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LORD + CHRIST = GLORY

The Las Vegas Faith Center
Message from Sunday, January 31, 1999

LORD + CHRIST = GLORY
by Tiger Todd - Sr. Pastor - Church Sermons

I’m very excited about today’s message, since it contains the missing component to fulfilling the hope of glory in your life. Since very few things, actually, nothing in the Bible works on its own, we needed to know this so we could make this principle work on purpose. The Bible is interesting that way, because it says that with faith, you can inherit promises. But it further says that it’s only when you couple faith with patience that you can inherit the promises of God.

Has anyone see the movie, The Prince of Egypt? Where would Moses have been without God moving? He would have been back in the river in a little basket, headed in the other direction. Can you see that some things need to be coupled with something else in order to work? God needed Moses just like Moses needed God. In order to demonstrate that, I had hoped to go to Home Depot and get a little catalyst and a little epoxy, and show you how one element, on its own, just sits there, not accomplishing anything. But when you mix the two elements together, all of a sudden the combination of the two starts getting hot, a reaction starts to occur, and pretty soon, you have generated an all new substance that is stronger, more powerful, and much more useful than either of the two separate elements. That’s what I want you to be thinking about today.

You may have attained a lot of knowledge in your life, but if it is coupled with zero wisdom, you’re still going to be stupid. Let’s lay it out on the table using me as an example. As a seventh grader, in my naivete, I set the record in terms of having an ego. I’m bringing this example forward because, (a) I know it very well, and (b) because I now understand how many 13 year olds go through this period of time when all of a sudden they recognize their greatness! Where was this wisdom hiding in my formative years? Well, anyone who has ever experienced a 13 year old, or anyone who’s ever been a 13 year old, knows what I mean. Those of you who are about 14 are probably saying, “What’s he talking about”? So, in retrospect, I have formulated a definition for arrogance. Some may call it egomaniacal, some may call it egotistical. Anyway, I wrote Tiger’s definition on what it means to be egotistical: it means “being as smart as you say you are”. I had this little “statement” that spurted out of me when people would come to me for… whatever. I mean, if we had six classes in our schedule, I somehow got seven “A”‘s on my report card. My wisdom and knowledge were beyond “what you could ask or think”. I was the first seventh grader to be in Algebra. I was every high-end teacher’s pet. The Dean hired me to work in the school when I was a seventh grader. And I knew what that meant! Now here’s the point: It was me alone with this huge head. Of course, when my shoulders weren’t quite as big as they are now, I’d fall over a lot. I had this huge head, and the reason why it was a problem, was because I didn’t know who to give the glory to for my wisdom or my knowledge. And because of that, then what happens when you’re as smart as you say you are is it becomes a bad thing. I present to you the the “church world” as a whole has done the same thing- but in reverse. We gave all of the praise and glory to Jesus and we were but worms!

There are a few people that have done things the Bible way. But a lot of Christians haven’t seen it demonstrated in the Bible. They’ve followed someone else’s example, and that example may not have been true. We found that in the Book of Acts, we followed the acts of the Apostles when the acts of the Apostles were not following the words of Jesus. We’ve seen some examples where entire religions have built churches with people’s names on it, and they were only supposed to visit there, not settle! Jesus would have said to those very people, “Excuse me? I told you to go there, and you stayed here. I told you to say this, and you said that”. But the church world just grabbed the “act” because they didn’t go back and see what God actually told the people He sent. Anyway, as we get on this ego and glory thing, we’ll see more on this example a little later, and I think you’ll see how it occurs.

We’ve been doing a study on “The Christ”. Turn to 1 Peter, Chapter 1, and let’s pick up on The Christ. For those of you that have not accepted my doctrine on The Christ, there’s the front door… Just kidding! I believe this is going to be wonderful, because I understood more about The Christ once I found out what The Christ Equation was missing. We have seen Jesus Christ, and we have thought Jesus was The Christ. That’s true, Jesus was The Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus was Christ in the flesh. But as I did a study in the Bible, I found that there were many Christs.

Now that messes with the Church. And the reason why it messes with the Church is because it is still only half the message. That would be like a faith church not preaching love. You know, faith worketh by love. Or how about a “love” church that doesn’t preach “faith”? That’s like telling people to go believe for what you want, but not teaching them to be doers of the word , so they go off with half the information and get into more debt than they started with by going ahead and signing up for every credit card offer they get in the mail. There’s something missing, and I believe that once we add this missing element, now that this understanding has finally reached the planet, it will allow you to understand, too. And I’ll tell you, this is not about the size of my head, because I give the glory for what works in me- the understanding I have been given- to my Father in Heaven, just as the glory for what works in Eric, or Candace, or Millie, goes to the Father for what He gave those people.

