Victory Over The Venom

Pastor Keion Henderson is the lead pastor of The Lighthouse Church in Houston, Texas Lighthouse is an organization that serves the body of Christ through our 5 pillars. We always ANTICIPATE a move of God in every experience, so we constantly set a great ATMOSPHERE, and we ACCEPT everyone through love. We believe the best way to impact people is by being AUTHENTIC to who we are and by taking ACTION to move everyone towards greater.

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Autogenerated Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00:03):
Lemme introduce you to my father.

Pastor Keion (00:00:08):
I believe that we owe God a praise numbers Chapter 21, numbers chapter 21 verse four, God doesn’t make any mistakes, church, and I’m reading for the King James version of the Bible just because I like the way it sounds. The Bible says in Numbers 21 in four says, and they journey from Mount or by the way of the Red Sea to compass the land of edem. And I want you to identify yourself. If this is you and the souls of the people were discouraged because of the way they had to take, you don’t always want to go the way God says, you got to go. It could be discouraging to have to listen to God. Now I know y’all don’t want to admit it. Sometimes listening to God is painful. You want to listen to yourself. Always remember this. When you listen to you, you have to bring you out listening to you. God says, I promise you, this is what the Bible says. The Bible says that when the people would not listen to God, Paul says that he turned them over to a ate mind. What that meant is God says, because you won’t listen to me, I’m going to turn you over to yourself, but in exchange for turning you over to yourself, I’m also going to put you in charge of your own deliverance.

(00:01:40):
How many of you know you don’t have the power to get yourself out? Anybody need God? I do. And the people speak unto God and against Moses, they were like, and I’m just going to paraphrase. When we were in Egypt, yes, they were beating us, but at least we had a roof over our head. Yes, we were slaves, but at least we had three meals a day and you brought us out here in the wilderness to die. There is no bread, there is no water. And our soul, in other words, it says it eth this light bread. It means that they are tired of eating the same thing. And the Lord says, oh, you tired of the bread? I got some better. Let me send the snakes. And so he sent fiery serpents. And fiery serpents means that these were not boil constrictors, these were venomous snakes, these were vipers and they bit the people and some of them did die. Therefore, the people came to Moses and said, okay, alright, we got it. We sin, we sorry, we spoke against the Lord. And now we just pray unto the Lord that he takes away

Speaker 3 (00:03:05):
The snakes.

Pastor Keion (00:03:07):
Somebody say, Lord, do something with these snakes. The Lord said unto Moses, I want you to take and make a fiery serpent and I want you to set it on a pole and it shall come to pass that everyone that was bitten when they look at the thing that you have been making, the snake, the bronze snake on the pole, it says that if you look on it,

Speaker 3 (00:03:46):
Ye

Pastor Keion (00:03:48):
Shall

Speaker 3 (00:03:50):
Live.

Pastor Keion (00:03:51):
Somebody shall I, shall live, shall

Speaker 3 (00:03:53):
Live

Pastor Keion (00:03:54):
And not die and

Speaker 3 (00:03:56):
Not

Pastor Keion (00:03:56):
Die. You already know the subject. I want to talk today to those of you’all who have been bitten by some unexpected fiery serpent. God sent me to tell you that is about to give you the victory over the venom. You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. Somebody say it again. Victory. Victory. Over the venom.

Speaker 3 (00:04:22):
Over the venom.

Pastor Keion (00:04:26):
You do know that your life goes in the direction of the way you look. Whatever you are looking at right now, whatever you are focused on, you will get it. Lemme tell you why.

Speaker 3 (00:04:48):
Let

Pastor Keion (00:04:49):
Your conscious does not understand the word don’t or not your subconscious. It doesn’t understand negative. You understand you were not built by God to be negative. So when you say, I don’t want you fill in the blank, the reason why you get it is because the mind doesn’t hear. Don’t all the subconscious here is what you feel in the blank with. And so the mind hears, I want fill in the blank. Okay, so let me put it this way. I don’t want cancer. I don’t want cancer, I don’t want cancer. All the brain hears in the subconscious, I want cancer because the subconscious doesn’t calculate negativity because God did not build you to be a negative person. He built you to have hope, to have peace in the midst of a stone and to be content in whatever state you’re in. So you have to speak life in order not to experience death. But most of us, the only thing we can speak about

Speaker 1 (00:06:21):
Is what we see.

Pastor Keion (00:06:24):
But what is faith? Faith is the substance of what and the what of things. So then you have to spend more of your time speaking about the things you want to see as opposed to the things that you are seeing. Okay? So if you want a positive experience, it doesn’t start with hope, it starts with speech. You have to speak positive even though things are not the way you want them to be. Let me tell you something, people who speak positively all the time, you irritate negative people. That’s they can’t stand it. They say you happy all the time. Yes, you want me to be sad like you because if I’m sad like you, who’s going to support me? I can’t support you. You have to encompass the thing that God gave you. Don’t let anybody wipe that smile off of your face because it irritates them. You got to have joy, unspeakable joy. Are you with me so far? Now I’m telling you this for a specific reason because everything that we see Israel go through, they spoke it. It wasn’t what God wanted for them, it is what happened to them because they could not control their language based on the stimuli or the circumstances that they were in. Now when we look at this scripture, apart from Genesis chapter three, when Satan came in the garden as a serpent, this is the most famous snake in the Bible.

