Following the Will of God with Dr Childs

In this enriching episode, we explore the profound topic of "Following the Will of God" with the esteemed Dr. Fred Childs. With 44 years of ministry experience, Dr. Childs shares his incredible journey from his early days in Pearland, Texas, to serving as an executive pastor for renowned leaders like James Kilgore and Kenneth Haney. We delve into his multifaceted ministry, his transition from engineering to full-time ministry, and his deep passion for the Kingdom of God.

Listeners will gain valuable insights into understanding and following God's will, the importance of prayer, and how to discern divine guidance in their lives. Dr. Childs also shares personal anecdotes and powerful testimonies, highlighting the miraculous works he has witnessed throughout his ministry.

Key topics include:
- The significance of being led by the Spirit
- Overcoming fear and uncertainty through faith
- Practical steps to discerning and following God's will
- The role of prayer in connecting with God's plan
- Understanding the Kingdom of God and our place within it

Tune in for a spiritually enriching conversation that will inspire and challenge you to deepen your walk with God and pursue His will with unwavering faith.

**Keywords:** Will of God, Dr. Fred Childs, Kingdom of God, prayer, divine guidance, faith journey, spiritual leadership, ministry experience, discerning God's will, miraculous testimonies.

Transcript

 Today's episode, we're going to be talking following the will of God, but I have a special treat for you. We are blessed to have Dr. Fred Childs with us. He is highly renowned. Everyone he talked to that knows him speaks to world of them. He's in Perlin, Texas. He he's a young whippersnapper now. Okay. He's only been in a minute, but been in the ministry a couple of days.

Solo pastor, senior pastor. For 19 years, but total ministry 44 years. He served as a executive pastor for James, James Kilgore and Kenneth Haney. You may have heard of those folks. He's got a  secular experience in engineering. That's where his doctorate is in, so he's got a vast  array on his resume,  and he's highly  qualified for this subject.

He has a website for his ministry, it's called BiblicalKingdom. com. For those that are technical illiterate, that's always one word, BiblicalKingdom. com is for him and his wife. Dr. Childs, thank you for coming on, tell us about your ministry.  

It's a privilege to be with you, Brother Yates, and thank you. And to anyone that I know or don't know, hello to everybody out there.

Basically, I guess I would categorize, categorize my minutes  as multifaceted. God's moved me around. I've done everything from stark churches to lead the biggest churches. I've, I've spoken now and long time ago, 2000,  but, but my ministry is going through chapters, seasons. And so chapters virtually look like chapters.

Nothing like the other chapters. Um, and yet each one is probably impacting and powerful. And God's led me on an amazing journey of following the will of God,  which I might be able to speak a little bit tonight. But, uh, along the way,  literally thousands upon thousands of miracles and healings. I look into different topics, whether it be healing or biblical leadership.

or traditional doctrinal topics. My, my passion at this particular time has been the kingdom of God ever since God spoke to me in my office back in 2000. It's changed my life. It's made the Bible become so much more clear and truth becomes so much more solid. So I'm just glad tonight to share whatever I can with you.

It's a privilege anytime to speak to the people of God about the work of God.  Thank 

you. You're very welcome. I'm honored to have you.  The, the topic following the will of God is by request. I have asked, uh, my listeners, I put it out on all the social medias. Let me know if you have a request and I received an email and this was one of them, and I'm glad to talk about it.

You and I were talking beforehand. It's one of those things that people just glaze over and you, like you, I said it's magic words. It's just rhetorical because people don't really understand it. So I'm glad we get to talk about it. Start us off, Dr. Childs, tell us  the first thing we need to know about following the will of God. 

Well, this is not just another topic for me, brother Yates. This is a passion for me. You didn't know that when you asked me to speak on this topic, but I have literally, and my wife, thank you, God, have literally ordered our lives to follow the will of God.  We are born again, people. We have a spiritual experience.

