Jentezen Franklin - Strength Over Struggle
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I’m reading this morning from the book of Psalms 92. «But my horn You have exalted like a wild ox, I have been anointed with fresh oil». Everybody say, «My horn. But my horn You have exalted like a wild ox,» I wanna preach on that this morning. And I love the last part of that verse, «I have been anointed with fresh oil». I’m preaching today on, «Strength over Struggle». God has the ability to strengthen you. This is not just a normal saying. There are many, many times that horns are mentioned in the Bible. Over 50 times horns are mentioned in the Bible. And it’s talking about animals that have horns most of the time, but it’s also symbolic in the Bible of aggressive power.
The Bible talks about the antichrist in the book of Daniel, and also in the book of Revelation, and it talks about that the antichrist will have ten horns and seven heads in the thing that’s called the beast. And there’s no way you can go into all of that. But the point is it’s not just the horns on the head of this beast, it’s aggressive power to take over the world. So, when you read the word horn, it has a different meaning in the Bible than it does just what we think of. It represents aggressive strength, concentrated power.
Let me give you a practical example of what I’m talking about. If you ever get to go on a safari in Africa, they will want you to see the top five, they call them the top five, like, lions, and rhinoceros, or elephant. But in that top five is the cape buffalo. The cape buffalo has two horns and he’s mighty. He’s known as black death because the cape buffalo kill more people than any of the other top predator animals. It’s because they’re grumpy, and they’re unpredictable, they’re aggressive and they’re killers. They can run 37 miles per hour and their horns are their strength. They can flip cars, they can take a lion and hook him in one of those horns. And there’s so much muscle, they’re solid muscle. They can throw a 600-pound lion up in the air like it’s a paper clip or an ink pen.
It’s just amazing the strength, the concentrated aggressive strength. They said that they can even, when they use and shift and throw their head with one of those horns and catch something that they can put half their body weight and muscle behind it. So, they can weigh up to 6,000 pounds, the biggest ones. So that’s 3,000 pounds of power in a horn that is so hard it cannot be broken. And it can gore to death anything. So, the horn speaks of strength, and it speaks of the strong animal and how it centers its power in its horn. Habakkuk 3:4, the prophet saw God approaching him in a vision and he said, «His radiance was like a setting sun in my eyes when he came,» and then he says this, «And he had horns coming out of his hand».
There’s power, there’s aggressive power in his hands is what he was saying. So, I wanna mention to you some things that are aggressively power that give you strength over every struggle if you receive that power. Some of you came in here and you’re weak, and you need a touch, and you are struggling, and you’re struggling mentally, you’re struggling physically, you’re struggling spiritually. You’re really, really struggling. And I felt this week that God really wanted to give an infusion of strength over that struggle. And here it is. In 2 Samuel 22:3, he said, «He is my shield and the horn of my salvation».
The first thing I want you to understand that is aggressively strong and powerful is your salvation is a horn of salvation. Isn’t that interesting wording? Why would you call it the horn of my salvation? Salvation is a strong, aggressive thing. When you really get born again and saved, that horn of aggressive power will come to fight the old nature and the things that want to kill, steal, and destroy in your life. You need to understand that when you got saved, you got a hold of something powerful. And your salvation can conquer depression. Your salvation can conquer fear. Your salvation can conquer alcohol. Your salvation can conquer drug addiction. Your salvation can conquer cancer, hallelujah. Your salvation, I’ve got something aggressive and I’ve got something strong. And strength is coming back to you.
If you’ve been in a battle and you feel weak, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. And I know today there is strength in your horn of salvation. Secondly, the Bible talks about another horn. In Ezekiel 9, he said, «I saw an ink horn». And ink horn, that’s a container of ink that you take a feather back in that day or something sharp, and you write with it when you dip into the ink. And the prophet said, «I will write prophecy with the ink horn». The ink horn. In other words, it’s the type. There’s power in the written word of God. I wanna tell you that this Bible is aggressively strong. The words in this book when spoken, and read, and believed, and clung to, the power of this book can change your life. It’s a shame it’s not read more.
How much time do we waste on other things? We must read this book because it’s aggressively strong against discouragement, and fear, and worry, and torment, and «Oh God, I’m worried about my babies». Just read the word and the word is aggressively strong on your behalf. I’m not worried about the Bible surviving. I’m not worried about the Bible surviving socialism. I’m not worried about the Bible surviving communism. I’m not worried about the Bible surviving wokeism. I’m not worried about any of the isms because when they are all dead and gone, and when all those people who said the Bible’s not the way, one day they’ll have to bow their knee. This is aggressively strong.
In the 21st century, it’s strong. It has not lost a bit of its power to save, to heal, to deliver, to set free. Turn to somebody and say, «The Bible’s gonna be alright». It doesn’t matter what professor smarty pants says. The Bible’s gonna be alright. I believe this old book. I believe it just like it said. It’s aggressive power. I’ll you another place that you find a horn in the Bible. There was furniture in the Old Testament wilderness tabernacle, and one of them was called the brazing altar, and it had four horns on the corners, four different animal horns on the corners of that altar. And they would tie down the sacrifice and hold it down to be sacrificed.
So, there is power in prayer. There is concentrated, aggressive power when you grab hold and tie yourself down. And you say, «Lord, I will not let go. I’m gonna keep praying about this and I’m grabbing the horns of the altar». There’s a man in the Old Testament that was running from someone who was gonna kill him. And he ran into the tabernacle, and the Bible said he grabbed the horns of the altar. Listen, when the enemy’s coming against you, that’s the time, the old timers used to say it like this, «I got a hold of the horns of the altar».
