Second Corinthians ten verse four says this, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but they’re mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds. So, what that means is this, as believers, God in the Earth that we live right now, God has called us to be actually be warriors. Uh we are always involved in a spiritual battle. And God has called us to advance and take territory for the kingdom of God. But our weapons are actually not in the natural.
Our weapons are actually in the spiritual. God gives us weapons that we need to live victoriously live the Christian life that he’s actually called us to live. And so today I want to talk to you about one of the weapons that every single one of us have at our disposal. And so I just want to share with you from the book of Ecclesiastes Uh Ecclesiastes chapter three verses one to eight. Ecclesiastes 3 one to 8.
It says this. To everything there is a season. A time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal. Time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones.
And a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to gain. And a time to lose. A time to keep.
And a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to sow. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time of war and a time of peace.
Now I want to read to you from Proverbs eighteen verse twenty-one. Says this. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. And those who love it will eat its fruit. Tied my message today is a maybe because it’s the cricket world cup on right now but it’s called it’s time to declare.
Let’s pray. Father I thank you for your word. I just ask and pray that today you would show us the weapons we at our disposal. Thank you and praise you for that Lord in Jesus name. Amen.
Ecclesiastes says there’s a time to keep silent. There’s also a time to speak. If you want to sum up your Christian devotion and relationship with God it kind of sums it up pretty well. There is a time and there’s an aspect of the Christian life and we’re supposed to be silent. When we’re to be contemplative.
When we’re to wait on the Lord. There’s a reflective and a reverent side of Christianity. But that’s not the only part of our Christianity. Christianity. There’s a time to keep violent but there’s also a time to speak.
Speaking, confession, declaration are an important part of the Christian life. I mean, you can’t even get saved without speaking right. Bible says, you gotta believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, then, you’ll be saved. How did Jesus do most of his miracles? Well, most of it was actually through speaking. He would speak, cast that out.
He would declare and say, be healed. Open up. Come out. It was all through speaking. How did God create the world? Well, he spoke and then it was.
How does Jesus say we’re supposed to move a mountain? Well, you can plan and strategize and get the resource and that sort of thing but Jesus said, speak to the mountain and that it will be moved. Make no mistake, as a Christian, it is good to be quiet but there’s also a time when we need to speak. I find most Christians fall into one of those two camps. Some people will have the contemplative Christian life. They feel like being a a true Christian is being reverent and quiet and silent.
Well, that’s good but if that’s the only way you express your faith in God, that’s an incomplete Christian life because there is a time to solid but there’s also a time when we need to speak. One of the weapons at our at our disposal that God has for us is actually the power of declaration. That declaration and speaking and confession can make significant spiritual inroads in our lives and the lives around us. Proverbs 1821 actually talks about how death and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat its fruit. So what that means is we affect our external world, death and life in the power of tongue as a result of our words but we also our internal world as well as well.
Those who love it will eat its fruit. And so what that means is this, that our words, our mouth are vitally important. It’s one of the weapons we have at our disposal. Now last term, we did a series on the book of Proverbs. And I did a message on the tongue.
Uh, because Proverbs talks a lot about the tongue. And we talked about, you know, a few things about, let’s describe what the tongue is. But today, I want to talk to you about five times, five ways we need to speak, use our words. Five ways when a times when we need to speak. And so that’s what I want to talk to you about today.
Five ways that we need to use our mouth. The first way that we need to use our mouth. The first ah first thing that we need to declare is we need to declare promises from the word of God. Bible tells us in the book of Joshua chapter one verse eight. God says keep this book of the law always on your well he doesn’t say bookshelf.
Doesn’t say put it on a fridge magnet. Doesn’t say put it on your Bible cover. It says, keep the book of the law on your mouth, on our lips. And then he says, then you’ll be and then says, you’ll be careful to do everything written in it, then you will be successful in all that you do. So, watch this.
