Join us for this special program featuring special interviews and guest speaker Priscilla Shirer from the 2021 Hawaii Prayer Breakfast.
and i’ve got
two lovely ladies here what’s your name
missy and how about you
christina now you’ve got some books
there in front of you
tell me what they are uh this is uh the
armor of god study that priscilla wrote
as well as elijah
so um i’m here with my women’s group and
our group actually formed doing this
study
five years ago and we’ve continued to
meet
at weekly or bi-weekly and um
right now we are on week six of elijah
and we’re so excited to see priscilla
that’s great she’s coming up next so
yeah that’s why i keep listening i don’t
want to miss her
i’m very excited to hear tony evans and
priscilla shire too really
i’m surprised yeah she’s my
very favorite communicator of the bible
woman
how many bible studies have you done
using priscilla’s
material every single one of them oh
you’re kidding me
been involved with the prayer breakfast
for some time we’ve been involved with a
national prayer breakfast
for about 38 years and
the hawaiian prayer breakfast since we
moved here from washington d.c
18 years ago so we’ve been on
the committee for a long time i’m
currently in two different studies with
priscilla shire
she never ceases to expand the universe
of my knowledge of jesus christ
i don’t worship a person but i love to
worship with people who worship him
and even though she’s expanded my
knowledge of jesus christ i expect for
it to get blown up today
even more there’s an old saying you can
only get what you expect
and i think god is going to confound
people’s expectations today that’s
perfect but here’s the bigger question
are you a waffle guy or a pancake guy
you know do i look like i need waffles
or pancakes
but thank you
french toast that’s not even on your
menu it’s the secret item on the menu
but it’s a great day and it is a miracle
day i was so stoked for priscilla shire
i did not sleep so i see your eyes
darting around because you don’t want to
you don’t want to be missing priscilla
what are you expecting
to hear from priscilla no i’m going to
freak out and scream
she’s just i love first of all i love
how she’s always so well put together i
love the way she speaks
i just am moved every time i hear her so
yeah how about you what are you
expecting for her i’m i’m just attending
with my mother-in-law actually i’m not
sure
yeah get away no i’m not sure i’m just
excited to be here
i saw him this morning in his jesus
chair he had
his eyes closed he had worship and he
was just praying out loud
and it’s just being anchored as that son
and as that daughter
that we connect with him that’s that’s
hang time with jesus
amen well listen i have a big question
for you but i’m going to have to pass
the question
because you got to get up there we got
to get ready all right
god bless you guys enjoy
good morning everybody it’s so great to
be here to have an opportunity to see
all of you
that stayed for the second half of
the morning i know that every time i
hear
dad i see you way back there waving high
every single time dad preaches which the
four of us there are four siblings i
have three siblings so there are four of
us all together
we all attend oak cliff bible fellowship
church in dallas
that is our home church where dad and
mom
started the church that we all still
attend and all of our children their
grandchildren
we all still attend there they started
that church when i was one year old
so i’ve known i’ve known nothing other
than being underneath the teaching of dr
tony evans at
every single time i’m like lord have
mercy
i’m so grateful for him and i’m so
grateful that you all would
give us the privilege of being here all
together
our dad my brother anthony i get to be
here with my husband as well
and we brought one of our sons the other
two had a couple of things going on
my older sister crystal i thought i’d
let you lay eyes on her
i know she doesn’t want to be pointed
out but crystal just stand up over there
so that they can see you because dad
talked about you in the message this
morning this is my oldest sister crystal
right there who just stood up
she is sitting next to her husband jesse
and then my aunt is here as well who is
my mother’s
sister she is here as well and then our
beloved miss sylvia who’s been serving
at our church for about 30 years now or
more
and so just a whole posse of us came up
from dallas texas
and it feels like such a gift to be able
to participate in this
42nd annual prayer breakfast with you
i hope that what i can do for just a few
moments is share something that will
just add a layer of thought
that the holy spirit might be able to
cement in your heart on what dad already
said this morning
and that it will just help to cement it
and maybe even put an exclamation point
on it in your life
as was just mentioned a few moments ago
i do have three sons
and they are not little anymore they
once were but
around the age 12 years old or so my
boys all start sprouting up very quickly
so by the time my oldest was about
13 years old he was nearly six feet tall
he already wore a size
14 men’s shoe when he was 13 years old
all three of my sons have followed that
path so now at 18
and 16 and then my youngest jude is
getting ready to be 13 years old
my oldest two stand about six foot three
inch tall
everybody in the house is now towering
over me all i do is feed people
all day long every day that is my
full-time job
and one of the ways that their size
works on the behalf
is that they are athletes they like
football and
basketball and at one point my second
son was mostly engrossed in baseball
that was the thing that he did american
baseball is what he loved
and we enjoyed watching him play he was
actually pretty good at it
at a fairly young age probably because
of his size
he could get a lot of power behind his
swing and when he would swing
he would send the ball sailing i
remember at 10 years old was the first
time
he sent the ball sailing over the net we
were so proud of him seeing the
potential that he could have
as a baseball player i enjoy watching my
sons during
spring ball baseball during the spring i
like it i like going to practices in the
evenings
i like sitting down there on the
bleachers with the other parents
underneath the lights of the baseball
diamond and watching my kid
practice i like the saturday morning
early games
in the spring here you are at 8 a.m in
the morning or so
and you got this game you know you’re
sitting there with the other parents
starbucks
in hand as you watch your kid play i
