Viola Solid Rock Assembly
Vision
and praise God. It's a blessing to be with you. Thank you all for coming tonight. And please keep my wife in prayer. She, Chris and Charity were gonna take us to lunch today and Gina was not feeling well. She was coughing all last night and she took her temperature and it was a hundred. So it's not supposed to be that. Oh, so she's staying in tonight and I'm sure all of you appreciate that. (laughs) That she didn't come here and share it with everybody. So, but thank you all for being here and thank you, Charity, for helping us at the table tonight. Gina gave me a quick lesson on how to do this stuff at the table and then I told Charity the parts I could remember. So she has Gina's phone number just as a safety so she can call Gina if we can't figure it out. But anyway, thank you all for being here. I thank God that we had so many people filled with the Holy Spirit yesterday. The altars were filled yesterday morning and last night. It was wonderful. I mean, wall to wall morning and I mean y'all saw that. Yesterday morning and yesterday evening people wall to wall filled with the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues. How many of you are here tonight who got filled with the Holy Spirit yesterday? Raise your hand if you're filled with the Holy Spirit yesterday. Turn around, look, raise them high. Don't be ashamed of that. Be proud. God, feed with the Holy Ghost. Praise the Lord. Praise God, that's awesome. And a lot more were filled and I figure we probably had about 30 people filled or refilled yesterday. So it was just wonderful to see that happen. I love it. I've seen, you know, in almost 50 years of ministry I've seen thousands of people fill the Holy Spirit through the years, but I never cease to be thrilled. You know, if you ever stop being thrilled to see God do stuff, you need to spend more time in prayer. You know, I just, it bugs me. When somebody gets healed, somebody's like, "Oh, I've seen a lot of people get here." But it's still wonderful. It's still amazing. Always be thrilled. Always rejoice when you see things like that happen. Amen? So praise God. Also, if you were filled with the Holy Spirit yesterday, I wanted to say to you, one of the most important things for you to do is pray in the spirit every day, every day, okay? You need to pray into, Paul, Paul the Apostle, he said, "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you." Paul prayed in the spirit all the time. And so I encourage you always, and if you find that you're having difficulty praying in the spirit, come to the church and tell Pastor, and say, "I need you to pray with me. I want to get a refilling so I can," you need to be able to speak in tongues anytime you need to talk to God. 'Cause trust me, Holy Spirit's always gonna be a lot more accurate than you are. He's always gonna, whatever he's gonna pray for is always gonna be a whole lot better than what you're gonna pray for. You know how I was telling you last night that when you speak in tongues, that that's Holy Spirit praying through you, okay? When you do that, sometimes you're asking God for stuff, and last night I had so much to say that God gave me things that were not part of that message that I squeezed in, so I didn't get to say all the stuff I wanted to say about that. But let me just quickly say this to you, that when you pray in tongues, what's happening is, Holy Spirit is speaking through you to God the Father, not for what you want, but for what you need. How many parents do we have here tonight? How many you parents know the difference between what kids want and what they need? 'Cause if you talk to kids, they need everything, they don't want anything, they need it all. But that's why God gave parents to children. Otherwise he'd just let us be dropped out of trees or something and raise ourselves, right? But there were times when I was growing up, I'm a middle child, by the way. Does that explain a lot to you about my personality and everything, okay, I'm a middle child. Whenever anything went wrong at the house, my parents would always, they would never say Randy or Beverly, it was always Mark, first one they'd yell at. Mark, and they were wrong about 5% of the time, so they were not always right on that. So, but you know, a lot of times I knew that when my dad got home from work, I knew that what I needed to do was to be standing at the door with the biggest belt in his closet and say, "Father, thy son hath transgressed. "Chast ties me." Now, I knew that's what I needed, but how many y'all know I never did it? So, when you pray in tongues, you're not always supposed to interpret that. You know, there are people who are ignorant of Holy Spirit who will tell you you're always supposed to interpret everything you say in tongues, that's wrong. Remember how I told you last night, there are different types of tongues? One is your prayer language, your prayer language is not supposed to be interpreted. It's a message in tongues that's supposed to be interpreted, okay? Now, this here's not my sermon for tonight, I'm just sharing this with y'all for free, no charge, okay? But I just felt I needed to explain this part about tongues to you before I get into my message. But what I wanted to say to you is that that when you speak in tongues, if it is a message in tongues, how many of y'all have ever been in a church service where there was a message in tongues and interpretation? How many of y'all know what I'm talking about? Raise hand if you've ever heard that happen, you've ever seen that, okay. Now, when that happens, that's God speaking to us. Speaking to us in a heavenly language, he knows what it means, we know. That's why we need the interpretation. I was preaching in Las Vegas one time and a guy came up to me after, this was at a church in Las Vegas, all right. Anyway, so a guy came up to me after service and he said, I need to understand some, why is it we're not supposed to have an interpretation, everything we say when we were praying in tongues. I said, okay, let's figure this out. I said, when you're praying in tongues, I said, who gives you the prayer language? He said, God. And I said, you're saying it to who? God. I said, and he needs the interpretation because, if God's the one giving you the language and you're saying it to God, he doesn't need the interpretation, does he? Answer me. I asked you a question, come on, get with it. Should keep a little. So, but listen, but when there is a message in tongues, that's, look, look at the direction. That's God speaking to us. We need the interpretation. But when we are speaking to God, there's no need, does that make sense to everybody? There's no need for the interpretation then. So, it's important for people to understand this because there's a lot of confusion and usually that confusion is caused by cessationists, preachers who don't even believe in speaking in tongues, they try and tell you what you're supposed to do when you speak in tongues. So, we need to know the difference between those so you know what the prayer language is and what a message in tongues is. Anyway, I wanna get on with the rest of the service, but I just wanted to share those few things with you. And also, I felt it's very important for me to tell you something about, let me look at my notes here. I wrote it down. Budro. Need to tell you something about Budro. How many of y'all wanna hear about Budro? If I wanna hear about Budro, okay. One time, Budro and Thibodeau went on a trip to Las Vegas and they were losing money everywhere they went in the casino, they were losing money. And so, Budro runs up to Thibodeau, he said, "Tib," he said, "You got to come here, my friend." 'Cause occasion always called you my friend. He said, "My friend," he said, "I found this machine "that when you play this game, you win every time. "It pays every time." He said, "What's the name of the game?" He said, "Adam." He said, "How you spell that?" He said, "ATM." So, they took some of the money that he won at the Adam game and they went to one of them shows. It was a variety show, and at the end of the show, they had this ventriloquist up there. And oh, they thought he was so funny. Oh, he was telling the funniest stories and they laughed and laughed and laughed. But towards the end of his act, he started saying stuff about cagions. Making jokes about acting like cagions was stupid. And Budro didn't like that at all. Budro said, "I'm gonna go talk to him after this is over." So, showing up after the show, Budro goes up there and stands in line to talk to him. He gets up there to the guy. He said, "Look," he said, "My name, Budro. "I live in South Louisiana." And he said, "I'm a cagion." He said, "I thought you were real funny." He said, "Well, thank you very much." He said, "Until you started telling jokes of cagions, "acting like cagion was stupid people." And I didn't appreciate that one bit because I'm a cagion and I'm not stupid. And the ventriloquist said, "Well, I'm very sorry, sir. "I apologize, I'm in no offense." He said, "I wasn't talking to you. "I was talking to the little guy sitting on your lap." Appreciate both of y'all catching that. Anyway, so, one time, Budro and Thibodeau was having trouble. They wasn't catching many fish. And Budro said, "You know, we got to have somewhere "to make a living." And he said, "We're going to have to go down "to this factor here and see if we can get us a job." And Thibodeau said, "What we're going to do?" Budro said, he said, "We've got to go down there "and see, we've got to put in our application." So Thibodeau said, "Oh, I know what you're talking about." He said, "Look." He said, "Here, here's what we're going to do." He said, "We go go down, we put in the application." He said, "I've heard about this." He said, "After you put in the application, "they bring you in for the interview." Now, at the end of the interview, they're going to ask you some questions to see how smart you are. That's where they get you. He said, "And since I've always been "a little bit smarter than you, "here's what we're going to do. "I'll go in first, I'll took the test, "then I'll come out and I'll tell you the