Here is what happens when we praise the Lord without this understanding: Did Jesus say he was the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords? Did you hear that in the Bible, or have you heard it in church? King of Kings. Lord of Lords. When Jesus comes back, who are the Lords going to be? Probably us…so if Jesus walked into the room right now and said, “Where are my Lords?”, how many of you guys would have the guts to do say, “here we are!”? Well if you had the guts, you’re going to be his Lords. Now, what if he said, “We’ll praise the Lords”? What! Jesus! You can’t say that! Wait. We seem to have a problem here, because when you praise the Lord…hold your place here in 1 Peter, and turn to Philippians Chapter 2 for a moment. We have to cover this first, as I’m being inspired to do this. And remember, if I cut you open, wait until I sew you back up before you make a judgment of stoning or whatever.

Verse 10 says, That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We did a huge study on the Father, and I’m telling you what, the way I can talk now, without someone having this current understanding, people might think that Tiger just omitted Jesus from the equasion. Not so. I just realized that Jesus said, When you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. I don’t do anything that I don’t first see my Father do. I do this so that my Father is glorified. He said, when you pray, say “Our Father which art in heaven”. So let’s settle this thing once and for all.

Turn to Matthew Chapter 6. Here’s what happens when you spend your time praising the Lord and not glorifying your Father. By the way, just so you know, God’s purpose in using me to explain this is to show you how to glorify the Father. Are you in Matthew Chapter 6? Part of the trouble we’ve had in glorifying the Father is that every single one of us will glorify the Father in a different way. No two people could glorify Him in the same way, anymore than two people could pass the same fingerprint test, or the same retina scan the same voice print, or the same DNA scan. When the angel came and said, “Mary, you’re about to give birth to this guy, and I want you to call him Jesus. Now he’s gonna be a Christ, but this child that is coming is Christ the Lord.” We’ve talked about this, and people were kind of cringing inside…all this spiritual stuff. Well, it should only cringe in people that haven’t heard anything about it yet. I could tell this to a six year old, and the six year old would say, “Yeah, you go”! And a 13 year old, without knowing who to give glory to, would say, “Yeah, it was all me”

Well, let’s look at Jesus talking here. Go back to Matthew 6 verse 7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Now I want to stop for a moment, because how many of you know that Jesus walked in faith? Do you believe that? By show of hands, how many people think he didn’t walk in faith? Good! So I can explain it this way. I’m going to add the word “you”, meaning if Jesus is praying to the Father, I want to show you by just by adding who he is praying to , how it changes this pathetic translation. Remember, we talked about this before. Jesus never prayed this prayer. In fact, it was impossible for Jesus to pray this prayer. He was teaching the disciples how to pray. Look at verse 12 to see the reason he couldn’t pray this prayer.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil….and verse 14, For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

Did Jesus ever need forgiveness? No! Jesus never sinned. He could not have prayed this prayer, and then said, “My Father will forgive me if I pray this way and I forgive people their trespasses”. Jesus never sinned. He didn’t need forgiveness. He was teaching the disciples how to pray, and he told them to pray “Our Father”. So I am going to add the word “you” in front of “lead us not into temptation”. The Book of James says,

Let no man say when he is tempted, he is tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted, neither tempteth He any man.

So it is impossible for God to lead anyone into temptation. But look, by adding the word “you”, can you see how we fixed the translation? Thy Kingdom come. “Thy” is the word “you”, by the way. It means Your Kingdom come. “Your” was just omitted in the translation. Your Kingdom come. Your will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. You give us this day our daily bread and you forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and you lead us not into temptation but you deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom of God. This prayer wasn’t designed for asking and begging God for stuff- we have to rightly divide this with the later parts of the Bible, one verse at a time. The Bible says, you can’t just take one scripture out of the Bible and build a doctrine on it. It says all scriptures, out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. Jesus quoted that from the Book of Deuteronomy. He was saying that there was a prophecy of the scripture, not a private interpretation. In other words, you can’t take just one scripture by itself. You must confirm it with a second or third scripture. Now look at what I’m trying to get to….

Remember, we are talking to “Our Father (verse 13) and you lead us not into temptation, but you deliver us from evil, for thine (yours, Father) is the kingdom and the power and the GLORY for ever. Who is supposed to get the glory for ever? Our Father. Jesus said, Our Father is supposed to get the glory for ever. So if you believe the Bible, the God of this Bible says that you are not supposed to give glory to Jesus. You can give honor to Jesus. God gave glory to Jesus by saying, “Jesus, let all the angels of God worship you”. But we are not angels. The problem is… what about Moses? Moses was a deliverer. His actual literal Hebrew name means he was a “saviour”. But he wasn’t a saviour without God on him. Can you see that if we have too much “Praise the Lord”, the Father is not going to get much glory. And I’ll tell you why. If I’m the deliverer God uses to do something in the last days, and you say “Praise the Lord”, you’ll actually be talking about me. And I don’t want that praise. I want you to glorify the Father.

