A Little Bit Of Fire

♪ Only one name is worthy ♪ ♪ We worship Him today ♪ ♪ We lift you up, oh God ♪ ♪ There's a reason I can sing ♪ ♪ There's a reason for this life inside me ♪ ♪ One name above all names ♪ ♪ Jesus, oh yes it's Jesus ♪ ♪ There's a reason for this hope ♪ ♪ There's a reason for this peace that I'm going ♪ ♪ One worthy of our praise ♪ ♪ Jesus, His day is Jesus ♪ Come on church, how do we respond? How do we respond? ♪ I will lift my hands up ♪ ♪ I will raise my bones ♪ ♪ How I will shout of your love ♪ ♪ 'Til the day that I die ♪ ♪ Everything that I have ♪ ♪ Oh my words and God I read ♪ ♪ You're the reason I did ♪ ♪ You're the reason I sing ♪ ♪ You're the reason I heard ♪ ♪ You're the reason I sing ♪ ♪ For the victory of receive ♪ ♪ For the goodness ♪ ♪ For the goodness of the praise ♪ ♪ He's there ♪ ♪ I will bow without you ♪ ♪ Jesus, I thank you Jesus ♪ ♪ I will lift my hands up ♪

♪ I will raise my bones ♪ ♪ How I will shout of your love ♪ ♪ 'Til the day that I die ♪ ♪ Everything that I have ♪ ♪ Oh my words and God I read ♪ ♪ You're the reason I did ♪ ♪ You're the reason I sing ♪ ♪ You're the reason I did ♪ ♪ You're the reason I sing ♪ ♪ I did ♪ ♪ You're the reason I sing ♪ ♪ You're the reason I sing ♪ ♪ You're the reason I sing ♪ ♪ You're the reason I sing ♪ ♪ You're the reason the reason I sing ♪ ♪ When my time on earth is through ♪ ♪ And when my final breath has left these lies ♪ ♪ I'll forever be with you, Lord ♪ ♪ Where my song, our song goes on ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ I will lift my hands up ♪ ♪ I will raise my bones high ♪ ♪ I will shout of your love ♪ ♪ 'Til the day that I die ♪ ♪ Everything that I have ♪ ♪ I will lift my hands up ♪ ♪ I will lift my bones high ♪ ♪ I will lift my hands up ♪ ♪ I will raise my bones high ♪ ♪ I will shout of your love ♪

♪ 'Til the day that I die ♪ ♪ Everything that I have ♪ ♪ I will lift my hands up ♪ ♪ I will lift my hands up ♪ ♪ I will raise my bones high ♪ ♪ I will shout of your love ♪ ♪ The reason I'm singing ♪ ♪ You're the reason I will ♪ ♪ You're the reason I will ♪ ♪ 'Til the day that I die ♪ ♪ You're the reason I'm singing ♪ ♪ You're the reason I will ♪ ♪ You're the reason I will ♪ ♪ You're the reason I'll sing ♪ ♪ You're the reason I'll live ♪ ♪ You're the reason I'll sing ♪ ♪ You're the reason we sing ♪ ♪ You're the reason you are the reason ♪ ♪ You are the reason you are the reason ♪ ♪ Thank you, Jesus ♪ ♪ Thank you, Jesus ♪ Bring things out of it we can't see on our own. When it's all said and done, you be glorified above everything and everybody. And the whole church said amen. Thank you for being seated, smile at somebody on the way down. I'm going to go to the 8th chapter of Luke, 8th chapter of Luke beginning with verse 26. Then they sailed to the country of the Gatorines, which is opposite Galilee. Let's stop for a moment. That name, Gatorines is important. It says Jesus sailed to the country of the Gatorines.

