63013830 Weakness the Way to God s Power

7/29/2019 63013830 Weakness the Way to God s Power

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Weakness,the Way to

Gods Power

David Eells

Unleavened Bread Publishing Inc.


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Published byUnleavened Bread Publishing Inc.www.unleavenedbreadpublishing.org

Copyright 2011 David Eells. All Rights Reserved. Permission is given to

copy and quote portions of this book, provided the context is given, along withcopyright notice and contact details.

ISBN:

This book and many others may be downloaded freely from

www.unleavenedbreadpublishing.org.

In order to make this book broadly available, we also offer it through onlinebook sellers. We have taken the lowest percentage permitted by their systems, soincome from these sales is negligible and is offset by the thousands we give awayto those who cannot afford to pay for it. We do this to be obedient to our Lord,

Who said, freely ye received, freely give.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

Scriptures are taken from the American Standard Version (ASV) of the HolyBible because of its faithfulness to the ancient manuscripts and Bible Numerics.

Numerics is a system designed into the Bible by God to prove authenticity. TheGreeks and Hebrews used their letters for numbers. Therefore, the whole Bible isalso written in numbers which show perfect patterns as long as the God-inspiredoriginal words are not departed from. It mathematically proves the original textand where it has been added to or taken away from. TheNumeric English NewTestament (NENT) is based on the numeric pattern and is quoted from whennecessary.

We have departed from theASVonly in the name Jehovah and Lord Jehovah

which we replaced with Lord and Lord God, respectively. Neither represents theoriginal YHWH but Lord is less confusing to many and we did not want this todistract from the teaching. The vowels were added by men to make the nameJehovah. We apologize for sometimes using partial texts but this book wouldhave been much larger had we not. Rarely, where italicized words were added tothe text and changed the original meaning, we left them out.
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Father we dedicate this book and its fruit toyou for your glory. Without you and your Word wecould do and say nothing of eternal value.


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

May our Father bless those whom He used to create thisbook from transcriptions of David Eells teachings: Dwora Jawer, who compiled the teachings, took the manu-

script, and rened it. Brad Moyers, who then proofread the manuscript.

Doris and Kaile Hamilton, who did the formatting and nalproofread. Michael Duncan, who created the book cover. Many brothers and sisters who have worked on this book but

do not wish any credit.


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Books of the Bible Abbreviation List

Old Testament New TestamentGen. Genesis Mat. MatthewExo. Exodus Mar. MarkLev. Leviticus Luk. LukeNum. Numbers Joh. JohnDeu. Deuteronomy Act. ActsJos. Joshua Rom. RomansJdg. Judges 1Co. 1 CorinthiansRth. Ruth 2Co. 2 Corinthians1Sa. 1 Samuel Gal. Galatians2Sa. 2 Samuel Eph. Ephesians1Ki. 1 Kings Php. Philippians2Ki. 2 Kings Col. Colossians1Ch. 1 Chronicles 1Th. 1 Thessalonians2Ch. 2 Chronicles 2Th. 2 ThessaloniansEzr. Ezra 1Ti. 1 TimothyNeh. Nehemiah 2Ti. 2 TimothyEst. Esther Tit. TitusJob Job Phm. Philemon (1 Chapter)Psa. Psalms Heb. HebrewsPro. Proverbs Jas. JamesEcc. Ecclesiastes 1Pe. 1 PeterSon. The Song of Solomon 2Pe. 2 PeterIsa. Isaiah 1Jn. 1 JohnJer. Jeremiah 2Jn. 2 John(1 Chapter)Lam. Lamentations 3Jn. 3 John(1 Chapter)Eze. Ezekiel Jud. Jude (1 Chapter)Dan. Daniel Rev. RevelationHos. HoseaJoe. JoelAmo. AmosOba. Obadiah (1 Chapter)Jon. JonahMic. MicahNah. NahumHab. HabakkukZep. ZephaniahHag. HaggaiZec. ZechariahMal. Malachi


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. As Weak As a Little Child 8

2. Being Weak Gives All Glory to God 27

3. Mans Insurance or Gods Assurance? 43

4. True Faith Looks Back 62

5. Confess and Believe 80

6. Walking As a Child Is Walking By Faith 95

7. Let Jesus Take You by the Hand 111

8. Learning to Walk in Your Faith 131

9. Choose to Be Blessed 151

10. The Fiery Trial to Overcome the Flesh 161

11. Pleasing the Lord Brings Forth Fruit 182

12. Trusting in Our Own Provision Is Idolatry 200


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INTRODUCTION

To all those who have struggled to please the Lordand do His Will, this book will be good news. It will bea rest and refreshing, a casting down of the burden ofsalvation, in all its many facets, by self-works. It is notin ourselves to do these things but in Him. Personalstrength and determination will not be enough. As a

matter of fact, it will get in our way and His. He will waituntil we give up so that He may give the free gift throughfaith that He also supplies.

Gideon was faced with an army that was like locustsfor multitude. He gathered together all the manpowerat his disposal. All of this human strength stood in theLords way of doing a miracle for His glory. Man wouldcertainly take the credit and then others would not see

the true source of our physical and spiritual salvation.{Jdg.7:2} And the Lord said unto Gideon, Thepeople that are with thee are too many for meto give the Midianites into their hand, lest Isra-el vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mineown hand hath saved me. At this point, the Lordproceeded to chose only 300 men and then gave them

trumpets for weapons. In the natural, there was noneweaker than this army. Now the Lord could show thatHis power is made perfect in weakness.

And what of David, who was naturally the young-est, smallest and weakest of Jesses sons? When Samuelanointed him with the power of the Spirit, he went on toslay Goliath with a sling in the very next chapter. Howoften is this scenario repeated through the scripturesso that we might know that weakness is a true strengthwhen it qualies us for the Lords power. We should re-fuse to size up the opposition, knowing that when theodds are against us they are in our favor. Our victoryis assured by the fact that it was accomplished already at


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the cross. So read on and be encouraged, saints.

Love from your servant in Christ,David


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CHAPTER ONE

As Weak As a Little Child

What we each have to do is become as a child becausewe can walk with the Lord if we become as a child. Thething about grownups is theyre self-condent, self-suf-cient, self-dependent. All of those traits the world thinks

of as being positive, but in the Kingdom theyre not con-sidered that way by God. The Lord says the only wayyou can enter into the Kingdom is to be a child. Jesussaid, suffer the little children to come unto me;forbid them not: for to such belongeth the king-dom of God (Mar.10:14). Forbid them not: forof such is the kingdom of God, is what it said in theoriginal. Of such is the kingdom of God. (15) Ver-

ily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receivethe kingdom of God as a little child, he shall inno wise enter therein. (16) And he took them inhis arms, and blessed them, laying his handsupon them.Now we tend to think of the Kingdom assomeplace that were going to so that we can enter intoit, but actually were entering into the Kingdom here.

In reality, the Kingdom is every place in your life. Thekingdom of God is within you (Luk.17:21), Jesussaid. The Kingdom is every place in your life where Godis able to rule.

God is not able to rule until youre in agreement withHim. To be a child is to be condent in your Father, notself-condent. Its to be dependent upon your Father,not self-dependent. This is valuable to God. As He said,my righteous one shall live by (from in the Nu-meric) faith: And if he shrink back, my soul hathno pleasure in him (Heb.10:38). What pleasesGod is that we live from faith, that we not live from ourself-condence, or our self-sufciency, or our own abil-


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As Weak As a Little Child 9

ity, or the strength of the arm of the esh, but that we

put our trust in God and walk with Him like a little childwalks with his father. In other words, theres no otherway to enter into the Kingdom. We must give up beinggrownups. We must become as children. In order forGod to be able to rule everywhere in our lives, we haveto become as children.

(Mat.18:1) In that hour came the disciples

unto Jesus, saying, Who then is greatest in thekingdom of heaven? (2) And he called to him alittle child, and set him in the midst of them, (3)and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turnand become as little children, ye shall in nowise enter into the kingdom of heaven.And thesewere His disciples that He was telling this to. These werenot the lost Pharisees; these were the disciples of Jesus,those who were learning and following Him. He saidyou will not enter in unless you turn and become as littlechildren. The process of the Christian life is this processof turning and becoming as little children and becom-ing God-dependent, God-sufcient and God-condent.(4) Whosoever therefore shall humble himselfas this little child, the same is the greatest in

the kingdom of heaven. (5) And whoso shall re-ceive one such little child in my name receivethme. You see, Jesus was a little child. Thats Who Hewas. He says, if you receive one of these little children,you receive Me. Thats somebody whos in My likeness;you receive Me. He was a child. He really was. He wasnta grownup in the ways of the world, in the ways of con-dence in the world, the strength of the world. Grown-ups are known for making their own way, making theirown living, being self-sufcient, being great providers,but the Lord wants to wash all that out of us. He wantsus to put all of our condence and our trust in Him andbecome as little children. If you receive one such little


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Weakness, the Way to Gods Power10

child, you receive Jesus. Thats the way He was. He was

condent in His Lord. Ill tell you, the best way we canhelp ourselves is by walking by faith in Gods Word.Youve probably heard the old saying that, God helpsthose who help themselves, but thats not found in theBible. That saying is credited to Benjamin Franklin inhis Poor Richards Almanac. No, the best way to helpyourself is walking in faith in Gods Word.

