problems from Jesus directly. So Lord Jesus, we ask again that uh what you have for us tonight, what you have for this house, for Sigma Hill Christian Center, what you have for the individuals, Father God, that make your church here in this area, that the Holy Spirit will go directly to you, Lord Jesus, and bring to us what we need tonight. We submit ourselves, Father God. I submit myself to you, Father God, to be now a voice, Father God, for the Holy Spirit to speak what you would want your church to hear. I just pray that you will grant us ears to hear, that you would give us a heart to understand, Father God, and the ability to apply what the Holy Spirit speaks to us tonight. In Jesus name, we agree. Father, we say, "Amen." Amen. Praise God. Hallelujah. You can tell I got a little bit too excited this morning. And My voice is kind of wanting. Praise God. That's always good. Anyway, um I'm going to start with the scripture. Second Peter chapter 1:es 3 and 4 is what we finish with this morning. And then uh we read there that according or as his divine power, God through Jesus has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue. Then he tells us what that knowledge brings about. es by which this knowledge have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these promises the knowledge or the understanding of these promises that through this you may be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. So basically by putting things into context we believe that God has already given to us and and I don't want to get too theological but you know uh I think it's 2 Thessalonians 5 says that your whole spirit your whole soul and your whole body may be kept blameless until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. But our spirit is what is born again. The minute that we confess that we're sinners. See, the word of God says that the soul that sinnth it shall surely die. So in June 2nd, 1976, without me knowing or understanding all of these things, when I walked up to the altar with my wife and then um I repented of my sins, basically God declared me dead right then and there. I have to die. See, you cannot go to the court of God and say that you're a sinner and live because God's word cannot be revoked. God's word said the soul that sinned to surely die. So when I confess my sin and admitted that I was s a sinner immediately the judgment of God was brought upon me. I was declared God the judgment of God said he's dead. The reason why I didn't die there is because Jesus, you see, Jesus provided my death in the cross. He satisfied the divine uh uh uh requirements of God. Jesus is my substitute. I think Paul writes in Corinthians when he says that he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. In other words, when I went forward and and and my wife went forward, we died. As far as God is concerned, we die. The life that now I now live, like Paul says, I live by the power of the risen son of God. In other words, God in in my spirit gave me life. He took Jesus's all of my sins that have been placed in on Jesus on the cross. He took his death on the cross as full payment for my sins. And immediately God, that's why it says that we're baptized by one spirit into one body. Baptized means to be put under. Uh it's like taking a drop of water and dropping it on the Pacific Ocean. As soon as that drop goes into the ocean, you can't tell where it's at. It becomes part of the whole ocean. My spirit was baptized into the Holy Spirit. And when that happens immediately, your spirit is alive to God. All of the promises of God are now in me in my spirit in seed form. You see, because uh we need to understand that even though salvation is immediate and and and um uh and your names are immediately written in heaven and there's rejoicing in heaven, the minute that a sinner repents, the manifestation of that salvation in us and through us takes a while. You know, one of the odd things because when I I was saved, I was radically transformed. I I mean, I I use this analogy a lot. It was just like somehow God just took the half of my skull up and he reached in there, took my brain and turn it around and put it back in and then put my skull back. It was like, "Oh, wow. Now things, you know, I begin to understand and see things uh uh from a different perspective. That's what what salvation was to me. It was like I was turned around completely, but everything that was in there was in seed form. I went home and I look in the mirror and I look the same. How that's the same me but I don't feel like me anymore. You see there was a transformation. It it it is called born again. Means your spirit all of a sudden now becomes alive. Your spirit now becomes uh uh into the things of God. It was a hunger for anything that had to do with the word of God because it had been starved all these years separated from God. Now, we need to understand that all of that, all of these great and praiseful promises over here that we were just reading, we have to apply knowledge to it. How do you know that God just doesn't all of a sudden uh uh uh gives you all of the wisdom and all of the understanding and and all of the things? One of the things you find out when you get born again that you still make the same stupid mistakes sometimes over and over again. Except this time now you have a spiritual understanding. This time now you're aware. This time now you say, you know what, this is not working for me. You know, when you're