He’s actually telling the Israelites as they step into the promised land after they come out of the wilderness, that if you want to live an advancing life, if you want to take territory and move the kingdom of God forward, you need to keep the book of the law, the word of God on your mouth. So one of the things we need to do as part of the Christian life is actually is actually speak and declare scripture. It’s fantastic and really important to read it. It’s really fantastic to write it down and to memorize it. But there’s something even more powerful when we declare it.
When we speak it and when we declare it, it’s really really powerful. It’s most important to declare it. If you spend time in God’s word and you read a promise in God’s scripture in in the word of God that’s not evident in your life. Have you done that before? You’ve read a promise in God’s word and you thought well that’s not in my life. Well, what do you do? Well, you don’t change your theology.
You start getting an agreement with God’s word. We actually start declaring it. Yeah. I’ve had that happen a number of times in my life where I’ve seen a promise in God’s word that wasn’t evident in my life. So, I actually started thanking him for it.
Classic example that of this was probably about nearly 20 years ago when I was feeling constantly depressed and going through a tough time and I read in the scripture how it said that joy was a fruit of the spirit. Now, joy a fruit of the spirit. It’s not a seed of the spirit. Yeah. So what that means is this.
It’s supposed to be evident in our lives. Yeah. And available for every believer. That’s right. And it wasn’t in my life.
So what do you do? We don’t change the theology. You start getting in agreement with God’s word. Right. And so I started thanking him for what was promised to everyone of us. Everyone of us that’s promised to.
And so I started thanking God for it. Now remember the first few times I said it. It didn’t change anything. You know thank you Lord for your joy. Thank you lord for your joy.
Thank you Lord for what I said about ten, 15 times. And then all of a sudden, that joy leaped in my heart. the heaviness lifted, and I started feeling a whole lot better. What happened? A promise from God’s word leapt into my life through the power of declaration. It was available but I had to access it through the power of declaration.
Amen? And so when you spend time with God’s word, there are things, yes, it’s important to write it down. Yes, it’s vitally important to read it and to meditate on it. But there’s another thing that we can do with God’s word. And to draw it down into our world, we actually declare it. So spend time declaring God’s word.
So so important. The second thing that we need to declare is personal prophecies. Personal prophecies. One Timothy 118 says this. This charge I commit to you son Timothy.
According to the prophecies previously made concerning you. That by them you may wage the good warfare. So the apostle Paul is writing to Timothy and said you know those prophecies that you’ve received? He goes you gotta wage warfare with them. So this is a eh series that we’re doing right? And he says wage warfare were the prophecies that you’re being given. So if you’ve received a prophecy in the past and it’s really resonated with you then one of the things we do is wage warfare with it.
Now what does that mean? Well it doesn’t mean write it on a piece of paper and waive it. It actually means we’re supposed to speak it and declare it. Especially if the exact opposite happens in your life after you receive a prophecy. Have you ever had that happen before? That you’ve received a prophecy about some particular breakthrough. You’re all excited and straight after the exact opposite happens.
And then all doubt and unbelief come into your heart and you start thinking is this ever going to is this really going to happen? What do we need to do? We get that prophecy out and in the face of our circumstances, we need to start declaring it and we start beating it back and not only that, on the inside of our heart, faith actually comes to pass and there’s been many of times in my life, I get really nervous when I get a whole bunch of prophecies about the same thing because what usually happens is straight after that, the exact opposite happens. You know, I get something I’ll get there’ll be a topic and I’ll get all these prophecies all of a sudden. I’m like, yeah, hey, you know, I I know this and then, something’s coming down the road that really rattles my faith. What do I do? You get those prophecies out and you start declaring and speaking to it. I remember a number of years ago, probably the most, the most stressed I’ve ever been in ministry ever was about 20 about 18 years ago when I was about to start a Bible College in Brisbane.
Uh and it’s called Planet Shakers College. and so, I was moving down. I know what I was going to do. I found out noone down there knew what noone knew what we were going to do. We actually didn’t have an official course or any content.