(Rom.14:22) The faith which thou hast, havethou to thyself before God. Thats what the Biblesays. You can help yourself. You can help yourself to ev-erything that God has for you through faith in His Word.(Luk.10:21) In that same hour he rejoiced in theHoly Spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father,Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hidethese things from the wise and understanding,and didst reveal them unto babes: yea, Father;for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight. Whatwas He talking about? Reveal what things to the babes?Well, the disciples had just come back from being sentout by the Lord to take authority over the works of thedevil. They came back rejoicing that God had given themauthority over the power of the devil and that they had

done the works of Jesus, and they saw that the spiritswere subject unto them. But why did Jesus call thembabes? Well, it was babes who received this revelationof the authority of Jesus and it was babes who receivedthis revelation of how to use the authority of Jesus. Letsback up a little in this chapter. (3) Go your ways; be-hold, I send you forth as lambs in the midst ofwolves. (4) Carry no purse, no wallet, no shoes;and salute no man on the way.So we see they werebabes because Jesus sent them out totally dependentupon the Lord.

(5) And into whatsoever house ye shall en-ter, rst say, Peace [be] to this house. (6) And


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if a son of peace be there, your peace shall rest

upon him: but if not, it shall turn to you again.And so he said, salute no man on the way because youreally dont know people but you nd out later who peo-ple are. Were going to nd out before the end of thetribulation who people really are and who His childrenare. God sent these disciples out as children, as totallydependent upon the Lord, not self-sufcient, not able to

take care of themselves. He deliberately took away theirability to take care of themselves when He sent them bynot letting them take any kind of insurance with them.The only thing they took was His assurance because Hesaid, the laborer is worthy of his hire (7), mean-ing, if you just go, God will always pay His workers. Youdont have to worry about it. God is that way. He wantsus to go without our own sufciency or our own insur-ance so that we can see His provision on the way.

I really truthfully believe that Jesus never changedthis way of sending out people. Many times, if Godsays, Go, you may go. It doesnt matter if you have thewherewithal to do this. If God says, Go, you may go.He will never fail you. He will meet you on the way. Hesdone it many, many times with me when He said, Go,

and Ive noticed, But, God, I dont have this or I donthave gas or I dont have money. But God doesnt takeno for an answer. If He says, Go, you can go becauseHe will be there. Hell put gas in your car. Hes done it tome several times. Or Hell make it run without gas. Hesdone that, too. Or Hell put money in your pocket some-how or another. Hell do it. Or Hell make your moneystretch. He can surely multiply it. He can do all things.Hell have you meet-up with people whom He has putthere specically to supply your needs, if you go by faithand be obedient to Him. If you go as a child, just trustingin your Father.

In America, there are far too few children. Every-


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body in America seems grown-up. Everybody in Amer-

ica wants to insulate themselves against anything thatcould happen, as though they dont believe in a sover-eign God. The Bible says, A man can receive noth-ing, except it have been given him from heav-en (Joh.3:27). God, Who is Sovereign, will make surethat He blesses you, if you go by faith in Him. Believeme, the time is coming when everybody is going to have

to go by faith in God because Hes going to take awayall the things that people have insured and insulatedthemselves with from the things that might happen inthe world. But God is God. He never goes to sleep. Hesnever fallen off the throne. Hes there always. He is go-ing to make sure that His Word comes true. And we canbe just like little children. We can cast ourselves on Hismercy. Children never even think about where the nextmeal is going to come from. Little children dont worryabout those things; they just know that its Momma andDaddys responsibility; theyll take care of that. And youknow, thats the way God is with us. He wants that kindof relationship with us. Gods not happy with anythingless. (Heb.10:38) My righteous one shall livefromfaith: And if he shrink back, my soul hath

no pleasure in him. God doesnt have pleasure in self-sufcient people. He has pleasure in people who walk byfaith, talk by faith, live by faith. And it is a pleasure tolive by faith. I dont yet know all of what living by faithis; Gods only shown me the little parts that Hes shownme, but I would love to live by faith in every direction.Some directions Ive never even thought about and oth-er people will come and say, Oh, did you try this? Forexample, a sister in the Lord once told me that she andsome other people just picked up some instruments andstarted playing them by faith and pretty soon they gotbetter and better at it. They were surprised at how Godblessed them. Well, that led us to pray over our children,


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Nathan and Jennifer, by faith, and God answered that

prayer. I tell you, it was just the very next week afterthat when they started playing music, picking it up quitenaturally, by ear. So there isnt anything God wont dofor those who put their trust in Him.

There is nothing that God cant do and wont do forthose who put their trust in Him. I believe this is the rea-son that He said He revealed these things unto babes.

God reveals the authority of God and God reveals thepower of His name to people who will become children,people who will cast care to the wind and put themselvesin His Hands, just trusting in Him, believing in Him.(Eph.3:20) God is able to do exceedingly abun-dantly above all that we ask or think. God lovesit when we are weak but we dont see it that way. We liketo be strong and we do our best to make sure that werestrong in every situation that we can get in. As I said, wedo our best to insulate ourselves from any possible mis-hap, but that doesnt please God. It doesnt please Godthat we put our trust in the gods of this world, the saviorsof this world. The apostle Paul learned that lesson. Hewas caught up to paradise and he said, On behalf ofsuch a one (the man who was caught up to paradise)

will I glory: but on mine own behalf I will notglory, save in my weaknesses (2Co.12:5). TheKing JamesVersion translates that word weaknessesthere as inrmitiesbecause they had the idea that theapostle Paul had some kind of sickness or inrmities,but a closer look at this reveals thats not the case at all.Those translators believed the apostle Paul had an eyedisease or something like that and that God said, mygrace is sufcient for thee (9), meaning, You justkeep that because you need that; you need that to bean overcomer; you need that to humble you. But obvi-ously that would be contrary to a lot of rest of the Word.The Bible says, by whose stripes ye were healed


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(1Pe.2:24). It doesnt say that were healed only when

we really need it and it doesnt say that were healed onlysometimes. You were healed all the time.

Lets read on. (2Co.12:6) For if I should desireto glory, I shall not be foolish; for I shall speakthe truth: but I forebear, lest any man shouldaccount of me above that which he seeth me [tobe,] or heareth from me. (7) And by reason of

the exceeding greatness of the revelations, thatI should not be exalted overmuch, there wasgiven to me a thorn in the esh, a messenger ofSatan to buffet me, that I should not be exaltedovermuch.So we see that he said what the thorn inthe esh was. He said it was a messenger of Satan, anangelos. The word there is angelos, which is translated181 times in the New Testament as angeland the otherfew times as messenger, but it means the same thing.Its the same Greek word, angelos. Here was an angel ofSatan that was sent to buffet Paul so that he wouldnt beproud. Paul didnt say it was a sickness that was sent tobuffet him. And, by the way, to buffet is not just oneblow, like a sickness. Its to beat over and over and over.Its many blows. Thats what buffet means. But a thorn

in the esh, in this case, was an angel of Satan that wassent to buffet Paul. In the Old Testament, for every versethat talks about a thorn in the esh, never, not once, isit ever a sickness. It was always referring to the enemiesof Gods people that came against them and in this caseits the same thing. An angel of Satan was sent to buffetPaul so he wouldnt be exalted overmuch. (8) Con-cerning this thing I besought the Lord thrice,that it might depart from me. (9) And he hathsaid unto me, My grace is sufcient for thee: for[my] power is made perfect in weakness. TheKing Jameshere has that this word is weakness, butthis word and the word up in verse ve are the same


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Greek word, so one of them cant be inrmity and the

other one weakness. They have to both be the samething and the truth is they are because using the sameGreek word in talking about Jesus, the Bible says, forhe was crucied through weakness (13:4). Now,nobody would have put inrmity there. Jesus wasntcrucied through inrmity, so they had to put the truththere and the King James did use weakness in that

case. (4) For he was crucied through weakness,yet he liveth through the power of God. For wealso are weak in him, but we shall live with himthrough the power of God toward you. See, whenyou are weak in Christ, youre going to live through thepower of God. Its when you are not able. Its being weakin ability to save yourself, being weak in ability to deliveryourself, being weak in ability to heal yourself. He sayswhen youre in that condition, then Gods power is goingto be with you.