Turn to Nehemiah Chapter 9. I want you to see who, what, and where Nehemiah is talking to and about. Nehemiah has a word from God to rebuild the temple that has been destroyed, abandoned, and left undone. The gates are all in shambles. The children of Israel are once again in bondage to another group of people. These people say, “Hey Nehemiah, because of your great stewardship, go ahead and fix the temple, you have my blessing. And the King ruling over Nehemiah and his people actually endorsed, and actually helped pay for this job to rebuild. Nehemiah has a call from God to go rebuild the temple, and he is going to God, but there are enemies. There are always enemies rising up to try to stop you from accomplishing the plan of God.

Let’s look here. Nehemiah is talking to God, verse 27. Therefore thou deliverest them (because of their disobedience). Look at verse 26 Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee,(Nehemiah speaking of his people) and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations. Therefore thou deliverest them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed them; and in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours, (underline the word “saviours”, plural, in your Bible) who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.

It is essential to understand saviours if you are ever going to understand the Mystery of Christ. No pastor on earth right now can claim they understand the Mystery of Christ, because God said He was not going to give it to pastors. Ephesians Chapter 3, actually most of Paul’s letters, says it’s only going to be revealed through his apostles and prophets in the last days. That’s why it’s called a mystery. But Pastors should be expecting God to send a holy apostle and/or prophet to bring this mystery to pass. But once you know the mystery, things go so fast, and today we are going to see how that thing works.

God sent them saviours who rescued them from the hand of their enemies. Just for the sake of enlightening our thinking today, there was a time when the earth was corrupt. God spoke it in Genesis Chapter 6, and He said, the wickedness and the imaginations of man in their heart are only evil continually…..therefore, a flood is coming. But He called out a man, a saviour. If you continue to read in the Book of Nehemiah, he lists these people. ..from Noah, to Joseph, to Samson, Ehud, Deborah, Jephthah. He said,... But you sent a saviour, and we know that it was Noah, his three sons and their wives, and a bunch of animals that were saved from the flood. Does everyone generally understand that? Now that I’m reading so much more scripture, I see it was more like 80 years that Noah obeyed a voice of someone he couldn’t even see about building an ark, the idea of which the entire population was against. His call from God was to save the righteous. The problem was, no one listened to him. These weren’t supposed to be the only human beings on the boat. Noah called out. He built a big ark. The flood’s coming! Noah was a saviour. It didn’t say anything about his three sons being righteous, but they were saved. So it has nothing to do with righteousness.

When we talked last week about “get the money”. I had been under the impression that the Bible said not to seek to be rich. Then I found out that the scripture I was standing on wasn’t in the Bible. Seek not to be rich. Sorry, it’s not in the Bible. The Bible actually says, seek not things. So we had trouble. We were double minded. We couldn’t receive a thing from God, according to James Chapter 1. All along, we thought we shouldn’t seek to be rich, but then, every example of what we saw as a godly man in the Bible was RICH! So we were double minded. We were unstable in all of our ways.

Let not that man think he will receive anything of the Lord whether it be bond or free.

We couldn’t walk in that. So now we’ve decided, yes, seek to be rich. The problem can be, though, when you get rich, your money will tell on you. Money is an amplifier. If you have $30, and you’re into adultery, that $30 will show up at Motel 6. If you’ve got $2,000, it will show up at Bellagio. It’s just an amplifier. It can either amplify the sin, or amplify your righteousness. If you’ve got $30, you can bring a couple of people out (ones who have less than $30)and preach the gospel to them. If you have less than $30, the people who have more than $30 will not sit down and listen to you because of the Law that Pastor Ron alluded to in Ecclesiastes. But if you do have enough money to take everyone in the world out to lunch, you can get the entire world saved. Money will amplify sin, or it will amplify righteousness.

John Avanzini showed me first that money is neither good nor bad. If there was a drug deal going on at 7-11, and you’re just standing there, and you can’t believe they’re doing that so blatantly. All of a sudden the guys doing the drug deal drop the money on the floor. Is that drug money? Well, not if I see it. That’s my money if I see it at 7-11. That’s my money! Now you couldn’t possibly think that if I picked up that money, you’re not going to call next week and learn that the Pastor is down at the crack den? So that wasn’t drug money. Money is neither good nor bad. It does exactly what the person who has it does. It does the will of the person who has control of that money. It’s an amplifier. And just like an amplifier, it doesn’t do any good without the signal behind it. You’re the one that sends that signal.

Let’s go to Second Corinthians Chapter 5. We’ve probably got a dozen scriptures, so don’t lose your place in 1 Peter. Verse 17 is a famous verse, but you’re going to have to understand this if you are going to understand something about the truth of God’s Word. Verse 17,

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ.

