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A Message to the Distracted, Deceived, Double-Minded, and Distant
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A Message to the Distracted, Deceived, Double-Minded, and Distant
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Connected by scripture or shared themes.
This message is about spiritual unfaithfulness—not sexual sin, but when your heart belongs more to the world than to God's Word. I received this message through a dream where God showed me His pain, similar to the prophet Hosea. He revealed to me how many who claim to follow Him are not truly married to Jesus. They use Him when they need something or want to feel good, but they don't serve Him or follow Him faithfully.
When I evangelize, 80 to 90% of people say they're Christians. But when you examine the fruit and ask questions, you realize they're not true followers of Jesus. The gospel has been perverted. The churches have been perverted. But God is cleaning up the church—and the church is not a building; it's the body of Christ. He's rising up a remnant of those who will love Him and follow Him for the rest of their lives.
This message is for the distracted, the deceived, the double-minded, and the distant.
If you don't read the Word of God, you cannot grow. There's a very strong urgency for all of you to read the Word. If you're not reading it, you can't grow—it's impossible. In the beginning, it might feel boring, but as you see revelation and experience Him through His Word and prayer, as you realize it's all about Jesus, you become addicted. You become convicted if you don't read the Word daily.
You have to first build discipline. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a burden and a desire to read the Word. If the only time you're hearing the Word is when you come to service, I would say that you're in spiritual adultery. How can you say you're a disciple and follower of Jesus but you don't read His Word and you don't seek Him? That doesn't make any sense.
It's like my wife. If I only hear about her one time a week from another man, what type of relationship is that? If your pastor is the only time you hear the Word of God, they become your idol. You should be very convicted and uncomfortable right now if that's you.
Adulterers and adulteresses. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Tonight, this message is not about sexual sin. It's about spiritual unfaithfulness. When your heart belongs more to the world than it does to the Word, you are cheating on Jesus.
I'm going to say it again: When your heart belongs more to the world than it does to the Word, you're cheating on Jesus. If social media, if other people, Netflix, the gym—if those things are more important to you than getting in God's Word, who are you following? What's your priority? Is the Word of God and prayer last? That means all these other idols come before Jesus.
We just worshiped about idols. When we worship, are we really meaning it or is it fake? We have to get in the Word. We have to get into prayer.
You don't have to sleep around to be unfaithful. You just have to stop praying, stop reading. You don't have to curse God out loud to betray Him. You just have to choose comfort, career, or compromise over His presence.
Spiritual adultery is not about scandal; it's about substitution. Anytime something replaces God in your priorities, affections, or obedience, you've committed spiritual adultery.
How degenerate is your heart, says the Lord God, seeing you do all these things, the deeds of the brazing harlot. You erected your shrine at the head of every road and built your high place in every street. Yet you were not like a harlot because you scorned payment. You are an adulterous wife who takes strangers instead of her husband.
God compares His covenant people to a wife who loves something more than Him. Not because they've sinned once, but because they love something more than Him. He didn't just save you. He married you. When you flirt with the world, you've committed adultery against His love.
It's not just the ministers. It's the marketplace, the mothers, and the mediocre.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
There are too many believers who put their job before Jesus, their goals before Jesus, their grind before grace. They claim Jesus is Lord, but He gets the leftovers of their time, energy, finances, and heart.
You don't have to want a stage to be unfaithful. You just have to build your life without His presence. Are you going to work without His presence? Are you starting your day without His presence? Are you ending your day without His presence? What is your focus, body of Christ? Why do we come to church? What is the whole point of this? Is it to better your life or is it to serve the King?
Did you die under that water and rise a new creation fully committed to Him first? Or are you in it for the things He can give you? He's not a genie. He's not a witch or warlock. He's not a prostitute. He's the one that we love. He's the one that we've surrendered our heart and everything to.
We died under that water. We were separated from the world. We boast in nothing but the cross. We've been crucified from the world and the world from us. It's all about Jesus.
The soul of a lazy man desires and has nothing but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.
We think rich means money. It can mean that. But when I look at that scripture, I think of spiritually rich—revelation, increase in faith, encounters with the Holy Spirit, encounters in His Word, encounters in His presence, seeing Him move in my life. That to me means everything.
So many Christians get into this lazy mode of "I'm just going to pray and read when I feel it by the spirit." That's not the Holy Spirit. That's your flesh. What type of relationship is actually authentic when you only talk to them when you feel good about everything going on in your life?
I don't only talk to my wife when things are going well. I talk to her all the time, every day. She's my wife. I'm married to her. If I go a day without speaking to her, it feels weird. That hasn't happened since we've been married. That's how we have to be with Jesus every day. We need to seek Him. We should feel a burden and like we miss Him.
If you haven't prayed in the morning because you were rushing to work, you should have a burden to give Him 10 minutes, five minutes, after work. If you know you missed that morning prayer, you skip the gym. I'm going to say this: Because you haven't been seeking Him, you skip coming to church. Why would you come to church if you don't seek Him privately? You skip a week at church to go seek Him alone. You consecrate yourself because you're convicted. Then you come back into the ecclesia.
If you're only serving in the house of God to be seen, but you don't seek Him intimately, it's backwards. That's spiritual adultery.
Not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.
Some are not chasing the world; they're just sleeping with the flesh. They call it rest, but it's rebellion wrapped in comfort. They binge watch things instead of building. They want to nap instead of kneeling. They say, "God understands," but never grow in understanding.
We got to stop sleeping with the flesh. You may have not sold out, but you checked out. And silence is also betrayal.
Jesus is speaking to the church:
Nevertheless, I have this against you that you have lest your—you have left your first love. This is the church of Ephesus, on fire in the streets probably witnessing all these things but they left their first love. And this is what Jesus says: Remember therefore from where you have fallen repent and do the first works or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.
His lampstand is His presence. His lampstand is His glory. It's Him. He's the light of the world. I don't want to lose my light and let the enemy harden my heart or the flesh harden my heart towards God because of laziness, because of scrolling on social media, because of another person, because of comfort and food, because of sleep.
Sleep will not destroy my relationship with God. I'd rather sacrifice an hour of sleep to get in His presence than sleep an hour and be in the flesh.
We don't just need people who preach the gospel. We need people possessed by His presence. You preach the gospel without His presence because you haven't been with Him. It's flesh evangelism. It's fleshy. You can feel it. Even the demons know it. They're not worried about someone who's preaching in the flesh.
We see people preach on street corners yelling in the flesh and nobody gets saved. They're actually hurting more than they're helping. When you preach the Word with power because you've been with Him, there's a conviction. There's a power, a presence in the spirit that even unbelievers can feel and start crying or listen because there's light backing up the Word.
Muslims know the Word. The Bible. There are Baptist sensationalists that know the Bible, but there's no power. And without power, there's no transformation. We want to transform. We want to become more like Jesus. And we have to stop committing spiritual adultery.
You can hold a mic and be in ministry, but at every service, be at every service and still be miles away from Jesus. Many are married to the church, but not faithful to Christ. We're supposed to be married to Jesus. We are the church.
Building your future without consulting the King. What does God want you to do? A lot of times, He's not going to answer it in one day. Can you become peaceful and satisfied knowing that you're going to labor in prayer until He reveals it? Can you wait?
What if it takes two weeks, three weeks? What if it takes a year? God wants to confirm it at the right timing. Can you wait and seek Him and not move in front of Him? Don't you want Him to lead you?
Doesn't a husband lead the wife? Doesn't a husband protect the wife? Doesn't a husband open the door for the wife? Don't you want Jesus opening doors for you? Don't you want Jesus leading the way, directing your steps, protecting and providing for you?
You're going to have to seek and be patient and wait on the Lord, and He will renew your strength. And you'll mount up with wings like eagles. You'll run and not grow weary. You'll walk, you won't faint. You'll continue on the narrow path. Do you want to be like an eagle or do you want to be like a little pigeon? I want to be like an eagle. I want to wait on the Lord.
You know, crows attack eagles. You know what the eagle does? They don't fight the black crows. They don't fight them. They take them higher. They elevate. And they get to a certain elevation where the crow can't breathe right, and then the crow drops off and is destroyed.
That's us. When we're getting attacked by the enemy or we don't know what's going on in this season, we don't freak out and try to move without Him. We seek Him and we go higher. We go higher in Him, in His Word, in prayer, in worship, in fasting. We seek Him and we go higher and then everything falls off and He puts things in order. But if we move without Him, we will be the reason for our destruction. I don't want to be the reason for my destruction. I want to go higher and move at His speed.
The approval of man is a big attack on a lot of people. We're not in ministry for people to like us, for people to agree with us. We're in ministry for Jesus.
You're going to have to cut off those relationships that are worldly and bringing you to the wrong things. If your friends are smoking and drinking and still fornicating and claiming to be Christians, you know what's right and you know what's wrong. Cut them off. Separate yourself. Pray for them and let God work on them because you're not their savior.
If they know better and they're still doing it, they've made their decision. They've made their choice to spiritually commit adultery on the one that you're following. Do you want to walk with an adulterer or do you want to walk with a son?
