There's Glory in Weakness

the next few moments of time there are some things it doesn't matter how long you've lived for God it doesn't matter how many lessons you've learned it doesn't matter how many trials you have been through it doesn't matter how many Hills you've climbed it doesn't matter how many valleys you've negotiated or how many rivers you've crossed we still every once in a while come to a place that we've never been to before we come to a place where we find that the things that we have already determined about the way God is going to always do things we have I I speak to we ministers as well as some of you laity that have been around for a while we we have gone through enough experiences and we really feel like that we have just about got an equation that whatever comes or whatever goes in our lives we can always reach to the file and get the equation pull it out and give it to whoever is in trouble whoever is negotiating what I have already been through here read this here take this only to find out that you don't always do it the same way every time I I was I was sitting by one of the deer men of God on the platform today or maybe it was in the congregation well it was Adam Adam little Adam we were hearing some things and I turned to Adam and I said you've just got to you've got to remember that God is always going to do it his way and sometimes for us to get things figured out and when you know we we can get it figured out but when it don't happen the way we had it figured then as the saying goes it throws us a curve or it sets us back or takes us back and here we are back to square one having to call on God again my brother God I do I think that was so beautiful today we turn to one another while you were preaching and crying that cry Adam turned to me and said that's a crime experience he's done that before foreign as we say when we we've been through something similar or we've been through it before and then all of a sudden we we have another situation and we're going to do it the same identical way and it turns out just a little bit differently than what it had turned out another time which would you mind me giving you an experience that has been an awful lot to me it was an experience of my esteemed Elder G.A mankin Daryl Mangan who is the senior pastor Bishop of the church in Alexandria okay brother Mangan brother Mangan did not live for the Lord as it as a Young Man and then came to God when he was about 19. his father was a pastor and brother Gerald when he when he came to God he had such a zeal wanted to do something he immediately went to Bible School prayed and fasted even in Bible school like you wouldn't believe God did some Miracles even through some some students in the Bible School

brother Nathan urshan's sister was healed of tuberculosis because brother Gerald Mangan is just a young man went on a fast for her and God healed her so when brother Mangan got graduated from school and went into the ministry it was Ministry of faith and if you know anything about him right now he's still just as he's just as gung-ho as he ever was 80 something years old still just done me just to go and so it was all faith it was all miracles it was all signs and wonders and God was filling people with a whole He was going into what they had referred to as burn over fields and God was giving him hundred Soul revivals and this was way back he was such a man of faith that when they told him that his beloved mother had been smitten with cancer they had found breast cancer he didn't he that didn't phase him God's going to take care of you I'm preaching the gospel and I'm having I'm praying for the Satan God's healing people and it's going to be all right everything's going to be and he prayed and he fasted and the worse her condition got the more he prayed and the more he fasted and when it looked like maybe it wasn't going to happen he really prayed prayed and really fasted but his mother one of those that never so much as took an aspirin she died and I heard girl Mangan tell me this out of his own mouth he said when when that happened it threw me in a tailspin he said because I'd always been used to God healing when I laid my hands on the sick and he said I had no I had no no no space in my mind I had nothing to even lend credits to that God was not going to heal my mother my mother was a pastor's wife my mother was a soul winner my mother was a prayer Warrior my mother was everything that we a whole lot more of so it didn't it didn't dawn on me that God would not heal my mother and when his mother died he was so heartbroken and he felt he felt he was disappointed and and His World his world was it it was shaky for him and he would put a prayer and he would ask God God please help me God please I've got to know about my mother and he said the thing that was so strange about it God would not even speak to me about my mother he said I could pray about about Revival and I could pray about souls and and I could pray about what I was supposed to preach and he said my relationship with God was just like it always was until I got to want to talk to him about my mother and he wouldn't talk Hallelujah he said I think you've said about six months and he went ahead and preached and went ahead and prayed for the sick and went ahead and had Revival and went ahead and did everything that he knew to do just like he had always been doing and then one day while in prayer the Lord spoke to him and said and now son concerning your mother he said I was all ears I was ready to hear and listen to me because I feel like it's going to help you help me he said God spoke to him and said Son you know what I can do that would give me Glory

