Leon Fontaine - Do You Have a Dream?
I want to teach you how to dream. How to dream. A friend of mine bought a book a while ago, and man I want to find it. It was just called, I think it was the 100 greatest speeches in the world. And, one of them of course was Martin Luther King Jr. "I have a dream". I mean, when you read that and listen to his voice on tape just talk, he just touches you so deep. I have a dream. Did you know that you're supposed to have a dream? Your life will not go the way you want it, unless you have a dream, and you know to dream. You see, your enemy has a dream for you. It says in Mark. Well actually it says all through the Word. Jesus says, but the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. That's his dream for you. You have an enemy, his dream is to kill you. His dream is destroy your marriage, your kids, your lineage, your generations. His desire is to steal your reputation. To steal what's important to you. It's to destroy your trust in the most high God. To not walk the paths He's prepared for you ahead of time. You have an enemy, and he's got a dream for you.
One of the, my favorite stories in the Bible is David, and Goliath. You know I've been preaching on that now for probably 40 years, and I keep seeing something new all the time? Goliath had a dream. Now, he didn't say it that way. I have a dream. But he did declare his dream. Send out a champion to fight me, because I'm going to whip him, and then you're going to serve us. Which meant, we're going to kill the men, going to rape the wives, and we're going to make all of your children become servants and slaves. That was their, that was his dream. And that evil dream was coming from his country, that culture. This is what's going to happen. Goliath, had a dream.
Now what's interesting, is in this story, the Philistines came out every day. And they would stand on these hills, this hill, overlooking the valley of Elah. And on the other side, God's army, or the Israelite army, would walk out because the Philistines were coming to take their country. Steal it. Fight for it. And, in doing that, they had this, new kind of. Strategy. Rather than go and fight and lose half our army trying to get it, let's send our favorite guy out there. Let's send Goliath. Biggest, toughest, meanest. He was over nine feet tall, his lungs would have been over twice the size of mine. And, you know, the bigger something has for a chest, the more that voice can just carry waah.
And so Goliath would come out and he'd begin to scream at them. He would take centre stage, all of his soldiers were watching him, and all of the Israeli army were watching. And he'd get out there and he'd say send a man to fight me. And, he would do this, during the day. Not just once. We know at least twice and probably more depending upon what was going on. He would come out to the centre stage of this valley of Elah. And he would scream his dream. He did it, the first day. The second day. The third day. The fourth day. The fifth day, the sixth day, the seventh day. The second week, the third week, the fourth week, the fifth week, the sixth week. This guy would get out there and blah, blah, blah. Do you know what's crazy? They listened to him. They listened to him. An entire Israeli army, just stood there. Oh Benjamin did you hear what he said? He said he's going to kill us. Did you hear that Ruben? Yeah. Well, you know, and they began to share his dream with each other.
Goliath had a dream. It was a sick dream, it was an evil dream. It was a dream that was his arrogance. It was all about him being king, him rising up. Him making everybody else kowtow. It was about making the money off of their country. It was, it was nothing but personal grandizement, and narcissistic, egotistic, I mean. It was just all that, and he'd get out there every day. Now, Goliath was so tall, over nine feet tall. Some stats say eleven feet tall. So this Goliath would come out every day. And he would share his dream. So well Leon, that's not really a dream. No, listen to me. Because, as he shared his dream, he begin to speak the language of the heart. Which is images, video. Which is pictures. And all the opposing army begin to see themselves killed. He would use language like feed their bodies to the birds.
Now, it wasn't, he wasn't talking about chickadees. He's talking about vultures. For some of you that come from countries where there are vultures, it's sick to watch them take out a body. I mean it's, the battlefield is a disgusting place when the vul... he was painting pictures. Of killing them, stealing them. And they just sat there day after day, and listened. To his dream. There's the dream that faith builds, and there's the dream that fear builds. The fastest way to control any group of people, is to pound fear into them. It's the quickest way. Because then once you pound fear into them, and you get it past fear, until it becomes phobia. Then, you can get them to do anything, quickly. But, this little guy named David. Now he wasn't little, but. He was young. He just hadn't been listening to this. So he comes to bring food to his brothers. And he's probably in his late teens, and he just happened to be there when Goliath walks out and he goes, and he looks around. Knees are knocking. Teeth are chattering. And they have this look on their face.