I want to have friends who are sons and daughters of the King because they're going to lead me to the cross. They're going to lead me to Christ. Our friends got to see light. They got to see us and be like they're different. They might in the beginning feel some type of way, but as they watch you and see your fruit, they're going to feel convicted and that will bring them to the cross as well. People got to see us as the example.
Jesus has ascended and is seated at the right hand of the Father and sent the same Spirit that descended upon Him to start His works and ministry. The same Spirit that overshadowed Mary for that virgin birth. He sent the Holy Spirit so we can have power. So we can shine our light on top of a hill in our city, in our community. Don't you want to be that light? So then we have to come out from amongst the world. We have to separate ourselves from the world. You can't serve God and serve demons. You're not the savior. If people reject Jesus, you wipe off your feet and keep it pushing. They're not rejecting you. They're rejecting the one who lives in you.
When I came to Christ, I cut everything off. I even told my girlfriend who was pregnant with my first child: "If she doesn't get saved, I'm out and we're going to co-parent." I cut off family members, friends. I cut everybody off. I was alone with God. Alone. I'm serious. And people thought I was crazy. Family members, friends—they literally thought I was crazy.
I didn't have a platform. I didn't have fruit that people could see online. I didn't have any of that. I didn't have social media. They knew who I was and they still thought I was that same person. And I knew this, and I knew the only way they'd be saved is if they saw fruit. And I knew it was for the rest of my life.
The first one who saw my fruit and got saved was my wife. She saw the transformation. She saw me burning those idols. She saw me throw away the weed and vacuum sealers. She saw me give everything up and people who owed me money—tell them to keep it. She saw that and because she saw that, she began to open up the Word and seek God for herself.
And then she had an encounter. Then I still waited. We waited and then we got married. And then people in her life thought she was crazy. So it was me, her, and our firstborn child alone with a bunch of people who thought we were going crazy. I'm serious. We felt burdened. We cried together. We felt like giving up. We didn't know what to do so many times. But we kept on seeking. We kept on reading.
We would dedicate every Saturday, me and her, and we would read a whole chapter together. There's a time where we thought we couldn't eat pork, where we thought that we had to serve God on Saturday. We were religious, but God still honored it because we were seeking Him. And then God sent people in our lives to pastor us, to help us, to break that, to teach us, to instruct us. He saw the faith.
Our worship was just turning on a song on YouTube and we would just stand there and sing the song. We didn't even know what worship really meant. But we would seek and we would fast. The Bible says the fast we would fast and we would pray. I wouldn't eat. I would do three-day fasts regularly as a newborn Christian. Only water. Regularly. I wanted Jesus. And I still do. I haven't lost my fire because the same things I learned early on—the foundation, the fundamentals—I still practice these things.
I don't want to commit spiritual adultery now. If anything, I do it more. I seek Him more now because of the platform of a church and a microphone. I don't want to fall to pride. I don't want to fall to the love of the world. I don't want that. I hate it. And I cry and I seek Him and I make mistakes and the blood washes me and I keep on seeking Him.
I'm willing to repent when I'm wrong and I'm willing to forgive when someone hurts me. I go through things too. But without Jesus, I can't make it. If I don't seek Him, I don't even know what would happen. I can't even imagine going a day, two days, let alone a week without seeking God. My God, I would go crazy. I don't want that. I'm scared of that. I need Jesus.
It's the little things because I'm in His presence, because I'm seeking Him. Leaving the event we had with the back to school, I hear His tangibility. I hear His voice, feel His presence. I'm worshiping in the car and He tells me to go to Zara at the Florida mall all by myself. Nobody came with me and nobody even knew I went there. But I went there according to the voice of God.
And I get there and the Lord said, "There's going to be an encounter at Zara." I'm walking past all these stores and I'm thinking. He said, "No, go to Zara. Go to Zara. Go to Zara. Go to Zara." I get there and the security guard right in front looks like one of the members we have in this church named Dre. Tats on his neck, tats on his face, looks just like him. And the Lord spoke everything I needed right there.
This man gets encountered. He's a drug dealer. He wants to give up the drug dealing. He has a girlfriend that has a baby with her. Wants to give it up. And I showed him some of our videos. He's super encouraged. Then a young woman comes with her brother and her mother. They come because they see me on social media. By the way, the guy never seen me on social, but they did.
I start praying for them. Three other brothers in Zara come up to me from social media. The guy's like, "Man, I've been wanting to talk to you." I think they're here somewhere. I don't know where they're at. Where y'all at? They're right there. And he's like, "Bro, right?" But all that happens. And I'm telling them, I said, "You got to walk with me, bro, because I'm going to be late." They walk with me all the way to my truck. I'm ministering to them.
This all happens because I listen to the voice of God. And it would have never happened if I wasn't intimate. He asked me, he said, "How do you get visions and how do you grow in that?" I said, "Bro, I grew in visions. I grew in hearing His voice from seeking Him." Intimacy. That's how you train up the prophetic. Not going to look for a man or woman to guide your life. That's perversion. That's idolatry.
You're not going to come to me like I'm some type of psychic. I'm not your prophet man. No, that's not going to happen. I'm going to point you to Jesus. Is the word of knowledge real? Yes, it is. Is the prophetic real? Yes. But I will prophesy and I will release words led by the Spirit. No man will try to conjure it out of me. I won't allow that.
The greatest prophetic word that I give to everybody is: seek Him and intimately know Him. Because if you don't, you will not make it. I don't care if I give you a word of knowledge that makes you cry. You can get—I've seen people I give them a word of knowledge. It's spot on. It's detailed. It's everything they need. They get encountered. They're crying. And they still don't want to surrender. So many times that's judgment. Because when they—if they don't repent and they don't give their life to Christ—when they get to hell, that'll be the same very thing that judges them because they'll never be able to say, "I didn't have an opportunity."
It'll replay in their mind as they're burning in hell. I don't want any of us here to be in hell burning with all the times we could have surrendered to Jesus being replayed.
We got to seek Him ourselves. We got to stop committing spiritual adultery. It's supposed to bother us. It's supposed to bother us if we don't have a local church and we're not plugged in somewhere where we could be rooted and grow. It's supposed to bother us if we're not coming to church. Period.
How can you say you're a follower of Jesus but you don't want to be part of His body? What body are you part of? Are you the body of Christ by yourself? Nobody else? No. You're probably dealing with an orphan spirit and you need deliverance. You need healing.
I'm going to say this: It's not the Rock. This is not the body of Christ alone. The body's connected. God is going to send elders. He's going to send seasoned people into this ministry. He's going to send young people on fire. We will be well-rounded. We will not be known as a young church forever. No. God's going to send other pastors and people here, and we're going to be a good, healthy body. The Rock will not be a cult. It's not going to happen.
It's important that yes, we're going to have that beginning stage. But then, man, we're an actual local church who has to build and actually do this for life. There's generations ahead of us that are going to come and get saved here. We got to keep on building. We can't stay at the same level. We got to grow in Him.
Because we're part of the body of Christ. Forget the RROC name. That's just a name to identify the body part. Forget that. We're part of Jesus's body. And if we're coming to church and we're like, "Yes, I love this church because everyone's so young and they look cool and everyone's lit and there's deliverance and there's healing"—and this is the only time you see Jesus move—but then you don't seek Him for six days out the week, the Rock has become your idol.
I will not perform for you. I will not be like a look at him. "Wow, wow. That's crazy. Woo." No. I'm not going to be that for you. But you don't seek Jesus. Yes, I'm a mascot and God uses me. But it's to point people to you. These signs shall follow those who believe. But I will point you to Jesus because I follow Him.
Think about it. The sign points you to Jesus. But I'm not your mediator. I'm just a sign pointer. These signs follow me and I point to Jesus. We actually have to seek Him.
If you do seek Jesus, this message should give you a fire where you're like, "Thank you, God." Right? And if you're convicted, that's good. That's healthy. If you're convicted and you feel like, "Dang, man. Like, I need to see Jesus." That's good. That means you're actually saved. Because there are people who will hear this message and walk out, forget this.
I don't know what spirit you have inside of you, but the Holy Spirit should convict you if you're not seeking Him. This message should make you feel convicted but encouraged—like, I'm going to seek God. I'm going to set apart times throughout the day. I'm not going to be lazy.
If I set apart time every morning to brush my teeth, I need to do the same thing for Jesus. He's holy, which means set apart. So I need to set apart a specific time of the day where I have a set apart place where I set apart myself to seek Him because He's holy. Not just when I'm in the car driving or when I'm in the shower. Yes, you can do that, too. But give God undivided attention. Holy attention. Set apart time to seek Him. Don't be that person who only seeks Him when it's convenient. Man, that's not a relationship.
You call me religious all you want. I don't care. I know what I'm preaching is the Bible because Jesus says, "Shut the door behind you." It's revelation that you need to shut the world out and be alone.
