Bill Winston - Unshakable Faith
It's time for harvest. I said it's time for harvest. You've sewn, now it's time to reap. Glory to God. Let's look at Joshua chapter 18 first. I'm going to read here in verses 2 and 3. "And there remaineth among the children of Israel seven tribes which had not received their inheritance. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel how long are you slack to go to possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers have given you". Let's go over here to Romans chapter 1 please, versus 16 and 17, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteous of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written. The just should live by faith". Glory to God.
Faith, once you come into the kingdom, becomes a lifestyle. It's not something that gets use every now and then because you can't store faith up. You've got to use it, or you'll find you'll start losing it. So you've got to operate in faith. You got to stay in faith. We started the ministry in faith. We started these faith conferences in faith. We didn't have all we have now, but we started it. We started it by faith. One other thing that was brought out yesterday that faith is not something you do to get God to move. That is not the way faith is. It's not the way this kingdom works because the Bible talks about, over in Isaiah in chapter 57 and verse 15 it talks about God. Moffatt's translation also refers to him as the eternal says, "For thus saying the high and holy and lofty one that inhabiteth where, eternity".
When you get to dealing with eternity you'll find that eternity has no time. Not as we know it. It's eternal. God finished everything, it's the finished work of God. One of the scriptures was read last night was talking about Romans chapter 4, there are two verses there, I used to preach them all the time. Verse 13 and verse 16. In verse 13 says, "For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith". In verse 16 says, "Therefore it's of faith that it might be my grace so the end the promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law but that which is also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all". The promise might be sure to all the seed.
I was meeting with our partners this morning and was talking about faith. We're talking about John chapter 6. And over in John chapter 6, Jesus puts something out there to the disciplines and he said in verse 5, "Then Jesus lifted up his eyes he saw a great company come to him. And he said to Phillip now where can we buy bread that these may eat"?. And this he said to prove him for he himself knew what he would do. Now prove is like, I'm going to test you out. I've been teaching you this, now I'm going to see what you're going to say. Now where can we buy bread that these may eat? And then Phillip said to him, 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them that everyone of them way take a little. Now look at that in NIV translation. Look and see how it expands on this. He said, "And Phillip answered it would take more than half a years wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite".
Now notice, immediately, he connected this provision with how long he could work for. Be whether its you or something else. Now I mean it's an interesting thing that if you hit the lottery and buy an airplane, you're okay. Isn't that very interesting? But if you get it by faith, the devil didn't want you to have it by faith because you didn't come through his system. Do you hear what I'm saying? Jesus is saying, "Hey, I'm going to show you how to get your needs met without going through the devil's system". I'm going to show you the system that he set up, you can operate above it and outside of it and get every need met and let me give you some good news. That job is not able to give you anywhere close to what God has planned for you to have. That's why, that brother Copeland said on Monday night he said it's better for some of you if you didn't even have a salary. The reason why is because you got a 15th and 30th mentality.
See, everything God's trying to do for you on the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th, you can't receive it. He said the screen has blocked that out, you're waiting on the 15th. You don't wait on the 15th. The 15th for you is right now. Faith is not the 15th. Faith is always now. I'm telling you what happened to, I looked in that part and said, "Man that's what Jacob ran up against". Because as long as Jacob was counting on that salary, Laban was beating him out of everything he had. The Bible said in Genesis 31 it said your father has changed my wages how many times? 10 times. See Satan can manipulate that, he'll let you get a raise but he'll raise up the loaf of bread. So you really didn't make anything, matter of fact you lost something.
Now my point to you is you're coming out of that. He said how long are you going to be slack to take the rest of what I've called you to do. I'm telling you the church has been a little bit slack but this particular meeting, something has happened. I said something has happened. You want your stuff. I mean you want all of it, come on. You want totally out of debt? Come on. You want everything in your body to function like God called it to function? Come on. You want that job, you want that business, you want that marriage, you want that husband, everything that this book had promised you? I want it and I want it. NOW! It is time for the church to do something or being something or have something that nobody else can have without God. The Bible says that you should be a city set on a what? A hill. That means folk out to be looking up to you.
