Curiosity vs Conviction | Student Pastor Zach Hammond

don't you stand to your feet for a moment and lift your hands to heaven and let's just ask god let's go ahead and let you know there's going to be a move of the holy ghost in this place tonight come on lift your hands but then lift your voice come on loud enough that you can hear god we're asking for you to speak to us tonight we're asking that you would come down god administer generation to generation god we're asking that you would reach down oh god and give us wisdom god help us see oh god and in a an age oh god and a a new challenge that we're facing god i pray that you'd help us see very clearly this evening oh god lord let us see with your eyes tonight oh god lord we bless your name come on clap your hands to him and love the lord tonight you can be seated i believe the lord's going to speak to us tonight i know it may be a little bit a little bit different the way we're going to approach this but i'm going to dive right into the word of the word of god i'm just so thankful again to minister to you give honor to pastor and sister carpenter pastor sister erickson and our whole team i know we're getting ready to go back to school all our teaching staff and administration and um it's just such a great great team that i believe god has ordained to be together i'm thankful to be back at church amen i heard when i i was i was thinking about it this morning and i heard i don't know if i saw it or if i was speaking with his his grandson brother anthony mccool a couple times last week on the phone and bishop mccool um has coined the statement he said i don't care if they make me put a bucket on my head if i can go to the house of god i'll do whatever i got to do right so um i'm just glad to be back in the house of the lord feel his presence and and be together but it's going to be a great school year and i believe and have been burdened then and believe that god's going to move tonight in this place uh the lord has spoke to me and i know pastor we've we've had so many conversations just over the past i would say even couple years every time there's a meeting that involves a student that they have messed up it involves a cell phone it's a constant issue i know i've met i look across the congregation and i see parents that have have texted me called me sat down and and we said how do i how do i correct this how do i keep this from happening how do i give them the device that seems so essential and monitor it um so i i want to address it with two words and and pastor i think's given me three um three parts to this series and i'll do my best to educate and empower you not only as students but as parents in this subject that i believe that god has has spoke to me about and i believe i know it's a little different subject but i believe that the bible gives us the concepts in the context to deal with it ethan it's good to see you tonight man i'm excited you're getting baptized tonight is that right i won't give ethan a big hand friends family that's with him ethan came in through a cmi and has been in a bible study with jacob and he's been in contact with us and i'm glad that he's made the decision to be baptized tonight so we'll do that at the end of service and celebrate with him genesis chapter three and verse number one and you can remain seated i'm gonna move right into uh what we're going to talk about you know the story but it says now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field and the lord that the lord god has made and he said unto the woman because the serpent speaks to the woman says god said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden he asked her a question and the woman says to the serpent we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden but of the fruit of the tree in which it's in the midst of the garden god has said you shall not eat of it neither shall you touch it lest you die and the serpent says unto the woman you shall not surely die he immediately we know he he does what he does and he begins to lie right he is the father of lies and you know it's important that we understand that satan starts off with a lie that's is his first uh really introduction into uh the scripture we see um why we must know the word of god because if you don't know the truth you'll believe a lie some people have no clue that it's the devil talking because they don't know the truth if i know what the word of god says and it's obvious to point out that satan's a liar so long before satan lies god gives them one commandment one rule that's it obey me about this tree don't eat of it it's the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it and and that day we see that they they ate of it we see that it was pleasant to the eyes the tree was desirable to make one wise and she took it and she gave it to her husband and they did eat and their eyes were opened if you look at verse 7 he says they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons and they heard the voice of the lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day and adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the lord god amongst the tree of the garden and the lord god called unto adam and said unto him where art thou i never want god to be looking for me students we never want god to be looking for us but we see that now carnal curiosity has required a covering but first it receives a call from god call says god where where art thou adam who are you where where are you at we see here that this this form of curiosity to know something they didn't know created sin so i want to speak to you and this will be the heading for the next three lessons is curiosity verse