Not with your wife. Okay, it's great to pray with your wife or your husband. That's amazing. But that's not alone. That's good. But that's not alone. Me and my wife pray together, but we pray individually more than we do together. I seek the Lord daily alone. She seeks the Lord daily alone. And we probably pray together maybe three or four times out the week. But I'll tell you one thing we do: We pray alone with Jesus every day. And we hold each other accountable.
If I know that she's been busy with the kids, I go, "Go ahead, babe." If she knows that I've got to prepare a sermon, "Go ahead. You got to." But my sermon is not the only time I read the Word. That's just extra. I'm in the Word daily myself, strategically, systematically. I'm seeking the Lord chapters a day because I don't want to be that guy who only reads the Word when I preach a sermon. That's just convenient. It's easy to be like that. I feel convicted. The Holy Spirit convicts me.
Using ministry as a brand, using God to build platforms instead of people. If your goal is to go viral so you can have a platform, you're already off. Your platform is not for you. It's for Jesus. And did Jesus even give you the green light for that platform? Before you start social media, before you start whatever it is you want to do, ask Jesus first.
Fame over faithfulness: Preferring a viral reel or to get a position on the worship team over a real encounter.
Networking over kneeling: You come to church cuz you want to network, but you don't want to worship the King.
Building influence instead of building altars.
Entertainment over holiness. I just talked about it. Watching everything but never praying yourself.
Laziness over lordship: Excusing being stagnant with "God knows my heart." That's a big one.
Comfort over conviction: Never letting the cross confront your lifestyle. The cross is going to confront your lifestyle every season. God's going to always take you deeper. The deep calls unto the deep. You're never supposed to stay the same. You get more and more deep with God. Where you're at right now will be different a year from now. You're not supposed to stay the same.
Serving but not surrendered: That's works-based without worship. Presence listless and wanting performance.
Worship leaders who never worship off stage: That's scary, bro. If the only time you worship God is when you're on a stage and you don't worship Him alone with Jesus, that's bad. You see what happens with ministers like that. And then they get fame and then their whole worship career is about their gifting of music. It's all about them and how gifted they are.
That's crazy—that you can be making songs about Jesus but not know Him. That's scary. And many people fall to that. The money and the fame comes in and now it's all about them and they don't care. They just want sold out stadiums, but they don't want Jesus. And now they're on a stage singing, thinking everyone's looking at me and not pointing nobody to Jesus.
I'm telling you, man. We've seen so many people fall like that. That means we can get got too. I don't think these people started off like that. I think they started off pure, but then eventually because of fame—"I got to get to the studio and record this song. Wow, this person liked my video and commented."
Look, there are NBA players, NFL players, professional soccer athletes, professional worldly music actors, and super famous people who follow me on social media, send me DMs, and comment. That doesn't get me excited unless I'm thinking about how I'm going to witness to them about Jesus. Does it make sense? Like, it doesn't make me like, "Oh my gosh, they're looking at me." I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, they're looking at deliverance, healing, words of knowledge. Their mind and their wisdom is being boggled. It's being confronted."
UCF fighters, all types—they message me in the DMs. Some names, if I said these names, you would know them. But they're convicted. They want to go deeper with Jesus. Some of them, the Lord tells me, don't even answer it. Let them keep following you and seeing your videos until I tell you.
I don't get—Woo. No, I don't. In the beginning when I first started going viral, I made that mistake. I did. It made me feel good. God confronted it with the cross and delivered me more. That rejection had to go. That healing had to continue. I needed more healing. I would say, "Why does this make me feel good?" Like, "No, that's not good." But I would confront it with the cross. I need you. And I would cry and I would go right back to the cross.
We got to stay there. It's never ending. I'm flawed just like you. I need the cross just like you. I'm not exempt from it. I don't have everything perfect. I got to seek God every day. I feel burdened if I don't. I get excited to go into the secret place and cry out to Him and repent of little things.
I want to go to Him and tell Him, "God, these little things..." and even show me things. I cry out to God and ask Him to show me the things I can't see cuz I know there's things I can't see. You're prideful if you think you got it all unlocked. I go to Him and say, "God, I know there's things I can't see that even other people see that I don't see. Show me these things."
And I cry out to God to send real people around me who will correct me and actually speak the truth. I cry out for those things because the platform is an idol and people bow down to it without even knowing. In their heart, I hate it and I pray for the real ones. I pray for those who don't have an agenda. I pray that God removes people who are all about idolatrous platforms and about me. I pray that God removes them. I don't want them around me. I told God, "I'd rather be alone until you send the right people around me. I don't care if it's a small group."
That's why I love my wife because my wife will correct me and say the truth. She'll tell me the truth no matter what. And that's why I thank God for a wife who doesn't look at me and think, "Oh, platform." She's the same way before I had a platform. And even now, she hasn't changed. If anything, she's become more correcting. Thank you, Jesus. Even when I don't receive it. Thank you, Jesus. And she won't budge.
When you have someone around you who will do that, cherish them because when things start—when the fruit starts showing—everybody wants your fruit. And if they don't get your fruit, they'll leave. Everyone wants your fruit. Protect your fruit. Protect the things you've labored in prayer for. Protect the things that you've sacrificed blood, sweat, and tears for. Protect it. It's holy. It comes from the Lord. It's from your connection. Don't let anyone take the fruit of intimacy, the fruit that God burst in your life through intimacy. Don't let the ravenous wolves come around. Protect it.
And appreciate those who will correct you. Appreciate a leader in your life who will tell you the truth even when it hurts. Appreciate that. That's priceless, bro.
Judas kissed Jesus on the cheek. Proverbs was prophecy about Judas. When it talks about a right, it talks about "faithful are the wounds of a friend and the kiss of an enemy." That was Solomon writing about Judas in the future. The kiss of an enemy. What did Judas do? Kissed Him. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Jesus was wounded for us. He's a friend. He's faithful. That's Jesus. I want Jesus to correct me. I love when the Lord chastens me. I love when He brings correction. When He's not bringing correction, I get a little worried and I got to go pray, right?
Don't be worried for anything, but go pray. I'm that guy. If I get worried, I go pray. "Lord, show me where I can grow. I need to be pruned. I need to be broken in a new area." And He's faithful and just.
Crying in service, but cussing at home. Oh, man. I can't, like, bro. Like, are there people in here who do that? Come on, bro. Come on. That's fake. We got to stop. We got to be—man, when I first came to Christ I had a problem with that like 'cuz in the world I was in, I was a sailor in the United States Navy. I come from the streets. I come from people where cussing was just normal. It was normal. Every sentence I would—every sentence that came out of my mouth there was a cuss word. It was like that. It was bad.
So when I came to Christ, yes, He washed me, cleaned me. He delivered me. But I would get—I would have to stop myself a lot. Sometimes certain words would come out and I would feel convicted and I would feel bad. Me and my wife would hold each other accountable. There'd be times where she'd be like, "That's a cuss word." I'd be like, "Right. I repent. I repent. I repent." Same thing with her. Simple words. Something simple like saying, you know, "Hell yeah" would bother me or I'd be like, "No, heavens yeah. Heavens yeah." And I would say that, "Heavens yeah."
Even when I'm evangelizing, people be like, "Hell yeah." No, "Heavens yeah." Yeah. You right. I'll say like—but I'm only using it now as an example. But is hell? No. No. No. We're not going to hell. Heaven. Yes. It's the heart. It's why you say it.
You know how isn't it crazy—how when someone is praising a thing, they'll say, "Hell yeah." Isn't that crazy how the devil's perverted people or just deceived people to where they're saying hell yeah over like yeah? Like what? They're speaking death over their life! That's crazy. Start saying "Heaven yeah. Heaven yeah. Jesus yeah" right when something good happens. It's yeah. Yeah. Make it cool around your friends. Change the culture. That's what we do. The kingdom influences the culture of the world and changes it. That's what we do with the gospel with Jesus. We shift the culture. I don't care what people think. They want to think bringing Christians way. That's good for you. I'm going to still keep flexing in the spirit. I'm going to still keep letting people know about Jesus. And I'm going to do it boldly and I don't care and you're going to shift eventually and you're going to follow Jesus too.
Like people—people see that and it blows their mind. Really? People come to this church, you know—people come to this church just to see if it's real. You know how many people are in this church right now serving and even leading in the church that first came to the church to check to see if it was real, if it was fake. And then they came and they saw devils casted out, the sick healed, and people saved. They felt the presence of God and his conviction and they came running to this altar shaking on the ground like a snake getting delivered. Praise God. That's good.
If you're watching online and you've been thinking about coming, come. I tell people all the time, come. Just sit in the. Just come. Just come one time. Come. You'll be convicted. You'll be standing up during the altar call, standing up during the deliverance. You will. Even if you don't come to this altar, I've had people come and they get convicted and they're touched and later on they tell me, "Man, I was convicted. Man, I felt something. I felt like I was having an out of body experience in that day. I got delivered from a demon I didn't even know I had."