Do you want to find out a reason to give Jesus Christ the honor? It’s because Christ was able to reconcile us to God. This is very important, because today we are going to take two Christs out of the Bible, and we are going to parallel their lives. We need to see this, and I’ll tell you, if you don’t believe in the way this Christ thing works today, you will by the end of the day, once you see it works with the hidden component. You’ll say, How could I miss that? I’ll tell you how - too much religion. But it says here, all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.

So Jesus was the Christ to do a certain work, to reconcile us unto God. Well, wasn’t it true that the other saviours were doing a certain work?.. saving people from their enemies, and reconciling people to God, because there was no saving unless there was repentance. In order for that saviour’s ministry to work, there had to be repentance by the people. In Noah’s day, there was no repentance, hence, there was no saving for those people.

1 Peter. We’ve got to tie this string together, and make you see that it’s from God, that the Bible really is true, and that certain people have certain stuff in them to do certain things. We honored Lynn today because Lynn has something in him that does certain things. What’s in Lynn is not in me. Sure, I could do what Lynn does, but it would take me a hundred times longer. Look at Chapter 1 verse 9. It says

Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation (we’re talking about saviours) the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ (referring to Jesus), and the glory that should follow.

The prophets had Christs in them. They had Christs in them to do a specific task, and their Christ was supposed to prophesy. That’s why they were called “prophets”. People that weren’t prophets did not have a Christ in them to prophesy. Certain Christs were in there to do certain things. We must understand that your Christ is specific, one in which you have been raised and raised.

I’m going to Isaiah Chapter 49. Since we are talking about Jesus Christ for a moment, I believe this applies to every Christ.
Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people from far, The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. And he made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me;

We’re talking about Jesus Christ. He was hid in his hand. Does anyone know what happened when God hid him in His hand? He learned the Bible, and the Law, and about the prophets. He learned carpentry (the Bible calls it carpentry, but it’s actually stone masonry or stone building. They hew stone. They build the monuments. That’s what carpentry was back then. It still is, actually, over there, because there aren’t many trees, really only olive trees, and you don’t build too many dwellings out of olive trees in Israel. So he was hid in God’s quiver for an appointed time…until something was going to happen, something that was going to inaugurate that Christ in him. Do you remember the day that Jesus’ Christ was inaugurated? Do you remember the day when Jesus ceased being Jesus of Nazareth, and became Jesus The Christ. Remember the Baptism day at the River Jordan? John’s there walking around in his Christ. In Isaiah 49, wasn’t it the angel that told Zacharias that in Elizabeth’s womb was a child filled with the Holy Ghost, a Christ? We know it wasn’t the Spirit of Truth on the Day of Pentecost, because Jesus said it hadn’t come yet. So it had to be one of these Spirits of Christ that Peter was talking about. But John the Baptist’s Christ was different. What was John’s Christ? The Baptist! We’ve been so stupid reading our Bibles. It’s been there all along. The same angel went over to Joseph and said, “This one is going to be Christ the Lord. Head Christ.” Ephesians Chapter 4 talks about the head of the Body of Christ. Hey, if you guys don’t start working on your Christs, He can’t come back because He’s got no Body. He’s only the Chief Cornerstone. We need more stones. We’ve got to build with that from which every joint supplies.

Are we still on the message? Let’s find that out. Turn to Colossians Chapter 1. (That was just the intro). You’re probably thinking, Oh, my Lord! I’ve heard three messages in one church in one day. Well, we have something we are supposed to do. Welcome to the Faith Center. How many messages did we stop at in the Upper Room on Tuesday night? Ten messages! Ten messages in one hour. Now, I’ll guarantee you that hasn’t happened anywhere on the planet before, and I’ll tell you why. The Christ in me is a trouble-shooting, understanding mysteries Christ. That’s why God put that specific one in me. He determined that the guy with the big head at age 13 years was the absolute best guy to use for this job. And we saw this again yesterday when we had car trouble. I said, Lynn, it sounds to me like, BAM! My Christ took five seconds to figure it out. But because of 45 minutes of not walking in the Spirit early in the morning, the car wouldn’t start. Someone had vandalized our little car. But once I was again walking in the Spirit, my Spirit of Christ in me, it produced the answer. The Christ in Lynn, the “fix it” Christ, fixed it in the next five seconds, and the car started. Ten total seconds. So, determining what your Christ is supposed to do is crucial, and that’s what we want to get to today.

The key came out last week when I was in Texas. Please turn to Colossians Chapter 1, verse 25 Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:

If you take your Concordance out, and look up the Greek word they use translated “saints”, it is the same word every other place they translated as “holy”. So whenever you see “holy spirit”, “holy ghost”, “holy”, no, that’s the word “saint”. Sixty one times in the New Testament is the word “saint”. Half the time the translators used the word “saint, and half the time the translators used the word “holy”. Sometimes I’m sure the word “holy” would be a better descriptor, but most of the time it was understanding that the Christ that he was using was one that was for a saint. That’s what makes a person a saint. But as we’ve all found out, being “saints”, if you don’t walk in what your saint is supposed to do, the Amplified Bible says, you are a mere unchanged man. But glory to God. We’ve got an answer today. We will be shouting soon! To fulfill the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to this saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; THIS IS THE MYSTERY… which is Christ in you, the hope of Glory.