answers." So they went out and they fell out the application. They went in for the interview. Thibodeau goes in first. The man said, "Now, Mr. Thibodeau," he said, "After he finished the interview, "said Mr. Thibodeau, I just want to ask you "a couple more questions." Thibodeau was like, "I know what this is doing." So he said, "If you were working in our factory "and one of the machines messed up and one of your eyes "got poked out, what will happen?" Thibodeau said, "I'd be half blind." He said, "Well, yeah, but like from a safety perspective, "what if like both the eyes got poked out?" "I'd be totally blind." He said, "I'll tell you what, don't call us, "we'll call you." So Thibodeau goes out in the hallway. He tells Boudreau, he said, "Boudreau, "answer to the first question, half blind." Answer to the second question, totally blind. So Boudreau goes in for the interview at the end of the interview, the man said, "Mr. Boudreau could actually "a couple of other questions, that'd be fine, my friend." He said, "If you were working in our factory "and one of the machines messed up "and one of your ears was cut off "what would happen?" Boudreau said, "I'd be half blind." He said, "No, but let me ask you another question." He said, "What if like both your ears were cut off?" He said, "I'd be totally blind." He said, "Well, no, that's wrong." On both of them, he said, "But I got to." I actually said, "How do you figure that?" Boudreau said, "Ting about it. "One of my ears gets cut off. "My hat come down like that. "I'm half blind. "Bought my ears get cut off. "My hat come down like that. "I'm totally blind." Oh, man. Oh, I forgot to tell you. Let me just mention to you, I didn't talk about this yesterday, but if you would like to become a ministry partner with us and hear from me on a monthly basis, we have MP3 of the month. Now, if you don't know what MP3s are, ask any one under the age of 20, and they can explain it to you. But every month you get an email from us with the link for that month's MP3, and that'll be a message that you can listen to for that month. And if you give as much as $10 a month, you can be a ministry partner. If you join as a ministry partner, talk to charity tonight. You can fill out the form. You'll get a free copy of this CD. You have a destiny, and you will also get a copy of this book, "God's Plan for Prosperity Free." So just talk to, and if you gave as much as $10 in the offering this weekend, that can go towards your first month. So just tell her we'll trust you, and if you're lying, God will get you. So no problem. So anyway, also don't forget that my mother's book is out there. This book on family devotions, if you don't get anything else off the table, I really encourage you get this book because your children, your grandchildren need to learn God's word, and this will inspire you to teach them God's word. And remember the second half of the book is the book that my mother re-typed into here, that she read to us when we were children. My sister got saved when my mother read that book to us is titled "The Mystery of the Black Book." How many of y'all know what the black book was, okay? So it's a really, really well-written, intriguing story great for children. So, and also this book on spiritual warfare, if somebody were to ask me, if they told me, Mark, you have a chance to preach only one time in your life to any group of people, this is what I would preach on. If I only had one chance to preach one sermon, and if God didn't tell me to preach something else, I would preach chapter one of this book. This book, "The Three Heavens on Spiritual Warfare," this is a revelation. I went through literally the most painful experience of my entire life in 1986, when our whole world caved in, my whole family, my father, my mother, all of us, our whole worlds caved in. And if y'all, how many y'all remember in the late 1980s, a lot of our heroes in the church were falling on national TV, do y'all remember that? And that's when I started asking, wait a minute, how is it possible for somebody to be so mightily used of God in one part of their life and so messed up in another part? How many of y'all know what I'm talking about? Have any of you ever had that question? Well, this book is a result of me learning, I started teaching on it in 1989, I've been teaching it up till today, and I really encourage you to get that. And also, we have the flash, we have a lot of CDs and stuff back there on the table if you wanna get individual things, but really the bargain is this is $299 on our website. If you bought these individually, it would cost you almost $1,400. But this is, I've reduced the price to only $99 this weekend. And look, if you say, well, I prefer CDs, put this in your computer, you can burn a CD of everything on here. You can burn a separate CD for every one of these messages and put it in your car, put it in your house, whatever. So you don't have to just play it off of this. You just put this in your computer, make CDs. If you wanna make extra money, burn extra CDs, go to Walmart, sell 'em out of the Trunkie car, okay? So that was a joke. All right, but anyway, so how many y'all remember when people used to do what they call bootleg CDs out of the back of their car? Anybody remember that? They'd make DVDs, they'd make bootleg DVDs and movies and sell 'em out of the trunk of their car and stuff. Anyway, that's the joke I was making. I was preaching in West Virginia one time and a lady came up, she said, I want the Cajun humor stuff. And I said, do you want it on CD? And back then we had cassette tape. I said, do you want it on CD or cassette tape? She said, it's easier to make copies of tapes. I'll buy the tape. I said, don't tell me you're gonna make copies. I mean, if you're gonna make copies, do it. But don't tell me you're gonna rip me off by making copies and giving 'em out. But anyway, but if you do wanna rip me off, this is an easy way to do it. These are all digital, you can rip me off in real high quality audio. So anyway, but somebody else is still not getting my humor. But when I leave a couple of weeks from now, you're just gonna laugh and laugh and laugh. That's what he meant. So anyway, but take advantage of this 'cause after we leave, you order 'em on the website. It's $299. So take advantage of that, and I hope they're a blessing to you. I was gonna sing tonight. We have a pack out there on the table, a pack of all six of my gospel CDs, gospel music CDs, some of the songs I wrote. And, but we had trouble working out how to use my soundtracks with the sound system, so we're not gonna do it. So, but anyway, I sang last night, some of y'all hurt me, so, and I've had people accuse me. When I sing with the soundtrack, I have people accuse me. They're like, that big old voice came out of such a little body, you're faking it, you're doing a milli-vanilly. But I didn't use soundtrack last night, so you know it was really me, so. All right, here we go. Let's talk, you know, I call pastor today and I said, pastor, I said, I know we said that the weekend was gonna be Holy Spirit emphasis. But I said, would it be okay with you if I preach on something different? He said, whatever God tells you to speak on is fine with me. I said, well, but I just, when I come to a church, I feel very, very strongly about something that not a lot of guys do, but God's dealt with me so strongly about this, about being under authority. In fact, that message I was saying that that is the one message I only had one chance to preach, it's on being submitted to authority. That is the number one message that I would preach to anybody is about the importance of being under authority. But I said, pastor, I really wanna be under authority, so if you feel I should be, he said, nope, I trust you, whatever God tells you to speak on. So I wanna talk to you tonight about vision. I felt yesterday morning and last night that I just, in fact, I was praying with a young man after the service last night. He came up to me to thank me for praying. And I was so, so thrilled, so many young people coming up to me after the service. First of all, that they came up to receive Holy Spirit. Wasn't that awesome, amen? But then to have them also come up after service and there was a line of them. They waited in line to talk to me after the service to thank me for praying with them and tell me that they had received Holy Spirit. One young lady came up to me and she told me, she said, my name's Chelsea and I got filled with Holy Spirit. And I said, well, you're the pastor's wife, I'm glad it's about talking, no, I'm joking, it was a different, (laughs) no, this was another girl, she told me she was 16 years old and I said, do you go to this church? She said, no, I'll go to another church. She told me, I don't remember the name of it. And I said, well, do they believe in speaking in tongues? She said, Baptist. I said, oh, got ya. I said, I had a feeling when you told me you went to another church, there was a church that didn't believe in speaking in tongues. Baptist are cessationists, they don't believe that all of these things that happen in the New Testament, the book of Acts are for us today, I'm not picking on 'em. Ask a Baptist, they'll tell ya, I'm not picking on 'em, it's the truth, okay? But anyway, she said, but I was filled with the Holy Spirit tonight, thank you so much that you preached on the Holy Spirit tonight, that I was here and I got to hear it and I got filled with the Holy Spirit and I spoke in tongues, that thrilled me and I'm thrilled to see so many young people sitting right up front here, so many young people back in the service tonight, I'm just so thrilled and the things that God has put on my heart to share tonight about vision, I'm hoping that a lot of you will take notes. I'm encouraging you, please take notes tonight on what I'm gonna say. There's stuff I'm gonna say that after you hear it, you're gonna say, I shoulda written that down. Well, he gave you a clue, he said, take notes. So if you're not in the habit of taking notes, then what I would suggest is, take notes. But anyway, if you don't have anything to write on, just write on the back of the