conviction curiosity verse conviction it all begins in the garden there was a not a long list of laws or commandments it was just one simple the book of genesis we see begins with this simple rule we can't uh we we we see this so often we can't just take god at his word what happened to the generation when i was growing up where it just says because i said so brother sutton that's what my dad said didn't matter if you agreed with it or not it's cause i said so hey can i go home with them no why because i said so and i better be careful how i said why you know because i said so well if you really think about it we've we've completely really stepped out of that realm and that's ultimately god's relationship with us as children right because i said so but what happens is curiosity is based upon knowledge i want to know something but then conviction says god i'm going to trust you at your word i have a firm belief in who you are that you're my creator that you're my redeemer and we've got more to go on than adam and eve ever did i've got faith stories i've got stories like daniel and the lion's den i've got all kinds of things that go on adam and eve were just going on hey don't eat about don't eat that tree it seemed pretty simple right but we've got so you say well we got a whole lot more laws and commandments and the ten commandments have turned into ten commitments and we live under grace and all these things are happening and i have to really walk through my life and really investigate because i've got god inside my heart i've got to walk walk a line and i've got to talk a certain way and i've got to watch what i allow to come through my eyes and through my ears yeah but he's inside of you and he died for you and he's empowering you through the holy ghost to do what he's called you to do we have no excuses we have no excuses when we have the holy ghost inside of us so curiosity is something we must silence but amplify the sound of god's voice of conviction it really is the heartbeat of sin it really could be the header of our relationship with god i however just want to know sometimes what it feels like i just want to experience for myself i can look across this congregation i can go in there and pick up a jar full of students have just decided that they're not going to take anybody at their word not you mom not you dad not god not pastor i'm gonna go try it for myself it don't matter how many we parade up here and say hey i was an alcoholic i was a drug addict you don't want to go there i fornicated i did this i did that i've been in a broken marriage i've been in a broken home don't do it it don't matter they're going to go and they're going to get their knowledge through experience curiosity's got the best of them and before they know it they've taken a bite and they've been put in this situation or that situation and and we've even seen them believe it or not they've graduated from apostolic christian academy and we visited them in a jail cell because of one thing curiosity the voice of satan and this subtle subtle beast of the field was so convincing that it began to agree with their carnality and their flesh and all of a sudden pride had drawn them out the door of curiosity and they had silenced the voice of conviction it's it's it's we lives now in such a a simple society where it doesn't take long to be carried away with curiosity but we're sinned at the bound grace does much more about for the grace of god brings us salvation titus says and it's appeared unto all men teaching us teaching us grace teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust we should live soberly righteously and godly in where in this present world he covers it all no matter what you're facing right now in this presence world where great we're sinned at the mountain what guess what there's more teaching where there's more sin there's more grace where it's getting more wicked and more vile there's more teaching there's more grace that's going to educate you and empower you to do what the word is telling you to do it's my carnal curiosity first my christian convictions why student do you want to know that do you want to know god or do you want to know what the world has to offer because it's really based upon knowledge your desire for knowledge it's what's going to lead you in one of the directions the ability has been given to us through the cell phone to surrender knowledge and this is where it all begins to make a domino effect that we surrender knowledge and it's now become a bigger deal over the past decade studies show that you've surrendered a lot of things that a generation before us used to know to this little phone does anyone under the age of 20 know your own cell phone number must let somebody else's you don't even go to knoxville without putting it in google maps you couldn't get anywhere if you didn't have this thing your phone dies you got to pull over because you don't know where you're going and you've been there a hundred times you've surrendered that knowledge just like some of the issues that we have with with our foreign exchange let's be honest some of the things that we have to deal with with other countries is we've surrendered our knowledge of how to make certain things to that country we can't make them in america because we've surrendered that knowledge for decades to them we've surrendered knowledge now to a cell phone and they've come we've become so self-dependent that they're essential and if we're not careful they become a leak in our spiritual vessel but we don't want to deal with it because i can't imagine life without it it allows things to become i i'm not going to deal with that because it's essential everyone