Bored with God: Like, devotion has become duty. You better praise your way into joy. You start feeling bored with God. That's the flesh. You need a fast. How many of y'all been feeling bored? Be real. I'm going to give you an assignment. Three-day water fast. No, not a Daniel fast. Three-day water fast. Oh, I'm going to pray about it. No. I'm releasing it. Do it.
People say, "I'm going to pray about it," which really means I don't want to do it. Yeah, pray about everything. But I'm getting like that Saul when he became Paul. What did he do? He three-day fasted. Three-day water fast. You don't have to do 40. Do three. That's light work. That's simple. No. And not a Daniel fast. Straight water. Watch how that flesh, that boredom leaves real quick. When I'm on a water fast and I come into worship, bro, I feel the presence of God times a hundred. I can't stop crying. I already do cry in worship. If I just—like the present—because my flesh is out the way.
You need a fast. And if you're offended by me telling you this, that's not—I'm going tell you something. That's not the Holy Spirit. When would the Holy Spirit ever convict you not to water fast? Convict you to get out the flesh? I mean to stay in the flesh. That's not the Holy Spirit. You're not convicted or you're condemned. You're just—you just need to fast.
No secret place, just secret sins: Oh Lord, no secret place will lead to secret sin. We're made to do things intimately in secret. Whether it's sin or righteousness, whether it's seeking Jesus or seeking the devil—everybody wants to be intimate with something. We're made for that. We're made to worship.
Private rebellion dressed in public religion: That's a big one. Don't be that person who looks like a Christian outwardly, but then in private you're sinning. I don't even—sometimes it bothers me that I have to list the sins all the time. Like people don't know. You know if you're fornicating. You know if you're watching porn privately and not repenting. You know if you're vaping. You know if you're smoking.
I'm not—don't wait for a word of knowledge from me. I'm not going to give you that word of knowledge if the Holy Spirit don't tell me to. He wants you to have a relationship with Him to where you're convicted by on your own intimately and you want more of Jesus and you want to give those things up.
For you shall worship no other god for the Lord whose name is jealous. Is a jealous God.
That word jealous also means zealous about you. He's jealous. He's on fire about you. He's turned. He—I'm telling you—He's going to make sure things get exposed in your life because He loves you.
And it's sad that a lot of people, God will convict them. God will allow things to happen and they still keep hardening their heart in rebellion. Eventually, He just gives you over to that. He'll just give you over to your own desires.
God doesn't want visitation rights. He wants habitation. He's not looking for a weakened bride. He's coming for a holy, surrendered, burning, faithful one. You weren't just saved from hell. You were saved for Him.
I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice and loving kindness and mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. You shall know the Lord.
God doesn't divorce us when we fail. He redeems us when we return. So even though you might have committed adultery on Him, like a loving husband, like a loving father, like a loving friend—He is love. He's waiting for you to come back, saying, "Come. I forgive you. I want you home. I want you back." He's like the prodigal father. He wants you back more than you can know.
He's not mad at you. He doesn't hate you. He doesn't think of you less. He actually loves you so much that He's right now allowing you to hear this message so you can come back to Him. Not to me. To Jesus. I'm just the guy who's releasing the message.
God doesn't divorce us when we fail. He redeems us when we return. The cross is not just for the lost. It's for the unfaithful bride who wants to come home as well.
Think about the thief on the cross. He messed up big time to the point where he was about to die. But even God gave him a chance to repent.
For God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.
We are crucified. We are crucified ones. We are crucified from the world and the world from us. We are no longer part of the world. Now we go to the world to reach them and bring them to the kingdom.
For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten son so that you can come out the world and come into the kingdom. He did it for all of us. Those who are lost. Those who are fallen. Those who are in sin. Those who are lukewarm. Those who have been going to church and they're just not saved.
Some of you came to this service, but you're plugged into another local church. I'm going to release this by the spirit. You want a word of knowledge? This is for some of you. Some of you are plugged into another local church, and you're comfortable in that church because they're comfortable with your sin. And you come here because you see fire and you see the spirit of God moving. I'm not speaking against no pastor or no church, no church. At the end of the day, they got to answer to the Lord themselves.
But you came here and this is your word. This is your breakthrough. Just because your pastor's not calling things out, just because your leadership's not calling things out, just because you're not held accountable, doesn't give you an excuse to commit adultery on Jesus. When you get to heaven, you can't say, "Well, my church didn't hold me accountable. My church didn't disciple me right." That's not going to be an excuse.
It's personal. That's why you should thank God for a church who preaches the gospel, who preaches repentance, who holds you accountable, who disciples you. Thank God for a church like that. Thank God for a church that leads you to the cross and tells you to come out the world.
Thank God for the spirit of God who convicts us to do that. It's grace. God's lampstand is here. That's why you see His power and you experience His presence. It's because Jesus is near. It's not because of a man. It's not because of a woman. It's because of Jesus. That's who we're surrendered to. That's the same cross we kneel at. That's the same place we go to daily and bring our children to. Because without the cross and without Christ, we're done. We're back in the world and we're seven times worse.
I've already made that promise. I already asked God—asked Him to kill me before I go back to the world because He already knows the future. I've already made a covenant, a promise with Him. Not only for me. I've actually told my wife. Let's pray this together. And she literally said, "Oh my goodness." And it was hard for her. And this is way early on when we first got saved.
I don't want to go back to the world. I want to stay at the cross. I want to stay with Jesus. And if my heart's going to be taken over by Satan for whatever reason, take me to heaven. I don't want my legacy to be tainted so that my children go to the world too and my grandchildren. I want to leave a legacy of Jesus. Not a perfect man. Not a sinless man. But a man who is dependent on Christ. A man who was flawed. A man who needed the cross. A man who needed to repent. Needed to forgive. Needed the blood. Needed Jesus.
I want my kids to see me and see that I'm praying daily, that I'm seeking the Lord. I want the people I'm discipling to see the same thing. Not a perfect man, but a man who needs Jesus because if I'm their Jesus, they're going to come to me and I'm leading them the wrong way. They follow me as I follow Christ. I don't want them looking like me. I want them looking like Christ. So when people see them, they smell the aroma of Christ, not of Richard, not of me. I'm not going to become nobody's idol.
This message might be for you. I hope it does offend you and bring you to the cross. I'm not going to be your idol. This isn't a love story for me and another person. No. It's a love story about Jesus. He saved us. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ, not the gospel of any other person. It's the good news of Jesus. That's what keeps us. No matter what happens in life, if this ministry falls, if I go and I leave and go to another country, if God sends you to another state, nothing should shift our relationship with God.
This whole "church hurt" thing where people lose faith because of church hurt. They never grew out of that milk stage. They never stopped needing milk from somebody. And pastors like to keep people in the milk place. That's wrong. You ever seen a seven-year-old still drinking milk from a mother's breast? I've seen 10-year-olds. Isn't that weird? Do you want to be that person? You got to start eating the meat. And that only—you could only do that with Jesus Himself. You need to sit down with Him and get in that Word and prayer.
If you're a man, you need to become a man of God. Not a child of God. A man of God. Yes, you're God's child, but He wants you to grow up and become a man of God. For a woman, you need to become a woman of God who defends their family, who prays, who intercedes. If you're single, starting now. We got to grow up.
And for those that have been committing spiritual adultery—you come to church, but you're not serving God. You're serving idols. You're serving people. You're serving your flesh. And you're not serving the King. No wonder why you're bored. No wonder why you're not having encounter like you used to.
The Bible says He loved us before we knew Him. And no one comes to the son lest the Father draws him in. So the Father loved you before you knew Him. Drew you into the son. Brought you to Christ. Filled you with the Spirit. Now you need to seek Him so you can find. Now you draw near to Him and He draws near to you. You're saved now. You know—you've tasted of His goodness. So now you need to seek Him.
Let's stop using God like He's a McDonald's quick fix. This is for the rest of our lives. You're sold out. You've died under that water and you've risen new.
We build altars in our home. We seek the Lord. We have a place that we meet Him. We don't just meet Him somewhere when it's convenient. Yes, you can pray and worship on the way to work. But before you go to work, before you even start driving—if the only place you can seek Him is in your car, praise God. But stop driving. Put the seat back and lay out and worship the King.
If you're young and you live with your parents and there's a lot of activity in your house and you can't get intimate, go to your car. If you don't have a car, go to a pond. Go to a lake. Go behind a dumpster. Go somewhere where you're alone. The Holy Spirit will bring you somewhere and sing hymns. Use a worship instrumental off your phone. You don't have a phone? You don't need anything. Just sing to Jesus. Sing to Him.
And if you don't have a Bible, I'll give you one. I'll buy you one myself. We'll give you one. As many as you need. We have an armory here. We'll give you Bibles. We need to seek God. We need to be hungry and thirsty for Jesus.
He's rising up the Davids. He's rising up the Jonathans. He's rising up the Johns. He's rising up the Moseses. He's rising up the lovers of His soul. The Peters. The Johns. I'm telling you, the thrones where Sauls are sitting are coming down. Judgment is coming to the church. If you're seeking God for your own benefit, so you can get whatever you want from Him, I'm telling you—either right now, be convicted and change or judgment is coming. His judgment is even love. Before revival comes, the body of Christ got to get right. It's coming soon.