in the world, it didn't matter. This is your life. That's what you went with. But now that you're born again, you have a different perspective, a different understanding of what sin is or what sin does of of of of decisions and stuff like that. So then knowledge becomes something that is very much needed. Like I quoted this morning in Hosea, I think it's 6:4, he says that my people perish for lack of knowledge. And I think it was Proverbs um maybe 9:11, the last part. I don't remember for sure but it says that uh it is through knowledge the last part of the verse that the righteous or the just is delivered. So we need to understand there is a requirement now for us not only to study the word but to begin to put what the Bible calls spiritual principles to work. And the reason why I I I um harp so much this morning in the principle of the power of words is because that is the foundation. You see the foundation is everything that is going to be challenging you like uh uh the very first words of Satan Quarter on the Bible. Did God really say? Every challenge that you're going to have whether is sicknesses, whether it's family problems, whether it's business or work related, whatever challenge you have in your life has one root cause and that is Satan challenging the veracity of the word of God or of the promises of God to you. You see, it's going to come to this to where you're going to be faced and having to make a decision. Did God really say? Because that's what Satan is challenging. He's not, you know, God is a God of the person. That's why I love him so much. God can be so awesome and so great. But God is into people. God never invest in big buildings or big program. God, everything that God does has an individual at the center of it. Which is the reason why so many churches fail today. They can build great things, but the individual's needs are not met. God is into people. If you can come face to face to God, you will find out that God is into people. One person to God is a lot more important than a million. There can be a thousand people here tonight and there be one person there with a great need. And God's eyes focus on that person. He said, "That's the sheep that's lost. That's the one that I need to get. That's the one that and that's what God is." But Satan is not like that. Satan is like communism. Everything is is for the the system his system of of destruction. So he will always come to you to the point of of your knee and challenge the veracity of the word of God or of the promises of God in your life. Guess what? And God for the purpose of training us in in in the ways of faith because without faith it is impossible to please God. We are going to be faced with challenges that we're not going to pass until we cross that line and we make the decision and dare to believe what God says in spite of all of the circumstances. Abraham had to do that. Moses had to do that. Every person of faith that you read about in the Bible had to do that. As a matter of fact, in Hebrews 11 talks about some of them never received the promises while they were here. The Bible said they were not the world was not good enough for them. So we need to understand that that is going to be the challenge. Uh God brought the Israelites out of Egypt,

millions of them. He brought them through through miracles. He dried up the Red Sea. They came across. And guess what the Bible says? And that's symbolic Egypt for us as it were. when we were dead in trespasses and sin being uh across the the Red Seas is a type of baptismal like we were in the world and we were baptized now we were baptized into this salvation that I was speaking about and the very first thing that happened when they got to the desert they had no water and they had no food now imagine that you know when it gets hot it gets hot enough man you can't go without a bottle of water imagine being in the desert 12 degrees out there without any shade. Millions of people kicking up all of this stuff and not having any water for three days. You know what statement God makes? He says, "I withheld water from you and I withheld food from you so that you would learn that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of my mouth." See, God was saying, "If you're willing to trust me, all of you can drop dead because of thirst in this dry desert, and I can just send my breath and make you all alive again in that instant." You see, this is what God is saying. Are you willing to trust me? Are you willing to trust my word? Are you willing to go that far with me in my word that you will trust me? So, we need to understand that this is the process of our Christian walk. You see, our Christian walk is going to be based simply on what God says, what Satan says, us tested in between that and us making the right decision. And guess what? And I'm talking from experience. Every time we fail the test, we fail to believe what God the word of God says, we go back to start over again. And it may look different, may be a different circumstance, it may be a different situation, but you when you go around the cycle again, you say, "Man, I've been here again before." You know, I remember when you know the finances wasn't there and and and well, I guess God is not going to come through, so we just have to get a loan. And then uh five years later, you're in the same situation except you owe more money than you did before. And then here you go. Are you going to trust God or are you going