The Ways in Which He Works with Me
by Nathaniel Urshan
2025 · First Pentecostal Church, North Little Rock, AR
Kind: conference session
Scripture: Isaiah 28, Isaiah 28:23

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/nathaniel-urshan--the-ways-in-which-he-works-with-me
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

------------------------------------------------------------
is here this morning. I can feel like the song says the brush of angels wings. I see glory on each face. What a time we have had. It's always a blessing and an honor to come to North Little Rock, to Arkansas International Camp Meeting, to see the work for missions, to hear the great preaching, anointed preaching, and to see God's people. I love God's people. If you're here and you got the Holy Ghost, you are a blessed people. Happy other people in such a case. Happy other people whose God is the Lord. They that do know their God shall be strong, and they shall do exploits. It is a wonderful day to be serving God. I give honor to Pastor Holmes and his wife, his children, Bishop Holmes and his family, the great ministers that have preceded me, and tonight's service with Brother Fish. I know God is going to help us. God has already helped us, and it's an honor to join in with the great anointing that's already here, and has been here for many years. Arkansas International Camp Meeting has been a great blessing to the Urchin family, and I thank the Holmes family for embracing us and for being friends and helping us. Amen. Thank God for men of God and women of God who stand for this great truth. I'm so thankful that my wife and my son and my daughter-in-law and my grandbaby is here, and back home my youngest son couldn't make it, but him and his wife and the baby to be are there. God has been good. And don't you let anybody tell you that serving God is not where it's at. Serving God is the greatest life you could ever have. Hallelujah. This is a one God day, and it's built for one God people. Hallelujah. And his blessings, they just continue to humble me and astound me. If you've got your Bibles, let's open to Isaiah chapter 28. Isaiah chapter 28, and we have several people from Durham here to all of the, to the Durham family. I love you. I appreciate you. And if you watch Bibles to the bibliophiles and the theophilite, God bless you. The lovers of the word of God. Amen. Amen. Isaiah chapter 28, and I'm going to begin reading at verse 23. Give ye ear and hear my voice. Harken and hear my speech. Doth the plowmen plow all day to sow? Doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof? Doth he not cast abroad the fitches and scatter the cumin? Cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rye in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion and doth teach him. For the fitches are not thresh with a threshing instrument, neither is a cartwheel turned about upon the cumin. But the fitches are beaten out with the staff and the cumin with the rod. Bread corn is bruised because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. Now if you're anything like me and you read that, you are asking yourself what in the world does that mean? For the bass, I don't know if I know everything about what it means, but I hope to answer a question before we leave here today. I hope that when we leave here from this session this morning, we can understand a little more clearly why is this happening to me? And so my message for you this morning is simply this, the ways in which he works with me,

the ways in which he works with me. Can we put our Bibles down and lift our hands and ask God to help us right now? Jesus, thank you. Thank you for your beautiful presence that we feel. Thank you for the great word that has already gone forth. Thank you for speaking to us here this week. I pray that you would give us a fresh anointing, that you would open our ears, that we may hear, that you may open our eyes, that we may behold wonderful things out of my law. We give you praise and everybody said in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you. You can be seated. I want to take a moment and just say at the outset that God knows exactly where you are right now. If you're wrestling with things back home, God's going to work it out. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. It's a promise from God that all things work together for good to them that love God and who are the called according to His purpose. I want to try to grapple with the purpose of God today. I want to try to make sense out of circumstances that sometimes make no sense at all. I wish I could tell you why things happen. I can't give you the details, but I can tell you how God deals with us. God deals with us. God's been dealing with us all through this conference. With the marks, thank you for preaching to me last night. I want fresh oil. Amen. The ministries of these great men, Bishop Holmes, thank you for speaking into our lives by the Tuttle and by the Copeland and by the Patrick and what God knows how to bring His word alive to us. He knows how to speak, not just what to say, because sometimes you already know what's being preached, but sometimes you need to hear it now. You knew it, but you needed it to come alive. You needed it to sprout. You needed it to hum and to resonate and to vibrate in your spirit. And I don't know about you, but I have received a word from the Lord this week. Hallelujah. God knows how to speak and address and bring forth great things from His people. Let me tell you a little bit about Isaiah 28. It's one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. It is in this chapter that you will, you'll read so many things just off the top of my head. He's rebuking the proud. If you read the chapter, he's rebuking the proud, the drunkards, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower. All of the temporal things of this world are a fading flower when compared to the presence of God. And God is going to do a work. He talks about the corruption of the existing religious system. If you're looking around the world and you're seeing corruption, if you're seeing political gamesmanship, if you're worried about the future in politics, on the national arena, maybe even in the church. If you're worried about all of that, I am here to put your mind at ease today. God has it all in control. None of this takes God by surprise. God knew it from the foundation of the world, and he raised you up for this hour in this day to give glory and praise to him like never before. So let me say at the outset, now it's time to preach like we've never preached. It's time to sing like we've never sang. It's time to testify with authority and with anointing. It is time to beat Jesus' name. One God acts to 38 Christians. I wish somebody would help me on a morning session here and let this world know we are apostolic and we are here to take our rightful place. Hallelujah. And I want to help somebody know the ways in