enjoy that very much
the only problem with spring ball though
is that it is going to become
summer ball i’m not exactly sure what
happens to the climate here in hawaii
but i would assume
that it might be fairly similar maybe
maybe not to what happens in texas all i
can tell you all about texas
is that it does not warm up slightly in
the summer
it gets blistering hot in the summer
and so you feel like actually the sun is
mad
at you about something you’re just
sitting there trying to enjoy your life
but the sun is
beating down on you you’ve probably been
at your children’s
athletic games before where you’re
trying to enjoy it
but you are just plain old flat out hot
anybody know what i’m talking about
and you just are feeling the sweat
bristle up on your brow
and then roll down your face and it’s
the kind of hot in texas
where the sweat doesn’t just roll down
your face it’s rolling down your t-shirt
and down the back of your shorts
and your jeans and you really want to
enjoy this but really all you can think
is
is it okay to pray my kids team loses so
we can go home
and i will neither confirm nor deny that
i have ever done that but
on occasion at the end of the summer
when there’s not just
one game on a saturday at the end of the
summer there’s going to be a tournament
that’s where the problem sets in
because it means that you’re going to be
there not just for one game but for a
second
and then if they have the nerve to do
well you’re going to have to be there
for a third
and then they’re going to make you come
back the next day and they’re going to
put your kids team in a whole new
bracket of teams you’ll face that
those teams at 8 a.m and then 10 a.m you
get a little lunch break and then you
come back at 2 p.m then you got to come
back
the next day for the same and i remember
on one particularly hot summer day
we got that little lunch break between
games and we were so relieved
because we got to go sit in a little
restaurant where there was some
some air condition and some ice water
that the ice stayed in for a little
while
and then we came back and parked in the
parking lot for the next game
we opened up the back of the suv and we
took out all of the gear and supplies
and the bats and the
you know the the tent that we had to sit
underneath and all of the gear that we
had for the game and we started walking
back over towards the game
i was following behind my second son he
might have been 11 or so at the time
i’m following behind him you need to
know he is a fairly
upbeat gregarious courageous personality
he’s always looking forward
to the next challenge he was excited
about the game i remember as i followed
my boy
that i could see the skip in his step i
could see his chin was lifted high his
shoulders were back
he was excited about the game that he
was about to play
but as we walked just the short distance
from where we parked
to the baseball diamond i saw his
countenance completely change
i watched my son’s shoulders that had
been back
i watched them sort of hunch over i saw
his head
start hanging down i saw him get a
little bit fidgety he looked like he was
worried or concerned i watched his eyes
start darting around and here i am
following him and i’m trying to figure
out as i’m carrying the
the uh bat and the bag that i had in my
hand and i’m watching him and i’m trying
to figure out what is happening to my
son
that is making this courageous go-getter
of a young man
feel and look so differently as he makes
his way over to the baseball
diamond then i looked beside us and i
realized that as we were walking
we were passing players from another
team they were laying in the grass
underneath the shade of a big tree and
as we passed these players who were
sprawled out in the grass
i realized that i recognized these boys
these guys who made up the team that we
were about to play next
these guys were a part of a team that
was an excellent
team we had faced them earlier in the
season and when we had played them
earlier in the season these boys had
annihilated my my son
and his team these were a team filled
with serious
baseball players you know the kind of
team that has the serious parents
these were the kind of players that when
these boys were born
at birth their parents put a baseball in
one hand
and a mitt on the other and they’ve been
waiting on this their whole lives
that kind of team and i remember these
boys they are excellent players we’re
about to face them next
my son as he passed them and realized he
was about to have to play this team
his countenance changed he became a
little riddled with anxiety and fear
because he knew he was going to have to
face this team
but as we walked past them two of the t
team members from the opposing team
leaned over and started whispering to
each other
having played our team before they
remembered jc
my second son one team member leaned
over to the other in what he thought was
a whisper but we could overhear him
he leaned over and he said there goes
that big kid from the red sox team
the other one leaned back and said is
that the kid that hit the ball and it
went over the fence
yeah that’s him that’s the first baseman
he is jerry shire
when my son heard his name crossed the
lips of the opposing team members
those shoulders that had been hung down
all of a sudden they popped back
up again i watched my boy with his chin
hanging down all of a sudden his chin
went up and i watched my boy get a
little swag back in his step as he
started heading over to the baseball
diving
in fact we had to pull him down a few
notches before we got
to the next game because it is actually
amazing in that short moment i saw
the difference that can take place in a
person when you just
really overhear and understand what the
enemy thinks about you when he sees you
coming
even if the challenge remains when you
know who you
are when you know who you’ve been called
to be
and when you recognize that the one who
is against you
even if you don’t believe every single
thing that the word of god declares to
be true about you
and about me even if we don’t believe it
y’all the enemy does
he knows that you have already been
given the victory
he knows that you have already been
completely forgiven
he knows that there is therefore now no
condemnation for those of us who are in
christ jesus
he knows that you have been made
competent by the spirit of god
and y’all he knows that in the end
we win what a tragedy it would be then
if he could just sprinkle out a little
challenge in front of us and that be
enough to cause us to back down in fear
and insecurity
to the point that we won’t even step up