to not? Now there's another scripture and that is in Romans 8:32 and um and I want to bring this in because a lot of time we doubt God. We believe God for other people but not for us. But in Romans 8:32 he said he who did not spare his own son but deliver him up for us for us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? What Paul is saying is if God who did not withhold his son, put his son through what Jesus had to go through, endure the agony of having all of the sinfulness of this world dump upon him on the cross so that we could get the righteousness of Jesus because him bearing our sin for us. He says, "If God did not withhold that from us, how much more will he not give us all things." So you see, God has already made available for every single one of us everything that we need. It is there. But now I want to use this analogy. How is it there? Because I need to know knowledge. How is it there? and how can I access this knowledge? And the analogy that I like to use for this is a seed. You can go to the store and and buy some seeds, some bulbs and stuff like that. And that seed, you can look at that seed and whether it's a tomato seed or or an apple seed, whatever, within that seed, everything needed to produce is there. You can plant that one seed, that tree will give you a whole bunch of apples and you can take those apples and plant some more and before you know you have an orchard and a few hundred years on the road you can have, you know, that's how things go. They just multiply. But you see, everything begins with that seed. Now, that seed is not going to grow unless we do something with it, right? I mean, first of all, you got to have the right soil. And then you have to break up the Hosea 6, I think it says, break up your file ground. Sow for yourself righteousness and reap the the fruit of unfailing love. That's what we do with the word of God. That's what we do with the promises of God. The fow ground is our heart and the problem that our heart has believing God in the face of uh temptation or in the face of uh uh uh the enemy. You know, it's pretty hard to believe God for finances when you're losing everything. And it's pretty God to believe, pretty hard to believe God for the salvation of your children when they're blatantly on their way to hell by the actions and the things that they come and see. In the natural, which is Satan's domain, he manipulate the circumstances. All of these things look impossible. But God is always going to say that seed, the promises that I have given you are never going to grow until you break up the file ground of your heart. Until you plant that seed deep into the soul of your heart. And you got to say to yourself, you know what? There's no way in the natural that it looks like this is going to work out, but I'm going to trust you, God. I'm going to trust you, God. See, one of the worst enemies of Christians today is impatient. See, one of the fruit of the spirit is patience or longsuffering. God is like that. The Holy Spirit is the most patient person in in in in all of heaven. The Holy Spirit has the ability to sit there and wait 100 years old. He waits for his opportunity to present Jesus to you. That's his job. He don't care how long he has to wait. He just waits. And so we need this ability, this spiritual fruit of patience. First break up the fow ground. The fow ground is what I see, what I hear, what I understand. Proverbs says in more than one place, there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end is death. The end is destruction. So I have to train myself to see what I see with my natural senses and then read what I read with my spiritual eyes. and I have to make a decision. I don't understand. A lot of times I tell my wife, I don't know how this is going to work out. I have the fake a foggiest idea how this is going to turn out, but I know it's going to turn out. And then I try to get my mind out of the box that I'm in and and and and to look at things from the p perspective of God. The perspective of God is uh I'll come true for you. See, God is saying to me, 30 years from now, you look back on this hard thing that you think you're going through now and you say, "Man, I wish I had that trial." I mean, and that's the truth. Then we have mountains. We have mountains 20 years ago that today, oh man, I can breathe through that. You know, some of the difficulties or the battles that we face today are nothing. uh uh uh I mean that we face today are so much higher than than what we faced back then. But what did it? What was the victory? Faith. We dare to believe we have the experience that God backs up his word. Now when we break up the foul ground and we begin to believe God over the situation and we make peace with the situation. See this is key. Making peace with the situation. That's another spiritual fruit. fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, longsuffering. The patience brings you peace. Once you let go of whatever is is you're facing, finally leave it in the hands of God and said this whichever way comes out is going to turn out for God's glory in my life. Once you let that go and that peace comes in, then all of a sudden now you have that seed in the proper place and now it's being watered. It's being nurtured. And that's what the word of God is. The promises of God. I love uh uh uh going into the the word of God and getting encouragement every day. I just want to read. Okay. Uh uh Lord, you're going