Leon Fontaine - Teach Your Heart to Dream
Today, I want to teach you how to dream. I want to teach you how to dream. It's not everybody has a dream. It's, I want to teach how to dream. Because there's very specific things that we need to be aware of if we're going to dream. How many know that people have dreams for others? The devil's got a dream for you. He wants to kill everything in your life. He wants to steal any blessing, increase and favor that you might want. He wants to destroy everything that you built. He wants to destroy your marriage, your finances, your health. He wants to steal. He wants to do anything in his power to make the kingdom of God just look weak, inefficient. He has a dream.
Leon, you can't call that a dream. Yeah, well, call it, what you're going to call it? He's got a dream. And so I want to look at a couple of stories in the Bible today, and I want you to look at them differently with me. So that, stories and parables have meant, often have a greater impact in your life than just teaching. Because the language of your heart is pictures. The language of your heart is dreams. It's visions. It's envisioning things. Holy Spirit says He'll show you things to come. He takes His word and He helps you to see what is ahead. Goliath had a dream. Do you know what Goliath's dream was? We're going to kill all you guys, going to take your wives, going to kill kids, going to take your kingdom, going to take your cities, going to make you all bow down to us.
How many know that's an evil dream? He had a dream to enslave. He had a dream to control. He had a dream to destroy. He had a dream to steal. He had a dream to make himself the biggest, the best. He was arrogant. He, everything that you don't want was in this man Goliath but it was coming from the Philistines that entire culture. And so the story goes that the Philistines would gather along this hill looking down at a valley. And they were coming to attack God's people. The Israeli army has attacked, is standing as well along the hills on the other side facing each other. And each day for forty days, for forty days their expert would walk into the center ring where everybody could see him. And he would begin to declare his dream to the Israelis. "Send someone to fight me. Whoever wins will be your slaves. Send them down here". And then he'd say things like, "What are you doing all lined up for battle? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Who you"? He did this for an entire week.
Then for another week. Then for another week. Then for another week. Then for another week and another week. Day after day, more than once a day, he would walk in the center stage and blah, blah, blah, blah blah, blah, blah. He's the expert. He is the toughest. He is the one that's going to swing everything. And the problem with God's people was they listened. Like how many big mouths you're going to listen to in your life? How long you're going to listen to somebody that says, "You, going to kill you. You, going to steal your wife. You, I'm going to make your kids my slaves. You, I'm going to take your stuff". I mean, you just stand there day after day. And let him say that multiple times to you. How big a fool am I? Just standing there, "Oh". And then I'm going to repeat it to somebody. He's going to take my wife. He's going to kill me. He's going to take my stuff. We're all going to be serving them. We're going to be bowing down to their God. Did you hear him?
You see, it wasn't Goliath's sword that was so wicked. It wasn't Goliath's power that was so incredible. The guy was over 9 feet tall, and his spear just the tip weighed 20 pounds. To give you kind of a little reference, when I was training for the Olympics, a lot of my friends who did shot put. It was a 16 pound shot put. This massive ball. They get it up under their chin and they'd twirl around and they'd kind of blob it. And we'd measure it and see, you know, who's got the further shot put. Well, the tip of his spear was five pounds heavier than that and he could throw it in battle. But it wasn't the fact that his spear was as thick as a weaver's beam. It wasn't the fact that a guy that big, with a chest that wide, of lungs that well-developed, must to had this horribly low menacing voice. Send the man to fight me. And it wasn't that he had a guy who carried his shield in front of him. It wasn't that the Philistines were a, really wicked group of people.
Do you want to know what was going on here? It was words. So Goliath would get up every day and declare his dream and nobody talked back. Nobody spoke back. His words begin to penetrate hearts. His words day after day begin to create movies in each of these men's heads and hearts. They would talk about Goliath's dream back and forth in the hills by the thousands. They would have nightmares when they went to their tent at night and they'd have to, you know, kind of quelled down some of the poor young guys who were in their teens, who were shuttering waiting to be killed. Fear permeated that army. Knees were knocking and they just kept talking day after day. King! Well, he didn't know what to do. He was a leader with no lead. He was a leader with no presence of God to lead. The Bible says the presence of God left him. The wisdom of God left him, strength left him.
See, when you lose your lead, when you don't have a dream for a country, when you don't have a dream to build something. You're on your heels. You're on defense. Then when you get in fear, you keep trying to solve problems that are never going to end because you took the wrong fork in the road. Until a shepherd boy is just delivering food. And he comes down and he happens to be walking through, and he's there just as Goliath walks into center stage where all his army can see him and again where all God's people can see him. And he gets up and say, like, I don't know about you, but I would go, I have a hard time preaching the same message three times Sunday morning. I get bored with myself. How did he say this all day, every day for 40 days the same thing? Because that's how the devil works.
