October 6, 2024, Message by Stevin Johnson
Isaiah 61: The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion.
To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.
They will rebuild ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated. They will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. Aliens will shepherd your flocks. Foreigners will work your fields and vineyards. And you will be called priests of the Lord. You will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of the nations, and in their riches you will boast. Instead of their shame, my people will receive a double portion. And instead of disgrace, they will rejoice in their inheritance.
And so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs. For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and iniquity. In my faithfulness I will reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among nations and their offspring among peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed. I delight greatly in the Lord. My soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arraigned me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. 2He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come, and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies.
3To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory.4They will rebuild the ancient ruins, repairing cities destroyed long ago. They will revive them, though they have been deserted for many generations.
5Foreigners will be your servants. They will feed your flocks and plow your fields and tend your vineyards. 6You will be called priests of the Lord, ministers of our God. You will feed on the treasures of the nations and boast in their riches. 7Instead of shame and dishonor, you will enjoy a double share of honor. You will possess a double portion of prosperity in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours.
8“For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and wrongdoing. I will faithfully reward my people for their suffering and make an everlasting covenant with them. 9Their descendants will be recognized and honored among the nations. Everyone will realize that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”
10I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God! For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness. I am like a bridegroom dressed for his wedding or a bride with her jewels. 11The Sovereign Lord will show his justice to the nations of the world. Everyone will praise him! His righteousness will be like a garden in early spring, with plants springing up everywhere.(Isaiah 61:1-11, NLT)
Of course, as Kevin has said, and we know the Bible was written to Israel, but it was written for us. I think we can take comfort and live in some of these words in Isaiah 61, that we are God’s people, we are part of his chosen, and these words apply to us.
He is going to love us and anoint us. He’s going to bless us with riches beyond our wildest imagination in the kingdom come, which is right now, but not quite yet. Here all these promises are ours. So we should rejoice in that, and we should rejoice in music and worship the Lord tonight.
And hopefully some of that will make sense in my message that I’m going to bring to this small group of family. But hopefully it’ll have some meaning for you all.
So with that, let’s stand up and worship Jesus with some singing.
All right? Yeah.
So I think it’s appropriate in the time we are in to talk about a king for America. November 5 coming quick. A king. We’re going to get a little treasonous tonight, so bear with me.
Second Corinthians 3:12-17. Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull. For to this day, the same veil remains.
When the old covenant is read, it has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
12 Since this new way gives us such confidence, we can be very bold. 13 We are not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so the people of Israel would not see the glory, even though it was destined to fade away. 14 But the people’s minds were hardened, and to this day whenever the old covenant is being read, the same veil covers their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ.
15 Yes, even today when they read Moses’ writings, their hearts are covered with that veil, and they do not understand. 16 But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:12-17, NLT)
So a king for America, because we need freedom again. And actually, you know, if we go back in our history, and I’ll say this, and there may be some folks who disagree, but I think they’re wrong. We’ve never had a king in America. There was never a king in America. There was a king over the 13 colonies, but it wasn’t America yet. It wasn’t the United States of America. So we’ve never had that kind of king.
And kings, a king can be different types, right? There can be a king who is basically a dictator. All government forms around that king. And what he says goes.
There’s also kings that can be elected, if you will, Orlando. They have a, they’re not an absolute monarch. There is a government like England behind them that makes rules and laws. And the king is at this point more of a figurehead than anything else.
There are good and bad kings. There always has been throughout the world. And if we look at the Old Testament, which we’ve been going through, right, we’re now into the New Testament in our year through the Bible.
The Old Testament was full of bad kings with a smattering of good kings here and there. I remember, I don’t remember when, but I think it was shortly after former President Obama was elected. And I remember this because it was shocking to me when I heard him say this during my reign. And I remember going, what during your reign? you’re the president, not our king.
And that was a little bit of the feisty, patriotic side of me coming out, which, again, Kevin’s given me the opportunity again and again. We’re red, white, and blue because I have a passion for America. I think our country is one of the greatest countries on the face of the earth. And it was started out that way.
