Let's just do a brief review of what we just talked about in the previous lesson of Hearing God's Voice Now. This is for two reasons. The first reason is because we were created to. God made us with the ability to hear and respond to His voice. He made all of creation that way. We also hear His voice because we are sheep of the Good Shepherd, don't we? That's the basis by which we hear God's voice.

So really our challenge is not so much hearing God's voice but our challenge is recognizing God's voice, though we know we hear it when see it in scripture (John 10:27), "My sheep hear My voice," John 10:3, John l0:4, John l0:l6. All of those affirm to us that we hear the voice of the Lord. If that is just intellectual knowledge, okay I hear, it's not a lot of use to us, because we can still go into the prayer closet and say, Lord speak to me. I know that I hear Your voice and still have just as much difficulty hearing it as before we heard God's voice. In fact it can get a little more frustrating because I part of us is saying you are hearing and the other part is saying no I'm not. So the key is recognizing God's voice. When the Lord speaks to you, we need to recognize what He is saying. We need to be able to tell the voice of the Lord apart from our own heart. We are going to talk about recognizing the voice of the Lord.

We start off by talking about our natural hearing. How many of you still have ears? In the natural, our ears always hear. God has created us with the ability to hear and those ears let us unless something has happened to interfere with our natural function, disease, injury, birth defect. Otherwise, we always hear. God has given us eyelids so we can close our eyes, but He did not give us earlids so we can close our ears. It's interesting to me that even if our sleep time that we hear. Have you ever had a dream where the phone is ringing and you wake up to the alarm clock or maybe the phone itself? Somehow noises in the natural, even though you are asleep, make their way into your dreams and somehow we incorporate those noises in our dream. Someone may be ringing the doorbell or knocking on the door and we wake up and sure enough someone is at the door. This is because our ears are hearing 24 hours a day and unless you do something foolish like putting your fingers in your ears, you are always hearing. That's the way God made us. We were created to hear and we do not have to do anything special in order to hear. Right?

Our spiritual ears work the same way. Revelation 2:7 says, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the church." We have spiritual ears and we have spiritual senses. We know that we have eyes that can see in the spiritual realm, so we have spiritual ears. Now in the natural God has given us five senses and those senses are sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Those are the five ways that we perceive our natural surroundings. Those are the only five ways that we receive input from the outside world. Right? Now we also have spiritual senses. First, the natural, then the spiritual. We also have spiritual senses that we can perceive in the spirit realm. We have spiritual eyes and we have spiritual ears. You also have a spiritual sense of touch. You can perceive by feeling in the spirit realm as well. We have spiritual ears that we can hear. Now understanding that we still have a dilemma, don't we? The dilemma says that the word of God tells me that I hear His voice, but my experience tells me that I do not hear His voice. At least not clearly, consistently and accurately. Is that what your experience says? I think most Christians would say that I'm not sure that I hear God's voice. At least not real consistently, not real confidently, and not with great clarity. So the word of God, John l0:27, John l0:16, John 10:4, and John 10:3, those all say that we hear God's voice on the one hand. On the other hand, our experience says well I do not really hear God's voice. Not with clarity, consistency, and confidence. So we have a dilemma here. The word of God saying one thing, and you are experiencing another. Now which one is right? If we had to put them on the scales of balance, which one carries more weight? Which one is true? The word of God or our experience? Which one has greater weight in our lives? The word of God or our experience? The word of God, doesn't it. We choose to believe the word of God over our experience. My experience says I am not really hearing God's voice, but the word of God says I am, so I know the word of God is right. This is again a bit of a dilemma because even though I know that I am hearing it, I do not feel as if I am hearing it and I could not tell you what I am hearing and you are kind of back at square one. Except now we have a tension here because I hear that I am supposed to be hearing, but I am not getting it. So the answer to the dilemma is that we are hearing, but we are not recognizing. We are actually receiving input from the Lord, but have not identified it as from the Lord. So we are overlooking it. Now God has given us a wonderful gift in the natural called selective hearing. You may find selective hearing works best during the football season on Monday nights. Something about Monday night football, I go deaf to every other consideration. If my wife wants me to empty the trash, she has just got to wait for half time. I just do not hear it. Something happens in our room. The acoustics of our house during the time a play is going on -- I just do not hear her. During half-time the acoustics improve and I actually hear what she says. I do not always do it, but who does. Ladies have their own things as well. God has given us a wonderful gift called selective hearing. The way it works that on a subconscious level we receive and sort through -- filter all of the input of our world surrounding us and our subconscious mind only notifies our conscious mind of those things that we deem to be important to us at the moment. Now this is a God --given gift. This is not just psychology or a secular viewpoint. This is a God-given thing because if you paid attention to every bit of input that came your way, your life would be nothing more than a series of distractions. Let's try it. I notice that my brother has beautiful silver hair, then I notice the color of the room. This light is off and those are off. The gray carpet matches the chairs. Your mind just goes from one thing to another. It's just a series of distractions. You do not have the ability to focus, concentrate, pay attention and really give yourself to one thing. So God has allowed us to sort through all that input on a deeper level, a quieter level and we only become aware of what is important to us at the moment.