I said from this night, you will be an attraction. Folks will want to be like you. But let's go back to that. So he said, hey, 200 penny worth of bread, half years wages. Now how are we going to work and do this too, this ministry thing. When God called me to leave the corporate world and go full time, that's what got me. The thing that got me is now wait a minute how am I going to do this now. The baby needs new shoes and how I am going to do all of this. I didn't see myself going into something that was a blessing. I had so much of losing something. But that is not true. God never calls you into lesser, he always calls you into the greater. You are going from faith to faith, from blessing to blessing. So then he answered him and said 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them may take a little.
One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother said to him, "There's a lad here which had five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what is that among so many". Wow, now there's two things that he's doing here. One, he's trying to operate in faith and in reason at the same time. I got a name for faith, a name called crazy faith. Crazy faith is people whose minds are no longer governed by what makes sense. Say Amen to that. That's kind of the way you're going to have to deal with God because when God speaks to you, he speaks to you and says something that doesn't quite make sense. And you're going to have to take it by what? You gonna have to take it by faith, the bible says by faith we understand. What does that mean? That means that you'll understand it better by and by. What you need to do now is just take it.
Now, there's a lad here. Now this is that scripture over in Romans in chapter 4 in verse 16. Now this is that scripture see. He said, "Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace that the promise might be sured" to how many? All the seed, see there's a lad here. This little boy was as much a seed of Abraham as his parents were. Say amen to that. This boy says there's a lad here, he's got two five and five loaves, but what is that among so many? So I'm just saying to you that if there's a 12 year old and he's born again, he's got the same faith as a 40 year old. Now when I say that, I mean he's got the same measure. See God, the Bible says over in Romans chapter 12 verse 3, "Gives to all men the measure of faith".
So once you get saved, faith in injected in your heart. He gives you the same measure of love once you get saved, the love of God is shed abroad your heart, come on, by the Holy Ghost. Once you get saved, you've got the same righteousness. Once you get saved, you have the same privileges to use his name. So don't think that kids can do less than you can. Look what he says in Matthew chapter 9 verse 27, "And when Jesus departed thenst, two blind men followed him, crying and saying, thou son of David, have mercy on us. And when he was come into the house, a blind man came to him. And Jesus said to them believe ye that I'm able to do this"? And they said to him, what? Ye Lord, that means yes. Then he touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith, be it unto you".
Thank God he didn't say according to your raise, be it unto you. Thank God he didn't say according to your bank account, according to your Yale degree. According to your country. He didn't say that, what did he say? It's according to your faith. One thing qualifies you and that's your faith. And according to your faith, be it unto you. I'm telling you, everybody gets saved and when you get saved, the measure of faith is injected in your heart. Now it's up to you to strengthen that faith. It's up to you to grow that faith, to increase that faith. That's up to you. And we are suppose to go from faith to what, faith. You're never suppose to be at the same level this year as you were last year. Your faith should be growing every day.
I started out believing God for a necktie, I did not believe God for a parking space downtown Chicago, God knows you need faith to do that. Parking space, people were just pulling out as I was coming up. I thought it out believing God, he'd do this and then little thing do that, and then got bigger and bigger. And now I'm believe God for airplane shopping malls. I'm believe God for countries to go into and put Joseph school's. I'm talking about with faith. And if you don't have faith you can't get in there, glory to God and God wants you to go all the world. He wants you not only to reap the souls that are in there but take back every piece of property that the devil just sold. The church should be the biggest land owners in every city. One more time. The church should be the biggest land owners in every, one more time. The church should be the biggest land owners in every city.
