patient with yourself, be patient with others. He’s with us, and if he’s with us, we’ll get through anything. And for our charity, “I will deal with those that trouble you.” We may look like we’re losing the battle in America today, but there is coming a day of reckoning, and we want to be ready as righteous Christians in that day of reckoning. Amen. He will trouble those who trouble us, and we’ve got to state our case before God.