(00:08:04):
Okay, so where do we see a snake for the first time? Adam and evil, where in the garden. And what happens in the garden? A snake comes and tells him what you can have, what God said. Y’all read it right? So God told ’em not to eat of the fruit of the tree, of the knowledge of good and evil. And then the snake came in and said, what? That’s not what God said. So a snake in your life is not somebody who disagrees with you, it’s somebody who disagrees with God. And so you have to understand that the devil is going to send people in your life that contradicts what God told you. And he knows before the game starts that if he can get you to listen to the thing or the person or the mindset or the stimuli that disagrees with God, then he’s going to back out of the garden because he understands that his consequences have already been given. Remember the snake used to walk on legs. The Lord cursed him to his belly and to crawl in the dust. So he has already received his punishment for his disagreement with God. So the only thing that’s left to punish is you.

(00:09:18):
And so the devil is trying to get you off of your feet like he got knocked off of his and he wants you crawling on your belly in the dust, frustrated when you have been built to have life and to have life more. Somebody shout, I want the abundant life. I want the

Speaker 1 (00:09:37):
Abundant life.

Pastor Keion (00:09:39):
Now when we read this, Jesus even mentions out of his own mouth, this particular snake that we’re going to read about and study for the next few moments in numbers chapter 21. How many of y’all have ever heard this scripture? I want to be very practical today. I want you to get this because this is going to strengthen you for your journey going forward. This is probably the most famous scripture in the whole Bible for God. And where is that found

Speaker 1 (00:10:17):
John three.

Pastor Keion (00:10:18):
Raise your hand if you knew that already. Look around. I don’t see any hand that didn’t know John three 16. But ask your neighbor, do you know John three 14? They like, because what you asking me that for? Ain’t ain’t no quiz this church. Do you know John three 15? Yes, maybe. But we all know John three 16. Lemme teach you something about the Bible. Don’t just memorize the verse. That’s important. Always go back and read the verses before it. Why? Because it gives you the context and you’ll understand what God was actually saying as it relates to this. Now if you can production team bring up John three and 14 on the screen. I want to read John three 14. I want to read John three and 15 and then we’ll read John three 16 and once we get all of those scriptures together, you’ll be able to get a totalitarian view of what I’m saying and so it’ll help you. So John three and 14, here we go. And Moses, now this is in John that the gospel is referring to an Old Testament character and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even the son of man must be lifted up, alright? That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. Next verse, for God shall love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believe that him shall not perish but have everlasting life. So when you read this in totality, it is actually John referring to Jesus as the serpent in numbers.

(00:12:09):
This is so important because of what the serpent was tricked into doing by the enemy. Everybody hates snakes. Well not everybody, but lemme just ask how many people like snakes just raise your hand, Lord God, in the name of Jesus I speak peace over their spirit. Y’all ever heard this story about the lady who was sleeping in the bed with a snake and she said she took him to the vet and she said he stopped eating and she started feeling bad for him and y’all know the story and the doctor says, the vet says, has your snake been cuddling up to you more lately? She said, yeah, it sure has. It’s just so sad. And the vet said, the snake is not getting close to you because it’s lonely. It’s been watching you when you were asleep sizing you up to find out how much it’s going to take to eat you. And see that’s why you got to be careful because some people will get close to you and you’ll be up here talking about, oh, they just love me. I got me a new friend and you don’t know, they sizing you up to find out how much effort it’s going to take to swallow you whole.

(00:13:46):
And so because of what the snake did in the garden, it cannot be redeemed. Everybody talks about snakes. Three people raised their hands talking about they like snakes. There’s just this attitude between us and snakes because it tricked Eve and Eve and Adam and Adam told Cain and Abel and Cain and Abel told their children and from the beginning of history, everybody’s been taught to not like snakes and here Jesus is identifying with one. See, this is why you have to be careful with the devil is because he will take the power from that which God created and have us demonizing a very thing that’s needed for our redemption. So the reason why people wouldn’t look at the snake is because they know what the snake did in the garden not recognizing that God was going to use the snake to get them out. I want to help some of y’all. Will you just stand still long enough to let God use your snakes every time somebody come into your life, you ready to cut the head off of the serpent? You ready to get all of the snakes out of your life not recognizing that God uses the snakes to get you to the next

Speaker 1 (00:15:02):
Place?

Pastor Keion (00:15:09):
Oh, this is going to get good today. Somebody say, Lord, use the snakes.

Speaker 1 (00:15:15):
Snakes.