Did you hear that? He's not just going to stab us once, he's going to stab us twice. I mean, dead's dead. I don't have to stab me after that. Whatever was going on. And so David's looking around, he sees his oldest brother and his second oldest brother. He admires these men are warfare, they're trained in war. And he looks around, and he can't understand what's going on. Why? Because he's not pickled. And so he goes, what in the world? His brother has a talk with him. You arrogant little thing, who do you think you are? Boy, you have an answer do you? He gave him that speech. Why? Because fearful people get mad when someone stands against their fear. So David begins to talk back. And Goliath, he begins to curse him with his god. When he saw David come up, he got upset. Because he was having a good time. Forty days of being the man. Walk on the stage, you know, got your, all your equipment. Boom, boom, boom. Ah! He was the star. He was the leader. Everyone's listening to him. Except he was wrong.
So David, comes towards him, reaches down, picks up five stones. Puts them in his little pouch. Someone said to me one time, David must have been worried about missing, because he picked up five stones. If you go into 2 Samuel, did you know that Goliath had four sons who were all battle-trained warriors as well? And that his men, or he, took them all out. And it mentions by name. Taking them out. David didn't just kill giants, he raised up giant killers. So he put five in because there was Goliath and four more giants back there. He planned on taking them all out. Well, Leon, you don't know that for sure. No I don't, then why didn't he pick up six stones? Three stones? So David begins to move towards him which irritates him because he's lost his star position of leadership and it's crazy how many leaders get intoxicated with power.
And, he begins to curse him and David looks at him and he says to him this. I come against you in the name, of the Lord, of hosts. And I'm taking your head off. And then he, then angels jumped down and shot him forward and lighting came out of the sky, and destroyed his sword. No, I was just making that part up. No. He simply did what he did every day. He threw rocks, and he aimed it at trees. He had a slingshot. Pulls his slingshot out, puts one rock in, runs at goliath, whoo... bam. Straight into his forehead. Down he goes. We can't really see anything miraculous here. But it is supernatural because of his stunning courage. The stunning faith. Words that take on that dream, straight on, and refuses. And he's not going to argue with Goliath. He has a better dream. He doesn't go "No you're not. No. I disagree. I disagree. I disagree. No, no way, no way". No. He listens to him talk, and he just declares his dream. That his God would win.
Nobody had a different dream than Goliath's. And if God wouldn't have raised up a David, then the dream that that giant, evil, weird, Philistine, dominating, controlling, going to get what was good for him, what he wanted. He'd have gotten it. There was no one else speaking a dream. God took Ezekiel, the prophet, into a valley of dry bones. And, this is a very sad sight. It's an army that's dead. The vultures have picked them clean. The bones aren't even touching each other. God says to Ezekiel. Ezekiel, can these bones live? And Ezekiel says, you know, God. You can do anything. Kind of reminds me of the guy with one talent, that buried it and said oh I knew you could do whatever you want so I'm just going to keep it for you. God called him lazy, by the way, and took it away from him, gave it to the guy with ten. And he says Ezekiel, you speak to it. And he even tells him what to say, it was very deep.
So Ezekiel spoke to the bones, and said come together, and the ankle bones and the shin bones and the funny bones and whatever other bones all came together, each in their place. And it was sound like this cacophony of noise, all through this valley, as bones begin to find their spot, and the skeletons came together. And then he said, speak muscles and sinews on the bones. And he did. He spoke out loud, muscles, sinews, come on to those bones. And the muscles and sinews came on to the bones. But there's no life. Now speak life. If you and I, as human beings on this planet, do not speak the dreams, the desires, that God's Word has given us. Then all it is is potential. I like potential. But potential without action, potential without a dream, potential without speaking it, is actually nothing. And so, you must speak. You must prophesy what it is you want. In your future. That's how you pray. You pray by prophesying the Word. The Word says I walk in the protection and the blessing of God. The Word says, that no sickness and no disease, that no evil thing can harm me or hurt me. With long life, He's going to satisfy me. He says my kids are going to know peace and prosperity and blessing. He says, that when I travel, I'm blessed going in and I'm blessed going out. He says.
Now, if you don't speak the Word, then you're accepting somebody else's dream. I wonder who it is. A dream will not come to pass, until it is spoken out loud. The Bible says life and death of a dream are in the power of tongue. The Bible says the words that we speak don't come back void. They accomplish what they are sent forth to do. So when you begin to declare, this is what the Word says, others are inspired. David inspired an Israeli army that were so afraid, they were peeing their pants. They were so afraid, they got mad he had courage. Isn't it interesting when people are angry because someone's got courage just to say, let's build a better life. Let's find a way for all of us to rise up and do something. And people get mad. But when he ran at that giant, something happened in the hearts of tens of thousands of soldiers watching. And as they got reminded, are you a man or a mouse? Are you going to stand up?