And we started advertising it a few months out. And and and it was crazy because we’re advertising it. We hadn’t I didn’t even have a prospectus. I didn’t know what I was doing. Ah and so I’m really stressed because you’re thinking man you know are we even going to be able to do this? And then I one of the worst things I did was ah I went over to Perth.
There was a church over there that ran a Bible college and I was looking at their Bible College to model our Bible College on theirs. And then it was it just so discouraged me because I realised we are so far off being able to do this Bible College and I was so stressed. I went back to the hotel that night. This was October in two thousand and five. We’re launching in February two thousand and 6.
And I thought there’s no this is ridiculous. There’s no way we can do this. So I pick up my phone about to ring my boss back in Brisbane and say why don’t we give us an extra year? Let’s just hold off and give ourselves another year. Uh and as I picked up the phone I received a text message. And the text message is from a pastor friend of mine.
Actually, his name is Johnno Kerridge. He’s out down at Kingscliff and he texted me and he said, Ben, I was just praying this morning. God put you on my heart. He gave me a scripture for you. He said, he’ll never leave you or forsake you and he promises to give you give you make you fully resourced for everything you need to do.
So I put the phone down and hang on. And even then nothing happened. Every day, I’m thinking, we gotta shut this thing down. This is ridiculous. This is crazy.
Fast forward to January. We’re about to launch in February. We’re taking enrollments. I still didn’t have some of the main courses there available and we’re at Planet Acres Conference in Brisbane and they were promoting it at the conference. I didn’t even go inside the conference.
I was walking around Southbank yelling. You told me. You you’d promised that you’re going to leave me adequately reasons. I don’t have the resource. You promise? You told me.
You said, what was I doing? I was just hanging on to that prophecy. Cuz that was all that I had. Then we started the college Still going now. 17, 18 years later. Hundreds and hundreds of students have gone through it.
Many are now in ministry. All travel all around the place. I run the ACC for Queensland. There’s a whole bunch of guys that came up through that college. And people say wow that college is great.
I said oh yeah I knew all along. Never a doubt in my mind. Had to get that prophecy. You know that word he gave you about that financial breakthrough and the next week he got that horrendous bill? Don’t get the bill out? Get the prophecy out. Yes.
That promise he made you about that particular area. That person that you’re believing for to come to Christ and they look further away. They never get that prophecy out. Yes. And start declaring it.
Start waging warfare with that prophecy. That’s a whole reason why he gives it. Don’t just put it in your don’t just leave it on your screensaver on your phone. Start declaring it and start getting an agreement. Right.
With the prophecies that he’s given us. The third thing that we need to declare is past victories. Past victories. Revelation twelve verse eleven says this. Says they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.
So they overcome the enemy by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony. So, interestingly enough, what that means is this, we don’t just overcome by the blood. According to this, we have the victory available to us but there’s still some things we’ve gotta do. Good. There’s a fight that we have to have.
Yeah. So, the Bible calls us overcomers. All through revelation. Bible tells us, we’re who you overcomes to the end, overcome, overcome. If people want to be overcomers.
I don’t want to be an overcomer really because when you’re an overcomer, it means you got a lot of problems. If if you don’t have to overcome anything, that’s much better. Yeah. But we’re called to be overcomers. Yeah.
That’s right. And they overcome by the blood of the lamb, the work of Christ, Victory’s available in him and the word of your testimony. The confession of our testimony. Your testimony is more than your salvation testimony. It’s more than the story you have about when you first became a Christian.
You’ve heard me by you’ve heard me say before. Some people their testimony is this. Before I met Lord, I was wicked and boring. But now I’ve met the Lord, I’m not wicked anymore. The testimony is more than that.