We  And when someone is born again, they're born into the kingdom of God  and the kingdom of God is very real And it's right now and it exists and it's a forgotten topic in pentecost. It's not it's mentioned It's not really taught i'm teaching it extensively now beginning with biblicalkingdom.  com but  We're spiritual people, so we're supposed to be led by the Spirit.

I'm fortunate, praise God, that I came up under a pastor and other influences  that instilled in me to be led by the Spirit. Let me start out in a strange direction. Let me start out saying that prayer is an essential part of it. And let me tell you why we pray. Most people pray, and I love the teachable prayer, but that's not tonight's topic.

But most people pray. But we really and truly pray according to our wishes sometimes, our wants, our grocery list, etc. But here's why you really pray. I want to boil it down, make it real simple. You pray because you don't know what God's going to do, so you pray.  And, and how long do you pray? You pray until you hear from God. 

Right. 

And, and when you hear from God, you know it.  And once you've prayed until you've heard from God, you can literally stop praying about it. Because if you continue to pray, it starts working against your faith, and it leads to unbelief. And it's the same thing as calling God a liar. Almost like we would say, Hey God, be quiet, man, I'm praying.

Don't talk to me, I'm praying, you know? So prayer opens us to the mind. So we pray until God speaks to us, the moment God speaks to us. It will be done, not I will be done.  And so, now that we're spiritual people, born again, and the Holy Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost is within us, we're supposed to be led by the Spirit, connected to the Spirit,  but we're born into a kingdom, a literal kingdom.

Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you,  and he said, my kingdom is not of this world, and he's the king of the kingdom. Now if you, Understand anything about the kingdom. King, the king owns everything. He owns you, your family, your animals, your property, your house. Actually the king, in a real kingdom sense than ancient kingdoms, the king owns the water you drink and the air you breathe and the water around the country.

He owns everything and he would allow it to be used. As long as it was used according to his will. And so we're in the kingdom and therefore  what we do, what ministry we have, et cetera, should be up to the king to give us our marching orders. You know, people, there's a verse in the Bible where it says we refer to that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 

And I've heard people mistakenly say, well, I believe I'm in the permissible will of God.  Acceptable will of God.  No. There's one will of God. Only one. And that will of God is good, acceptable, and perfect. And you're either in the will of God, out of the will of God, or pursuing the will of God. Because God's not the author of confusion.

He knows the plans He has for you.  And God will reveal it. The problem is not God revealing it.  It's us seeking it. So I'm going to give you some insight in this discussion tonight that I believe can help you. Okay, in Genesis 12, for example, verse number one, God told April,  he told him to leave Haran  and leave your extended family.

I'm paraphrasing and go wherever I showed you to go.  Now, let me tell you the backdrop on that. April's father was a man named Kira. And Tira began a journey, and if you look in the Bible, he was to go to Canaan. That's where he wanted to go. On the way to Canaan, they came to Haran and dwelt there.  Now, Haran was a great land, a beautiful land, fertile, plenty of water, a great land for cattle, a great land for comfort.

Haran had everything a nomadic people could have ever wanted.  So, Tira settled there. He was going to Canaan, but he got to Iran, of settling here, cause I like it. And Terah died there.  When Terah died, you know, man's tendency, by the way, is to settle where things are good and comfortable, where we want to be.

That was the land, other scriptures describe this very land as being a land well watered as the garden of the Lord. That's in Genesis 13, again, same land. And that's the area where Sodom and Gomorrah was, and that's why Lot chose Sodom and Gomorrah, because it was in that good land.  But it was there, from there, God told Abram,  move on, leave your family, trust me, just follow my orders, my footpaths. 

So, I believe that we are desperately short on Abrams today. People that are willing,  take up their lives, change directions, make sacrifices, give things away. I don't want to, I don't want to pin any roses on myself, Brother Yates, today. But my wife and I have given up careers, incredible careers, these times.

We've given every nickel we've had away. We're not stupid people. We just have an abnormal faith in God. My wife has given all of our furniture away, four times.  She's moved from beautiful homes to the backyards.  Couple of rooms of a horribly run down church in the border.  We've been there and we've done that.