The hope of glory. Where does the glory go forever? To the Father! The hope of glory in my life has to do with this. What am I going to do with what the Christ in me is supposed to do? The hope of glory in Brian’s life is, is he going to do what the Christ in him has been placed there to do. He was hid in the quiver till the appointed time, to fulfil not only his calling, but to fulfil the Word of God. The only hope that the Father has of getting glory from Brian’s body, a living sacrifice, holy, without blame, (which is your reasonable service), the only hope of glory God will get, is if Brian walks in his Christ. He can try to walk with a Christ in him all he wants, but there will be no glory unless walking in his Christ. You might think that I’m just a freak, but it happens, and, well, that’s what they thought about all the prophets when they walked in their Christs.

We’re going to go to the Book of Judges as we parallel two lives. And hold your place in the Book of Judges, and then we’re going to bounce around in the New Testament and look at Jesus for a moment. Book of Judges Chapter 13. If you don’t have any tapes of ours from the past, if you haven’t studied “Middle History”, or “Christ the Lord”, if you haven’t listened to those messages again, then please do. We were able to preach ten messages in one place in one hour in one night on this planet, not just because I was walking in my Christ, but because as Jesus pulled the disciples along in the Book of Mark, just before they got on the ship and went to the other side, about verse 33, it said “When they were alone he expounded all things to his disciples as they were able to hear it”.

We had a room of people who were able to hear ten mysteries at one time, mysteries that have yet to be revealed anywhere on the planet. God is getting pretty excited. He’s finally like, “Hey, we can get the job done after all”, because it’s all about bringing the Body of Christ together. The problem is, each Body is trying to be the whole joint, the whole Body. And it’s, By that which every joint supplies. We’re just a fraction of it, but when we accept our fraction of troubleshooting, wisdom and knowledge, we’ll accept your fraction over there of gifts of love, where you can help people be birthed in love. Other bodies have gifts of faith where you can bring people up to a new level of believing. It’s like when the Christ Lutheran Church came out to the Outreach yesterday, and supplied their spot, and it took an hour and a half, and we were out there for nine hours. Well, their Christ spent the entire week producing the food to bring to the outreach to be able to walk in their part. When all the Christs can start doing their part, you’ll always have what you need when you need it. How could we better have blessed those people in the park yesterday? If we had more money, we could have done more stuff. It wasn’t for lack of people. It was for lack of money.

Are we in Judges 13 yet? Look at verse 1.

And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

All right. I can’t protect you any more. You’re going to find that some other nation is going to rule over you.

There was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bare not. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not; but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son. Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing; For lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son;

Now we start getting a list of what this saviour’s Christ is made up of. This is the type of man I need. Wait. Someone has done evil. It brought bondage. That’s how it works. If you don’t believe in God, then go to the business world and see how it works there. You do evil, it brings bondage. That’s how it works. What does God do? He sends a saviour to save from the bondage. He designs a specific saviour, because that’s the type of saviour needed to fix the bondage. He needed someone like Moses. Samson couldn’t have removed 430 years of bondage to Egypt - he couldn’t have gotten Israel free. As strong and mighty as he was, he wasn’t the right character. He would have never made it to Pharoah’s court. But because Moses was hid in the quiver, actually hid and raised by Pharoah’s daughter, he was specifically designed for the task, so his hope of glory would be very different than Samson’s hope of glory. But now we’ve got this listing here, in verse 5, of how Samson is being designed.

For lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver (or save) Israel out of the bond of the Philistines.

Do you see, we have a saviour being built? God is designing a saviour.

Now hold your place there, and turn to Matthew Chapter 1 verse 21, it looks like the same angel, who says…

She (meaning Mary) shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.

Of course, we know that’s bondage, because the Bible later says that either be a slave to sin, or a servant of righteousness, because you are a servant to whom you obey. So here it is. Flip back to the Book of Judges, and look at Chapter 14 verse 5 And then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath: and, behold, a young lion roared against him. Notice the words “against him”. Now, keep reading. And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, ...

I want to present to you today, that the Spirit of the Lord ... now wait, whose Spirit is that?...that would be the Lord’s Spirit, wouldn’t it? Just like when those angels were singing there in Luke chapter 2, it wasn’t the Christmas card they were writing, when the angel of the Lord told the shepherd, “Hey, there is a saviour being born in Bethlehem”. It was the Lord’s angel. Now Jesus gave us the what-for on idle words. He says, if you speak an empty, inoperative word, a word void of power ( what “idle” really means in the Greek), he says you will be held accountable to it. So, do you think these words in the Bible are idle? When The Bible says the “Spirit of the Lord”, or the “angel of the Lord”, then it is referring to the Lord’s Spirit and the Lord’s Angel!.