He had to sail to the other side. If you remember when Moses was finishing his ministry to Israel, they were completing the forty years of wilderness wanderings, and Joshua has now been commissioned to take them into the promised land, to cross the Jordan, and go into the promised land. They called it the land of milk and honey. Oddly enough, out of those twelve tribes, two and a half of those tribes asked Moses for permission to stay back, to stay east of the Jordan River. They were saying we don't want to cross, we don't want to go over with the other tribes. Moses asked the reason. They said, well, you know, we're farmers and we have cattle and flocks. And the land we've been in over here is much more suitable for our income. We can continue to raise cows and sheep and donkeys and goats if you'll just let us stay over here. Now, if they need us over there, when they get in a fight, we'll come join them, but we want to stay over here. And Moses gave them permission. And these are the people of God, and they stayed behind. First lesson I want you to hear is that when God's people refuse to leave the world, come out of the world, and be separate, they will eventually adapt to the world. They will start doing things they didn't ever think they would do. As we read down a little farther, we see pigs involved, a whole herd of swine. You know in God's law to the Israelites, a pig was unclean. They were not to touch it much less, eat it. You will find as we move down that they were not only touching it, eating them. They were buying and selling them. Art Katz was a messianic Jew and a scholar, and I read a lot after him. He said that those Israelites at the beginning were probably abhorrent, or the pigs were abhorrent to them, but the longer they stayed, the more they got used to it, and then they found out that the pig business was very lucrative. And so it was the pool of money and the desire for comfort that kept them from following

the Lord, the Lord's people, and going to the promised land. Boy, there's a lesson there, so let's read on. Then they sailed to the country of the Gaterings, which is opposite Galilee. And when he, Jesus, stepped out on the land, there met him a certain man from the city who had demons for a long time, and he wore no clothes nor did he have or live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, "What have I to do with you, Jesus, son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me. This is a demon talking to Jesus." him, and he was kept under guard, bound with chains and shackles, and he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the wilderness. Jesus asked him, saying, "What's your name?" And he said, "Legion, because many demons had entered him, and they begged him that he would not command them to go out into the abyss, or to send them to hell before the time. They're going to hell. One day every demon's going to be in hell. They said, "Jesus, just don't send us now. We know it's coming, but we don't want to go now." Now, a herd of many swine was feeding there on the mountain, so they begged him that he would permit them to enter them, and Jesus allowed it. And the demons went out of the man and entered the swine. And the herd ran violently down the steep place into the lake and drowned. When those who fed them saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Now, wouldn't you think that these people would be running to and fro, and so excited that this demonic man was now delivered. He was no longer a threat that Jesus, the miracle worker, had showed up and had changed everything, but that's not how they responded. They went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from

whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, closing in his right mind. And they were afraid, afraid because a sick man had been healed, a devil-possessed man had been delivered, the Son of God had come to visit them. They were afraid. They also, who had seen it, told them by what means he who had been demon-possessed, that was healed, then the whole multitude of the surrounding region of the gatherings asked him to depart from them, leave, go. We don't want you here, for they were seized with great fear. I want to ask you a question. How in the world could the people of God be afraid of God? How is it that people who were called by God, people whose descendants had seen the miraculous in God, now suddenly be so entrenched in that side of Jordan and so involved in pigs and materialism that they didn't even know who God was anymore? Jesus accommodated them, he got into the boat and returned. Wow. What a lesson. This morning I wanted to, I told the early crowd, I want to get something off my chest here. That's always fun. I see these gatherings as people who don't mind being called the people of God, they just don't want to follow God, obey God. All the other tribes cross the Jordan. Jordan in Hebrew means death. Jordan was the river of death. It represented going from death to life. They died to that old life and they were going into the new life. All the other tribes did it and they knew it wouldn't be easy. They knew there were still giants to fight and enemy would always attack them. They knew it would be hard but they knew God had put them there and God would sustain them there.