And it's not that we're martyrs. We just believe that God's the one to give our marching orders to us. Psalm 37 verse 23, the steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord. And he delights in his life.  And so if, if, if we will allow God. He will direct our path.  There's five times in the bible it speaks of something  and that something is every man did that which is right in his own eyes.

Five times that phrase is in the bible  and all five times they were wrong to be doing what they were doing. Why? Because they were doing what was right in their own eyes  and not following what God wanted.  So today  many people want the holy ghost. Thank God.  But they just don't want to be led by the Holy Ghost.

Right. They, they want the Holy Ghost, they just don't want the Holy Ghost telling them where to go and what to do and what to give up.  And, and we tend to  come to the Lord instead of adopting his kingdom culture and learning it.  We end up adapting God into our culture and conforming him to fit where we, our hobbies, where we work, where we go to school, things we do, our schedule.

And the only thing we want to add to it a little bit is some church time. And so we want to follow God until he comes against our will. And in Joshua 3 and 4, the children of Israel were told to follow the glory cloud.  The reason was that they had to stay back. 2000 cubits, I think it was,  and the reason they couldn't get too close to it was they needed to be able to watch where it went, and the exact wording in the Bible is, for you have not passed this way before. 

Had they led themselves, they wouldn't have known where God wanted them to go. So God said, no, you follow the Lord's path. When I vote, you move. When I stop, you stop. When I turn, you turn, etc.  And in the Bible, you know, we can look at examples. I won't get deep into it because of time, but.  In first Kings 17, God told Elijah, now Elijah the prophet, they were in a drought,  he just had the victory over the false prophets of Baal and the groves.

Killed a total of 850 of them right there in front of their house. Prophesied rain to end the drought, outrun the chariot back into the city. Amazing things. But then Jezebel was killed because of that, and so he goes and he hides by a brook, and God feeds him by a raven, and he's got water to drink until finally the drought  dried up the brook. 

And an amazing thing happened. Here's the prophet,  he's alone, he's isolated, he doesn't have any friends or peers around him,  and God told him something. God spoke specifically to him what his next step was. And what God told him that this, this kind of things are all through the Bible was completely the opposite of what Elijah would have done. 

Now, this is the one God told him. God said, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.  Brother Yates,  I would imagine at that moment that there was a smile came across Elijah's face. A widow woman.  Oh man, I've got a rich widow.

I bet she's got a mansion. I probably got a big room that she'll let me have. A widow woman. I bet, I bet the food will be scrumptious.  And he had a hard journey to  get there. And, and when he finally gets there, though she wasn't a rich widow woman, she didn't have a mansion.  His footsteps led him to a woman starving to death and was going to make one more tiny meal for her and her child and then starve to death. 

And that story right there, you know, Elijah told her, make me a cake first, but every time she'd go back, there'd be just enough meal in the barrel and just enough oil to make another cake, day by day. So the will of God will put you in places that you would have never went,  facing situations you would have never faced.

And that's the way God works, because God is developing us and molding us. The will of God  just go to Acts chapter 9 sometimes.  And look at the story of how Saul of Tarsus, coming to persecute Christians at that encounter, was blinded by the light, told to go to a street called Strait.  But the real hero of the story so far is a disciple named Dananiah. 

And God spoke to him and said, I want you to go to this place on Strait Street, and I want you to pray for Saul of Tarsus. He's a chosen best.  I mean, can you imagine? I mean. Look, we've heard of him. He's the one that first kills Christians. You want me to go to him? I mean, the will of God  contradicts the kind of pragmatic faith that most of us have learned to have.

Well, uh, Dr. Towns,  

before we get too, before we get too further along, I wanted to, uh, That is awesome stuff, but we got to talk about some of that before we get too far. Well, you didn't 

talk away, that's 

good. I had a couple of things that I was wanting to  One, we was talking about when we pray until we know what he's Once we know what he says, we need to stop praying about it.

