Las Vegas Faith Center - Gods Word, Faith Messages, Spiritual Coaching and Religion Studies

Good Tests

The Las Vegas Faith Center
“TESTS”
by Tiger Todd

There are all kinds of signals that people give off to help other people understand their moods, their attitudes, and their beliefs.
We have baseball signals, where the catcher signals the pitcher what pitch to throw. The pitcher either likes it, or he doesn’t. The catcher signals the pitcher the type of pitch he believes will cause the batter to strike or fly out.

People are looking for these types of signals. The ground crews at McCarran Airport have specific signals to assist in bringing in the planes. We do that every now and then when you guys drive in here, because you look like you could use some help. You see Indians using smoke signals in the old western movies. Apparently that’s not so much in fashion any more. Now they use a telephone, but every time you see a fire, do you wonder if they’re smoke signals? There are certain hand signals that people use in order to communicate with the deaf. And, of course, there are some different hand signals which allow irate drivers to communicate with YOU when you’ve just cut them off in traffic, or don’t use your blinker while you’re turning in the wrong lane.

I want you to be thinking about signals, because there are a lot of signals we use every day. I think I’ll pick on Sharon for a moment, because she used to come in here and sit and listen with her arms crossed like so. Body language behavioral studies would say that signal meant, I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, I don’t like it here, and I want to leave right now! She didn’t have to say a word in order to convey that, but in fact, her actions were actually giving off the wrong signals. That’s not at all what she said she felt as she listened. Not at all! Her listening intently was mistaken for “I don’t want to be here”. Some of you guys are laughing, but Mark 4 actually says, there is a group of people I liken to sowing in stony ground, who immediately receive the word with gladness, but have no root in themselves. So, there are some signals that correspond to other things, but they’re not necessarily what we interpret them to be. And people could be running around changing themselves based upon their interpretation of signals from other people. It affected me as I looked at Sharon crossing her arms. I was thinking, I’d better get real funny, or real cute, or just leave real fast if she’s acting like that. And if all of you guys decided to do that as a practical joke, I don’t know what I’d do! Don’t even get started…

Turn to Acts Chapter 1. This came up last week as we were working on the book I’m writing about Peter. I think we need to get it deep inside about this truth. So we’ll begin by reading the mis-truth, or what we thought was the truth. In Acts Chapter 1, the apostles have headed toward Jerusalem, and have rented an upper room. They’ve gathered 120 people, including the family of Jesus, and are sitting there waiting for the Day of Pentecost. Well, Simon-Peter stands up and says, You know, we need to replace Judas as a disciple. We can’t just go into town with eleven disciples. We need 12. So they have this great idea to replace Judas, and in Verse 23, they have appointed two: Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. Matthias had only one name. And they prayed. Now listen carefully, Simon-Peter is doing the praying. And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of these two thou hast chosen, Which one will it be, Lord? You know the hearts of all men. Who is the right guy for the job? Well apparently, the Lord didn’t answer, because verse 26 says,

“That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.”

They are praying, but there was no answer to the prayer, Lord, which one is it? So they cast lots. Do you know what lots are? They probably used sticks…one stick shorter than the others. That’s how the Roman soldiers decided who was going to get Jesus’ raiment, the coat that was without seam. They were praying… and gambling.

Houston, we have a problem. If we don’t read the entire context of the scripture, and we only hear the Peter’s prayer, we could end up basing our faith on what Peter prayed and not what God will do. We might even learn to pray the same way. “Oh God, you know the hearts of all men. Who should I go into business with?”’ So you end up going into business, and when it crashes you’re thinking, “God must have wanted it to crash to teach me something&#148. Was that the truth?

Just because something is “in the Bible,” just because we see something in scripture, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true. Just because it’s in the Bible, that doesn’t mean it’s the word of God. That’s not what the scripture says about scripture. Second Timothy Chapter 3 says, All scripture is given by inspiration of God for reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness as the man of God may be perfect; thoroughly furnished unto all good works. It didn’t say that it was all the word of God, and it didn’t say it was all true. It was inspired by God. We saw Goliath running toward David, saying, I’m gonna take your head from off your shoulders. He was spouting off some words, but those were not the words of God. But they are in my Bible. Is everyone following this?