to the plate
of being who it is that god has called
us to be as sons and daughters of the
most high gods
but when you and i remember who we are
it changes the way we face the battles
and as dad mentioned earlier today and
as we all know very well there are many
battles that you and i are facing
on the global stage but also underneath
the roof of our own houses
in our marriages and in our parenting
and at the schools at which we teach and
the offices where we work and the
churches where we serve
and the classroom students that we are
in there are challenges that we are
facing and i
came to just reiterate to you this
morning that no matter how deep or wide
or big or vast
the challenge that you may be facing or
the challenge that i may be facing
don’t back down the spirit of god lives
on the inside of you
and has called us to walk in victory it
is at least in part to this
end that i thought i might um
i was going to say end our time together
but i know we have another session
after this but at least put an
exclamation point on what dad
shared with you this morning by
reminding you of a portion of scripture
that the apostle paul wrote in the book
of ephesians
the book of ephesians i know many of you
most of you probably are
incredibly familiar with because the
apostle paul of
all of his writing scholars say that the
book of ephesians really is the cream of
the crop of
all of his writing and y’all know the
apostle paul was a bad brother
he wrote a whole bunch of letters that
made up for us the majority of what
would become the new testament
but of all of those writings theologians
say that the cherry on top of the cake
is the book of ephesians and that’s
because he spends more than the first
half of the book
just telling you and reminding you as
sons
and daughters who you are
he wants you to know in the first
chapter and then the second chapter and
then the third chapter
that even if nobody else has chosen you
and even if you felt rejected he says i
want you to know
that you’ve been hand-picked and
hand-selected adopted
into the family of god he trips over
himself to make sure you know
that there has been grace that has been
lavished upon you
so that you can walk in freedom and
victory every single day of your life
he wants you to know that you are
completely forgiven he wants you to know
that you have been sealed by the holy
spirit of god
he wants you to know that you have so
vast an inheritance
available to you that you and i will
never be able to grab hold
of the fullness of the riches that we
have as adopted sons and daughters into
the family of the most high god
in fact he is so
dead set on making sure we know the
power of who we are
as the sons and daughters of god that he
just burst out in a prayer in the first
chapter and he says
i’m praying that the eyes of your heart
would be opened
because if you would just know who you
are it will change the course of your
life
and then he’s trying to figure out how
do i close this book
i have gone out of my way to share with
them the lavishness of the grace of god
poured over them and the inheritance
that is available to them and the
victory
that is theirs by virtue of their
relationship with jesus christ
the apostle paul picture him would you
sitting at the time in a roman prison
probably was sweat bristled up on his
brow
leaning over parchment paper with an ink
quill in hand
he’s trying to figure out how do i put
an exclamation point on this letter
to make sure that the people of god will
walk in victory
every single day of their lives
and he finalizes his letter with these
words in ephesians chapter 6
verse 10. he says finally
you be strong in the lord and in the
strength of his might
put on the full armor of god
so that you may be able to stand firm
against the schemes
of the devil he says i want you to know
that we are not wrestling against flesh
and blood
but against the rulers and against the
powers and against the world forces of
darkness
and against the spiritual forces of
wickedness that are in the heavenly
places
he says in verse 13 so therefore take
up the full armor of god so that you may
be able to resist
in the evil day and having done
everything to stand for
he says you ought to just go ahead and
stand firm
[Applause]
therefore
the apostle paul introduces really what
dad already described
so eloquently this morning he introduces
the concept for us
of spiritual warfare he says i want you
to know
that every single battle that you are
facing
every single struggle that you are
having in your finances and in your
relationships in your health
in your own peace of mind and peace of
heart
and the relationship with your coworker
or your bowels with
spouse with your teenager or your
toddler with your adult
child every single issue that you and i
are facing the apostle paul says
i want you to know that that person or
that tangible issue
actually isn’t really your real enemy
he says you have an enemy that cannot be
touched
that cannot be seen that cannot be
detected with the five senses
and the whole goal of the enemy is get
is to get you to forget
that he is the culprit behind much of
what we are facing in this life
his whole goal is to shift your
attention stage left
so that you forget often he’s the one
standing just off stage
pulling the strings of much of what is
disturbing us in our existence
because he knows that if you are focused
on the wrong person
or the wrong issue or the wrong thing
then you will direct
all of the wrong solutions at the wrong
issue
and you will never actually hit him
where it hurts the apostle paul says you
have an enemy
and your enemy is not the person that
you are sitting next to today
your enemy is not the person that gives
you the most grief or struggle or strife
in your life
your enemy is nothing that you can see
or touch
or feel or detect with your five
physical senses you have a very real
enemy
and the apostle paul says to the
believers
in his day and by virtue of the power of
the holy spirit he says to us
today right here in the year 2021
open up your eyes
and see that there is an enemy who is
hoping
he’s banking on the fact that you will
forget he’s there
he wants you to think that just because
he is invisible he is also
fictional he wants you to chalk him up
to no more than
a caricature for a kid’s storytime
story time adventure book he doesn’t
want you to think
that he is a very real enemy when i was
my children were very very young we took
them to a harvest festival
at a small church around the corner from
our house it’s called faith bible church
we would take them there because it was