Devil doesn't have to speak a lick of truth. Devil doesn't even have to have anything wise about it. But if you keep saying it, it begins to penetrate the hearts of those listening. As it penetrates the hearts of those listening, they begin to have phobias. Which is fears that have no ground. Now, lots of times fear will attach itself to something that has potential. Yes, Goliath and the Philistines could kill them. But when you really think this through, doesn't God part waters? Doesn't God take out armies? Doesn't, didn't God take out the entire Egyptian army? When you look at what God did for them, you're thinking like, "Really? Are you look, what's with you"? So this young man David. Now, here's some interesting things about this story that we often miss. He hadn't been listening to this. David hadn't been listening. Forty days of not listening. Everyone else forty days of listening. He walks out and he goes, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine"?
You know, a guy's upset when he starts swearing about private parts. And they said, "Oh, well, you know. I mean, this guy is, he says he". And then everybody starts telling David. "Oh, he's going to kill us. He's going to do". What is, anybody going to shut him up? No. When everyone silent, which is cowardice. When everyone silent, which is cowardice. Cowardice spreads. The evil dreams survive and they thrive and they multiply. So the king hasn't heard a positive thing in forty days. So he says, "Who's saying that"? Well, we got this, well, he's just a teenager, o king. "Well, I want to hear him". So he brings him. And he talks different. How important is talking? Talk is cheap. I don't think so. I think talk is rich and talk is beautiful. And I think talk is crucial. And I think talk is how you share the dream. And I think talk is how you spread the dream. And I think talk is how you begin to rise up people. I think talking is biblically crucial.
You see, any dream that you have must move from the dream and you must prophesy it. See, there's two kinds of prophecy. There's prophetic words of God in the Bible that can never be changed. These are the time tables of the planet. How the planet will live. How, you know, the future, the things that God has said. This will happen. But then prophecy is something that you do every day. And prophecy is what you declare over your life. And if you don't prophesy over your life. If you don't declare, which is praying God's Word out loud. If you don't declare, and then in conversation with people every day backed that up with what you say. If you do not do this with your words, then you will accept somebody else's dream.
I just have a question for you. Do you know how to dream? Because according to the Word of God, the dream that you should have, should be based upon the promises Jesus died for. And you should never let a promise go, that He gave His life for you to have. So He died so that you could have truth and it would set you free. He died so that you could have the ability to prosper and to be blessed. He died so that you could be forgiven and have a good conscience. He died so that you could know joy, a joy unspeakable and full of glory. He died so that you could have peace. His peace and get up. And this word peace means a blessing and a prosperity amongst your kids, your family, your generations. He says that your family should be blessed to the thousandth generation.
So what should the dream be? Well, He goes on to say in another place. It's going to be exceedingly, abundantly, beyond whatever you can ask or think because you're asking too small. You need to think bigger. Every time God does a miracle in the Bible, He had to go have a chat with somebody to get them to think bigger. Prophesy to Canada in your prayer closet. And just say, "Hey, Canada's got amazing leaders. Canada serves Jesus. Canada has truth. Canada is not being censored. Canada is going to rise up with common sense. Canada is going to rise up with wisdom". But Leon, that's not happening. No kidding. It wasn't happening for the Israeli soldiers lined up on the hills because they just kept standing there letting this giant yak. He never even had to use his spear. He never even had to use his sword. He didn't have to say attack. He just stood there and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Till finally, someone begin to talk.
Now, it makes him angry. He's at the stage for forty days. What you did? You're disagreeing with me boy? David gets up and he starts walking towards him. And the giant looks at him and says, "Who you send in to fight me? Who you"? And the church begins to speak. They'll always be a friend. Who you? Be quiet. Who you? Shut up. We're going to harass you on Facebook. We're going to harass your business on it. Who you? David hadn't been listening. So he didn't have to deal of all the fear. Then as he approached him, he gets even angrier. Now he starts cursing David with his Gods. God symbolized their strength. When people start saying things. Where are they speaking from? Political strength, medical strength, health care strength, educational strength , expertise, degrees. What is it that we're listening to them for?
So David just speaks back. You come against the God. The most high God. And so I'm taking you out, then take off your head. What? And he just runs at him. He didn't do anything great. He's been throwing that sling every day. That sling. He did around and around. He's been doing it with rocks. He's been doing practice of it. If I know any young teenagers. If I buy them any toys like pellet guns or sling shots or 22's or rifles. Do you know what they do with them? They're using them every day. They're shooting targets and bottles and skeet shooting and anything they can do. So I guarantee you that he's got that sling out there. And he's whipping it away at birds and he's whipping it out there at whatever he can. And all he does is use it one more time on a giant. He just uses what is in his hands. He just says what he's always been saying. He didn't do anything so fantastically. He didn't float through the air. He didn't call down lightning shazam. He just used what was in his hand, a sling.