which God works with us. If you keep reading, he tells you how to approach him. How are we going to make our way through this labyrinth? How are we going to wind our way through the pitfalls and the sinkholes and the Bible describes them as traps cunningly devised? How are you going to make it through the false prophets and all the name it and claim it, doctrines and all the compromises that are out for a fast buck? How are you going to make your way through all of that? Well, I'll tell you how you're going to do it. You're going to do it. Precept upon preset. Line upon line. Here a little and there a little. If I'll do that, something miraculous happens. If I'll follow that recipe right there, that recipe that worked for Isaiah, that recipe that worked for the apostles, that recipe that worked for the early church, that recipe that worked at the turn of the century and that recipe that works in 2025. If you'll follow that recipe, something very special happens with stammering lips and another tongue. God speaks to his people. I want God to speak in this place. I want the apostolic message to roar across the landscape. I want it to roar through the United States of America and Portugal and France. I want it to resonate through Europe and through Asia and Russia and China and everywhere Jesus' name, child of God, finds themselves. This is the great Isaiah 28. Mandate. It's here that he lays judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet. And it's here that he gives us something very interesting. He says, now because of all this, do not be mockers. Do not be mockers. That is a direct indictment against this world that likes to make fun. There's always been mockers. There'll always be an Ishmael that mocks Isaac. There will always be Joseph's unbeloving brethren who mock his dreams. There'll always be an Abinadab that talks with the marks about the naughtiness of David's heart. There will always be Panina that gives Hannah a hard time. And there will always be people that will ridicule and poke fun and minimize God's supernatural work. Hallelujah. There will always be people on the day of Pentecost mockingly saying these men are full of new wine. And there will always be people online that like to make fun of apostolic power. But don't you let it stop you? Don't you let it intimidate you? Don't you let it back you into a corner? This is exactly what this world needs. They don't need dead church. They need living church. They need an anointing. They need preachers that turn red in the face when they preach and they sweat. They need people that run the aisles. They need a church that will shake the walls when they praise God. They need prayer meetings that go late into the night and they need a church that'll separate themselves from the world and be the city that is set on the hill. This is that chapter and it's supposed to produce this supernatural working. So do not mock it. Do not miss what God is doing because God's doing a great thing. And it's that context where it begins to speak about the plowmen plowing all day. Does he plow all day to sow? When he makes plain the face thereof, it's so easy to get to drowned in the old English here. I mean, your tongue can't even say it right. The appointed barley and the rye in their place and threshed with a threshing instrument cartwheels turning about upon the cumin.

This little portion at the end of the chapter people just go, I'm not sure what that means. Let's just move past that to the next chapter. Now, you're probably more spiritual than me, but that's exactly what I did for a long time. I knew the Lord of hosts did it, so it had to be good, right? But what if I told you that it means that God knows exactly how to deal with you, that God knows you with your eccentricities and your peculiarities and your strangeness and all of the personal weirdness that everybody has, all of the idiosyncrasies that we have, all of the places, the things that people that you have in your life, they don't even know about you, but God knows it about you. The dark places you've been, the things that you've had to overcome, the trials, God knows how to deal with every seed in a very specific kind of way. Hallelujah. His Lord doth instruct him, the Bible says. This is the farmer. This is the husband of the earth that he sees the field. He knows exactly how to bring forth the strength of the earth because his Lord doth instruct him to discretion and doth teach him. And it tells us this little bit of information, and it tells us that it comes forth from the Lord of hosts, and he's wonderful in counsel. Now, if you read that little phrase, it should always point you back to the wonderful counsel of God. And if you're an apostolic, then you know he's the wonderful counselor. I don't, I don't even have to read it, and you probably don't have to read it. You know that unto us a son is born, and unto us a child is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called wonderful, counselor, a mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace. That is a one God message. That is a message that this world needs like never before. Hallelujah. And the increase of his government there shall be no end. Again, it's talking about God inserting his will into the earth in the middle of corruption, in the middle of brokenness, in the middle of people that should be stewarding and nurturing the things of God. But instead, over and over again, God's people have to rise up in spite of the circumstances and proclaim the word of the Lord. It seems like he always has to prepare a table for us in the presence of our enemies. But I'm going to tell you right now that there is no corrupt political process that can stop the apostolic church of Jesus Christ. There is no church administration. There is no organizational construct. There is no, there is no power on this earth that can stop the one God blood wash Jesus name message. I've got news for you this morning. We win. We win. God's plan is moving through the earth, and we're preaching like we've never preached, and we're singing like we've never sang, and God's raising up people in this hour for his glory. Hallelujah. That child that was born is ascending to his throne, and I don't know about you, but I plan on going with him. I plan on taking somebody with me. I plan on testifying in this hour and in this day. God is going to have a church and it's going to be without spot and it's going to be without wrinkle. Praise God. Praise God. Now when I read about the wonderful counselor, I always thought that that was two separate things. Wonderful. He's wonderful, and he's a counselor, but theologians will tell you that these are actually four different things that are meant to go together. He is the wonderful counselor. He's the mighty God. He's the everlasting father. He's the prince of peace. That's how God, his administration works in redemption, and we could take time and I could preach each of those. I could take the time and talk about how he is the mighty God. There's people in this room right now. You know he's the mighty God. You're here because he's the mighty God. There's some people in here you used to tilt back to the bottle and you couldn't put it down until that mighty God got a hold of you and broke the chains. There's some people your family was so messed up

