Patricia King - A Vital Weapon for Treacherous Times

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Summary

In this heartfelt sermon, the speaker shares how recent challenges, divisions in the church, and political tensions (including elections and debates over Christian nationalism) have overwhelmed leaders, leading to excessive study and intellectual focus. Drawing from Ecclesiastes 12, God reminded her to return to the core of faith: fearing God, keeping His commandments, and remembering that true transformation comes from personal encounters with His love, not endless books or debates. She recounts her own conversion and missionary experiences driven purely by God's love and childlike faith, emphasizing that the church's calling is to love and serve people in dark places, not to control through politics or argue theology. The conclusion urges believers to rediscover authentic love, serve the hurting world with compassion, and trust God for a great harvest through simple, loving obedience amid potentially dark times.

Speaking from the Heart
I have a message prepared that I’ve been working on this week, but I feel right now just to share from my heart, and we might have to pull it offline because I don’t know what’s going to come out right now as I share from my heart. We might not want it just on there for long; we’ll see.

Opening Prayer

Father, I just pray, I just pray that you would help us this morning come to see you in your love in greater ways, Lord God, and your truth in this hour. And, Lord, I ask that you would give me articulation of the things that you’ve been speaking to me about and just the journey, the current journey that we’ve been on, and the emotion in it, and the processing in it, and the words that you’ve been speaking. So we thank you, Lord, for being here. Holy Spirit, you’re our teacher and our guide, and you are here to help us. So I pray that you would speak to each one of us individually not only those of us who are in this room but those who are watching online, that you would speak into their lives and speak into their hearts today something precious, something beautiful, right from your heart to theirs. In Jesus' name, amen.

Challenges in This Season
This last season has been very challenging. I think probably every leader in the body would agree with that. It’s been very, very challenging. There’s been so much eruption and so much going on on different levels, and it seems like opinion—not only public opinion but opinion within the church—has just been running free, let’s put it that way, running free. There’s so much to consider.

And as someone who’s called to serve the body in a fivefold ministry capacity—fivefold ministry just means you are there to serve the body to see them come into the full measure of the stature of Christ according to what God’s put in your heart for them—so that we can all come into the unity of the faith, it’s a servant position, it’s not a position of glamour for sure. Jesus said the greatest in the kingdom is the servant of all.

But as someone called to serve in that way, there have been a number of things in these last few years that have literally broken my heart, that I’ve travailed over in prayer and in many tears when I see blatant unrighteousness being covered up or rebelled against, when I see the body in disunity because of an election, when I see slanderous remarks on social media breaking up the body. It just breaks my heart.

Seeking Perspective
And so in this season, I have needed to be responsible, so not only in prayer but in study of the word, in conversation. It’s really important that we listen not just to one perspective but that we gain perspective. So I’ve tried to be extremely diligent in that, to hear what the Spirit is saying through various people, through various voices, through various perspectives.

And also, I’m not an academic person; I’m not a scholar; I’m a heart person; I’m not a head person. But in this season, I’ve had to do some head work, and it’s really challenging for me, I’ll be honest with you. Some of the books, the writings, and the readings just have so many big words that I have to actually look up the words to understand what’s being written, so I’m just being open and honest with you.

I’ve listened to a lot of theological perspectives, and it’s really interesting because there are a lot of theologians out there, and very few of them agree. So when we’re looking for theological perspective, we want a good perspective, but I’m just saying everyone thinks they’re right in their own mind and their own perspective.

The Danger of Endless Study
And I somehow feel like all of it has pieces in it that come together to present Jesus in the fullness of truth. And so that’s why we need to really be open to one another and to follow the Holy Spirit in those ways and draw really close to Him.

Recently, because of the elections, it has put the body into a tailspin, and it hurts me to see the fragmentation of the body and the division in the body because of an election. I do realize there’s more to it. I do realize that historically we are in a very challenging place.

So I’ve been doing so much study on all the different history of the United States. I know more history of the United States than most Americans do. I’m an immigrant; I’ve only been an American citizen since 2014. But I’ve been forced to do a lot of studying on American history to try to understand what some of the prophetic voices are saying, what some of the theologians are saying, what some of the missiologists are saying, because it’s all been kind of Greek to me, you know?

