Power of Persistence

Praise the Lord, hallelujah. Hallelujah. We thank you Jesus. We thank you Jesus, hallelujah. Jesus, the Savior of the world. Amen. The Savior of America. Praise God. Thank you so much for this wonderful welcome. I am honored and blessed to be here. Among you are Jesus culture. I like that name. It says a new culture, isn't it? A new creation, a new culture, glory to God. Thank you very much, Benning and all those wonderful men and women at his side. I am really blessed to be here with you again. Again, I think it's my third time. If you bury a lie, it will rot. If you bury the truth, it will rise. That is why the grave could not hold Jesus because he says, I am the way the truth and the life Jesus is alive and his truth remains forever. Amen. And this is the truth that we preach . Blessed be the name of the Lord. Hallelujah. I am from the ministry of Christ's four nations. It says, I have a successor, a young man who has taken over the ministry and who is doing most of the work. I'm just helping him now, but he said, Daniel Colenda, some of you may know him, and he carries the shame anointing that the Holy Spirit has also given to me. And with me is also my assistant, Andrew Colby, and we all preach the gospel wherever we have a chance. By the way, I'm also on Facebook. Amen. I never thought that I was actually interested in Facebook, but when Andrew showed it to me, the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and he said, this is your pulpit. And now I've got over 3.6 million followers. And every day, every day, I send out a juicy message from the Word of God. How many of you follow me? How many of you follow me? Well, that's wonderful. God bless you, and if you haven't done so far, do it as well. You will be blessed. Amen. I'll give you just one sample that I wrote a little while back. This is what I wrote. The Bible is the Constitution of the Kingdom of God. No majority of any Parliament on Earth, no earthly government or Supreme Court can change it. Democratic vote or consensus does not decide Bible truth. For ever, oh Lord, your Word is settled in heaven. Psalm 119 verse 89, Jesus said, I am the truth. God bless you. Do you like that? Amen. Praise God. Praise God. Pra ise God. The Lord gave me a word for tonight, and I must say that I believe it is very, very important, and I believe something is going to happen here tonight that is going to change America. I really believe it because I have seen what God can do. When I was a young man, youngster, like many of you, I was already sent out as a missionary from Germany to Africa. Once a year, I returned to Germany, my country of origin, and preached in a couple of churches there. One Sunday night, in one of those churches, there was a minister of the gospel. We were at the dinner table and suddenly he started to prophesy. He says, I see Reinhardt that you are going to preach the gospel to nations. He said, I can see how you preach it to presidents and kings and in houses of parliaments. He went on and on and on and on. I thought, wow, I can't comprehend it. It's so great. It's so big, and I'm so small, but I never forgot it, and I saw how it all came to pass, and I thought by myself, I would like to say to all of you that it shall happen to you what happened to me. Listen, when I was young, I went from prophecy to prophecy to prophecy. Today, I'm going from fulfillment to fulfillment to fulfillment and even more fulfillment. This is what God can do. It's not long ago I was in Africa and the president of that country invited me to come. I took the team along. There we were in this absolute luxurious place and the president came, the state president. After all the niceties, the president said, I like the team to go. I would like to be alone with Reverend Bonkey. When the last person just left through the door, I turned to him. The Holy Spirit that touched me. I said, Your Excellency, Mr. President, what about your own sins? He said to me, that's the reason why I wanted to talk with you. I preached the gospel to him, and he received Jesus as his Savior, that very hour. Here is enough potential tonight to shake the whole world over and over and over again because one man with God we have learned is more than a maturity. Amen? Hallelujah. Praise God, praise God, praise God. I've got an old testament scripture and new testament truth. All right? And I'm turning to 2nd Kings chapter 13, 2nd Kings chapter 13. From verse 14, it speaks about the death of Elijah the prophet, but before he died, something else happened. Elijah had become sick with the illness of which he would die. Then Joash, the king of Israel, came down to him and repped over his face and said, Oh, my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and their horsemen. And Elijah said to him, take a bow and some arrows. So he took himself a bow and some arrows. And then he said to the king of Israel, put your hand on the bow. So he put his hand on it. And Elijah put his hands on the king's hands. And he said, open the east window and he opened it. Then Elijah said, shoot and he shot. And he said, the arrow of the Lord's deliverance, the arrow of the Lord's deliverance from Syria. For you must strike the Syrians and affect till you have destroyed them. And then he said, pick the arrows so he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, strike the ground so he struck three times and stopped. And the man of God was angry with the young king, with him and said, you should have struck five or six times. Then you would have struck Syria till all you had destroyed it. But now you will strike Syria only three times. Amen. So far God's word. Well, let me just give you the context a little bit better. Joash was the king of Israel. And he was one of the bad kings of Israel. And he was a young man. And then the Syrians invaded Israel. And when he saw the Syrian army, he knew he had no much for them. And he already saw himself getting killed or captured or whatever. And he could only think of one of one root of escape. And that was the prophet of God, Elisha. Elisha had an excellent reputation. I'm just coming to my first point, all right? And there was Elisha. And he was the king. And we just read that the king said, oh, my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof, he tried to give some compliments to the prophet of the Lord. He tried to be nice to him. And we also read that he was weeping, trembling because he saw his end before his eyes. And then the man of God began to speak. What did he say? And this brings me to my first point. He should have said, Josh, take a tissue and dry your eyes, your tears, and blow your nose. He didn't say that. And it struck me so much. I'm talking to Christians today. We are Christians. But I tell you one thing, I'm not here to cuddle Christians. I'm not here just to pat your shoulders and say, oh, what a wonderful person you are. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. This is not a pity party. We are here in the house of God. And what did the man of God say? He didn't say, oh, I want to comfort you. He said to him, take bow and arrow. Take bow and arrow. For all those who feel sorry for themselves, I will say to you the same. The Lord is speaking to you. Stop complaining. There is no comfort in unbelief. Unbelief is judgment. Some people in Germany, they say, you know, oh, brother, monkey, I have got honest doubts. Well, I've got bad news for them. I said to them, God does not bless honest doubts. Doubts are always wrong. I never pray. Lord, help my unbelief. My unbelief needs no help. I would like my unbelief to die. And I won't want to put my trust in the Lord. Amen. These people who are just always sorry for themselves, self-pity can damn you quicker than heroin. We are not here to feel sorry for ourselves and just magnify our problems. We are here to see something totally completely different. Let me put it this way. If you always stumble over the same stones, it means that you are walking in a circle. Some people always have the same problems periodically proving that they actually always stumble over the same stones in the name of Jesus. Break out of that circle. The word of God is your compass and Jesus will lead you out. God never leads circularly. He leads linearly, not in circles, but in straight lines. And His spirit sweeps us forward into the eternal purposes of God. Are you happy? Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Jewish, stop weeping, stop trembling, take bow and arrow. Emilitary situation has developed. In this sense, in this story, a military reply was needed. Take bow and arrow. Where are our weapons as Christians? Where are they? You find them in Ephesians chapter 6. I like it for 17. The sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. The sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's our only attack weapon. When you preach the gospel, you do the worst you can do to the devil. Because the gospel is the only gun. If you shoot a dead man with it, he becomes alive. The gospel is the power of God. The word of God is awesome. It is a sharp sword. Jesus said heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away. What a weapon! The word of God. And there are so many other mighty blessings in this word of God. Oh, hallelujah. For instance, let me just mention it as a little detour. The power of the blood of Jesus. There's power in the blood of Jesus. It washes from all its sins, removes all iniquities. What a wonderful blessing to us it is a blessing to the devil, the blood of Jesus, is poison. But to us it is eternal life. Say, come on, say hallelujah. Hallelujah. You know, I, let me tell you quickly the story. I've told it so many times actually , but not here, of course. I was invited. I was invited to a certain television program, National Secular Program. And they said religious questions were to be answered . And somehow they had picked me. I don't know how they found me, but there I was . And it was regular. I went again and again. And one day I arrived at television house, and there were some other people invited to that talk. And one of the guys, when you saw me, he told me that he was an atheist. An atheist, I said, okay, understood. And when, and when we went on the air, he challenged me. He said, preacher, you believe that there's power in the blood of Jesus. I said, yes, I do believe it. And I preach it. He said, I don't believe it for one bit. I said, why not, mister? He said, because the blood of Jesus is already 2000 years in this world. Yet, he said, the world today is worse than it was 2000 years ago. And this is the reason why I say there is no power in the blood of Jesus. Man, I was itching to reply. I said, let me answer, please. I said, mister, there's also a lot of soap in this world. Yet many people are still dirty. I said, mister, let me explain to you how soap works. If I am dirty and I stand next to a piece of soap, I am not automatically clean. I said, I'm not even automatically clean even if I should work in a soap factory. I said, mister, if you want to know what soap can do, then this is what you must do. You must stretch out your hand. You must take the soap and apply it over. Hangaloo, yeah. I said, mister, so it kiss with the blood of Jesus. It's not enough for it to be around. It must be applied. There's power in the blood of Jesus. There's power in the Word of God, which is the Son of the Spirit. And there is power in the blood of Jesus. That atheist was shocked. He said to me, you know, preacher, when you speak, I can feel something emanating from you. He said, I spoke with some other evangelists, but I felt nothing emanated from them. And while you spoke, I have been thinking, he said, I think the evangelists I met before they were amateurs and you are a professional. I stood up and I said, mister, you are wrong again. I am not a professional evangelist, but I tell you what I am. I am a living piece of evidence that there is power in the blood of Jesus. Shout out to Alleluia. Blessed be the name of the Lord. In James 2, verse 19, we read the devil's trombone. I like that. I like it. I have seen Christians tremble and I feel they are doing the devil's job. We are not called to tremble. We are called to be triumphant. We have the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Alleluia. Here I stand in the name of Jesus, the name above all names. And we see God's power in action, amen. So let me say it again, the sword of the spirit is, so I believe, the all purpose weapon that we have, the all purpose weapon by faith. We preach, we act, we pray, we move, take bow and arrow, take bow and arrow. Let me come back to King Joash, back to King Joash. Here stood the king. Can you picture him? I mean, he was sobbing and he was