Job said things like, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. He was saying that under extreme pain, but the prophet Elihu corrects Job. Job Chapter 34 says that all of Job’s words were “without wisdom”. So we could read in the Bible, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, but that’s not true. It was in the old covenant to say that, Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. That’s why we use multiple scriptures as examples in any message. Sometimes we use so many scriptures, you guys need healing from page turning.

But here, Peter is saying something. We could find another scripture in the Book of Acts, where Peter says the same thing, but it’s still Peter. One witness, two scriptures. Just because Job said the same thing four different times doesn’t mean that it was true. It says, out of the mouth of two or three witnesses. Witnesses! So if I can find Jeremiah, Moses, Jesus, and Peter all saying the same thing, then you can just about take that to the bank. It’s true!

So let’s dig into this, because we’ve experienced something different than what this prayer says. If “Lord, thou knowest the hearts of all men” is true, then my experience is contradictory. If God knows something, why didn’t He tell me, right? Face it, if God knew that Adam was going to sin in the garden, why would He put him there? Well, let’s back up. If God knew that Adam was going to sin, and He would then have to kill his son, Jesus, to make up for that sin, why would He even go ahead and do it? If the children of Israel were going be disobedient in the wilderness, and God knew it would take 40 years, why didn’t God just tell Moses, Just take ‘em out there to worship? Do you see?

We’ve done the same thing, right? If God knows the hearts of all men, then why did I have to go through ten years of pain and suffering? It was only after the last two weeks of that pain and suffering where I finally learned something and got to go to the promised land. That had nothing to do with God. That had to do with my ability to learn. I was a fool, really. Most likely, I didn’t take the instruction He gave me on Day One…just like the children of Israel didn’t. Just like Adam didn’t. God instructed, Don’t eat of the tree. It’s spelled out in black and white, Don’t eat of the tree! He ate of the tree. So we’re going to have to do some investigating.
Do you want to dive right into this, or do you want to believe that Peter’s prayer was true? Turn to Romans Chapter 8. We’re going to pick apart a couple of things in this prayer. He said, “Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men”...so we have to deal with two factors: all men, and knowing the hearts. Are you with me? We’ve got two things that Peter is claiming about God. Look at verse 26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Do you think there is a difference between knowing something and searching for something? Where are my keys? Well, where did you have them last. Well, if I knew that, I wouldn’t be searching for them. So we have a scripture that contradicts this idea, probably out of the mouth of the apostle Paul. Most people believe that Paul penned the book of Romans. So here, the apostle Paul is saying, No, no, no, God only searches the heart. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Well, that ought to dispel the “God knows all people’s hearts” rule. Now we must make sure that since God does not know all hearts, although He might know some hearts, we can get down to whose hearts He even searches, let alone, knows. He searches the hearts of the saints. That word in the Greek, is “holy”. The holies. Holy spirit. Saintly spirit. It’s the same word translated two ways. So there is a certain classification of who He even searches the hearts of, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Well, that makes sense.

Why would He search our heart? Why would your employer-to-be check out your previous employment record? He wants to find out what you were doing, what your past was, because he is planning on becoming your new employer. He has a reason to do it. But he isn’t interested in my record, because I don’t work for him. God, now, has a motivation to find out how you are going to do things, because hey, you are going to work for him. You’re a saint!

Look at verse 28:

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

It’s not talking about all the people that love God in that verse, it’s talking about all the people who are “the called” - a certain group of people, the chosen saints. All things work together for them. Why? Because the spirit is constantly searching their hearts. Are you seeing that? But that’s just two witnesses. Let’s keep moving.