a really small church and so in this
parking lot they would have a festival
and i could keep my eye on all the boys
my sister has five children but her
youngest three are the exact same ages
as my three so we have
six boys that are the exact same age and
we would take them to this harvest
festival because we could keep our eyes
and our hands on everybody in close
proximity
i remember taking them there for the
harvest festival and this church would
have a
trunk or treat does anybody know what i
mean when i say trunk or treat
okay churches don’t do that that much
anymore but it is when a church
will have volunteers from their their
membership that will come they will put
their cars in the parking lot
open up the trunk of their car and
create some sort of carnival or
fair game outside of the trunk of the
car kids will line up behind the trunk
of one car after the
after the other they will do the game
and then they’ll get some some bit of
candy or a gift
for um their achievement in that
particular game so we just go there for
harvest festival every fall
i remember one particular fall my
youngest was four
i was grabbing him by the hand as we
waited in what was the longest line of
the night
it wasn’t behind the trunk of a car it
was behind the trunk
of well the bed i should say of a truck
it was a truck
so this was the most exciting game that
night and i remember the people that
owned this truck they had been very
creative
they had taken a table top a big wooden
piece of board
they had placed it beside the bed of the
truck
they had cut six holes in the top of the
board draped it with some drapery
they put some stairs right there at the
bed of the truck so that a kid could
walk up into the bed of the truck
turn to the side they would give the kid
a plastic hammer
a plastic mallet and out from those
holes would pop
up a puppet every couple of seconds and
the kid had to run
up and down inside the bed of the truck
trying to hit the top of every puppet
that popped up out of the side of the
board it was a homemade whack-a-mole
game is what it was
the line was long here we were standing
there waiting our turn
behind us there was another little kid
about my son jude’s age
and he was also waiting in this very
long line and he was very annoyed
about the whole situation he was
vocalizing his annoyance to his mother
and all of us were laughing out loud as
we were listening to this little kid
tell his mother how annoyed he was that
he had to stand in this long line mom
this carnival supposed to be fun for me
and standing in line ain’t fun for me
how about mom i go do all these other
games while you stand in the line and
hold my spot
and then i’ll come back when you get to
the front of the line we giggled at that
but not only that
we giggled also because this kid went on
to describe how annoyed he was at the
whole prospect
of this game because he was looking
forward to it but he didn’t quite get it
he said why in the world would i spend
all that time and energy
running up and down the inside of the
bed of that truck to hit the top of
those puppets that keep popping up
through the holes
when mom every time a kid hits the top
of that puppet it disappears but then
another one pops up over there
then the kid runs over and hits the top
of that one but another one pops over
there over there
mom what is the point of this actual
game
he was so annoyed at the whole prospect
of the game that before any of us could
think or see straight
we just saw a four-year-old flash by our
peripheral vision
as he ran forward grabbed the drapery
and pulled it off of the tabletop
underneath there were three adults with
puppets on each hand
and we laughed long and hard but we also
learned a lesson
that there is always something you
cannot see
that is influencing what you can
and if you and i spend all of our time
and energy
and our solutions and our own rationale
and our resources
dealing with everything that just keeps
popping up in our marriages and in our
finances and in our relationships and
on our jobs and in our ministries and in
our churches and in our society
if we just keep racing around using our
own rationale and our own resources
to deal with everything that’s coming up
to the surface if we only do that we
will find
at best we are exhausted and our
solutions are temporary
the apostle paul says pull the curtain
back
and let the enemy know we got our eyes
on you
we see you back there behind the curtain
and the apostle paul wants you to know
that everything we’re seeing happening
in our culture the struggles i’ve had
in my own home this year that you’ve had
in your home this year
the division the seeds of jealousy or
envy or strife
that maybe you’ve experienced in some
area of your life the apostle paul uses
a very
key word that i wanted to make sure you
heard and did not skip
over when i just quoted and read through
that passage of scripture
he says i’m going to describe for you
the warfare tactics of the enemy
he says he schemes
come on y’all somebody say schemes
i want to tell you something uh about my
personality
i am a fairly easy going person
fairly easygoing it’s very difficult for
someone to offend me
if they do something to me and it was
hurtful or whatever i can get over it
real quick i’m not an easily
offended person if someone apologizes to
me for something
i’m the kind of person that i kind of
can forgive easy i’m just wired that way
i’m not
easily offended it is hard for someone
to hurt me
but if i find out that someone didn’t
just accidentally hurt me
but they were planning to hurt me
well now that changes the playing field
because when i find out that you were
scheming
that makes me look at this whole
situation a little bit differently
when i realize and recognize that you’ve
actually been taking time
and attention to study my habits and to
see when i come
and when i go to figure out what my weak
points are so that you can actually take
advantage of them
and when i discover that not only have
you been scheming against me but you’ve
been doing the same thing with the
people that i love most
with the man that god has given me to be
married to for the past 22 years when i
find out
that not only have you been skimming
against me but you’ve been scheming
against him
you’ve been looking into his history
where he came from and what he’s done
and what he’s been through and
the hurts that he’s suffered maybe so
that you can see how to make what’s in
his history
and to make what is in my history become
a point of contention between us
so that we can have peace and stability