There’s sour apples in every batch, you know, a little bit mushy, maybe some worms. But for the most part, the founders of this country founded on Judeo-Christian principles. So really we actually did have a king. We just didn’t acknowledge that there was a king in America at that time. Jesus is our king.
When they found it, when they wrote a lot of these documents, and when they really were serious about it, they were focused on our king in heaven. Because his rules were good, his laws were good. They were laws of love, and they were meant for people to be free under the kingdom lifestyle.
And I found this in Jack Hayford’s handbook. The kingdom lifestyle is power filled, not power hungry. What do we tend to see during election times?
I think we see power hungry people. We don’t really see power filled people. Power filled people are not corrupt. Power hungry people can get corrupted because they want the power. People come in and influence them. Lobbyists, and they corrupt them. And then corrupted people tend to corrupt further on, corrupt other people.
And so they’re power hungry. And power hungry people don’t have the people who elected them in mind. A power hungry person, I think, is easily identified in my mind when they are in office for more than two terms.
If you’ve been an elected official, oh, let’s say for 50 years, and you get elected to be the president, you’ve been in office way too long. You have been corrupted at some point. It’s all about power. Rather than helping the people, it’s about who you are. Who I am? How great am I? Look at all the things I’ve done for you. Don’t I deserve your praise and worship?
A good, power-filled person, a good king is like a good father. Granted, not everybody’s had real good fathers, but a good father is a provider.
He’s a leader. He’s a benevolent dictator at times, but it’s done out of love. It’s done with you in mind.
A good father is not selfish, and he lays down his life for you. That’s the same as a good leader. Now here’s my example.
When I went through aviation officer candidate school a while ago, we had marine drill instructors, and we had some guys who’d been around a while, and they knew what they were doing and they knew what they were about. They had seen good officers. I’m sure they had seen bad officers.
And they knew their job was to make us officers, and they were to train us and teach us how that what an officer does now. Navy. But we had marine drill instructors. And all my marine friends would not like to hear me say this, but I’ve said it before. The marines are just a part of the department of the Navy. But I loved. I love the marines.
I remember my marine di telling me that the quickest. How do you put. I can’t quite remember how he put it, but basically the highest casualty rate and the quickest person dead on the battlefield was a Marine Corps second lieutenant. Why is that? Because of the way they were trained.
My people I take care of. I lead from the front. I’m the first one over the berm and charging into the fight. Their mortality rate was pretty high because that’s what they were taught to do.
Why did they do that? Because they loved the guys they were leading. It was always them first. They get to eat first.
They get the rest first. They get everything first. I place them ahead of me. How often do we see that happen in our government officials? They talk a big game. And I would submit, too, that there are a young people who run for office who really have that in their hearts.
That’s what they want to go do. But they get there. And the people who have been there forever, who are corrupt and who have been corrupted, seek to corrupt the new people that arrive.
And if you don’t have a Christian worldview already, you’re behind the power curve going in to serve in government, because I think it’s a pool of sharks and you’re just a minnow.
So go back again. It’s the characteristics of a king. A good king is a good father. All right, so if we had a king, kingdom law would shape the United States for the Mosaic covenant. It was the Ten Commandments that shaped for the Israelites, that shaped their lives. That was who they were. That was what they were supposed to follow.
And I don’t remember the number now. But that grew, right? How many over the whole period? 600 laws. Now that they have to follow something like that, I submit we’re not far behind.
We are each lawbreakers in here. I can promise you that. you’re a lawbreaker. you, Sophia, you’re a lawbreaker. There’s so many laws on the books, I have no idea what they all are. I’m sure I’ve broken more than just a handful of them.
Laws are used. They should be used lovingly, but they’re used to control people. Most laws are written to either benefit somebody or control somebody. Again, a good kingdom. If we had a king in physical form, fortunately, we have a king in Jesus of America. Those laws would be few. I’ll touch on that point here in a little while. But laws would be few, and we wouldn’t have to worry about it.
