Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 785 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Jimmy Robbins: Praise God for that wonderful singing. Thank God for the message that's in that singing.

( congregational amens ).

I don't have a sermon to preach, but I have some thoughts in my heart that I'm gonna share. And it's not necessarily designed as a precedent for this service, but it's thoughts that I had and I want to share them. I trust it's the Lord's thoughts. You are here tonight for a reason. You may think you are here because it's a fertile ground to find a boyfriend or a girlfriend. You may be here because someone invited you, but you're not quite sure about what's going on here tonight. You are a son or a daughter of someone who you are under their authority and you've got to be here. And some of you are here...you just don't know, have no clue why you're here. But I'm gonna tell you tonight that the presence of the Lord is here in a powerful way--a powerful way.

You say, Brother Jimmy, you don't understand. I've got a daughter that's in trouble and she's been in trouble a long, long time. Brother Jimmy, I've got a son that's a dope addict. You just don't understand, I'm about to lose my marriage. It's irreparable. No it's not.

( congregational amens ).

Nothing is irreparable when you've got Jesus Christ. Is anything too hard for the Lord?

( congregational response ).

No. Some of you have strongholds in your lives. You can't...you just can't break it. You go right back to the same thing that you don't want to go to. You go there. It's almost like a lamb being led to the slaughter. You have no power, no strength, and perhaps no will to go on. I'm here to tell you there's hope!

( congregational amens ).

There's hope tonight. There is hope. Praise be to God. I don't know all your problems, but I do know where the solution is. It's in Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. You say, it's a hard case, Brother Jimmy, it's real hard. That don't make no difference how hard it is. God can break the power. He can break the power over your life tonight, whatever it is. If it's sickness, if it's bondage, if it's disease, one that you love so much and you want to see them helped so much...you're about to give up...don't give up! Don't give up.

In this meeting I expect, starting tonight, not tomorrow night, but tonight, I expect the Lord Jesus Christ to minister to you in such a way that it will absolutely break the power over your life tonight. It can be broken tonight. "...The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds..." (KJV).

( congregational praise ).

Mighty through God--mighty through God--mighty through God!

( congregational praise ).

Not mighty through Phil or not mighty through Jimmy or Jim or anybody else, but mighty through God.

( congregational amens ).

I believe that God is here and I believe that His Son is here, and I believe we're gonna see some results in this meeting. It's time, beloved, for us, as Phil would say, get up on your hind legs and fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold--lay hold on the thing that you need tonight. Lay hold on it. It's available tonight. Deliverance is available! Salvation is available tonight! Deliverance of every kind...all things that you have a need of tonight...it's available.

We're gonna have to make war. There's a battle arrayed...there's demons, there's devils arrayed and they're fighting. No, you can't. No, it won't happen...to someone else, but not you. It will happen! God almighty has brought you here to set you free tonight! He's brought you here to set you free.

( congregational praise ).

Hallelujah! The devil is arrayed, but the angels, the chariots of fire...they're greater than what the devil has, greater in number. "Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world." Behold, I give unto you power over all the power of the enemy, and nothing...and you shall tread upon serpents and scorpions "...and nothing shall by any means hurt you." Beloved, in my spirit, I feel like kicking butt tonight. I'm talking about the devil! I hate him. I despise him!

( pounding podium ).

We are here! We're God's people! We have every right to claim anything that we need of God.

( congregational praise ).

Glory to God! Devil, I resist you in the name of Jesus! I claim victory tonight, Lord. I claim healing and deliverance tonight in the name of Jesus!

( congregational praise ).

Glory to God! Glory to God!

( congregational praise ).

Hallelujah! Don't you leave here tonight without getting what you came for. It's available! It's available!

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Praise God!

( congregational amens ).

I don't know how to follow that, but that's all right.

( laughter ).

Praise God! Let's see if I can find a scripture I had in my mind. I'll tell you, I was thinking about this service this afternoon and I had the...almost the identical thought, not exactly couched in the same words. But what Jimmy says is exactly right. I believe there's many people here tonight who have come and you're very conscious of a need in your life. You know something. You know, God's been speaking in a lot of ways in our midst in every one of our assemblies, and I believe God is in the process of cleaning us up and getting us free from things that have held us in bondage for years.

And there's no way He can do that just by some sort of magic fairy dust, and everything just disappears. He wants us to be workers together with Him. He wants us to grow up. He wants us to learn and understand and intelligently reach out and lay hold of the things that He has given to us.

And so I just want to read from Mark chapter 5, a very familiar scripture. And while you're turning there, Mark, chapter 5, beginning in verse 21, I'll just summarize what's going on. Jesus had arrived to a large crowd and one of the synagogue's rulers, a man names Jairus, had come and so he says, my daughter is dying, please come and heal her. And so basically Jesus is walking along surrounded on every side by a very large crowd.

And it's evident from the context, if you will read through in this story that this crowd was pressing Him on every side. There was hardly...you could hardly get to him. This was not just a casual little stroll and they're off somewhere, but this is a crowd of people who were really sticking close to Jesus.

And it says...well it says that in verse 24, "So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding..."--a hemorrhage, I guess, in our words--"...for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.

"When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed. Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, Who touched my clothes? You see the people crowding against you, his disciples answered, and yet you can ask, Who touched me?" (NIV).

It doesn't sound like it made any sense. They were just looking at it as natural people. But there was a spiritual transaction that was going on. This woman had something going on of a spiritual nature in her heart and in her life. And she didn't approach Jesus just like a tourist, or just like somebody going along for the ride, to see what all the excitement was about. There was something she knew that she needed and she knew He had what she needed.