Now you just looking at me right now, listening to me preach. I'm talking to you. You are the church, now how are you going to get it? You're not going to get it by earning it. You're going to get it by believing it. You're going to get it because you're going to go to property and you're going to speak to that property. Come on. You going to decree something over that property. You going to let your feet tread on that property. Folks, we didn't get this mall because we had money. If you don't have no faith and got money, he won't control you. He didn't the faith because we hooked up with some party in politic. Somebody came in my office said, "Reverend, how did you do this", now I said, "God did it". "No, no, I ain't talking about that. I'm talking about how did you do it". See he thought I somehow went in my pocket and say, "Hey, you know, if you just give me".
Listen, I don't need your favor. I got God's favor. And when you got God's favor, God will bring property into your hands, come on. He's about to take you into a place you can't afford. He's about to take you into a battle you can't win. Saints, it's time to mobilize. It is time to go get our stuff. I said it's time to get it. So he said according to your faith, be it unto you. I want you to see here because that's what qualifies you now. And it's by grace that, it might by faith but it might be by grace. Grace has already provided the things for you that if God has not already provided it, your faith is not going to make it happen. Man that's good. See, eternal means that everything is finished. It's finished, folks, it finished.
When God works six days, he worked six days in Adam in the beginning and six days he made everything. Then at the end of the sixth day, he made something called a man. So why did he make the man at the end? Because everything up to that point was made to serve him. I said everything in this earth was made to serve you. Now, what did the devil do? He flipped that thing. See, because of Adam's sin, now Adam lost his authority, he lost his headship. Now he's being controlled. The enemies got control of it, the Bible calls him the god of this world. So what did Jesus got to do? Jesus had to come and bring us back to the original power and provision that Adam had before the fall. And he's got to do a complete job of redemption. That he came to destroy everything that would mock your redemptive testimony.
I mean everything, everything that's under this curse. You go in this Bible and look at it, if it's under the curse, you can get rid of it. See, how long you going to be sly? He didn't mean for you to just get saved. People are just surviving man, you're just barely getting enough paycheck to pay those bills and just get home so far the door. That's not where he wants us. Where does he want us? He wants us thriving, he wants us to have more than enough. It should be that I say wait a minute, we're going to build a new worship center and it's going to cost $43 million. I need to open up the doors and get people to pledge or giving. The doors are open for you now to give and a hand goes up over here, "Pastor, I got $5 million". A hand goes up, "Pastor, I got three and a half". A hand goes up back here, "Pastor, I got six million".
In two minutes, in two minutes, in two minutes watch this. I close it and say, "That's enough". And the man over here gets mad, "Wait a minute, you didn't give me a chance to give mine". I'm here to tell you folks, it should be that we won't have to put a table out here and say who got $25. How much you got sister? I got $17.95. Don't do that anymore. Take them small buckets, through them out. Get yourselves some baskets, start passing them down the aisle because the church is about to be rich. I'm saying that God is about to convert into the church the kingdom of God is about to be expressed with God's people. I'm saying that the wealth of the wicked has been laid out for the just and we not going to leave it laid up anymore. It's coming into the house of God.
Say, "According to your faith, be it unto you". II Kings, chapter 4, verse 1. Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets to Elijah, saying, "Thy servant, my husband is dead; and you know that servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take my two sons to be bondmen". Alright, let's look at the next verse. So she cried. Now that doesn't mean she boo-hooed. That cry is a cry of faith. She's making a demand on this prophet's anointing. She's placing a demand, and faith places a demand on God's promises. And that's when the woman with the issue of blood said, "If I can just touch his clothes. I shall be whole". And notice what she did. She touched it, and the Bible says, "Virtue flowed out of him". And then he turned around and said, "Who touched me"? And the person that was with him says, "Master, you see all these people pushing on you". He said, "No, no, no, no. Somebody touched me".
Notice nobody got the virtue, except that one woman. Say amen. Now, see it didn't mean that the promise wasn't available for everybody, but it's only released by faith. That's Romans, chapter 4 and verse 16. So I'm saying, this faith thing has a lot to do with how far we're going. Somehow we get saved by faith and stop with faith. That's not the idea. The idea is you wanna stay in faith, and finish in faith. That finishing in faith, you want all that God says that you supposed to have. The best of God is not getting sick and being healed. That is not the best. The best of God is that every virus, disease, and germ that touches your body dies instantly. That's the best of God. You and I can walk in that.