Pastor Keion (00:15:16):
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believed in hymn shall not perish but have everlasting life. Paul also associated a snake with Jesus. One Corinthians chapter 10 verse nine, it says, neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. The context is is that the children of Israel, listen to me for the last 40 years have been walking through this desert. Somebody showed me where the water is. Somebody showed me where the grapes are somebody, where is the manor? Where’s Walmart? Somebody showed me where’s tar? I don’t see target. Does anybody see Neiman Marcus? I don’t see it. Do you see Saks fifth Avenue? Do you see a mirror? I’m just asking what’s in the wilderness you and how do you get supply in the wilderness? God, he literally has to make a way out of no way, and this is where God puts his people for 40 years and they’re walking around it and our texts brings us to the place where they are 90 days away from walking into Canaan where the land is flowing with milk and honey. They are 90 days away from the Galleria. They are 90 days away from Ka. They are 90 days away

(00:17:06):
From new houses that they did not build vineyards they did not plant. They’re 90 days away and just as they’re getting ready to walk in,

Speaker 1 (00:17:15):
God

Pastor Keion (00:17:16):
In his infinite wisdom sends another detour or I’m going to teach you today because most people get upset with God and this is why his ways are not always and his thoughts are not our thought. They thought that after 40 years, God of wandering in this wilderness after 40 years of going to church until the tabernacle and praising your name after 40 years of giving you our unadulterated worship, just as we are getting ready to get a breakthrough, you give us an additional detour and how does he do it? They need to go to a place and through a place called Edem. And so Moses sends a letter ahead to the king of Edem and says, we are about to go to the promised land. I have gotten these people through this stuff for the last 40 years. We’re getting ready to walk into the promised land. Sir, can you help us? If you will just let us go through edem, we can walk through your city and walk right into our promise. And the Bible says that the king of Edem said No. Now I know God could have caused him to say yes the same way he did. Pharaoh,

(00:18:36):
You remember when God wanted him out of Egypt and he didn’t want to let him go and Moses told Pharaoh that God said, let my people go, and Pharaoh said No. Then God sent 10 plagues and the death of the firstborn until Pharaoh said yes, but he did not do this to the kingdom Edo, which means that this detour is a part of the plan. Oh God, y’all not going to say amen in here today. What God wants me to tell you is that you are not getting in anything that’s going to help you get to a shortcut. God says, I’m taking you the long way around because I’m trying to teach you to stop begging people to let you in. When I never invited you to go, God help me in this place today I’m about to preach whether I got to do it by myself. Can I get about 500 people to slap somebody and say, stop begging people, stop begging them to let you in. Stop begging them to like you. Stop begging them to open their doors. It must mean that God is going to get you there without them. God says you must don’t know who you are because you keep begging folk to let you in. You keep begging folk to let you in the crowd. You keep trying to be friends with people who obviously have no affinity for you. Sometimes God says, I don’t want you to go through edem because if I let you go through Edo, you are going to have relationships with people who are not good for where you’re going.

(00:20:16):
So sometimes even though you’re close, you have to

Speaker 3 (00:20:24):
Go around it

Pastor Keion (00:20:27):
And if you look on a map, Edem is that way and Canaan is that way, which means sometimes you can be going in the opposite direction of your destiny and still be going the right way. Sometimes God has to let you hit rock bottom old country Western singers said it’s all right because rock bottom is solid ground. Everything else you have built your life on has been shifty and shaky and plastic and fake. God says, I wanted you to hit the bottom because from there is the only place you can put a stake in the ground and really build something that will survive the earthquakes that your life will encourage somebody shout, I’m glad to be at the bottom because God’s about to take me to the top. I want anybody in this place today who thought that because you were not going directly in the direction that you thought you needed to go, you thought you were failing. But let me tell you, sometimes success is a detour. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Y’all didn’t hear me. When you got fired, that was success. You missed it when your relationship ended. That was God’s plan

(00:21:46):
When you lost the house, that was a part of the journey when you went through foreclosure and they repossessed the car. God says, Chet, that was on it too because I’m trying to show you that I’m the only one that can make a way out of no way and the reason why some of you all don’t have any strength is because when you’re weak you have too many options. If you don’t have it, your daddy will do it. If your daddy don’t do it, your mama will do it. If your mama won’t do it, your auntie will do it. If your auntie won’t do it, you got a friend that’ll do it. God says, I’m taking that, I’m taking that. I’m taking that, taking that and I’m going to put you in the midst of a wilderness to see if you don’t trust me more than you trust your mama. So you’ll start to see God just removing things you depend on. He’ll give them back when you trust him because anything you depend on more than you depend on God is called idolatry and God is a jealous God and he’ll have no other God before him. So some of the things you lost in your life is not because they were not good for you, it’s because you worshiped them.

(00:23:09):
God says, I need you to be

Speaker 3 (00:23:12):
Here.

Pastor Keion (00:23:14):
I need you here where you can walk in the confidence that I can still provide in dry places. How many of y’all are here right now? Just you don’t know where the next smile is coming from. You don’t know where is the next breakthrough? Can somebody show me where Breakthrough Boulevard is? Where is overcome street? Where is million dollar Avenue? God says, I will not show you away. I will just tell you to go and to see if you’ll trust me when I add detours. Will you believe me when you’re close? God help me in this place. Will you still be able to love people when the last person you needed told you no? Because see, the negativity of somebody will make you turn on everybody. Oh God, help me in this place. God wants you to know that he is the ruler of the router and that no matter how hard you fight it, you are going to go the way He said go. How many of y’all listening to me right now and how many of y’all like all right, next Sunday just it takes patience to follow God’s plan. Somebody say God’s plan, God’s plan, God’s plan, God’s plan. Some of y’all slow. You just,

(00:25:18):
Y’all will get it on your way home.