And so that was what was going on and Jesus was aware of this in the Spirit. He was very sensitive and His ministry was such that He was in constant tune with His Father. And the scripture says...He says later of the Father, the Father lives in me, that's how I do what I do. And so there was a spiritual sensitivity and when there was spiritual power that literally left Him and went into that woman. He knew it! He was sensitive to that.

"But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it." He didn't accept their little explanation there that everybody's touching You, what's the big deal? "Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." Now there's a simple lesson in this that is exactly what Jimmy was talking about tonight. There is power and there is virtue in the Lord.

( congregational amens ).

And what had happened in the nation of Israel at that time was God had sent His Son and had come to live in His Son, had empowered Him to do the wonderful things that He did. Now, of course, we know it wasn't all about just healings and those things, but God did those things out of a sense of compassion for the needs of the people. He also did it as a witness as to who Jesus was, so they could receive the Truth that He had.

But you see, here was God in flesh, here was a source of power that was beyond anything anybody around there knew anything about. This woman had been everywhere. If there was any source of help that anybody had suggested, she had tried it to the point where she had no more money, no more resources. And you know something, when we reach a point where we're ready to reach out to the Lord, God has done something in us to make us realize there is no other help but God.

( congregational amens ).

There is no one else to turn to--and also that there is a source of help available. And so it was on that ground that she actually, unbeknownst to Him now, she actually wrote her own ticket, in a sense. She said, I know that in Him there is a source of power, and evidently she had watched Him and she had seen Him touch and heal and she knew power flowed out of His hands.

And I rather imagine, although it doesn't specifically say, that she was conscious of the fact that if I touch Him, some of that power will flow into me and will help me. And so I need to get in touch with that power, and that was the way she reasoned it out. But she didn't just sit there and say, oh God, I wish He'd heal me. She actually put legs on her faith.

( congregational amens ).

She had faith in her heart that He could, but she actually struggled her way through the crowd. This was a sick woman, and a thick crowd. She was willing to take that effort to struggle through that crowd and put out her hand and touch the hem of His garment, the border of His clothes. And when she did, her faith was rewarded. Now listen to what Jesus said. Again, down at the bottom, he said, "Daughter, your faith has healed you." What healed her?

( congregational response ).

What healed her? Did He say, I healed you? God healed you? He said, your faith healed you.

( congregational amens ).

That's the thing. We had a service on this recently on a Wednesday night. That's the missing ingredient. We can talk all we want about how great God is, and how great what Jesus has done for us is, and all the gifts that he bestows upon us. We can exalt the fact that it's by grace! That means we don't come and say, God I deserve your favor in some way. I've been really reading my Bible and praying a lot lately. I've been to church and I haven't missed, and I witness, I do this, I do...we don't ever come to God on that basis.

( congregational amens ).

Do all those things, but don't do 'em to gain God's favor. Do 'em because you love Him.

( congregational amens ).

Do 'em as an act of worship to Him. Praise God, He's worthy of all that we could ever give Him in the way of praise.

( congregational praise ).

Praise God! I'll tell you, that's where He's taking us. He's taking us into a relationship that's gonna last forever, where we will just give ourselves to Him in unreserved love and He will give Himself back to us so much more than we could ever imagine. Praise God! But here's the key to this whole transaction...is the woman recognizing where help was. She didn't simply see a man. Somehow God helped her to see God was in that man. He can help me. There's power there that can help me!

But she didn't, like I said, she did not sit there and simply...imagine this, or wish it, or beg it. She just...she said, I'm gonna touch Him, and when I do He's gonna heal me. It's...I'm gonna be healed. But you know, Jesus said, your faith has healed you. That's the key. Your faith!

And you know, I think there's a stumbling block that we all at times have, at least I can testify that it's one that I struggle over. We talk about having faith and it's almost like we're gonna trot out our faith and focus on it, like it's a 'thing' or something. And we're gonna analyze it and we're gonna try to...do I have it? Do I not have it? What is it? It's just kind of a vague, nebulous thing and what we're doing is focusing on 'our' faith. But you know, there's a secret that I believe God would help us understand about faith. The secret of faith is not to focus on the thing, it's the object of that faith!

( congregational amens ).

If I struggle to find faith in myself, I will never find it. Faith is not just something you can pull out and say, yes, it's a certain feeling. Well, bless God, I'm all charged up. I just heard Jimmy and I'm excited. Well that's just excitement, if that's all it is. Now praise God, that was exciting and I appreciate that. There's nothing wrong with that. But you know, God desires us to so focus our attention upon the source of the help that we need and to recognize we don't come to Him because of any virtue in us. We have no claim upon Him on that ground. But He has come at inestimable cost...to come to our rescue. The wonderful songs that were sung tonight...He has made everything available to us.

( congregational amens ).

There is nothing He has withheld. Even as Paul said, He that didn't spare His own Son, "...delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (KJV).

( congregational amens ).

I'm here to tell you, I live too much as a pauper. I'm so busy looking at me and all the stuff that's wrong with me and trying to work up this thing called faith, I forget to look to the source.

( congregational amens ).

And to simply believe...the testimony that He loves me.

( congregational amens ).

He doesn't love me because of anything that I am in myself. He loves me because it's His nature to love.

( congregational amens ).

And because the love that He shows to us in itself has the power to change the object of that love. God's power is what we're talking about here. It's not the power that...oh, I'm so great, I believed Jesus and I got healed. It's Jesus...has the power in Him to do what's needed in my life.

( congregational amens ).

And I simply take it.

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