Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:07):
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SPEAKER_00 (00:13):
To 2 Kings chapter
7.
It is a story that has alwaysbeen encouraging to me over the
years and every time that I haveread it.
It is an incident where thereare lepers and they are starving
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to death because Samaria isunder siege by the Syrians.
And they're starting to devourone another.
They're starting to eat oneanother.
There's no hope.
They don't know what they'regoing to do.
Many of you today, you may feellike you're under siege.
How many times has that happenedto us?
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You feel enclosed, you don'tknow what's going to happen, you
feel so confined, you feel sorestricted, and you're thinking,
I need help.
This particular story that I'mgoing to read and to share with
you today, I believe it's goingto give you courage to live your
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God-given dream.
Every believer, when you areborn again, when you know the
Lord, there are dreams andvisions inside of you of things
that you feel that you wouldlike to do in the kingdom of
God.
Maybe there's things that Godspoke to you that He would like
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you to do.
So I'm going to build your faithtoday.
I'm going to help you.
And I'm going to give youcourage.
Do not give up.
We pick up our story, and wefind the four men are having a
discussion.
They are lepers.
They are outside the gate.
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And the Bible says in Kingschapter 7, verse 3, there were
four leprous men at the enteringin of the gate, and they said to
one another, Why set we hereuntil we die?
If you're looking for something,and you're believing God that
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He's going to do for you whatyou'd like to have Him to do,
and you're just sitting there,nothing happens.
I have found that whether I'msetting up to do live streaming,
whether over the years, tentministry, radio, television,
foreign fields, traveling invarious churches and various
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countries around the world, youknow what I have found that
everything had in common?
I had to get up and do somethingabout it.
I couldn't just sit there anddream about it.
I had to start putting feet tomy vision.
And that required faith.
And you might say, oh, Don,you've got something that I
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don't have.
I'm going to tell you, we've allgot faith.
And that is the ingredient ofaction that's going to make the
difference.
You can imagine lepers who areshunned by society, and they're
thinking we are going to changeour situation, and we're not
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going to sit here until we die.
When we come to the Lord, wehave a spiritual capacity within
side of us that is huge.
And it should always be biggerthan our natural intellect.
We're always learning.
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There are people who want tolearn about how to raise
tomatoes.
They want to know how to go intobusiness.
They want to know how to becomebillionaires.
And that is wonderful, all ofthose dreams, but we have the
capacity to walk in the realm ofthe spirit that supersedes all
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natural limitations.
You have to have courage to dosomething between who you are on
the inside and what you want toexpress on the outward.
That takes courage.
You can let people intimidateyou.
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You can so choose, listen topeople who tell you that you
will never be able to do it,that it doesn't happen, that
it's all a myth.
You can listen to that kind oftalk, but not if you're going to
arise and go forth.
And I'm not going to set until Idie, I'm going to do something
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about it.
Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20.
Now on to him that is able to doexceeding abundantly above all
that we ask or think, accordingto the power that works within
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us.
That's for us.
And these lepers are sittingoutside the city at the gate,
and they said, Why are we goingto sit here until we die?
It's not going to get usanything.
We're going to have to dosomething about it.
And I like the decision thatthey made.
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We go to verse 4 of 2 Kingschapter 7.
If we say, now listen to that,isn't that a key?
That's how faith works.
That's Old Testament historicalaccount.
But in here is mighty impartinglife principles.
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If we say, let's see, these arethe lepers, if we say we will
enter into the city, then thefamine is in the city and we
shall die there.
So that's not going to be thedirection.
If we get still here, we diealso.
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Now therefore, come and let usfall onto the host of the
Syrians.
If they save us alive, we shalllive, and if they kill us, we
shall but die.
We might say they had nothing tolose.
When everything is against youand you feel besieged and there
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is no hope, I'm talking aboutyou as a believer, someone that
the word of God is alive in.
Don't sit still.
Get up and go.
Jesus said in Luke 8.22, he saidto his disciples, let's go over
to the other side.
There's something waiting for usthere.
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And there was something waitingfor these four leprous men.
And there's something waitingfor you when you're moving God.
You've got to be hungry.
You ever read that passage whereit says, Blessed are they that
hunger and thirst afterrighteousness, for they shall be
filled?
You've got to be hungry to getup and go.
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You've got to be hungry to gobeyond the confinement that
you're finding yourself in.
So what's the big thing aboutbeing hungry?
When you are hungry, you willmake every effort to obtain that
which you are lacking.
When the Lord speaks to me aboutsomething and I begin to seek
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God, and I don't know how I'mgoing to accomplish that which
He wants me to do.
Many times.
Yes, there are lots of thingsthat God will ask us to do that
we have done many times, but youwill find that if you are a
believer and you always moveforward in what God wants you to
do, you're going to find thatGod is going to start bringing
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you into new areas and into newthings because He knows that you
are the kind of person that'snot going to sit still.
And when you're hungry, you'regoing to make every effort to
obtain.
And I have found that when Godspeaks to me, and I don't have
the means and the natural toobtain it, I start speaking it.
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I pray about it.
I look at scriptures.
I meditate upon it, and God willmake a way for me.
I'm going to be able to keepmoving forth.
In 2 Kings chapter 7, verse 5,here is what they did, and
here's what you have to do.
When you require victory, whenyou require healing, whatever it
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is, here's what you have to do.
They arose up in the twilight togo onto the camp of the Syrians,
and when they were come to theuttermost part of the camp of
Syria, behold, there was no manthere.
This was a huge, mighty army.
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The evening meal was stillcooking in the pots.
They were so frightened theytook off and they got rid of all
the extra cumbersome things,swords and armor, whatever it
was, and they were running fortheir life.
Rising at twilight.
This is what I learned over theyears.
