(Clip) Don't be afraid, I'm with you

Folks, God is raised from the dead, and so the Lord comes along and he says, Therefore prophesize unto them, thus saith the Lord God, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves and bring your land to me, so you shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves. Folks, it's time to get out of that grave. You've been in that grave long enough. You said everything is hopeless. Your marriage hopeless, your job hopeless, everything hopeless. That's graveyard talk. That's the talk of somebody still in a grave, still in a casket. You've been around somebody, it's already talking death. You shouldn't listen to people so muttering and complaining all the time, everything is bad, everything is gloomy, everything is this and that, but there's no joy, there's no talk of faith, there's nothing good. Look at me, folks. Why do you think God gave you the Holy Ghost? Why do you think he gave us the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is not the gloom of God, he's the joy of God. Hallelujah. If you are walking through life looking at everything dimly, everything negatively, never rejoicing in the goodness of God, folks, the one thing that you have, you should start rejoicing, and it should be the source of joy every day is that you're redeemed. That you are not as the world, that you are not going to die and go to a godless hell. You're going to spend eternity in the arms of Jesus. That's the blessed hope that we have in Christ. You begin with that, you start rejoicing at that. In fact, I want you to turn with me to Psalms 146, talking about the good part. See folks, if you want happiness, I mean the true happiness of the Holy Spirit, then you've got to come to this place of hope. Hope is what produces that happiness of the Lord. And in fact, this chapter brings it out, 146. It's only 10 verses, read the whole chapter. Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live will I praise the Lord. I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom there's no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to the earth. In that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. Now folks, here's why he had hope. He said, I serve a God who made heaven, earth, and the sea, and all that there is in it, which keepeth truth forever. Now look at him for just a minute. He says, here's how you can have hope. Because the God that you serve created the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and everything in it. And if God can create the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and everything in it, God can create a good future for me. God can change things for me. I serve a mighty, creative God. That's why it's tied into him. Seeing him, it's all powerful. Hallelujah. Which executes judgment for the oppressed. Which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners. The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind. In other words, God takes off those glasses. The Lord raiseth them that are bowed down. The Lord loveth the righteous. The Lord preserveth the strangers. He relieveth the fatherless and the widows. But the way of the wicked, he turneth upside down. The Lord shall reign forever, even the God. Thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Hallelujah. Folks, I have to confess to you that I've had a holy indignation lately burning in my heart. And it's a holy indignation about the subjective way so many Christians are living, rather than living in dominion and authority. My Bible makes it very clear. This is the victory that overcomes the world. Even our faith. Luke 10, 19. Behold, I give you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions, and all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. We need to stop right there and say, then why aren't we living? Is that just a suggestion? Is this just hyperbole? Is this just talk? Or is this the living word of God? I've given you authority over all the power of the enemy. Why aren't we taking that authority in our home? Why do we have to be so subjective toward everything around us? Our conditions and every crisis that we fear man. We fear that God has forsaken us. No, the scripture says, I have given you power and authority, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nothing. Romans 5, 17. They which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Listen to me. They shall reign in life, not in eternity. We will rule and reign with Christ, yes. But he says, they will reign in life. That word reign, they shall live as a king with authority. That's what the Greek means. My people shall live as those who have total authority. Folks, we do not have to bow down to every whim and wave of doctrine. We don't have to bow down to the devil. We don't have to give up on our marriages. We don't have to give up on anything that devil try to take from us because the Bible says, we shall reign over him. We shall reign in power. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in your believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. You're not just to have hope, you have to have abounding hope, he said. That's overabundance, all that you would ever need to live in hope. Hallelujah. Wonderful Jesus. The Lord loosens the prisoners. He opens the blind eyes. He raises up those who are bound down with their problems. I can say with David, I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand. I shall not be moved. Therefore, my heart shall be glad and my glory rejoice. My flesh shall also rest in hope. My flesh, this flesh that gets up every morning and looks out at life. This flesh that gets up and say, I've got to go to work today. This flesh that comes into the room to a teenager that's in rebellion. My flesh shall rest in hope. I face a marriage problem. I face a situation in my home. I have to go to a job. I've got to do things and it looks so hopeless. My flesh shall rest in hope. Hallelujah. One more scripture. Psalm 33. Psalm 33. Verse 18. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy, to deliver their soul from death, to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waited for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. Our heart shall rejoice in him because we have trusted in his holy name. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us according as we hope in thee. We hope in thee. Glory to God. God has a beautiful plan for your life. He absolutely does. When God called me, nobody but God could have found me up in those hills of Pennsylvania, a little town of 1500 people. I weighed 115 pounds. I've gained 50 pounds since then. Can you imagine? Take 50 pounds off of this body. I was skin and bone. I said, Lord, I'm going to be up in these hills the rest of my life. And God one day said, you pray and I'll make a way. If you'll seek my face, I'll open the windows of heaven for you. I'll do the impossible for you. And God said, if you seek me, just give me all your heart. I'll take your life to places you can't believe. He took me to Psalm 25 and made me promises. Who is he that feareth the Lord? Him shall he teach, and the path he shall choose. His soul shall dwell at ease. His seed shall inherit the earth. If you will seek God and put him first, and if you'll have hope in Jesus and his faithfulness, he will bless every one of you. Not one of you will be left out. Not one. Not one. I'm promising you a fulfilled life. Useful. Fruitful. In the sight of God. And the most important thing God can give you is who he is and the knowledge of himself. Hallelujah. I'm asking you right now to say, God, by your Holy Spirit, take off these shades that are on my eyes. I'm not talking about physical glasses. Those awful, awful spiritual darkness. Glasses of spiritual darkness. I want to see you, Lord, as my God. You said I'll be a God to you. You'll be my son. You'll be my daughter. And he says, I've made a covenant. Now listen to me with a spiritual ear now, please. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me. I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good. God says, I'm going to do good by you. You just seek me with all your heart. And with this, I close. I was in prayer this past week, and every day that I was in prayer, the Holy Spirit came to me. He said, David, if you will continue to seek me as you have with all your heart, your best days are still ahead, and you can't conceive the good that I want to do for you. And that goes for every one of his children.