(Click on date to read entire sermon)
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
But he said, “By the grace of God - by God’s unmerited, undeserved favor - I am what I am.” Do you know that that could be our testimony?
That could be our testimony today. We are men and women born out of season, and yet the Lord Jesus has appeared to us. He has made Himself real to us through His Word.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
Sometimes we feel like we’re being stoned to death. Sometimes we feel like we’re losing our lives. We can’t go on like this. We’re going to be snuffed out, so to speak.
But I want you to know sometimes God is allowing us to feel the things that we’re feeling because there’s a greater plan that is being unfolded.
We can’t see it right now with our eyes. Sometimes we can’t even sense it in the Spirit.
But can I convince anybody in this house that God is in control of all things? When we feel like we’re spinning out of control, we’re not because God is still sitting on the Throne. He is still in charge. He is still sovereign.
Nothing is going to happen to me that He doesn’t already know about. And if He allows it to happen, it’s because there’s a reason for it happening to me.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
I didn’t realize that one of the tools that the enemy is using against the people of God, one of the biggest tools that the enemy is using against the people of God, is a feeling of hopelessness.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
And these kinds of things, looking at the circumstance instead of the Promise, can cause us to be filled with a feeling of hopelessness. I think that the reason why the enemy is able to pull that kind of a trick on . . . He shouldn’t be able.
Listen to me. Satan should not be able to make a Holy Ghost-filled child of God feel hopeless. If anybody had a reason to be filled with hope, it’s us. We need to be like Abraham and we need to hope against hope.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
One of the things that’s missing, I believe, is a true revelation of who we are in the Lord Jesus.
I mean, that is easy to say. It sounds like a cliche. It sounds like just some worn-out phrase. But I really believe there is a lack of a true revelation of who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The apostle said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
There’s no way in the world I could read all these to you - not all the Scriptures. I could never do it. But did you know that the revelation of who I am in the Lord Jesus Christ is so big that it’s almost the entire New Testament?
The entire New Testament, almost, is to tell me who I am in the Lord Jesus Christ.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
I am redeemed. I want you to know I’m redeemed. I didn’t say I was walking in perfection yet. I didn’t say that I always say the right thing and do the right thing.
I didn’t say I always behave the right way. I didn’t say that I’m always proud of everything I do. But I am redeemed.
Paul said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
You are bought. I am bought with a price. I don’t belong to myself anymore. I am not my own anymore. I am a purchased possession of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Somebody said, “I don’t like that because it says that I’m not in control.”
Well, I don’t know about you, but every time I’m in control I get in trouble. It’s good for me that I am bought with a price. It’s good for me that I am a peculiar treasure and a possession to the Lord.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
But the emphasis of what we’re saying is Paul said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
What are you Paul? Well, one of the things that Paul was is he was purchased by the precious Blood of the Lamb. I’m Blood bought.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
(Eph 1:18) The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
I am one who has an inheritance in God. But I am also one who is a part of His inheritance. I am a part of the Lord’s inheritance.
I am what I am. I am a part of the Lord’s inheritance. And He has given me an inheritance.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
People come and ask me sometime when I travel, “Pray for me. I think I’ve blasphemed the Holy Ghost.”
You know what my answer to that is? I’ll pray for you, but you haven’t blasphemed the Holy Ghost.
Somebody said, “How can you give such a generic answer?”
Because I believe that if you have blasphemed the Holy Ghost, the Bible tells that you’re turned over to a reprobate mind and you don’t have the God knowledge, you don’t have that consciousness that “I’ve blasphemed the Holy Ghost.”
You walk in deception. You go on thinking that you’re just as good as anybody else. And those who have really done that, I’m telling you it’s a serious thing.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
I’m going to say something that people don’t like, but I’m going to say it anyway as I close.
I mentioned Brother Branham several times. I don’t think that will offend you, but if it does I’m sorry for that. Let me just tell you another thing that he said that people really don’t like, but I like. I really like it.
He said, “Once you receive this revelation of who you are in the Lord Jesus Christ, once you really know, ‘I am a seed of God, I am a son of God,’ then you go forth with a revelation that you can no more be lost than God could be lost.”