in your world you can help me pick out the people for me to heal that would give me Glory where you live but he said I want you to know son that I do not correlate just your world I am correlating three worlds one is your world the other is the world of Heaven and the rewards that I want to give for particular victories and endurances he said I will give crowns for people like your mother but he said the other world that I'm correlating is the world of judgment and he said I know I would have gotten glory to have healed your mother in your world but I hold some cases in reserve to be able to use in judgment when somebody stands before me in judgment and says but I couldn't do it I couldn't make it I couldn't he said all I'll need to do is call for your mother she didn't just trust me toot this she trusted me through death now I've asked somebody in this house tonight to consider the idea that though you and I can be so adapted at the things that we want God to do and the things that we want God to the revivals and the healings and the Miracles and the signs and and then when he doesn't do it just like we wanted it done we've taken back just a little bit and we get just a little bit bent out of shape sometime and sometimes good people lose out with God because they failed to get an understanding that God always does things his way and I want somebody here tonight that is of the opinion that this preacher is tonight when God does it his way it's always done best you know Second Chronicles chapter 26. verse 15. I want to read a portion of scripture here and let me just verbalize some of the setting here does anybody is King Uzziah does that ring a bell in your in your mind does it does it ring a bell that you Zaya and that name is is linked with it it's almost like a d is linked with a time difference or a or a Time dividing Point this has happened in Soul A.D or this happened so many years BC you you're following what I'm saying King Uzziah

and his Reign was sometimes used almost as a as a Time demarcation because some things and it was in the year that King Uzziah died or it was and and that reference is made about the time frame of King Uzziah well I'm certainly not here to preach about the life of King Uzziah but I would like to give you this little this little tidbit this little insight this little glimpse into something about the life of Uzziah Uzziah was a tremendous King he came at a very very early age to the throne and he was he was doing such a good job and he had some he he had some things about his about his Reign and his insight to to things he wanted to do things right and he did do an awful lot of things right but here's the tragedy and it's in verse 15 of chapter 26 and he made the he made in Jerusalem engines invented by cunning men to be on the towers and upon the bull Works to shoot errors and great stones with all and his name spread far abroad and here's what I want you to notice for he was marvelously helped until he was strong he was marvelously helped till he was strong but let me read the next but when he was strong his heart was lifted up to his destruction for he transgressed against the Lord his God and went into the Temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense now you'd have to go and read in that in that chapter all the things that he had been able to get together when I tell you the guy had it going he had it together and it was beautiful and and and the blessings of God was upon it but then somewhere right in the middle of all of the Grandeur of what he was experiencing in his reign and may I insert here are in his pastorate I want to bring us into the picture he was helped marvelously until he got strong and when he got strong there was a total different attitude with which he served God a total different attitude with which he governed a total different attitude in his reign in his kingdom and whatever attitude that was that got a hold of him God just said okay Uzziah have it your way you do it the way you want to do it I'm preaching to somebody here tonight from this simple thought there's Glory and weakness I wanna I wanna turn now to and and of course brother brother Lopez

please understand and all of you this is one of those sermons you could preach half the night but I I cut through so much of the message tonight and it's things that I think all of you would enjoy but I must get to the point and just go from there with what I feel like God wants us to take home from this conference I don't want to just do it I want to do it right I don't want to just be here I want to have the right attitude I don't want to just be talented I want to be anointed I don't want to just be blessed I want to be used to God and I don't want to just be close enough to get by with God I want to be I want to be pleasing unto God you see it's those things that when we get enough experience we get enough enough notches in our gun we we we we have enough victories we have enough revivals we we have enough we built enough churches or or we've done enough of this that somewhere in our minds well I've I've arrived and I think I can pretty well take care of myself now I think I can pretty well call the shots and please please I beg of you don't fall into the Trap of uziah you and I as long as we're human beings as long as we are in the weakness of human flesh we'll never be able to substitute for God we will always have to have the help and the anointing and the blessings and the knowledge the knowledge and the mind of God we cannot do it within ourselves we cannot do it within ourselves we cannot get up and call for something that I've used before and say God's Gonna bless this God will lead you you stranded every once in a while and I I I I trust that in this wrap-up address here tonight for my part of this the service I hope you understand and when I say there's Glory in weakness I'm not just talking through my hat I've got I've got some scriptural examples here that we've got to remember when I talk about that there is a point in our feeling helpless and weak how many of you would agree with me sometimes that it's not the most comfortable thing in the world to feel like you're just you're a nobody hey can I see the hand of people in this house that say brother Ewing I was in a position where I needed I needed really to have my act together and I needed some things and I don't think I've ever felt it more helpless or anymore you know what you and I are being human beings don't particularly like that feeling of weakness we don't like that and that's not one of our more cherished moments when I tell you after after going