This is the same thing Paul said back in 2 Corinthi-ans 12:9. Im pointing out this verse because in the KingJamesthey used the word weakness here and it couldnot be possibly put in as inrmity because we cantread anywhere in the Scriptures that Jesus was inrm,

nor was He crucied because He was inrm. Now, thatsthe same word thats being used over here and over in2 Corinthians 12:9. He said, My grace is sufcient forthee: for [my] power is made perfect in weakness. Youknow, if we will be weak as a little child, Gods power willbe there. Most often, Gods power is not there becausewe refuse to be weak. We want to be strong in a circum-stance. We see what we think needs to be done and werun to do it, and we are not ceasing from our works. Weare not entering into the Sabbath (Hebrews 4:11). Werenot refusing to be strong. If we will refuse to be strongand we will put our trust in God, we will see His powerthere every time.


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It reminds me of a vision I had years ago, in which

Mary and I were sitting in some lawn chairs in front ofour house in Louisiana. While we were sitting there,we saw this power line hanging from pole to pole. Thestrange thing about it, as we were looking at this andstudying this, was that the power line was almost touch-ing the ground in the middle because it was sagging sobad. And while we were watching that, a tornado came

over that power line and sucked us up out of our chairs.Then the vision changed and I feel like we were over inFlorida and the Lord was showing us something aboutour ministry over there. But what He showed me aboutthat always stuck with me. As we were sitting there, ceas-ing from our works and resting in lawn chairs, watch-ing the power of man come to an end (thats the powerlines), as we watched the power of man come to an end,then the power of God took over. Mans extremity isGods opportunity. Gods not ready to move until we docease from our works because we have faith. Every timeyou have faith, you can stop, you can cease from yourwork, you can cease from your struggling, you can ceasefrom trying to save yourself because the Bible says youare saved. It doesnt say He will save you. If it said that,

youd wonder what method He wanted to use, but sinceHis method is past tense and you believe it, you haveto stop, you have to cease. And so Gods power is madeperfect in our weakness.

Paul said, most gladly therefore will I ratherglory in my weaknesses (not inrmities becauseits the exact same Greek word), that the power ofChrist may rest upon me (12:9). Glory in ourweaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest uponus. Thats the way a child is. They have all the power ofDaddy because he is the provider, he is the deliverer,he is the savior. He takes care of it all and they dontthink it should be any other way and we should be that


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way, too. Weve been trained-up to think otherwise, to

be grownups, but you know, we shouldnt be thinking inany other terms than what a child thinks. This is the wayGod wants it.

Well, I think that we can see by now that the verse,God helps those who help themselves, is not Godly atall; its antichrist. It will never allow you to enter intothe power of God. It will never allow the Spirit and the

power of Christ to rest upon you. So Paul says he gloriesin his weaknesses so that the power of Christ may restupon him. (10) I take pleasure in weaknesses.King Jamessays inrmities. Nobody takes pleasure ininrmities. Thats ridiculous. The word here is the sameGreek word again. Its not inrmity; its weakness.Yes, we take pleasure in weaknesses. Its great to beweak. Its great to not have the ability to deliver yourselfbecause then you get to see the miracle of God. And hewent on to say, in injuries, or actually the word there isinsults, according to the ancient manuscripts and theReceived Textand several others; its insults, not nec-essarily injuries. You dont take pleasure in injuries,but in insults, in necessities, in persecutions,in distresses, for Christs sake: for when I am

weak, then am I strong (10).Now, what was this buffeting that this angel sent hisway, this angel of Satan? Some people say there are nosuch things as angels of Satan. You know that the de-mons are angels. Some people say the demons are notangels, but no, thats not what the Bible says. The de-mons are the angels of Satan, so just forget about thattheology. Whoever brings that to you, dont believe it;dont go down that road because its wrong. Michaeland his angels fought with Satan and his angels (Revela-tion 12:7), the Bible says. Demons are all fallen angels.Thats where they came from. They are the fallen angels,the non-elect angels. So what is this buffeting? What


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are these many different blows that the angel of Satan

brought Pauls way in order to make him weak, in or-der to bring him into a position of weakness? Well, Paulgives a list of them. (11:21) I speak by way of dis-paragement, as though we had been weak. Yetwhereinsoever any is bold (I speak in foolish-ness), I am bold also. (22) Are they Hebrews? soam I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the

seed of Abraham? so am I. (23) Are they minis-ters of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself)I more; in labors more abundantly, in prisonsmore abundantly, in stripes above measure, indeaths oft. Hes talking about the places where he wasweak to save himself. You know, when we get into placeswhere we dont see any possibility of saving ourselves,thats wonderful because we get to see the power of God.If we walk by faith in those places, then we get to seethe miracles of God. Thats what God wants to teach us.He brings us into those places. Remember, God was theOne Who sent this angel of Satan to humble Paul.

Why do we need humbling? We need humbling be-cause were grownups and we need to become children.We need to be humble. We need to not be self-sufcient;

we need to be God-sufcient. We need to be trusting inour Lord because His promises are in there to save usin all these situations. So God brings us into these plac-es and Satans angel brings us into these places wherewere weak, where we need the power of God. If we willbe weak, we will see the power of God. Many times wewant to look for mans help, mans way, mans wisdom.Lets continue reading Pauls list. (24) Of the Jewsve times received I forty [stripes] save one.(25) Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was Istoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night anda day have I been in the deep; (26) [in] jour-neyings often, [in] perils of rivers, [in] perils of


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robbers, [in] perils from [my] countrymen, [in]

perils from the Gentiles, [in] perils in the city,[in] perils in the wilderness, [in] perils in thesea, [in] perils among false brethren; (27) [in]labor and travail, in watchings often, in hungerand thirst, in fastings often, in cold and naked-ness. He was in all these places in order to be weak sothat he could see the power of God. God put him in those

places, like He brought the Israelites into those places inthe wilderness so that they could see the power of God.Being weak is not a time to be anxious or worried; this isa time when you should expect to see the power of God.

Its Gods purpose to bring us to weakness in orderfor us to see His power. This is His plan. Dont ever becast down because of what you see because what you seeis these places that make you weak. Its Gods plan foryou when you get into these places that you put yourtrust in Him and that you see His power. This is theplace where Gods power rests upon you. This place ofweakness, the place of your own inability to save your-self or deliver yourself, is the place you can look for thepromise of God and trust in God. Paul went on, be-sides those things that are without, there is that

which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for allthe churches (28). (29) Who is weak (thats theword weak), and I am not weak? who is causedto stumble, and I burn not? (30) If I must needsglory, I will glory of the things that concern myweakness.Thats another place that the King Jamescalls it inrmity. Its the same word! In the same text,if a word is translated one way in one part of the text andanother way in another part of the text, that is dishon-est. That is deceiving. That is wrong. It either has to beone or the other. If you look at this word in other parts ofthe Bible, the conclusion is that its talking about weak-ness, not inrmity. Weakness.


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Thank God for the places that He brings us to where

were weak! Thats the only place we ever see miracles.Do you realize that? Its the only place we ever see mir-acles and yet that is the place were most tempted tothrow up our hands and be anxious or worried or trou-bled. That is the place where all miracles are given, rightthere, in a place of weakness, the place where youre un-able. Now, if you have the mind of a child and you get

in that place, you just expect Father to take over fromthen on. This is something that He normally does. Godnormally supplies your need, like in the teaching Jesusgave about the birds and the owers. He said they dontlabor and they dont toil to clothe and to feed themselves(Matthew 6:26,28). You mean, the Lord is saying youdont have to work to bring about this clothing and feed-ing? You dont have to toil? Thats exactly what He said.Go back and read it. Its so clear. Thats exactly what Hesaid. He knew that youd get yourself in a situation andHe even ordained these situations to come, where youwouldnt be able to provide for yourself. And He said,are not two sparrows sold for a penny? andnot one of them shall fall on the ground with-out your Father (Mat.10:29). (30) But the very

hairs on your head are all numbered. (31) Fearnot therefore: ye are of more value than manysparrows.Look, not even a hair falls out of your head,can you imagine, that God doesnt know it! He knows usso intimately that not one hair can fall out of your headwithout Him knowing it. I mean, your hairs are alwaysfalling out and growing back. How can He number thehairs of your head? That is an intimate God Who cannumber the hairs of your head. He knows a lot, so howcould we possibly get into a situation that He doesntknow about and hasnt planned for? He is our Jehovah-jireh, the Lord our Provider. (Php.4:19) And my Godshall supply every need of yours according to


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his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