First Chronicles 28 verse 1. And David assembled all the princes of Israel, the princes of the tribes, and the captains of the companies that ministered to the king by course, and the captains over the thousands, and captains over the hundreds, and the stewards over all the substance and possession of the king, and of his sons, with the officers, and with the mighty men, and with all the valiant men, unto Jerusalem. Then David the king stood up upon his feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren, and my people: As for me, I had in mine heart to build an house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made ready for the building: But God said unto me, Thou shalt not build an house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood. Howbeit the Lord God of Israel chose me before all the house of my father to be king over Israel for ever: for he hath chosen Judah to be the ruler; and of the house of Judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father he liked me to make me king over all Israel: And of all my sons, (for the Lord hath given me many sons,) he hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel. And he said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build my house and my courts: for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. You can start seeing the chosen in here, right? We’re talking about the heart, and now we’re getting into some of the chosen, so we’re starting to narrow in on what the mind of God is.

“Moreover I will establish his kingdom for ever, if he be constant to do my commandments and my judgments, as at this day. This is still a conditional statement. Now therefore in the sight of all Israel the congregation of the Lord, and in the audience of our God, keep and seek for all the commandments of the Lord your God: that ye may possess this good land, and leave it for an inheritance for your children after you for ever. And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.”

There it is. We have two scriptures that definitely show “searching the hearts”. So God searches the heart. He doesn’t know what’s in your heart, but there is something else He does to try to find out. And the two specific words you’ll find in scripture when God is dealing with someone’s heart are, He searches it, and then, He tries it. ‘Searcheth’ and ‘trieth’ are the words found in my Bible.

Jeremiah, Chapter 11 verse 17:

“O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, He tries the reins and the heart.”

Hold your place in Jeremiah, and flip over to Revelation Chapter 2 verse 23:

”...all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give every unto every one of you according to your works.”

Now we’re getting into a whole new Bible doctrine. We have the God that doesn’t know everything, but He is the God that can find things out.

Turn back to Jeremiah Chapter 17, and look at verse 5:

“Thus saith the Lord…Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, (Revelation says, “his works”) and according to the fruit of his doings.”

Let’s suppose God wants to find out what’s in your heart. How is He going to do that? He’s going to try the reins. He’s searching, so when He finds someone and sees, “This person could be good for me”, He tries something on them. Let’s see if scripture reads that way.

Turn to Deuteronomy 8:1:

“All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live; (that’s a good reason) and multiply, (another good reason) and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.”

Do you see it? We want to make sure, because we could say that God tests us to see what’s in our heart. And that is true, but not complete.

We want to make sure that the test we’re referring to is not evil. The Book of James, Chapter 1, says, Let no man say when he is tempted that he is tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. In the Greek, it’s the same words: temptations, tests, or trials. God doesn’t test any man with evil. He tests you with good. He says, OK, I’m going to give you $100 and see what you do with it. He gives you a blessing. He gave them manna in the wilderness. He said, I’m going to feed you, and this is how much food will come down. Now, here’s the the test: I need you to collect the manna at this rate every day. You’ll show me what’s in your heart by how well you obey my commands in this test.

Isn’t that what employers do to their new employees? On the job the first day, they hand them a broom, and see how well they sweep. If they sweep well, they know they can move them on to something more. Pretty soon, they can move them further up, but if not, they’ll just stay there. That’s what we call moving from a job into a position. If any of you ever started working in a restaurant like I did, you were thrown into the fray to see how well you’d swim. Come to think of it, that is exactly how my dad taught me to swim…or not drown.

God tries us to see if he can trust us with the job. Positions, of course, are chosen. When God “gives a name”, He is giving a “position&#148. David was chosen; God gave David a name. God could place him in a position in the Kingdom because He tried his heart, and David proved faithful. David just said, I don’t care if you’re a big giant, or if you’ve got a bunch of big giants, I’m just going to obey the Lord, my God. God tries our reins by giving by testing us with good. What we do with the good He gives is the answer God is looking for.