He called it the land of milk and honey. They knew that God would supply their needs so they were willing to cross the river of death and say goodbye to yesterday and goodbye to that and come into a new place but not the gatherings. I think you see the difference here. This is just your pastor thinking here. This is the difference between Christendom and the church. Let me explain something to you. Christendom is organized Christianity. It's incorporated. people up to high places and they look down on the common person. There are levels of power and recognition in Christendom and it is so worldly and material that it does not center on love for the Lord Jesus Christ. Christendom is apostate Christianity. I've heard people say, and I don't like it, when they look at the sins in the church, sins that have been going on, sins that continue to embarrass us, they'll say things like, "Well, that's the church that all God has left to work with, that's the church with all of its warts and its failures and its foibles." I totally disagree with that. The Church of Jesus Christ doesn't have warts and foibles. So they use this to excuse 2,000 years of perverted popes. They use this to excuse the hatred that Christendom has had for Jews. They've persecuted the Jewish people. They've denied Israel their right to exist and they say that that land does not belong to them. That's not the church. That's Christendom, organized, incorporated, big business, apostate Christianity. For 20 centuries we've had pompous religious leaders living in luxury because they have scammed and robbed the common man. The pulpit has lorded over the pew and there are levels that Jesus Christ despises.

We've had lying prophets who make up dreams and visions and lie about what they've seen in the Spirit, write books about it, even make movies about it. We've had theologians over all these years since the church was born on the day of Pentecost, theologians spewing man-made doctrine. Men who are more loyal to creeds and dogma and denominations than they are God himself and the truth of his word. We've seen self-appointed apostles declaring doctrines of devils and sending the masses to hell. That is not the church that Jesus is building. That's worldliness that has crept into the church building. We have so-called churches forbidding marriage, you read it in the scriptures, and disallowing their people to read the scripture because laity shouldn't be allowed to read the scripture. Only those in authority should be allowed to read it and explain it to the poor pitiful ignorant laity. We've had pastors with multiple marriages and divorces, with no punitive action whatsoever, continuing to lead churches and stand in pulpits, giving no account for the way they've lived and the sins they've committed yet because the churches built around them and depends on them, they still go to the poor pit. This is not the church that Jesus bled and died for. We have TV evangelists scamming saints to get rich. This prosperity heresy, I've preached about it so much I'm tired of preaching about it, anybody that still believes that is ignorant of holy scripture. And this idea that you can plant a financial seed? [BLANK_AUDIO] And then they'll say, you can't buy a miracle. Well, they're selling them, but God will bless a seed. Where are you getting all this? It's not in Holy Scripture. And every time you turn on the television, I promise you,

if you've got any religious channels on your TV, go home right now and watch any of them for 24 hours and nine out of 10 of them will beg you for money. And make you promises that they cannot keep and that God did not make. There's no such thing as seed, faith, giving. And then the miracle water. Did you know that for $125, you can send in to a certain ministry and you can get a vial of miracle water from West Virginia? (congregation laughs) Lord, where's the spring? (congregation laughs) Did you know that for a similar amount of money you can write to this ministry, contribute to this ministry? And you can get a vial of holy water from the sea of Galilee with healing powers in it. And have you heard constantly, I've heard it since I was young, these bogus claims about the shroud of Tehran, that somehow they found some cloth that was over the face of Jesus in the tomb and now it has his image on it. It's a lie, it's a scam, it's bogus. I don't care who promotes it. I don't care if he's your favorite preacher. I don't care what? That is a bogus scheme. Did you know that you can send a certain amount of money

to a guy and he will teach you to walk in the miraculous? And then if you tack on a little more to it he will teach you how to FaceTime with the Father. (congregation laughs) I can't make this up. (congregation laughs) Sandra will tell you I will sit and watch it and I record this stuff. (congregation murmurs) And then to think in just recent times of the sexual escapades of church leaders, oh, such embarrassing, filthy, vile sexual sins of those who are well known and in leadership. And then I hear some people say, you know, that's all God's got to work with. No, it isn't. Don't ever let that come out of your mouth again. God's church is not a sinful church, a selfish church. God's church has been redeemed. God's church is sanctified. God's church has crossed Jordan. God's church has left the other side and gone over. God's church has said, we won't stay here with pigs. We're moving over no matter what the cost, no matter how big the battle. We'd rather go where God has planned for us to go because it is in God that our needs are met. It really is a land of milk and honey. It may be tough, we may be in a fight, but I'm still in the land that God has given me,