in this generation that says studies are somewhat directionally challenged compared to previous they couldn't tell you where a landmark's at they don't know what a sign says they're just listening to google they're just listening to siri take i-75 north what's that right i mean my grandfather can he he can sit down at coffee and tell me how to get from here to missouri every road he said in fact you get off at exit whatever brother mayford there's a cracker barrel there you eat some breakfast out right but we've surrendered that knowledge this generation you can't you can't do anything without it you you may not even be able to call home oh i forgot you don't have a landline anymore you canceled it because everybody's got one of these the benefits seem so so high but it comes with a high cost to our mental and social lives the constant connectivity and information that we have access to on our smart smartphones offer us so much that we've made these devices a drug for hundreds and millions of users scientists are just now beginning research in this phenomenon but their studies suggest that we're becoming increasingly distracted spending less time in the real world being drawn more deeply into a virtual world with every swipe every refresh and every update we're seeing now what they call ancient brains in a high-tech world we're only 22 years in what we know as the internet age so we can't truly track it but one day it said that we will stand back and look with more precision at what our smartphones are truly doing to our brains our hearts and our souls but we don't have the leisure i don't believe as the church as parents as pastors or as students to postpone the real reflection of our lives especially our the effects of our body soul and spirit that these phones are having on us present but absent it'll think for me we become so driven by curiosity we desire to know because i've surrendered all my knowledge to a phone so therefore with every swipe every refresh i gotta know because otherwise without it i don't know it's such a domino effect of it's easy let it do all the work surrender your thinking so here's the question if it's so easy to give in to your cell phone with curiosity why is it so difficult to do that with god because could anybody tell me the definition of faith substance of things hoped for evidence of things not seen the unknown the doing without knowing the trusting god let's get right to it okay we're much quicker to listen to siri than we are god we're much quicker to listen to google maps on direction than look at the word of god for any direction of our lives it's so easy because we've surrendered our essential knowledge to this but god forbid that we actually say god i'm having some trouble in this issue of my life it's so easy with this but it seems so difficult for people to buy into the fact that god wants to speak to them we have more confidence in algorithms and and and apps applications than we do anything with god phones are now training children instead of parents 51 percent of moms claim to be addicted to their cell phones and spend 37 a percent of their time on social media outlets what's wrong with america train up a child and the way they should go and when they're old they won't depart from it the sad thing is many of us want them to come home to somewhere that they've not been trained to go to because if we're surrendering our training to these devices this is where they're going to turn oh but they're i'm trying to to to to to help this this young person on facebook by commenting back what why are they why are they they putting posts on there about about suicide and depression and all the why are they turning to the web instead of calling their mom and dad because you've handed them this instead of sitting down at the edge of their bed and telling them parents and kids in the same room same house same table but have no clue what each other are doing they text good night instead of walking upstairs and giving them a hug and tucking them in for bed i care more about how i look on the instagram or facebook page than i do as a father mother or a student i really have lost a sense we've seen that it is becoming a cultural thing that that students begin to care less and less about what anybody thinks around them as long as they look good on social media including their parents the most common thing right now that's being researched is called second screen binging which means you are watching tv but you don't even know what you're watching because you're on your second screen while you're watching an initial screen i need the knowledge i got to know what's going on i can't even sit down and watch what used to be we felt like was the problem right it's called fomo the fear of missing out it's simply curiosity we slowly just as pastor said as your students and yes some of your students that we were notified in finding this video on as sad as it is to say have scrolled through something and have been opened up to the spirit of homosexuality you've been opened up to your spirit your heart your body soul and spirit has been exposed to the door of curiosity that's interesting i i wonder what that feels like i wonder what people that live that lifestyle really experience you know how i kept from drinking in high school i didn't go to parties you know i i kept from fornicating in high school i didn't get in the back of a car i didn't put myself in the situation but here here's here's here's the issue before you before we start clapping the problem with this is now all those things are happening on here in a totally different form but with larger ramifications on students spirits their mental stability