You cant get so far out that God cant reach you. Youcant get in so-impossible a situation that He cant takecare of it. He can pay your taxes out of a shs mouth(Matthew 17:27). He can do anything. Think about someof the things that God has done in the Scriptures and Hereally did do them. He stopped the solar system for aday so Joshua could defeat his enemies. God can do any-

thing. And, you know what? The great thing about it isHes the same yesterday, and to-day, [yea] andfor ever (Heb.13:8). He is the same. He will still doanything to meet your needs, if you will be weak andhave faith. Be weak and have faith. Now, the time whenyou ought to have faith is when youre weak because Goddoesnt need to meet your needs when you dont haveneeds. You dont need a miracle until you need a mira-cle. Dont think that you can avoid a trial of your faith byreceiving the miracle before you need it. No. God triesyour faith. The miracle doesnt come till the miraclesneeded. Trust in Him between here and there becauseHe will be there. He will do what you need. Be con-dent in Him. Be children in Him. This is what we need tolearn and its not an easy lesson. It demands the death of

self, but religion has trained us up with the mind of thebeast because religion has taught that God helps thosewho help themselves and it trains us to take care of thesesituations. Religion trains us to trust in the arm of theesh. They even changed God into a god which He hasnever been so that they can trust in the arm of the esh.Now God does it this way, they say, as if Jesus doesntheal the same way He always healed, by laying handson the sick or by speaking the word of faith. Thats thesame way Hes always healed and He still does it thatway but, you see, theyve changed God so that you cantrust in the arm of the esh, so that you can be strong.You can run out and get the strength of the world, make


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your alliances with the world, get your insurance from

the world. Theyll change God and go to any extent to letthe esh live. But we have to become as a child, other-wise, Jesus says, youre not entering into the Kingdomof Heaven (Luke 18:17). To become as a child is enteringinto the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven iswhere God rules, God reigns, God saves, God delivers.He hasnt changed. We have attempted to change Him.

God put us here in this weak position. He plannedfor us always to be in a weak position, so that He couldbe our Savior. (2Co.4:7) But we have this treasure(the treasure Paul is talking about is the light of theknowledge of the glory of God) in earthen vessels,that the exceeding greatness of the power maybe of God, and not from ourselves. God put thistreasure, this knowledge of God, in such a weak vesselso that when anything happened, it would have to bringglory to Him and not to us. He could have put us in astrong vessel. He could have put us in a very knowledge-able, very wise, very strong, very healthy vessel and wewouldnt have needed His help. He wouldnt have need-ed to be God, would He? We would have been our owngods. If we watch all the childrens superhero shows, well

notice the thing thats super about them is theyre theirown gods. They do what they want to do. They are able.Thats not what God ever wanted. God didnt choose usbecause we are able. He chose us because were not able.He wanted to give us freely His ability through grace andthats unmerited. You cant earn it, you cant pay for it.He wanted to give it to us freely. When you get yourselfin an impossible situation, think about it. God put youthere and He put you there so that you could see howgreat He is. So God put this wonderful treasure in anearthen vessel, a very weak vessel. (8) We are pressedon every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yetnot unto despair; (9) pursued, yet not forsaken;


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smitten down, yet not destroyed; (10) always

bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus(which is the death of self), so that the life also ofJesus may be manifested in our body. God wantsJesus to live through us, but we have to be weak for Himto do that. The power of Christ will rest upon those whoare weak. Were powerful only because we have faith inGod. We can do all things through Christ who strength-

ens us (Philippians 4:13) but He doesnt strengthen un-til youre weak, you see. We have to cease before He willstart. We have to keep the Sabbath and cease from ourworks and enter into His works through faith.

God not only put us in a world that was bigger than usand with an enemy that was a lot bigger than us, He putus in a vessel that was weak to begin with, so that whenthe salvation came, we would know it was from Him andnot from ourselves. We think were so great and wevebeen trained to be self-sufcient. Mommas and daddiestrain-up their children to be self-sufcient. Thats notwhat God wants. He wants a child. Hes always chosenthe weak (1 Corinthians 26-29). Never has He chosenthe strong and this gives you hope. This gives you hopethat when you get in impossible situations, God planned

for you to be there so that He could show you His power,so that He could show you His deliverance and His sal-vation. This is Gods plan. Its been His plan from thebeginning and Hes done it over and over. (Deu.7:6)For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thyGod: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be apeople for his own possession, above all peoplesthat are upon the face of the earth. And did youknow that God still does that? God has still chosen youabove all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth.Did you know that? If He chose you, He chose you abovesomeone else, but He didnt choose you because yourewiser or smarter or more able or mighty because not


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many mighty, not many noble, [are called]

(1Co.1:26). God chose the weak. God called the weakabove all peoples that are upon the face of the earth.(Deu.7:7) The Lord did not set his love upon you,nor choose you, because ye were more in num-ber than any people; for ye were the fewest ofall peoples.And its still that way, isnt it? God chosethe fewest of all peoples. Why did He do that? Cer-

tainly, if He was ghting battles with all the Canaanites,He would want the greatest number, wouldnt He? No,because when the battle was won, He didnt want any-body to say, Look what we did! And when the battle iswon in our lives, He doesnt want anybody to be able tosay, Look what we did! Look how powerful we are!Look how wise we are! Or, Oh, we were smart enoughto follow God. You know, all these things that peoplecould say. No. God said He didnt choose us because wewere the mightiest but because we were the fewest. Itsstill that way today. The true Christians are few.

Dont think that the Christians in this country arethe many. What do they call them? The moral major-ity. That is just totally ridiculous! The proof of that is tolook at the people we have in elected ofce. If there was

a moral majority, believe me, you would always have agovernment that was moral and good because thats theway democracy works. Theres no moral majority. Neverwas. God chose us because we were the fewest of all peo-ples. (8) But because the Lord loveth you, andbecause he would keep the oath which he swearunto your fathers, hath the Lord brought youout with a mighty hand, and redeemed you outof the house of bondage, and from the hand ofPharaoh king of Egypt. (17) If thou shalt sayin thy heart, These nations are more than I;how can I dispossess them? (18) thou shalt notbe afraid of them: thou shalt well remember


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what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh, and

unto all Egypt; (19) the great trials which thineeyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, andthe mighty hand, and the outstretched arm,whereby the Lord thy God brought thee out: soshall the Lord thy God do unto all the peoples ofwhom thou art afraid.And so shall the Lord thy Goddo to all of the curse that you come against, and to all of

the esh that you have to conquer, and to all the princi-palities and powers that you have to conquer. They aremade strong and you are made weak for a purpose, sothat you can see the power of God move against them.

We never need to count on our own strength. Daviddid that and brought a curse on Israel (2 Samuel 24;1 Chronicles 21). He counted the people of Israel andbrought a curse on them because God sent a pestilencethat killed 70,000 men, just so David couldnt count onhis own strength (2 Samuel 24:15; 1 Chronicles 21:14).When you count on your strength, look out because youhave trouble coming. Gods going to humble you. Godsin the humbling process with us. He wants to deliver usfrom trusting in the arm of the esh. You know, in al-most every battle that Israel won, they were outnum-

bered. Isnt it amazing that God demanded that they beoutnumbered before He would give them the victory?For example, in Judges were told that the Israeliteshad an army coming against them that the Bible sayswere as the sands of the sea for multitude (Judges 7:12).The Midianites, the Amalekites and the children of theeast were coming against them and all the men of Is-rael who could be gathered together werent enough todo the job and they knew it. At rst they were count-ing on their own ability and the numbers that they hadbut they were ridiculously outnumbered. (Jdg.7:2)And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people thatare with thee are too many for me to give the


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Midianites into their hand, lest Israel vaunt

themselves against me, saying, Mine own handhath saved me. Now therefore proclaim in theears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearfuland trembling, let him return and depart frommount Gilead. And there returned of the peopletwenty and two thousand; and there remainedten thousand. Well, that was just the beginning of

God whittling down the people and those people whoare fearful will not be the ones who have the victory overthe enemy. Being weak is one thing but being fearful isquite another. Being fearful is not trusting in the powerthat God has given us to come against our enemy. Beingfearful is judging by your own ability. Its looking at yourown ability or your own inability, but thats where Godis putting us on purpose. This is Gods plan to put us ina position of weakness, to make our enemy look big. Hesent the Israelites into a promised land where the en-emies were giants and they were vastly outnumbered.It was Gods plan for it to look like an unfair contest. Inevery trial that we go into, its going to look that way sothat when we get the victory, we know its Gods power,not our own.


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CHAPTER TWO

Being Weak Gives All Glory to God

If youre thinking, Yeah, but God chose Gideon, agreat man of valor, to bring this about. Well, lets goback and look at Gideon. (Jdg.6:12) The angel ofthe Lord appeared unto him, and said unto

him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man ofvalor. The Lord tells you the same thing. Hes with you.His authority is behind you whenever you walk for Him.Whatever we do, we do in the Name as representingHim. His power and His authority are behind us whenwe act on the Word. (13) And Gideon said unto him,Oh, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then isall this befallen us? and where are all his won-

drous works which our fathers told us of, say-ing, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?but now the Lord hath cast us off, and deliv-ered us into the hand of Midian. Have you everthought, Where are the mighty works of God? Well,Ill tell you where they are. Theyre waiting on people tobe weak. If people wont be weak, they wont see them.