I was thinking about my little Bronco II the other day. I bought this SUV brand new for the stereo business I owned back in 1985. That was what I was into, and that’s what I was doing, I didn’t go to church. In fact, I tried to avoid it. When I moved back to Las Vegas to open my second store, I used the daylights out of that little Bronco ll, but pretty soon, it started falling apart. It was about six years old, and needed this and that, and was starting to do this and that. It had become more work than it was worth. Then I came to some sort of enlightenment, so I asked God, Why don’t you get me a new car? Why are all of these things going wrong with my truck? The answer revealed that He didn’t give me that Bronco ll to use just for me.

God had a serious talk with me about a year ago, where He stopped me and said, “Tiger, remember, this life isn’t about you.” And before I fell into depression where I couldn’t hear the rest of the message, He continued, “The next life is about you.” I remember asking Him, “Is that scriptural?” Look, even if it’s God, I want to find out if it’s in the book. Well, it is, and I’m going to read it to you.

“He is raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come He, God, might show you the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us.” Ephesians

This life is about serving Him! But I’d gotten this new truck, and I thought it was all about me, and when it was all about me, there was not enough “power” in me to keep it running. Still worse, I was serving this vehicle every time I had to work on it. Then I had my customers “serving me” just to get the money to work on that truck. I was too preoccupied with my self to see that it was not the calling of my customers to pay me money so that I could fix my truck. That’s the wrong motivation to even be in business. The Bible says that the motivation for having a job is to let him that stole steal no more, but let him lay with his hands the thing which is good. So you have to give to those who need. That’s also found in the book of Ephesians.

I finally started to turn a more successful corner, using that truck for church and community events, like helping the homeless and stuff like that. Well, it wasn’t long before God blessed me with a full sized Bronco, completely paid for. That was just a couple of years ago. This year, we received a new Explorer, and today, we have a new van that just arrived this week, paid for. How? I began to pass the tests! I began to realize that this life is not about me - I finally understood that. God was trying my heart years ago with that little Bronco II. “Let’s see how he’ll handle the car payments” Well, I didn’t do a very good job. When I finally got that Bronco II paid off, I had to turn right around and borrow against it to pay off a Christian partner who wanted out of the business. I absorbed all the debts, and then put my Bronco in hock in order to get the money to pay him. It was a mess, and I was a mess!

But then I started getting me off my mind. I finally started doing something for somebody else again, and pretty soon, I got addicted to it; and all of a sudden, things started running better, things didn’t break any more, new things started coming to me, paid for. That sure is a lot better than, by the time you get something paid off, it’s no longer fit to drive. Or worse yet, it not being fit to drive two years before you’ve paid it off. Ouch.

God gave the children of Israel manna in the wilderness to test them.

“Thou shalt remember the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness; to humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in your heart.”

Humbling oneself before God is easier when you’ve taken a trip to Israel. Why did God say, “This is your land?” Why did God put them there? They had enemies at every border except for the borders that included salt seas. Their only drinking hole was the Sea of Galilee, which only has water if Mount Hermon has snow the season before. He put them in a place where he would humble them.

The Bible says what true humility is: “Humble yourselves therefore unto the mighty hand of God that He will exalt you in due time casting all of your care over on Him for he cares for you. God wanted to put them in a place where they had to trust Him. See, it is more challenging to trust God when we’ve got money, when we’ve got a good job, and when the car runs. If the car breaks, we just spend more money to fix it. If something is wrong internally, we go to a doctor or a hospital.

Why are so many Christians today spending so much money on hospitals? I’m a Bible person. We’ve helped save people millions of dollars in hospital bills this year by trusting God first, by praying for the sick - even raising the dead - and allowing God to heal everything from blind eyes, to deaf ears, to multiple sclerosis, to congestive heart failure, and on down the list. It’s was quite a year of living by faith. We’ve saved tons of money for these people. But when Christians will still raise money to try to get $20,000 to pay doctors and those medical bills not covered by their insurance, it concerns me. Why don’t they raise $20,000 to invest in a ministry that does the greater works, teaches more people how to stay well, how to lay hands on the sick so they recover, how to cast out devils, how to do all those things? Where is there faith? Which side are they on? Interestingly, money was made more the ministry, and the ministry was made for healing the sick. Put money into healing - how’s that working for you anyway? God put the children of Israel in the wilderness precisely because there wasn’t any hope of getting assistance from any other source. They had to trust God or die. Sometimes that’s a good place to be. And that’s why most Christians don’t come to a relationship with God until they are at the point of death.