chair, I'm sure they won't mind. Do y'all laugh at stuff anyway, so that was a joke. I do not mean for y'all to write on the chairs, okay? I was not, that was not serious. All right, so let me see here, I'm trying to get back to my notes for tonight and it's given me trouble here. Hold on, let me go back, I had it up here and it went out on me, let me see. Let me see if I've got it here. I'm sorry guys, give me just a second. Thank you so much. Do I have to split the offering when you interrupt like that? I don't know, all right, I have to share. Okay, let me see, I'm gonna just pull it up like this, see if it'll come up right here, here we go. All right, so we're gonna start out with Prover, I'm sorry, no, go back to Vision, the one on Vision. Yeah, I'm sorry, that's right, you've got the right one, I was thinking to the, I told him that I might speak on something else for him to be ready for it, he's got the right code, he's got more of a clue than I do. Thank you, Cody, he's a blessing. All right, here we go, Proverbs, chapter 29, let's start there, Proverbs 29, verse 18. Proverbs 29, verse 18, we're gonna read this, I usually don't preach out of the King James Version because there's a lot of errors in the King James Version and so I usually don't preach out of it. But look, I thank God for the King James Version, without the King James Version, the English speaking world would not have gotten the Bible for decades, for possibly centuries without the King James Version. But there are so many things in there that are not an accurate representation of what God originally told his servants to write that that's why I go usually to New King James or some of the other versions. But let's look at the King James Version and I want you to see what it says here. Proverbs 29, verse 18 says this, where there is no vision, the people perish, but he that keepeth the law happy is he. Father, thank you for your word, thank you for your Holy Spirit. We know that everything that you speak to us, you speak by your word and your spirit. We need both. If we have only your word, we don't truly understand what you're speaking to us. And if we have only your spirit, we lack the direction, the clarity, the guidance provided by your word. That is a check and balance for every word that is spoken from the pulpit. Everything that is spoken from the pulpit must be backed up by your word, by the Bible. Otherwise, we cannot follow it. So Lord, we thank you that you give us your word, the Bible and Holy Spirit who actually wrote the Bible, who now makes that word come alive in us as he speaks it into our spirit. We bind every force of hell that would try to hinder or distract any person from receiving what God has purpose for us to receive tonight. We declare that Jesus Christ is the Lord over every person in this place, that he is Lord over this word and that this word will accomplish everything, he is sending it to accomplish. And we ask you that all glory would go to the name above every names, the name of Jesus. Lord, let no man ever receive glory for anything that happens in the pulpit, Lord. Let it always go to Jesus. In his name, we pray and we give him all honor, amen. Praise God, okay. Let's show the other version, Cody, of that verse. This is from, this one of this, NIV, is that the one we use, NIV? Where there is no revelation, which is vision, people cast off restraint. Remember those three words, cast off restraint, but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom's instruction. You know, I told you yesterday that back in 1992, I met a man in Tennessee who came up to me after the service and told me that he thought I would do great speaking in business conventions for him in his business organization. And a year and a half later, he brought me in to speak for him. I didn't know what I was doing speaking in business conventions, okay. But from the time that guy told me he wanted me to speak in a business convention, I made a commitment to God. I made a covenant with God. And I said, Lord, I will never use this to only teach business principles. I will always use this as an opportunity to tell these people who may never enter a church about your word. I will always integrate the Bible into everything I'm saying so that these people will understand your word and come to know Jesus. And one of the things that I always tell if it's my first time speaking to a business organization, which I still am a motivational speaker. I don't do a lot of motivational speaking right now, but I still am a motivational speaker and a preacher. But, and as you all know, I told you last night that about 65, 70%, maybe 75% of the companies I've spoken for have allowed me to have, to speak in an optional non-denominational worship service after their event. And they allow me to promote it during the event to bring people back to those services. And in those services, from 1993 until today, I've been able to lead over 170,000 people to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. In Johannesburg, South Africa, we had over 1,200 people come forward to accept Jesus. In Melbourne, Australia, over 3,000 people came forward to get saved. In Hershey, Pennsylvania, we had over 3,500 people come forward to get saved. It's just been amazing seeing people all over the world except Jesus at those business events. And some of those people, I meet them even today. I will meet those people and they will tell me I'm still serving God. Are all of them still serving God? I don't know because we were not allowed to take the contact information from those people. That was a very strict thing all of those businesses had that I was not allowed to get their contact information. So we had to hope that they would go to our website and that we could connect with them there after the event. And a lot of them did. In fact, the number one question, when I was speaking in business division, when I was doing 25 business functions a year, and I would speak basically 25 business events a year and 25 churches a year. And at the, when I would go to churches, we would email all the people on our email list in that area and invite them to come to those churches. And when we did, we would see some of those people start coming to those churches. Several families would start coming to those churches who had come at a business. 'Cause we had people, the number one question on our website was what kind of Bible does Mark recommend that I read? 'Cause a lot of them didn't have a Bible. Now you don't wanna know what version of the Bible we recommended for them. And so we would recommend that our number one recommendation to a new Christian, we would recommend the new living translation. It's very accurate, very easy for a new Christian to understand what it's saying. Or the second one, which is my favorite, is New King James Version. I like that one, it's accurate. And people who are familiar with the King James Version feel comfortable with the new King James. 'Cause even though the new King James changes some things, there's a lot of the same wording in there that helps to make it feel familiar. Y'all know what I'm talking about, feels more familiar. But anyway, the second most popular question we got on our website was, they said, I just accepted Jesus at the business function this weekend. And Mark said, that I need to find a church in my area. Here's what I would tell them at the end of the altar call. When they would get, and by the way, when they came forward to get saved, I want y'all to know, I didn't have them to this little anonymous salvation prayer, little wimpy prayer, okay? We had them, they had to walk all the way to the front of that business event with all their business associates watching them. First of all, even when I made the altar call, before they even came forward, I would say, look, and I did this every time. I said, I've always admired the courage it takes to raise your hand when nobody's looking. How brave. I said, but we're not gonna bow our heads. We're not gonna close our eyes. I said, if you can't stand for Jesus in a room full of Christians, you'll never make it out there. So I said, with every head raised, every eye open, and everyone looking around, how many of you would like to accept Jesus? Raise your hand high. And then I'd say, stand up. And they'd stand up all over. I said, come forward. They'd come forward. And then when they're standing all across the front, I'd say, now, I want you to lift both your hands as a sign of surrender to God. And you could see the look on some of their faces, like, I said, I know some of you are thinking, we don't do this at my church. I said, look around, honey, we ain't at your church. So raise your hands. So they raise their hands high. I'd say, close your eyes, turn yet up to heaven and say this proud loud and we would say a big boy prayer. I have sinned. I don't blame anybody but me for the sins I've committed. 