a land of milk and honey, praise God forever. And folks, this is not the church. Jesus is coming to get all this foolishness. Nope. These are the traits of a twice dead plucked up by the roots, materialistic, self-absorbed, Christless, Laodicean church that is rich and increased with goods and has need of nothing to whom Jesus said, if you don't repent, I will vomit you out of my mouth. I will throw you out of my body. Now, this is the church, this Laodicean incorporated backslidden Christian, apostate church that so many people in the world equate with us. No, this is the one that's gonna work hand in glove with the antichrist during the first half of the tribulation. It's gonna be the antichrist buddy. It'll be the world religion, which stands for nothing. This church I'm preaching to you about is a church with a form of godliness but no power. There are no salvation. There is no evangelical effort. They just gather together and Jesus is standing at the door and knocking and they are not opening. But brothers and sisters, I've even heard some people say and you might believe it but you're wrong that the church will have to go through the tribulation. My question is why? Why will the church have to go through tribulation? If the great tribulation is about wrath, I've already been delivered from the wrath to come. If the tribulation is about God judging, I've already been judged. He judged me at the foot of the old rugged cross.

I'm ready to go. I'm ready to meet him right now. I don't need wrath and I don't need judgment. I already have the blood of Jesus that's been applied to my life. Everybody all say thank you Jesus for the blood of Jesus. No? Yesterday, after we cut the ribbon, my heart was touched and I really mean this. As I watched hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of you filing through there and I thank God for you. I thank God for your faithfulness, for your support in every single way that we get to do everything we do on this campus, debt free. I thanked him for you for doing that. It's okay. I also met some people yesterday, I met a beautiful sister who drove down from New York. She might be here this morning just to be in that dedication service and to be with us in two services this morning. I met another couple from Iowa who got on a plane and flew here just to be in this church. Because they watch online and they say if it's that good online, my God, what must it be in person? And I met somebody else from Washington, got in the car and drove down here because they wanted to be where the fire was burning. But I did meet a new couple yesterday and what was said to me really touched me in here. This man said we've just been coming a little while. When the first time we came, I sat through the service and I wept and when I got outside I looked at my wife and said I cannot believe that I have wasted 30 years in a dead church. He said I felt the presence of the Lord, I felt the Holy Spirit, the choir, the people, the love. He said I spent wasted 30 years in a dead, dried up church. And I know there's some watching online now and I know how this works too, see. You watch us and in different times on some of you gals may be putting on your makeup

and drinking your coffee, watching us and saying man that's a great church. Now you're going to go to that dead church because that's where your buddies are. That's where your business connections are and some of you guys you're listening on the way right now. You're on the way to your dead church but you're listening to this one live and here's what they will tell me. They will say well we just want to stay and make a difference. I'm going to tell you something, a difference is being made but it's in you. You are drying up, you are withering, you are spiritually anemic, you have no strength. There is no joy in your life. You dread to go to church, you have to drag yourself to church. You are starving to death. Church is not supposed to be an obligation. It's supposed to be the thing that wakes us up every morning and wait, wait, wait, hold it, don't get too happy yet. And we say praise God, oh money, praise God. We can go to church Wednesday night for prayer meeting in Bible study. And you get up on Thursday, praise God just three more days. We can get back to church where the fire of God is burning. You're supposed to be happy and excited and you're supposed to anticipate it and expected and enjoy it. If I remember correctly. I wish somebody who believes the same thing would say amen. He didn't say I can't hardly get out of bed this morning. I don't want to go back to the temple. It says I am old thing every Sunday. My back hurts. My knees. I don't really want to go. David said I was glad when somebody said hey David we're getting up alone to go to church. You want to go to church? I was glad when they said unto me let us go into the house of the Lord. Hallelujah. And apparently he got rewarded for going. Something really happened while he was there. It wasn't a funeral service. Something alive took place. The word of God tricked his soul, blessed him, lifted him up. Oh God when you go to the house of God you ought to run into God and feel the presence of God. And apparently David did