through because of the times and after going straight to Thailand and in that Minister's conference there and come back here to this after going home for a weekend and coming here I'm telling you I was so tired I'm so tired and I was so depleted of my energy that it seemed like I couldn't respond to anything and I hope it I hope some of you didn't didn't feel bad at me but I felt and and approaching this message tonight I don't know whenever I have felt any more helpless now there's been times when I've walked to the pulpit and I was rested and I was I felt the Holy Ghost and I was confident in the Holy Ghost but oh I'm telling you approaching this tonight I I didn't even know whether whether I had the holy ghost or not foreign I'm not a sinner okay it's just that I didn't really know whether God even maybe I was supposed to stay home I didn't know but the closer it got then the Lord began to open up I had some things rolling over in me my soul and my spirit was churning within me and then all of a sudden the Holy Ghost laid it out and he said well you've already got it you've already got and I and I looked in my notes and there was the very message and and God had kept it from my mind I didn't even remember about this message until all of these other things began to turn and then God let me know you've already got it don't worry about it just go ahead and preach what I have already given you to preach so I want somebody here tonight to know we don't we don't like this feeling of weakness let me let me let me read some of the things here we are we we love having this feeling of having it all together come on now preach with me here just a little while we like that feeling of having it all together and we like that feel of power come on now I'm going to get right down to where we live here for just a little bit we love the image of having a big church no I I didn't I I guess you had dreams of the preachers just jumping up and running the aisles when I sat there no I knew I knew we're I'm trying to get right down to where we live here tonight we've got to be honest with ourselves we had rather have this feeling of in control than we had to have the feeling of I'm dependent on somebody and if somebody don't come and help me I've had it am I painting a picture to anybody here tonight every one of us live in that vulnerable place where if God don't come to our rescue we are done far but I've never seen a time yet when God was gonna forsake one of his own I've never seen him turn his back on one of his children not in a lifetime thank you David said I used to be young and now I'm old but one thing for sure I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor is she taken bread thank you we don't like this image of being a failure we don't like this

feeling of being a victim but rather we love the influence that success hands to us oh boy oh I could bring some examples to your mind here tonight see we foreign God blesses him amen money's coming in and got a good job moved to a beautiful house and got a good car and it's so nice to get to the church parking lot just a little bit early and and have get up just as kind of close to the door as you can not the only people that's there that's taking up a parking place at that point is the folks that clean the church and folks that's there to turn on the lights for everybody else to come in but if I can get there in time I can park my blessing from the Lord right up close to the front door because we like that we like that feeling and you know I'm I'm saying all of this because I've got a reason for saying it and you know and all of that we you know until until we lose the job and and the old cars wore out and it needs tires and I had a little fender bender the other day that I had to use the insurance money for bread instead of fixing the car yeah and it's in those times we try to get there as late as we can so we can park around behind the and just to help some of us with with some of these struggling things we all go through those things but you you you hammer you hammer on those that want to pull up to the front door so everybody can see you blessing see we hammer on them because they we say they've got Pride oh Prides eating them up pride pride pride oh my God Pride's gonna destroy him it's gonna kill him and we go ahead and park behind the gymnasium so everybody can't see your car well I got news for you the same culprit that caused him to want to park to the front doors the same corporate the colleges you'd want to park in the back at it it's all Pride I said it's all Pride foreign you know what if I could get across to somebody here tonight Paul made a beautiful observation he said when I what I have learned is whatever state I'm in there with just be content if I'm enjoying the blessings of God let me enjoy the blessings of God but if I'm weak and I'm having to go through some things that don't mean God don't love me it don't mean that I'm a second-rate person it just let God be God and he's blessing them and I love him for it and then he's going to turn around and bless me and they're going to love him fight with me I wanna praise God foreign