Your testimony is all the other times God has given you victory. Cuz one of the things I’ve learned being a Christian now for some 20 some 30 years over 30 years. One of things I’ve learned is this. So often you come up in a situation where you have this great big obstacle. And it looks bigger than anything you’ve ever faced before.
And that God helps you to overcome it. And then you think okay rest of life. No more problems. Until you hit the next one. Which looks way bigger than the last one.
Looks way bigger than anything you’ve ever faced before. What do you do when you face that obstacle? You start reminding yourself of the last one. You start reminding yourself of the last time you actually overcame. That’s what David did when he took on Goliath. He went and spoke to Saul and he says I want to I want to fight this Goliath.
Nobody wanted to fight that giant. Saul himself the king should have fought the giant. He did it. None of their greatest soldiers did. But the shepherd boy actually decided that he would take on Goliath.
And he actually said to Saul, he said, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear. He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. One Samuel 1737, what is he saying? He’s saying, I might only have a sling and a stone, but God helped me beat that guy. And he helped me beat that guy. He’s going to help me beat this guy now.
Amen? And so some of you are facing something so big right now, that it looks way bigger than anything you can face. Remind yourself of the last time you felt like that. And start declar it and start speaking it into being. Because I want to let you know God has called us to be overcomers. As a on a faith journey completely as an organization, kings continually taking territory.
There are times we’re going to keep facing obstacles but look at all the other ones he’s helped us to overcome. Amen? Remind yourself of those times when he gave you that victory. Remind yourself of that healing that you saw with your own eyes. Remind yourself of that time you got that supernatural provision. Remind yourself of that time when that person came to Christ that you thought would never come to know Christ.
Remind yourself of those times. Because we overcame by the we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. The fourth thing that we need to declare is private promises. Private promises. Now this is different personal prophecies.
Personal prophecies is when you receive a prophecy from someone. So, as a Pentecostal Church, we believe in that, okay? We believe that we got we can give prophecies to each other. God can speak to us through other people. Now, obviously, that’s not infallible. Uh there are times we’re going to measure that against God’s word.
We gotta judge it ourselves but we still believe that God can use people to give us prophecies and words. That’s not the only way he can speak to us. He’s not limited to that. Yeah. He can also give us private promises.
He can also speak to us from things that he has shown to us privately. He can speak to us directly. Now, the Bible tells us in Amos chapter three verse seven. It says, surely the sovereign lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants, the prophets. So, it’s saying when God’s going to do something, he reveals it first to his servants, the prophets.
Now, in the New Testament, we still believe in the office of prophet but we also also understand that everybody can be prophetic. So, in the Old Testament, not everybody can hear from God but now, through Christ and relationship with God, we can actually all hear from God. So, not everyone’s a prophet but everyone can be prophetic, okay? Now, what is the job of a prophet? Well, a prophet hears from God. That’s the job of a prophet but that’s not their only job. They’ve actually got another job.
They hear, then they speak. They don’t just hear. They’ve actually got to say it. So, watch this. God doesn’t do anything without first revealing it to the prophets.
So, he’s going to do it He tells him then they’re going to speak. Yeah. I reckon if you don’t speak, he’s still waiting. Yeah. It’s one thing to hear but to complete it, we need to speak.
Yes. I believe there’s people in this room. You’re waiting for God to do something that he told you he was going to do. You heard it but you haven’t spoken yet. He’s waiting for you to speak.
Cuz we hear it and then we have to speak, declare it. That’s actually job of a prophet. So, that’s why there are times God will tell you something in private and then you’ve got you gotta declare it. It’s upon the declaration that you’re actually setting it in motion for that thing to actually come to pass. I know in my own life, there’s been a number of times where I’ve had to boldly declare things that I regretted saying at the time.
Cuz reality hits and you think of why did I even say that? But then later on it actually comes to pass. Told you the story before about a time when the Lord spoke to me when I was a youth pastor. Tommy our youth group was going to double in a year. And then he said so tell them. And I was like, oh, I didn’t want.