'Cause so many people, they want to blame it off on somebody else. My parents or my environment or what. And I said, no. I don't blame anybody for the choices I've made. They were wrong choices. They were selfish and I'm sorry. And I'd have them ask Jesus in their heart. But after they prayed, then I would have them stand there and I'd say, now, look, when you leave, you need to remember this. You need to read the Bible every day. I said, God wrote you a book. You need to read it every day. You need to spend time in prayer every day, talking to God and letting him talk to you. But the third thing you need to do is you need to find a good Bible believing church that believes the whole Bible. You don't need a church that says, well, we don't believe this part and that part we phased out and that part no longer applies. I said, God didn't waste paper. If it's in there, you need everything the Bible teaches. So you need a church that believes the whole Bible. If you go to a church that doesn't believe the whole Bible, you need to find one that does. And if you can't find one, contact us, we'll help you find one. And I said, when you go to that church, you need to tithe and I taught them tithing right there. I said, you need to be the biggest giver at your church. I've never gotten thank you notes for many of those pastors, but I should have. Anyway, so the second most popular question on our website was, can you help me find a church in my area? We were, I had a guy on staff who I paid to research churches for people to go to. I paid him to call churches in those areas where those people lived and ask those pastors what they believed and ask them very specific questions about how much of the Bible they believed, about how they taught. I wanted to know we were sending these people to a healthy church. We have one lady, y'all know that I have a, I mentioned it yesterday, I don't know if you remember, but I mentioned that we have a live webcast that I do every Sunday night and every Tuesday night on Facebook. And in fact, I know y'all have a Sunday evening service, you can watch 'em afterwards, they're archived on Facebook. You can go back and see all of my teachings I've done on Facebook if you wanna see 'em. Tomorrow night, seven o'clock, I'll be live on Facebook from a hotel room somewhere between here and New Orleans. But I'll be live tomorrow night on Facebook. Well, we have a couple who watches every one of those from England. This lady told me, she said, I wasn't gonna tell y'all any of this, but I just feel like I wanna encourage y'all with knowing what God's doing, that God's not just moving inside the four walls of the church. How many y'all know the church is not a building? Amen? The church is a living organism, it's us. And so, we were doing a live webcast. This was during the COVID thing, when everybody was afraid to go anywhere, afraid to go to church, and they're making everybody wear masks and all this stuff. And so we were doing these webcasts. And one night, I saw on our, in addition to Facebook, we also have a Zoom meeting, where I can see the people in the meeting. Are you familiar with Zoom? (laughs) He and I are on Zoom every Thursday morning. Anyway, so, I saw this couple I'd never seen before. I said, "Excuse me." I said, "Tony and Marie, I've never met you." 'Cause we go on about 15 minutes before we go live on Facebook. We go live with just the Zoom people, so we can chat, you know, like we do on Thursday morning. We chat for a few minutes before they start teaching. And then at the end of it, when we go off of Facebook, we stick around and talk to the people in the Zoom meeting for a few minutes. So I said, "Tony and Marie, I don't remember ever seeing y'all on here before." I said, "Where do you live?" They said, "England." I said, "What time is it there?" They said, "It's one o'clock in the morning." I said, "You're on here at one o'clock in the morning?" They said, "Yes." They said, "Well, how did you find us?" She said, "Well, it's a little bit of a story. I don't know if you have enough time." I said, "You're the one it's one o'clock in the morning for not me, so feel free to share what you want." She said, "I was an atheist." This is a great story. I was an atheist, and my sister had attended a business function where you spoke in Wales. Now, the great thing about this business function where I spoke in Wales was, I went there to speak for one hour. They did the whole event in one day, and they brought in several speakers. They brought each speaker in for one hour. Okay? They flew Gina and me from the United States to Wales business class, which cost a tad more than economy, about three or four times as much. They flew us business class so that I could speak for one hour. And I don't want anybody to be offended by this, but I'm going to tell you what they paid me, because I want y'all to know I was spreading the word of God, and these business people were paying me $5,000. And I was like, "You pay me $5,000 for one hour?" They said, "Yes." I said, "Okay, it works for me. "If y'all need me to do a second hour." I'm available. So we went to eat the night before, and they had brought in another minister from the United States to speak there, also along with some very successful business people from the United States. They brought us all in. They brought us all this restaurant to eat together with the people who were running the function. And we're sitting there after the meal, the main guy who was the leader of the event, he said, "Now, I want you two guys to know "that we are very private "about our religious feelings here in the UK." He said, "And my partner and I are not Christians. "We don't believe." So we're asking you that you would not use the Bible in your presentation. And so the other minister said, "Well, I think I can speak for Mark and myself "when I say that we will honor your request "and we will not use the Bible when we get on stage. "We will just say it's an ancient writing "that we're quoting, but we won't say it's from the Bible." And they were like, "Okay." And I said, "Actually, he was not speaking for me "because I will be using the Bible." They said, "But we just asked you very nicely "not to use the Bible." I said, "And I just told you very nicely "that I will be using the Bible." They said, "But it's our event." We asking, I said, "You knew before you asked me "to come here that I was a preacher, right?" They said, "Yes." I said, "Did you hear recordings of me speaking?" They said, "Yes." "Did you hear that every time I speak, "I use the Bible?" They said, "Yes." I said, "Then why did you wait till I got here "to ask me not to use the Bible?" Well, we weren't sure if you would agree to come for it. I said, "That's right, I wouldn't have." I said, "Here's what I'll do, I'll make a deal with you." I will use the Bible. And if one person gets offended by the way I use it, don't pay me a penny. But if you're happy with what I did, you pay me the fee we agreed on. Is that fair? They said, "Okay." I said, "I promise you I won't offend anybody." Well, I got up there and I told the whole story of Elisha where the little boy died and the mother, right? You remember the story? The mother runs to find Elisha and his servant Ghezi runs down the hill to meet her halfway and tries to deal with her there. And I use this, the whole story, I told this whole Bible. I mean, I stretched it out. I really told that story. I told it for a while. I said, "In the problem with most people in businesses, you started out to speak to Elisha at the top of the mountain, but too many people settle for Ghezi down here at the foot of the mountain." I said, "Elisha represents achievement, excellence, Ghezi represents mediocrity, settling for less than the best." Well, there's no way for anybody to repeat that to somebody who wasn't there without telling the story of Elisha. I came off the stage, I went back into the VIP room, a couple of minutes after I was in there, the guy walked in and he pulls out, I thought he was going to pull out a check. He pulls out a stack of US $100 bills and hands them to me, he said, "Mark, here's your fee." We were thrilled with what you did. Six months later, they brought me back. And when we went there, they had to get together the night before the event, and one of the guys that was there, he said, "You do know why you're here, right?" I said, "What do you mean? I'm here to speak." He said, "Yeah, but do you know really why you're here?" I said, "Why?" He said, "After the last event, you're the only person everybody talked about after the event. Everybody was so charged up about what you had to say that they brought you back for this event. You're the only person they told everybody was coming. They told everybody, "Come here, Mark Gorman again." He said, "You're the reason everybody's coming to this event. That was God." And by the way, for that one, I said, "Look, our children, I've always wanted to show them England." I said, "I want you to fly our children over too." They said, "We don't fly children." I said, "Well, that's fine. I have other stuff I can do." They said, "No, no, no, we'll fly here." So they flew the whole family over there. That was great. But this lady that was on our webcast, I don't know why I'm telling you this story, but anyway, the lady was on our webcast. She says, "My sister was at that event. She heard you in Wales, the one where I was not supposed to tell the Bible, okay?" Said, "She heard you, and she got a tape of you speaking." And she said, "I was going through severe depression." And she said, "My sister said to me, this is a guy from the United States. He's a minister, so he uses Bible on here. It's about Joseph and his dream, and how Joseph didn't give up on his dream." She said, "But just ignore the Bible parts and listen to the rest." She said, "I listen to it over and over and over as an atheist." And she said, "It was impossible to ignore the Bible parts." That's not because I'm such a good speaker. That's because Holy Spirit was working. Holy Spirit, we're not smart enough to do that guy. I wasn't smart enough to get invited. I was, Holy Spirit did all of that. God forbid that any of us should ever take glory or credit for what God does. That's God doing that. But when I started speaking at these events, one of the easiest verses for me to use, because I wanted to include the Bible in every... When I get up there to speak to them, I tell them, "The Bible is the greatest success book ever written." And any success principle that is being used anywhere in the world, you can find it in the Bible. You know what even sometimes I'd even have fun with them, I'd say. And I know you may say, "Come up to me afterwards and say that you have a book that has a great success principle in it, but I can tell you that it's also found in the Bible, and then we'll compare copyright dates and see which one was written first. And I always win. The Bible was written before those, so God is the inspiration for success. I said, "If you ever notice that fail, how many of you've ever noticed failure feels terrible? How many of you've ever noticed that?" Raise your hand, if you notice failure feels awful. You know why it feels awful, because it doesn't fit. It's like trying to wear a pair of shoes that's too small. Failure's too small for us. God didn't create us for failure. So when we experience failure, it hurts. Why? 