to speak to me. I'm expecting. Sometimes I get something deep I cannot understand it. I said this will make uh sense at the right time and I separate it and I put it there. So basically what I'm doing is I am cultivating within my heart the seed of of of the promises of God. Now the the scripture that I use this morning uh in in Hebrews 4:12 where it says the word of God is alive and powerful. And I told you that powerful uh uh there's dunamis and that's exosea means authority means power but the word used there is energy and you have to understand this the word used there the word of god is is alive and and powerful energy what that means is the word of god has energy lifegiving energy energy to cause the promises of god to grow. This is very very important because if you're sick and if your body's been attacked by something like cancer, you need you know what do they do with cancer? They take this u chemotherapy or radiation and they aim this thing and unfortunately this thing kills good cells as well as bad cells. What I want you to understand here is that the word of God, the promises of God, the word that you dare to believe has lifegiving energy. And when that word is applied to the part of your life that has been killed or destroyed or that is being messed up by Satan, energy from God is going to come into that situation. You see, and and and the word of God uh is able, it says there in Hebrews 4:12, to divide aunder. The word aunder is meismos and and and it's only used two two ways in in in that form. It's only used in two places in the Bible. It's in Hebrews 26 I believe or 23 and and in Hebrews 4:12 and it's translated there to divide a sunder but in in in Hebrews 2 four or five whatever it is is is translated as imparting gift of the Holy Spirit. So the word meismos has the idea that God is able to divide between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow, between the attitudes and the intent of the heart and he is able to gift gift. That's what mismos means to cut us under for the purpose of blessing. What is it that a surgeon does when he removes a cancerous part out of the body? He's allowing the rest of the body to heal or to bind up. When you remove a tumor or where you remove something that is default that's what the word of God does to the spirit to the soul to the joint to the marrow. The marrow is where your your blood which the life is in the blood where it is generated. So we need to understand what the word of God is. the word of God when you read you you're you're going through a hard time and you read something in the Bible and as you read this promise jumps out at you and and and God says, "I know what you're going through. Hang in there. Don't give up." That word has lifegiving energy. And if you allow that lifegiving energy to enter where the seed is, where God says, "You are my righteousness. Uh, I made you righteous. I made you cleansed. Whatever trouble you're going in, that seed of the word of God will begin to grow, to germinate, will begin to produce life because it says lifegiving energy. This lifegiving energy all of a sudden is being released. See, that's how other than a miracle, that is how divine healing takes place. A person that is facing a spirit of infirmity in their bodies, all you simply need to do is go to the promises of God. And I heard of many saints that have done that. They face the worst news that they could ever face. They were facing death because of some horrible disease. And they begin to look at every scripture that had to do with healing. Every scripture that had to do with healing. And they began to believe and to apply. And what you're doing is you're releasing that energy into the seed. You see, the Bible says the Lord is the Lord who heals us. Where is the healer? He's in us. Jesus is in it. When when when we were baptized, when we got saved and the Holy Spirit baptized us into that one body, not just one quality or personality of Jesus came in, not just his salvation and he left his healing out or not just his salvation, he left his provision out. No, when we receive Jesus, we receive the whole Jesus. We need to understand that it's already there where in our spirit man our spirit it says that the spirit of God bears witness that we're spirit with our spirit that we are sons of God and we that's in Romans 8 and if we're sons of God then we're hes

of his suffering we need to understand and here's the other part that there is a season for the seed to grow you know that you can take a seed you can break out the ground you and put a good fertilizer on it and then you can put the seed in there and you can water and do all those things and it won't grow if it's not the right time. You see, there's a season. If you plant bulbs, I like working in the garden a lot. You know that you can throw a bulb in there and you can even forget that it was there. But boy, if it's supposed to come out in June, you can be guaranteed that that thing is going to pop up come June. Why? Because it's in his seed. It's in his DNA. It's is in in in in nomenclature. What what he's been made to do. That's what the word of God does. And unfortunately, a lot of Christians get discouraged because they don't understand that principle. We do not understand the principle that even though after we done everything, there's a time and a season for everything. That's what he says. Now, let me show you a couple more scriptures and then get to where I'm trying to lead.