and health in our relationship
when i find out that you’ve had your
eyes on him to try to detect
what weak points he may have so that you
can dangle
certain carrots at certain times in a
certain way
to very strategically draw him away
and when i find out that not only have
you been doing that about me and my man
but you’ve actually had the nerve to
have a scheme
in place about these three boys that god
has given me
to rear and raise prayerfully to
becoming the warrior men of god that god
has called them to be
when i find out you’ve already been
looking at my boys
trying to figure out how you can trip
them up as they become who god has
created them to meet
be well listen if i find out you’ve been
scamming against me and the people that
i love
well if it’s a war you want it’s a war
you gonna have
[Applause]
y’all we can’t just lay back and let the
enemy run roughshod over our lives we’ve
got to be the people of god who rise up
and stand in the gateway of our homes
and say not today satan not on our watch
we’ve got to be women of god and men of
god and church leaders who
will stand up leaders in the community
and in business
who will stand up in the gates of our
community and say not today satan
we see you back there behind the curtain
behind the curtain with all this
political unrest that pops up and
racial unrest that pops up and financial
instability and
concerns in our health both both
emotionally and mentally and physically
we see you and we’re gonna use some
weapons that actually work
against you and so the apostle paul
he says to lay down all the other
weapons that we’ve been using that ain’t
been working
anyway and pick up some weapons that
actually have
some power and in the remainder of these
verses in ephesians chapter six he
begins to tell us
what are the traditionally taught six
but i believe seven
weapons that will actually push back the
kingdom
of darkness he says you need a belt
called truth
and you’re going to need a breastplate
called righteousness and if you want any
hope of being able to move forward with
any stability you’re going to have to
have something for your feet
your feet are going to need to be shot
with the gospel of the preparation of
peace
he says then you’re going to need a
shield because the enemy has flaming
missiles that are going to be sent your
direction
in hopes of setting a flame the course
of your life you’re going to need a
shield erected over your life and that
shield is called your
faith and then he says you’re going to
need something for your mind
because the enemy is going to try to
detract you and deter you
with lies that will become strongholds
and strongholds will stand against the
knowledge of god
in your life so you’re going to need
something to cover your mind
he says you’re going to need a helmet
and the helmet is called salvation
and then he says not only that you’re
also going to need a sword you’re going
to need something so that you can be on
the offense
against the schemes of the devil you’re
going to need a sword and the sword
is the word of god but then he does not
end with those six he says in verse 18
there is a seventh weapon and the weapon
is
pray
do not discount the power of the seventh
weapon
and as dad said earlier don’t just pray
once a year at the annual prayer
gathering
prayer has to be a regular priority in
the course of your life
as women and as men as husbands and as
wives as parents as an entrepreneurs
as ministry builders and church leader
church leaders and
congregants within the church a priority
of all of our lives have got has got to
be
to pray pray prayer does not manipulate
god
what prayer does is access all of the
things that god
has determined to do for us anyway
prayer is the key that god has given us
to
unlock the resources of heaven and have
those re
resources unleashed onto the landscape
of our lives
why wouldn’t we use a key like that
prayer is actually what activates all of
the other pieces of armor
so that they become operative and
functional and powerful
in our lives and so i ask you brothers
and sisters at this prayer breakfast
have you prioritized prayer
the victory you are looking for is
directly correlated to whether or not
you have prioritized prayer
and i have prioritized prayer in our
lives
if you tell me that you want victory in
some area of your life or mine where you
remote where you or i are most
struggling or some area of our country
or culture where we most feel a burden
and a compassion
about seeing god bring resolution in
that area if we say we want victories in
those areas
but we do not prioritize prayer we will
never
ever see the victory that we are looking
for if
my people who are called by my name
if they will humble themselves listen if
they will do it
this doesn’t even require a brand new
evangelistic effort to get a whole bunch
of other folk to pray
it’s just if the people who are already
called by my name
if i could just get them to prioritize
prayer
he says that i will hear from heaven and
i will heal
the whole land i wish i had time and i
don’t i don’t want to spend too much
time i know we have something else to do
but there are two
other pieces of armor that i thought i’d
just share a couple of thoughts with you
regarding
the very first one in the list that the
apostle paul brings up
is the belt of truth
now in the first century a roman soldier
was a ubiquitous presence meaning
people would just saw soldiers all the
time walking up and down the street it
was a normal part of everyday life
and most of the time when you saw a
soldier coming you would first be
uh take note of the brightly colored
colored feathers that
would be at the top of the helmet or
you’d see the huge breastplate that was
guarding the major vital organs or you
might see the boots
the boots had hob nails or big steel
points that would be at the bottom of
that to help them
in their terrain you would take note of
maybe the huge
broadsword that was about three or four
feet long there were so many
impressive parts of the uniform of a
roman soldier
but when the apostle paul was trying to
write for us
about the importance and priority of
being people who are
girded in truth he did not pick the most
impressive parts the flashiest parts
the most easily noticeable parts of the
roman’s
soldier’s uniform rather he chose
just the piece that the roman soldier
put on first
the very first thing that a soldier
would put on
was this belt of truth and the reason
why
was not only because it brought
stability to their core
but the belt was actually the hanging
place for every other piece
it was connected in some form or fashion