we've slowly opened ourselves up to this driving force of the world's algorithms and applications drawing you click by click and swipe by swipe transforming your thinking we don't know and that's what keeps us going back not knowing what we don't know isn't that foolish sounding but it's the truth i challenge you to do this just tonight this could be one application one application is to move your applications you gotta you got a smartphone move all your applications around and see how many times tomorrow you click on that spot where you thought that one's at that you went to about 47 times a day and you actually opened up google maps you you do it you don't even realize it i've done it i took one and put it on the far page i tried it this past week and no doubt about four or five times and i was so ashamed of it i'm like i think i'm just going to put this thing away for a few minutes but it happens my goal each week for the keynote is in between services when i get that weekly alert how much time you spent on your cell phone for it to be way down from the previous week because here's some of the major effects desiring obviously to know what's been posted on social media what's going on in this virtual world technol techno technology companies have carefully aligned these these what they call algorithms you you now even know if you're having a conversation in this room we start talking uh i know i think brother nolan bought a mattress for his new house last night i'd say if we started talking about mattresses he could he could swipe up on there and all of a sudden there's a mattress ad right well there is a way that you can turn that off on your phone but that really shows you how algorithms and all those things are playing a part in what you're seeing what's being advertised to you you talk to somebody about struggling with something all of a sudden there it is right before your eyes they're they've carefully created these these these algorithms to grab your attention and keep and create constant curiosity for who for you specifically designed for you many scientists say that the pendulum has just begun to swing in a wide direction that we are however nowhere close to seeing the major effects on our essential devices most of the time there is nothing new but it's it's like brother perry it's like that saturday morning golf shot i hit one good one and it makes me think i ought to hit another one right it keeps keeps you going back you feel like oh after that shot man i might join a pga tour or something you know that's it keeps you going back you scroll all of a sudden you've got that feed of information that needs to be dropped into that that that group text because also did you know this was going on have you seen this and i was the first one to find out about it it's just this desire to know this desire to experience something and you you just keep swiping you keep going back you keep going back and we we get into this this habit of refreshing and keep searching to fuel this drive of curiosity we'll get more into it in part two but moving those apps around and seeing the effects of each app and what it does to you because of what it's created to do to you and seeing the background of what you're actually listening to these devices can make life so easy but we don't consider the negative impact here's here's the challenge learning to live with technology without surrendering to it learning to live with technology without surrendering to it is today's biggest challenge it's not just now disrupting dinners and distracting drivers these are some of the most obvious things we see and we hear talked about and advertised but there are subtle small effects that could cause major changes in our society in our in our in our world in our students in our brain and rarely does this generation see it making simple conversation in line at the grocery store in a waiting room why should i talk to them i've got the world to talk to why should i smile at the guys sitting across from me or checking me out at the grocery store why should i lift my eyes to acknowledge them i've got way more going on on this device that i'm looking at studies show how these social skills have drastically weakened with the the creation of what we call the iphone we have lack of a trust for people now because we truly don't understand them facebook twitter and instagram has told me all i need to know about you it's painted the perfect picture why do i need a relationship with you i could see all i need to know there all the info i need to know about you and all the world just pours out at my fingertips so why would i ask a question the virtual reality is slowly becoming the reality i've got six charts i want to show you real quick the first one is the effects that's happening on teenagers and that is they've chosen since we see here since 2007 when the iphone was released that this is the time for a week that teenagers go out with without their parents to hang out with friends look at the decline see no need to hang out with anybody why i could talk to everybody i need to right here let's go to number two you wonder why this has started happening i've talked to some of you parents i'm tired of driving them to school why won't they get their license i don't know about you when i was growing up i'm like counting down the days i mean the moment i i'll just tell you a secret brother perry my grandpa let me drive when i was 14 15. you know i hope there's no police officers watching but i was i was just dying to drive dying to be able to just go where i wanted to go and and not not be a burden on my parents are busy they're doing all kind of things i want to be able to get