Summary: Have you ever wondered why other people seem to float through life on a flowery bed of ease, and it seems like your life is one battle after another, and one trial on top of another?
I didn’t come to this house just to preach, I came to prophesy: I hear the Lord saying that many of you have been going through some deep dark trials, some of you are in the fire right now, and the truth is, it’s not just normal everyday trials.
Some of you have been experiencing crazy trials, things that don’t even make sense, you’ve been hit in ways you never expected.
It’s because you are a threat to hell. It’s because you’ve got something that a lot of professing Christians don’t have, and a lot of churches don’t have, “It’s because you are anointed”.
In our text Paul is being transported by ship to Rome to stand before Caesar for the testimony of his faith.
How many tonight would be honest enough to say, you could have avoided a lot of hardships in life if you would have just listened to good advice?
(Even though they ignored his advice: God was merciful) I think somebody needs to say thank God for his mercy.
I don’t care how good it looks or how good it sounds, or how big it is, or how popular it is, or they are (the one question you better be asking yourself is, “Where is the anointing? Is the anointing in it? Are they anointed? )
I am not against talent and I am not against education and I am not against having a big church. (But the fact is: when I’m going through hell, and the devil is trying to kill me, or kill my family, or kill my ministry) It’s not talent that I need, it’s not education that I need, it’s not a big church or a big name that I need. ( It’s something called the Anointing)
Your business may not know it, but they are blessed because of you, your family, your church, they’re blessed because of you.
Because of the anointing on your life: Lives are going to be preserved, souls are going to be saved, (Satan is not going to succeed, his plans are going to fail).
In our text we see the Apostle Paul has just survived a ship wreck, now he is bitten by a snake, a viper.
Many times these islanders have seen the horrible deaths that had resulted because of the poison of this vipers bite.
I want to stop here and tell you, there are some folk around you that know that you’ve been going through something and they know the devil has attacked you and right now they’re forecasting your death.
I’m reminded of Josephs brothers who threw him in a pit and left him there to die, and sat down on the side of the pit and had lunch.
There are some people around you that are enjoying your pain, they are glad you got bit, they’re saying things like.
I knew they weren’t going to make it, I knew that marriage wouldn’t last, I knew they couldn’t afford that house.
They should have just settled down like the rest of us, they should have just been satisfied with what they had.
They shouldn’t have ever started that soul winning campaign, and they for sure shouldn’t have started that building program.
They should have just stayed in the boat with the rest of us here in the projects, what’s all this nonsense about blessings and promotions, and walking on the water and healing the sick and working miracles.
There are some people that already had you dead, they prophesied your death, they wrote your epitaph, and they celebrated your expiration.
But I just want you to look back over your shoulder and see what God has already brought you through.
You’ve been lied on, falsely accused, you’ve been rejected, you went through divorce, you went through foreclosure, you watched them tow your car to the repo depo.
You lost your job, your so called friends stabbed you in the back, you got sick and thought you were going to die.
Well his record is being broken today: Because I’m not only going to survive, I’m coming out of this stronger, bolder, more anointed, and more of a threat to hell than ever before.
I don’t even have to mention to what (that) is, you know without me even saying a word, what (that) is.
That thing you thought was going to take you out, that thing that looked so big, that thing that made you cry, that thing that broke your heart, that thing that you thought you would never recover from. (But you made it)
Am I talking to anybody who has felt the devil sink his fangs into your life before? Am I talking to anybody who knows that God did a miracle for you? God delivered you? God healed you? God brought you through?
Every time Paul looked down at his hand and saw those scars it was a reminder: That devil couldn’t make it stick.
Somebody listening to my voice, maybe you’re like Paul (you just survived the sea, and lived through a ship wreck, and now you’ve been attacked by a deadly Viper.
I love God, I go to church, I tithe, I sow into the Lord’s work, I read his word, I try to live holy, it doesn’t make sense.
It’s because you are lifting a standard of holiness, in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation.
What it means is: You are anointed and you are a threat to hell and the devil is afraid of what God is doing in your life, and he hates you and the anointing on your life makes you a target.
If the devil knows about anything it’s the anointing: He was the anointed cherub, the worship leader of heaven.
You ought to be shouting right there: If it seems like the devil has singled you out, and all hell has broken loose against you, that means the devil has recognized your anointing.
He wouldn’t be worried about you, if you weren’t anointed, he wouldn’t be bothering you if you weren’t a threat to him.
I don’t know about you but I like that, I want to make the devil uncomfortable, I want him to worry about me.
I want him to be afraid that everywhere I go people are going to get saved, somebody is going to get healed, and somebody is going to get delivered.
Why has the devil launched an all out attack on your life? Your family, your finances, your ministry, your health?
If the devil would have known that by crucifying Jesus he was opening the way of salvation to the world, and making a way for the power of the HolyGhost to come and live and manifest through us: He would have never done it.
And if the devil knew what God was about to do in your life because of his attacks, he would have left you alone.
He thought you would get full of his poison, and become bitter and critical and resentful and angry.
That Viper sunk his fangs into his flesh and shot that poison into his body, but when that poison hit the anointing that poison died.
Some of you know that the vipers of hell have been unleashed against you, and you’ve been bit and it hurts.
You’re going to walk with a greater anointing and a greater authority than ever before. You’re going to cast out bigger devils than before, you’re faith is going to take you places you could never go before.
The anointing does not exempt you from the bit of the viper, but it gives you power over his poison.
I prophesy to you right now: There are Vipers that are being destroyed right now because of the anointing.
Something that has plagued you for years, something that you have wrestled with for years, something that has dogged your heels and rode your back for years, it’s being destroyed (because of the anointing)
Vipers that came to steal kill and destroy: are being shaken off into the fire right now, and their power is being broken (because of the anointing)
Somebody needs to praise God that the anointing is greater than anything the devil can devise against you.
Ye are of God little children and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. 1 Jn 4:4
In that day: (This day) The burden shall depart from off thy shoulder and the yoke from off thy neck, because the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing. Isa 10:27
- Punishment to be endured – “I deserve everything that I’m getting. Just better grin and bear it. It will be gone before too long.”
- Gift to be accepted; acceptance is the issue; “the point of prayer is to get God’s will accomplished on earth not man’s will accomplished in heaven.”
- “When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil. His oath, his covenant, his blood support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the Solid Rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.” “The Solid Rock”
This was very helpful. I have found that trying to bridge that gap between this passage and peoples lives is difficult to say the least. When a young, beautiful Christian wife is dying of cancer and her husband is praying for God to heal her, how do you compassionately say "God is saying no." I think that God is actually saying yes because in her dying she is born into eternal life, whole, healthy with no more sorrow or pain. In otherwords, I think God is always saying yes, we just may not be able to understand it on this side of heaven.
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