and brought stability and
centralized everything else that the
soldier would have on
he says to the believers if you want any
hope at all of being able to stand firm
against the scheme of the enemy
then you’re going to have to be first a
person who has chosen to be girded in
truth
and just because you attend church on
sunday and just because you’re a part of
the bible study
group and just because you’re an active
part of um
organizations and events like this one
does not
also automatically mean that you have
chosen
to gird your life in truth in other
words
for the word of god to actually be the
compass for your life
for you to have made a decision that as
for me and my house
what we gonna do is we gonna serve the
lord that whether or not it is
politically correct or whether or not it
is applauded and appreciated by the
masses
whether or not high school student i
have to and you will have to
walk alone i will stand for the truth of
my great god
you’ve got to decide that you will be a
person
who knows god’s word and then aligns
your whole life to it
so i want to tell you this about about
dad
my father is many many things he joked
earlier at the beginning of his message
about being a great orator and an
intellectual and all those things he
actually is all of those things
he is a great man but here’s what you
need to also know about daddy
he is incredibly technologically
challenged
it’s embarrassing how technologically
challenged he is
and i remember this from like 15 or 20
years ago we had a a la
we had a um a monitor you know a
computer in the guest bedroom of our
parents home
they still live in or my dad now lives
in the exact same house they raised us
in they’ve been
in that same house since i was seven
years old when we moved there
and in that back room i remember we had
a computer there
and i also remember when laptops became
a thing everybody had i remember dad had
a laptop it was in the drawer
of his desk in the office so he had this
technology
available he had no idea how to use any
of it
still to this day my father writes out
his messages using a
yellow legal pad you know those yellow
pads he actually hand
writes in chicken scratch his messages
none of us except our wonderful miss
sylvia over there
who’s been dad’s assistant for 30 years
you are the only person that can read
whatever
dad has written down on those legal pads
he does not type anything
out i remember many years ago
when my brother our youngest brother he
was playing
football for baylor university dad was
so excited
when one of his sons went to go play
college level
football and so one day he said
i need to get on this computer so that i
can go to baylor university website
and find my son’s photo in this roster
at the time my sister crystal was at the
house with dad
he said crystal come back here and show
me how to turn this thing
on she commenced to go back in the back
with him with the computer we had there
in the house she showed him how to turn
it on
and then he said okay how do i get to
the page crystal showed him
how to put in the url address that would
get to baylor’s homepage
just as he was about to ask or he did
ask how do i maneuver around this page
so i can get to where i’m actually going
the phone rang crystal had to run out to
another part of the house
to get the phone and and he said how do
i maneuver around this page
she said as she left the room use the
mouse
so there’s this little thing there with
a tail sticking out of it he assumes
that the mouse
the way i understand it my sister
returned to see our relatively
intelligent father
with the mouse up in midair just waving
it around trying to see
if it was gonna do anything when that
did not work y’all i kid you not
he put the mouse flat on the computer
screen and was dragging it up and down
so here’s this man with a computer at
home with a laptop and another computer
available to him at the church
in the offices he had all of these
computers available to him but he did
not know how to use it
and because he didn’t know how to use it
he couldn’t receive the full benefits of
it
and the thing about you and i sometimes
as believers and churchgoers
is that y’all we have so many bibles
available to us
because we’ve got that nice big pretty
one that we put on the coffee table or
on the mantelpiece
and then we have the little small one
that we keep beside us on the nightstand
then we have one
with all the marks and the tatters and
the and the the torn pages and the edges
that looks like we’ve really used it
that’s the one that makes us look holy
we take that one
to church with us we have all these
bibles available to us but
having them does us no good unless we
know how to use them
and david said here’s how you use the
thing
you hide it in your heart
so that you will not sin against him
paul says if you want any hope against
the scheme
of the enemy you’ve got to make sure you
are girded
first of all in truth
the reason why is because the enemy’s
main calling card y’all
is deception it’s like
a bait and switch he pulls the wool over
your eyes
and the problem is when you’re the one
being deceived everybody else may know
but you don’t
has within it a blinding agent that
somehow
causes you not to not be aware of your
surroundings
rightfully aware of your surroundings so
if you’re the one being deceived
you can be standing on the edge of
disaster and everybody can see
that if you take one more step you’re
gonna fall
but somehow you can’t tell that you’re
in that position
and the truth be told that if we were to
really take time and i took this
microphone
and we just started passing around the
room i know i could start
by telling you about a time and a season
in my life that i can
look back on and realize in hindsight
that i was being deceived can i get one
witness
that knows what i’m talking about
because it’s
some at some points in our life it’s not
until we are outside of those seasons of
our life
that we can tell in hindsight that we’re
being deceived but
in the moment you don’t know you think
you are seeing correctly
you think you are judging correctly you
think your feelings are correct you feel
like the opinions that you are
receiving are correct you have no idea
that you’re being deceived
that’s the reason why we have to have a
standard that is
outside of ourselves
that continues to remain true and solid
and that we align ourselves to
regardless of the way we feel
the enemy is hoping that we will trust
our feelings
he is hoping that we will trust our own
understanding
he is hoping that we will depend upon
and lean