That is called selective hearing. It functions very well in the natural. You might find it this way. You go to a shopping mall during Christmas and there is a thousand and one sounds bombarding your ears. First of almost every shopping mall has a water fountain and you can hear the water splashing in the water fountain, then you hear Christmas music, then you walk by the stores, and each individual store has their own music playing. Then you hear thousands of muted conversations of last minute shoppers talking about the elusive gift that they just cannot find for the uncle that is so hard to shop for. Then you hear all the squeaky wheels on the baby carriages and all the babies in the carriages and the rustling of paper and packages as people get their shopping done. There is just a lot of noise in the shopping mall at Christmas time, isn't there? But in the midst of all that noise, if your little child gets lost and they're at the other end of the mall and they cry out for mama or dad, even though their voice may not be as loud as the people that are standing immediately around you or as loud as the music, you hear that little boy's voice or little girl's voice, don't you? Because we are turned into that. We pay attention to what is important to us and we tend to block out things that do not seem as important to us. So this is how selective hearing works.

It worked for me this way. When my oldest child, Jonathan, was born, Mary asked me if I would get up every other night so that she could sleep through the night once in a while. It was hard for me to deny this request because you know this person has carried this child for nine months and she has paid a high price to carry this child. It's a demanding thing to bring life into this world. So after 9 months of the discomfort of pregnancy, and then she gives birth to this child, that was certainly very arduous and difficult. I was in the delivery room and I saw how difficult that was. Because my wife nursed our children, she had to be with Jonathan often and getting up in the middle of the night and feeding him. So she said during the second or third month, "Honey, when Jonathan cries, would you get up and bring him to me? Then I'll nurse him, and you can take him back to bed." Now I would like to think that I am not more selfish than the next guy, but unfortunately this highlighted my selfishness. I was thinking in my mind "Now wait a minute, you're nursing so it's not like I'm giving him a bottle and you can sleep through it. You've got to get up anyway. Now if you've got to wake up, why do I have to wake up?" I would like to think I have a little bit of wisdom and I didn't say that. So I agreed every other night I would get up. Now on my off nights, she would get up and tend to the baby, but when it was my night I would get up and change his diaper, bring him to Mary, then she would nurse him and when it was time for him to go back to his crib I would take him back and tuck him in. Then go back to bed until the next time he cried. So I noticed that when it was Mary's night to get up with Jonathan, then everything was fine. I could sleep the whole night through. I would wake up and say, "Honey, did Jonathan cry? I didn't hear a thing." Mary said he had gotten up three times. When it was my night to get up, suddenly my senses were turned to His little voice. The first moment he cried I was up. I even remember on one occasion that I heard him choking and it was my night to get up. This was in the middle of the night, and his bedroom was at the other end of the house. He was probably 6 or 8 months old. Being a new parent, you don't always know all these cooing and clucking noises that baby's make. All this is new and foreign to the first time parent. As a first time parent, being out of my element, not knowing what to do, and all of this being so unfamiliar and then waking up in the middle of the night to hear Jonathan choking. I woke up in mid-air, full stride running to the back of the house. His choking catapulted me out of that bed. I tend to be very quick to respond to things. Mary is a little bit more settled in her nature, but I react very quickly to things. I was back into that bedroom in about three bounds. It didn't take but a second. I ran in and looked down at Jonathan, and there was this beautiful little infant, just laying there making cooing noises in his sleep. There was not a thing wrong with him. I just did not know all these noises that babies make and I thought this was a distress noise and it was just a normal noise. So I just stood there a moment drinking in the precious sight of him. The adrenaline drained out of my body. I suddenly felt very exhausted, and I drug my exhausted body back to bed. That's the way selective hearing works.