As long as were strong to save ourselves, we dont needGod. Theres no faith involved in that. So now Israel hadjust gotten itself into a position of weakness and do youknow what? God chose just as weak a man to lead them.(14) The Lord looked upon him, and said, Go inthis thy might, and save Israel from the handof Midian: have not I sent thee?This thy might?What is the Lord talking about? Hes talking about be-cause God sent Gideon. This kind of reminds you of Pe-ter. Lord, you just bid me to come to You on the water.And when the Lord said, Come, Peter stepped out ofthe boat. The Lord said he could do it and just on theword of the Lord, Peter did it (Matthew 14:28,29). He


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stepped out of the boat by faith. Nobody else stepped

out of the boat. He did. You know, if the Lord told you inthe Word, thats all you need. In this thy might. Godsalways going to be behind His Word. If you step out onHis Word, exercising faith in His Word, then His mightis going to be there. Youre always going to be weak butHis might is going to be there. Have not I sent thee?Its the same thing the Lord did to Moses, when he pro-

tested, O Lord, Im not an eloquent speaker (Exodus4:10) and God answered him with, Who hath mademans mouth? (Exodus 4:11) God chose Moses not be-cause he was great; God chose him because he was weak.

(15) And he said unto him, Oh, Lord, where-with shall I save Israel? behold, my family isthe poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least inmy fathers house. Gideon wasnt listening, was he?My family is the poorest in Manassah, and I am theleast of my fathers house. There it is. God chose theweakest and the least. Dont expect God to send super-man. Thats not what Hes looking for. This will not ac-complish the purpose that He has. God is going to sendsomeone whos weak, someone who is like a child. Thatqualies some of us. You know, we can be as a child. We

are unable in so many things. Sometimes were forcedinto a position of being unable. But I tell you that whatJesus wants for us is not that we be forced into a posi-tion of weakness, but that we walk in that position ofour own free will, refusing to be strong. This is the greatthing. If we will learn to refuse to be strong, we will seethe miracles of God now. And when we get forced intothat position later, it wont be a big thing. It was no bigthing for Moses to go through the wilderness with thechildren of Israel. They were being tried. He wasnt be-ing tried. Hed already been in the wilderness. Hed al-ready gone out into that wilderness and lived in thatwilderness by faith in God. And God sent him because


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Being Weak Gives All Glory to God 29

he had been there. He sent him back to bring the rest

of the Israelites through that wilderness. It wasnt a bigtrial for him; hed already been there. And if youve beenthere, it wont be a big trial for you, but youll be able toshow others.

This is very important for the times that are com-ing. People who are weak are going to be strong in thetimes that are coming and others are going to be fear-

ful. This wilderness experience thats coming is going toweed out the strong from the weak. The ones who arestrong, whove always trusted in their own strength andwho refuse to do anything else, theyre going to fall bythe wayside. Its going to be the babes who are goingto go through the wilderness and make it to the otherside. And Gods always planned it that way. God will notpermit salvation to come any other way but by grace.Some people look around and they say, Look what Goddid here, and, Look what God did there, but if youlook carefully, its what a man did. Theyre giving creditto a man. (Exo.7:3) And I will harden Pharaohsheart, and multiply my signs and my wondersin the land of Egypt. Its funny but you see God onboth sides of this thing. It was God who hardened Pha-

raohs heart, as it says here, so that the miracles thatcame would be mighty miracles. God gave the Israelites astrong enemy who would not let them go. (Psa.105:25)He turned their heart to hate his people, To dealsubtly with his servants. The Egyptians brought thepeople of God into bondage because they hated them.And in Psalm 106, God made them set His people free.First God hardened the Egyptians, then He made themset the Israelites free. It was Gods plan to put them inan impossible situation so that they would know howgreat Gods salvation was. I hardened Pharaohs heartand multiplied my signs and my wonders in the land ofEgypt. (Exo.7:4) But Pharaoh will not hearken


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unto you, and I will lay my hand upon Egypt,

and bring forth any hosts, my people the chil-dren of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by greatjudgments. (5) And the Egyptians shall knowthat I am the Lord, when I stretch forth myhand upon Egypt, and bring out the children ofIsrael from among them. It is Gods plan to put usin an impossible situation. We think its the devils plan.

We think its the devil ghting against us. No, its Godsplan for us to be in impossible situations. A man canreceive nothing, except it have been given himfrom heaven (Joh.3:27), the Bible says, so God putsus in these impossible situations full-well planning to doa miracle for us.

When we get in these situations, we shouldnt lookat the impossibility of the situation and then look at ourstrength and say, Woe is me! because we can see fromhistory this has been Gods plan all along. When we getin that kind of situation, we should gure that the oddsare in our favor, if you gure odds. See, when a situationis impossible, thats when the odds are in your favor.Its just the opposite for the world because they counton their strength and not Gods strength, but when you

look with your eyes and you see the situation is impos-sible and you see the promise of God, thats when youshould be condent in God. He put us in this situationso we could see what a great savior He is. He hardenedPharaohs heart, He turned the Egyptians hearts to hateHis people, to bring them into bondage so that He coulddo mighty miracles to deliver them. It was His plan allalong to do mighty miracles to deliver them. Instead,people want to be strong. The Egyptians wanted to bestrong. Pharaoh called for their wise men and sorcerersand magicians to see if they couldnt do the same cursesthat Moses was bringing. (Exo.7:11) Then Pharaohalso called for the wise men and the sorcerers:


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and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did in

like manner with their enchantments. (12) Forthey cast down every man his rod, and they be-came serpents: but Aarons rod swallowed uptheir rods.

So the curse is sent by God upon the earth. The wholechapter about the curse, Deuteronomy 28, says that itcame by the Hand of God. I know that weve been talk-

ing about the hand of the devil but thats not what theScripture says. God said He sent the curse. But men, inwhom we put our trust, they also propagate the curse. Inthis instance, Moses brought this curse, but also the ma-gicians brought this curse. And the magicians, the sor-cerers, never took away a curse, not one time. (Note thatthe word in the New Testament for sorcery or witch-craft is the word pharmakia.) According to this, theycant take away a curse. They can bring a curse, but theycant take one away. Moses was the one who always tookthe curse away, both the one that he brought (from theLord) and the one that the magicians brought. Moseswas always the one who took away both curses (Exodus7:12; 8:13). And it wasnt until the sorcerers came to theend of their ability that God made a division between

Goshen and Egypt. The sorcerers couldnt duplicate anyof the curses from the plague of lice onward (Exodus8:19) and thats when God made a division, right there.When they failed to duplicate the plague of lice, whenthey came to the end of themselves, their ability, thenGod made this differentiation.

By the way, we are called to walk in health. For in-stance, God said, I will put none of the diseasesupon thee, which I have put upon the Egyptians:for I am the Lord that healeth thee (15:26). Whendid He do that? Well, right here is where God did that.When the sorcery came to an end, when the witchcraftcame to an end, then God made a division. From then


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on the curses always fell upon the Egyptians and not on

the Israelites. So what are we here for? We are here to beweak in the ways of the world. The carnal church is notweak in the ways of the world. They have absorbed andtaken hold of the ways of the world; thats why theyrecalled the harlot. And were called to step out by faith,to put our trust wholly in God, not just in the area ofhealing, but of deliverance in circumstances. The Lord

came to deliver us from everything that involves thecurse of sin and of death. In fact, in Ephesians where hesays, by grace are you saved (sozo) through faith, theword saved there is used in the Scriptures for salvationof the soul, for salvation regarding healing, for salvationin circumstances (when they were in the boat that waslling with water, for instance) and for deliverance fromdemons. The same word is used in all of those instanc-es. Sometimes its translated made whole. (Eph.2:8)For by grace have ye been saved through faith;and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God;(9) not of works, that no man should glory. Godwill not permit us to have His salvation where we canearn it or where we are strong enough for it. He doesntpermit it. He puts us in situations where were not strong

enough, not wise enough.But the world and the worldly Christian will try toconvince you that you can be wise enough, you can gainenough strength to take care of this thing and they willgive you all their worldly wisdom so that youll comeagainst it but, ultimately, because God loves you, Hewill see to it that you fail. In all of your efforts to saveyourself, because He loves you, He will see to it that youfail. Men cant take one curse off, although they can sureshove it around. Only God can take a curse off becausethese curses come to try us, to get us in the position ofbeing saved by God. Therefore, if you fail in this point,then youre going to go around the mountain again and


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youre going to come into the same trial again. This is

why men cant ever deliver you because, if you do itmans way, well, youre just going to bump into it againdown the road. Youre going to go around that moun-tain, youre going to bump into the same trial and youregoing to go around that mountain, youre going to bumpinto the same trial, and youll just keep going arounduntil you get it right. This is why they cant ever deliver

you; all they can do is put more curses upon you, you see.Its because youre going to go around and youre goingto come back to the same trial until you get it right, untilyou do it Gods way. How many times did God run theIsraelites around out in that wilderness? And they criedand they moaned and they groaned and they wanted togo back to Egypt (Exodus 14:11-12; 16:3). Thats what theworldly church leadership is teaching people. Go backto Egypt. Go ahead. Theres nothing wrong with that.Thats the way God does it now. Go on back to Egypt. Goback to the ways of the esh. Go back to the strength ofman, the arm of the esh, and so on and so forth, youknow. They want you to put your trust in the arm of theesh but, no, dont do it because theres a curse in that.The curse is here, if nowhere else.