And uh I believe that this one is in John chapter 1 verses 1-5. The gospel of John 1:es 1-5. He says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of man. Now, did you catch that? Did you catch that? There's the words life and light. The word of God is lifegiving energy. What does light does? Light gives energy. That's what the sun does. It causes things to grow. That's the natural light. The spiritual life is the word of God. The word of God is Jesus. Verse 14 says the word became flesh. The word, the word became flesh. Jesus became flesh. The word of God is life. The word of God is light. Light is what makes things grow. Look at verse five. So the question is, how do I allow the light of God to shine in me and through me? So that I can have the seed of the spirit of God of life to germinate and produce the fruits of the spirit. Did you know that there are nine fruit of the spirit? That there are nine uh spiritual blessings and that there's uh nine gifts of the spirit in Galatians 5, I think it's 22, 23, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, meekness, gentleness, temperance, faithfulness ends with self-control, faithfulness, which is one of the things that we need. And then in Matthew 5 3-11. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the poor in spirit. All of these blessings, all of these blessings that are in our spiritual seed as if it were can be released through this light, but only when the light shines in the darkness. And the reason why many believers do not want the light of God to shine without darkness is because of guilt, shame, and condemnation, which are Satan's special of the day. Soup is yours. You know, this is what he does. We don't want to deal with hidden things. We just rather move on along. But you see, the spirit of a man, I think it's Proverbs 20:27, the spirit of the man is a candle of the Lord searching all of the inward parts of the heart. Once your spirit became born, see, the Holy Spirit is a gentleman. We need to understand when God created us h as in the image of himself. He made us sovereign in the sense that God respects our inward part. The Holy Spirit will never come into you and search you out. Never without your permission. Revelations 3:20, Jesus says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and I will have fellowship with him." You see, we need to understand the door to our soul only has a handle on the inside. And God has made himself because of his word and his promise that he created us in his image. He will never violate that space. The only way the light of God is going to shine in that dark part of our soul is by his permission. And how do we grant him that permission? Through words. Through words. You see, because the whole battle is about words. Do I trust God enough to mess around with those hidden feelings and hurts and pain that have been buried deep within my soul? You know that that is the hardest part of the Christian face at um you know we we minister in deliverance many times and we gotten to the point to where the person is is ready to face this this area which by the way has to be faced. the light has to shine in the darkness in order for for the darkness to be overcome. And they'll say, you know what, I don't want to go there. That's fine. We respect that, you know, but we need to understand that in in spiritual warfare, in becoming heirs of the promises that God has given to us and having those promises grow, we need light in those dark places. And and and you know the beauty of God is God is such a gentleman. You know that Jesus never ever exposed the sins or the secrets of anybody. He He's such a good guy. All you simply have to do to him is say, "Lord, you know, I I do have a problem here and I need your healing. I need you to touch this." And he is such a good God. He will come in and he'll start working things within you and he'll begin to shine that light in that part of your soul to where he will bring the healing. But you know what I have to do? This is why I said tonight we're going to pray. Basically, I'm going to go through some scriptures. I have have some prayers that I have based on scriptures and uh basically what they are is asking God to shine his light in those areas of darkness and and nobody has to do it. This is your willing. I'm just teaching and I'm just telling you telling you how how this work. You know I I grew up in in Cuba. I I I grew up in in in in in a place where there was a lot of uh sorcery, where there was a lot of the voodoo and this is just regular custom. All of the things are there. When I got saved, I did not understand none of these things. But being honest with God, I said, "Well, God, why is it that this is not working for me? Why is it that this is not working for me?" So God has brought us to a a path of of true teaching and true understanding how to allow the Holy Spirit to shine his light into things within me that will hinder me from becoming the person and fulfilling the call that he has for my life. This this is what I teach and all the teaching that I do is always aim at this. I don't want to come up in here and make you feel good and give you a little aspirin so that the headache will be gone for a couple of hours. You know, I want to teach you what I have been taught. That that's what a teacher does. You cannot teach any more than what you have learned. Just teaching what what I have learned. These things work. These things are able. You see, some of us cannot achieve the goals that God has for us because we have bitterness within us. You see, A root of bitterness uh can sour all kinds of things. Where does bitterness come from? Hurts, wounds, Satan using somebody to speak words or doing certain deeds. There's so many bitter people out there. So many hurt people out there. We don't have to be like that, Christian brothers and sisters. See, I'm speaking to to Christian mature Christians tonight. We don't have to be like that. The word of God has lifegiving energy within it to cause to grow within. This is not going to happen overnight. People think that that this is like you do this magic wand and hit somebody. No. No. This is a principle that you put into place. This is a seed that you plant. This is a ground that you break out. This is a water that you water. And in due season, if you do not give up, God is going to bring you a harvest. This is how we have to look at it. Okay. Boy, it's very, very quiet here tonight. Praise God.