We also have this function in our spirit-man with our spirit ears we also have that function of selective hearing. The way it works is that we tend to block out what we deem to be unimportant. So selective hearing works this way. You need something from the Lord or maybe you want to talk with God, or maybe you are making a decision that you would really like the Lord's input on before you make that decision. So you go into the prayer closet and you begin to pray. You tell God about your issue and say Lord, would you please speak to me. We are not exactly sure what we are waiting for, but we are waiting. We do not really know what we expect to hear. Nothing happens. So then we get a little more serious. We say, man, I better get my white handkerchief out because that's a little more serious. Man, we have a little white hanky in your hand, God's doing something now. We really begin to pray and walk the floor and kind of foam at the mouth and we are getting a hold of God now. We wait and we do not hear anything. So all right this is a serious one. I am going to lie on the floor, just lie prostrate before the Lord. You know, kick, scream, beg, plead, cajole. You know, whatever I have to do to get an answer from God. Finally, we are irritated, frustrated, stomp out of the prayer closet and say God did not speak to me. Has any of you had an experience like that? It's frustrating, isn't it? God, why aren't you talking to me?

Well, what is happening is that we have selective hearing and we are listening to the Lord. We are saying okay, Lord, what do you have to say? God says something to us. He whispers something into our heart, but we do not know what the voice of the Lord sounds like so we do not recognize this as being God. We think it's some random noise or some sort of distraction. We may think our mind is wandering. I have such a hard time concentrating and focusing when I am praying. My mind wanders. So we say to our mind, be quiet. I am trying to hear from God, and we set it aside. Lord, speak to me! I can only imagine God knits his eyebrows and says but, I just talked to you. Lord, I just asked You. Please tell me what you want me to do in this situation. He says okay, here's what I want you to do. We say, shhhh, I am trying to hear from the Lord. Be quiet. Then we pound on the floor, we beg, we plead. God is saying, here's what you need to do, and we are just so irritated and frustrated. So finally we stomp out saying God did not talk to me. What has really happened is that the Lord has spoken to us, but because we are not familiar with His voice and we do not recognize His voice, we do not know that it's God talking. Our selective hearing blocks it out, and we never realize that we have heard. We were hearing. We just did not know we were hearing.

This is good news. You can smile at this. Because you are already well down the road. You are already receiving God's input. All we have to do now is recognize it. Let me explain it to you this way. How many of you know identical twins? Two siblings, born the same time and they look just alike. I have some very dear friends in Tuskaloosa, Alabama, Patrick and Paul Weaver. Patrick and I have had a chance to really bond and get to know each other. Paul and I not so much so, although they are both such wonderful men and I have enjoyed their company, but Patrick and I have had a chance to pursue a special relationship. Patrick and Paul are identical twins.. Now I have known other twins beside them and some identical twins look just alike, but a lot of times there can be an identifying mark that makes it easier to tell them apart. Sometimes they look alike but not just alike. So it becomes easier to tell the twins apart.

But there are times with the identical twins are just identical as the name infers, and really you cannot tell them apart when you firsts meet them. There is no identifying mark. They are just alike in their appearance. Paul and Patrick are that way. When I first met them, I do not think there was any way that I could tell them apart. They did not have any real identifying marks, except Paul had a mustache. Now see, Patrick, the one I got to know he did not have one. Paul, the one I now but not quite as well, had a mustache. So that was the way that I told them apart. I remember that I was invited to the church that they attended to speak. I had been to the church several times before. I was familiar with the pastor and elders and enjoyed being with them. The pastor was speaking to me on the phone, and he said why don't you drive up on Saturday, and just drive up to one of the elder's house. He told me which elder. They'll have dinner there and you will have a little get together with some of the elders and have a nice fellowship time. The pastor said he had other responsibilities that night, and that was okay because we had a good relationship. The pastor said, of course, you can come minister Sunday morning in the church. Now I was expecting Patrick to be at this meeting, but Paul was not going to be able to make it. Paul was the one that had the mustache. We drove up to the elder's house and we knocked on the door, and Patrick answered the door, or was it Paul? I was faced with a bit of a dilemma. You see I was expecting Patrick, and the man that answered the door did not have a mustache. That means it was Patrick. When I looked at him, I thought maybe it was Paul. But Paul was not supposed to be there, and this guy did not have a mustache. I was confused. Now this was a bit of an embarrassing moment because when you have bonded with a man and I had shared my heart with Patrick, you know I have told him things that I do not tell a lot of people. It's a little bit embarrassing when you are looking at a guy that you shared your heart with and you do not even know if that's him or not. That's embarrassing! Now I am sure that they are used to it, but I am not used to it. I am not a twin. I do not live this way. So I looked at this guy, and I just made an instantaneous decision. I decided that it must be Paul. Even though Paul was not supposed to be there, even though this guy was clean shaven and Paul had a mustache. I decided that this must be Paul. So I said, "Paul, how are you?" "Good, John! Good to see you," Paul said. Thank God, I was right. Paul had shaved off his mustache and had not told me. For some reason, he was there when he was not supposed to be there. This was so exciting to be able to recognize for who he really was. In fact, it gets to the point where though they are identical, you are close enough to them that you get to the point that you can tell them apart.