'Cause it doesn't fit right. Why does success feel so great? Because it fits. Perfect, custom made. Amen? So I would tell them this at every one of those events, but when I was starting to speak and I wanted to find a verse that I could use that would be so easy to tell them, this was the easiest verse in the world to use. Go back to the King James, if you would, Cody. Go back to the King James version. And I would get up there and I'd tell them where there is no vision, the people perish. I said, you know what that means? If you're not dreaming, you're dying. You gotta have a vision. And I always like when I'm studying, I always wanna go into the original Greek and the original Hebrew to learn the accurate meaning for the verse. So when I started using this at business events, I went into the original Hebrew and I didn't like what it said. Because it said, go to the next one. It said, instead of perish, it said, they cast off restraint. Now, perish was easy. If you're not dreaming, you're dying, you perish. But I was like, how do you get up there and motivate people by saying, if you don't have a vision, you cast off restraint and you certainly don't wanna cast off restraint, do you? How many of you know you can't motivate people with that? So for years, I used, go back, I used this one, the King James. Even though it wasn't accurate, it was easier to use at a business convention. So for years, I used this one. And one day as I was praying, God spoke to me and he said, you need to go back and really study what that verse means. And he showed me what cast off restraint really means. See, the word restraint means control. When the police put handcuffs on somebody, handcuffs are considered a restraint. Why do they put the handcuffs on them so they can more easily what? Control that person, right? We live in New Orleans. Every year, in February of March, we have Mardi Gras. During Mardi Gras, people cast off restraint. They lose control. How many y'all know that? Even if you've never been there, you know they lose control during Mardi Gras. In fact, what's funny is when our kids were young and I'd be traveling to other parts of the country or other parts of the world. And I would mention to somebody that we took the kids to Mardi Gras parade, they were like, I can't believe you took your children to one of those heathen horrible. I was like, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait. On the news, they show you two blocks of Bourbon Street 'cause they want the worst of the worst of the worst because that's what really gets people going, right? That's what gets people to tune in. I said, out in the suburbs, they have parades where families go and bring, you know, ice chests with sandwiches and drinks and have ladders with seats on the top for the kids to sit in and people throw beads to the kids and they have fun and see all the bright colors and everything. And by the way, now that I'm mentioning all of this, I don't know how to build a float. So even though I've taken my kids to Mardi Gras parades, I'm sorry I don't know how to build a float. So I just realized I was talking myself right into a job here for that parade, but I don't know how to build a float. Sorry, maybe I could find some, oh, actually, you know what's funny is? A guy who got saved under my dad's ministry who pastures probably the largest church in New Orleans, full gospel church in New Orleans. He got saved under my dad's ministry and now he's got this great ministry, his name is Mike Niele, he used to paint the floats for one of the largest parades. So maybe I could contact him. I belong to his ministerial fellowship. It's called Great Commission Fellowship. So maybe I can contact Mike, see if maybe he knows of somebody who could, you know, help walk you through a couple of things on the floats. I'll try and see what I can do. If I don't, call me and bug me till I do, okay? Huh? When y'all don't know what to do, you'll remember. (laughs) Somebody will remember, they're like, call it, Mark, or whatever. Anyway, so, but those people, when they come to New Orleans, they lose, how many of y'all know they lose control? I mean, they expose themselves on the streets to people they don't even know. They lose control. Why? 'Cause they have no vision. They have, the reason they cast off restraint is because they don't see past tomorrow. They're only thinking about this moment. You know what I call that credit card mentality, write that down if you're taking notes. Credit card mentality. I see some of you guys brought pads to take notes with, so, oh, you're drawing, okay, never mind. All right, anyway, so, so, but I literally thought they were taking notes and I look over, they got these pictures, so anyway. But they're being quiet, so leave 'em alone. So anyway, but here's the thing, credit card mentality, think about this. What type of thought does a credit card company want you to have? They want you to say, I don't care what it costs tomorrow, I just wanna have it right now. Right, isn't that what they want you to think? That's the way they want you to think. They will send you pre-approved credit cards 'cause they're hoping that you'll walk into a store and say, I don't care, I don't care how long I have to pay on this. I want it today. Now, years ago, when I haven't researched this in years, but years ago, probably 30 years ago when I researched credit cards, they said that the average credit card holder, and I'm sure these numbers are way lower than what they are now, but back then, about 30 years ago, the average credit card holder in the United States owed about $2,500 on their credit cards. Now, I know there are a lot of people who are above average. Okay, these are just the average. You may be an overachiever, I don't know, but here's the thing. They said that if you owed $2,500 on a credit card at 18% interest, which it's higher now, I think, isn't it? But anyway, what did you say? I ain't 21, but then back then, at 18%, they said if you pay the minimum, which minimum should be a curse word when it comes to credit cards, they said if you pay, listen closely, everybody needs to hear this, even if you don't believe my theology, you need to hear this, okay? They said that if you paid the minimum on a $2,500 credit card debt, if you paid the minimum every month, it would take you 30 years to pay it off. That's a mortgage. That's a house. Most people don't know it takes that long, do they? 30 years, and in the process, you would pay, I think it was $6,800 interest for the $2,500 you charged. That's $9,300 total for you to get something that costs $2,500, so did you really save money on that sale? But see, that's the way a lot of people live. They live with credit cardmen. Even, look, before credit cards were ever invented, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, Eve had credit card mentality. She said, "I don't care what it cost me tomorrow. "I want to experience it right now." Is that right? Let me ask you this. When Eve's sinned in the garden, was Eve thinking about how her sin was going to affect your grandchildren? She wasn't even thinking about how her sin would affect her grandchildren. She wasn't even thinking about how her sin was going to affect her. All she was thinking about was, I want to experience this right now, and I don't care what it's gonna cost. That's credit card mentality. It's the difference between delayed gratification and immediate gratification. Everybody know the difference? Had a guy walked up to me after a church service one time. He said, "You know, I think all this, "speaking all these business conventions, "doing all this motivational speaking "and messed up your theology." So I was immediately intrigued 'cause I knew I was about to get a boatload of wisdom. So I said, "Excuse me, how has it messed up my theology?" He said, "You talk about goals and dreams "and I don't think God wants us to have those. "I don't even know how to spell have those." But he said, "I don't think God wants us have those." I said, "Really?" I said, "Well then, what's happened?" He said, "What? "I said, "What's happened? "Heaven's a dream. "It's something to reach for. "It's a vision." I said, "Why didn't God wait till we died "to tell us about heaven? "How many of you parents like to surprise your children "with something nice? "What's the rest of you just jerks? "Let me ask you one more time, "and even if you're lying, try and fake it "like you do like to do that. "How many of your parents like to surprise your children "with something nice, right?" There you go, there you go. "Don't you know God would have gotten a kick out of it "if he waited till he died?" And you know, you'd think you're just gonna be a long, dark tunnel with a light at the end. And instead, there you are at the pearly gates, and there's God standing there, and he's like, "Surprise, check it out. "Check out those streets as real gold. "It's solid, it's not plated, it's solid. "Check out those gates, real pearl. "We had it imported. "You should see the look on your face. "Boy, are you surprised." I said, "Don't you know God would have gotten a kick "gotta doin' that? "Why did he tell us about heaven in advance "because he wanted to give us something to reach for? "Something that we wanted to achieve. "Something to look forward to that when you're going "through the difficult moments, the hard times, "you've got something that keeps you pressing on." It's a vision. See, when our children, and look, all the young people, I wanna ask all of you, please, listen as closely as you can for the next five minutes. Don't miss anything I'm gonna say. You can thank me in about 20 years for what I'm gonna tell you. When our son was about 13 years old, so that would've made our daughter would've been about 10 years old, I brought both of them into our bedroom and I sat 'em down on the bed. And this is something I'm gonna talk about that may be a touchy subject, but let me tell you something, kids are hearing about all this everywhere else, they might as well hear it in church. I said, listen guys, you were born with a gift. It's not a gift for you. It's a gift you're gonna give to somebody else. And you can only