I was kind of just going to hide it in my heart and wait. And he said, no, no, you’ve gotta tell them. And even when the of our church now. Next year, we’re going to be doing two weeks on Vision Sunday. 2 weeks.
Uh because one’s going to be a five year vision. Yeah. And there seems I’m kind of nervous about saying but I feel like I gotta say it. Uh because you gotta hear it and then you gotta speak. You know what I’m saying? And so that thing that you hid in your heart.
That thing you wrote down in your iPhone and you said God’s going to do this in my life. Have you actually ever declared it? Have you actually ever spoken about it yet? Yes. Because God does nothing without revealing it to the prophets. And the prophets have two jobs. We have to hear and then we have to speak.
Yeah. Let’s be the kind of church and kind of community where we will boldly declare the word of God and boldly declare the things that God has spoken about. Amen? And I believe that for some people, God has got a promise just waiting to drop in your world but he’s just waiting for you to actually say it. It requires boldness and it requires faith. But I encourage you that if you do it it might be against your personality.
You might be shy. But I want to let you there is a time to be silent but there’s also a time to speak. And for some people here you’re going to go away this week. You’re going to get out the iPhone. All those promises God has said that you haven’t seen yet.
You’ve been waiting for him to do. But he’s just waiting for you to speak. And as you start declaring them and as you start speaking them and as you start confessing them you’re going to see some of these things drop into your world. Amen? Because he because he does nothing without revealing his plan to the prophets. And the prophets have two job us.
Gotta hear and then we gotta speak. And the last thing we want to declare is this. Personal agreement. Matthew eighteen nineteen. Again I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you’re asked for it will be done for you by my father in heaven.
So that’s Jesus speaking. That’s awesome. He’s saying if something’s going to get done in the community of believers he’s saying that if you if you agree if you agree it shall be done. Simple. But here’s the Agreement requires two-way communication You know, you might be in a negotiation with someone and you say something until they actually respond it actually, there’s no agreement yet.
Well, ladies, think about this. You buy a new outfit. You put it on. You come, you show your hubby. You say, what do you think? And he just stares at you.
Agreement hasn’t happened yet. You know what I’m saying? You’re like and? Now, if you’re like me, you would be unable to speak because of the beauty of your wife. Which happens all the time. I just just in the radiance of your glory and And on the inside, I’m thinking, oh You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But on the outside Agreement hasn’t happened yet.
Yeah. Cuz agreement requires two-way communication. That’s why you need to say amen during the preaching. Cuz I don’t know if you agree. If you’re just looking at me.
On the inside, you can be like, oh, that’s amazing and on the outside Agreement hasn’t happened yet. Cuz of two way communication. Now we don’t do it for the benefit of the preacher. It’s you know I’ve preached at some places you know and they’ll say things like hey church. Got Pastor Ben preaching today.
So really want you to encourage the preacher. Cuz he really needs your encouragement. I’ve heard some preachers come and preach somewhere and they said hey church I need you to talk to me. I need you to speak back to me. The better you talk better I preach.
I need your help to preach this thing. Just want to let you church. No church. I don’t need your help. I’ve been preaching a long time.
You know what I’m saying? I’ve preached in some places where they look at me like they want to kill me. So if I needed your help to preach this thing, I would have quit 25 years ago. So, I don’t need your help. It doesn’t make me preach better. It doesn’t make me feel better about myself but I still want you to say amen.
Amen. Because when God’s word is declared, we drag it in our world through agreement and I don’t know if you agree if you’re just looking at me. Yeah. And it’s not black and it’s not Pentecostal and it’s not Amway. It’s Christian.
You society to pray But don’t be afraid to say it. To the word of God. Now I know that in some places you know you might want not want to say amen. It’s just to be some kind of verbal agreement you know. I was preaching at this church up in North Queensland.