and the criminal rap sheets were so long that you couldn't see your way clear, but that mighty God got a hold of you and changed it in one night. There's people that the dysfunction and the divorce was a foregone conclusion, but God got a hold of you in an apostolic altar and the power of the most high came upon you and God showed himself strong on your behalf. I am telling you he's the mighty God. He's the everlasting father. Amen. I was talking to Bishop Holmes right before we began. He said, I remember when the crowd was nowhere near like this years ago, but God was with you then brother Holmes and now he's with your son now. He's everlasting. If he tarries, then he's going to keep on keeping on and there's going to be another building and there's going to be more outpourings of the Holy Ghost and the same God that kept previous generations is going to keep the generations to come because he is the everlasting father. He's not here today and gone tomorrow. He is not a will. He's not a fancy. He's not a passing fan. He is the everlasting father. He was there when I was born. He will be there when I die. He knew me when I was formed in the womb and he will draw my breath from me when he takes me home. He's the Prince of Peace. We can preach every one of these things, but what I'm hoping to pull out this morning is that he's the wonderful counselor. This is the wonderful counsel of God. I didn't know what that meant. I, for a while there, I thought it meant he was a good therapist. I don't need you, Jordan Peterson. I've got the wonderful counselor. I don't need your shrink or your psychiatrist. I got the best one. He's the wonderful. He's the best. There's some that are good and there's some that are, but he's wonderful. He is that. He is that, but that's actually not what that means. He has great counsel. He has strategy. He has plans for us, and it's not just wonderful in terms of the degree of greatness, but it's wonderful in that it's full of wonder. God's going to use miracles, signs, and wonders to bring his great plans to pass. It's the great plan. It's the great commission. It's the great strategy that God knew you before you were born, and he's going to use you to do great things. God saw the church in Portugal before it was ever there. He saw the church in Norway before it was ever there. He saw the church in Mexico that we're going to be supporting, and that's working its way through Tijuana, and that, that is in that, that Baja Peninsula. God saw it before it was ever there, and he set wonders and miracles in motion so that an apostolic Jesus named message could crop up right in the middle of all the chaos, right in all the middle of the fake and the phony, right in the heart of darkness. God is going to bring forth a great light, and the wonderful counsel of God is going to be available to whosoever will. I came to testify to you today. God will bring that to pass. He will use wonders, and he will use the miraculous. He'll use you. He'll use your life. If he has to, he'll use your death. God will use us. If you can use anything, Lord, you can use me. Do you really mean that? Because he will, and he does. I want God to use my talents and my abilities, and I want him to use my willingness. I want to be a steward of the great things of God, and I know that you do too, but never forget that if God has to use your removal as a way