Okay, II Kings. Alright? And Elijah said to her, "What shall I do for you? Tell me what's in your house"? And she said, "Thine handmaid's not anything in the house, except a pot of oil". Now what that oil was, is thought it's burial oil, which was worth many years wages to get that oil. Very, very valuable to her. Then he said, "Go borrow the vessels abroad of all thy neighbors. Even empty vessels. Don't borrow a few". We're dealing with God, now. We gotta do this bountiful thinking. We gotta get ourselves out of this shortage mentality. Alright? DOn't borrow a few. "And when you come in, shut the door upon you and your sons, and you shall pour out into all those vessels and thou shall set aside that which is full". So she went from him and shut the door upon her and upon her sons.
Notice what she didn't say. "Y'all get out of here. Go play. Mama got some business to take care of". No. They were gonna participate in the miracle, because God wants you to pass faith on as a legacy. When you're out of here, he wants your kids to take up where you left off. Glory to God. So what happened? So she went from him and shut the door and upon her sons who brought her the vessels to her, and she did what? She poured out. And it came to pass when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, what? Bring me yet a vessel. Notice the sons are participating in this move of faith. Is this the right bunch I'm talking to? Folks, we gotta look at it differently. If your child is saved, they've got the same faith you do, and the faith you have is the faith Jesus had. The faith Jesus had is the faith God has. That's the same faith that created the universe. He has given you that kind of faith. Say amen. That is faith that can raise the dead, can move the mountain, so forth and so on.
Notice things are already done, but your faith has to be there to convert it from the unseen to the seen realm. Lord have mercy. Help me Holy Ghost! And it came to pass when the vessels were full, that she said until her son, "Bring me yet a vessel". And he said to her, "There's not a vessel more". And what happened to the oil? Notice the provision stopped when the demand stopped. See don't try to make it easy on God. Make it hard on him. Don't try to make it within your ability to do it. Anything that doesn't measure up to God's promise to you, then you are undone. You gotta say, "Hey, wait a minute. I still have some more land to take". And make up your mind that you are gonna take that land. Say amen.
Now, I'm doing something with this. I'm making a point with this. 'Cause this point really needs to be made with God's people, because what has happened many times is we've transferred the world of thinking into the kingdom. We got brought into the kingdom, but our minds are still not transformed. We're still thinking like we were in the world. You gotta stop thinking like that. 'Cause in the kingdom. God is no respecter of... persons. What he will do for me, he'll do for you. And what he'll do for us, he'll do for somebody in Africa. What he'll do... Come on now. It doesn't make any difference. So here's this son. This man says, "There's a lad here". I'm still with that. And he says here, "According to your faith, be it unto you".
Let's go back to I Samuel please. In I Samuel, in chapter 17. Over in I Samuel, chapter 17, here's David. Now David's coming to the front line. This is verse 32. I'll just start right there. Now, notice what happened. The giants are before them, and these giants are busy tormenting them. That's what Satan likes to do. He likes to bring fear in your life. Say fear not. I don't care how bad it looks, no more fear. I said no more fear. It's designed to contaminate your faith and make it so it won't work. So David said to Saul, (Saul is the king), "Let no man's heart fail because of him". A spirit that is wounded or damaged, it's difficult to create the force of faith to come out of it, to do what needs to be done. Are you following what I'm saying? There is a spirit called a Jebusite. A Jebusite spirit is a spirit, I put it down here, that it literally means "to beat down".
You ever heard somebody say, "He got a beat down"? It's an enforcer of the caste concept. C-A-S-T-E. Where you have this group in this level and you never move out. This group at that next level and they never can change levels. This group at that level... India has a caste system. But those are demons enforcing that. So those same demons come to America to enforce racism, and that's why a lot of times, a certain people, of a certain color, can't get out of a certain situation, because they're trying to get out without the power of God coming against the forces that are unseen, designed to keep them in there. Don't shout me down, 'cause I'm preaching here. But if you can get faith in your life, that's what the devil doesn't want. Because faith can fix anything.