give it away one time in your life. And if you realize that you gave it to the wrong person, you can't say, oops, wrong person, can I get that back? I wanna give it to somebody, you can't do that. You give it one time, you gave it to one time deal. And I said, that gift is your purity, your innocence, your virginity. You can only give it away once. And I said, you're good looking kids, you're gonna have plenty of opportunities or situations between now and the time you get married that you can give it away. There'll be plenty of situations where you could give it to somebody before you get married. But I said, every time you're tempted, I want you to have a vision in your mind. And here's the vision. It's your wedding night. You just got married and now you're alone with your spouse for the first time in that hotel room. And you're gonna look at them, are y'all listening to me? And you're gonna look at them, y'all, I know you're laughing, but this is very important because if you don't learn this now, you're gonna be sorry later. I said, you're gonna look at your spouse and you're gonna say one of two things to them. I said, either you're gonna say to them, I saved myself for you. I had opportunities that I could have done otherwise, but every time that that opportunity came up, the vision of this night with you restrained me. And it kept me from doing the wrong thing. Or opportunity number two is you're gonna have to say, "Sorry, you're not the first." In fact, I don't even know what number you are. I don't even remember who I gave it to. But I hope this goes all right. I said, "No, you're gonna have to say "one of those two things to them." Thank God, both of our children, when they got married, were virgins. That wasn't by accident. In fact, our daughter is so funny. She told my wife before her wedding. She said, "Now, Mom, she said on my wedding day, "am I wedding night, I don't wanna wear beige, "I don't wanna wear off white, "I don't wanna wear cream, "I don't wanna wear eggshell, "I want everything I wear to be pure white." She said, "Because I earned the right to wear the white." Now, you may say, "Well, what if somebody in here "already did that and now you're making them feel uncomfortable? "How about we prioritize the ones who have it "that they still have their whole life ahead of them "and we can help them to save them?" So, how about that? I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings, but I am trying to help our young people understand that vision restrains you. After Hurricane Katrina, it was amazing. I would go preach places, and the next year after Hurricane Katrina, people would come up and be there like, how were y'all, did y'all get out of New Orleans before Katrina hit? I'm like, well, considering the fact that they were on the TV every hour, on the hour for four days, begging everybody to leave New Orleans. They said, "If you wanna leave, "we have free buses you can take that will take you "where you'll be safe. "You don't have to pay for transportation. "They will take you to a place that has free beds "for you to sleep in, "food for you to eat, "you'll be safe and taken care of and fed and housed "until they bring you back home after the hurricane." There was no excuse for anybody to be in New Orleans with Katrina hit, no excuse. And yet, what did the news show? They showed everybody piled up in the super dome, griping 'cause the president didn't personally come and serve them sandwiches. Y'all remember that? You remember when you'd see on TV, there were people in New Orleans who were going in and looting stores. I don't know if y'all remember that, it's been a long time. But there were people going in looting stores and smiling on camera. They were so proud. Look at the TV, I just got. Look at the DVD player, look. And then they'd have these experts get on TV. And I found out afterwards, after Katrina, I found out that in order to be an expert on hurricanes, you can never have lived within the Gulf region. 'Cause if you break down the word expert, X is an unknown quantity and spurt is a drip under pressure. So, expert really doesn't impress me that much, okay? But these experts would get on there and they'd say, "The reason these people were stealing from these stores "was because they were hungry." I was like, "That's right, I forgot in New Orleans "we eat big screen TVs and blue jeans and sneakers." They weren't hungry, they lost restraint, they lost control, why? 'Cause they had no vision, they saw their city decimated. They were wading through water hip deep to go and loot these stores. They could not imagine, in their mind, they could not picture New Orleans ever being restored to what it once was. And so, they lost control. They lost restraint. Vision helped you maintain control. The thing that God showed me about so many people yesterday was that there were several people that as I prayed with them I could see that they were uncertain about God's plan for their future. In almost 50 years of ministry, the number one question I've been asked in my whole ministry is how do I hear God's voice? How do I know God's will for my life? And of course, the one that makes me laugh is when people will come up and say, "I asked God to show me his will, but he won't tell me." He won't tell you what, like an angel came up and said, "Look, he's had a really bad day. He is swamped. He's got this stuff going on in the Middle East. We don't know what's gonna happen with North Korea. He's got this stuff in Ukraine. He's just swamped. I'll tell you what, check with me. Tuesday, say 10 o'clock. Ask for Gabriel, I'll see what I can do. How many of y'all know that's never happened? God is speaking to you. Listen to this, God is speaking to you 24 hours a day. 24/7, God is talking to you. He's telling you his will. You say, "How do you know that?" Because for you to get saved was the first time you heard God tell you his will. And God is drawing you to that vision of the will, the plan that he has for your life. Share my 29/11, my favorite scripture in the Bible. For I already know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. Their plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you hope and a future. God already knows the plans he has for you. He's not trying to figure something out. He knows what it is. But you see, if you don't have a vision, you're gonna lose restraint. I had a business partner years ago. They had two children and their oldest child, their daughter Tara. When she was two years old, the doctors told them they said Tara's legs are not shaped correctly. When she was in the womb, her legs got bent wrong and they never straightened out. So she's gonna have to wear braces on her legs for a year. Now there's a couple different ways, you can tell a two year old child that they're gonna have to wear braces on their legs for a year. One way is to say, "Baby, you see these big old steel braces? "You're gonna have to wear 'em on your sweet little legs "for a whole year. "Here, give me one of your legs, let's put it on." They opted for door number two. They said, "Tara, two years old. "Tara, do you wanna go to Disney World?" She said, "Yes!" They said, "Well, as soon as you get through "wearing these braces, you get to go." She said, "Well, let's put 'em on then!" After our daughter was married, she posted something on Facebook that was a quote by me, which is thrilling because once your kids are grown up and out of the house, it was a shocker for me when I realized I can no longer tell these kids what to do. I told 'em what to do, what not to do, their whole life, and then suddenly they're too old and I'm like, "Okay, whatever we deposited in them, "either it took or it didn't take." So when I saw that she wrote a quote by me on Facebook, it blew me away. And here was the quote that she wrote, and you may wanna write this down. When you know where you're going, all decisions become easy. Let me give an example, let's say you told somebody, "Hey, next week, we're gonna go on a two week vacation, "driving, from Arkansas to Orlando, going to Disney World." And they said, "Well, you're gonna go to Disney World, "and we're gonna go to Disney World, "and we're gonna go to Disney World, "and we're gonna go to Disney World, "and we're gonna go to Disney World, "and we're gonna go to Disney World, "and they said, "Well, since you're driving, "from Arkansas to Florida, "why don't you stop on your way "and have lunch with us in New Jersey? "How many of you could make a pretty quick decision "about that one? "Rest of y'all, you're using GPS way too much, "you need to start looking at maps again, okay? "Cause it would be real easy to say, "You know what, I really appreciate the offer, "but that's not where we're going. "Are you right? "Are you with me? "But what if, on the other hand, what if you said, "we're going on a two week driving vacation, "well, where are you going? "We're just going with the flow, wherever the road takes us. "Well, why don't you stop "and have lunch with us in New Jersey? "Okay, what happened? "They just determined the direction you're gonna take "by giving you that opportunity. "Here's the key. "Here's a principle that I teach people. "Every opportunity has the potential "to affect my destiny. "Every opportunity has the potential. "You told me last night that before you guys came here, "there were four different opportunities presented to you. "In fact, we were talking to somebody else "that was at the table with us, "and they said they had several different things happening. "I said, almost the worst thing that can happen to you is "to have more opportunities than to have no opportunities. "How many of you know what I'm talking about? "When you got too many opportunities, you're like, "but if you already know where God is taking you, "then you can say that one is on the way "to where God's taking me. "Does that make sense to you?" Now, I digress a lot in the message, so let me get back on track and I'm gonna close it out. When we're talking about vision, I want you to think about what it would be like if you took gunpowder and put a little gunpowder in an open saucer and touched a lit match to it. Do