And when you get a hold of the horns of the altar, it means I’m gon' pray today, and I’ll be praying tomorrow, and I’ll be praying the next day, and I’ll be praying 30 years from now if I have to, but I will not let go. I’m tied down to this altar because this thing is powerful. It’s a horn of aggressive strength against anything that’s coming to destroy your life. Pray about it. Pray in Jesus, pray in faith. It’s an aggressive strength. I’m not getting up and being tied down to it. And by the way, when the sacrifice was made, they would take blood and put it on the horns of the altar because there’s power in the blood, hallelujah. It can break every chain. There’s power in the blood. I’ll tell you about another horn.
1 Samuel 16. God told Samuel to stop weeping over king Saul, and take your horn again and fill it oil and go anoint the son of Jesse. And he went and he poured the oil on David and a strong anointing came on David. So, the horn speaks of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and it is aggressively strong. The anointing of God can make a miracle happen when you sit under it. That’s where miracles happen, and when the anointing came on David, he became aggressively strong, and he ran out to fight Goliath, and he defeated the giant that was much bigger than him. That only happened because he had the horn of the anointing on his life and he could defeat the giant that he was facing.
Are you facing a giant? You know what the Bible says about the anointing in Isaiah 10? It said because of the anointing, the yoke shall be destroyed, and the burden shall be lifted. The anointing will destroy the yoke. There’s power and aggression in that anointing. In Rome, there’s a statue by Michelangelo of Moses and he has horns coming out of his head. And the reason is because he read the Latin translation and it translates different from Hebrew into Latin. We read it in our Bibles as when he came off of the mountain, Moses, is face was shining and he had to put a veil over his face because he was so bright under the anointing that God had given him the Ten Commandments and they had to cover his face. But in the Latin translation, it translates horns, so he put horns on Moses on his statue. But I really think God was letting us know the anointing is strong and powerful.
The anointing does flip demons and devils around. We’re not a bunch of defeated people. Don’t cover up the anointing. We need an aggressive, aggressive anointing that says I shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover and I shall anoint with oil, and they shall recover from the attack of the enemy in Jesus' name. It’s too many fake anointings. In the Old Testament, in the book of Kings 22, the Bible said there was a false prophet who made himself some metal horns. He made horns of iron and he gave false prophecy to the king. And the Bible said that Micah showed up and said, «He’s a false prophet, he made his own horns». He’s a fake anointing, he’s got horn props.
Is that what most church has become now? Just horn props? Where’s the anointing? Where’s the anointing in the pews? Where’s the anointing in our worship? Where’s the anointing in our prayers? We need the anointing. I want the anointing in this church. I want it in this service, and I feel it. I feel His anointing. Somebody say, «Lord, I don’t want fake horns, I want the power of the Holy Ghost in my life». Everybody take a praise break, would you? If you believe you got a strong horn of salvation, you ought to shout about it just a minute. It’ll fight that temptation. It’ll set you free from that vape. It’ll set you free from whatever it is that wants to shorten your life. He said in Exodus 21:28–30, «If an ox gores somebody, kill the ox».
If you’re out in the field, they had big oxes with horns. And he said, «If the ox,» this is Exodus 21:28–30, «If the ox gores a man or woman that the die, then the ox shall be stoned and you can’t eat the meat, but the owner of the ox shall be left alone. But if the ox went forth with his horn in the past and has not,» that’s making it really complicated. Let me tell you what he’s saying. He’s saying if the owner knows that this horn has gored somebody before, and he’s aggressive, and he didn’t warn people, and he just let that ox kill somebody else, he’s misusing the anointing. He’s misusing the horn to hurt people and he shall die. If you misuse the anointing, he shall die, his ministry shall die.
That’s why we better be careful when God anoints us not to misuse the influence, and misuse what God has given us somehow to hurt people. I wanna close with this. I just need to tell you that’s what David did when he killed Uriah. He used his anointing to do something to kill Uriah so he could take his wife, whose name was Bathsheba for his own wife. That’s misusing the anointing. My horn, thank you, Lord, shall be exalted like the horn, King James says, of the unicorn. Well, what’s a unicorn? A unicorn in the sports world is somebody that can handle any situation you put 'em in. Okay. That was worth a better amen than that. Aaron, you know I’m preaching the truth.
Isn’t a unicorn in sports somebody that they can be defensive end, they can be wide receiver, we’ll make 'em quarterback too if we need to, and then put 'em on the basketball team, 'cause they’re good anywhere you put 'em. I’m a unicorn, praise God. Hallelujah. Whatever situation hell puts me in, I’ve got the power of God that says I have, man, I’ve got a horn of salvation that’s on my side and I can pray and God will flip the enemy. Watch this. 1 Samuel 2:10. «He shall exalt the horn of his anointing». Everybody say, «He’s gonna exalt,» which means strengthen, raise up the horn of his anointing in my life. But this is where I wanna end right here.
Psalms 132:17, «Therefore will I make the horn of my anointing to bud». God said David’s horn is about to bud. When the anointing comes, when God’s presence comes, the horn of your dreams will bud again. Whew. Oh, I feel that in this house. Throw your hands up and praise Him. Stand up on your feet, throw your hands up and open your mouth and say, «Lord, I receive today strength over my struggles. I receive today the power of the horn. I receive today all this need. There is the horn of my salvation». Say:
Jesus. You are the horn. The power, the aggressive power that’s coming against the attempts of the enemy to stop me. You are the horn of my salvation. My salvation is not weak. It’s very aggressively strong.