The Spirit of the Lord is what comes upon a person with a Christ in them to produce the power that will guarantee victory in their calling.

Now look at this. Samson has a Christ in him. He has a Spirit of God in him to do a specific task. He is a saviour. But Samson walks as a normal man until it says, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon him.” Now look at this. It says…

The Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and he rent him (meaning the lion) as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done.

He grabbed the lion and tore him in two. It’s my strong belief that without the Spirit of the Lord upon him, although there was indeed a Christ in him, the hope of glory, there would not have been a lion torn in half, but, more likely, a man named Samson would be the one torn in half. OK? That’s what usually happens. What usually happens when people go out walking on the lake is that their feet go under water. But when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon Jesus, he walks across the water.

Turn the page, and look at Chapter 15, verse 14,

And when he came….

I’ve got to preface this for just a minute. When Samson was called, and his Christ was designed, it was designed to be a weapon that would deliver, or begin to deliver. as the scripture literally says, the children of Israel from their captors, the Philistines. That would be truly saving his people from their sins. What you’ll see in Samson’s life is that the Spirit of the Lord only came upon him when he was about going against the Philistines, or when the Philistines were coming up against him, or, as we saw with the lion, (which could be read two different ways), when something was going to get in the way of fulfilling the hope of his calling. I’ve had well meaning Christians try to keep me from fulfilling the hope of my calling because they didn’t have the faith to believe it. The Spirit of the Lord came upon me to rebuke them, because my calling from God is the only hope of God getting the glory where my life is concerned. And nobody, no lion, no Christian, no Mormon, no nothing is going to get in the way of that fulfillment.

And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: (everyone say, “bad idea”) and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands. And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.

Well! Look at Chapter 16, verse 9.

Now there were men lying in wait, abiding with her in the chamber.

I have recently learned why I tend to go over here for awhile, and then over there for awhile. That is like the trademark of the apostle Paul, and I’ll tell you why. What a liberty it is to be able to preach in this church, to this body. Leroy Thompson talks about a church in Muncie, Louisiana, that had only 40 people, but despite that, he said , “I saw the angel of prosperity, people lined up to sing. The Pastor just said, “Hey, Preacher in the house, and they all just sit down and listen.” We don’t have to sing, we’re going to just let the Spirit of the Lord move upon the man who’s come with the message.” And he said, “I don’t have freedom anywhere else in the earth like I have in that place”. And it just dawned on me why I get the “over, abouts and arounds”. It’s because as you people are becoming able to receive it, and as I speak it, the Spirit of the Lord is coming upon me to reveal each new thing to you. As you become able to spend four or five hours, well, we could do this all day, and I could take you into stuff that you just…well, anyway.

And she said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he brake the with, as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire. So his strength was not known.

Well, we’re going to find out where his strength was. Delilah puts ropes around his arms again. Verse 12

Delilah therefore took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there were liers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he brake them from off his arms like a thread.

Now here’s how it works. This is a day of your life, a 24-hour span (to the white-board). This distance represents what you can accomplish in one day. This is Christ in you if you have been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever. You’ve been born again. You may not have inaugurated that seed, (we talked about seeds in the pack still sitting at Home Depot), but once someone puts those seeds in the right ground and inaugurates them, you have the ability to do one whole day’s worth of stuff in one hour! However, if you decide to, in that day, to do what the spirit of God tells you to do, if you fulfil what the hope of God’s calling in you is supposed to do, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon you. And now, just for the sake of giving you scriptural definitions, then, if you sow in good ground, you shall receive 100 -fold, you can do 100-days worth of stuff in one normal day that you wouldn’t be able to do without the Spirit of the Lord upon you! This was the mystery…. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Why was there no glory in this man’s life? He did what he wanted to do, not what the Christ in him was supposed to do. So, although Samson walked around and did a lot of stuff, I mean, he was in the whore of Gaza’s bed, but as soon as he got up at midnight and headed toward the Philistines, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, regardless of his sin. There was no message of his repentance, but the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he yanks off the gates of the city and throws it on them. So, what was the hope of glory? ...To begin to save people from the Philistines. So whenever he headed toward that hope, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. It was not his strength that accomplished the task.

Turn to the Gospel of John Chapter 5 verse 19. He says, Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth; and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.

Oh boy, there was some marveling, because you heard the comments by the Philistines in Samson’s day. They said, “Where does his great strength lie?” ...because I played tennis with that boy, and he lost. We were out shopping and he got tired. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him to carry one more bag, and he said, “No. Not one more”. But then as soon as he headed toward the Philistines… see, you don’t go to Schwarzenegger and say, “Where does your great strength lie?” He looks at you like, “Can’t you see?” Samson had the Christ in him all along. But there was only a hope of glory until the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and the Spirit of the Lord only came upon him when he was doing what God wanted him to do. I venture to say that if you are born again today, there is something that you do well, and have done, and may have done as a child. That’s what Isaiah 49 says that you were trained for, and once you reach the hope of your calling, you’ll have those tools available at a moment’s notice.