In Psalm 109 verse4, he says, "In return for my love, they are my accusers, but I give myself to prayer." This is in the psalm that we were reading this morning. For those of you who were here this morning, David is dealing with an attack of Satan. all kinds of words and accusations and false accusation and slander. And David says, "I give myself to prayer." What is prayer? Words coming out of our mouth. He spoke words. What was the first words he spoke? If you read in Psalm 109, he says, "Oh God of my praise, speak on my behalf." He's speaking the word of God. He's speaking the word of God. When the enemy comes against you, when the enemy puts a target against you, remember here's uh Peter minding his own business. He has no idea what's going on in the spiritual realm. Jesus looks at him and says, "Hey, Peter, guess what? Satan just put you in his crosshairs. He's come with a complaint before God against you, and he desires to sift you as wheat." in in our terminology today, it would be like he's got this big old powerful vacuum and he's willing to vacuum you up. He wants to get you out of the carpet. He wants to wipe you out. I mean, Peter had no idea. But yet Jesus, who's in the spirit and who's been praying and interceding, knows what's going on. Said, "Satan's put a target on you and he wants to vacuum you up. He wants to sust you out." But what did Jesus says? But I'm going to pray for you. See, Peter didn't know what was going on, but Jesus did. So, what did Jesus do? Jesus began to pray on behalf of Peter. Now, the sifting came, but he was not able to break Peter. Peter became a man of faith through that. It says that he wept bitterly. That's deliverance. He was delivered from the fear of men. He feared men. When a servant girl pointed out, "Aren't you one of them? Aren't you one of them?" He feared man. He was delivered from that. Just just just just a few months later in the day of Pentecost, Peter is standing up before a whole crowd of Jews that come out from all over the the the known world. And he said, "This is what the prophet Joel spoke about. He preached boldly. He lost his fear of men." How did he lose it? Through the testing, through the trial. But who's the one that saw him through? Jesus praying for him. Now you may say, "Well, if I had Jesus praying for me, I would make it through." Well, you have Jesus praying for you. Jesus is our high priest. He forever sits at the right hand of the father and make us intercession for us. You see, before you even know it, that Satan is putting a target on your back, Jesus is already saying to the father, she's one of my precious one. He's one of my precious one. Father, I pray that through this trial, my child will will overcome whatever fears or doubts because God will use the trial to cause us to grow stronger. You see, and so we need to understand then that prayer like David says, I give myself to prayer is the key because prayers utters the words that allows God to work now on my behalf. Now, let me show you uh a a secret as to how I I see it and how do I think that this works. Uh in the Old Testament, one of the names of God is the God of the Amen. He's called the God of the Amen. Uh and basically what that means is that when God says something, he says, for example, I am the Lord that heals you. That word of God has been spoken and it reigns over the earth. When a believer here on earth hears that word and agrees with the word and says, "Lord, you are the Lord who heals me." Immediately God in heaven says, "Amen." That's my word. Amen. And you know what amen means translated in our be it. So be it. So when I say Lord, you are the Lord who heals me, immediately the God of the Amen says, "So be it." And what that does, it releases angels. Releases whatever angels are needed immediately to begin to work on my behalf. If I have to go through a doctor, those angels are g