You see, weve been given a certain amount of time torun this race and to bear fruit, and if all you do is run incircles, youre never going to nish the race. Youll justrun in circles. You never nish the race running in cir-cles. Were running a race against time and at the nishline, we have to have the fruit. And God puts these tri-als in our way so that we go through them His way andovercome His way. He puts them in our way becausetheyre much bigger than we are. We can cry about go-ing back to getting the strength of Egypt, or we can walkby faith in Jesus to overcome and have that strength forthe next trial. Every time you overcome you have thatstrength from Him. You can remember. You can look


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back. You can see what God did and thats His plan. It

was God Who brought the Israelites out into that wilder-ness into some impossible situations. When they rstcame out of Egypt and they were going south, they werefree, they were delivered; it was nothing but open coun-try in front of them. (Exo.14:1) And the Lord spakeunto Moses, saying, (2) Speak unto the childrenof Israel, that they turn back and encamp be-

fore Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea,before Baal-zephon: over against it shall ye en-camp by the sea. (3) And Pharaoh will say ofthe children of Israel, They are entangled in theland, the wilderness hath shut them in. (4) AndI will harden Pharaohs heart, and he shall fol-low after them; and I will get me honor uponPharaoh.

Whom do you think Pharaoh might be? He was theruler over the Egyptians, but Ill tell you another thingthat can be seen here. If you remember, Paul likened theIsraelites going through the Red Sea to them being bap-tized (1 Corinthians 10:1,2) and, of course, going throughthe Red Sea the old man dies, but the new man is given

life. So the old man was the Egyptian and the new manwas the Israelite. When they went through the Red Sea,they were baptized in the Red Sea, in the water and inthe cloud, and the old man, the Egyptian, died. Well,Pharaoh was the Lord, the god of the Egyptians. In fact,that was what his name meant The God. Now, whois the god of the esh? Satan. The devil is the god of theesh and has been given power and authority to do whathe does. Jesus said, all authority hath been givenunto me in heaven and on earth (Mat.28:18).All of it. All of its been given unto Me. Therefore, whatthe devil has, God gives him. And what the devil has,we give him. You can make Pharaoh bigger or you can


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make him smaller. You can take away his authority and

power by agreeing with the Word or you can give himauthority and power by believing in him, believing inhis strength and believing in his might. You can do that.Well, God made Pharaoh strong. He hardened Pharaohsheart and He made him strong. He made Pharaohs peo-ple strong so that the salvation would be from God.

God gave us an enemy to conquer that appears to be

so much stronger than we are and thats the esh. Youlook at your esh. You look at the old man, the Egyptian,and you say, Oh, Lord! You get worried. The more youlook at him, the more worried you get. How am I evergoing to beat this giant? But God puts you in those po-sitions on purpose. He has you there with enemies thatappear much bigger than you are, but in actuality theyrejust bread for you. I like what Joshua and Caleb saidabout the people of Canaan: they are bread for us(Num.14:9). Theyre just something that is made foryou to eat up and get bigger and stronger. God put themthere so that His power would totally conquer them.He wasnt counting on your power. The Israelites hadno power against the Egyptians. The Egyptians were amighty, well-armed army and God put the Israelites in

that position so their salvation had to come from God.Back where we left off, Pharaoh wanted them to serveGod in Egypt and God told Moses what to say to Pha-raoh. (Exo.7:16) And thou shalt say unto him,the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, hath sent meunto thee, saying, Let my people go, that theymay serve me in the wilderness: and, behold,hitherto thou hast not hearkened. And then lat-er, when Pharaoh was starting to give in a little bit, hecalled for Moses and said, Go ye, sacrice to yourGod in the land (8:25); in other words, in Egypt. Youknow, thats right where a lot of Christians are. Theyresacricing to God in Egypt. In other words, they think


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theyre doing it Gods way, but theyre doing it in Egypt.

(26) And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; forwe shall sacrice the abomination of the Egyp-tians to the Lord our God. See, we cant serve Godin Egypt. We cant do it the Egyptians way. If yourecopying the world in any way in your salvation, thenyoure missing God because thats not the way God doesit. Pharaohs going to tell you, Its okay. You can serve

your god but just do it in Egypt, dont do it in the wil-derness. In Egypt they trusted in the strength that theyreceived from Egypt and lived off the esh-pots (Exodus16:3); in other words, they lived off the esh. But Godwanted them in the wilderness where they couldnt haveany help from anything else but Him. The power camefrom God, His ability. And the devils going to tempt youthe same way. He does it all the time. Its okay, serveGod, but do it this way. Just do it the way the Egyptiansdo it. But God is doing it in such a way that well neverbe able to put our trust in the arm of the esh again. Itllbe a total victory over the esh.

So God brought the Israelites out there into thatwilderness and He put them in this neat little trap be-tween Migdol and the Red Sea to see what they would

do. They didnt handle it well. They cried out, Whoa!We wish you would have left us in Egypt to serve theEgyptians! (Exodus 14:10-12) But God brought themthere to part the Red Sea and do the greatest miracleof deliverance for them. He brought them to that situ-ation and we ought to see our situations that way. We,too, are in a wilderness experience going through thisworld. God is bringing us to all these impossible situ-ations so that He can prove how big a God He is. Hiswhole purpose is to prove how big a God He is. And themore impossible the situation, the bigger He becomes,in our mind anyway. Thats what He wants. He wants usto glorify Him for what a great salvation He brings us


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to. And so God brought the Israelites from this trap to

other traps. He brought them to the bitter waters (Exo-dus 15:23) and He had Moses throw in a tree that madethe bitter waters sweet (Exodus 15:25). And I personallybelieve that the bitter waters symbolize our tongue be-cause James talks about the sweet and the bitter watersthat come from the same well and he says it shouldnt bethis way (James 3:10,11). (For a deeper understanding

of this, read my book titled The Tongue Conquers theCurse.) God delivered us at the cross. That was the treethat was cast in that made the bitter waters sweet. Goddelivered us from the bitter waters of our own tonguebecause death and life are in the power of thetongue; And they that love it shall eat the fruitthereof (Pro.18:21). Death and life are in the powerof the tongue. We have the ability to change things inthis wilderness that were in with our tongue. God gaveus that ability at the cross. He made the bitter waterssweet at the cross.

The very next thing God did was make an ordinance.(Exo.15:26) If thou wilt diligently hearken tothe voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do thatwhich is right in his eyes, and wilt give ear to

his commandments, and keep all his statutes, Iwill put none of the diseases upon thee, which Ihave put upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lordthat healeth thee (Hebrew: Jehovah-Rophe). AndGod brought them to the place in the wilderness wherethere was no food (Exodus 16:3) and He gave them thefood. He met their need of the food. And He broughtthem to the place where there was no water (Exodus17:1) and He brought water out of the rock (Exodus 17:6).God brought the Israelites to impossible situations, oneafter another, and He brought them against enemieswho were much bigger than them. It was one impossiblesituation after another and, in every case, God planned


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a great deliverance for them, if they would just put their

trust in Him. We see over and over in the Scriptures thatGod did this.

Look at what God did with Gideons army. The Lordwhittled them down from 32,000 men to 10,000 andthen from 10,000 down to 300 (Judges 7:7) to comeagainst an army that was as many as the sands of the sea(Judges 7:12), so that Gideons army couldnt saymine

own hand hath saved me (Jdg.7:2). There weretoo many Israelites for God to give the Midianites andAmalekites and children of the east into their hand, andHe would have to whittle them down so that they wouldknow that this was a mighty miracle from God. Andhow did He do it? He sent those 300 men out there withpitchers and torches, and when they broke the pitch-ers, the torches shone forth (Judges 7:20) and put theenemy in a fright (Judges 7:21). I believe those torchesare likened to our spirit and that those pitchers are lik-ened to our carnal vessel, our earthly vessel. The torchis like the spirit-man, so that when were broken, thespirit-man is able to shine forth and the enemy is put toight. What a simple thing! No swords, no cannons, nonothing! God made it ridiculous. He put a fright in those

Midianites and Amalekites so that they feared and theyran, and they killed each other because of 300 torches.Gods plan will work when reason just never will. Youwouldnt think that would reasonably work. Nobodywould make a plan like that except God, Who has theability to put fear, total devastating fear, in your enemy.Ive seen Him do that. Its so wondrous how He can dothat, make them turn and run.