Come on now! When they were going from one side over to the other, here comes a storm designed to kill them, designed to sink their boat. Why? 'Cause they're going from faith to what? Faith. And now they're going over. Here comes a storm. It didn't come up because of God's will, it came up because Satan was in control of a system that are designed to sink your boat if you don't have faith. I don't care how much money you got, you can't whip Satan. I don't care how much prestige you got, how much education you got, Satan can fool you in a New York minute. I'm telling you, the only thing that can beat Satan is Jesus. And Jesus is in you. Come on! The Holy Ghost is your teacher. He's gonna be the one that can tell you what to do, and then you release the faith, and God will take care of your situation.
So I'm telling you right now, it wasn't Abraham Lincoln that got them off the cotton field, it was their faith. I'm telling you somebody was in prayer. Somebody. Come on now. God had Abe to sign the paper. But I'm telling you, it wasn't a man that got you out of slavery, it was the .... You better hear what I'm talking about. You gonna have to start in faith, stay in faith, and finish in faith. Now where is your finish? Your finish is at the top of your game. God has a room for you at the top, and the higher you go, the more influence you gonna have. See, when you get to upper levels, you can drop your foot in the water, and water will ripple all out over the place. God wants it so that if you drop your foot in New York, it'll ripple all the way to Pennsylvania. Say amen to that.
I don't know what your area of expertise is. Whether you're an architect, whether you're a brick layer, whether you're a doctor, whether you're a school teacher, I'm here to tell you God wants you to take your mountain. Whatever mountain you have, God wants you to take it, and faith works by love. You're gonna have to love your way to the top. When they talk about you, you're gonna have to embrace them. When they, come on, falsely accuse you, you're gonna have to say, "God, I'm not guilty", and let God get you out of it. I'm telling you what's gonna happen. We are not done with what God wants us to do. We are about to get into the best life we've ever had in this Earth. We didn't come to take sides. We came to take over. Sit down. God have mercy.
Look at verse 33. Look at verse 33. And Saul said to David, "Thou art not able to go up against this Philistine to fight him. For thou art but a youth, and he a man of war" from his what? "Youth". And David said to Saul, "Thy servant kept my father's sheep. And there came a lion and a bear, and I took the lion, and took lion out of my flock, and next thing you know, I went after him, I smote him, I delivered it out of his mouth. When he arose against me, I caught him by his beard. I smote him, and slew him". I'm here to tell you right now, all that was a 16 year old boy. I'm saying that notice what he's doing now. Saul tried to disqualify him. "You go on back home, keep sheep. You can't do nothing here".
Honey, let me tell you, when that boy tells you, "Dad, I want a new bike". He tells you that, you say, "You got a picture of it"? He goes in and gets a picture of it. You don't say, "Money don't grow on trees". You say this, "Is this the best one you got"? He said, "Yeah, dad. That's a $400.00 bike". "Okay, fine. You know what to do son, right"? "Yes, sir". He goes right in his toy box, he get that Nintendo game that you just bought You stood in line for two hours to get that game for him. He gets that, goes to his friend that's needy. He gives it to him, and you better start cleaning out that garage, 'cause that bicycle is on the way. He's but a youth, but he's got the same faith. What has happened is we've looked at it carnally. We've looked at it like people not saved. Get out of here kids. Get out of here?
Come on in here and help me believe the tuition. The same faith. Say same faith. He said, "Get your boys and tell them to bring you something. Tell them to bring it in here. Go out and get those". Why? "Let them participate in it". Here's David, "So according to your faith, be it unto you". So what am I saying now? I'm saying the enemy comes in to try to break our spirit. How do you keep your spirit built up? Look at Proverbs, chapter four, and verse 20. I gotta keep my spirit built up. My son, attend to my word. Incline thine ear to my sayings. Let them not depart from my eyes. Keep them in the... midst of thing heart. Do you realize you're not supposed to say anything that God didn't say? You are representing the kingdom, and a representative of the kingdom is an ambassador, and you don't say anything your country didn't say.
