Faith: Overcoming Guilt and Embracing God's Power

Such quality, such quality people, and they bring— notwithstanding me, I'm referring to—you have the best of Pentecost come through here. You don't have to go anywhere else to get the best of the best that come through here on a regular basis.

When you're a part of a great church and when you're part of a great ministry, you can see the world from the pew in Eureka. I am very proud of this church, and you're standing among the churches of the Western District. You are one of our great representations of what a local church should be. I'm bragging on you, as it's true. You can chew on that gum for a few minutes and then spit it out, but enjoy the flavor. You guys are something—that's the thing that we have here.

So I wanted to just tell you that's how I feel. From the Book of Mark, I take my text today from Jesus Christ in verse 23. Mark 9:23: "And Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."

Lord Jesus, we come to you today and ask for your anointing upon these feeble lips of clay, that they would speak words of life and peace and hope to the hearts of everyone here today, regardless of where they are at—be they in the depths of despair or on the road to heaven. We all need, Lord, your word, and we all need the renewing of our mind that comes from being in the presence of the word of God. Let every soul be blessed; let none reject, but all receive the good and grafted seed of God, and let it bring forth fruit.

You may be seated.

The passage of scripture that I have read in your hearing—Christ has been briefly absent from this scene, for the Lord has been on the mountaintop, and it has become a moment of transfiguration. He has taken with him his three disciples, Peter, James, and John—the noted inner circle of the disciples. Those four have ascended into the mountain, and there they have watched the Lord in transfiguration as he is blessed and refreshed.

His flesh is refreshed in the presence of eternity. Stepping from the folds of eternity come Moses and Elijah, and Christ, the God of Moses and Elijah, converses as favored friends. The disciples that are with him are overwhelmed. They want to stay in that presence; they want to stay in that mountaintop. But the Lord says we must hasten down the mountain.

Thank God for mountaintop moments of transfiguration! Thank God for when we are lifted up together to sit with him in heavenly places. We can feel eternity's pull upward as we come and as we have worshiped here today. It's not a downward; it's not a depressing; it's not a compressing, but it is ascending. Your spirit has been lifted up. There's something otherworldly about what we are feeling in this transcendent moment.

So it's easy, and you would want to say, "Let's stay." In fact, Peter said, "Let's build churches; let's stay up here on the mountaintop. Let's build a tabernacle to Moses, Elijah, and to Jesus." But Jesus said, "No, this is not where the work is done. You got to go back down to the valley because that's where the people are; that's where the mission is."

To illustrate the Lord's point in his absence, the remaining disciples have been put to a nonplus. They have found themselves, for the want and the lack of faith, unable to cast out a devil of a young boy, and they have been unable to work a miracle of deliverance. The Pharisees' triumph is palpable as they look upon this scene of defeat.

But just in time, Christ arrives. Christ comes down from the mountain while yet the young boy is torn of the devil that possesses him, and as he writhes upon the ground, foaming and twisting in agony, the Lord moves in, performs the miracle, and faith triumphs. The doubters are shamed, and the victory is won.

Like some mighty general who has been absent from the field of battle, the lieutenants who are left have made rash decisions and have engaged in actions that have not worked out. Defeat looks to be inevitable. The left wing of the army has been broken, and the right wing of the army has fled, and the center begins to fail.

But all of a sudden, the general's standard is lifted in the midst of his troops, and those that are flagging see the general's banner through the dust and through all of the confusion of the battlefield. The word rushes through the remaining troops: "The general is back, and the general will lead us forward." They rally around him, they gather themselves together, and they dash forward, and the tide of the battle is turned.

Oh, we want our general to be in the midst of our battle! We want the shout of the king to go up in every service when we come to contest for the souls of men and women. I thank God that I see the standard of the general in the service today. I thank God—anybody going to preach with me? I feel the presence that the general brings when he is here.

It seems like in times like these, when Christ is absent, defeat is inevitable. We are not to trust, the psalmist said, in the arm of the flesh. We are not to trust in the abilities of numbers, but we are to put our faith and our hope in the presence of God himself, for it is God that turns the tide, and it is God that brings the victory. And somebody say, "Amen!"

I'm starting to feel like preaching.