for his glory to be manifest, he can do that too. All things work together for good. It doesn't say for my good. It says for good, and so sometimes God will deal with me a certain way to accomplish his purpose. He will cast the fitches and the cumin, the different various seeds. He treats them all differently to bring out his purpose in the earth. God will use it all. All things really do work together for the good. If you're honest about it today, it's very likely that it wasn't good times that taught you how to pray. I know we like comfort, and I know we like that cozy life, and we like things to go well for us, but sometimes the only thing that will put us on our face is the trial and the tribulation that God lets us go through, and he'll run the wheel over the top of you, not to kill you, not to hurt you, but so that you might learn to call on the name of Jesus. There's been a lot of revivals that were started out of tragedy. There's been a lot of revivals that was started out of brokenness and heartache. There's been great, great moves of God that the great God of heaven began to work with people according to his divine counsel and his will. Some of the greatest things that ever happened came out of pain and came out of heartache, and these are just some of the ways that he works with me. He teaches me to pray. I have to be comfortable with that. I have to let God do that, because I want this message to spread through the earth. Why is this happening to me? Well, sometimes God has to get you where you're supposed to be before he can plant. He's got to break up the fallow ground. He's got to pull out the thorns and the rocks. He's got to pull the easy beliefism out of you. He's got to pull your multi-God doctrine that is corrupting you and is trying to stop you from being baptized in Jesus' name. Hallelujah. God works that way with us. Hallelujah. Sometimes trials come to purge us and to sift us. You came here today. You came here to this conference. Some of you came here with great revival. Some of you know you're going home to difficult circumstances. You're going home to that church problem. You're going home to hard-headed people that are driving you out of your mind. You're going home to financial difficulties and troubles, and God will deal with every one of us in a different way. One word hits one person one way, another word hits another person another way. But it's the same God working his ways with us. It's the same God sowing this harvest, and he's putting the wheat and the rye and the barley in the place he chooses it for it to be. God knows how to raise up a church in Little Rock. God knows how to raise up a church in Miami. God knows how to raise up a church in Rialto. God knows how to raise up a church in Durham, and he plants it according to his will and his purpose. God has to set the plow in my life, and that ripping and that tearing has to happen before the planting can happen. God's got to rip some stuff up. God can't use Jacob when he's a deceiver and a supplanter, and he's willing to use deception and subtlety and shady behavior. God's got to set the plow deep on a man like that, and he does. I've often wondered what Rachel thought as she looked at her husband. I wonder how he felt when Laban changed his wages multiple times. Laban changes Jacob's wages. Jacob's upset about it, but when he does, I wonder if he remembered the day he walked into his blind father, and he deceived his father. And the thing he put into the ground has now come back. I wonder what his wife felt as she watched her husband deal with that as he had to reap what he sowed. The thing you put in the ground is the thing that comes back.

You can't put rebellion in and expect to get a godly life. You can't put carousing and drinking and chaos into the ground and think that a move of God and a godly spouse and a godly peaceful home is going to come out of that. You can't do that. Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. Don't lie to yourself. Don't deceive. If you want the right thing, sow the right thing. If you want the blessing, put the blessing in the ground. If you want the favor, it's time to stop cursing and start praying. It's time to stop living in sin and start walking with the Lord and watch what the Lord does. Watch the faith. Hey, hey, godly lives don't happen by accident. Godly churches don't happen by accident. It comes from a lot of planting and a lot of plowing and a lot of seeking after God. God will use a man. He'll use a woman. But he's going to, the Bible says, make broad the field thereof. He's going to level the field. He's going to make it suitable for planting. I wonder how Judah felt as he watched God strike Error dead his oldest son and then owning. God strikes him dead. I wonder if when the casket went by and the flowers were given out and his wife's eyes were red with tears. I wonder if Judah connected the dots that this plowing in his life was coming about because he sold his brother out a long time ago as he schemed and planned. How does God get subtly out of the heart of a man? How does God get deception out of the heart of a person? He's going to, he's going to boil us. He's going to plow up our lives. He's going to get us to a place where we can receive. The Bible says with meekness, the engrafted word which is able to save our souls. I don't know about you, but I want God to have his way with me. I want God to plow up everything in my life that's not of him. If I've got pride, take it out of my heart. If I've got ego, crucify it in Jesus name. If I'm in the way, God teach me how to get out of the way and let you be all in all. If I'm the one holding my family back, then God deal with me. Let the preaching deal with you. Let the man of God deal with you. Let the apostolic ministry, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, let them deal with my heart. These are just some of the ways that God works with us. Yeah, he puts the seed in its place, in its place. Sometimes God will call a person and listen, success can happen or it can't happen based on our walk with God and what God wants to do, but a lot of it has to come down to timing and who God's choosing. If God chose you to go to your city, nothing can stop the work of God there. When you're a God called man, a God called woman, there is no devil in hell that can stop you. And if you came here with the thought in your mind, I'm not going to make it, I rebuke that in Jesus name. You're going to make it because God's going to make it. You just hook your wagon up to the king of kings and you let him take you all the way through. Hallelujah. God's got plans for your city. And if God has called you, you can walk in with nothing and God will give you everything. You can walk in, you can ride in on a unicycle and God will have you driving the greatest thing before it's all over, bringing revival to everybody in your city. You can walk in there with nothing but a little tin horn and a kazoo. And when it's done, God will have you acquire, he'll have the whole band, he'll have the singers, and there'll be a great Jesus name church there. If I'm a God called man, there's nothing that can stop me. If I'm a God called man, there is no sickness that can hinder me. If I'm a God called man, there is no devil that can hinder against the work of God. But if God didn't call me, then nothing will make it go.