I’ve had to do some extra study on that. And so I’ve been absorbed in all kinds of study and books and prayer in trying to listen to the Holy Spirit as to where everything happened, you know, how everything’s happening. There’s new terminology like Christian nationalism, which I’m trying to understand the scope of and what the ramifications are for the body of Christ.

And so I’ve said all that to say to you that I’ve been in my head a lot as well as taking these issues to prayer.

God's Word from Ecclesiastes
This morning I was before the Lord, and He spoke to me out of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is an interesting book to review because it’s written from man’s perspective, man’s journey in life, and the conclusions about God and about life that man has come to.

But it says in Ecclesiastes 12, «The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails. They are given by one Shepherd. But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearing to the body. And the conclusion, when all has been heard, is fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person; for God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.»

So the Lord spoke to me through that, and He said, «You know, you can just get so absorbed in everything that’s going on that you forget what’s really important.» And He brought me back to the moment that I was born again.

Remembering My Conversion
I shared a little bit of this already. He brought me back to that moment, and He said, «What turned your life? What turned your life at that time?» And I thought, «It was just one moment with you, Jesus. Just one moment with you changed everything.»

Then He started to show me throughout my life with Him all the real strategic moments that transformed me into a greater understanding of who He was. He said, «Where did you get that from?» And it was always from His presence. It was always from Him speaking to my heart. It was always about Him.

And a lot of the scriptures that people were quoting over me—in fact, all of them—were words that God gave me as a brand new believer, and it just touched me. It was God saying to me personally, «You remember from where you came.»

And the Lord always showed me because I was visited by love. Love is what transformed me the moment that I got born again. I didn’t know anything about the Bible. I’d gone to Sunday school as a little girl, learned about Noah, and David, and Daniel, and different stories, but I didn’t know the Bible.

But that moment, I didn’t know the author of the scriptures. I didn’t know the Spirit of prophecy because Jesus Himself came into me in that moment, and He is love. And He will always be love; He will never not be love. He is always love, and that love transformed me.

Compelled by Love to Share
Right hours after I was born again, because I got born again around midnight, that next morning I was already knocking on doors in my neighborhood—not because I had taken an evangelism course, and not because I understood the scripture enough to say anything to anyone. I didn’t even know anything.

I just knew one thing: that Jesus loved me and forgave me of all my sin, and He could do it for anyone if He could do it for me. I remember knocking on the door of my neighbor at six o’clock in the morning. I was getting ready for work; I saw his light on. I went, knocked on the door, and he said, «Are you okay?»

I said, «Yeah, last night, Jesus came into my heart, and He forgave me of all my sin, and I know He can do it for you too.» He looked at me so strangely; he said, «Are you okay? Like, have you gone crazy?» I said, «No, I was crazy, but now I’m not crazy.» It all made sense to me, but not to him.

Rumor went around the whole neighborhood that I’d gone off my rocker. I could have cared less because I was absolutely in love with everything. I didn’t care about people’s opinions; I didn’t care about anything. I was just smitten—I was smitten by love itself.

Sharing with New Age Friends
And I couldn’t stop going and telling people. That very afternoon, I went to my friends in the New Age, sat them all down, and I said, «You don’t have to study the New Age anymore; you don’t have to study any of this stuff; you don’t have to be involved in any of it because I got the answer for you. The one you are searching for is Jesus.»

I was preaching to all my teachers and everything in the New Age; they were all sitting there looking stunned at me. I said, «He forgave me my sin last night; He can forgive yours.» They said, «Well, we didn’t think He even had any sin to be forgiven.» I said, «I did, but He can forgive yours.»

They said, «Oh…» and they struggled so badly with what I shared, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care that they didn’t understand and that they were upset with me; I just wanted to love them more. I just kept loving and loving and loving and loving, even though they disagreed because when you are loved, you can love others really well.

You don’t care if they’re in disagreement with you.

A Journey Guided by Love
And the Lord spoke to me and showed me over the last 24 hours; He took me on a journey throughout my life and showed me all the ways He led me. Everything He led me to do was in love.