Say I'm on assignment. God is holing you accountable for the words you speak. Say what God says. Say amen to that. So, what he says. For they are life to those that find them? And health and what? To all their flesh. One translation says, "They are medicine". Now when you operate in faith, understand, once you confess something, give God time to make it happen. Alright. Let's go over to that. Let's go over to Mark, chapter 11, verse 12. And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry. He saw a fig tree far off having leaves. He came to it, if haply he might find anything there on, and when he came to it he found nothing but leaves because the time of figs was not yet. I call this religion.
Religion is a form of godliness, but it has no power. Aint no power. You'll see religion. Religion talks loud, jumps up, run around the church and everything, and go back home, and nothing's changed. Now I'm not talking about people. They can get excited about Jesus. My point to you is, don't let it be a form of that. Don't be trying to do something in front of people so they'll think you so holy, and you still broke, marriage still in trouble, kids still running crazy. Sometimes practice the vocabulary of silence. Look what it says here in verse 14. And Jesus answered and said to it, "No man eat of you here after forever", and who heard it? Disciples. They didn't overhear it. They heard it. Notice what he's doing. He's teaching. Why? 'Cause he's gotta go.
My job is not to have you to always depend on me. It's not always to have you have somebody else do your praying for you. No, my job is to have you to have a relationship with God. You and him. So he goes down to Jerusalem, does some business down there, turn over some cash registers. Look at verse 19. And when the evening was come, they went out of the city. Now they went out of the city and went back past that tree. But nothing happened. Who is that Dr. Frederick KC Price said he had gotten ahold of the words that God has in the Bible on prosperity? He just began to grab ahold of that, and people had him teaching those principals going from Northern California all the way down to El Segundo, whatever it is, all the way down. He was teaching it all up and down the coast of California. He said but what happened is he was believing God for a new Lincoln car.
You know, that was something in those days. That big Lincoln. At the moment he was driving a car that had been wrecked in the front, in the back, and on both sides, by his daughters. He said he'd pull up at the church, and his wife didn't quite have the revelation yet. So he'd pull up the church, go in there and preach this powerful message on prosperity, and he said she'd try to rush him out to get in the car to get away before anybody saw what they were driving. No, no. You can be saying it, but not yet have it manifest. But hold fast to confession of your faith without waiver. That's what a lot of people don't understand. See if you confess in something and they don't see it in your life, you're "Uh-huh. See there"? Well, you just hang on. Because if they don't change it, God's gonna be true, and every man's gonna be a liar. Alright?
So let's look at the next, verse 20. And in the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. Peter called into remembrance and said unto him, "Master behold. The fig tree which you cursed is withered away". And Jesus said to them what? "Have faith in God". In other words, have the God kind of what? Faith. Or, as I teach our congregation, have God's faith. It's not your faith. Take His righteousness, not your righteousness. Take His love, not your love. Take His name, not your name. Take His life, not your life. Take His faith, not your faith, and you start using His faith, it'll move anything.
So what does faith first deal with? Faith deals with the invisible. Faith deals with the invisible. Everything God has for you is already done. It's already there. How far out is it? It's a membrane away. A membrane away. It's like when you step out of this body, and your body ceases to exist, when you get to be 120 years old, or Jesus comes first. Your body ceases... You step out of this body, you step into the presence of Jesus. Glory to God. What am I telling you? Faith can fix anything. How long are you slack to go in to possess your inheritance. Well, your days of slackness are over.
So here is David, he's going out to fight the battle with all his men. He comes back to his camp. The enemy has invaded his camp, run off with everything including the provisions, and the people. Now you are sent to get back both. Both the people, come on, and the property. Everything Satan stole comes back to you. The Bible says over in I Corinthians 3:21, All things are yours. Now when he says, "All things", he means all things. From the surface to the core of this Earth, it belongs to you. Somebody said, "I thought it belonged to Jesus". It does! You are a joint heir with him.