The matter of the dispute at hand here is that a certain man has brought his young son, who for a long time has been demonically tormented. It has not just been a week or two or a month or a few; he has been this way. The Lord said when he asked, the father said to the Lord, "He has been this way for a long time."

It is as though the devil senses the nearness of his departure, that he has renewed his vigor, and he is tearing this child—tearing this child from, as it were, limb to limb. People are appalled, and they are pitiful. They pity this, and they don't know exactly what to do here.

The Lord is looking at this, and he is talking to his father. His father is so desperate. I think that his father has already manifested faith by coming to the disciples. And then when the disciples—oh, I feel something here—when the disciples have not been able to get the job done, instead of grabbing his son and storming out and saying, "There ain't nothing to that Pentecostal church, and there ain't nothing to that Holy Ghost stuff that they're talking about," he stays around.

He has enough faith to ask the Lord when he gets there. He says, "If thou canst do anything, have compassion upon us and help us."

I want to say to every hungry heart, I want to say to every thirsting soul, we within ourselves have little or nothing to offer you today. But when the presence of the Lord, as is so readily testified in this tabernacle today, when the presence of the Lord is among us, help can be had, hope can be realized, and a new beginning can take place.

The generosity of General Jesus is very big here. I want to point out that the Lord is not standing there waiting for everybody to focus on him. He knows that he can dispatch this devil; he knows that he can win this victory. But he invites all that are in the vicinity to become a victor through faith.

For instead of just saying to the devil, instead of just rebuking the devil, when the father says, "If you can help us, have compassion upon us and help us with this situation," the Lord says to the father and to all assembled, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."

Oh, I can get the job done! I can cast out the devil, for I am God manifest in the flesh, and all power is given to me in heaven and in earth. But our text challenges all of us here today that if you can have faith, if you can believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

Are you going to receive that today? Are you going to say that is going to be for me? Faith standeth in God's power. Faith operates within the realm of God's majesty. Faith wears the royal apparel and rides on the king's horse. It is that faith which the king delights to honor.

All things without limit are possible to him that believeth.

I preach to you today on Faith's Triumph.

Now, there are many listed achievements of faith. In fact, in Hebrews chapter 11, it is given to us a whole chapter, person after person and situation after situation, beginning from the beginning of time. God has always found someone of faith.

Hebrews 11 starts out like this: "By faith." And then it lists the name. "By faith, the elders obtained a good report. By faith, Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. By faith, Abraham went out into a strange place and followed after the promises of God. By faith, Sarah conceived a seed and brought forth a child in her old age."

It goes through all kinds of situations and all kinds of victories because to him that believeth, all things are possible.

And I want to tell you, when it looks like God doesn't answer the prayer, and when it looks like it's not going to happen in this life, then just like the singers were singing, death is not the end of this journey.

In Hebrews chapter 11, it talks about those who were not delivered, who were stoned and killed, and sawn asunder, and were chased about in the mountains and lived in the dens and in the caves of the earth. And the scripture said, "Of whom the world was not worthy."

In other words, it doesn't matter your circumstance; if you're a child of God, you are a child of God. If you are misunderstood, it doesn't matter how the world will scoff and how the world will mock and how the world will sneer at you. Faith is still going to be triumph. God is still going to come through.

Somebody needs to praise the Lord! God is going to heal you of that cancer, for when the trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ shall rise, you will not have cancer in that new glorified body.

I feel like telling somebody that right now. There is a sickness that is unto death. Everybody in this room is going to die—some of us sooner than we know, some of us later. It doesn't matter; this is the way we get out of here.

There is only one exception to the departure from earth, and that is the promised rapture of the church and the catching away of the bride. And I believe in it in its enmity; I believe in its soon happening. But we've been believing now for 2,000 years, and death up till now has been the only exit.

This isn't in my notes, so I'm helping somebody get ready to die. I'm helping you prepare. God heals in a church that prays like this, in a church that believes like this. There could be another number up there besides just the Holy Ghost and the baptisms. There's probably numerous miracles that have taken place in this congregation this year, this calendar year—people healed of all manner of diseases and sicknesses.