I’ve heard people preach a doctrine that says, “What was the traumatic experience that brought you to the Lord?” Well, you didn’t need a traumatic experience to come to God. You could have just said, Hey, I believe your word, I trust you, Here I am! You didn’t have to come to Him crippled, beat up, and not of any use. You could have come as mighty men, just as they did in David’s time. We could just come to God when we’ve got something to offer, instead of spending this entire life on us; and then, when we’re at death’s door, start thinking some real holy thoughts.

This life is a stewardship, and it’s all about God saying, Will you get it? Will you get that this life is not about you? He tests you with things. How well you do with the test, is how much He knows about your heart.

Now, how does He know what’s in your heart after He tests you? Turn to Matthew 12:31. Jesus is speaking,

“Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

God is not listening when you’re hanging out with your brethren. He hears you speak what’s in your heart when your reins are tried in the midst of a test. Face it. We’re sitting in church, we’re feeling all holy, and our conversations are upright. It’s when we’re driving, and all of a sudden, someone cuts us off, that something in our heart in abundance leaks out our mouth. That would be where we start using those hand signals that we talked about earlier. That’s how He knows we’re not ready yet. We’ve loaded too much junk into our hearts, and too much junk has come out. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. We’ve got a lot of stuff in your heart, and I’m sure there’s still some junk down in there. But it doesn’t come out until we’re squeezed. Unless we’re pressured. How will you deal with the next accident your child has? Will it be out of the abundance of what you have loaded into your heart from CNN, the newspaper, the media, your friends and neighbors, what happened to their kids, your past experiences, OR will it be what the Bible says? Will you lay hands on the sick and believe they’ll recover? When you are squeezed and pressured, will you pray the prayer of faith and save the sick, or dial 911 with a panic-sticken rant? As you head for the phone, God will see, Oh, he’s not ready yet.

I wonder how many opportunities for faith I missed that God gave me with that little Bronco for those prior ten years? I wonder how many opportunities He gave me to see if I would spend the gas money on someone else, or give somebody a ride; not just ...I don’t want that guy in my car. I remember the day it changed. Can I share this with you?

Have you ever been so poor that you lived off the loose change in your car’s ashtray? I was. But I knew I had to get a square meal, so I was entitled to one can of tuna a day, because that’s how my change level was dwindling. A business deal finally went through, and I had about twenty bucks, I’m driving around, and I saw a sign for the “Farm Basket” Boy, that sounded good, something I hadn’t eaten since I was like 12. So I decided to eat there, but as I turn in to the Farm Basket, I see these two homeless guys sitting on the side of the road. Dang. I went through the drive-through, and bought three dinners: two for them, and one for me. It was a test. When I drove back with these meals to where the men were, a third guy had crawled out of the oleander bushes. There was a third guy! This was definitely a pop quiz. Well, I ate tuna that night once again. But I passed the test, and today, I don’t eat tuna unless I want to eat tuna. I don’t get a salary, but I am blessed. I am steward over more paid-for vehicles than I can drive. Everything we have is paid for, simply because I am finally passing the tests and God can promote me on to the next level. And I’m expecting that He’s gonna start moving me on to some serious levels soon.