And the difference between the two is vast. There's been times where people went when God didn't call them. There's been times where people said, we will go into the promised land and Moses said, don't do it. They said, we're going to do it. And when they went to do it, God killed them. I've seen men fail, women fail because they disobeyed their pastors because they just wanted to preach. And it's never going to be the will of God for you to pull people out of your church to take them across over somewhere else and hurt a wonderful work of God. That's never going to be the will of God. That's not how God works with us. When God calls you, he puts his favor upon it. He puts his ministry behind it. He puts the work of God in motion in your life, and you increase in wisdom and stature. Yeah, sometimes it's just God. God just prepares the ground. It's not totally ready yet. God's just preparing it. Some people feel like they're failures, and they don't know that it's just a time of sowing right now. I went to Fort Myers, Florida, and we started the church there. My wife and my oldest son, and then my youngest son came along. And there are a lot of people that tried to go there, a lot of men, a lot of women that tried to go and start a church, and people warned me about that. People left there thinking this ground is too hard and it's too difficult. I have great respect for men and women that go in and build churches. They are the heroes in my estimation. Those people had gone before, and they left for various reasons, some for health reasons, some out of discouragement. Was it a failure? I don't believe the word of God returns again void. I believe that there's prayers prayed that might not have come to fruition at that time, but they're going to come to fruition. I believe that there were doors knocked on that God was going to bring it to pass later on when the timing was right. I believe that every prayer matters. I believe that every message preached matters. I believe that every sacrifice makes it different. Sometimes God is just preparing the ground. And just because it's not happening yet doesn't mean it's not going to happen. You keep on. You keep trusting. You keep praying. They that go forth weeping, bearing precious seed will doubtless come again rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them. I came to tell a home missionary, preach it again. Sing it again. Teach those children. Bring them to church. Pick them up for Sunday school. Pray and believe God. You better believe God's going to work for you. That precious home missionary's wife that's trying to support her husband as he struggles and works a job, keep on. God knows how to work with us. And when we came, all those prayers started sprouting and all of those preaching messages, those preached messages sprouted. God knows how to prepare the ground. There's a lot of people that give up in discouragement before the greatest miracles happen. I used to hear the story of Elder C.G. Weeks, great preacher of the gospel. He was renowned for preaching. He preached conferences. He was known as a scriptorian, a great evangelist. He would go and preach and people would receive the Holy Ghost and they would bring him in and God would do great things. He went to this one little town and when he went there he preached and not much happened. It was a month-long revival and they were going to preach every night. Back then they preached every night. Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night. Late into the night he preached. Nobody got the Holy Ghost. A whole week went by not one person prayed through in the Holy Ghost and it was like he was trying to raise the dead in the church and maybe he was. A church that doesn't pray isn't going to have revival. And so by about the third or fourth service he was getting discouraged and he began

to pray and God helped me. Is there something wrong? Have I missed it? Am I not sensitive to the Holy Ghost? He would get a message that he thought was from God. He would preach it. Nothing would happen. Sometimes God just has to break up the fallow ground. Verbal Bean was renowned for that. He would go in and he would preach and when he would preach he would get the ground plowed up before they could have a complete move of God. He would get them to repentance. He would get them to consecration before anything else. And Brother Weeks was being faced with this. Finally on that last night of that first week a young man came in. A 12, 13 year old boy and God filled him with the Holy Ghost. And hey, praise God. He felt like Jesus where he could do no great miracles because of their unbelief. And so he, discouraged, he looked at the pastor and said, you know I'm going to bring this revival to a close. I know I sent a beer for a month but I'm going to have to go. I just don't feel like we should go any further. And he did. He left and he went down and began to preach again and God blessed. And he felt like he got back on track. He thought, you know, I'm just going to put that in the rear view mirror. Just not going to worry about it. It was always a little disappointment in his spirit years past 10 years, 15 years. One night he had just preached a great camp meeting service and the place was mightily impacted. People came to God. People mightily moved by God. And at the end of the service, a young man came up to him smiling with dark hair, wavy hair with his hand extended out and a big smile. He said, aren't you brother weeks? He said, I am. And he said, I've been wanting to see you and meet you. You're a hero of mine. He said, oh man, that's great to meet you. Praise God. And he said, yes, do you remember this little town over in such and such a state? And it was the little town. And it was the worst moment of his ministry. And his smile faltered. And he said, yes, I remember that. I remember that. He didn't want to disappoint the young man. He just said, I think maybe one person got the Holy Ghost. If I remember right, it was a boy and the young man smiled bright. And he said, yeah, I'm the boy. He said, my name is [name redacted]. And I want you to know that you changed my life on that day because you don't know where God's going to take you and you don't know who is sitting there hearing that word and you don't know the word. These are just some of the ways in which God works with me. He knows how to turn the wheel over the seed. He knows how to bring the word to life. He knows how to bring it forth in its time. Hallelujah. You can't treat one seed like another seed. You can't handle every harvest the same. Everything requires its own specific application. Fitches is the old English word. The word now is deal. It's deal. It's the seed. It's a small fragile seed. Some seeds you just tap them and they fall to the ground ready to be planted. You can't crush them. You can't roll over them with heavy machinery. You've got to deal with them telekilly. Sometimes all it takes is a tap from God. I believe that God's gone up and down these aisles this week and tapped people on the shoulder and said that was for you. God tapped you on the shoulder and said that's what you're going to do when you get back home. This is just sometimes it just takes a little tap from God and it falls into your life and it sprouts and it grows. Sometimes God deals with me like that. But sometimes it's human and he'll beat the fire out of me. Humans got hard, shelled, capacity. We got any hard heads in here? Anybody ever have to have God get ahold of you and shake you till you were just about half dead? Sometimes you need preaching that'll just shake you. Sometimes you don't need a pretty message. Sometimes you need a message that sets the cloud deep and turns things over that need to be turned over. Sometimes God's just got to get ahold of me in a way that nothing else will. Sometimes God will let life get ahold of me. Sometimes he'll run the wheel over me and sometimes he'll run one method of use. There was a wheel with iron teeth that wasn't just for breaking up seed.