Now this goes to a whole new realm of born again. A person only needs to be born again post-Jesus’ resurrection and his dying for the sin of Adam, if you messed up after you were a child ( see I John 2:12). After that, you can make a demand on his sacrifice for sin. But if you’re a child, you don’t need to be born again. And I would venture to say that if you guys were 6-8 years old, you probably did stuff that was super-natural to you, and it was 100-fold, and it was just happening. Now when I was 13, I didn’t do drugs, I never smoked, and I ran from all appearance of evil. And at 13, I was the human head. But I didn’t know where “it” came from, so I didn’t know who to glorify. We need to go to our kids and show them where “it” came from. Jesus was 12 years old, and he, too, was the human head. And the Doctors of the Law said, “How could you be this smart?”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t what was in my head, or what went to my head that caused my failure. It was believing outside opinions. I’m learning to stand up for what the world might think of as arrogance and ego, or a “Who do you think you are?” Well, how much time have you got? “Well, you’re just blowing your own horn”. Well, it’s my horn. Now wait, we’re talking about glorifying the Father. He gave me this horn to blow. It’s mine!

Are we still in John? I want to cut to the chase, but I really can’t quite yet. You need to have this, so please be patient. Do you remember who Jesus was sent to? It was to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. That shows up in Matthew Chapter 10, because he is walking along, and a Canaanite woman, (that’s not who he was sent to), steps up and says, “Master, deliver my daughter. She is vexed with the spirit”. And he says, “Can’t. Sorry, I’m on a mission from God. Can’t do it. Sorry”. She asked a second time, and he said, “If I go with you, The Spirit of the Lord will not come upon me, therefore, I, Jesus, whom you have worshipped, still cannot do the delivering, because I, myself, can do nothing. It is the Father in me. He does the works.” And Jesus, not for a moment, was going to step off his path that his Christ was supposed to walk in because Jesus, like no other Christ on the planet, stayed for his entire three and a half year ministry with the Spirit of the Lord upon him. Constantly. Constantly! Constantly!! Because he never veered to the right or the left, he always removed his foot from evil. And he said, “I’ve got to fix the Jews. And unfortunately, as much as I want to help you, I can’t help you, or it would cause me to be un-anointed. I couldn’t help you anyway if I’m un-anointed. But if I go over here with you, I’m going to miss my opportunity to please my Father who only sent me to the Jews.” Now, when I’m gone, I’ve got these 12 men… Right now, their Christ is only to be a disciple, a disciplined one, a learner. But when I apostle them, when I send them, they will walk in the hope of their calling.”

And then you’ve got the men at the Gate Beautiful. And now you’ve got when they walked in their calling. The whole church has missed this because they didn’t understand the Christ. There are so many things we’ve misunderstood because we just didn’t read it like children. Children, in their naivete, will show you Spirit. “Oh, that’s the Lord’s spirit, Daddy”. “No, son, that’s the Holy Ghost.” So what are we going to do? Mess up their purity? And all along they saw. He says, Unless you come to the Kingdom of God as little children, you will in no wise enter in.

I want to show you this in Luke Chapter 4, please. I want to look at Jesus’ anointing. He stands up in the synagogue where he was brought up, and says, verse 18

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me

Now here’s where I missed it as a preacher. Because I have heard everyone that’s got a revelation of the anointing, or the anointed one and his anointing, which is not untrue, but is too general. That’s like me going up to you and saying, “I want to borrow your Ford”. Well, what are you going to do with it? “I’m going to haul some lumber”. Well, I know it’s not going to be my Mustang, my Sable, or my Taurus. I know you’re not going to use my Pinto, because I don’t even drive the Pinto. So I must be asking for your L00 truck. We’ve been saying the Holy Ghost while you’re talking about the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of the Power of a Sound Mind, the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, the Spirit of Grace, the Spirit of Truth that was given on the Day of Pentecost. We’ve been too general. I’m not saying it was wrong the way we did it. But I looked at this thing, and it says,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach.

And I said, “There it is! The Spirit of the Lord comes upon you to preach. But that’s not what it says! Now if you only had the first verse, you could assume that it meant it’s on the preached Word. But we have the second line that Jesus spoke. He said,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach.

The Spirit of the Lord was not upon Paul to preach, or Peter to preach at this time, it was upon Jesus to preach. It was upon John to Baptize. It was upon Samson to slay the Philistines. It was upon Moses to bring them out of Egypt. It was upon Joseph to move them out of Egypt and into the promised land. It was upon Noah to build an ark and get people saved from the flood. In Luke 4, Jesus’ said that The Spirit of the Lord was upon him to do still different things.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, saith Jesus, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,and recovery of sight to the blind,to set liberty them that are bruised To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

That’s what his Christ was supposed to do, and he fulfilled perfectly the hope of his calling.