shaking. He made some flattery, some compliments to the prophet of God. Father, my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen, they are off. That was flattery. And you know what flattery is? Flattery is the bid up to the final blow. The prophet had enough of it. He said, take bow and arrow. And I say to all of us here, let's take bow and arrow. In Jesus' name, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, preaching the full gospel, the full blooded gospel. But then something else happened and that's another big point here. When we read here, Elisha, in verse 16, put his hands on the king's hands. I like that. Why did you do that? Because those hands were shaking and those knees were trembling and here comes the prophet. He saw the fear in this man. He had bow and arrow already in his hands, but he could hardly hold it. And then the prophet put his hands on the king's hands and the moment something fantastic happened. Peace came to the king. She became absolutely calm. Something happened. I believe it transfer happened. Something wonderful happened. Hallelujah. This is God's moment. This is God's moment. This touch makes us fearless. Do you hear me? This touch of the hand of God, the Holy Spirit makes us fearless. Oh, Hallelujah. I just was thinking of Judges 14, the story of sumpson. Sumpson, it is said, went to Timna and he was walking through the vineyards very, very happy because he thought of his girlfriend and he couldn't go fast enough and when he came round a bend, we are told in the Bible there was a young lion in front of him, a young lion. I think they say they're a young lion because that lion still had its teeth, ferocious creature. Here is sumpson, eye to eye with a young lion who already ducks to jump. Now the lion knew one thing when he or they meet people. Most of the time the people turn around and try to run away and then it's easy to catch them from behind, but then here we read something happened to sumpson, the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him. I say it again, the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him. What happened? It made him fearless, shout fearless, it made him fearless and instead of turning to run him, he put in the forward gear, not the reverse gear. And that ferocious lion was now confronted by a ferocious man, a man who was touched by the spirit of God who had come mightily upon him. And instead of going back, he went forward and he got him with his bare hands, the Bible says and he put him apart like a young goat, praise God, fearless, fearless. We are not trembling, we are fearless, the devil is under our feet. I heard some preacher say, if you want to look at the devil, look down, he's under your feet. If you want to look at Jesus, look up, he is far above all, principalities and powers. Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be the name of the Lord. That is God's moment, you need to touch and it makes you calm and it makes you fearless and instead of retreating, you are going to progress, you are progressing in the name of Jesus, Hallelujah. And then the prophet said this, open the window, first he said, take bow and arrow. And then he said, open the window. He had to clear the decks. He had to, let me say it this way, he had to position himself. We have to position ourselves. People say to me, wow. You've done such great works for Jesus. How did that happen? Do you have more faith than other people have? I actually don't think so. One thing, I always wanted to be, I wanted to be right positioned. And when God needed somewhere, somebody somewhere, I wanted to be positioned to be there that he could take me. And God is looking here for people tonight who are willing to position themselves in the will of God, in the kingdom of God, and he will use you. There is a song that says, oh Lord, use me and don't refuse me. Oh, I can't stand that song. Oh, when I hear people pray, Lord, please use me, please use me. It's the wrong prayer, and I will tell you why. We should not say, Lord, please use me. We should pray, Lord, make me usable. At the moment we are usable, he will use us automatically. You don't need to beg him, he's looking for people he can use. Open the window, Eastward. Remove all obstacles. You've got the weapon. The enemy is outside. Open, open the window. Position yourself and shoot in Jesus' name. I can tell you, when God used me for the first time, I was a boy in my father's church. My father was a pastor, they had a North Germany. He was a very strict man, my father, whoa. And we were in a prayer meeting, and we were all kneeling and praying for one or two hours, and I was also on my knees and I had my hands on the floor. Suddenly something like electricity came into my hands. I couldn't explain it. I tried to shake it out, but it wouldn't go. I thought, what is this? What is this? Suddenly, I heard all his spirits speak in my heart. He said, Reinhardt, that lady over there is sick. Go to her and lay your hands on her, and I will heal her. I said, oh Lord, my father. You don't know him. He is a very strict man. This is his job. If I do it, he will be very angry with me. I said, Lord, I can't do it. You know what the Lord did? He increased the voltage. But electricity from my hands came up my arms. And although I was still a kid, I thought by myself, if that electricity reaches my heart, I will die. And then I thought, well, I die so or so. Either my father kills me or the power kills me. I can just as well obey. I looked up at him, my father's eyes were closed. I looked at the lady, her eyes were closed. And on all falls, I crawled over to her. And I looked again, my father didn't see me, and the lady was also hotshot eyes . I quickly popped up, put my hands on her and popped down. That moment the lady screamed, and I heard my father's voice. I thought it was the day of judgment. And he shouted, what did Reinhardt do to you? "I have a lady cry," she said, "when Reinhardt laid hands on me, electricity went through my whole body, I am healed." My father couldn't believe his ears, but since that day he was different to me. I want to tell anyone, you know, catacies may be a big hindrance to what God tells you to do. Open the window, you've got bow and arrow in the name of Jesus. Shoot, pray, preach, witness, do it. And you will see the Holy Spirit will be active. Hallelujah. How wonderful it is.