A town called Ayr. One hour south of Townsville. The pastor there said to me goes what’s up? He said to me goes Ben in our church. We’re an Australian church not American church. I said what does that mean? It says, well, in our church, we don’t say praise the lord.
I said, don’t say praise the lord. Why? Cuz Australia. I said, well, what do you say? He said, we say, you beauty lord. I said, right. And he said, in our church, we don’t say amen either.
So, you don’t say amen. Why? Cuz Australia. I said, what do you say? He said, we say, too right, mate. And it’s true. When I visited the church, pastor gets up at the end, says a prayer and he said, and all the people said, and the guy stood up and said, do right, mate.
So, it could be amen, it could be to right, mate, could be, come on, it doesn’t matter, it’s gotta be some kind of verbal agreement. When God’s word is declared in this pulpit, promises are declared and we drag it in our world through agreement. I don’t know if you, and I, and I don’t know if you agree, unless you say amen. Amen. Amen.
To your right mate. Second Corinthians 120 says this, for no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. And so through him, the amen is spoken by us to the glory of God. In Christ, it’s available. We drag it through into our world through agreement.
Amen. Amen. And so I want to pray and so for everyone here, I’ve got some homework for you, okay? Cuz I feel like as I was sharing, some of this was resonating. That for some of you, I said one of these points you’re like, oh, that’s me. That’s me.
I want you to go home over the course of this week. Start declaring. It doesn’t matter how old you are. It doesn’t matter how shy you are. It doesn’t matter your personality type or your theological persuasion.
The scripture’s very clear on this. There’s a time to be silent but there is a time to speak. And sometimes to drag things into our world from God’s will, into our world. We need to declare them. And for some of you, I had a picture actually and I had a picture of a with all these balloons in it and you know, you see on TV shows when they finish often, they have a celebratory thing and there’s all these balloons fall from the ceiling.
They’re all in a net. Set a picture of a net with all these balloons in it and for some of you, there’s something you’ve waited so long for and never declared. When you declare it, you’re going to pull that cord and that thing’s going to drop into your world. Cuz we’ve been waiting for him but he’s been waiting for us, amen. So, what I want you to do is now is just stand to your feet and and worship God But then before we do, just get you to close your eyes for a moment.
If you’re here and if one or more of those points resonated with you, you thought to yourself, I’ve gotta go and do this. What if you did one minute a day on each one of those things? One minute on promises from the word. One minute on personal prophecies. One minute on past victories. One minute on private promises.
Whatever it is. You just spent one minute on you’ll be amazed at what happens I believe when you do that. So if you’re here and you know something resonated with you with one or more of those points. Just write where you are. Step up your hand and say that’s me.
I know that one of the I’ve gotta go do that this week. I want to pray for you. I want to stand in agreement with you right now. That those things are going to come to pass in your world. This is talk.
This is spiritual warfare. We talk about spiritual warfare. This is what that is. We’re dragging God’s will. Look at the Lord’s prayer.
One of the things we supposed to praise. Lord, your will be done on earth that is in heaven. You know what that tells me? A lot of God’s will doesn’t get done on earth. So, how is Jesus saying we get God’s will done on earth? Ask him. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
We declare it. Father, in Jesus name, I pray for every person with their hand raised and I just ask and pray. That this week, lord, as they spend time declaring in these specific areas, I know for some for many, it’s hard. I know lord that what you’ve promised is in direct opposition to what they’re experiencing right now and sometimes, what experiencing is so overwhelming. They actually feel a little bit silly in speaking.
But I ask and pray Lord that you would drill this deep down into their heart. That there is a time to be silent. But there’s also a time to speak. And I thank you ahead of time for the breakthroughs. I thank you ahead of time for the miracles.
I thank you ahead of time for the turnarounds. And I thank you for the new life, maturity, and strength coming into the life of every person in this place. I thank you for it Father. And praise you for it Lord in Jesus name, everyone said. Too right, mate.
Let’s give the lord a hand of praise. We’re going to continue to worship God.