I present to you that we need to perfectly fulfill the hope of our calling, and now, for the first time, we can do this. Because we know how it works. I’ve seen Sharon type and seen her accomplish 100 days work in a day. So the Lord was upon her to do what she was supposed to do. I’ve started writing eleven books since July. The Spirit of the Lord was upon me to do those books. There were a lot of years where I wasn’t writing any books. Christ was there all along. I was born again. But I wasn’t doing what God called me to do. Even the first time, when He asked me to write the first book, I was thinking, “You must be meaning someone else”. Dennis Burke talks about that. When God wanted him to write a book, he said, “God, don’t you remember my English class? ...because I don’t. You want me to be an author? Are you serious?” So a lot of times we’ve gotten in the way, instead of just saying “Yes, Lord”.

Joshua Chapter 1. God says OK, your time is up, Moses, and Joshua will take it from here. And in the Book of Leviticus, it actually says, Moses gave his spirit to Joshua. Joshua means “deliverer”. It’s the same word we’ve translated as “Jesus”, but it’s Yshua in Hebrew. Jesus. Jesus is really Joshua. So Joshua is actually the second Joshua, not even the first one. But Joshua means “deliverer”. Moses’ name did not mean “deliverer” even though he was the deliverer, because the Egyptians named him “Moses”. “Moses” means “drawn forth out of the water”. That wasn’t his Hebrew name. His real Hebrew name was probably Joshua.

Matthew Chapter 16, verse 24 Jesus said unto his disciples , If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross

That always bothered me. Have you ever been bothered by that? It didn’t say “take up my cross”, it says “take up his cross”. And I thought about Christmas. And I thought about the symbols used at Christmas, and that’s a cross, isn’t it? Right? Christ!.... take up your cross and follow me. I looked up the word “cross”. It’s a Greek word meaning “your atonement for Christ”, but we thought it represented Jesus.

Turn to Hebrews Chapter 11, verse 24 By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season; In other words, choosing rather to take up his cross rather than go shopping, rather than hanging out with the Pharoah’s kid, verse 26:

Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.

Is there anyone with an anointing to be historically scholarly here? Was it 1500 years between Moses and Jesus? So certainly, it wasn’t the reproach for Jesus. It was the reproach for the Christ in him…the thing he was supposed to do. And Moses counted walking in the spirit- doing what the spirit of God in him was designed to do, the hope of Glory- as greater riches than everything he gave up as Prince of Egypt. And just to punctuate last Sunday’s message, God told him what to do and he simply obeyed. God said, “You tell the people, Moses, to borrow all the gold and silver from all the people that were their captors”. And their captors said, “Here. Just take it. No more frogs, please. Get out.” And they took all their gold and silver. Remember, this is during their suffering for Christ. Suffering is just obeying what God wants you to do. That’s like me trying to tell you, “Don’t eat this or that” Well, you might not be able to eat this, but you might be able to eat that. I don’t drink coffee. But maybe you can drink coffee. You have a different Christ. I have a different Christ. All I know is, you obey God, and I’ll obey God, and together, we’ll be the Body of Christ.

Now what happened, they took all those riches out, the sea parted, and thank God that the Spirit of the Lord moved, because I don’t think Moses, no matter how much he paddled, could have worked it out. But the Spirit of the Lord moved, the sea parted, they walked through on a dry path, brought all the stuff over to dry land, and then God closed the sea up on all their captors, on all of their debtors. So although he suffered in walking in his Christ, walking in the Spirit, not fulfilling the lust of his flesh for a season, the boy got PAID on the other side. It’s only a season. Walk in it!!! Walk in the Spirit! Walk in your Christ! See if you don’t get so excited to walk in the 100-fold in one day on the planet, I mean, where it would take a hundred days in the natural to accomplish the same things. That’s how Jesus accomplished so much. That’s exactly how he knew what was going to happen before it happened…because every day with him walking in the Spirit, he was fixing 100’s of days where the children of Israel did not.

I had over 150 deja-vu’s this last year. I knew what was going to happen before they actually happened…if I walked in the Spirit, the visions I had did happen. I could have chosen to not show up, but then history would have been changed. Walk in it! Find out what you do best! Find out what you do on auto-pilot, and that’s how you determine the Christ in you. This week, go and find out if you type fast, if you count fast, if you paint well, whatever the Christ in you does well. There are some Christs out there that are supposed to mow lawns for certain people so those people can be about walking in their own Christ. Find out what you do! Find out more about your Christ! Find out what God put in you so that you can glorify your Father. It’s only a hope until you can get the Spirit of the Lord upon you, and you can’t do that unless you just DO what He says to do.

Do we need to pray, or do we need to shout?