I remember going out on the streets—we would go out from morning to night just trying to help people and show them how good God was. We would feed the poor; we went out on missions to the poorest of the poor. We’d go up into the far north and minister to those who had never heard the gospel because we were compelled by love.

There was no money involved; there was no prestige involved; there was nothing like that. No one even knew what we were doing back in those days, and I didn’t even care. I cared about one thing: Jesus loves me, this I know, and I know He can love you too, and let’s get this message out there for all to hear. And I just was compelled and compelled and compelled.

Mission in the Inner City
Then we finally went to a Bible school, and it was actually a discipleship training school for missions. It just about killed me, but I made it through. They didn’t have the same revelation of love as I had, so it was an interesting journey, but it was good for me. When we came out of that place, it was just like love remained.

As hard as it was, as challenging as it was, love remained. I remember, we lived right in the inner city amongst the prostitutes, the drug addicts, the pimps, you know, and I loved every minute of it because every day we shared the same bathroom with them, open showers, everything.

You just do what you have to do to share the love of Jesus Christ. We labored there month after month after month with absolutely no salvations, and finally, before we finished our mission there, there was a big ingathering of souls that just happened spontaneously.

I remember saying to God just before then, I said, «God, we gave up everything to come here. We gave up everything; we put everything out; we sacrificed everything. We brought our children over here; we just laid our lives down for you, and, you know, we’ve been preaching the gospel every day, we’ve been loving on people.»

God's Response in Mission
We started up a childcare in the inner city because the prostitutes were leaving their children alone all day and all night, so we just started something to look after them, and we did all kinds of things like that. We were out on the streets until after midnight; we started up coffee houses and little places where we could rescue prostitutes from their pimps—day after day, night after night.

And I remember saying after we’d been there for about three months, I said, «God, we gave up everything for you, and not one person has given their life to the Lord. They don’t even want you; this is a waste of time! What are we doing here?» He said, «Hmm.» He said, «I didn’t call you here to save people.»

I said, «You didn’t? You didn’t call us here to save people? Well, what did we give our lives up for then? We gave up our careers; we gave up our money; we gave up everything.» He didn’t call us here to save souls. «What are we doing?» He said, «I just called you to preach the gospel; I’ll save the souls.»

And it was like this huge light entered my heart, and I thought, «Oh God, oh God, it is all about you, and it’s all about your power, and it’s your miracle work. All we have to do is go love and go serve.»

Love Tested and Proven
Over the years, our love was tested and tested and tested over and over again, and it was beautiful being able to love those who couldn’t love you back, being able to give to those who couldn’t give back. No one knew what we were doing; it was all in the background.

No one knew us from Adam; it was just a delight to serve the Lord in hiddenness and truly love with an authentic heart because we had been truly loved by an authentic God.

And He said, «I don’t ever want you to forget from where you came. Every sacrifice you made was because of love. Every time you would give up everything to go out on the mission field, it was because of love.»

He said, «Not only did you do everything because of love, you did everything in childlike faith.» And He said, «And I don’t want you to lose sight of that. I don’t want you to get so involved right now with everything that’s happening on some political scale or whatever and lose the very heart of what you’ve been called to.»

Remember Who You Are
He said, «Everyone’s so concerned about all this stuff. Do you not know that I am God, and I’m greater than everything that’s going on right now—all the differences, all the disunity? I’m greater than it all, and if you will just go out and love…»

We had a situation happen this week—actually, in the last couple of weeks within the ministry. I won’t go into detail right now, but it involves something that could be a legal issue because of the way that we need to honor everyone. Okay, that’s the code: to honor everyone.

And so it raises some challenges for the church, it does. We were reviewing that; we were having meetings with attorneys and everything to ask about the legalities of it all. I just felt the Lord say, «I want you to remember—I want you to remember when I would send you into areas like, you know, Thailand, for example, when we gave our lives for rescuing young girls and children from sex trafficking, and we became friends with the transgender community because we felt so much love for them and so much compassion for them.»

He said, «You weren’t thinking about legalities; you were just thinking about what my gospel could do to transform them and how you could love them and how you did love them. Are you going to exchange that for some legal code? What would you be willing to lay down for me if I had you love someone and the world arrested you and threw you into prison? What would you do?»