Now on the inside of you, you have twins. One is the voice of the Lord, and one is the voice of your own heart. They are not the same. They are two separate things, but when you first learn to hear the voice of the Lord, they are like identical twins, and you cannot tell them apart. That's why you find yourself saying, is it me, or is it God? I think maybe God's speaking to me, but I am not sure. Pastor, this is what is going on in my life and I am not sure if the Lord is speaking to me. I think so, but I am not sure. You are looking at the twins, and you cannot tell them apart! Is it me, or is it God? Have you ever had that experience? Is this the voice of the Lord, or the voice of my own heart? You are looking at the twins, and you cannot tell them apart. Now here's the way it works. I asked Patrick when we were talking about this teaching, if he could ever fool his mom and dad? Patrick said, well maybe, if I stood at the end of the hall with the light's out and my back turned, and I did not say anything. I might be able to fool her for a moment. But other than that, there is no fooling mom and dad. They can tell the twins apart. Why is that? Because they know them. They are familiar with them. They spent time with them. Those of you that have known identical twins know that the more time you spend with them, you recognize that they are actually two, separate distinct individuals and it becomes very easy to tell them apart, doesn't it? Finally, you can even lose track of the fact that they are even twins. They just don't look alike any more because you know them so well.

I was in Patrick's kitchen and our family was staying with their family. We're just that close. His wife, Candace, was in the kitchen cooking. The kitchen for me is the meeting place in the house It has a nice, warm comfortable feel, especially when there is food on the stove. That's a good place to be. I was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, and Patrick was helping Candace and my wife, Mary, was in and out. We were all just having a fun time of fellowship. I looked up at Patrick and I had this dawning realization looking at his profile. Before I really had time to think, I spoke. I said, Patrick, you know, you and Paul look alike. Duh, they're twins, identical twins. But I had become so familiar with Patrick and had known him well enough, that I had lost track of the fact that they even looked alike. They were two separate people to me and it was like a new fresh dawning realization that these two men even looked alike. That's how comfortable you can be with the twins.

That's how it is with the voice of the Lord, and the voice of your own heart. God wants to bring you to the place where you can tell the voice of the Lord apart from your own heart. Though they are twins, when you spend time listening to God, when you practice hearing the voice of the Lord in your everyday life. When you are constantly attuned to his voice, when you finally learn to recognize it and we will be talking about that tonight. What does the voice of the Lord sound like? Give me a few identifiers so I can tell these twins apart. Describe the voice of the Lord so I can separate it from the voice of my own heart. When that finally happens, and you begin to listen regularly and consistently, a growing confidence comes. Pretty soon, the voice of the Lord and the voice of your own heart are two very separate distinct voices and you can say -- this is me, and this is God. Now I am not bragging, but I know when this is God, and this is me. This is what the Lord is saying. There is a confidence there. That's where God wants us to be. He wants us to have that kind of confidence hearing from the Lord.