This message is about spiritual unfaithfulness—not sexual sin, but when your heart belongs more to the world than to God's Word. I received this message through a dream where God showed me His pain, similar to the prophet Hosea. He revealed to me how many who claim to follow Him are not truly married to Jesus. They use Him when they need something or want to feel good, but they don't serve Him or follow Him faithfully.
When I evangelize, 80 to 90% of people say they're Christians. But when you examine the fruit and ask questions, you realize they're not true followers of Jesus. The gospel has been perverted. The churches have been perverted. But God is cleaning up the church—and the church is not a building; it's the body of Christ. He's rising up a remnant of those who will love Him and follow Him for the rest of their lives.
This message is for the distracted, the deceived, the double-minded, and the distant.
If you don't read the Word of God, you cannot grow. There's a very strong urgency for all of you to read the Word. If you're not reading it, you can't grow—it's impossible. In the beginning, it might feel boring, but as you see revelation and experience Him through His Word and prayer, as you realize it's all about Jesus, you become addicted. You become convicted if you don't read the Word daily.
You have to first build discipline. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a burden and a desire to read the Word. If the only time you're hearing the Word is when you come to service, I would say that you're in spiritual adultery. How can you say you're a disciple and follower of Jesus but you don't read His Word and you don't seek Him? That doesn't make any sense.
It's like my wife. If I only hear about her one time a week from another man, what type of relationship is that? If your pastor is the only time you hear the Word of God, they become your idol. You should be very convicted and uncomfortable right now if that's you.
Adulterers and adulteresses. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Tonight, this message is not about sexual sin. It's about spiritual unfaithfulness. When your heart belongs more to the world than it does to the Word, you are cheating on Jesus.
I'm going to say it again: When your heart belongs more to the world than it does to the Word, you're cheating on Jesus. If social media, if other people, Netflix, the gym—if those things are more important to you than getting in God's Word, who are you following? What's your priority? Is the Word of God and prayer last? That means all these other idols come before Jesus.
We just worshiped about idols. When we worship, are we really meaning it or is it fake? We have to get in the Word. We have to get into prayer.
You don't have to sleep around to be unfaithful. You just have to stop praying, stop reading. You don't have to curse God out loud to betray Him. You just have to choose comfort, career, or compromise over His presence.
Spiritual adultery is not about scandal; it's about substitution. Anytime something replaces God in your priorities, affections, or obedience, you've committed spiritual adultery.
How degenerate is your heart, says the Lord God, seeing you do all these things, the deeds of the brazing harlot. You erected your shrine at the head of every road and built your high place in every street. Yet you were not like a harlot because you scorned payment. You are an adulterous wife who takes strangers instead of her husband.
God compares His covenant people to a wife who loves something more than Him. Not because they've sinned once, but because they love something more than Him. He didn't just save you. He married you. When you flirt with the world, you've committed adultery against His love.
It's not just the ministers. It's the marketplace, the mothers, and the mediocre.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
There are too many believers who put their job before Jesus, their goals before Jesus, their grind before grace. They claim Jesus is Lord, but He gets the leftovers of their time, energy, finances, and heart.
You don't have to want a stage to be unfaithful. You just have to build your life without His presence. Are you going to work without His presence? Are you starting your day without His presence? Are you ending your day without His presence? What is your focus, body of Christ? Why do we come to church? What is the whole point of this? Is it to better your life or is it to serve the King?
Did you die under that water and rise a new creation fully committed to Him first? Or are you in it for the things He can give you? He's not a genie. He's not a witch or warlock. He's not a prostitute. He's the one that we love. He's the one that we've surrendered our heart and everything to.
We died under that water. We were separated from the world. We boast in nothing but the cross. We've been crucified from the world and the world from us. It's all about Jesus.
The soul of a lazy man desires and has nothing but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.
We think rich means money. It can mean that. But when I look at that scripture, I think of spiritually rich—revelation, increase in faith, encounters with the Holy Spirit, encounters in His Word, encounters in His presence, seeing Him move in my life. That to me means everything.
So many Christians get into this lazy mode of "I'm just going to pray and read when I feel it by the spirit." That's not the Holy Spirit. That's your flesh. What type of relationship is actually authentic when you only talk to them when you feel good about everything going on in your life?
I don't only talk to my wife when things are going well. I talk to her all the time, every day. She's my wife. I'm married to her. If I go a day without speaking to her, it feels weird. That hasn't happened since we've been married. That's how we have to be with Jesus every day. We need to seek Him. We should feel a burden and like we miss Him.
If you haven't prayed in the morning because you were rushing to work, you should have a burden to give Him 10 minutes, five minutes, after work. If you know you missed that morning prayer, you skip the gym. I'm going to say this: Because you haven't been seeking Him, you skip coming to church. Why would you come to church if you don't seek Him privately? You skip a week at church to go seek Him alone. You consecrate yourself because you're convicted. Then you come back into the ecclesia.
If you're only serving in the house of God to be seen, but you don't seek Him intimately, it's backwards. That's spiritual adultery.
Not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.
Some are not chasing the world; they're just sleeping with the flesh. They call it rest, but it's rebellion wrapped in comfort. They binge watch things instead of building. They want to nap instead of kneeling. They say, "God understands," but never grow in understanding.
We got to stop sleeping with the flesh. You may have not sold out, but you checked out. And silence is also betrayal.
Jesus is speaking to the church:
Nevertheless, I have this against you that you have lest your—you have left your first love. This is the church of Ephesus, on fire in the streets probably witnessing all these things but they left their first love. And this is what Jesus says: Remember therefore from where you have fallen repent and do the first works or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.
His lampstand is His presence. His lampstand is His glory. It's Him. He's the light of the world. I don't want to lose my light and let the enemy harden my heart or the flesh harden my heart towards God because of laziness, because of scrolling on social media, because of another person, because of comfort and food, because of sleep.
Sleep will not destroy my relationship with God. I'd rather sacrifice an hour of sleep to get in His presence than sleep an hour and be in the flesh.
We don't just need people who preach the gospel. We need people possessed by His presence. You preach the gospel without His presence because you haven't been with Him. It's flesh evangelism. It's fleshy. You can feel it. Even the demons know it. They're not worried about someone who's preaching in the flesh.
We see people preach on street corners yelling in the flesh and nobody gets saved. They're actually hurting more than they're helping. When you preach the Word with power because you've been with Him, there's a conviction. There's a power, a presence in the spirit that even unbelievers can feel and start crying or listen because there's light backing up the Word.
Muslims know the Word. The Bible. There are Baptist sensationalists that know the Bible, but there's no power. And without power, there's no transformation. We want to transform. We want to become more like Jesus. And we have to stop committing spiritual adultery.
You can hold a mic and be in ministry, but at every service, be at every service and still be miles away from Jesus. Many are married to the church, but not faithful to Christ. We're supposed to be married to Jesus. We are the church.
Building your future without consulting the King. What does God want you to do? A lot of times, He's not going to answer it in one day. Can you become peaceful and satisfied knowing that you're going to labor in prayer until He reveals it? Can you wait?
What if it takes two weeks, three weeks? What if it takes a year? God wants to confirm it at the right timing. Can you wait and seek Him and not move in front of Him? Don't you want Him to lead you?
Doesn't a husband lead the wife? Doesn't a husband protect the wife? Doesn't a husband open the door for the wife? Don't you want Jesus opening doors for you? Don't you want Jesus leading the way, directing your steps, protecting and providing for you?
You're going to have to seek and be patient and wait on the Lord, and He will renew your strength. And you'll mount up with wings like eagles. You'll run and not grow weary. You'll walk, you won't faint. You'll continue on the narrow path. Do you want to be like an eagle or do you want to be like a little pigeon? I want to be like an eagle. I want to wait on the Lord.
You know, crows attack eagles. You know what the eagle does? They don't fight the black crows. They don't fight them. They take them higher. They elevate. And they get to a certain elevation where the crow can't breathe right, and then the crow drops off and is destroyed.
That's us. When we're getting attacked by the enemy or we don't know what's going on in this season, we don't freak out and try to move without Him. We seek Him and we go higher. We go higher in Him, in His Word, in prayer, in worship, in fasting. We seek Him and we go higher and then everything falls off and He puts things in order. But if we move without Him, we will be the reason for our destruction. I don't want to be the reason for my destruction. I want to go higher and move at His speed.
The approval of man is a big attack on a lot of people. We're not in ministry for people to like us, for people to agree with us. We're in ministry for Jesus.
You're going to have to cut off those relationships that are worldly and bringing you to the wrong things. If your friends are smoking and drinking and still fornicating and claiming to be Christians, you know what's right and you know what's wrong. Cut them off. Separate yourself. Pray for them and let God work on them because you're not their savior.
If they know better and they're still doing it, they've made their decision. They've made their choice to spiritually commit adultery on the one that you're following. Do you want to walk with an adulterer or do you want to walk with a son?