(00:25:24):
God says, listen to this. This is what the Lord showed me. I ain’t a rapper but it felt like some bars when I heard it. It’s like God says, do you love Yahweh or do you love the way? Because most people love to make their way than they do the God who decides which way you’re going to go and when God contradicts what you have in mind, we’ll stop going to church. We stop listening to worship music. We get ratchet and think the world has an answer for us only to find yourself back talking about near the cross. You ain’t going to be able to get away from God. I don’t care. He’s so big. Can you, if I go to heaven, thou art there, listen, the Bible says if I go to hell and make my bed thou art there, what is God saying? You can’t escape me. You can run to another country and get there and find out I’m still in charge. You can run into another relationship and find out I’m still in charge. You can change jobs, shut down the company, change your identity and find out that when you get over there, I’m still in control.

(00:26:56):
And then I’ll make people deny you when you need their help because I’m forcing you back to me. Lord, help me in this place today. I know you told me to preach it. I know you told me to preach it. God says when you apply the definition to this situation, this just blew my mind. The Bible says that they were what? Discouraged everybody say discouraged, discouraged. Anybody ever been discouraged? I thought you would say yes because when I read it I said, yes Lord, I’ve been discouraged, I’ve been discouraged, I’ve been discouraged, I’ve been discouraged. Dis negative courage. I’ve had no courage. I’ve been discouraged God. And then I looked up the word discouraged in the Hebrew Sean and the word discouraged in the text. Actually, Lord help me. When I read this, it blew my mind. I’m discouraged and I’m discouraged. I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying and it ain’t been working. I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying. Nobody understands. I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying. I’m discouraged. And then I looked up the word discouraged in the Hebrew and the word discouraged in the Hebrew means impatient.

(00:28:11):
God said, you are not discouraged, you are impatient. You don’t have enough faith to wait on me and you keep hiding under a feeling. What you are is impatient. You won’t wait on the Lord so you won’t renew your strength and because you don’t renew your strength, you won’t mount up with wings like eagles and you will not run and be weary and you will not walk in not faint all because you are trying to hurry somebody who’s in charge of time. Your problem is you’re not discouraged. Your promise is you’re trying to rush somebody who has eternity. I used to think I was discouraged. What you’re feeling is the side effects of impatience.

(00:29:01):
It didn’t happen quick enough. So you said no. That’s what happens when you don’t wait on the Lord, you can’t renew your strength. Talk to me somebody. So the reason why you can’t renew your strength is because you don’t want to wait on God. You want to cry, you want to shout, you want to be frustrated and you expect God to deal with the snake before you learn how to trust him in the wilderness. God says, until you learn to trust me here, I’m not going to take you there because the last thing I’m going to do is put somebody with no faith in the promised land. So you have to stay here for 40 years because you’re impatient, not discouraged. How many of y’all are guilty of not waiting long enough on God to shift that thing like I’ve been at this for a year. Come on talk to me church, we all in this together. Anybody in here? Okay, I said sorry. Now why they still act as dumb. I’ve been trying to grow this business for two years. Ain’t nobody coming. I’m about to quit. I’ve been in this marriage for six months and they don’t understand me. I’m done.

(00:30:28):
I said six months. It used to be six years. Now it’s like 30 days. If you don’t understand me by Tuesday, we ain’t, God don’t want us to be together. God says watch this without faith, it’s what Come on by readers. It’s hard to please God. It’s difficult to please God. Impossible. Which means every time you don’t believe God, you disappoint God. God knows the way that man should take. He knows how long you need to be in the wilderness so the wilderness can get out of you and if there is one thing that God can do is outweigh you, your time is limited. He is eternal. He can wait on your stubborn butt and you will die and still be in the wilderness. How many of y’all want to get out of the wilderness? I’m going to show you, I’m going to show you. Is this helping anybody? Jesus said you don’t think you got to wait. I did watch this. When Jesus decided to become human, did he not have the power to go directly from being a God or the God to being a full fledged human being grown He, Adam wasn’t born.

(00:32:29):
Adam was created a full grown man, which means that if God is the second Adam, he could have also come here an adult. But what he wanted to show you is that he was going to wait nine months process and after nine months then he was going to be born and then after he was born he had to wait on the magi to come and after he had to wait on them, he had to wait until 12 to get to teaching the doctors and the lawyers. And then he went on a hiatus for 18 years and then he became 30 and had to wait three more years to get his full team of disciples. God says, I’m God and I took 33 years for my plan. Why should yours happen in 33 days?

Speaker 1 (00:33:12):
Come on y’all. Come on.

Pastor Keion (00:33:13):
Come on church. I’m God, I have all power in heaven and in earth and it still took me 33 years to get to the cross and he too had to walk through the wilderness and he too had to be tempted of the devil and he too had to be hungry and he too had to be betrayed. What makes you think you’re the only one going through

Speaker 1 (00:33:40):
Something?