you know what would happen? Just a big flash and a poof of smoke, right? Follow what happened. It wouldn't explode. It was just big flash and a puff of smoke. But what if you took the same gunpowder, put it in a steel casing with a bullet in the end and chambered it in a gun and pulled the trigger? You just multiplied the power of that gunpowder by restraining it. See, when I was a teenager, I thought restraint. I thought rules were terrible. I hated rules. When people told me to save money as a teenager, I hated when people told me that. Now I wish I'da listened, don't you? When you restrain that power, it multiplies many times over. And I want to read something to you, and then we're gonna close with prayer. But this is a powerful, it's not a poem. If my notes never came up, nevermind. I'm having trouble pulling it up here, here we go. Let me see if it'll come up. I can't get Wi-Fi, nevermind. All right, since I can't pull that up, I'm gonna tell you a hunting story and then we'll go. Is it all right if I tell you a hunting story real quick and then we're gonna close? Any of y'all hunt, I figured so. My folks are from Arkansas. I think it's illegal in Arkansas to not have at least two shotguns and three dogs, didn't it? Got it, all right, so anyway. So one time when we were in South Arkansas, my grandmother's house for Thanksgiving, my brother and I, my brother walked up to me and he said, "Hey, Mark." He said, "I'm gonna go across the road here, "out into that field out there, out through the woods." And he said, "I'm gonna see if I can get me a deer." You wanna come with me? I said, "Well, I don't have a gun with me, Randy." He said, "You're in Arkansas, borrow one." So I borrowed a shotgun from one of my uncles and we went across the road and, you know, I like to hunt, but my brother lives. Daunt, okay? He loves guns. I mean, if you show my brother a gun, he can tell you who made it just by looking at it. I don't mean the brand, he can tell you the guy. It was Ralph on a Tuesday morning. I mean, he's really into guns. So he and I went across the road and I'm just wearing jeans, you know? We'd go out there through the woods and we were walking and Randy, he'd just sew into this. Every couple of feet, he's like, "It's a mosquito." There, that's left wing is broken. We'd walk a little bit further and all of a sudden. And we just keep on doing this. As he's, you know, he's hunting and I'm following him. I'm here to be with him. He's here to hunt. And all of a sudden, as he's walking us through there, suddenly I feel this burning sensation in my shins. And I look down and there are briars stuck into the front of both pant legs, sticking into my legs, and so I decided I was going back up and I started to back up and suddenly there was burning in my calves because I was in the middle of them. And it was at that moment that I realized the benefit of borrowing somebody else's gun. Because it was about to get scratched up, the stock. So I took that stock and I started pushing down those briars and pulling my leg, boom! My brother got a deer. Because he was focused on the deer and I was focused on comfort. See, in our lives, if we don't have a clear vision, we will get sidetracked with the briars and we'll miss out on the vision. And I wanna encourage you, let God give you a clear vision for what he wants to do in your life. Ask God to speak to you. Father, I ask you in Jesus' name that by your Holy Spirit, you will cause these words to come alive in our hearts. I bind every power of hell that would try to steal this word from us. And I ask you, Lord, that you'll quicken these words to our spirit in the name of Jesus. I wonder how many of you would be. Now I'm gonna ask you to be honest with God and honest with me. And sometimes when we're in church, we say to ourselves, I'm not gonna raise my hand for that preacher, I'll wait till I get to the house and then I'll pray. But I really believe that God changed my message tonight so you would get this word, this message about vision so you can have a vision for what God wants to do. In your life for where he wants to take you, but here's the question that I wanna ask you. Do you know God's plan for your life? Not the whole plan, but the vision. What God says he wants to do with your life? Where God wants to take you with your life? Do you know the vision that God has for you? Because see, when you don't know where you're going, you remember when I told you that scenario about driving trips and the people wanting to stop through New Jersey on your way to Florida? All right, here's the thing, think about this. If you don't know God's vision, every single decision you make is gonna be, "Oh, I don't know what to do!" But if you know the vision, you can say either this is on the way or this is completely off track. This is not where God wants me to go because you have a clear vision and that vision does what it restrained you. And remember the example of the gunpowder, when you restrain the gunpowder, you just make it more powerful. You're not punishing the gunpowder, you're just saying, "I'm gonna give you purpose, "I'm gonna focus your power so that your power," when I pull the trigger, you're gonna explode, but you're not gonna just go up in a poof of smoke, you're not gonna explode back towards me, you're not gonna explode to this side or that side, you're not gonna explode up or down, you're gonna explode out the end of this barrel and you're gonna push that piece of metal to the exact spot I've pointed it to because I'm giving you vision of where I want you to go. And I believe there are a lot of people here that God changed my message for you so you would find God's vision for your life. You said, "Well, brother Mark, "am I gonna raise my hand? "And then you tell me the prayer to pray "and I'm gonna leave here having the vision? "Is that the way it's gonna work? "Or do I just come up front and you touch me on the head "and tell me the vision?" And I go write it down, neither of those. See, before Saturday, I had never shaken your pastor's hand. He trusted me because of his relationship with a man who has a relationship with me so he brought me here to speak. So I've met your pastor, he shared some things with me, but neither he nor I have said, "Look, can I tell you the deepest thoughts "that I've ever had in my life? "Can I share with you the most intimate things "that God's ever shown? "Can I tell you the most painful moments I've ever?" We haven't done that 'cause we're just getting to know each other and we love each other in the Lord. It's not wrong with that. We're building a relationship, but it's not there yet. So what I'm saying to you is God's not gonna just, you walk up one time. God, what is the ultimate vision you have for my life? You haven't spent any time with me for me to do that. That's what God's gonna say. God's gonna say, I'm not gonna tell you that kind of stuff unless you invest in the relationship. You're gonna have to spend time with me. Walk with me, talk with me, and stop thinking that prayer is like a drive-through window at a fast food place 'cause that's what a lot of Christians think prayer is. I'll take two of these, I'll take three of those, one of those in blue. That's it. I mean, at any moment, you expect to hear God saying, "You wanna supersize that?" Yes. Prayer is a conversation which means some of the time we shut up and let him talk. And we learned to hear his voice. When Gina was pregnant with our son, our first child, after she was about three months pregnant, when she was starting to show, I used to talk to her belly every night. I would talk to him, I'd say, "Dad, he's a baby." I'd get my mouth right up again. "Dad, daddy's baby." Every night, dad, daddy's baby. One night, she was about seven and a half months. She wakes me up in the middle night. Wake up, wake up. This baby is going crazy, jumping all over the place. Get him to calm down. I mean, she couldn't sleep, he'd just move, move, move, get. I put my mouth up again, I said, "Dad, daddy's baby." And the whole belly just moved over up against me, just right up against my mouth. It was just amazing to see it happen. And when he was born, you know how it is when they're first born. I mean, they're taking him into the place, they're doing all these things, you know, doing all these things, pulling, pushing, weighing them, and the baby just... (screaming) I just all upset. It was a big hospital. And he was way, way back in the back. They, she was way at him or giving him injection, which by the way, it was the coolest thing. 'Cause I asked her, so what injection are you giving him? She said it's vitamin K to help his blood to coagulate so he won't bleed if he's cut. I said, "Why are you giving him vitamin K?" She said, 'cause you said you want him to be circumcised. And she said, if he circumcised without vitamin K, he could bleed to death. She said, and they don't get vitamin K until they're seven days old. What did Paul say? Circumcised on the eighth day. How amazing is God? That is so amazing. I love that. But anyway, he's over there screaming, and he's like probably from here to the back wall of the church. And I just said, that's dead. He's baby, and all of a sudden, he just got quiet. His little head just turned towards me. And the nurse said, "How did you do that?" I said, I've been talking to him every night for six months. He knows my voice. He knows my voice. You're gonna spend so much time with God that you learn his voice. And then he'll share that vision with you. But tonight, I want you to make a commitment that you're gonna do it. And then live up to that commitment. How many of you will say, brother Mark, I don't know exactly what God's vision is for my life. I'm not ashamed of that, but I am proud of the fact that I want to know God's vision for my life. And to starting tonight, I'm gonna start drawing closer and closer and closer to him, getting that intimacy in the relationship, so I can learn his voice. And so he will share those intimate secrets with me and show me the vision he has for my future. Raise your hand if that's you. Raise your hand all over the building. Raise your hand, raise your hand, raise