I want to have friends who are sons and daughters of the King because they're going to lead me to the cross. They're going to lead me to Christ. Our friends got to see light. They got to see us and be like they're different. They might in the beginning feel some type of way, but as they watch you and see your fruit, they're going to feel convicted and that will bring them to the cross as well. People got to see us as the example.
Jesus has ascended and is seated at the right hand of the Father and sent the same Spirit that descended upon Him to start His works and ministry. The same Spirit that overshadowed Mary for that virgin birth. He sent the Holy Spirit so we can have power. So we can shine our light on top of a hill in our city, in our community. Don't you want to be that light? So then we have to come out from amongst the world. We have to separate ourselves from the world. You can't serve God and serve demons. You're not the savior. If people reject Jesus, you wipe off your feet and keep it pushing. They're not rejecting you. They're rejecting the one who lives in you.
When I came to Christ, I cut everything off. I even told my girlfriend who was pregnant with my first child: "If she doesn't get saved, I'm out and we're going to co-parent." I cut off family members, friends. I cut everybody off. I was alone with God. Alone. I'm serious. And people thought I was crazy. Family members, friends—they literally thought I was crazy.
I didn't have a platform. I didn't have fruit that people could see online. I didn't have any of that. I didn't have social media. They knew who I was and they still thought I was that same person. And I knew this, and I knew the only way they'd be saved is if they saw fruit. And I knew it was for the rest of my life.
The first one who saw my fruit and got saved was my wife. She saw the transformation. She saw me burning those idols. She saw me throw away the weed and vacuum sealers. She saw me give everything up and people who owed me money—tell them to keep it. She saw that and because she saw that, she began to open up the Word and seek God for herself.
And then she had an encounter. Then I still waited. We waited and then we got married. And then people in her life thought she was crazy. So it was me, her, and our firstborn child alone with a bunch of people who thought we were going crazy. I'm serious. We felt burdened. We cried together. We felt like giving up. We didn't know what to do so many times. But we kept on seeking. We kept on reading.
We would dedicate every Saturday, me and her, and we would read a whole chapter together. There's a time where we thought we couldn't eat pork, where we thought that we had to serve God on Saturday. We were religious, but God still honored it because we were seeking Him. And then God sent people in our lives to pastor us, to help us, to break that, to teach us, to instruct us. He saw the faith.
Our worship was just turning on a song on YouTube and we would just stand there and sing the song. We didn't even know what worship really meant. But we would seek and we would fast. The Bible says the fast we would fast and we would pray. I wouldn't eat. I would do three-day fasts regularly as a newborn Christian. Only water. Regularly. I wanted Jesus. And I still do. I haven't lost my fire because the same things I learned early on—the foundation, the fundamentals—I still practice these things.
I don't want to commit spiritual adultery now. If anything, I do it more. I seek Him more now because of the platform of a church and a microphone. I don't want to fall to pride. I don't want to fall to the love of the world. I don't want that. I hate it. And I cry and I seek Him and I make mistakes and the blood washes me and I keep on seeking Him.
I'm willing to repent when I'm wrong and I'm willing to forgive when someone hurts me. I go through things too. But without Jesus, I can't make it. If I don't seek Him, I don't even know what would happen. I can't even imagine going a day, two days, let alone a week without seeking God. My God, I would go crazy. I don't want that. I'm scared of that. I need Jesus.
It's the little things because I'm in His presence, because I'm seeking Him. Leaving the event we had with the back to school, I hear His tangibility. I hear His voice, feel His presence. I'm worshiping in the car and He tells me to go to Zara at the Florida mall all by myself. Nobody came with me and nobody even knew I went there. But I went there according to the voice of God.
And I get there and the Lord said, "There's going to be an encounter at Zara." I'm walking past all these stores and I'm thinking. He said, "No, go to Zara. Go to Zara. Go to Zara. Go to Zara." I get there and the security guard right in front looks like one of the members we have in this church named Dre. Tats on his neck, tats on his face, looks just like him. And the Lord spoke everything I needed right there.
This man gets encountered. He's a drug dealer. He wants to give up the drug dealing. He has a girlfriend that has a baby with her. Wants to give it up. And I showed him some of our videos. He's super encouraged. Then a young woman comes with her brother and her mother. They come because they see me on social media. By the way, the guy never seen me on social, but they did.
I start praying for them. Three other brothers in Zara come up to me from social media. The guy's like, "Man, I've been wanting to talk to you." I think they're here somewhere. I don't know where they're at. Where y'all at? They're right there. And he's like, "Bro, right?" But all that happens. And I'm telling them, I said, "You got to walk with me, bro, because I'm going to be late." They walk with me all the way to my truck. I'm ministering to them.
This all happens because I listen to the voice of God. And it would have never happened if I wasn't intimate. He asked me, he said, "How do you get visions and how do you grow in that?" I said, "Bro, I grew in visions. I grew in hearing His voice from seeking Him." Intimacy. That's how you train up the prophetic. Not going to look for a man or woman to guide your life. That's perversion. That's idolatry.
You're not going to come to me like I'm some type of psychic. I'm not your prophet man. No, that's not going to happen. I'm going to point you to Jesus. Is the word of knowledge real? Yes, it is. Is the prophetic real? Yes. But I will prophesy and I will release words led by the Spirit. No man will try to conjure it out of me. I won't allow that.
The greatest prophetic word that I give to everybody is: seek Him and intimately know Him. Because if you don't, you will not make it. I don't care if I give you a word of knowledge that makes you cry. You can get—I've seen people I give them a word of knowledge. It's spot on. It's detailed. It's everything they need. They get encountered. They're crying. And they still don't want to surrender. So many times that's judgment. Because when they—if they don't repent and they don't give their life to Christ—when they get to hell, that'll be the same very thing that judges them because they'll never be able to say, "I didn't have an opportunity."
It'll replay in their mind as they're burning in hell. I don't want any of us here to be in hell burning with all the times we could have surrendered to Jesus being replayed.
We got to seek Him ourselves. We got to stop committing spiritual adultery. It's supposed to bother us. It's supposed to bother us if we don't have a local church and we're not plugged in somewhere where we could be rooted and grow. It's supposed to bother us if we're not coming to church. Period.
How can you say you're a follower of Jesus but you don't want to be part of His body? What body are you part of? Are you the body of Christ by yourself? Nobody else? No. You're probably dealing with an orphan spirit and you need deliverance. You need healing.
I'm going to say this: It's not the Rock. This is not the body of Christ alone. The body's connected. God is going to send elders. He's going to send seasoned people into this ministry. He's going to send young people on fire. We will be well-rounded. We will not be known as a young church forever. No. God's going to send other pastors and people here, and we're going to be a good, healthy body. The Rock will not be a cult. It's not going to happen.
It's important that yes, we're going to have that beginning stage. But then, man, we're an actual local church who has to build and actually do this for life. There's generations ahead of us that are going to come and get saved here. We got to keep on building. We can't stay at the same level. We got to grow in Him.
Because we're part of the body of Christ. Forget the RROC name. That's just a name to identify the body part. Forget that. We're part of Jesus's body. And if we're coming to church and we're like, "Yes, I love this church because everyone's so young and they look cool and everyone's lit and there's deliverance and there's healing"—and this is the only time you see Jesus move—but then you don't seek Him for six days out the week, the Rock has become your idol.
I will not perform for you. I will not be like a look at him. "Wow, wow. That's crazy. Woo." No. I'm not going to be that for you. But you don't seek Jesus. Yes, I'm a mascot and God uses me. But it's to point people to you. These signs shall follow those who believe. But I will point you to Jesus because I follow Him.
Think about it. The sign points you to Jesus. But I'm not your mediator. I'm just a sign pointer. These signs follow me and I point to Jesus. We actually have to seek Him.
If you do seek Jesus, this message should give you a fire where you're like, "Thank you, God." Right? And if you're convicted, that's good. That's healthy. If you're convicted and you feel like, "Dang, man. Like, I need to see Jesus." That's good. That means you're actually saved. Because there are people who will hear this message and walk out, forget this.
I don't know what spirit you have inside of you, but the Holy Spirit should convict you if you're not seeking Him. This message should make you feel convicted but encouraged—like, I'm going to seek God. I'm going to set apart times throughout the day. I'm not going to be lazy.
If I set apart time every morning to brush my teeth, I need to do the same thing for Jesus. He's holy, which means set apart. So I need to set apart a specific time of the day where I have a set apart place where I set apart myself to seek Him because He's holy. Not just when I'm in the car driving or when I'm in the shower. Yes, you can do that, too. But give God undivided attention. Holy attention. Set apart time to seek Him. Don't be that person who only seeks Him when it's convenient. Man, that's not a relationship.
You call me religious all you want. I don't care. I know what I'm preaching is the Bible because Jesus says, "Shut the door behind you." It's revelation that you need to shut the world out and be alone.
Not with your wife. Okay, it's great to pray with your wife or your husband. That's amazing. But that's not alone. That's good. But that's not alone. Me and my wife pray together, but we pray individually more than we do together. I seek the Lord daily alone. She seeks the Lord daily alone. And we probably pray together maybe three or four times out the week. But I'll tell you one thing we do: We pray alone with Jesus every day. And we hold each other accountable.