to school and and get to practice and get here and get there and we see here there's been a decline in that and i'm not trying to point out any of you students that are 18 and don't have your driver's license some of them are looking around i'm not going to make eye contact with anybody but you say why is that happening this is why you'll see that these statistics are walking hand in hand with one thing what i need to drive for i can sit in a corner in a dark room and do all the connectivity i need all the social networking i need look at number three now this is another puzzling question that maybe that puzzles my mind that maybe doesn't puzzle yours because i have conversations that come up that like uh brother brother hammond um what do you think about so-and-so when i get married getting married i didn't even know you were dating i didn't even know you were talking oh we've been we've been talking for about six seven months where you don't talk at church you don't talk at gatherings you don't sit next to each other you you've been having a secret relationship going on on your phone for seven months and you're ready to get married we wonder we wonder why divorce is at an all-time high because god forbid you actually go out on a date and sit down with somebody and actually look reality in the eyes young lady young man you might be looking at a filter and not even know it god forbid that we forsake hey well guess what happens in slide number four and i know that we have young students in here but look at number four now now this this is a world's this is a world's graft right this is society's graft but here here's the problem in their world there's less there's less fornication but now some of the statistics we'll get into in week two he says any man that looketh upon a woman in their heart because we're we're not under the law we're not sitting down there with moses's ten laws we're under the ten commitments where some god in our heart remember we just mentioned it it's it's a thing where now we used to stay at camp you know we go to youth camp we go to nyc and say hey no guys in girls rooms no girls in guys rooms don't you go up to the dorm you walk up that hill you you're you know we're gonna send you home you know i remember we had some security offers made somebody here run the hill one time for being in the wrong uh wrong place or something running up down the hill at night you know okay i wasn't gonna say anything but um but here here's here's here is a wake-up call parents please hear me here is a wake-up call the reason there is less dating the reason that there is less fornication is because it don't matter now whether i let them walk up the hill or let them walk down the hall it don't matter if i prop open the daggum door for i'm sorry it just frustrates the hound out of me they're in the room that when you send them up to their bedroom at night with this thing you might as well call on over the boyfriend and girlfriend say hey come on over the house why don't you spend the night when you give them internet access and i i see some some young men some and i see some of you giggling i'll just be honest with you i'm stirred in my spirit and if you don't take serious what the spirit is coming against the spirit of curiosity right now you better believe that hell's coming for you that hell's trying to draw you out it's a whole nother world we're living in less dating yeah because we sit on face time for hours and hours and hours and we don't have any way of tracking that number five two thousand seven loneliness hopelessness look at the increase number six this is a bigger one than it seems lack of sleep what does that tell me that means that mom and dad went to sleep and students are sitting up on their cell phones with access to what the world everything if you don't if you please wrap your mind around that that that we we're we're opening up our hearts it seems like such a small thing you said well they're not getting enough sleep yeah it plays a huge role in their lives of success slide number five of depression and loneliness has a lot to do with slide number six because they're not kind they're sleep deprived they're angry they're rebellious because they simply need sleep here's some more statistics since the iphone was released homicide among teens and college students has went down drastically but suicide has increased drastically they hate themselves more than they hate each other you think they don't like you you should hear the conversations they have with themselves you think they bully you you should see what they look like at night when they have to lay their head down on the pillow and deal with reality of who they are they would rather torment themselves that's why cutting and depression and and and and this self-harm stuff is at such a high as all this stuff in our society is this cry as a lack of self-worth they they hate because they hate themselves they they riot because they hate themselves depression has marched to an all-high rising level hand in hand this little piece of metal they dictate they manipulate so many things it's proven that companies that have workers that make them leave their phones in their car work less hours due to the level of productivity studies have been done at universities on a level of learning with phones present in the room phones left in the locker phones left in the vehicles and it is astronomical what just simply this sitting on the table does it's just a constant drive to know i'm so curious it's just sitting there i don't even have to open it up and it's got my attention because it it's really the world that i'm living in has anybody liked that has anybody commented