Turn to Hebrews 5:14. This process of hearing the voice of the Lord is a learning process. It doesn't just happen overnight. We mentioned in our last teaching that it would be real nice if I could just come to you and lay hands on you, or pray over you, and suddenly you would just hear the voice of the Lord. It just doesn't happen that way. It's not just an impartation. That may play a role in it, but that is not primarily what it is. There is a learning process. Hebrews 5:14 says, "Strong meat belongs to them that are of full age. Even those that by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Hearing the voice of the Lord is a learning process. It says, "having their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." It's by reason of use. Your spiritual senses need to be exercised. They need to be developed, and it's by reason of use. It's a learning process, a developing process. It doesn't happen all at once or overnight. It's by reason of use. You don't go to the health spa and just come out looking great. It comes by using your muscles that they develop. It's by reason of use. Now, let's look at what it says in the New International version of the Bible. It says, "But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." Your spiritual senses need to be constantly used so that you can train yourself. You have got to work with the twins, spend time with the twins. You've got to spend time hearing the voice of the Lord. When you do that, your spiritual ears and eyes will become much more keen and sharper. You learn progressively, by constant use. The Amplified version of the Bible says this, "But solid food is for full grown men. For those whose senses and mental faculties are trained by practice to discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good and noble, what is evil and contrary either to divine and human law." It says they are trained by practiced. That doesn't sound spiritual. You mean you have to practice hearing God? That's exactly what you have to do. You have to by constant use and by progressive practice, we have to do it.

Turn to 1Cor.2:14 in your Bible. We want to get to a place where we can distinguish the twins apart and confidently say that the Lord is speaking to me and this is what He is saying because I can tell the voice of the Lord apart from the voice of my own heart. This is me and this is God. Wouldn't you love to get to that place? I think each one of us would like to hear the Lord with greater clarity, consistency, and accuracy. This verse says, "the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God. They are foolishness to him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." Now you have the mind of Christ. You can receive the thoughts of God. God can speak to you. The problem is that verse 14 says that the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God because they are foolishness to him. Let's put all this together. The Lord speaks to you, but not being able to tell the twins apart, you don't know if it is you or if it is God. Your previous experience tells us that you are not hearing God with clarity, consistency, and confidence. Therefore, you don't know if it is me or if it is God. Selective hearing wants to block it out. The natural man wants to block it out. He is like a judge sitting on the bench. What the judge does is listen to all the evidence presented. After having listened to all the evidence, he then makes a judgment, saying this is either guilty or not guilty. We have an unjust judge sitting on the bench of our heart. It's the natural man. Most of us have allowed the natural man to rule because we were raised in a natural world. We become natural in our thought processes and we elevate logic, reasoning and analysis above spiritual sensitivity. So much of our function in this world is a natural function therefore we have a natural man sitting on the throne of our heart saying -- that's not God, that is God. The problem is he is corrupt. He is an unjust judge. He doesn't know how to receive the things of the spirit, therefore, when the Lord speaks to you, your natural man says that is not God. You're missing it. You're making a mistake there. That is not the Lord. Don't step out in faith there. What if you are wrong and make a mistake? You are going to make a fool of yourself. Anybody ever heard those kind of things? That is the natural man trying to understand the things of the spirit which are foolishness to him. He is corrupt and incapable of making that decision. Therefore, his judgment is that is not God, and you walk out of the prayer closet saying I did not hear from the Lord. Our challenge is that we have to unseat the unjust judge. We have to kick him off the bench. We have to say that you are not qualified to perform this function. So the natural man comes down out of that decision making place in our heart and we say we are going to out our spirit man to make that decision of is it me or is it God. Our natural man is going to say it is not God every time. That is just the way he does it, and you can expect that every time. That is the way he thinks.

Now I am not saying the natural man is bad. He is not. God gave us a natural thought process and it is a wonderful thing. That is how we learn to do the things we do, whether it is in the medical profession or Bible college. It was my natural mind that helped me to memorize scripture and to arrange and order facts. Here is the way it is supposed to work. Your natural man is not supposed to make the decisions and dictate. Your natural man is supposed to facilitate and undergird your spirit man. Your spirit man says this is God. "The Lord just spoke to me, honey, and we are supposed to give $150 in the offering this morning. That is what the voice of the Lord spoke to me." The natural man says okay, if that is what you are going to do then you need to get to the bank first thing on Monday morning and transfer some money from savings to checking. The natural man supports. He facilitates. He helps carry out, but he doesn't make decisions. That is the way it is supposed to work. The spirit man makes the decisions for you. Many times we allow the natural man to reign in our heart and to make the decision. Let me just help you with a few points here. First of all, don't reject what is odd or uncomfortable. When the Lord speaks to you, your natural man frequently is going to have a rejection that says this is odd or uncomfortable. I don't like this. That is simply the natural man's reaction. You can learn to expect it. It is not bad if you understand it.