And when that teenage boy begin to declare the goodness and the pre-eminence of God, and that He had a covenant with God, and that God would see, and he begin to say it and speak it and do it. An entire army came to life. And, pushed out that enemy. And I've got news for you. I have a dream. You have a dream. And maybe you need to be reminded of it. That dream is beautiful, it's profound. It's kids that laugh and love. Families that prosper and are blessed. Great educations for great careers. A God that we can love and serve and know that when we die, heaven is a reality. We can know Him personally as we walk this planet.
Friendships across the nations and helping those who are marginalized. Reaching out to those, you know, a lot of people think well Leon, the church should just help the down and out. That's not what Jesus said. He said, I pray that you bear fruit and that your fruit drift away. No, that your fruit would remain. The product of your life, a marriage, should grow better. The product of your life, your business, should get better. The product of people coming together to raise up a nation that's not perfect. David was not a perfect man. If you know the whole story of David, you'll find out. But did you know he's called a man after God's own heart? So, messed up, sinful, made a lot of messes. But he had a courage that he just refused to be counted out. He just refused to be silent. And my challenge to you, pray the Word of God. And secondly, from the concourses of your cities and towns, the hallways of your jobs. Where you buy, as people speak. Speak with wisdom, but speak up.
Speak truth. Don't allow yourself to be silenced. To be silenced means that our whole way of life is being challenged. We must speak up, we have, this is a free country. And if you're worried about someone talking about you, if you're worried about someone blogging about you, if you're worried about people, you know, calling you down by the tens of thousands and hundreds, welcome to my life. It hasn't changed anything anyways so I kind of go big deal. Stop being afraid. And let's rise up, and let's share. Let's just share, no, there's two things I'm talking about. Let's continue to share this beautiful Jesus to people who are on their last nerve. Who just need a friend. And let's speak up in the concourses of power as well, and democracy and all the rest. Because ahead of us is going to be the greatest years you've ever seen. The greatest years for the church is still ahead.
Jesus didn't go, that I will build my church and the gates of hell won't prevail against it, just joking. He didn't say go into the world and preach the Gospel, no one will join but have a go. No. He said the light's going to grow brighter and brighter until that perfect day. He said that we would make the enemy our footstool. That we would be able to help bring Jesus to a world who needs a spiritual life before they even figure out their physical life. They need a spiritual relationship before they'll ever figure out their physical relationships. That's where the church of Jesus Christ is. We love people, we care.
And say, I love the fact you're different. I love the fact that when we have a good conversation, there's a little bit of a conflict there, that's where great ideas come from. You and I could have been born to come camel herder 3.000 years ago on the backside of the desert, but here you are today. You're here in the most important time of history. For every generation, God has men and women who will be counted. In the last 2.000 years, from monks laboriously copying the scriptures in caves and on islands as soldiers sought them out to kill and destroy God's Word, they continued. Behind cities, with the enemy all around as they would hide Bibles and the written Word of God because they would burn them when they found them. Men and women stood for righteousness and for Jesus Christ.
In this world where, our great-grandparents fought for the rights that we have. I'm not going to let them just slip away. We're going to speak up. We're going to pray. We're going to get involved. And as we do, you're going to be surprised how little it takes. David didn't have to go well we're going to take a month and go learn how to do spear throwing because I've got to throw against the best spear thrower in the Philistine army. He didn't say, I need to go get a whole bunch of sword lessons because his sword is the length of my entire body. I'm going to have to learn some new sword techniques. No, he just used what was in his hand. A slingshot and a stone. All you need to do, be who you is. Use the mouth God gave you. Speak up with wisdom, with love, value every person. Don't get into anger and treat people like the enemy. Our war is not with flesh and blood. Behind it is something else, so we treat people with wisdom. We treat people with love, which means we value them when they disagree with us. And this is what the church's stance has always been. Let's laugh, let's love. I don't know what you used to do for fun, but maybe crank it back up?
Father, I thank You today for Your presence. I thank You for all of those joining us today here in our auditorium. And around the world. I just pray that we the church, would rise up, valuing the people we're to reach. Strengthening the cities, the countries. Father, I pray that we would not lose our hope because the greatest days are still ahead. It's in uncertain times that You've always shown Yourself even stronger for people who would believe. So Father, we thank You. We thank You for wisdom, and that You're raising up every person here in their own unique individual ways with the gifts and abilities You've given them. And to whom much is given, much is required. Walk with us, guide us and we know You will, as we see our nation and our world through just another crisis, into the clarity of a new day because Jesus is Lord.