Pastor Keion (00:33:43):
You walking around here with your butt on your shoulders like you’re the only one going through something. You walking around here displaying distrusting God and cursing God and dying because you’re the only one going through a tornado. You sit next to somebody right now, the thunder is clapping in their life. They are angry, they are frustrated, but yet they still have a worship because they understand that you ought to be not weary and well doing, but you reap a harvest if you faint knock. You don’t have to walk around here with your head hung down, lift up your heads. Oh ye gates be ye lifted up, he everlasting and the king of glory shall come in. Can I be honest with you? I know you have a right to be mad, but you don’t have a right to be mad long. Come here Paul. The Bible says be angry and sin not. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, which means God says I’ll give you to about five 15 to have an attitude, but by the time it starts getting dark, you need to find out who you need to be apologizing to. You need to be to finding out how to get yourself together so you can have joy, unspeakable joy.

Speaker 1 (00:35:00):
But

Pastor Keion (00:35:02):
We so stubborn. I ain’t saying sorry to nobody.

Speaker 1 (00:35:10):
I

Pastor Keion (00:35:10):
Ain’t even did nothing. They owed me apology. You know you mad when you start cutting words in half. They owed me apology. It was supposed to be 11 to 13 days, but because they’re stubborn and they wouldn’t hear from God, they lost children in the wilderness. A lot can happen in 40 years. They’re so stubborn, they’re losing their name and identity in the wilderness by the time they show up. Nobody’s heard from ’em in 40 years. Nobody even knows who they are because you have an appointment in 11 days. If you show up in 40 years, they will not know who you are. 40 years a detour. They did not have to endure only because they could not fix the language barrier between them and God, God don’t speak complaint. I just told you how he wired you. He made you in his image and after his likeness. So since God doesn’t speak complaint and negativity, he wired you not to. So whenever you speak negatively you miss God. He doesn’t understand that language, but he does understand praise. He understands joy, he understands meek. He understands long suffering. So in order to get God’s attention and get him to respond, you have to speak his language as opposed to trying to get him to speak yours,

(00:36:53):
Help me in this church, Lord. God says, I put the detour in your life and I made sure that it was hot and dry. No water, no food, no relationships. You’ll lose friends in the wilderness. He says, but tell the people anytime I send them through a wilderness is because I have more territory for them. Anytime it looks empty it’s because God has more. He dries it up so he can fill it. He pours it out

Speaker 1 (00:37:55):
So

Pastor Keion (00:37:56):
He can pour it in. He doesn’t want anybody else to be your supplier. He wants to be your sole

Speaker 1 (00:38:05):
Source

Pastor Keion (00:38:07):
And if it means that he has to empty you of everything until you fall down and say, God, I finally get it. How many of y’all ever had a stubborn child? I grew up in the days where kids used to get whoopings. Y’all remember that? And it was the time like mama said, oh, okay, now you knew you was going to get whooping. She’d be like, I see when we get home. Oh Lord Jesus, I’d rather get my whooping now that when we get home whooping is not one that you want when you get home. Whooping is the one you think you done got away. You in the shower lot Lau here come the shower curtain did not tell you Lord and ain’t no whooping worse than when they talk to you when they doing it. Anybody mama ever gave ’em a talking to when you were beaten? Didn’t I tell you not to talk in church, not tell you not to go to sleep. I’m going to beat you until I get tired. You going to get sick of me knocking you upside the head. They don’t spank kids no more. I’m like, Johnny, go in the corner. You’re not going to be able to get any brussel sprouts and you can’t play your little PlayStation Now go to bed. They ready to die because they can’t play a PlayStation.

(00:39:37):
Oh Lord Jesus. God says, I have a right to do what I want to do. I made you, you didn’t make me. Don’t y’all get sleepy. I’m talking watch this. And when they got in the wilderness, you read it in verse five, the Bible says, and the people speak against God and against Moses, they spoke against God and against Moses. Now let’s get this right. Lord, you brought us out of Egypt. Moses, you brought us out of Egypt out here to die. I can hear him. We ain’t got no bread when you hungry, you’re not proper. We ain’t got no water, we ain’t got nothing. No popcorn. We don’t have nothing. We’re just out here hungry and hot and you brought us out here. We’re finna fire you. We need another preacher. And verse six says, immediately after they started complaining they saw snakes. Can I tell you what you see? It’s connected to what you speak. God says, oh, ain’t no water. So you live 40 years with no water. You see people get extreme when they suffer. They use words like never and always. Ain’t no water. What you been drinking for the last 40 years? Ain’t no bread. Well, what have you been eating? Trauma will change your perspective and make you you’re living a reality that you are not.

(00:41:38):
God says, oh, okay, I ain’t gave you no water. I haven’t given you any bread. Try these snakes for dinner and the Bible says snakes just start popping up out of nowhere. Two, 3 million people in the wilderness. Everybody getting bits. Now this is the part of the story that blew my mind. Moses is like, I have been praying for y’all. Now y’all remember Moses wasn’t a slave like them. Moses was in Pharaoh’s house. Remember Pharaoh’s daughter found him and took him in the house. Moses was living a good life, but because he looked out of the window and saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, he gave up his position in the house to be the first Martin Luther King to let his people go. He gave up his life of palatial estate to help the people and the people that he helped are the ones that are complaining to him and it hurts. It hurts real bad when the people you’ve done the most for. Now I’m about to have a little testimony service here for a minute, but my biggest pain came from people I got started and I didn’t get a chance to see ’em finish. Because what happens is when you bring people out of Egypt and they get a taste of Canaan, they forgot who helped them.