has has that email come through we can't even sit down at dinner universities are beginning to believe that if they can somehow begin to manage these they believe that their their their levels of of of success are going to be so much higher but what's the point because they get to carry them into their careers so here we find ourselves again where we have to deal with technology we have to learn to live with it without surrendering to it it's not just the church it's everywhere it's simple presence drives your curiosity through the roof of just wanting to know i battle prayer and bible reading but statistics state that the average person uses their cell phone five hours and 45 minutes a day say i can't find time to pray do what you can't find time to read god's word i i can't i don't really know if that's the devil speaking to me in the garden i i can't tell if he's drawing me into that feeling i i can't differentiate between the curiosity and the conviction i just don't have the time to really to really build myself up spiritually five hours and 45 minutes a day if you got paid by the hour you'd make good money and 13 of this generation averages out now that's just everybody 13 of this generation address averages between 10 to 12 hours a day it's mind blowing 10 to 12 hours a day we fight we struggle and whatever you're feeding is what's going to grow feeding your senses you're bombarded with your senses and your your your body soul and spirit every day most of us with worthless negative information let's be honest somebody lost their job somebody just got pregnant he is with her and she's got a runny nose and this one got invited to sleepover and she didn't and we wonder why we have no peace in our life trying to manage everything that we're taking in this worthless negative information that really you think that you're trying to help people but you become addicted to just what knowing you know you know it used to be uh if i remember correctly i think it was i don't even know if it was before my time it was like a it was in a magazine called inquire or something like that you had like it was just like a bunch of gossip kind of stuff i don't know maybe i'm wrong but it's like you people used to have to like actually go get it you know like you wanted pornography you had to go get it you wanted to do you had to go purchase it and find them it's just everything it's just flooding you right i i want to be a part we we we we spent so much time in it with the portals open to social media so much more time if we're honest we look at those numbers if we said in the average let's say we're christian we're apostolics we sit below average let's just say it's four hours a day how much time do we spend in church let's be honest because we're opening up ourselves to the world's agenda to the world senses and allowing it to flood us and fill us up and that we come in we expect service to last an hour and a half if we make it to all three and we expect god to be doing something in our lives we have we we we have our our our we we need more time and praise and worship and prayer and spiritual things to feed the convictions and feed the voice of god in order to be able to shut the door of curiosity if we're going to silence satan's mind proverbs says to be carnally minded is death spiritually dead absent-minded present but not here you've got to see here the reason you're not happy it's not how you look young lady it's not your age it's not your wife it's not your husband it's not whether you're single or your job or amount of money your mind is filled with all this carnal stuff from a virtual world and it has no altar it has no release it has no place for you to turn there's nobody for you to it's like a clogged up drain it has nowhere to go nobody to open up to nobody can help you counseling sessions with pastor don't work counseling sessions with a friend don't work because all your feeding is your carnal senses and giving a few hours to some kind of spiritual release it's impossible to think that our altar a couple times a week is going to fix 40 hours a week of carnal it's exposure you've opened up yourself i've challenged you this evening students parents everyone to build up your conviction it's a challenging thing to build up those spiritual senses so that you can uh you you you can come against the things but i i feel like sometimes if we're we're not careful we we're so underdeveloped spiritually it's it's a lack of discipline it's like hey you know you ever you ever been you know we got to move some furniture you you get out there and you go to pick up that couch and all of a sudden you stuck down there i think something just happened and you walk around like this for a few days right you've thrown your back out because you don't exercise that back right you don't make those movements normally if we're not careful we come in and we expect worshiping god to be something that's simple and it don't hurt but you haven't lifted furniture but once this month you've not prayed to god truly connected with god but just once this week or once we see we see the direction it it it's trained us to be in the room but not be present you come to church you're here you don't disagree but you don't connect with god because there's a piece of metal buzzing full of notifications and things that you really want to know what's on it and you desire to know more what's on this thing than you do what the pastor's got to say this evening if you're honest you're just it's driving you crazy not to be able to pull this thing out some of you just can't handle it because we got students that's got whole rows got their phone out back there while pastor's preaching