We had a test just the other night concerning our ministry. God was prophesying about how our tapes were going to be the judges worldwide on whether or not the ministers, the servants in the Bible, were going to fall back into perdition, or whether or not they are going to go forward with the message of this age; which is the one He has given us. He had prophesied, and everyone had agreed to it. The next night I got a call, late at night, from a pastor from Oklahoma City. He just happened to fly in, stopped over in town, and he’s saying, “I don’t know why I’m calling you. I opened the phone book and I saw your number.” You can’t find our number in the phone book. Since we didn’t have our offices yet, I had simply listed my cell number, just for the sake of getting into the listings. But this pastor found it, called me, and said, “I have some questions for you.” I went back to the offices we now have, late that night. First Test that I passed: I made the call, and then continued down a list of proper, non-selfish decision making, and that Sunday night, after probably 50 tests that I passed, met him at his hotel. When I began to explain- rather prophesy- I found myself in the middle of this huge deja vu, knowing that I’d had that vision before. I’m not sure who I may have told the vision to when I had it, but I believe I had the vision about eight months ago, where there was this guy in this hotel room, bags and all, and there I was, explaining the Mystery of Christ to him. So, all those things had to happen for me to be in line with the word of God. He gives us tests, good tests. God doesn’t pass out bad tests, like, “Let’s see how you deal with cancer.” No, let no man say when he is tempted with evil that this test came from God.

Turn to the Book of Proverbs. Chapter 12. Verse 13,

“The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips: but the just shall come out of trouble.”

How are the just going to come out of trouble? If the wicked is snared by the stuff that comes out of his mouth, then how would the righteous come out of trouble? By the stuff that comes out his mouth! See, if you want to come out of trouble, you’re going to have to force some good words out of there. That means, you are going to have to force some good words in here, because it’s just like feeding. If no good food comes in, then no good muscle comes out. And there is a suffering of this flesh. I don’t want to go to the gym, but I go anyway. I don’t want to eat certain foods, but I eat them anyway, because I know what it will produce. And I know that my body will not become the way it needs to become in any other way than eating that food, or repeating that muscle action. God had me lift a horse. You can’t prepare for that! You’ve just got to be obedient when the horse needs to be lifted…you just pick up the horse.

Here we go, verse 14, “A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth: and the recompence of a man’s hands shall be rendered unto him.”

Turn to Proverbs 18 verse 21, Death and life are in the power of the tongue: From teachings about wisdom and foolishness, and from one of our messages entitled “Crime and Punishment”, we find that it’s the parent that actually determines whether their child is going to grow up to be a fool, or as a wise person, by what they do. Those are the two choices that kids have in life: fool or wise. There is no middle ground. Let’s put it this way: you can be hot or cold. But if you’re lukewarm, you’ll be spit out. So depending on what you do, they’ll be fool or wise. Well, the same is going to be true of your success. You’ll either have good success, because the fruit of your lips is good; or you’ll have evil, because the fruit of your lips is evil. There is no middle ground. And when you get out in this world where there are so many gray areas, well, I’m just gonna sell out to the no middle ground thing.

Let’s look at this again. Death and life are in the power of the tongue: If I took that scripture to the bank, I could tell anybody that they died because of their mouth. Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

We’re like some people’s desks in the office. We put a bad word over here, and a bad word over there, and a bunch of bad words here, and a stack of bad words here. And then we have a good word, and it removes some of the bad. But if we just keep piling up more bad, and more “I don’t think it will work”, and “maybe” this will work, it takes a while to clear it out. We might need a whole year of good words just to get ourselves free from paying the price for the prior bad words we’ve sown. Jesus said in Mark 4, “The sower soweth the word.” So, yes, you and I will need to make a sustained effort to clear bad words out.

All those years, from the Bronco story until today, I might have been making some headway, but it started to look like things might not be working. One day, it seemed like, “Maybe this Bible might be true&#148. But then the next day, I was back to thinking, “I wonder if this really works”. Face it, the stuff we’re buried in won’t be gone until we take charge and start cleaning it up.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”

Turn now to Mark Chapter 11. I’m going to give you one more hint. We’ll begin reading in verse 22. We’ve got Peter involved here. Look at verse 20.

“And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away. And Jesus answering, saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.”

How is Jesus going to know that you believe what you say? Because you are going to continue to speak like you have what you’re believing for. Isn’t that right? I mean, if you pray for a car… look at the next verse…“Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire…” A key word in faith is ‘desire’: the Bible works on what we desire. If we don’t have a desire, there is nothing for faith to work on. “Pray with me brother.” Well, what do you want to pray about? “Well, just pray with me.” I pray to get things done. I want things to work out, so I’m not going to pray with you just to clog up God’s switchboard.