into the opinions of everybody else that
is around us
what is most of threat to him is not
someone who
just goes to church or someone who just
attends the gathering what is most a
threat to the kingdom of darkness
is a believer who is standing firm
on the truth of god and uses god’s word
as the moral compass
for his or her life the apostle paul
says you need a belt of truth and then
finally
he says you also need a breastplate and
the breastplate
is called righteousness
jerry and i live in a fairly rural part
we have lived
up until recently in a fair rural rural
area of the dallas fort worth
metroplex it’s close enough to the city
to get there quick
but it’s it feels like it’s worlds away
i like it on a little quiet lazy
two-lane road
the house we were in was a pretty small
little home but we loved it so much
because it had a big backyard and i
already told you guys
i got three boys and i’m one of those
parents that believes in
go outside and play
anytime they had the nerve to come to me
and say
mom i’m bored i’d say say what
no you’re not you see that tree out
there go play with it
i don’t care if you eat it i don’t play
if you play play tag with it you can do
whatever you want but you’re not bored
out here in the country
i enjoy that by boys being able to spend
time outside
our neighbor across the street she’s one
of my closest friends
still to this day has been for 20 years
she has a huge
pond in front of her property it’s big
it’s several acres
big so we can row out in a little little
row boat they got got on craigslist
we can row out to the middle of it and
fish i’ve taken my boys fishing a lot
most of the time my sister lived next
door to me as well so we take all six
boys sometimes
we stand on this little cove right on
the side of the pond most of the time
we just fish right there in an hour we
can just catch two or three fish really
easily
little sun perch nothing nothing major
we would take the two fishing poles that
we bought on sale at the local super
walmart around the corner the same
walmart that my dad detests going to
the tackle box we also got from the
walmart um you know i’ve got like
some scissors in there in case we need
to cut the line i have
some extra hooks we always need extra
those little ball bobber thingies
we need extras of those so i have extras
in there and i also have gloves on the
tackle box because you all know i don’t
mind going fishing but i ain’t gonna
actually touch no fish
so we grab whatever hot dog meat is left
over from the week
that’s our bait because you know we’re
professional fishermen and we go to the
edge of the pond
we drop our line in and we fish but
every now and then we’re feeling
adventurous
and this little rowboat that my
neighbors got on craigslist
sometimes we’ll say let’s let’s paddle
out to the middle of the pond
but i have to feel adventurous to do
that and the reason why is because
my neighbors when the boat isn’t being
used we’ll leave it upside down right
there on the bank of the pond
rightfully so because it needs to drain
all the water that may have been in it
or
or if it rains it would fill up so
they’ve got to leave it upside down but
the problem is to get in it now i have
to turn it
over and i just know that because the
environment that has been created under
the upside down boat
is dark and moist and damp
that when i turn this thing over
inevitably
something is either going to hop out
from underneath it
something’s going to waddle out from
underneath it or worst of all lord have
mercy
something is going to slither out from
underneath it
so whenever we decide to do this i
always stand way
back at the tip of the boat the boys
stand on the side so that they can catch
whatever’s coming out
and we turn it over and inevitably
something comes out here’s the deal
never once have i ever had to send a
golden sealed
invitation into the brush nearby to tell
the critters hey we’re coming at one
o’clock today if you want to join us
feel free
never once have i had to stand there and
call out and say hey
we’re here come over and make yourself
at home never one
once have i had to invite them because
the environment created by the upside
down boat
is invitation enough
righteousness is right side
up living that invites the sunlight of
god’s favor
and blessing on your life
[Applause]
unrighteousness is a lifestyle
a pattern of upside down
behavior that is out of alignment with
the truth of god that you say you affirm
in your life
it’s upside down living that creates
an environment for the enemy and his
demonic influences to make themselves at
home
in your life and in your relationships
and in your heart and even in your mind
and
on your job and in your ministry and in
your churches
and in our culture unrighteousness
creates an environment where the devil
can just play
us for the fool that’s why
he hopes that god’s people will no
longer prioritize
holiness i want you to know the apostle
paul says
that living right not perfect but
honoring god as a lifestyle actually
becomes
a breastplate that protects your vital
spiritual organs from the advances of
the enemy because if a roman soldier
had on every other piece and was strong
had muscles and was smart and had
experience
in battle but if that soldier went into
battle with
all of that but without a breastplate
one shot to the heart could wipe him out
even though he was so well equipped
the enemy wants there to be people who
will prioritize
everything except plain old flat out
living right i want to encourage you
sons and daughters
of the most high god brothers and
sisters
pursue holiness it’s not
old school or something that was just
for our grandmothers and our great
grandmamas
you and i have to have integrity we have
to have
character we have to walk in a manner
that is
worthy of the calling by which we have
been called
i’ll tell you in closing that the
breastplate was the heaviest
piece that a roman soldier would carry
70 pounds
heavy if all of that weight was on the
soldier’s
shoulders as it was draped over the
shoulders to be carried
if all of that weight had to be
shouldered by
the soldier can you imagine how much
energy would be depleted before they
ever even got to the battlefield
they wouldn’t be able to move nimbly or
quickly or easily
with that much weight on them
and so the belt one of its
responsibilities
was to take some of the weight of the
breastplate
off of the shoulders soldiers so that
all of the weight didn’t have to be
shouldered by them there was something
else that would carry
and take off some of that weight so that
they would still have enough energy