we Revel in the Independence we exert when we have money in our control see now that's what we love but on the other hand the title of my message is tonight there's glory and weakness you see the bottom line is God's the only one that's able to help us get it all together God's the only one that gives us a chance to feel power and and he's the only one that can help us to even appear to whoever it is that we're trying to minister to and the and and the Harvest of souls that we've got a pretty good-sized Church he's the only one that's made that possible and we love the influence and the success that comes to us when we have a good church and a good Revival and we love all of that and God's the only one that can give it to us and the beautiful thing about it is God don't mind us having it as long as we can keep the right attitude about how we got but the thing that makes it so difficult for us is when we get a little success we go to given ourselves credit for it but I want you to hear me tonight whether you're up give him credit where do you get down give him Credit in all things give God the glory foreign I love this man right here so very much I enjoyed his message so very much but I want my brother to know that because you are going through an experience in your life and in your family and you've blessed us now to all have a burden for that boy and God's gonna do something for that boy God's gonna do something fun but I want you to hear me tonight God was just as much God when your bar was the furthest from him as he is right now God did not change my brother God still sits upon the circle of the earth and lose the ways I've been and my brother you preached a beautiful message and I know by what they've all said in your own admission you have been going through a season a very difficult circumstances but I want you to know that that God did not cease to be God when the circumstance happened he was God when you went in the furnace and he'll be God when you come out of the furnace and when you come out blast be the name of the Lord foreign oh my God

foreign thank you I want to tell somebody here tonight you've been in a drought you've been in a financial bind and you thought that you had given everything you had to give don't be surprised when God asks you for your last cake to give to the prophet because sometimes God sees that almost nothing is still too much come on now digest that for just a little bit this little woman said I've only got enough meal to bake one more cake for me and my son and after that we have no provisions and we'll just simply wind up and die but the prophet says I need that cake fix it for me and everybody would say you mean that old preacher is gonna come in here and take the very last thing she's got and she don't she almost has nothing now but I'll tell you something church here man when God is up to a miracle even sometimes when you have nearly nothing it's still too much God wants that last more so you say oh no preacher no no no God's not going to do that to me it's not gonna Strip Me of everything and leave me helpless I promise you when God is up to a miracle in your life he'll take everything to put back what he wants to put in your life and then in the in the seven churches of Asia there was one of them that got such a great commendation for all they had you've got just in fact you you the word was you've got everything you have need of nothing but God looked at Heaven almost everything and said you still don't have an when almost nothing is still too much and then when almost everything is still not enough it gives you the bottom line up to where you and I we cannot even survive without God he's the one that makes it possible I feel the Holy Ghost now look hold it hold it everybody sat down here I don't know how much time I've already spent but I I I I feel like I'm probably toward the end of my rope here now so I'm not even going to look at brother Lopez he gonna have to come give me a give me a tackle from from the back side here but I do want to I want to ask you ask some of you precious people have you ever read in the Old Testament now I've had some folks I've looked and I've searched and I've had some folks that have computers and all this and I have really searched for anything to have to do with in the Old Testament where anybody got close enough to God that it was referred to

that they were in God they come back to me with all kind of all kinds of things in it whether you and hears a scripture that says they were in the presence of God and here's here's one that says and they were near God and here's one that says you know every kind of a circumstance that you can think about but not one time does it ever say that they in the Old Testament that they were in God is either by near him in his presence the only time you ever read the phrase in God is after he was nailed on a tree and there were holes in his hands a hole in his side holes in his feet after the wounds opened up the body of God only now can we hear or read the words ye are now in Christ foreign Corinthians chapter 12 let me read let me let me just go to the scripture I got it written here but let me just go to the scripture let me let me start reading here at about verse 3. and I knew such a man whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth how that he was caught up into the into paradise and heard unspeakable Words which it is not lawful for a man to utter of such and one will I Glory yet of myself I will not Glory but in my infirmities for though I would desire to Glory I shall not be a fool for I will say the truth but now I forbear let any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be or that heareth of me and let lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations there was given to me a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to Buffet me lest I should be exalted above measure for this thing I besought the Lord Thrice that it might depart from me talking about The Thorn In the Flesh and he says unto me listen my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength my strength everybody say my strength is made perfect in weakness what Paul is saying that God let him know you don't like to be weak you don't like to play the role of being weak but it's only when you're weak that my perfection in strength can be seen so when you whine and pity yourself around that I'm I'm weak and I I just can't do what I want to do or I can't now I'm not talking about laziness I'm not talking about you sitting around looking for every reason not to get involved I'm talking about people that have a gut desire you want to do something for God