(00:43:05):
So now Moses is like, I got all these scars on my back and they did not come from whips. The scars on my back came because I got in between you and God and prayed for your success. Is there anybody in the room and anybody online that you got scars on your body that came because you wouldn’t give up on somebody? Oh, I want to talk to somebody in here today. I want to encourage you. I know you gave up your life, you gave up your family, you gave up your happiness, you gave up something to help somebody and here it comes time to appreciate your sacrifice and all you hear is complaining.

(00:43:45):
Oh, you forgot how I took the loan out to help you go back to school. You forgot that I watched your kids when you couldn’t find a babysitter and all of a sudden I ain’t worth nothing. I was worth something when you needed something and now you finally got what you want. You don’t have time for me. But let me tell you something in here today, God is about to redeem the time and God is about to put you on top even though you look like you’re at the bottom. If I’ve got anybody in here who believes it, I’m going to give you 30 seconds to give them glory. Complaining about what you have is the quickest way to get what you don’t want. I wish y’all came to church to hear a real sermon. They had bread, they complained about it, they got snakes. Now they complaining about it. Have you ever been around somebody that just can’t satisfied? They going to complain about the bread, they’re going to complain about the snake and both of it is going to be somebody else’s fault. God says, I’ve been giving you bread for 40 years. I gave you snakes because you just start complaining about the bread you had.

(00:45:06):
Lemme tell you something. I don’t care how bad you think it is, it’s better than it could be. You better ask somebody. Is somebody here right now? You wouldn’t survive two days in their life?

(00:45:20):
Such a neighbor say, I had it bad. I had it bad. I had it bad. I can tell you, you wouldn’t survive what I went through. And it seems like every time I came out of something, I went into something else and it felt like every time I thought I found a friend, I found a Judas and it found every time I was about to come up, somebody pulled me down. But I am here today with my hands lifted because by the grace of God, none of it stopped me. I still got the victory over the venom. I still got the victory over death. I still got the victory over negative circumstances. I still came through the divorce. I still came through the mental episode. I still came through the bad childhood. I made it through the alcoholism. I made it through the drug addiction. Somebody shot, I made it. One thing we can’t do in this church for the next seven minutes is have a group of people who act like they ain’t been through nothing. No. I want you to give your testimony. It ain’t nobody’s business what you did, but I just want you to let ’em know I came through something, I came through something, I came through something. It almost took me out. It almost killed me. I almost killed somebody. I almost disappeared. I took pills and didn’t want to wake up. But thanks be to God

(00:46:31):
I five, three people and tell ’em I got the victory. I got the victory. I got the victory. I didn’t think I was going to be able to raise these kids by myself, but I got the victory. I thought I was going to lose the house when he left me, but I got the victory. I thought I was going to lose my mind when it went away. But I got and I feel stupid because my mama told me not to trust, but I trusted them anyway. My friends told me they were no good, but I went against them. But thanks me to God in spite of it all, I still got it. Find somebody who looks like they got the victory. Say you two, you two. Anybody ever thought you was going to lose your mind? I have you ever looked in the mirror and thought all kinds of ways to hurt yourself, refused invitations because you didn’t want to be around people got the church. How you doing? Highly favored. Got in the car. Oh, don’t act like you ain’t ever passed your house up. You were in deep thought. Anybody ever looking for it? Now where’s my house? It’s where it was when you left.

(00:48:07):
I can tell we crazy. We running around talking about girl, I’m looking for my phone. I don’t even know where my phone at Jerry, where my phone at? You own it. Somebody something. Mine just gone running around the house looking for your glasses and they on top of your head just mind. Just go. Now you in here taking vitamins, talking about I’m trying to get my memory back. No, you need to stop being impatient. You’re in the wilderness complaining and you got it good. It ain’t what you want, but man, let me tell you, it can be, Ooh, this is going to make me get grateful. It ain’t what it could be, but it ain’t as bad as it should be. It could have been me outdoors with no food and no clothes could have been just another number, but he didn’t see fit to let none of these things be. And every day by his power, he keeps on keeping me and ought to find 500 grateful people that say I want to say thank you Lord for all. Tell somebody say I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful.

(00:50:07):
I just want you to look at your neighbor. They got the scars to prove it. See, you see that scar that came from trusting somebody I shouldn’t have trusted. You see that scar that came from not adhering to wise counsel. You see this scar that came from thinking I knew better than God. You see this one? This one came from thinking that my ways was his ways and his thoughts were my thoughts. Mama told me a hard head. Y’all mama knew my mama too. Keep playing. T they He ain’t have to be this bad. But here’s what I love about God, man. He’s not like people. Anybody glad that God ain’t like your cousin? Lemme say this then see if you say yes on this. Anybody glad that God ain’t like you? As fast as you cut people off, you better be glad. Papa Watson, God said, I love you. Have you ever loved somebody so much that you like, am I crazy? There’s something wrong with me. God said, I love you so much that I’m going to write this thing again. Moses go make a brass snake and put it on a wooden pole.