Oh yes, God is a healer! God is a healer! By his stripes, we are healed. Can I get somebody to raise your hand and wave it and say, "He has been my healer! He has been my healer, and he will always be your healer."

I'm preaching in the Holy Ghost right now. He will always be your healer. He may not heal you when you think you should be healed, but inevitably, in the end, before the beginning of eternity, he will be your healer forever and ever.

[Applause]

And I could preach quite a long time on the achievements and the accomplishments— is anybody getting anything out of this?—on the achievements and the accomplishments of faith that are listed in the scripture.

But I want to talk about faith here present today. Can faith work in 2023? Can faith deliver us from demonic oppression in 2023? Can faith get the job done? The Lord says, "I can do it, but you can do it also if you will but believe."

I am preaching to people with complex problems. You have in your life things that look like they are interminably complicated, and there's no answer. There's no ease for sure; there's no easy answer. And you're like, "I don't know how I'm going to get out of this pickle. I don't know how I'm going to get out of this situation."

The Lord has sent me 350 miles from home to tell you here today, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."

[Applause]

I feel specifically to deal on faith and its relationship to guilt. Guilt today—guilt is a heavy shackle. Guilt is a chain with a large paddle up around your neck that bumps into your gut every step that you take.

Is there a pardon available? Is there relief from the chain of guilt? It clanks against my psyche every moment of every day. I pray that there is deliverance today to you for guilt. I prophesy that you can be completely forgiven. To the vilest of vile, God will forgive you of your sins.

I'm not hesitant to declare that. I don't have to have your list of your sins; they are emblazoned deep upon your conscience. And as God has been dealing with you, they have been renumerated in your mind. It is as if the demons of your past have assembled in one unholy choir, and they have begun to chant and to scream, "You have gone too far! You have done too much! You cannot be delivered!"

But I come to tell you in all confidence, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth!"

Hallelujah! Is anybody going to walk this gospel road with me here?

Oh, those of us who feel like—who remember when we were delivered from guilt—we need to remember ever so briefly what guilt did to us, how it burdened us down. It was something vile; it was something heavy. It was like a scratchy old dirty blanket on a sultry hot summer day that you just couldn't shrug off.

Guilt is a heavy burden, and you are in your mind right now saying, "I'm coming to Jesus for help. I am naked of anything good." But despite all this bad that I have done, despite all this iniquity or lawlessness against God's commandments that I have committed, I do believe in the promise of God.

The devil says, "Stop!" But faith says, "Onward!" The devil says, "Too late!" But faith says, "Right on time!" The devil says, "You can't be free!" But faith says, "To him that believeth, all things are possible!"

I wish somebody would preach with me today!

I've been doing this a long time, ladies and gentlemen, and I got a Holy Ghost goosebumps on my soul right now. God's fixing to give us a great conversion today. Sinners of a long time and backsliders of a long time are finding their way back to God even as I am preaching.

I'm battling—are you battling with me? Through the anointing and through the word of God, we're striking the shackles of sin.

Let me tell you, get this in your mind: "Oh, my friend here today, him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." If you can rise from your seat of sin, if you can stand and but stagger to this altar, there will not be one angel blocking your way with a flaming sword. There will not be one devil that will not have to lay prostrate before you, for the blood of Christ rose like a crimson tide here today.

And the king is saying, "If you can come to me, I will in no wise cast you out."

Ah, preacher, you don't understand! I battle with my flesh. Well, let me just clue you in: I battle with my flesh. And way beyond the presence of the demonic and way beyond the presence of the oppression of evil is the omnipresence that surrounds my soul of flesh.

We are all still in the flesh. Our spirit is redeemed, but our flesh—this mortal coil—is still under the dominance of the fall. That's why we get sick. Thank God for his healing! That's why we struggle more with our flesh than we do with anything else.

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life—these are powerful and formidable enemies. These live close and sometimes slip under our best intentions.

And I'm preaching today that faith recognizes the power of the flesh and the lust thereof. It also encourages us to lay hold on Christ and, through the power of the Holy Ghost, live above the power of the flesh.

You can! You can! Somebody say it! Say it again! Be spotless! Be cleansed! Be delivered! You can drive out the Canaanites! You can see the walled cities fall! The chariots of iron will be stopped!