God wants us to trust Him alone. (Jer.17:5) Thussaith the Lord: Cursed is the man that trustethin man, and maketh esh his arm, and whoseheart departeth from the Lord. God calls this de-parting from the Lord when you trust in the arm of the


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esh. Thats departing from the Lord. When you do it

the way the world does it, when you dont have any dif-ference, any separation, any sanctication between youand the world, thats departing from the Lord. (6) Forhe shall be like the heath (or like a tumbleweed)in the desert, and shall not see when good co-meth, but shall inhabit the parched places inthe wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited.

(7) Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord,and whose trust the Lord is. (8) For he shall beas a tree planted by the waters, that spreadethout its roots by the river, and shall not fearwhen heat cometh, but its leaf shall be green;and shall not be careful in the year of drought,neither shall cease from yielding fruit. Now thatsounds like the wilderness thats coming, doesnt it? Andhes telling you who it is whos going to make it through,and prosper and be blessed going through it. Its theperson who puts his trust in the Lord. But the personwho trusts in the arm of the esh is going to be blownaway like a tumbleweed. Thats why were preparing toget in the ark now. Theres a ood coming thats goingto take a lot of people away and its not only the fault of

the teachers, its the fault of the people who will listento them because its the easy way. Theres no death in it,theres no death-to-self in it, theres no becoming like achild in it.

God is preparing to show you that there is a differ-ence between His method and the method of the world.(2Ch.16:11) And, behold, the acts of Asa, rstand last, lo, they are written in the book of thekings of Judah and Israel. (12) And in the thirtyand ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased inhis feet; his disease was exceeding great: yet inhis disease he sought not to the Lord, but to thephysicians. (13) And Asa slept with his fathers,


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have bowed down to fear in the rst place. In the second

place, Asa should not have used Gods money. Did youknow that all of your money is Gods money? Its notour money, so Asa shouldnt have used Gods money tobuy insurance against his enemy or to strengthen him-self against his enemy. He made a mistake there. But hedidnt know Gods plan. Lets read on down. God hada great plan. (4) And Ben-Hadad hearkened unto

king Asa, and sent the captains of his armiesagainst the cities of Israel(the northern 10 tribes);and they smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-maim,and all the store-cities of Naphtali. (5) And itcame to pass, that when Baasha heard thereof,that he left off building Ramah, and let his workcease. (6) Then Asa the king took all Judah; andthey carried away the stones of Ramah, and thetimber thereof, wherewith Baasha had build-ed; and he built there with Geba and Mizpah.Look! He had success! He bribed the Syrians to breaktheir league with his enemy and it worked. Youd say,Well, he accomplished what he wanted to do. In a way,he won the war.

But God didnt see it that way. Asa used Gods money

to do something that actually worked; he hired insur-ance and it worked but God didnt see it that way. (7)And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asaking of Judah, and said unto him, Because thouhast relied on the king of Syria, and hast notrelied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the hostof the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand.Yousee what God was planning? God was planning to give toJudah both Israel and Syria. He was going to let Judahconquer both of them. Instead, Judah got worried andthey bribed Syria to break their pact with Israel, so thatthey would only have one to conquer. However, God said,Youve made a mistake. I was going to give them both


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to you. It would have cost you nothing. It wouldnt have

cost you anything and I was going to give them both toyou. Thats the way it is when we run for our insurancesand our assurances of the world in our strengtheningourselves. See, God wants to give it all to us. He makesthe enemy great so that only He can give the whole en-emy to us to conquer them. Look. (7) ... Because thouhast relied on the king of Syria, and hast not

relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the hostof the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand.(8) Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim ahuge host, with chariots and horsemen exceed-ing many? yet, because thou didst rely on theLord, he delivered them into thy hand. (9) Forthe eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughoutthe whole earth, to show himself strong in thebehalf of them whose heart is perfect towardshim. Herein thou hast done foolishly; for fromhenceforth thou shalt have wars. Do you under-stand what God was saying here? He was saying, Look,if youd have done it My way, you wouldnt have had toconquer this problem again. This would have been theend of it. But, okay, since you did it your way, youre

going to have wars from here on. So we wont neces-sarily have to ght, if well just do it Gods way the rsttime. God would have given the whole enemy, vastlyout-numbered as Judah was, He would have given allof them to Israel, but Judah used money to make them-selves strong.


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CHAPTER THREE

Mans Insurance or Gods Assurance?

God said He would have given them all and it wouldnthave cost them anything. God gives you His help for free,but the alliance that you make with the world using yourmoney is costing you something. When you go out, you

make yourself strong with the strength of the world withyour money, which is really Gods money, and it is tak-ing from God. Think about it now. Its not your money,its Gods money. Youre taking Gods money and youregiving it to the devils kingdom to make yourself strongagainst an enemy that God would give you anyway andgive you for free. An alliance with the world is not Godsmethod and it wasnt His plan for Asa. That was Asas

problem. Asa had fallen into this trap of putting his trustin the arm of the esh and it made Asa angry when Godrebuked him. (2Ch.16:10) Then Asa was wrothwith the seer, and put him in the prison-house;for he was in a rage with him because of thisthing.

Many of Gods people are doing the same thing with

their money. Theyre bowing down to the gods of insur-ance. Stop and think about it. What are you doing whenyou buy insurance? Isnt it because you dont believe theWord of God? Oh, we need insurance, you say. Oh, re-ally? Think about why we need insurance. Is it not be-cause you are trusting in the security that the insurancecompanies provide with their large nancial reserves?Youre trusting in them in case something happens, as ifGod isnt on His throne. God knows things are going tohappen. He also knows Hes going to provide. So whatyoure doing is youre robbing Gods money and givingit to another god. God always provides for His children.Ive hardly ever seen a greater miracle than when God


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told me to get rid of my insurance. And, let me tell you,

when I called my insurance man and got rid of my houseand car insurance, it really shocked him.

But I dont think it was maybe a week or two laterthat I saw one of the biggest miracles Ive ever seen andGod proved to me that dropping my worldly insurancewas His way for me because He blessed me so abun-dantly. I had pulled my car into this little old quickie su-

permarket and gone inside when I heard this big crash.The whole front of the store, all the glass in front of thestore, just shook. A car had run up in that parking lotand slammed right into my car and I had just gotten ridof all of my insurance. It slammed right into my littleDatsun station wagon that wasnt but a little tin boxanyway. Just slammed into it. I knew something hadhappened when I looked out of that store, but when Iwent out there, I tell you what, I was just totally awed bythe power of God. This big old Buick had just wrappeditself around the corner of my Datsun station wagon. Imean hit it right on the plastic tail lens of my Datsunand it just notched the front of that Buick from top tobottom. The hood, the grille, the bumper, they were allcaved-in about a foot. The plastic tail lens of my Datsun

had caved-in that car from top to bottom. It was an oldBuick, too an old heavy car built like a tank. And it hitmy car and it literally wrapped around my car.

When I went outside, the driver had backed up abouta foot and was out there looking at it with his eyes justas big saucers. I said, Oh, man! If I hadnt seen that,Id have never believed it because it just totaled out thewhole front of his car. And there wasnt a scratch on mycar. While he was standing there looking at it, I took mythumbnail and I scraped the paint off of the plastic taillens where his hood hit my wrap-around tail lens on thecorner of that Datsun station wagon. That was the onlymark on my car! No, He couldnt believe it. I couldnt


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Mans Insurance or Gods Assurance? 45

believe it, either. But you see, I didnt have any insur-

ance. Id put myself in the hands of the Lord. You know,Id become like a child, in a way, because I put myself inthe hands of the Lord.

Now we have to obey the law, but at this time in Loui-siana, we didnt have to have any insurance and I didnthave any insurance. Nobody ever collected off of me but,boy, I collected off some other folks. In this particular

case, well, I dont say that to be bragging, Im just say-ing God did it. He did miracles for me because of that.In every way that I didnt have insurance, He was myassurance. Well, I wasnt even thinking right when I sawthis; I was just awed. I mean, the guy got in his car andtook off, you know, and after he left, I thought, Boy,I missed the best chance in the world of witnessing tosomebody, so I jumped in my car and caught him atthe next red light. I got out and I witnessed to him. Itold him that was God. I said, God did that because Ididnt have any insurance. When I said, Its a mira-cle, he said, It must be. I remember the rst thing hesaid when I went outside and looked at the car. He saidsomething like, Boy, they sure must build them betterthan they used to. You know, that was totally stupid.