what does it matter that much do you want to know that bad that you'll say i don't want to know god i don't want to know what god's got for me i don't care what you did for me i don't care that you died for me i don't care you got a plan for me i don't care that you went to prepare a place for me i'd rather know what espn's got to say i'd rather text somebody something that's i thought was funny during service prayer is boring can't pray for just a few minutes without getting distracted my knees are hurting i wonder if anybody's watching because you've trained in the weight room of the world and expect to be able to come in the house of god and have spiritual success until your senses get in trouble however because when you have surrendered your knowledge and things go bad and you get in trouble and your sense you feed those senses so much with this you get in trouble and all of a sudden it triggers those senses and you're sensual and your carnal part of you is so strong you are exercising that consecration and the conviction would cause you to pray out of joy instead of out of trouble that's what happens most of the time we've fed ourselves so much junk that we feel so terrible we pray out of duty we pray out of feeling like i just need to get this release i come to church to just get a release from this virtual reality that i live in god forbid that we come to church we worship once a week i don't come to church to worship i come to church worshiping i don't come to church to pray i come to church praying i i this is what i do it's not it's just like this you you don't just pick this thing up once a week i didn't come here out of curiosity i came here out of conviction tonight i came here because i know god i came here tonight because god's been good to me i came here tonight because god has destined me god has died for me god has he's went away and prepared this this place of called heaven you know it's amazing to me that before he gave a promise he went prepared he said i go away to prepare a place for you and then i'm gonna send you a promise he's prepared this great and mighty place for us and we've allowed this this tiny little leak in the vessel of our lives what do you want to know i want us to do something this evening and i believe god i i know it's a little different but i believe god's going to move across this entire place in prayer this afternoon young people god spoke to me he said i know these students haven't had strong tower i know they haven't had certain events that they normally have and they have an experience with god and the the word of god for you tonight is if you'll open up yourself to the windows of heaven he wants to touch you tonight in a special way god's going to do something here in a moment but we we we've got to make a decision what we want to know because these cell phones have opened up a whole new challenge we need honest alters we can't keep thinking that this phone is a secret hiding place that we can live with we've got to be honest with ourselves have an honest alter experience that this is going to require us to manage it it's going to require some attention that we're going to to open up we'll open up these authors a little bit later but i want us to set our minds in the fact that we've got to have an honest altar because curiosity is going to try to distract you from dealing with it it's already got some of you some of you are thinking about hey when's this joker going to be done he got the floor a while ago you're distracted you're thinking about food you're thinking about having my my i wonder wonder what they're thinking about this completely distracted i'll just give you some advice it'd be great looking at the statistics that i've seen in order for us to have more success in here to leave your cell phone in the car well i don't know if i can do that or not i i don't know if that's possible satan's voice could we just look at this for a moment i know this this might be a little uh odd to look at but let's let's just pretend that this door is the door of curiosity and let's pretend that this door over here is the door of conviction that that there's there's a there's a voice at the door of curiosity that says i want to know everything i desire to know everything it's it's a wide path it's a it's a popular path i i want to be god i want to control life but after all that's what he was telling eve you're you're you're going to be able to be like god you want to control life you want to be able to deal with whatever comes i want to know i want to experience what my flesh wants i i want to know what it looks like i want to know what's it like when i go there i want to know i want to know i want to know i stand at the door of curiosity and that's the voice that's the drive of satan you can be god you can control it you can do it you can take life into your own hands but the door of conviction sounds quite the opposite sounds like a lot of songs we've seen trust me there's a voice that stands at the door of conviction and knocks because it's a gentleman the voice of god says even when i even when i can't see it he's working even when my senses can't feel it he's working even when i can't talk to him i i feel like my prayers are just hitting the ceiling even when it's not popular even when my daddy's not even when my mama's not even when i don't feel like it you surrender your senses and he'll give you an experience he says i'll open up the heavens and pour you out a blessing that you cannot contain you cannot receive it i want you to stand your feet because we're going to do something and god's about to do something in this place please stay with me for a moment stand to your feet i i