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Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 681 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text -- Brother Tony Talbert: Well, I didn't have no intentions on getting up. I got needs, too. But, praise God! Y'all be the judge about this. I had a couple of scriptures come to me while the youth chorus was singing. I believe God wants His people to enter into a greater rest. That's what my belief is. I believe that...you know, "...the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." God gives us what we need for that day, but I believe He wants us to enter into more rest, and it's not our rest. It's His rest. There is only one rest. We'll never have rest in this flesh. It's only in Christ. We enter into His rest. Hebrews 6, let's start here. 'Just got two scriptures. I'll be real brief. You know as the end time nears, the oppression of the enemy is gonna get greater. But, you know the Word says that the Lord would lift up a standard against him. It says when the enemy shall come in like a flood the Lord will lift a standard up against him. We're not--we are not by ourself. God has not left His people by ourself. Let's just go to verse 13. I'll break in on a thought here. "...When God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself." You know, there is no greater than God Himself? He stands and does what He wills. His Word says He sits in the armies of heaven and does as He pleases "...and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" "Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee." You know, we need to have faith ministered to us, and it comes by hearing, and it comes as God anoints and He speaks to us. We need to know that He is gonna bless us. ( congregational amens ). He has not left us. He's not, as Elijah said one time, maybe he was sleeping, or something. Our God is on the job 24/7. Even when we're sleeping, He's watching over us. "Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after..."--This is the problem we have--"...after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly..." He was wanting to make sure that we had a hope that went beyond what we have in this life. He wanted to do everything that was necessary. It said "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise..."--That's us, beloved--that's us. He wants to make sure we know--"...unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath..."--In other words, there was no way that...whatever He said was going to happen and we can stand on that. We can take that to the bank! "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation..."--That's a comfort, beloved! That's something that'll carry you through the thickest storm you run through. It don't make any difference. It's the light. It's like the song that the group sings in North Carolina. It's like the Lighthouse. You can have a storm. I don't care. It'll carry you through it. And the two immutable things, I believe, is His Spirit and His Word, and it's what we need. Man should not live by bread alone, beloved. We don't live by what we see. We live by His Word. ( congregational amens ). "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge..."--That's us. We're fleeing to Christ for our refuge. He's our only refuge--"...to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor..."--and it's an anchor, beloved. It'll hold. It'll grip the solid rock--"...both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil." And then it goes on, "Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." And then turn to Timothy--2nd Timothy. I don't know... I feel a sense in my spirit that the Lord wants His people to come to a greater...to enter into 'His' rest, to realize that He's in control of all these things. I don't care how bad your situation may seem. God's grace is sufficient. I'm just gonna break in on a scripture in verse 12 there. This is what Paul said. He said "...nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know...." This is the thing we need in this hour, beloved. We need to know whom we have believed. We can't have a theory of Him. It has to be something that you know. You know whenever the rubber meets the road, you come down to a place to where you're being tossed and all hope is gone, you got to have hope in Christ! Or if not, you're gonna be blown about by every wind. Everything that takes place will blow you about. For "...I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." The Lord hasn't left us, beloved. As the song said, He hasn't brought us this far to leave us. He's with us. Let's look to Him. Let's take heed to what we hear in this meeting. He's preparing us for what's ahead. He'll never send us into battle with something that we can't handle. Let's look to Him. ( congregational amens ). -- Brother Dean Smith: Praise the Lord. I don't know, I just want to get up to say the Lord's on the throne and He's reigning--He's reigning. You know it is true that the devil is raging. But, man, I'm gonna tell you something, God is bigger than all of our problems--bigger than anything. The gates of hell cannot prevail. ( congregational amens ). You know, we don't need to be worried about what the devil's doing. We don't. God is victorious. If we're in Him, we're victorious! What we need to do is keep our eyes on God and what He's done for us, His Word. Tony was talking about that rest. The rest is to allow ourselves to trust our Savior. That's what our rest is. And what He would desire out of our lives is that we have greater rest and that's greater trust and that is coming. That's coming through His Word. Faith cometh by hearing. This is...man, we got life here. We got wells of living water and , boy, everyone...Jim Johnson said something. We ought to be shouting, folks. We're on the mountaintop, victorious people. ( congregational praise ). -- Brother Jerry Krummrich: I just want to agree that it don't matter how screwed up this world is. The cross stands strong and we stand at the foot of it looking up at our Savior. ( congregational praise ). Just got a quick thought, just to remind us of that in Jeremiah 17, a scripture we all know. Let the world do what it wants. I'm going on with the Lord. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, And whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit." (NKJV). And I'll just say nor will cease from praising and trusting in our God. ( congregational amens ). Just believe we could find all kind of things to say about the peace we have that was provided for us by the blood that was shed, nothing else. They could fix all the problems with all this world, it wouldn't give you no peace. ( congregational amens ). I know about the wrath of God, that I'd be worthy of, without the blood that was shed and that gives me peace, because I know it's been done for me. God...in 1st Thessalonians 5:13, Paul's talking about the day of the Lord, things coming on when the whole world is saying, peace and safety, and sudden destruction comes upon them, but then later on in verse 9, he said, "For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him." That's where we're going. We're going on with Him because of what He did--nothing else! That's our hope. We can just be narrow-minded. Our eyes fixed on him like a flint. ( congregational amens ). Praise God! -- Brother Jim Johnson: If I make a mess here, I got somebody to blame. I can blame Phil. ( laughing ). ( laughter ). Oh goodness. I appreciate the comments that've been made. I had this one little short thought. I'm gonna try to give it out. And I hope the Lord can help me with it. It's over in, the scripture I'm gonna refer to here is in James. It's James, last chapter--chapter 5, and it says that Elijah, this is in verse 17, "Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are...." (KJV). That's hard for us to imagine that, isn't it? I mean, you read about what Elijah did back in the Old Testament and we just can't fathom him being a person like you and me. But that's what the Word of God says. He said, he was man that had the same kind of passions that you and I got. He needed the Lord just like we need the Lord. But, thank God, he had the Lord. ( congregational amens ). "...he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit." Now, you would say, boy, that was a powerful thing that Elijah did there, and it was. But did you know that God spoke to Elijah before he ever prayed and said, Elijah, I want you to pray that it rain not for the space of three and a half years. Well, all Elijah did was just follow what the Lord said. Do you know, we can do that! ( congregational amens ). If we can tune in on what God says and do what He says, then we can expect the result that Elijah got! And we'll get the same result, because we have the same God! It's not a different God! You know at the end of the time, the end of that same space, God spoke to him again and said, pray and it'll rain. That's what he did. He went out and he prayed it and boy, I'm telling you, it come a gully-washer. And you know in the middle, in the midst of it, you know, is when he confronted the prophets of Baal. Did you remember that story? Boy, that was an awesome thing. Can you imagine that? It's kind of hard for me, as carnal as I am, to imagine confronting...you know, I liken it to this--maybe going over to Baghdad, not with the Army behind me, now, just over there by myself with a bunch of Bibles and trying to convert the terrorists. Yeah. And they're chopping heads off over there. Now, I'm gonna tell you right now, God better speak to me before I do something like that, because I ain't about to do it unless God does speak to me. ( laughter ). Let's read over here. I want you to see something here that I saw just today in this. In Kings, 1st Kings, this is when he confronted now the prophets of Baal. I want just to point out one little thing here. This is in the 18th chapter so you'll know I ain't reading out of Sears and Roebuck catalogue here or something...1st Kings 18th chapter, it's the 36th verse. This is after he tried to get the prophets of Baal to call fire down. You know, they were supposed to call fire down for the sacrifices on the altar there. They didn't have no water on their altar. It was dry. And they set forth to try to get the fire to fall, but it never fell. Matter of fact, he began to make fun of 'em. You know, he said maybe your gods are asleep! ( laughter ). Maybe you better cry out a little bit louder. Get their attention! Wake 'em up! But they did never did wake 'em up, 'cause they weren't gods. And then Elijah, he saturated his sacrifice. I mean he got it good and wet. It think it was about 12 barrels of water he put it on it. He dug a ditch around it and water just all in the trough around it and everything. And then after that, he said, this is in verse 36, "And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word." ( congregational amens ). Oh, you thought Elijah just made all that up his self and just decided he'd go out there and challenge...no sir! God spoke to him! God gave him directions! All he was doing was what God wanted him to do. Beloved, we can do that! ( congregational amens ). All we need to do is develop a sensitivity of when God is speaking to us and move therein. And I don't care how big the mountain is! I don't care how big the trial is! We can overcome if God is helping us in it. -- Brother Jim Easterly: You know how Jimmy Robbins sometimes says, he's read the last chapter, so he knows how it turns out. I'm gonna tell you something, all this stuff about Satan is true. He's got a lot of power. He's very subtle, more subtle than any beast of the field, and we could go on and on. But I'm gonna read you the last chapter. In fact, it's in the last book. ( laughing ). ( laughter ). It's in Revelation chapter 12, and I'm gonna start reading in verse 11 in just a second. I want to read one other thing. You know, there's a basis...I know Dean was excited when he got up here, 'cause I believe the Lord touched him. But you know, there's a basis in God's Word for that? There's a reason why we can be excited about that. That's the truth. I want to just read this briefly. You don't have to turn back there. This is talking about Satan, Lucifer. It says, "How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!" (NIV). He's got power, but listen, God's got more power! ( congregational amens ). Did you know "...Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world"? (KJV). Greater is He that is in you. And did you know that "...it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." ( congregational amens ). It's true "...There is none righteous, no, not one." But it's also true that we're being made holy. We're being sanctified by His Spirit. Now right there in Revelation chapter 12, verse 11, this is the end of this thing. This is the final thing. It says, "They overcame him...." (NIV). Praise God! It didn't say they sat back and watched Jesus whip him, it said, "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." You know, the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony...did you know that when Jesus shed His blood, the devil's hold over all of mankind that comes to Him through...that comes to the Lord, through Jesus Christ was broken. He has no more power over you. That's why Christians, real born again believers, aren't afraid to die, because they don't fear death. There's something much greater than we've ever seen with our eyes after death for those that are born again. ( congregational amens ). Amen. And it says, "Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short." In verse 13, "When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth..." he gave up. That's not what happened was it? ( laughing ). ( laughter ). "...He pursued the woman..."--And we know we've been taught the woman is a type of the church--"...who had given birth to the male child." And it goes on about how God delivered the woman. God's gonna deliver all of us. ( congregational amens ). This is the church. You get down to verse 15, it says...and after that, did he give up? After God delivered her, sent her out to a place...He gave her something she didn't have, but something she needed...wings to fly away. He took her to a place He had prepared for her. She didn't save up and scheme and hire contractors and buy the materials. It was a place God prepared for the Church. ( congregational amens ). And after all that, did the devil give up? Verse 15, "Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent." Did you see those news clips of the tsunami? Listen, what the devil sends after God's people is worse than any tsunami we've ever seen. ( congregational amens ). If it were possible, it would sweep you away. But what does it say? "But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing..." God has a way of delivering His people. We have a reason to be excited. So then he gave up. ( laughter ). No. In verse 17, it says, "Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring--those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus." It's true, beloved, there's a battle. It's also true that "...they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives unto the death." (KJV). I want to read just one little portion of scripture in 1st Peter. Turn back to 1st Peter. It's in chapter 5. I'll tell you what, this is why Jesus says...in the New International Version it's worded this way. In the King James it says, continue in my word. If ye continue in my word, you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free. In the New International, He says, hold to My teaching. You know that flood, like I say, it's like the news clips of the tsunami. Did you see some of those people when they got a hold of something? Did they just casually reach out? -- Congregation: No. -- Brother Jim Easterly: Son, they had a hold of that thing with their fingernails, with their teeth, with their arms wrapped around, and all their strength...they had their legs wrapped around it, their toenails if they were long enough. ( congregational amens ). ( laughter ). That's what He's talking about when He says, if you hold to My teaching. Listen, we need to hold to His teaching. That's the thing that will sustain us in this flood. The flood's here, but there is a sustaining power in Jesus Christ. Here is 1st Peter chapter 5. Oh, let's see. Let's just start in verse 6. It says, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." (NIV). And the words were spoken here tonight. He said, I don't care what you're going through. He says, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." He knows we have anxiety. Don't be condemned, just cast your cares upon Him, because He cares for you. ( congregational amens ). And verse 8 says, "Be self-controlled and alert...." That's not somebody that's just casually breezing through life. "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." Let's don't be somebody that gets devoured. Let's be self-controlled and alert. "Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings." You know that's one of the real tricks of the enemy. You know, you're the only one. Look at everybody else. They got it made. They got it made. They're really saved. They're not going through what you're going through. You're not the first one that's ever heard that. ( congregational amens ). What did he do to Jesus, right after Jesus was baptized and He saw the Spirit descending like a dove? He says, if...if. ( laughing ). If you're the Son of God. Do you know what Jesus told him? He says, man don't live by bread alone. He lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Do you know what you're getting tonight? God's Word. ( congregational amens ). You're gonna overcome him. ( congregational amens ). You're gonna overcome him, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ..."--without any trials whatsoever? No!--"...After you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen." I'm gonna tell you something. You can go to every one of these letters that Paul wrote to these churches--every one of 'em. He wrote to them 'cause they had problems, but to every one of 'em, he told them, he said, you got everything you need in Christ Jesus. ( congregational amens ). You become behind in no gift. You come behind in no gift. God's Word's what you're getting tonight and that's what we got to hold to. That's what we got to cling to. That's what we can believe and trust. You can trust what the devil tells you if you want to, but I'll guarantee you, at the end of that, you're gonna slip right off of it, or you can stand on what God said. God can put a rock under you. ( congregational amens ). Your house can be on a rock and the same storm that suddenly destroys everything else, will just beat on that house and nothing will come down. It'll be standing there in eternity. Praise God! And we're getting the materials tonight for building that house. ( congregational praise ). Praise God! 
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