your hand. Stand up, stand up if that's you, stand up. If you're gonna start tonight doing that, I don't know yet, but I'm going to, because I'm proud to say I want God's vision for my life. I don't have it yet, but I'm gonna get it because I'm gonna spend the time every day in his presence, drawing closer to him so I can learn to hear his voice. So I can learn to hear his voice. Raise both hands up high as a sign of surrender to God. Just reaching out to him. Close your eyes, I'm so glad to see so many young people standing. That thrills my heart. You know what that tells me? That tells me what kind of a pastor you have. Tells me what kind of a church you have. That tells me that in this church, these young people are loved and they are taught the word. This doesn't happen in churches where they just have activities for the teenagers. This happens in churches where they pour into those young people. Raise those hands, close your eyes, turn your head up to heaven, repeat this prayer out loud. Say, everybody say it with them, say, dear father, I thank you for the encouragement I receive when I read in your word that you already know the plans you have for me and that they are plans to prosper me and not to harm me, to give me hope and a future. I want your will for my life. So I ask you in the name of Jesus, help me to hear your voice more clearly than ever before. Help me to distinguish between your voice and my voice or any other voice. Help me to recognize your voice every time you speak to me. Show me your vision for my life and I will purpose in my heart to seek your vision and do it with all of my might. In Jesus name, amen. Now just keep your hands raised, I want to pray for you father. I bless, I speak a blessing over every person with their hands raised right now. And I ask you, Lord, that you will help them to have a greater hunger for your presence, a greater desire to draw close to you, a greater passion for God than they've ever known in their lives. Lord, help them, whenever temptation comes, Lord, let that vision restrain them. Let them have such a clear vision that it restrains them, that it keeps them focused on the path that is the best for their lives. Thank you that you've given us a free will that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, but we have learned through trial and error that the best plan is your plan. The best plan is always your plan and it's not that you have a plan to harm us or to give us a terrible life, but instead you want to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us hope and a future. Bless them, Lord, I pray, and draw each of us closer to you in Jesus name. Amen, you could be seated, praise God. Thank you, Jesus. Before we go, let me just ask you very quickly. Is there anyone here that you want me to pray for you for healing in your body? And I really feel in my spirit, there's somebody here that there's someone you know who has cancer that is advanced. Not anybody who knows someone with cancer you can stand, but there's one person in particular, there's someone who's very dear to you who has cancer that is very advanced and the doctors have told them it's just a matter of time and not much time. Is that person here? Would you raise your hand if that's you that's okay? I thought it was on this side. Okay, it's you. Can you tell me what relation that person is to you? Is there a friend or your sister? Oh, I prayed with you last night. Oh my goodness, her name is Kathy. She received Holy Spirit Sunday morning, right? I'm so sorry, I was so focused on this sermon, I completely forgot, please forgive me that I forgot about that, I'm so sorry. Please don't be offended that I didn't remember that. I'm so sorry, I forgot that. But I am committed to praying for her every day and I will. I prayed for her today actually, but I have a list of people that I pray for every day and I'm gonna pray that prayer, the prayer that I pray over that list every day, I'm gonna pray over everybody here before we go tonight, but those who want to be healed, I wanna pray with you, then I'm gonna pray before we leave, I'm gonna pray a prayer that I pray over all those people every day. I pray three things over their lives, household salvation that every member of their family will be saved. Healing in health that no sickness or disease will come near your dwelling and abundance in finances that you will be free from debt and oh no man anything that you will have abundance in your life and you will be generous on every occasion. I'm gonna pray that for all of you, but first we're gonna pray for those who need healing, whether it's you or someone else, stand up very quickly, let me pray with you right now, stand up very quickly, stand up, stand up, stand up, stand up, stand up. I'm not gonna have you come to the front, in most services I do, but we've gone so long tonight and that's not the only reason. I also feel that God wants us to know and remember it's him that does the healing, not the preacher, it's God that does the healing, there are too many preachers getting credit for stuff they don't do, I won't go into that, but that's just a fact, it's God that does it. (congregation murmurs) Anybody else, I feel like there's somebody else that your hesitant to stand, but anyway, just feel free to stand. All right, raise both hands up high. Oh father, I thank you for the anointing that you've put in my life for miracles and healings to take place. I thank you Lord for the people who have been healed throughout the years in my ministry of cancer, of spinal conditions, of deafness, all kinds of diseases. And I only say this Lord to boost the faith of everybody here to believe Lord that you're gonna heal them right now. In the name of Jesus, I ask you Lord that your precious Holy Spirit will sweep across this room Lord. That healing virtue flow through each of these people. If it's not for them personally, if it's for someone else, I pray Lord that there would be a special anointing that would come over them right now that you would anoint their hands so that when they lay their hands on that person Lord, that healing virtue would flow through them to that person. In the name of Jesus, I rebuke all sickness and disease, I curse it, Satan is the author of all disease. God does not make us sick. God does not give us sickness, he does not give us disease, that's a lie. God is the author of healing. Of miracles, of hope, of life. He's the life giver. And in Jesus name, I command all pain to cease. Every diseased cell shrivel up and dissolve in the name of Jesus. And Lord, I ask you to do creative miracles in the organs of people's bodies that have become diseased. I ask you Lord that right now, there would be creative miracles happening in those bodies that you would create new organs that are fresh, pure, free from disease and healthy, vibrant. In the name of Jesus, I thank you Lord, that with your stripes we already were healed. We receive it now, everybody just say I receive it now. In the name of Jesus, amen. Praise the Lord, not everybody, stand with me and I wanna pray this prayer over all of you that I pray every day over that list of people. I'm gonna pray it over all of you right now. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray over every precious person here. First of all, I pray for household salvation that every member of their family will be saved. Lord, I curse ungodly relationships in the lives of their family members. Ungodly influences. I curse them and I command them to die. That those relationships, those influences will dissolve. That they will suddenly not even wanna be around those people anymore. Father, I ask you that you will give them dreams in the night that will convict them, that will draw them to you. Lord, give them experiences that will wake them up and alarm them and cause them to realize their need of you. And Lord, put people in their life on the job, at school, at work, anywhere, Lord. Put people in their life who will speak life and speak God your word into their lives. Draw them to you. Secondly, Lord, we believe you for healing and health. I curse all sickness and disease. I command it to be removed from our homes that no disease will come near our dwelling but that our families will live in health. We claim that I plead the blood of Jesus over our homes. I pray the blood of Jesus over our households, Lord, that no sickness or disease will come near them. And thirdly, Lord, I pray for abundance in finances, that we will be free from debt. I curse and bind the spirit of debt off of every household that is here tonight. The spirit of debt and the spirit of poverty and the spirit of poverty that causes people to think they will never prosper. I bind that spirit. I ask you, Lord, to help people here to start expecting harvest. To start recognizing opportunities that are given by God. To start recognizing the harvest that is theirs when it comes near them. To take hold of it and recognize it belongs to them. Lord, I pray that you will prosper us. I pray that everybody in this area, this whole region will start to realize that people who attend this church are financially blessed. They have good paying jobs. They get promotions. They have creative ideas. They are inventive. They start new businesses. They're entrepreneurs. They step out in faith and God blesses them and shows them what to do and how to do it. And Lord, I pray that as you prosper them, that they will be generous on every occasion. Bless this church, Lord. I pray that this entire house, this church, this ministry will be free from debt. That they will owe no man anything. And that Lord, what you've already done here, through the feeding program, everything that they're doing to help the community, all of that will pale compare to what you're about to do. I pray, O God, that you will multiply abundantly into their lives, into this church. Bless this pastor, Lord, and give him wisdom. Surround him with people of wisdom who can help them, Lord, to lead this church forward into victory. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. God bless you all. It was wonderful being with you. Here's pastor. [BLANK_AUDIO]