want you to see this matthew chapter 16 and verse number 18 in closing and i say also unto thee that thou art peter and upon this rock i will build my church i know this goes against everything inside of me because i want to say all the time that's not the church's responsibility that's the homes that's not the church's responsibility that's not the school's responsibility the parents have got to do that we can't try to resurrect here what's being crucified at home we can't try to create some kind can we we can't make something out of somebody that when they go home no nobody here here's where i i've really been pricked in my heart this week that the church the church can do some things that will even overcome a home life because here's what we got to understand statistically everybody don't have a mama and less and less people have a father so he says upon this rock i'll build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it he says and i'll give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven that whatsoever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven brother or do you care to help me for a moment you care to go to that door this door right here joel you come with him if you want to brother kelby you care to help him just stand right there brother perry brother schnitzer nolan you care to go to this door right here now remember we got conviction over here and we've got curiosity over here here's what i believe needs to happen in this place tonight we need a church to become the human hinge of heaven we need a church to shut what needs to be shut down and open loose what needs to be loose because i am confident of this very thing that there's a young person in this room tonight that i could say gather up with your family and they'll sit down and say i ain't got nobody i ain't got a daddy to tell me i ain't got obama to tell me well i'm here to tell somebody in the holy ghost tonight that i've got a body of believers i've got a church family i've got a brother or i've got in fact i got a whole family here that i believe without a doubt no matter what your home life looks like that we can begin to pray right now and say i'm gonna shut the devil up i'm gonna close his mouth i wonder if there's a student that would step out of your seat and allow heaven oh i wonder if there's a student that said step out of your seat i know we're going to social distance but come on up around this altar because the church is about to help you silence what the devil's screaming at you the devil the devil's been telling you that you're worthless the devil's telling you you need to go down that path you need to do this and do that oh church body would you help me oh help me for a moment help me for a moment oh bind it up devil you don't have any authority here they will you don't have any authority in their minds devil you don't determine their worth devil you don't tell them who they are hey yo lobo ayala come on help me church family i need your help to shut up the devil tonight come on this ain't gonna be easy it's not gonna be a simple oh it's not gonna be a simple bedtime prayer this evening come on you're gonna have to touch heaven the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church the church has got the keys to lock up what needs to be locked up come on somebody right now i want you to help and if you're not comfortable touching her laying hands on somebody reach your hand toward a young person right now come on i believe we fight with our voice we fight with our voice could you church body help me tonight we're fighting for a generation a generation that's being poisoned hey oh god oh my god come on right now pray a prayer i don't want to hear it anymore devil come on young lady i don't want to hear it anymore you don't tell me who i am you don't define who i am you don't get to tell me that i am not depressed i am not anxious i am not fearful come on that's it come on that's it oh god my god my god my god foreign okay all right i i don't want i don't want to stop i don't want to stop the move of the holy ghost but if i i can have your attention for just a moment every everybody in this place every student if i could have your attention for a moment because we only prayed part of the prayer we shut one door but here's what's about to happen it is about to break loose hear me if you'll open up your heart if you'll open up your mind at an honest altar this evening god's already told me he's already spoke to me young person some of you he put a picture of you in my mind that he's going to touch you in a supernatural way tonight but i need a church we've shut hell up we've shut hell up by walking to an altar and said i want to be open and honest there's an issue there's a problem we're only as strong as we are honest our altar is only as hot as we are honest we've done we've done that part but he said whatever needs to be bound can be bound but he said i've given the church keys keys for the prayer you care to help me let's answer you brother you care to help me i i believe the church like i said is a human hinge oh the church is not just some gathering of people it's not just where some people come and worship together it's a hinge to the heavens you're gonna open up the windows of heaven and touch a generation come to your family tonight i want you to lift your hands to heaven come on lift your hands to heaven tonight god's about to move in this place god's about to move open up the heavens open up the heavens come on father come on father open up the heavens for you come on mother open up the heavens for your family come on church come on church let's fight for a generation let's fight for our students tonight