It was also for slicing up the hay for silage. These are the ways that God deals with me and he deals with you. You can get so discouraged not knowing that God's just dealing with me like that right now. There was a missionary that we knew. I knew him as a little boy I rather he was a home missionary and I didn't know his story. He died before I came of age but he always, Bishop Holmes, he always felt like a failure. He maybe built the church up to 20, 30 people and he knocked doors and he prayed and he he wasn't what you'd call a flashy preacher but he was a man of God and then he would win people and then they would leave and and then he went people to God and people would compromise and he went in for years, 30 years of ministry and he paid off a piece of property and he built a good foundation. They were solid people. Jesus named people but in his heart of hearts he always felt like I just somehow missed it. At the end of his ministry there was a boy, a little dark-skinned young man that came to church. I don't remember the country but he was a he was a transfer student going to college and there in that little church God filled him with the Holy Ghost and he knelt at the feet of that that precious man of God and he learned and he learned and he grew. He poured into him not many more people in the church so he spent a lot of time with him and then the elder died years past and he died and that young man felt a call to ministry and he went back to his country that he came from and when he went back to that country he won close to 200,000 people to God over a 20-25 year time span. Today it's one of a great revival spots in the world that God used that young man and his wife knew her husband's struggles. I'm telling you right now you just don't know what people are going through. You don't know what the person sitting next to you right now is dealing with the discouragement whether they're ready to give up and throw in the towel. You have no idea what the devil's fighting them with. I'm just telling you that God will deal with you in certain ways at certain times. God will have certain seasons for different kinds of harvest and he knows how to put the wheat right where he wants it and how to put the barley right where he wants it. He knows how to take John the Baptist out of the way so that he might decrease and Jesus might increase and sometimes my ministry is not to build some huge thing. Sometimes I'm preparing the way for a revival that's on the way that's going to blow your mind but I'm telling you that these are just some of the ways. There's a God in heaven that knows where you are. There's a God in heaven that has wonderful counsel. He has plans and strategy and he's moving the pieces on the chest board of your life. Pastor Holmes before she died his wife had a dream and in that dream she said, God I wish my husband could have lived to see what happened. She went to sleep and in that dream that she dreamed she saw her husband walking into a celestial city with golden gates, angels and people worshiping, glorifying God and when he got into that city he was thronged by all these people. He looked at him and they said we're so glad you're here. We're so glad you're here. He said do I know you? They said no you don't know us but we know you. We're here because you preach to the man that preached to us. You are a father in the gospel and you don't even know it. You set things in motion. I have time to tell somebody that these are just the ways that God works with us but the best only heaven's going to know the power that's being unleashed in Africa right now because a man got up from Ocala and said God has called me over here. Only heaven is going to know the power that's being unleashed on that continent and other places because men have to understand that this is the way that he deals with us. Sometimes he has to use heavy means. God is sovereign in what he does.