So November 5 is coming. Three weeks. I think that’s right. I think we’re three weeks away from the most. Four. I may have even written it in my notes, but I don’t.
We’re coming up on the most pivotal election in the United States of America. Wait, wait. We heard that in 2020. That was the most pivotal election in America. No, we’re not coming up on any pivotal election.
I mean, our system. We should have elected legislatures, the house of Congress. Those guys, they’re the ones passing, making all the laws and passing the laws. Right. We have a legislative, executive, and judicial branch that’s supposed to be our government.
So why do we? Why? I feel like I’m in Hollywood for these presidential elections. This is a red carpet, and I feel like these guys are trying to be kings. Well, I guess we got a girl in there now, too. But a queen, you know, it’s very seldom do I hear anything about for the people and actually believe that they’re telling me the truth. I don’t see their words in action. I don’t see their hearts in action to support those words.
When I see a president who stands on that stage during campaigns and says Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I will follow him and do his will, then I might actually start believing that we are going to go somewhere and America is going to rebound.
How are we? Are we going to see that? I would love to see that, but nobody is going to stand up on there and say that, because that’s it. you’re done. You get ushered out of the picture so quick because now you’re talking. you’re gonna.
Big company interest, big money interest, all the little things you said you were going to support can’t stand up to the scrutiny of someone who follows Jesus. I mean, there’s things that gotta go. Planned Parenthood’s gotta go. Yeah. Let’s see how long somebody stands on that stage and says, yep, first thing I’m doing in office is getting rid of Planned Parenthood. No longer federally funding. That gone. Yeah, I think the little box on the ballot next to your name would disappear pretty quick. But that’s what’s got to happen. That’s where we need to go.
So, November 5, it’s about a change in heart, not about me. And it’s not the most pivotal election in the United States history. That was such a news media scam just to get headlines.
I’ve been alive for a while through a few presidential elections. I would say they all were the same. They just happened. Nobody happened to stand up and say, this is the most pivotal one. Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. I’m pretty sure that was a pivotal election. But you know what changed?
The things that got to change in our country is the heart of the people in the matter.
So November 6. November 6, what’s going to happen November 6? We’re a small group in here. I won’t ask anybody who they’re voting for. I know who I’m voting for.
But should the person I vote for not get elected, does life stop? Is that it? I’ve always wanted to see the people who say, well, if so and so gets elected, I’m out of here. I’m leaving the country. Haven’t seen it happen yet.
Some of those actors are still in Hollywood that have said that, no, life’s not going to end. Things aren’t going to go south. If the person you want to be elected doesn’t get elected, don’t pitch a fit, don’t stomp your feet and be a petulant five-year-old who didn’t get their way.
All the things they’re going to come hunting for me now, granted, I do remember hearing that in the Covid timeframe about we need to have re-education camps right at that 2020 election.
Does anybody else remember that hearing that I’m talking about? We need to have re-education camps. That was scary. I’m like, you gotta be kidding me. I spent 25 years of my life defending this country. To hear somebody get up and say, yeah, we need to have re-education camps. Uh uh. No, thank you. Not gonna happen.
The mature response that we need to have as a Christian citizen is to act like a Christian, to have that character that our Lord and Savior had. We need to look like Jesus.
We need to live like Jesus. And that’s being humble. If your person didn’t win, being humble, that’s praying for that person who did win, which I did not do a good job this last election. I didn’t do a good job with that. And that’s bad on me. I should have.
We need to. That person needs to be prayed for, and we need to remember that God has always got things in motion for the better of his people. So if it’s not your person, don’t worry.
So what does that character look like?
Well, the Bible does talk about righteousness. Not eating and drinking and being a drunkard or a glutton. Right. It’s not necessarily tied to food and drink. It’s about everything else, too.
You need to be moderate in what you’re doing. Need to live in righteousness, peace, and joy. The Holy Spirit. We need to ask for the Holy Spirit to be in our lives. We need to live like we love people. Like Jesus loved people. Not condemning. Not condemning people.