Living Among the People
And I thought, «Well, just what we’ve always done, I guess—just love everyone in the prison then.» And He said, «That’s what I want you to remember. I want you to remember who you are. I want you to remember who you are.»

We’d go into dark places, New Age fairs, and inner cities, living amongst them; that’s what Jesus said. He left heaven to live amongst us, not to condemn us but to save us. And He’s still living amongst us; He’s still living amongst us.

But He lives amongst us within us, and we have to show the world His love, and we have to speak the truth in love because that’s what’s going to rescue people. We have to be strong, but if we abandon love and if we abandon childlike faith, we have to lay hold of childlike faith in the midst of all the theological, intellectual discussions, which, you know, is great if you’re called to that.

But the Lord said, «That’s not who I made you. I made you to walk amongst the people; I made you to serve the people; I made you to look at the hearts of people and bring them to me.»

Yes, there might be some call to an intellectual platform, and I’m not demeaning that; I think it’s probably very important; I’m just not familiar with that. But He says, «Don’t forget who I’ve made you to be.»

Remember Your Own Encounter
And that’s why I said you have to remember how you came to the Lord. Each and every one of you has to remember how you came to the Lord; you have to remember how God touched you in your darkest hours. How did He touch you? Because that’s who you are in Him.

That’s what you carry; that is what is authentic—not what you learn in your head or not what some politician tells you or whatever. It has to be that face-to-face with Jesus; it has to be that reviewing of His heart.

Because God wants to do something so great, we could very easily be living in the end times. I’m not saying we are, but I’m saying we could very easily be—the way things are going right now, the way things are headed, even on decisions being made in governments on a world scale, not just in America, but on a world scale, it could very possibly be one of the darkest hours coming that mankind has ever lived in.

But what does that mean to us? What does that mean to us? That means great opportunity; that’s what that means to us.

Great Opportunity in Darkness
And that’s what the Lord spoke to me: «You’ve been so caught up.» I remember years ago we were just always thinking about the laws; we were always on the street, always helping the poor; we were overseas doing missions. I said, «For the last few years, have you been doing that?» «I have not.»

«I said we’re so wrapped up in theologies and politics and everything else.» He said, «You’re forgetting what’s important.» And I’m not saying if you’re carrying something in the Lord for those realms, I’m not saying that’s wrong; I’m just saying why God spoke to me personally.

«There’s a whole world out there,» He said, «that’s more confused now than they’ve ever been, and if my church isn’t careful, you will make them even more confused. But you know what will unconfuse them? Just one encounter with God. That’s what will unconfuse me, and one encounter—that’s probably what unconfused you.»

That one encounter—you have to remember from where you came because we have a great big assignment right now, and it’s not to bash each other and be hateful towards each other and angry towards each other, getting, you know, all of our political and theological biases out there to make sure that we’re heard.

We’re wasting time in a way because there’s a whole world that’s hurting and confused that needs us to just go love them.

Serving in Tijuana
And you know what? Right now, the world might not listen to us very well if we just get out there and preach from a pulpit the gospel because we haven’t behaved very well lately, and they’re watching; they’re watching.

But if we go and serve them and love them in their place of need—which is what we’ve always done…I remember when we went to Tijuana years ago; it was one of my favorite mission fields ever. We were there for three and a half years, and we just lived amongst the poor and the colonias.

We met their needs; we built houses for them; we fed them; we clothed them; we built medical clinics, orphanages, and we just loved on them. And the gospel spread like wildfire. There wasn’t a day when we didn’t see miracles.

You know why? Because we needed them. The poor need miracles; they can’t obtain anything from it for themselves any other way. And so we saw the Lord heal; we saw the Lord deliver; we saw the Lord provide supernaturally. We had so many supernatural encounters, and it was just with childlike faith because we said, «Jesus, you love the whole wide world, and so we’ll just go love them like you.»

Miracles Through Simple Faith
And that simple faith, that simple childlike love faith transformed all the regions that we ministered to in Tijuana. In fact, it was noted; it was actually on national television in Canada and in the U.S.—they did programs on it at the time because such transformation had taken place.