If I know that she's been busy with the kids, I go, "Go ahead, babe." If she knows that I've got to prepare a sermon, "Go ahead. You got to." But my sermon is not the only time I read the Word. That's just extra. I'm in the Word daily myself, strategically, systematically. I'm seeking the Lord chapters a day because I don't want to be that guy who only reads the Word when I preach a sermon. That's just convenient. It's easy to be like that. I feel convicted. The Holy Spirit convicts me.
Using ministry as a brand, using God to build platforms instead of people. If your goal is to go viral so you can have a platform, you're already off. Your platform is not for you. It's for Jesus. And did Jesus even give you the green light for that platform? Before you start social media, before you start whatever it is you want to do, ask Jesus first.
Fame over faithfulness: Preferring a viral reel or to get a position on the worship team over a real encounter.
Networking over kneeling: You come to church cuz you want to network, but you don't want to worship the King.
Building influence instead of building altars.
Entertainment over holiness. I just talked about it. Watching everything but never praying yourself.
Laziness over lordship: Excusing being stagnant with "God knows my heart." That's a big one.
Comfort over conviction: Never letting the cross confront your lifestyle. The cross is going to confront your lifestyle every season. God's going to always take you deeper. The deep calls unto the deep. You're never supposed to stay the same. You get more and more deep with God. Where you're at right now will be different a year from now. You're not supposed to stay the same.
Serving but not surrendered: That's works-based without worship. Presence listless and wanting performance.
Worship leaders who never worship off stage: That's scary, bro. If the only time you worship God is when you're on a stage and you don't worship Him alone with Jesus, that's bad. You see what happens with ministers like that. And then they get fame and then their whole worship career is about their gifting of music. It's all about them and how gifted they are.
That's crazy—that you can be making songs about Jesus but not know Him. That's scary. And many people fall to that. The money and the fame comes in and now it's all about them and they don't care. They just want sold out stadiums, but they don't want Jesus. And now they're on a stage singing, thinking everyone's looking at me and not pointing nobody to Jesus.
I'm telling you, man. We've seen so many people fall like that. That means we can get got too. I don't think these people started off like that. I think they started off pure, but then eventually because of fame—"I got to get to the studio and record this song. Wow, this person liked my video and commented."
Look, there are NBA players, NFL players, professional soccer athletes, professional worldly music actors, and super famous people who follow me on social media, send me DMs, and comment. That doesn't get me excited unless I'm thinking about how I'm going to witness to them about Jesus. Does it make sense? Like, it doesn't make me like, "Oh my gosh, they're looking at me." I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, they're looking at deliverance, healing, words of knowledge. Their mind and their wisdom is being boggled. It's being confronted."
UCF fighters, all types—they message me in the DMs. Some names, if I said these names, you would know them. But they're convicted. They want to go deeper with Jesus. Some of them, the Lord tells me, don't even answer it. Let them keep following you and seeing your videos until I tell you.
I don't get—Woo. No, I don't. In the beginning when I first started going viral, I made that mistake. I did. It made me feel good. God confronted it with the cross and delivered me more. That rejection had to go. That healing had to continue. I needed more healing. I would say, "Why does this make me feel good?" Like, "No, that's not good." But I would confront it with the cross. I need you. And I would cry and I would go right back to the cross.
We got to stay there. It's never ending. I'm flawed just like you. I need the cross just like you. I'm not exempt from it. I don't have everything perfect. I got to seek God every day. I feel burdened if I don't. I get excited to go into the secret place and cry out to Him and repent of little things.
I want to go to Him and tell Him, "God, these little things..." and even show me things. I cry out to God and ask Him to show me the things I can't see cuz I know there's things I can't see. You're prideful if you think you got it all unlocked. I go to Him and say, "God, I know there's things I can't see that even other people see that I don't see. Show me these things."
And I cry out to God to send real people around me who will correct me and actually speak the truth. I cry out for those things because the platform is an idol and people bow down to it without even knowing. In their heart, I hate it and I pray for the real ones. I pray for those who don't have an agenda. I pray that God removes people who are all about idolatrous platforms and about me. I pray that God removes them. I don't want them around me. I told God, "I'd rather be alone until you send the right people around me. I don't care if it's a small group."
That's why I love my wife because my wife will correct me and say the truth. She'll tell me the truth no matter what. And that's why I thank God for a wife who doesn't look at me and think, "Oh, platform." She's the same way before I had a platform. And even now, she hasn't changed. If anything, she's become more correcting. Thank you, Jesus. Even when I don't receive it. Thank you, Jesus. And she won't budge.
When you have someone around you who will do that, cherish them because when things start—when the fruit starts showing—everybody wants your fruit. And if they don't get your fruit, they'll leave. Everyone wants your fruit. Protect your fruit. Protect the things you've labored in prayer for. Protect the things that you've sacrificed blood, sweat, and tears for. Protect it. It's holy. It comes from the Lord. It's from your connection. Don't let anyone take the fruit of intimacy, the fruit that God burst in your life through intimacy. Don't let the ravenous wolves come around. Protect it.
And appreciate those who will correct you. Appreciate a leader in your life who will tell you the truth even when it hurts. Appreciate that. That's priceless, bro.
Judas kissed Jesus on the cheek. Proverbs was prophecy about Judas. When it talks about a right, it talks about "faithful are the wounds of a friend and the kiss of an enemy." That was Solomon writing about Judas in the future. The kiss of an enemy. What did Judas do? Kissed Him. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Jesus was wounded for us. He's a friend. He's faithful. That's Jesus. I want Jesus to correct me. I love when the Lord chastens me. I love when He brings correction. When He's not bringing correction, I get a little worried and I got to go pray, right?
Don't be worried for anything, but go pray. I'm that guy. If I get worried, I go pray. "Lord, show me where I can grow. I need to be pruned. I need to be broken in a new area." And He's faithful and just.
Crying in service, but cussing at home. Oh, man. I can't, like, bro. Like, are there people in here who do that? Come on, bro. Come on. That's fake. We got to stop. We got to be—man, when I first came to Christ I had a problem with that like 'cuz in the world I was in, I was a sailor in the United States Navy. I come from the streets. I come from people where cussing was just normal. It was normal. Every sentence I would—every sentence that came out of my mouth there was a cuss word. It was like that. It was bad.
So when I came to Christ, yes, He washed me, cleaned me. He delivered me. But I would get—I would have to stop myself a lot. Sometimes certain words would come out and I would feel convicted and I would feel bad. Me and my wife would hold each other accountable. There'd be times where she'd be like, "That's a cuss word." I'd be like, "Right. I repent. I repent. I repent." Same thing with her. Simple words. Something simple like saying, you know, "Hell yeah" would bother me or I'd be like, "No, heavens yeah. Heavens yeah." And I would say that, "Heavens yeah."
Even when I'm evangelizing, people be like, "Hell yeah." No, "Heavens yeah." Yeah. You right. I'll say like—but I'm only using it now as an example. But is hell? No. No. No. We're not going to hell. Heaven. Yes. It's the heart. It's why you say it.
You know how isn't it crazy—how when someone is praising a thing, they'll say, "Hell yeah." Isn't that crazy how the devil's perverted people or just deceived people to where they're saying hell yeah over like yeah? Like what? They're speaking death over their life! That's crazy. Start saying "Heaven yeah. Heaven yeah. Jesus yeah" right when something good happens. It's yeah. Yeah. Make it cool around your friends. Change the culture. That's what we do. The kingdom influences the culture of the world and changes it. That's what we do with the gospel with Jesus. We shift the culture. I don't care what people think. They want to think bringing Christians way. That's good for you. I'm going to still keep flexing in the spirit. I'm going to still keep letting people know about Jesus. And I'm going to do it boldly and I don't care and you're going to shift eventually and you're going to follow Jesus too.
Like people—people see that and it blows their mind. Really? People come to this church, you know—people come to this church just to see if it's real. You know how many people are in this church right now serving and even leading in the church that first came to the church to check to see if it was real, if it was fake. And then they came and they saw devils casted out, the sick healed, and people saved. They felt the presence of God and his conviction and they came running to this altar shaking on the ground like a snake getting delivered. Praise God. That's good.
If you're watching online and you've been thinking about coming, come. I tell people all the time, come. Just sit in the. Just come. Just come one time. Come. You'll be convicted. You'll be standing up during the altar call, standing up during the deliverance. You will. Even if you don't come to this altar, I've had people come and they get convicted and they're touched and later on they tell me, "Man, I was convicted. Man, I felt something. I felt like I was having an out of body experience in that day. I got delivered from a demon I didn't even know I had."
Bored with God: Like, devotion has become duty. You better praise your way into joy. You start feeling bored with God. That's the flesh. You need a fast. How many of y'all been feeling bored? Be real. I'm going to give you an assignment. Three-day water fast. No, not a Daniel fast. Three-day water fast. Oh, I'm going to pray about it. No. I'm releasing it. Do it.