His car would have cut a path right through the middleof my car and he wouldnt have been scratched. It wouldhave been the other way around. Those old Buicks weretough and mine you could dent with your elbow. A Dat-sun station wagon? You could knock the car tail lensout with your elbow. Im telling you theres just nothingthere. This was one of those positions I was put in whereI was made so weak and the situation I was facing wasso strong, that it was totally ridiculous. But, Id just got-ten rid of all my insurance. When you put yourself in thehands of God, He takes that very seriously. Whateveryou do and however it turns out, when you put yourselfin the hands of God, youre going to be the blessed one.


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There was another time where I got in a wreck and

God didnt protect my vehicle, but I was so glad Hedidnt. I had a little Toyota truck that I loved. I was go-ing down the interstate on my way to work and I saw thecar in front of me slowing down. The whole line of trafcwas slowing down because there was somebody stoppedin the middle of a bridge and I was slowing down, butthe fourth guy back, he was looking off down the river

instead of looking at the bridge and he just scooped usall up. Bang! Bang! Bang! It was just one right after an-other. Well, the guy in front of me was hurt really badly.He had slammed into the steering wheel and it jammedup in his chest and he had lung blood just gushing outof his face. Ive shot enough deer to know what it was.It was lung blood. It was bright red because it has a lotof oxygen in it. So I got up in his cab and I pulled himout and I laid him down on the concrete there beside histruck, with his head on the curb like it was a pillow. Andthe lung blood literally piled up from the road up to hisface. Thats how it was coming out of him. It came outjelly-like. Im just telling you what a miracle God did. Iknelt down right there beside him and I prayed for him,and I commanded him to be healed in the name of Jesus.

And there were people all around me just looking at medoing that. Then they came and got him and put him inthe ambulance. I immediately left there and went hometo call the hospital and they told me there was nothingwrong with that man. The nurse said, We turned himloose. He went home. I said, Lady, if youd seen thepile of blood out there on the concrete, youd know therewas something wrong with him. She said, Well, I dontknow, maybe he had a scratch in his nose or something,but there was nothing wrong with him we could see. Weturned him loose and he went home. Praise the Lord!

Now, even though my truck was totaled out andthat was a time I didnt have any insurance, I got my


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truck xed and I still had $1500 in my pocket. It was

a real blessing. I wouldnt have missed it for anything.Not only that, what really tickled me the most was this:While I was standing there beside the highway with thatmans blood on my arms, because Id picked him out ofthe cab, somebody from work came by. It was a Chris-tian guy and he knew Id preached walking and speakingfaith. He saw me standing there with that blood on my

arms and said to me, Youd better go to the hospital.I kept saying, Theres nothing wrong with me, but hethought I was speaking faith. He insisted, You better goto the hospital! I told him again, Theres really nothingwrong with me, so he drove off and he went and told myboss. And when I came to work, he and my boss and abunch of people were standing around waiting for me toget there. They were giving me the once-over with theireyes. They were looking me up one side and down theother and I told them, Look, I told him there was noth-ing wrong with me. It wasnt me. Its the other guy whogot hurt. Theres nothing wrong with me. It was reallyhard to convince them. They thought I was just speak-ing faith. Well, anyway, that time God xed my truck.The next time, of course, we didnt have any insurance

either and God bought my house with their insurancemoney. He plundered Egypt right on down and boughtmy house and car with their insurance money.

I have been asked if its possible that we could plun-der Egypt by taking out worldly insurance. For example,I had a sister tell me what happened to her and her hus-band. She said, When we came back from Italy, my hus-band and I bought a house. Well, he had cancer in Italyand he had surgery and a doctor said he was cancer-free.So we came back and bought a house. We decided to takeout insurance on just the cost of the house. So we boughtthe insurance. We told them that my husband had hadcancer. We had to get a waiver from them, riders, and


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we got the insurance. A week to a month later we found

out that he had terminal cancer. He died a few monthslater, but the house was paid off. I got the money fromEgypt and paid the house off. That was a tremendousblessing and to me that seemed like it was God.

You know, even in our ignorance sometimes Godblesses us, right? Sure, there is a method that is a world-ly method that can bring success. Didnt Asa get success

by bribing Assyrians to break their pact? But God didntbelieve in his method. He didnt agree with his method.Asas method worked. He conquered his enemy and, infact, it broke the war off totally. But even though it wassuccessful, Asa used Gods money to do it. He used Godsmoney to buy insurance. God didnt agree with it. Thisis not to condemn anybody. This is just so that we knowfor the future what God can do. God doesnt appreciateinsurance because its a false God. Its something thatwere counting on for our salvation in the future.

And heres something we really ought to think about:Sometimes what were doing is were getting the cartbefore the horse. Suppose things come on us becausewe have insurance. Ill give you a good example of that,too, which the Lord showed me that just stuck with me

so well. I was working with this guy when I worked atExxon. We were working on pumps in the eld and thisguys name was Melvin. We were working one day onthis old, slurry pump. Its an old crude pump. Crude isreal bad about staining. Its almost like paint. If it getson you, it will stain you almost permanently. And so Iwas working with him and we were working on this oldpump, and the gauge on the top of the pump showedthat it was empty, no pressure. The bleeders were opento make sure that there wasnt pressure, that whenwe broke into it, we wouldnt come into pressure. Thebleeder was plugged and the gauge was broken, so whenwe were breaking into this thing, we were breaking into


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a pump that had pressure on it and it was pressurized

crude oil.So, he and I were working on the head of this pump

and wed taken all the bolts out but the gasket was hold-ing the head stuck onto the thing. I tapped on it a littlebit but it wouldnt break loose and Melvin was standingright there beside it. I walked away from the pump togo get a bigger hammer so I could rear back and hit that

plate and it would break the gasket surface. The min-ute I walked away, the thing popped off and blew crudeall over him. Just all over him. And Id been talking toMelvin about the Lord a lot. In fact, hed been convertedto the Lord by my testimony to him. But he said, Youplanned that, didnt you? It was like I just walked awayand all of a sudden BOOM! and it was crude oil all overhim. He was black from top to bottom, clothes and ev-erything. And he said, Well, dont worry about it bit. Ihave a change of clothes in my locker. I said, Oh, thatsthe reason you got it and I didnt get it. I dont have achange of clothes. So God knew I couldnt afford to getthat way because I didnt have a change of clothes. Youget the point? Melvin prepared for a disaster and he gotone. He had full faith that he was going to have one and

he got what he believed for.See, we dont realize that God is sovereign. If we pre-pare or we insure for disaster, He can bring one. Some-times we think, Oh, thank God I prepared! But actually,we could have brought on the disaster in the rst place.Remember how the engineer who built the Titanic said,We built a boat that even God couldnt sink. We donteven need life boats on this Titanic. He literally said,We built a boat that God couldnt sink and God sank iton its maiden voyage. Well, believe it or not, Melvin andI left this pump and after he had his clothes all changedand everything, we went to another pump. This is a veryrare thing. We went to another pump that was the same


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kind of pump and almost the same thing happened. And

I was standing right beside him this time, right besidehim, when the ange broke open. It was amazing tome how two things in a row could happen like this. Theange broke open and it squirted out of one place fromthat thing and drowned him from top to bottom withcrude oil. But you know what Melvin had said just be-fore that? Youre never gonna get me like that again.

I said, Melvin, you better watch those positive state-ments. God is listening. We left right there and wentover to work on this other pump. Sure enough, we hadchecked that one even with a rod, but evidently it wasplugged up somewhere else, the bleeder with a rod andeverything, and the plate just backed up just a little bit. Itsquirted a stream and hit Melvin and squirted him fromtop to bottom with crude oil. I said, I told you aboutthose positive statements, Melvin. This was the secondtime. It was a good thing he was a good-natured guy. Hereally was a real good-natured guy but he got it twice ina row. Well, Im sure he learned something from thatbecause that was impossible for something like that tohappen twice. It was just impossible for us to be work-ing on the same kind of piece of equipment because we

worked on everything from turbines to motors to pumpsto drivers and here we were working on a reciprocatingpump. There werent even that many of them out thereand we worked on one right after another and he got iton both of them.

Well, sometimes you can insure yourself and Godtakes offense at that and He causes you to lose the battle.In the last case we looked at, it seemed like they made theright decision because what Asa did worked. The onlything is he robbed God to trust in a false god. God evengave Asa temporary victory in it but then the prophetcame and prophesied to him that he wasnt going to getout of wars because of that. In other words, he didnt


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63013830 Weakness the Way to God s Power

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