But it was just a whole group of people; we didn’t have Bible school training; we didn’t have degrees; we didn’t have anything but just the love of Jesus. In fact, I took eight people with me to start that group, and they were all between the ages of 18 and 22. I was 30 or thereabouts.

We didn’t have any money; I just told them, «I said, ‘Hey, you want an adventure of faith? I’ve got no money to pay you; I don’t even have any for myself. But if we say yes to God, I know that He’ll provide.’»

And they all said, «Yes, let’s do it! We believe for a vehicle,» because we didn’t even have a vehicle to go down in to hold that many people. I said, «You can all bring one suitcase with your clothes, and we had one box of kitchen supplies and one box of office supplies.» And away we went! We were so excited; it was a beautiful story.

Giving Everything Away
That whole thing is just amazing; that whole story. But when we got down there, we felt the Lord say, «Give away all your clothes,» because there are people that don’t have clothes here. And we didn’t have very many because we only had one suitcase left, so we kept the clothes that we were wearing and one other garment and gave everything else away.

It was a happy day. It was like, «Yay! We did it! We just gave it all!» And then He said, «I want you to give away your food.» So we gave away our food, and we kept just a meal.

And we watched God year after year when we were down there provide everything that we needed. We had so many clothes to give away that we had to get warehouses in San Diego to hold the overflow because we couldn’t give it away fast enough.

We had medical supplies that we couldn’t give away fast enough; we had food, clothing, everything that we couldn’t give away fast enough. We spent 24/7 trying to give food away, even to all the different ministries that we worked with in Mexico, and we still couldn’t give it away fast enough; we still had overflow. This is supernatural!

Harvest Through Love
But what produced that great harvest? We went into the prisons; we went into the jails; we went into the colonias; we went everywhere. We went into the areas where there’s prostitution and gangs and all of that. We loved every single bit of it, and every single day we had a harvest.

And every single day we had miracles, every single day. Because at dinner time, we would share all the testimonies from all the teams that went out every day. And every day we had miracles. There was not a day when people weren’t saved, and I’m not just talking about one or two—every single day.

And what produced it was not sitting around trying to figure out some theological position. And again, I believe it’s important to have good theology; I’m just saying everyone thinks their theology is good, so it takes a little bit of wrestling to figure it all out.

But you know, we could spend our whole life in books; we could spend our whole life in theological discussions and forget the most important thing of all: spreading His love and shining as lights for Him.

Returning to Basics
I was rejoicing the other day as I was praying; I said, «God, You’ve been so good to me since I was born again.» You know, it says that we can pray, «Lead us not into temptation.» I’ve been so blessed not to be ensnared and tempted by a lot of things that other people do get ensnared with. I’ve been kept, and I’m so grateful!

I’m so grateful to the Lord, and I believe that we need to trust Him for that kind of testimony—that, Lord, Your keeping power in my life is so beautiful. You keep me pure; You keep me holy.

Because it’s not a testimony to live ugly in the Lord, right? I mean, if we’ve been delivered from sin, why would we want to live in it? Right? So we want to want His miracle power to keep us clean and beautiful in Him.

But I believe that we’re in a day of confrontation by the Spirit right now, and I believe He’s just saying we need to hear His heart; we need to know Him again. We need to remember what it was that transformed us and then have a plan to go and serve, serve and love.

The True Advance of the Kingdom
We’re not going to win the battle by controlling the power in any nation, especially by political power; that’s not what’s going to advance the kingdom. Even though it’s good to have good laws and to contend for good values in the nation, I cheer that on. I say, «Do it! We all need to do that!»

But that’s not what is going to bring the great harvest. The great harvest is when we serve—not control from above, but serve from underneath and reach out and touch real people.

I was a real person 45 years ago that needed the Lord, and He saw a real person and touched a real person’s heart. And there are real persons around you that need the love of God.

There are real people that are going to go to hell without Jesus, and some of them—maybe the reason they don’t have Him is because they’ve never heard. And yet we might be living right next door to them, or they might be sitting across the desk in the workplace.