because he said it was good to be in the house of the Lord today. And that's what I want this morning. I want you to walk out of here saying to yourself if you don't say it to anybody else. Man, church was good today. I'm glad I went to church today. It was good to be in the house of the Lord today. Can I get it out? I witnessed here this morning. Hallelujah to God. It's supposed to be exciting folks. Some of you went to a funeral service every Sunday. You sat there and nobody would talk. The music is terrible, boring. Then they get up and make announcements. This is what we're going to do Monday. Tuesday's coming up. Let's do this. And they go through the whole calendar. And then somebody that can't sing tries to sing a solo. And then a dead lost child of Christendom who was trained in a dead seminary gets up and speaks dead words to dead people. Folks, that's a funeral service. That's not the way it ought to be. Oh, no. You see, if you're cold, you're looking for a fire. If I'm shivering, I'm looking for some heat. If my soul is cold and empty, I'm going somewhere. I'm going to find me some fire. I'm going to get close to God. I'm going to shout praise and offer up the sacrifice of praise to God. And when I leave, I'm going to say, man, it was good to be in God's house today. Perhaps you know you're going to get some emails. I don't care. I get them all the time. Is anybody here for the very first time today? I'm not going to do anything to you. I just, I'm going to use you as an excuse to right here, anybody else? Oh, good, good. So here's why I'm saying that. The little story I'm about to tell, I've told these people before, but I want to tell you because you've never heard it before. The rest of you just sit and listen. So here's the story. You see, I have a goodly heritage, David said. That means I had wonderful parents. And we did, Dennis, my brother, Janice, my sister, and I had the godliest of parents who sat right on these pews here for many years before the Lord took them home. And I've told that my father, he was a sharecropper. They were extremely poor people down in Anson County. And he only had an eighth grade education. He was a mean guy, spent four years, four years overseas in World War II. He said many times under shale fire for 322 of those days. So when guys have no hope, you know how they live. afternoons. And my father would be reading his Sunday school pamphlet. Back in those days, they would give you Sunday school pamphlets. You could study for the next week Sunday

school lesson. He'd be reading it, and he had his King James Bible open, and he would be crying. My father never knew that the original scriptures were in Hebrew. It never dawned on my father that it wasn't English in the days of Jesus. He never knew that the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek. He never understood that. See, I've got commentaries and online stuff and every kind of study tool you can imagine to prepare, to preach to you. My dad never had that. He just loved Jesus. He didn't understand Deuteronomy numbers, first chronicles, second chronicles. He struggled with the revelation. He loved to read about Jesus. And when you start talking, he won't talk about Jesus. And when the neighbors would come over, they were saved too. They would talk about Jesus. And every time my dad would start crying, talking about Jesus. He wasn't fascinated with Hebrew and Greek and commentary. He just loved Jesus. And he loved Jesus when our pastors preached bad sermons. He loved Jesus when our pastors were not good pastors. He didn't go there for them. He said, "I go there for Jesus." And he would sit down front, second row. He said, "I don't want anything to distract me while I'm in church. I just want to worship Jesus." And it dawned on me what a great gift from God to be so madly in love with Jesus that the critics couldn't deter you or disappoint you. You already met Jesus. There was nothing anybody could say to make you doubt Jesus. He had already met him. He already met him at the foot of the old rug and cross. And he loved Jesus. And I read that scripture in Romans. It said, "The love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that has been given unto us. And I realized that my father was so madly in love with Jesus because he was so full of the Spirit. And the Spirit spreads the love of God. It will spread it up and it will spread it out. And when you love Jesus, your life will always be in order. You won't let pigs or Christendom or hypocrites or lying prophets or schemes or anything else disappoint you because your faith is not in them or that. Your faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ cannot get a witness from somebody this morning. And this is what I've come to believe in my latter years. If I love Jesus, I will keep His commandments. If I love Jesus, I will love the brethren. If I love Jesus, I will hate sin. If I love Jesus, I will love righteousness. If I love Jesus, I will love His appearing. I'll be looking for Him to come at any moment, anytime. If I love Jesus, that's what I want today. Folks, I got a lot of knowledge. I get it from learning. But the Bible, I don't want any more knowledge. I just want to love Jesus better.