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There is a time to move.
And the moment is right whenyour faith is there.
The moment is right when you cansee the answer.
In Matthew 17, 7, it said, Ariseand be not afraid.
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They arose at twilight.
They weren't afraid.
Do you have the courage to liveyour God-given dream?
You have to.
You have to exercise faith.
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It takes courage to operate infaith.
It takes courage to stand up andsay, this is what the Lord would
have us do, and we're going tostart marching toward it.
When we built this collegebuilding, I remember standing
where we are now, and I held upa 17-foot-long piece of two by
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four.
You're going to say, why did youdo that?
Because I was believing God fora ceiling.
And that's all I had.
I had faith.
I had believed that God wantedme to do it.
I did not have the money to moveforward.
And I stood with a 17-foot-longpiece of two by four, stood over
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here in the corner, and when Iheld it up, I saw the ceiling.
And I had courage to tell peoplethat.
So what were you doing, Don?
I was exercising my faith.
I was putting it into action.
This was all I knew what to do.
I had to go to the next step.
Faith works like that.
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Faith takes you from where youare right now, and it takes you
to the next step.
And here's something else I havefound about faith.
It grows when you exercise it.
In Romans chapter 12 and verse6, having then gifts differing
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according to the grace that isgiven to us, whether prophecy,
let us prophesy according to theproportion of faith.
And that proportion, I believethat we can walk into what is
meant for us.
You have got a mighty bigportion from God.
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It's yours.
And I want you to walk out inthat.
You can do it.
And the only reason you'reafraid is that the thought came
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to you, it isn't going to work.
People are going to think that Iam being fanatical.
I'm just going to make anabsolute spectacle of myself,
and it ain't going to be pretty.
How many times you were worriedabout what was going to happen,
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and when you got and did it andgot there, not one of those
things was there.
You thought it was going to be.
They probably were when youfirst thought about it, because
the devil was reminding you theenemy would be telling you, this
is what's going to happen toyou.
But when you move by faith andby the power of God, God goes
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before you and he moves all ofthose things out of the way.
He not only moves the obstacle,he moves the enemy.
I read somewhere, I don't knowwhere I read this.
Fear looks at things, but faithjumps at things and takes them.
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There's so much to work with.
Things that you didn't know thatwould be even possible.
But as you walk it out, Godmakes the way.
Another scripture that willencourage us, 2 Corinthians
chapter 10, verse 4.
It talks to us about the weaponsof our warfare.
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They're not carnal, they're notlike what you experience in the
physical, but they're mightythrough God to the pulling down
of strongholds.
That's what we work with.
And these four leprous men, notrealizing God was going to take
and use them, and you're goingto say, why would God use them?
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How do you know that for sure?
Because the prophet said the daybefore, about noon tomorrow,
you're going to have more foodthan you ever dreamed of.
And how was this going to takeplace?
Because four leprous men had therevelation.
If we sit here, we're going todie.
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And if you're going to sitthere, you're going to die
there.
You have to get up and you haveto move.
2 Kings chapter 7, verse 6.
Here's what it said.
For the Lord had made the hostof the Syrians to hear a noise
of chariots and a noise ofhorses, even the noise of a
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great host.
And they said one to another,Lo, the King of Israel hath
hired against us the kings ofthe Hittites and the kings of
the Egyptians to come upon us.
All it was four lepers' menbeing propelled ahead by the
prophetic, they still didn'trealize the full impact of what
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their decision was going tobring.
Just like you and I.
We don't realize many times whatthe outcome is going to be of
the decision, the faith decisionthat we make.
It sounded like many chariots.
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The Lord caused that.
The Lord is going before you.
And when the Lord goes beforeyou, He does the battle, He does
the work, He does the ministry,He makes the way.
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Every stronghold, everyobstacle.
God brings it down.
Second Kings 7:7.
Wherefore they arose and fled inthe twilight and left their
tents and their horses and theirasses, even the camp as it was,
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and fled for their life.
It's talking about the Syrians.
Faith operates by the word ofGod.
Doesn't operate by some generalconsensus that some legislative
body had agreed upon.
Faith operates with the word ofthe Lord.
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Live by the word of God.
God is more than enough.
God was moving ahead for thiscity that was under siege.
And God was using the mostunlikely people to bring the
deliverance.
The most unlikely.
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But God wants you to know thathe's more than enough.
And he'll make the way for you.
Let's go to verse 8.
2 Kings 7:8.
And when these lepers came tothe outermost part of the camp,
they went into one tent and dideat and drink, carried thence
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silver and gold and raiment,went and hit it, and came again
and entered into another tentand carried thence also and went
and hid it.
And they were in paradise.
Let's go to verse 9.
They said one to another, Hereis the secret of giving and
receiving.
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Now therefore come, that we maygo and tell the king's
household.
They're sharing good news,they're sharing the wealth.
I look at the king's householdas the church.
We're the church.
King Jesus rules and reignshere.
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And when God gives us somethinggood, let's share it with the
church.
Whether it be something in thenatural, something in the
spiritual, let's share it.
Some good thing that God hasdone for us, some victory that
we have attained.
Let's rejoice together becausethe Bible says that.
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Rejoice together.
You can only do that if you tellone another.
We do things together.
This is our life in the church.
Every spiritual awakening inhistory was marked by men and
women who did not allowthemselves to be held back.
And I'm going to tell yousomething.
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There's going to be some of youlistening today.
You've been confined so long.
You may think that your heavenlyfather is not going to bless you
and use you.
I want to tell you, yourheavenly father is not through
blessing you, and your heavenlyfather wants to restore you and
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restart you.
SPEAKER_01 (20:46):
For more ministry
podcasts, visit our website and
subscribe to doncarpenter.ca