Love in the Workplace
It might not be the preaching of the gospel by words, but the preaching of the gospel by love that will win them. I remember after I got born again, I was working in a biomedical laboratory, and I took the job because I needed a day job, and my nursing job was on shift, so I just took it for a few months while we were building a house.

I was a brand new Christian, and little did I know that there were other Christians working in there that I actually got discipled by during lunch hours; that was kind of cool.

But I remember so vividly just sharing the testimony; I was so bubbling over with the testimony of the Lord. I couldn’t keep quiet; I was leading people to the Lord as I had a needle in their arm, extracting blood from them. I was leading them to the Lord.

I remember one time trying to extract blood out of a heroin addict, and it’s hard to find their veins, and they don’t tell you where their veins are because they’re saving them for themselves; I’m almost breaking needles on them, and I’m sharing the gospel with them.

All of a sudden, they burst into tears because they’ve been touched by God and get born again with a needle breaking in their heart and vein. That’s just too good! And they weren’t won because of some theological discussion; they were won because the love of Jesus touched them right where they were.

Call to Love Well
I just want to encourage you: you all have His love in you, and we need to know how to love really, really well right now. We need to know what love looks like right now.

We need to get back to basics and love each other well and love the world around us well and spread His joy. We’re in for some very challenging times, but there’s nothing too hard for the Lord.

We sang about that today; there’s just nothing too difficult. He’s a miracle-working God; He’ll part the Red Sea for us. But it’s going to look different than what we might think.

When we were living in inner cities over the years, there was still all kinds of darkness and all kinds of stuff—bad stuff going on. But in the middle of it, God’s making a way for us to spread light here, light here, light there, right there. Before we know it, it’s just spreading, and everything’s changing.

But it didn’t come from the top down; it came from just being on the ground.

Light in the Darkness
When we went into do prophetic evangelism years ago in Vancouver, we were living in a slum hotel and walking the streets. You know, the first couple of days, the people on the street knew that we were straight, and they knew that we weren’t like them, and so they were resisting us.

They were doing some cruel things, but we just kept loving and loving and loving. We just kept doing loving actions, and before long, all the streets knew who we were. Everyone on the street knew who we were, and they loved us.

They were coming to us for help; they wanted prophetic words; they wanted a touch from God. It’s just because it’s the way light works, but you have to be there; you have to be—our light belongs in the darkness, and you have to be there in order to spread that light.

If we just stay in a place that’s already full of light, like inside the church—although we could probably use some light in the church—but if we just stay in a place that’s already got light, how are we going to bring light into the darkness?

We need to look for places where we can go—some of the darkest places on the face of the earth; that’s where we need to be, and that’s where we’ll be the most effective.

Needs in Our Nation
Right now, our own nation here in America is very dark, and there are people dying around us. There are people in nursing homes that are dying. There are all kinds of needs out there, families with needs.

We have a body here that we can comfort each other, but there are people out there that they don’t have anyone to comfort them when they mourn. We do have those who can comfort us when we mourn, but many of them don’t, and they’re confused and hurt and fearful. We need to be there for them.

So my time’s up, and I guess Isaiah 61 says, «The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the afflicted, to bind up the brokenhearted, to set captives free.» That’s what we’re made for.

Closing Prayer

And so, Father, in the name of Jesus, I just pray that even this week You would help us come into a realization, Lord God, of where we need to be in this next season, of how we need to walk, of how we need to live. And, Lord, that we would cheer each other on, whether we feel that we’re to be in, you know, inside the midst of scholarly institutions or inside of the church teaching theology or on the streets—wherever You’re calling us—that we would just be there in love and that we would just love You by loving those whom You love.

And so, Lord, we just celebrate Your love that is in Your body right now; we celebrate the calls on each one’s heart and lives, and we ask, Lord God, that You would deepen the call within us, Lord, and that we would remember You, that we would remember the greatest commission of all, the greatest calling of all, the greatest goal of all for Your people is to love, and whatever that looks like and wherever that is, that we would be known for our love. And so let us be immersed afresh in Your love, Lord; baptize us afresh in love and in childlike sweet faith. In Jesus' name, amen.