God's decrees they don't have to make it through Congress. Thank God. He doesn't need the Senate to ratify anything. He doesn't need majority consensus. He certainly doesn't need a filibuster. God is not going to sit here and allow my circumstances and my petty desires and my petty opinions to stop the work of God. God is going to have a church period. I don't care who compromises. God's going to raise up somebody else to preach it. I don't care. Hey, hey, don't walk away from what God's doing. Stand up. Stand up in the power of God. Stand up in the authority of who you are. God's going to use somebody. It might as well be me. It might as well be now. It might as well be this moment because God can use it for his glory. These are the ways. These are the ways that he works. This is how he brings this tongue talking message into the world. This is how he brings this Jesus name message into the world. He can use your life or he can use your death. He can use your faithfulness or he can use your hypocrisy. God will teach you how to do it right by godly examples and he'll teach you how to not do it right by letting somebody fall and make an example out of him. You can be Moses or you can be Pharaoh. I don't know about you, but I know the side that I want to be on. I want to be on the side that brings him out. I want to bring a bump on the side that brings the water out of the rock and the bread down from heaven. That's the way that he works. He asks a question in here. He says, does he plow all day? Does he plow all day? Does he break up the clods all day long? And that question has an answer. The answer is no. Nobody plows just to plow and God is not letting bad things happen just because he wants to hurt you. There's people in here asking, how long is this going to last? This is the same question. Does he plow all day? There's no farmer. There's no agriculturist. There's no husbandman that just plows just to plow. The reason he's plowing is that he might throw in the barley. The trial might be happening right now, but it's going to be temporary. The pain might be great, but it's temporary. Let me say it again. I said it's temporary. This problem you're dealing with right now, it's not going to be there forever. God's going to plow it up. He's going to change it. He's going to make you receptive, and then he's going to get about building you. Yeah, that problem back home, it's not going to last forever. That financial problem, it won't always be there. That disgruntled person, that is not the end. Stand up because he doesn't plow all day. You won't always have the struggle. You won't always have the pain. You just have to know this is that time. Can I tell somebody, can I preach to somebody right now, that one of the greatest tools you'll ever learn to use is faithfulness? That means keep on keeping on. You've got to look at the devil and say, I was here before you got here, and I'll be here when you're gone. You need to look at that trial and say, none of these things move me. You need to look at that spirit that's working on you and say, you've got to have a lot more than that. I am not going anywhere by the grace of God. I will be here when you're gone. I'll still be here preaching. I'll still be here singing. I'll still be here. My children are going to serve God. My grandchildren are going to serve God. I'm going to rebuke you in Jesus' name. Now I'll let you in on a little dirty secret that the devil doesn't want you to know. Sin and trials and wickedness, they can't last. They're weak. I said they're weak. Let me say it this way. They have no endurance.

Can I take a minute and talk about it? Hypocrisy, it doesn't work. It always falls apart. Lies, they don't work. I know they hurt. I know it's hard to endure people slander and gossip and lies, but just keep standing there. Just keep preaching. Just keep teaching. But you don't know how bad it hurts, brother. Get up and preach anyway. Get up and teach them again. Get up and stand for the things of God. The lie falls. Jesus looked at them in one place. They were going to crucify him. He said, this is your hour? Your hour? Sin has an hour? But not much more. Jesus knew something they didn't know. In just a little while, this is going to be over. In just a little while, something better is around the corner. In just this is your hour and this is the power of darkness. But in three days, I'm coming out of here. Don't you let the temporary rob you of the eternal because he doesn't plow all day. He doesn't tear it up all day long. He's bringing life and he's bringing hope. I probably need to remind somebody that we being only endorsed for a night, but joy comes in the morning. You're not going to die. You're not going to fail. You're not going to lose if you stand. Keep preaching. Get your hands back up in the air. Get your voice lifted back up again. Sing it again. Get back in that altar. It still works. There's your power. There's your authority. Let God give you fresh oil. These are the ways. This is wonderful in counsel. God's got plans. I don't want to go too much longer. I can preach a lot longer, but I feel pressed in my spirit to tell you this. God's got plans for you. Don't you let the devil talk you out of it? God's got plans for you. His miracles are not random. They are strategically placed. They are put in your life for a purpose. He is the counselor that is full of wonder. His miracles are meant to advance the cause. His miracles are there to pull you up. His miracles are there to preach the gospel. You think that woman at the well was by accident? You think it was by accident? You think Jesus looked at his disciples and said, you guys go into town, and then he leaned up against that well because he had nothing else better to do? That was the wonderful counselor. The wonderful counselor was moving pieces on the chessboard. Now, if you're the woman, you're caught up in your little trouble. If you're the woman, you don't know that these are the ways that he works with us. I can remember the first husband. I can remember the second husband. I can remember the third. He was a jerk. I can remember the fourth. He died. And then she stops and sees another one. And he asks her something. Oh, here we go again. You're just like all the rest. What do you want? And Jesus began to minister to that Samaritan woman. I'm trying to tell you, don't let the current problem stop you from the wonderful counselor that is being set in motion in your life. When she got done, she went running back to her village and said, come meet a man that told me all things ever I did. Is this not the Messiah? That's what happened. God had plans for her life. Ladies and gentlemen, that's not the end. You think it was an accident when Philip walked into Samaria