It’s like Kevin says, we can’t judge. We can call balls and strikes, and we should.
What’s right is right. What’s wrong is wrong. There should be no gray area.
I’ve learned how to live in gray area a little bit, but I’m a black and white person, am I not? Mm hmm. Yep. Jamie can attest, there’s black and there’s white, there’s gray stuff needs to get out of the way.
And I could be very judgmental, but I don’t want to be that way. I can be right or wrong. There’s right or wrong, but I don’t want to. The judgment is going to come. That’s a guarantee.
One day we will all stand before the king, the kingdom of heaven, the king of heaven, and we will stand in judgment.
And if you’ve accepted Jesus as your lord and savior, I’ll tell you what that judgment is going to be. I love you. Welcome to the kingdom.
If you turn your back on him or you don’t recognize him, that judgment is not going to go that well. I don’t think you’re going to like the outcome. In fact, I’m confident you’re not going to like the outcome.
So we need to live in the fruit of the Spirit, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. There’s nothing. There’s nothing against those things.
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, (Galatians 5:22, NLT)
It’s hard for your enemy to hate you if you treat them with love and kindness and peace, patience, goodness. I was talking with my farrier this morning as he was trimming up my horse’s hooves. And he’s a young man with a young family. He’s getting his faith in Christ more and more. He’s growing, had some horrific things happen to him. I could totally understand some of the things.
It’s hard for him to pray for some people, and it would be hard for me, too. But what I told him was, you know, what I found is when I pray for somebody I don’t like, I find that not liking them starts to fade a little bit.
It’s hard not to like somebody. Hard to be angry and hate somebody if you’re praying for them. So when you find yourself really mad at somebody and hating somebody for what they’re doing, pray for them. Just try it. you’ll find that that anger and that hatred will subside.
It kind of works hand in hand with forgiveness. Forgiveness can be really hard. Right? And we have to forgive the people who’ve done the wrong against us because we’re not innocent and haven’t wronged anybody else, and we may have wronged that same person.
So here’s where you mark. It’s in Mark 12:30. Love the Lord, our God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your Strength.
30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ (Mark 12:30, NLT)
Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no command greater than these.
31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”(Mark 12:31, NLT)
It kind of goes right along with praying for somebody and forgiving somebody. your neighbor might be the person who lives right next to you, but it’s really anybody you come in contact with. That’s who your neighbor is.
I can think of many government officials that I do not agree with. And some of the things they do make me angry. I need to love them like Jesus loved them and pray for them that they will come to know Jesus. Pray for them that they don’t just say, I am Christian and I know Jesus.
No, I want you to really know Jesus. If you really know Jesus, you’re going to rethink the way you’re living and what you’re doing and where we should be headed as a country.
As citizens, we need to do that. As citizens, we need to think about how we’re going to vote in this coming election. The options are limited. Right. Only certain people get on the ballot. So I don’t. You can abstain from voting, but you get what you get. If you abstain from voting, you’re going to get what you get. Don’t complain about it.
Or you can pray about it and ask God to give you guidance on who you should vote for. Who do you want in office, Lord? Who is it now? God can. God, He is God and I am not.
He’s going to do what he believes, what he knows is right, what he knows, the direction he wants this country to go to so that people turn their hearts back to him. But in good conscience, you need to pray and then vote. Do something to try to make a difference. Pray for God to give you guidance.
It may be that he wants you to vote for somebody you don’t want to vote for. So November 6 will still come around. The best we could hope for is the new kingdom comes in full, but I bet we’ll still be here.
But the kingdom has come. The king is alive. He came and he said, the kingdom is here. The Lord’s prayer, the song we sang tonight, our Father in heaven, let your kingdom come. your will be done. Jesus said, the kingdom is here. John the Baptist said the kingdom was here.
Our king is alive and our king is here. He is spirit. I have never seen him, but I have felt his presence.