Let me give you an example of this. To the pure all things are pure, and this is such a powerful illustration that I want to use it. In the Old Testament, the heathens of the day had a practice of what they would do when trying to show their dedication to their gods. Do you remember Mt. Carmel? Elijah called the children of Israel to repentance on Mt. Carmel, and he challenged the prophets of Baal to offer up a sacrifice and then he offered up a sacrifice. Elijah said, "Let the God who is God answer by fire." WE know that nothing happened when the prophets of Baal offered up their sacrifice, but when Elijah prayed God answered by fire and the children of Israel experienced a tremendous revival. It is very interesting to know that in that passage in lKings 18, it says the prophets of Baal cut themselves. What they were doing is practicing emasculation to show their dedication to their god. They were castrating themselves to show how dedicated they were to their gods. Now the reason I bring this up is that in the Old Testament Abraham is walking with God and God says I am going to start a new covenant with you and the sign of that covenant is circumcism. Now in our modern day, that is not an odd thing. But back in Abraham's day this was not done. This was not a common practice. Nobody was circumcised. What must Abraham's natural man have thought? First of all, probably that is was sick. God, why are we talking about this? My mind must be wandering. I must be struggling with my thought life and Sarah, I just had this really weird thought. It was disgusting. Plus, it's just too close to what those false prophets do. They do something similar to this. Now what must his natural man have thought? Man, you are wrong! Somehow he was able to discern that this was the voice of the Lord, and that was a sign of the covenant between God and man. God was making a covenant with Abraham. The natural man is going to say, however, that does not make sense.

The natural man is going to say this is odd. I don't like this. It's okay that he reacts that way as long as you know that he is going to act that way and you say okay we are still going to do what I sense in my spirit. Regardless of how uncomfortable or odd you feel in the process. When the Lord speaks to you, do not try to change it or modify it in order to accommodate your natural man. Rather, what you do is that you hear the voice of the Lord and you function just as God spoke to you to function regardless of your natural man's ability to catch up with you. Let me take you to John 16:13. God intends for us to learn from each other. This verse says, "However, when He the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide us into all truth." How many of you know that the Holy Spirit guides us into truth. Do you know that the Holy Spirit uses others to guide us into that truth? We must not think that it's just me and Jesus. God uses other people to teach us. In 1Samuel 3 the Lord spoke to Samuel when he was just a boy. Samuel was in the temple and Eli was raising him. God spoke to Samuel in verse 4 and answered, "Here am I." In verse 7, it says that Samuel did not yet know the Lord nor was the word of the Lord revealed to him. Samuel did not know what God's voice sounded like, and Eli said, "I did not call you. Go lay down. Samuel did, and this happened again three times until finally Eli perceived that God was speaking to Samuel. Eli told Samuel to go lay down and when he heard that voice again answer because that is God speaking to you.. This works like a three stage rocket. You see Eli taught Samuel how to hear the voice of the Lord. There are some that have come before that have no instructors, no mentors. This three stage rocket is on the ground. It has no altitude. No energy going for it. It launches from the ground. Then when it gets to a certain altitude, the first stage burns out, then the second stage ignites. That second stage has a certain amount of speed and altitude going for it so that it can go higher still. When the second stage burns out, the third stage kicks in and goes higher still. There are some that have come before us that did not have any fathers or mentors to teach them how to hear the voice of the Lord. They were like that three stage rocket on the launch pad with no altitude, no speed. They launched and then they taught the next generation. Now that training process is much shorter for the second generation because they have benefit of the first generation, and then the second generation launches the third generation. The third generation can go higher, farther, and faster because they have benefit of the second generation. Bishop Hamon was my first generation and father and mentor. He had no one to lead him in this truth. It took him forty years to get where he was when he began training me. Then, it took me 15 years to learn this truth as second generation. Here we are now with you all being a third generation and we hope to condense it down to just a few short teachings. So that you can launch higher, faster, and farther in Jesus' name.

Lord, we thank You for the ability to recognize Your voice and pray that You would help us to recognize what we are hearing in Jesus' Name. Amen