but you don't feel like you've got the ability you're a Gideon somewhere hiding behind a wine press and don't have a clue that there's anything that God could ever use you for I want to preach to somebody here tonight that's the very thing God is looking for because out of your weakness he can have his strength and simplified in perfection for my strength is made perfect in weakness most gladly therefore I will rather glory in mine infirmities than the power of Christ that the power of Christ May rest upon me therefore I take pleasure in infirmities in reproaches in Necessities in persecutions in distresses for Christ's sake for when I am weak then am I strong so you don't want to be weaker why don't you try it sometime and see how it feels for God to make you strong somebody stand with me and Shout yeah remain standing that scripture that says for now we are we are able to get into God by being in Christ so now when you feel like you're weak and You're vulnerable just just go to running toward Jesus and if you can ever get into him all you got to do is just ride with him right into God and you are truly hidden with Christ in God hello I got a feeling here tonight that somebody's gonna learn a lesson that you can be hidden with Christ in God and Satan cannot find you I think you understand that I cannot finish the message I know there's a lot to preach but I close with one story that I want to tell a young man 14 years of age was involved in an accident lost his left arm he was a very athletic young man his mother was very devastated when the young man lost his left arm because he took pride in his in his athletic ability and that was one of the things that sort of sort of give him give him a an assessment of himself that he he wouldn't be just a Just a Nobody so she she was so devastated and she looked and searched for something that she could get her son involved in that he could still be athletic and still do some things and achieve some things and still think better of himself so she talked to a lot of people and finally come to the conclusion that to have him enrolled in a class of martial arts I forget now which one it was which one of the martial arts that she founder a trainer and enrolled him in that so he was he was taking the schooling and the reports were from the coach that he's doing very good they're doing very good with one arm missing he's he's doing very good she was very happy when she got the news that he was going to be enrolled for a tournament and his he would be in competition and so the first the first bout the first

round with with competition the the young man he he got in there and of course the only difference between he and the the other young man about the same age about the same Talent same build and what have you it's just that he didn't have a left arm and of course mom was sitting there all you know oh and she was on pins and needles and the coach on pins and needles of course and but yet he had a confidence in the young man's ability in training so he went through the bound and held his ground it was it was wonderful and good until the coach gave the signal and the young man launched for his attack and the young man without a left arm launched his attack and threw his opponent to the to the to the floor and they raised the right hand of the young man without an arm and declared him the champion of that round that was that was the first thing so the the coach told the mom I think he's able to go a little bit beyond this now so he enrolled him for another bout another another what do you call it another match another match and and this time when it was a it was a young a kid a little older than the boy 14. and he had a little more strength and and a little a little bit more experience so this time this time he he did he did very well holding his own and and he fended off the moves as best he could and and and everybody was proud of him and mom was very happy anxious but happy and and then the coach gave the signal and when he gave the signal the young man the young lad 14. he made his attack and this time he threw his opponent again to the floor and they raised the right arm of the young man without a left arm and declared him the winner I think perhaps the coach thought that he might be overstepping the boy's capabilities and training but he he enrolled him in another bout in another tournament and and this time it was with a a boy that was that was decisively older than him and and decisively with more wisdom and more experience and so this time the boy everybody was just a little on pins and needles about the way he held himself and the way the way he conducted himself in the and and everybody was so anxious because the mom didn't want him to lose whatever confidence it was that he had gained by the other wins and and she was really really thinking the coach messed up only but about to be ended when the coach gave the signal and that young man once again made that attack to his opponent and once again threw his opponent to the floor much older than himself much more experienced but threw him to the floor and the third time the right hand of that young man was lifted as being the champion of the entire tournament the wall so his mother told him said son why don't you ride home with the coach today you might have some things you want to talk to him about he said okay Mom and on the way home he told the coach he said coach I I really don't know what your thinking was but I'd like to know why did you put me in that last bout with that opponent that was much older and much more experienced why did you do that he said well son here's the reason I did it is because there's one particular move that when I taught you you responded perfectly you learned it beautifully and you mastered that move he looked back at his coach he said coach what do you mean he said the last move that I called for you to make he said the only the only defense that your opponent has

with that move that you make the only defense your opponent has got to take your left arm to counteract that particular move I'm telling somebody here today God knows exactly where to take your strength God knows where to make you vulnerable God knows exactly what to do to make you more than a match for whatever it is the devil wants to do I'm telling somebody here tonight later when God is in control you you're always protected when God is calling the shop so I'm telling somebody don't fight because you don't have this don't faint because you don't have that don't because you don't have the other God knows what you got and God knows where to put jack