(00:52:24):
Oh, so if John said that Jesus was representative of the snake, ah, I love when somebody gets it early and now I’m putting that snake on a wooden pole. Are we not looking at a shadow of the resurrection? Because the Bible says, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I’ll draw all men unto me. Here’s the thing I can’t wrap my mind around. It takes a couple hours to melt brass into a form where it can be shaped. Then he has to make the and retrofit it so that the brass will stay on the wood. Okay, I didn’t take shopping school, but I know you can’t do that in five minutes. I wish I could just interview somebody and say, how long do you think it would take to melt brass to pour it into a cast and then let it cool down so that you can touch it or so that it wouldn’t burn through the wood? Are we not talking about hours if not days? Okay, we can all agree. Then my question is how are they still alive? Because most snake bites can kill you in 20 minutes. So what God does is after he lets some get bit by the snake, then he steps in and says Venom, hold on.

(00:54:28):
He stops the venom before it gets into the bloodstream. And he says, anybody who looks at the snake, I’ll deal with the venom. And the Bible says that every man who looked lived touch somebody say, look and live. Look and live. Look and live. Look and live. Look and live. Look and live. Look and live. Look and live. Look and live. If you look, you will live. If you lift your head up, you will live. If you get your head out of the dirt, you will live. If you look to the hills from which cometh your health, you will live lift up your head, you will look and live. God gives them the victory over the venom tells the venom, you can’t have this one because they looked on me and he holds back the venom until Moses finishes making the snake. And every man who looked lived and every man who did not, he died. Where are you looking? To whom are you looking? Because I promise you he ain’t down here. Salkin ain’t going to get it moping. If you look

Speaker 1 (00:56:21):
You’ll live. Thank you Father.

Pastor Keion (00:56:30):
Do you remember when Paul was bitten by the snake trying to help the people of ra? The Bible says that when the snake bit him, you got it. He read it. The Bible says, Paul said,

Speaker 1 (00:56:50):
Shook it off.

Pastor Keion (00:56:53):
Do me a favor, find somebody and just tell them, I know they bitch you, but shake it off. I don’t care what song you hear in your head right now, just find somebody. And if they won’t do it, if they won’t do it, I want you to grab ’em like this. Tell ’em I’ll shake you. If you can’t shake yourself, you got to get those snakes off of you. That venom can’t hurt you, that lie can’t hurt you. That rumor won’t do anything to you. God says, I gave you the victory over the venom. Stop giving your snakes airtime. I don’t mention my snakes, I just use ’em. Jesus used the snake to get to the cross. You’ve already got the victory over the venom. That’s the miracle is that even when they stick their fangs in you, they are on assignment for your behalf. I want you to hear me, brothers, no matter how hard this is for you to conceive, very rarely in your life will you get to the next level because of a friend. I’m telling you, every snake that ever bit you told somebody about you and that is how your greatness spreads

(00:58:50):
Because snakes have to pretend like they like you in order to get close enough to you and then they have to go report what they said. But here’s the problem. When the people they told actually get a chance to experience you, they will find out what they said wasn’t true. And that’s when we find out they were a snake. You have to leave your snakes alive long enough so you can get to the cross. You already have the victory. Do you know that or do you just hear me saying it? I’m serious. I’m asking you a question. Do you know that or are you just in church standing up like, okay, he said it maybe, maybe not. I’m serious.

Speaker 1 (00:59:56):
Thank you Father.

Pastor Keion (00:59:58):
A thousand will fall at your right hand, 10,000 at your side, but not one of them. Snakes shall come now you and if they do bite you, you will look

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
And live. Amen.

Pastor Keion (01:00:24):
Somebody shout, I will live. Say it again. I will live. I’ll say it again. I will live. I’ll live and not die. If you believe it. I want you to put a live praise in this house. I’m alive. I’m alive, I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive. And I thought I was going to die. I’m alive and it felt like I was dead. I’m alive and I didn’t want to live, but God said, I’m not done with you. And let me tell you what I know for sure. God always ends and well done. So if all ain’t well is because God ain’t done, you got to wait on the Lord and they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They will mount up somebody get above that circumstance. Come on, get above those haters. Get above it. Get above it. Get above it. Why does the Bible say they will mount up with wings like eagles? Because eagles get to a place where they no longer have to flap eagles. Do something called soar. Everybody put your wings out. Tell your neighbor, I’m an eagle. I’m an eagle. I don’t fly with other birds.

(01:02:00):
You can’t get up here then we ain’t supposed to fly together. So do you remember how many of you all are old enough to remember a preacher named c Franklin? I didn’t figure a lot of you are c Franklin is Aretha Franklin’s father. He was once known to be one of the greatest preachers, if not the best preacher in the country.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
And

Pastor Keion (01:02:38):
His most famous sermon was called When the Eagle stirred her Nest. You can still find it recorded right now. You can probably go on Google and find it now. If you ain’t grew up in that old hooping Baptist era, you ain’t going to like it. But boy, that joker was rough and he talks about how when the mother eagle, mother Watson, she will have her little eagles in the nest. It’s a fascinating story. And so what the mother eagle does is she builds her nest and she puts storms in the bottom of the nest and then she gets in it and the Bible says that she will shake her wings off and she’ll put that like a down pillow and then she’ll have her babies on top of the feathers because when the baby is new, it’s only about an ounce. It can stay on top of the feathers. But when the babies start to grow and get heavy, it starts to sink and the thorns that were in the bottom of the nest start to poke the eagle and the eagle. It starts to get uncomfortable. A eagle is made to fly, not to be in the nest. It’s whole life.