People say, "I'm going to pray about it," which really means I don't want to do it. Yeah, pray about everything. But I'm getting like that Saul when he became Paul. What did he do? He three-day fasted. Three-day water fast. You don't have to do 40. Do three. That's light work. That's simple. No. And not a Daniel fast. Straight water. Watch how that flesh, that boredom leaves real quick. When I'm on a water fast and I come into worship, bro, I feel the presence of God times a hundred. I can't stop crying. I already do cry in worship. If I just—like the present—because my flesh is out the way.
You need a fast. And if you're offended by me telling you this, that's not—I'm going tell you something. That's not the Holy Spirit. When would the Holy Spirit ever convict you not to water fast? Convict you to get out the flesh? I mean to stay in the flesh. That's not the Holy Spirit. You're not convicted or you're condemned. You're just—you just need to fast.
No secret place, just secret sins: Oh Lord, no secret place will lead to secret sin. We're made to do things intimately in secret. Whether it's sin or righteousness, whether it's seeking Jesus or seeking the devil—everybody wants to be intimate with something. We're made for that. We're made to worship.
Private rebellion dressed in public religion: That's a big one. Don't be that person who looks like a Christian outwardly, but then in private you're sinning. I don't even—sometimes it bothers me that I have to list the sins all the time. Like people don't know. You know if you're fornicating. You know if you're watching porn privately and not repenting. You know if you're vaping. You know if you're smoking.
I'm not—don't wait for a word of knowledge from me. I'm not going to give you that word of knowledge if the Holy Spirit don't tell me to. He wants you to have a relationship with Him to where you're convicted by on your own intimately and you want more of Jesus and you want to give those things up.
For you shall worship no other god for the Lord whose name is jealous. Is a jealous God.
That word jealous also means zealous about you. He's jealous. He's on fire about you. He's turned. He—I'm telling you—He's going to make sure things get exposed in your life because He loves you.
And it's sad that a lot of people, God will convict them. God will allow things to happen and they still keep hardening their heart in rebellion. Eventually, He just gives you over to that. He'll just give you over to your own desires.
God doesn't want visitation rights. He wants habitation. He's not looking for a weakened bride. He's coming for a holy, surrendered, burning, faithful one. You weren't just saved from hell. You were saved for Him.
I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice and loving kindness and mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. You shall know the Lord.
God doesn't divorce us when we fail. He redeems us when we return. So even though you might have committed adultery on Him, like a loving husband, like a loving father, like a loving friend—He is love. He's waiting for you to come back, saying, "Come. I forgive you. I want you home. I want you back." He's like the prodigal father. He wants you back more than you can know.
He's not mad at you. He doesn't hate you. He doesn't think of you less. He actually loves you so much that He's right now allowing you to hear this message so you can come back to Him. Not to me. To Jesus. I'm just the guy who's releasing the message.
God doesn't divorce us when we fail. He redeems us when we return. The cross is not just for the lost. It's for the unfaithful bride who wants to come home as well.
Think about the thief on the cross. He messed up big time to the point where he was about to die. But even God gave him a chance to repent.
For God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.
We are crucified. We are crucified ones. We are crucified from the world and the world from us. We are no longer part of the world. Now we go to the world to reach them and bring them to the kingdom.
For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten son so that you can come out the world and come into the kingdom. He did it for all of us. Those who are lost. Those who are fallen. Those who are in sin. Those who are lukewarm. Those who have been going to church and they're just not saved.
Some of you came to this service, but you're plugged into another local church. I'm going to release this by the spirit. You want a word of knowledge? This is for some of you. Some of you are plugged into another local church, and you're comfortable in that church because they're comfortable with your sin. And you come here because you see fire and you see the spirit of God moving. I'm not speaking against no pastor or no church, no church. At the end of the day, they got to answer to the Lord themselves.
But you came here and this is your word. This is your breakthrough. Just because your pastor's not calling things out, just because your leadership's not calling things out, just because you're not held accountable, doesn't give you an excuse to commit adultery on Jesus. When you get to heaven, you can't say, "Well, my church didn't hold me accountable. My church didn't disciple me right." That's not going to be an excuse.
It's personal. That's why you should thank God for a church who preaches the gospel, who preaches repentance, who holds you accountable, who disciples you. Thank God for a church like that. Thank God for a church that leads you to the cross and tells you to come out the world.
Thank God for the spirit of God who convicts us to do that. It's grace. God's lampstand is here. That's why you see His power and you experience His presence. It's because Jesus is near. It's not because of a man. It's not because of a woman. It's because of Jesus. That's who we're surrendered to. That's the same cross we kneel at. That's the same place we go to daily and bring our children to. Because without the cross and without Christ, we're done. We're back in the world and we're seven times worse.
I've already made that promise. I already asked God—asked Him to kill me before I go back to the world because He already knows the future. I've already made a covenant, a promise with Him. Not only for me. I've actually told my wife. Let's pray this together. And she literally said, "Oh my goodness." And it was hard for her. And this is way early on when we first got saved.
I don't want to go back to the world. I want to stay at the cross. I want to stay with Jesus. And if my heart's going to be taken over by Satan for whatever reason, take me to heaven. I don't want my legacy to be tainted so that my children go to the world too and my grandchildren. I want to leave a legacy of Jesus. Not a perfect man. Not a sinless man. But a man who is dependent on Christ. A man who was flawed. A man who needed the cross. A man who needed to repent. Needed to forgive. Needed the blood. Needed Jesus.
I want my kids to see me and see that I'm praying daily, that I'm seeking the Lord. I want the people I'm discipling to see the same thing. Not a perfect man, but a man who needs Jesus because if I'm their Jesus, they're going to come to me and I'm leading them the wrong way. They follow me as I follow Christ. I don't want them looking like me. I want them looking like Christ. So when people see them, they smell the aroma of Christ, not of Richard, not of me. I'm not going to become nobody's idol.
This message might be for you. I hope it does offend you and bring you to the cross. I'm not going to be your idol. This isn't a love story for me and another person. No. It's a love story about Jesus. He saved us. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ, not the gospel of any other person. It's the good news of Jesus. That's what keeps us. No matter what happens in life, if this ministry falls, if I go and I leave and go to another country, if God sends you to another state, nothing should shift our relationship with God.
This whole "church hurt" thing where people lose faith because of church hurt. They never grew out of that milk stage. They never stopped needing milk from somebody. And pastors like to keep people in the milk place. That's wrong. You ever seen a seven-year-old still drinking milk from a mother's breast? I've seen 10-year-olds. Isn't that weird? Do you want to be that person? You got to start eating the meat. And that only—you could only do that with Jesus Himself. You need to sit down with Him and get in that Word and prayer.
If you're a man, you need to become a man of God. Not a child of God. A man of God. Yes, you're God's child, but He wants you to grow up and become a man of God. For a woman, you need to become a woman of God who defends their family, who prays, who intercedes. If you're single, starting now. We got to grow up.
And for those that have been committing spiritual adultery—you come to church, but you're not serving God. You're serving idols. You're serving people. You're serving your flesh. And you're not serving the King. No wonder why you're bored. No wonder why you're not having encounter like you used to.
The Bible says He loved us before we knew Him. And no one comes to the son lest the Father draws him in. So the Father loved you before you knew Him. Drew you into the son. Brought you to Christ. Filled you with the Spirit. Now you need to seek Him so you can find. Now you draw near to Him and He draws near to you. You're saved now. You know—you've tasted of His goodness. So now you need to seek Him.
Let's stop using God like He's a McDonald's quick fix. This is for the rest of our lives. You're sold out. You've died under that water and you've risen new.
We build altars in our home. We seek the Lord. We have a place that we meet Him. We don't just meet Him somewhere when it's convenient. Yes, you can pray and worship on the way to work. But before you go to work, before you even start driving—if the only place you can seek Him is in your car, praise God. But stop driving. Put the seat back and lay out and worship the King.
If you're young and you live with your parents and there's a lot of activity in your house and you can't get intimate, go to your car. If you don't have a car, go to a pond. Go to a lake. Go behind a dumpster. Go somewhere where you're alone. The Holy Spirit will bring you somewhere and sing hymns. Use a worship instrumental off your phone. You don't have a phone? You don't need anything. Just sing to Jesus. Sing to Him.
And if you don't have a Bible, I'll give you one. I'll buy you one myself. We'll give you one. As many as you need. We have an armory here. We'll give you Bibles. We need to seek God. We need to be hungry and thirsty for Jesus.
He's rising up the Davids. He's rising up the Jonathans. He's rising up the Johns. He's rising up the Moseses. He's rising up the lovers of His soul. The Peters. The Johns. I'm telling you, the thrones where Sauls are sitting are coming down. Judgment is coming to the church. If you're seeking God for your own benefit, so you can get whatever you want from Him, I'm telling you—either right now, be convicted and change or judgment is coming. His judgment is even love. Before revival comes, the body of Christ got to get right. It's coming soon.