I was at the gym the other night, miraculously throwing up three point hook shots and drilling them, just bam bam bam…obviously God wanted me there…This special event, however, gave me the opportunity to talk about prayer with a player. In a game, opposing players accused me, saying, “Oh, you just put up a prayer”. Now, wait a second. Who’s better at basketball, me or God? If I was playing within my own ability, that would be much lower than God’s. But God gave us prayers to be answered. They are meant to be sure things. God on the scene. Angels. The whole ball of wax. I figured, as long as I don’t think about it, I’ll just put up prayers, and boy, those prayers were being answered. Prayers are designed to be answered. If I had put up only prayers, I wouldn’t have missed yet. Saints, we really need to get back down to the nitty-gritty of real Bible faith, and not just talk about what we’ve heard about the Bible.

Here’s your sign: “What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

Have you been faithful over even the little prayers? God looks to see how you’re doing with that little tricycle. Then he moves you up to a ten speed. From the ten speed, he graduates you to a 24-speed mountain bike. From the mountain bike, He thinks, Boy this guy is doing good, let’s get him a horse. From a horse, He moves you up to an Explorer. He just keeps moving you up, based upon how faithful you are. If you don’t feed the horse, or exercise the horse, then you don’t go past horsedom. Then you have to call the man of God to go raise your horse from the dead- if you have that much faith left. Then, you have to start being faithful over little all over again. But that’s how God’s Kingdom works.

When you pray the prayer of faith, like “God, I want a new car”, are you being specific about what kind of car you really want? God doesn’t just give out cars. There are a lot of cars that aren’t fit to drive. Pick your car. God, I want this specific car. Get specific with your desires. Just for the sake of a natural example in this prayer, Jesus said to , “Believe we receive when we pray.” God, O.K. I believe I receive my new Ford Explorer. Then God says, “You’ll have it.” He may give me instructions from there, like what I must do to position myself to receive it, but He has already agreed with His own words in my prayer. What’s happened in the past is, we’ve been the only one that didn’t agree with our prayer. We’ve talked about how our old car isn’t running, or how this or that isn’t right, or, “I don’t know if I’ll ever get that car”. When we start talking contrary to our prayer, God is thinking, “You asked me for this car, but you stopped believing for it!” So, God’s not the one “dropping the ball” on your prayers.

And don’t forget that it God who prospers us, to establish His covenant, not yours. Don’t be sinking all those three point hook shots and think you’re all that! Thank God that you believe in prayer. You and God are both responsible for prayers that work, but God is the only one who will never disagree with your prayer. It’s you and me that make or break it. He’ll just agree with you. We need to “hope to the end,” and the way to keep our “hopes” or “hoops” up, so that He’ll see that we haven’t quit on our prayer, is to keep our words in line with what we prayed! Our heart, the thing He searches and tries the reins of, is governed by our mouth.

Let’s close here. Look at Hebrews Chapter 13 verse 15:

“By him, therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”

God doesn’t know what’s in your heart until something comes out your mouth, and we often God the wrong signals. You’ve heard it said before in other churches, “Well, Sister so-and-so was the saint of the church, but why did she die of cancer? She was a good person.” Well, we don’t know what she said! God only knows what she said. God says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Well, now that we have all received this knowledge, we are responsible to watch what comes out of our mouths. This is something we can now do on purpose and with purpose.

We have been created in the image and likeness of God to use divine power. Horses can’t decide whether a bit will work for them or not. Bits just work for them because that’s how they were designed. God told me one day that this is the law of the horse. The Book of James Chapter 3 includes another law, and with men and women, we have been given the law of the tongue. This is the divine law of the man. You will follow what you say, whether you like it or not. This is what God is looking at to see if we can move to the next level. The law of the dog is the collar and leash. But try that on a cat. You’ll just drag that little fluff ball along. There is a different law for the cat. You pull something in front of the cat, because that’s their law - it’s in their nature. Well, our law is the tongue. Get used to it. Get over it. Use it, and prosper with it.