Does that resonate with anybody? I just want to love Jesus. And until you get to the place that He's your life, until you get to the place where you can say with Paul, "Oh, that I may know Him, know Him," or with John, "We love Him because He first loved, We've been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are the Lord's. I want to pray a prayer today. I want to ask the Lord to do a supernatural thing. I want to ask the Lord to give all of us a greater love for Jesus. Why you can't honor the Father any more than to love His Son. You can't honor the Holy Spirit any more than to love the one He's pointing to. Love Jesus. When I love Jesus, I tell you, things will get worked out in my life. When I love Jesus, I don't care about how green the grass is over there for my flops and my herds. I ain't living with pigs no more, pardon my grammar. I'm crossing over so that I can be where the Lord's presence is. Folks, I'm trying to quit, but you know how it is? It's amazing to me that the people of God, the Israelites, were afraid of Him and asked Him to leave. Did you know that most of the churches that you came out of, many of them going through the motions this morning are afraid of a movement of the Holy Spirit? They don't want that. If somebody were to say, "Praise the Lord," they'd say, "Security, get Him out of here." We don't do that here. We don't do that here. If somebody wanted to say, "Can I just praise the Lord?" No, we don't do that here. It's dead. It's quiet because when you're afraid of Jesus, afraid of His presence and His power, all you have is fear. Did you notice that? If you're afraid of Him, fear controls your life. My prayer is that every one of us will be so chopped full and running over with the Holy Spirit that anytime He moves, we welcome it. I'm not talking about fanaticism and craziness. I'm talking about a genuine deep, identifiable move of the Holy Spirit where souls get saved and bodies can be healed and lives put back together and families reunited and joy, unspeakable and full of glory and the love of God abounding in the house of God. That's what I want. Stand with me, please. This is a very sacred moment to me. You see, in Christ's syndrome, they pray written prayers or memorized prayers and people kind of yawn. This is neither memorized nor prepared. It's from my heart, the pastor's heart to the sheep. Father in heaven, to you all glory belongs. Jesus Christ, Son of God, there is no one more worthy than you,

Holy Spirit. That's your name, Holy Spirit. I stand on planet Earth. I stand on this platform at Central Church. I stand in front of thousands this morning, tens of thousands online, and I simply ask the best I know how. Do a miracle in our hearts. Lord, give us love for you like we've never known. May we suddenly find ourselves strangely attracted to the scriptures and to prayer. Yes, to even singing to you. Wherever we are in the car, in the house, singing to Jesus, practicing your presence, Lord, let a love for you this morning take place in us that we are actually surprised. We pray that today as you watch Pastor Livingston's message, you will be encouraged and ready to dig deeper into a life with Jesus. To help you on this journey, Central has two resources for you. First, you can sign up to receive Central's jail and prison correspondence course through the mail by writing to Central Church Jail and Prison Ministry's Discipleship Center 5143 Sardis Road Charlotte, North Carolina 28270. Second, by using Central's app and clicking on the button below, you can read a short daily devotional that will encourage you to read and pray daily as you draw closer to Jesus. Thank you for watching.