(01:04:06):
And so what happens is when the eagles refuse to fly, the mother stirs her nest and throws all of her feathers out and the only thing that’s left is the thorns and the eagle. It has but two options to die from. The puncture of the thorns are to jump and learn to fly. Some of you all like paying too much and you brag about how high your pain tolerance is. I ain’t trying to hurt, but I will learn to fly. I want you to use your wings and not your complaints. Get above the circumstance. Get to a level where your enemies can’t reach and you won’t even know you have them. People come to me all the time and say, did you hear what such and such says? I said, no, I don’t live that low. Did you hear what such and such said on such and such? I don’t follow that crap. I keep my mind up here with people who think up here so that we can win up

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Here.

Pastor Keion (01:05:49):
You can’t expect to stay clean when you keep visiting the mud. I don’t visit and when it’s around me, I shut down. I close my mind off. I start thinking about other things because I know who I am. I’m obsessive. If I get a hold of it, I’ll try to solve it. I’ll think it through and it’ll bring me down so I close it off. You got to know yourself. You have the victory over cancer. You have the victory over surgery. You have the victory over generational curses. You have the victory over negativity. Do me a favor, can you just hug your neighbor and I mean a sincerely tight hug and tell him you have the victory. Ain’t nobody going to hug you, man. Come here. I hug you. They ain’t hug you, bro.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
Hug. Love you.

Pastor Keion (01:06:57):
Y’all left him out. He was hug first. I missed it. Y’all hug, kp hug, kp. Did you get a hug? I’m going to hug you, man. Stand on your feet online and in this place. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Open up your mouth and shout.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
I’ve got the victory.

Pastor Keion (01:07:51):
When I was 21 years old, I started a church in college and I just recently found this. It’s in the garage. I found a picture of a day where I had basketball practice and taught Sunday school on the same day. The newspaper covered it and I looked at myself in one picture. I was going up dunking. I had it like that. It was like that. I’m just being honest. It was like that. It ain’t no more, but it was in the next picture. It had me in the gray suit. I had my vest on because if y’all went to church, the preacher never taught his Sunday school in his suit jacket. He just taught it in his shirt and vest and he put his suit jacket on for the sermon. So I was teaching in my vest and it was from back rack. Anybody remember the store back rack back in the day? It was a great pinstripe suit and I’m looking at myself at 20 years old, I didn’t even know that God was developing me. I was in the building teaching Sunday school that was 125 years old. I was 20. The building was 105 years older than me.

(01:09:15):
I had 125 members at that time. And I remember just teaching these and no matter how hard I preached, it was like one or two people would join. But never like here. I didn’t know that I was in my training season. I had no idea that I was going to meet you and you were going to meet me. I didn’t know Houston was in my future. I knew that I wanted something big, but I didn’t know how I was going to get there. Nobody held my hand and showed me how to get there. Nobody endowed me with a check. Nobody showed me the ropes. Nobody invested in me. I was just walking out there just trying to figure it out. My mama was my pastor. I was asking my mama Bible questions. I remember she brought me a Matthew Henry commentary and I was in there writing my sermons. This is back when you were writing by hand and highlighted. I remember traveling to preach at 16 years old in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Salem Church. Pastor McAfee bought me and I remember, man, they took an offering. The church was this size when I was 16, they took an offering and gave me $500 cash for preaching. I thought I had made it.

(01:10:25):
I had a duffel bag. They took that offering. And y’all remember, if you’ve been in church, you’re going to remember this statement. They said, we can’t pay for the gospel, but we can give you something to get something to eat with. And they put that money in my bag and I thought I was rich. I went on the plane and I wrapped a bag all around my arm and I slept all the way back to Gary, Indiana thinking somebody was going to steal my little $500. Up until that point, that was the most money I had ever seen in my life. I didn’t know, I didn’t know, but I also didn’t complain where I was. I sincerely believe if I was ungrateful for where I was, be thou faithful over a few things and then one day you’ll wake up and you’ll be worshiping in Humble and in Cyprus and in Pearland and in Southwest aile with 10,000 people watching live on right now and another million and a half who will watch this message over the next 30 days. If I had to build a building that was large enough to fit all of the people who watched us in, we’d have to rent reliant every Sunday.

(01:12:02):
I did not know that this was in that, but I also didn’t complain about that. I treated that it was this. Here’s my last thought for you today. Be grateful. Be grateful. Be grateful. Spirit of the living God, thank you that you spoke to us today. By the way, thank you that you have not left us with no hope. Thank you that we can trust you even when we cannot trace you. Thank you that you’ve given us another chance and if we

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Look

Pastor Keion (01:13:01):
We can live. I pray God that you would put another spirit in us, one that would make us magnify your name. Even when our circumstances are shrinking, give us the courage to shake it off. In Jesus’ name, we pray all of the Victor Saints make some noise in this place today. If you’re in this place.