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
I believe in eternal security. I would make a very good Baptist, you know, because the Baptist people . . . they really believe in eternal security.
And I don’t believe it exactly like the Baptists believe it, but I believe it like the Bible teaches it. I didn’t grow up that way. I grew up thinking that if I failed the Lord, I was lost. So really, I’m saved today, but if I do something that I shouldn’t do, I’m lost. And if the Lord were to come, I would be left.
Am I the only person that grew up with that kind of theology? That was the church’s teaching. Then I say, “Lord, forgive me and have mercy on me” - I’m saved. And then if I tell a lie - I’m not going to tell it on purpose, but maybe a bad situation comes up and I tell a lie, I know I’m telling it, I tell it - then I’m lost.
And then I say, “Lord, forgive me,” and I’m saved. And then something else comes up and I cheat a little bit on a test - I’m lost. And then I say, “Lord, forgive . . .” See? Back and forth.
You know, all I can say about that is I hope the Lord catches you on a good day.
When He comes, I hope He catches you on a saved day. I hope He doesn’t come back on a lost day. You know, we don’t believe that. That is not what the Bible teaches - no.
I believe that once we have become truly, genuinely born again, we are born again. And when we fail God . . . The Bible said, “Little children, I write unto you that you sin not. Nevertheless if you sin, you have an advocate with the Father.”
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
Now you say, “But I know people that have gone to church and have served the Lord and now they’re way back in sin, in adultery, in fornication, drinking and carrying on. What is their excuse? Are they saved? Are they lost? What are you going to say about a situation like that?”
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
I believe according to the Bible that in God’s foreknowledge He knew from the foundations of the world who was going to choose to serve Him and who was going to reject Him.
The Bible calls it foreknowledge. And by that foreknowledge the Scripture said, “He predestinated them to be conformed to His image.”
In other words, I believe that if a person has ever truly been born again and that person was seen in the mind of God as one of those who would make the right choice, then to me I believe it doesn’t matter how far in sin they go as children of God, He will reach out in mercy and bring them back into the Kingdom.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
It’s the grace of God. It’s the grace of God. And you know what I believe?
Somebody said, “Well, what if that person were killed in a car accident and didn’t have time to go back to church?”
I believe if that person was an elected son of God that God would allow that person in the last seconds of their life to say, “Have mercy on me.”
If it’s in your heart to serve God, it’s always there somewhere. If you come here with that seed of representation to serve God, it’s always there somewhere and you just keep pushing it down and filling up your life with other things. Hallelujah.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
The reason why I like to preach this . . . and I’m closing . . . is because we’ve all got loved ones who are so far away from God right now that it grieves our hearts. And some of them give no indication of ever changing their ways, you know. They’re just in serious trouble.
And we could really get discouraged and really get despondent about it. But when we read who we are, and when we read the promises that have been made to us and we start standing on those promises, we must believe that the God who is able to keep our souls that we have committed to Him against that day, the apostle said, that same God knows how to reach our loved ones wherever they are, whatever shape they’re in, whatever condition they’re in.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
That is the mercy and the grace of the living God. And I’ll just tell you what Jesus . . . this conversation that Jesus had with the eternal Spirit of His Father - “None that the Father hath given me are going to be lost.” Amen.
Not one of them, not one of those who were in the mind of God at the foundation of the world, those who would choose to serve the Lord, not one of them are going to be lost in the end.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
Let it not be what we read about other people, but let it be what we read about ourselves. Let us be able to see our own lives in these promises and let us go forth with that attitude, “By the grace of God, I am what I am.”
I may not be what I want to be or what I ought to be, but by the grace of God, I am not what I used to be. Lord, we need that this morning.
2006-04-09 AM
I Am What I Am (Jerusalem)
We surrender our minds. We surrender our thoughts. We surrender our denominational ideas and man’s dogmas and creeds. And we pray, Lord, that You will let us receive what John received on the Isle of Patmos - the revelation of Jesus Christ, the revelation of Yeshua HaMashiach.
We want that revelation because once we have a revelation of who You are, we’re able to begin to see ourselves in You.
Oh, we thank You that all the Father was was poured into Yeshua the Messiah, the Son, and all that Jesus was has been poured into us by the baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire.