and vitality to perform well on the
field of battle
here’s what i want you to know if you
are trying to carry your
righteousness all by yourself that is
too
heavy a wait for you to bear
but there is some truth that will take
that weight off of your shoulders
because if the enemy can’t saddle us and
destroy us
and distract us with sin or rebellion
or addiction he will try to saddle you
and slow you down with perfection
to where you’re trying to pursue
perfectionism and pursue your
own righteousness and you don’t
recognize that you don’t have to carry
all that weight on your own
and here is the truth that will take
some of the weight off
the truth is that 2000 years ago a man
named jesus christ
came and he was the perfect one we don’t
need another perfect one the perfect one
has already come
and he sacrificed his life on calvary’s
tree
and then three days later he was raised
from the dead once and for all sealing
the fact
that we would never again have to carry
our own righteousness
and the scriptures say that the moment
you accept that gift
that not only does he withdraw from your
spiritual bank account the wages that
you would owe that i would owe for our
own sin
but he then credits our spiritual bank
account with
the righteousness of god in christ jesus
so righteousness then is already in you
now it just has to be on you
and so really quickly before we go to
this
time of question and answer i just want
you to bow your heads for a moment
because
having spiritual victory in your own
personal life
or in our communities in our cities in
our
in our world it begins with making sure
you
have made a decision to wear the
righteousness of jesus christ and it
would be
remiss of me and our family to have come
all this way and to assume
that just because you’ve attended this
prayer breakfast that you have
accepted the gift that jesus has given
you
and so even here yes at the prayer
breakfast i just want to ask you
have you accepted jesus christ
as your savior and if you’re in this
room as every
head is bowed and eye is closed and you
know that you have not made that
decision
would you just raise your hand up really
high if you want to
because today can be the day that
changes the course
of the rest of your life you can start
living in victory starting
today if there’s anybody in the room
that has not made that choice and you
want to
just raise your hand and wave at me
until i see it
anybody
anybody
lord i thank you at the assumption that
i’m making in this moment father that
every single person in this room knows
you as lord
i thank you for the victory that is ours
in jesus name
i praise you father for the armor that
you have given us so that we can stand
firm against the schemes of the enemy i
thank you father that we are
already walking in victory i pray that
it would be our experience every single
day for the rest of our lives
we honor you father and we thank you for
everything that you have already
accomplished on our behalf
in jesus name i pray amen
so how was the prayer breakfast for you
it was extraordinary
there’s no question that this team
of evans the team evans
is just what we need in today’s
environment they’re articulate they’re
representative
they’re current and they’re certainly
the godly influence that we’re missing
in our community conspicuous i know
you’re a big priscilla fan
along with my wife and karen yeah well
i’m expecting that she will be like
danielle
i’ve missed you that will not happen
because she does not know me
but she did shout me out on her
instagram yesterday so
here’s oh no i’m just kidding priscilla
just spoke about
the the truth the girding the truth
around your waist
sorry i’m getting emotional about this
because it just really touched my heart
she talked about the armor of god
of god and i love the way she puts it
into perspective
and how the belt of truth is the one
that really holds everything else up
she said the truth is the core and that
it actually holds
everything else and holds the weight of
everything else and
it was something i just really needed to
hear because everything that i’m going
through right now
is just it just it just touched on a lot
i am so sorry i’m getting emotional
for her willingness to just share her
heart with the passion
and the purpose that she comes with
don’t surrender to the enemy
uh we’re at war we know that we wrestle
not against flesh and blood
but against principalities rules in high
places and so we how can we forget that
yeah we forget it we forgetting she
reminded us hey listen we have an unseen
enemy you know i’m not fighting against
you brother
you’re not fighting against me but it’s
the enemy that wants to separate us and
divide us
how exciting is this for you to see all
these people
there’s like 1200 people here or plus
what do you think about that
oh i’m thrilled i love that we’re
together gathering i love that we’re
able to pray together to me praying in
numbers is so powerful
and you’ve been involved with the prayer
breakfast for some time we’ve been
involved with a national prayer
breakfast
for about 38 years and
the hawaiian prayer breakfast since we
moved here from washington dc
18 years ago you know we need to
represent
right we need to live out our faith and
we need to
not be ashamed of that and make that our
our lead story
when you pray often for us
we have learned to be silent
and let god speak to us before we
even offer prayers but
it is such a connection with our lord
it’s a personal
prayer life and tell me how important is
prayer in your life
oh vital vital there was definitely a
period of time in my life where i
neglected prayer where i didn’t
plug into that power but actually
priscilla schreier’s war room was
something that triggered
something in me that i realized i was
not activating the power that i had that
i wasn’t calling upon the power of jesus
christ and wasn’t
just wasn’t tapped into that what do you
think is going to happen after this with
all these people praying
together christine i’m hoping it’ll be a
catalyst
you know for us to just seek god more
and because that is really the key to
everything is
seeking god first and so i’m hoping that
this will be a catalyst for all of us
and of course i’m hoping for good coffee
yes yeah well that was my next question
are you a coffee person or a tea person
coffee i’m i’m okay i i like good coffee
as well but
she’s she’s the connoisseur yeah yeah a
coffee snob as we say yes i’m right next
to you don’t worry about that
hey aloha everybody we are the kalo team
we’ve been doing production here at the
hawaii prayer breakfast
and you’re watching
you