Did you know that God uses what He gave you? He gave Moses a staff. He gave Esther her beauty, her presence, her wisdom. He gave Moses disability. Whatever He's given you, He just expects you to use it. And when you use it, His supernatural is attached to your natural. And it might not even look any different. In the story of David and Goliath, it doesn't say that a wind made the rock go faster. It didn't say he was way off but oh, it curb. God curb the rock. No! It just, just tells a story. I want to remind everybody today. That you need to have a dream, and you need to prophesy that dream. You need to speak it out. And besides speaking it in your prayer closet. You need to speak it in the coffee shops, in the streets. You need to be the mouth of the wisdom. Wisdom cries aloud in the streets. You need to speak with a spirit contemporary ability. Don't be embarrassed.
You know, people are so embarrassed that they're Christians. Who do you think built the country? Where do you think we got our laws? Which religion do you think we got our laws from? It's not Sharia Law. It's not Hindu Law. It's, no. Where is it? It's a Judeo-Christian. And why they come here? Freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of action, freedom to raise your kids, freedom to own property, freedom to have a bank account that can't be touch, freedom to make your own decisions. Yeah. Well, you know, I was just thinking that maybe we should rethink that because, you know, the group's more important than the individual. Now the best thing that a group has is individual rights. And when you begin to move away from individual rights to group rights, you begin to move towards socialism, Marxism, communism. Leon, you're getting... no, I'm just preaching Bible. I'm just teaching Bible today and we need to hear it.
God needs you. He believes in you. He's placed you here for such a time as this. You could have been born 2000 years ago to a camel herder on the backside of the desert. You could have been born in the 50s, the 40s. You could have been born in the 20s to 30s. You're born in the greatest harvest history we'll ever see. You are born in a time when more miracles are going to take place than we have ever seen before. How do we know? Because when his people begin to pray, God shows up. Some will say, "God shows up where there's a need". No, the Bible doesn't say that. The Bible says God shows up where His people pray. Where people believe. Where His people speak to mountains. Where His people prophesy to dry bones. Where His people prophesy to the wind. Where His people get up and declare and let their will matched with the will of God begin to come out of their mouth.
So that all the Goliaths that are speaking, and they might not even know who they are, or what's going on. That we don't accept that dream. We speak the dream of God's Word. We speak the dream for families and the things we've been sharing. So if you've been silent, I want you to everyday get up and just declare things. The Bible says about you. That if your enemy throws a net to capture you, he falls in his own net. The Bible says if someone pulls a sword on you, it enters their own heart. Someone says if it's not just an arrow to shoot at you, it comes and hits them. The Bible says if your enemy comes at you one way, he runs before you seven ways. There, I just gave you four or five verses, right?
Now, you get up and declare. He's not going to take out your finances, your career, your family, your health. Get up and speak God's Word. Because a dream is just a potential until someone begins to speak it. Then it says life and death are in the power of the tongue. Then it says that the words that you speak are containers for life. The words that you speak they do powerful things. As a church across this nation, we need to share our dream. And it's got to be a freedom for all. Which means freedom for other religions, freedom for other beliefs. It can't just be, "Oh, we're going to make a Christian country". No, you can't. That's heaven. Down here He's made every individual in His likeness and image with the power to make their own decisions, with the power to live the life they want. Every decision they make has blessings or consequences, but it's their right to make these decisions. But we need a country that serves God. And if you look through the Bible, one man would change an entire course of a country. One woman would change the entire course of a country.
So let's, let's get excited. Could you get back to dancing a little bit? You know, you don't laugh much anymore. And your kids are looking at you. And you think everything's cool. But you know what, your kids don't see you laugh. Your kids don't see you play. You haven't tackled them and put grass stains from their knees to their nose anymore. You haven't got down and played Barbies with them and giggled and laughed. You haven't gotten together and done things. Let's get back to laughter because the Bible says my people should rejoice! Get up and be happy. Get up and dance in the mouth of the dragon. He'll prepare a table before you in the very presence of your enemies. He'll take you to the valley of the shadow of death. Look at all the partying and the stuff that the Israelis and the Jews did.
Man, it was always because in the middle of a battle God would see them through. They got up and danced around those fires. They got up and rejoiced about their God. They got up and declared life is great and God is good. And we're going to, because there's something about faith that is released when we praise Him, when we rejoice, when we smile. First thing in the morning get up and smile and say, "Hey, God made today. Today the Lord's made. I'm going to rejoice. I'm going to be glad in it". You should say that before you start echoing every Goliath's words. Get up and declare the blessing and the favor of God on my day. Before you listen to all the non-experts telling all the stuff they think's going to happen. Have a dream. Have a dream. Speak it. Let it be contagious. And I'm telling you, people out there who don't know what to think, who are scared and are pounded with fear. They need a somebody who knows how to wear the armor of Jesus Christ. That has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, who gets up and can declare, "Hey, we're going to go through it".