and he saw Simon the sorcerer. You think it was an accident that when he started preaching Jesus, those people said, we know who he is. There was a woman that came and told us everything about him. God's going to use your pain. God's going to use your chaos. God's going to use your heartache. God's going to use your impossibility. But get up because these are the ways that he works with us. These are the ways that he brings it to pass. And when it's done, Simon's ministry is over and Jesus is exalted. These are the ways. I'm closing. Musicians can come. Hi. My grandfather told me, and I'm telling you this because you can think this is about you. You don't know that God is just sowing different things into your life at different times and different soils for a specific purpose. You can get so caught up in your building program, the struggle in your marriage, your children you're terrified of, their choices and their decisions. You can get so caught up in that that you forget the purpose. Yes. My grandfather was talking with me one day, and he was sitting at a table with several of us, and he wept. He was talking about Ethiopia. I'm just trying to tell you how God works with us. If you ever saw the videos of tens of thousands of people receiving the Holy Ghost, it's miraculous. There's videos of people that on the video, their hands straightened out as God healed them. Devil possessed people. What miracles, signs and wonders. But God knows where you're going before you know where you're going. And your present distress might have you thinking this is about you. It is not about you. He was in the airport. He was in the airport with a Varnum and you may have heard this story. He would tell it. He told us that day. This day he wept as he told it. He said, I didn't know what was happening. I just know that there was a woman next to me and she was crying. Her skin was dark and she didn't speak English well and no one was helping her. She cried and I was there next to her in line and I said, can I help you, ma'am? He's a preacher. He helps people. Can I help you? And she said, I'm in a foreign country. I'm trying to get home. Nobody will help me. They've canceled my flight. I don't have money. I don't know what to do. He said, I'll help you. He called the attendants over. He worked with her and he got that girl home safely to Ethiopia. Two weeks later his phone rang. It was her father. He said, I'm the ambassador to Ethiopia. I want to thank you for helping my daughter in the airport that day. He had no idea. He said, if there's ever anything that you can do, I can do for you. You let me do. And my grandfather quickened by the Holy Ghost said, yes, there is something you can do. We've been trying to get into Ethiopia and the Coptic Church won't let us get in there. Could you get us in there? He said, let me look it up and see what I can do to help you. They'd been persecuted. They tried to preach. They were stomped out. It was illegal to preach the gospel at that time. But a couple days later, he got a phone call back and he said, Mr. Urshin, he said, we've looked in our history and we have our, not from the Bible, from our historical records. We have records of an Ethiopian unit being baptized in Jesus' name. And because you baptized in Jesus' name, we're going to open the doors so that your preachers can come in. Because these are the ways. These are the ways. You don't know what he's doing. Even when you don't see it, he's working. Even when you don't feel it, he's working. He never stops. He never stops working.

Pastor Holmes, I shed a few tears myself this last Sunday when I told our church this message because here I am. We have evangelist Brandon Puller with us. Great preacher. You pastors need to have him. Brandon Puller preached great message. His wife, it occurred to me, is from Ethiopia. And I'm looking at this girl and I went to after church. I said, did your mother come to church at this time? She said, yes. She was taught by this man who was taught by the missionary that the door was opened up to all those years ago. And what I'm trying to tell you is they preached Sunday in my church from something set in motion. These are the ways. These are the ways. Don't you short circuit what God's doing? Don't you give up? Don't you throw in the towel? God's gotten miracles, signs, and wonders. The wonderful counselor is at work. I want somebody to lift your hands in this house. On a Tuesday morning, I want you to lift your hands in this house. These are just some of the ways that he works. I feel the Holy Ghost right now. I feel like God is unleashing something in this world that is going to change the course of history. God is opening up a one God door. The Bible called it a great and effectual door. I want you to lift your voice right now as these musicians get in place. And I want you to let him work on you. I want you to let that wonderful counselor go to work on you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. All right now, Riah, come on, Pastor. Come on, preacher. Come on, man of God. Come on, wife. I know it's hard on the kids. I know it's difficulty, but the plowman doesn't plow all day. He doesn't plow all day. He makes plain the face of the field that he might cast in the principal weed and the barley, and he does it to bring this Jesus same message to the forefront. Come in close. Let's make room for other people. I'm opening this altar. I want you to come in. I want your hands lifted. We're getting ready for tonight's service. We're getting ready for a great move of the Holy Ghost. But right now, I want you to let God set the plow in your life. He throws in the rye. He throws in the cumin. Sometimes he crushes and breaks it. Sometimes he beats it with the flail. Sometimes he knows how to bring about the desired result in your life. He knows the amount of pressure that needs to be brought to bear. He knows how to use the pain and wield it like a scalpel in a surgeon's hand. God knows how to use the chaos for his glory. Hallelujah. Even when I don't see it, you work. Even when I don't feel it, you work. Come on, missionaries. I know it's lonely.