Has anybody in here actually ever seen him? If you have, please tell me what he looked like. I know that there was an Eastern European girl, this was quite a long time ago, who said she had seen Jesus, and she painted a picture of what she saw. I thought that was pretty cool and, like, watching a series that I hadn’t seen before. It’s actually kind of fun.
It’s called driving through the gospels, and you can find it on Amazon Prime. The host is actually a pretty funny guy, but it’s very interesting. He was talking about Gabriel coming and visiting Zechariah and Mary and saying, don’t be afraid. Like Pastor Kevin says, I think I would probably be very afraid. Don’t be afraid. This angelic being just appeared to you.
I’m saying that because I’m thinking, well, if Jesus appeared to me right now, I would be undone. I would be undone. It would be an incredible thing. It would be awesome.
But the king is alive. The king wants America back for him. I want America back for the kingdom. I want his rule to be everything that everybody turns to. The love that would be in America would be awesome. And just in case you don’t think the king has come, what was one of the things he did when he was walking the earth? He did miraculous signs. Right? We all have experienced miraculous signs at some point in our life. And I know that we did with Julie. I know I have.
When Julie’s encounter with the Lord happened and when she was healed of cancer, immediately I started thinking about what. What are the ones that I know of, and I know myself.
I was one when I was six. I had spinal meningitis. The doctors. And that was not fun. The doctors said I would never play sports. I would never be like other kids because of that.
I ended up flying fighters in the Navy as a carrier aviator. I think I proved that wrong because a church was praying for me. My grandfather’s church.
I remember the pastor coming to my hospital room window. Small town, USA, where somebody could walk up to your hospital window, which was actually ground level by the bushes, and talk to you, say the church is praying for you.
All right, so there’s one. Two, is my wife cured of cancer miraculously, non-traditional. Didn’t do the traditional treatment. Cancer gone.
Three is my brother, whose immune system started shutting down on him in Cartagena, Colombia, while he was doing a zoo visit. Accreditation down there was in a coma. How long was he in a coma?
Yeah, almost a week. He was nearly dead. And we were praying for him. He came home Christmas Eve. We picked him up at the airport Christmas day. He looked bad. His body was shutting down on him again.
I think Jamie and I laid hands on him and prayed for him. He went to the hospital. They sent him home that afternoon. He is actually fairly healthy again. He was nearly dead.
How many was that? That was three. Three. Julie is four. Right. And I think there was a fifth one in there right now, but I can’t remember.
But that’s all to say that the miracles still happen. Jesus is still working. He still answers prayers. We need to pray for this election. We need to pray for each other. The king is alive. The king wants America back. He wants his people to turn back to him. Let Jesus, let the revival happen here. Let it start. Do not let it pass us by. Let us be part of the game. On the team. We are. I’m on the team. And everybody else in here, I’m sure, is on the team. We’re ready.
We want it to happen. We want America to be that country that you intended for it to be. Bring it. Bring. I want you back in the schools. I want you in everything, Jesus, because I know you are good.
So that’s where we need to go. We need to start right now. If you haven’t already started, start praying that God puts the person who’s supposed to be president of this United States.
Part of the three branches of our government, it should be equal. That was the intended, but it should be based on our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. It doesn’t. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing bad in that.
Too many, too few of people have gotten too lot of a voice to say that they won’t want God in involved in our country. Too few of people have gotten too loud of a voice. We need to change that.
There is goodness in America. You guys are part of it. There is goodness in America. So we shouldn’t lose hope. We should have hope.
Have hope in your God, because he loves you and he’s going to take care of us.
All right, so let’s come celebrate our king by partaking of the meal that he gave to us to remember he is our king and he does love us. He wants only goodness for us. Grace and mercy beyond measure. For everyone. For everyone.
And if you’re at all interested in knowing this king and knowing that there’s a king in America, come to the firehouse church. Get to a church and ask about that kingdom.
Become part of the kingdom, part of his family. So come and eat the kingdom meal and remember our lord and savior, who remembers each one of you. Come and eat.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