That is I thought about that in marriage. It's kind of like when the wife asks you something and you said you're going to do it. She needs to quit asking and quit asking me every six months. I said I'm going to do it.  

Yeah, I can give you a Bible example of it.  Who was it? The king has a kayak.  This guy got news.

You're kind of the Syrian, such a vast army. Judah had no choice,  but he feared. Why do you fear? You only fear for one reason. You don't know what God's going to do yet.  That's true. So he called a national fast that prayed and fasted, prayed and fasted. Why? Cause he didn't know what God was going to do. Go down to verse 15.

If you ever go to that chapter, I don't have it with me right now. I'm just going by memory. Go down to verse 15.  And if they're praying and fasting because they don't know what God's going to do it, and there's an insurmountable army coming,  it's either going to lead to death or captivity.  All of a sudden, the prophet stands up.

Thus says the Lord, you shall not need to fight in this battle. God tells them, I'm going to do  it. If you watch after that, as Kiah told them, they immediately went to worship. They went vertical, straight up worship to God. Then they praise God.  Then comes the battle. It is the first thing God told them. I mean, he said, look, don't I'm paraphrasing.

Don't forget what we've already earned. Don't start praying again. Lose your faith.  He put them out there, but he put all the weapons and all the army behind it to put the praises out front. Why? Because they knew what God was going to do.  And so you pray till you get the mind of God and then you act on what God said and wait on him.

And in the meantime, you pray and there's some things you'll get through praise that you won't get through prayer. You have to learn how they work. Yeah,  absolutely. God.  God destroyed the enemy  because God said he would do it. See so many times we can't be patient with God. We can't quit praying out of fear and desperation. 

So we, how long do you pray? Well, it took Daniel 21 days. It might take you two minutes, but when you hear rise up, worship, and praise each  And then do whatever you got to do to stay in the line. But what God said, and what does that do about prayer? Does that decrease prayer? No. Now you move on to something else and glory to glory, victory to victory.

I've got my answer on that. So I'm going to praise God for that. While I pray about this and pray about this until I know what God,  then we become laborers together with God. Does that make sense? 

It makes perfect sense.  Now, you mentioned, I think it was three stages around the will of God. You're either in the will of God, you're out of the will of God, or what was the other one? 

You're seeking the will of God. 

Seeking the will of God. I love that because what that tells me is everything about life  is dealing with the will of God. 

And 

you just have to Yeah, if 

he knows, if he knows your thoughts, if he knows the heart, if his thoughts is your  heart, if he knows the air that you're in. 

If he knows the plans he has for you, God knows your will, you don't, that's why we need  

God. Everything about your life. Is about the will of God. We just have to determine where we fit in that. Are we in it out of it, or are we seeking it? And so we need to make sure that right.  

And Ananias had to go pray for Saul.

He had to overcome his fear of Saul.  And Acts 10,  when Ananias was Gentile,  but he heard from God and he didn't have a relationship really with God of the God of Israel. He heard from God, he sins for Peter.  Peter hears from God to go to Cornelius house,  what's in that four quartered sheet, he'll call and come. 

He had to humble himself and break his Jewish tradition, go into the hall of the ten thousand, preach the gospel. The will of God. It doesn't take you where you want to go, it takes you where God wants you to go.  

I, I've got a previous episode called This Stinks, telling sometimes the will of God just flat out stinks.

You're not going to like where he takes you.  That's 

exactly right. Let me tell you what happens.  If you call yourself, and that's what, I don't, I'm not doing those songs, Brother Yates,  but our preachers call themselves, and if they don't call themselves, their mamas do, their nannies do, or their pastors do, or people do. 

The only one that needs to call you and tell you what to do is God, and here is one of the reasons why.  Anytime I see somebody, and I know there's expectations, I'm sure of this, but if I see somebody that's exactly where they want to be, doing exactly what they want to be doing, Where they want to be doing it with who they want to be doing it and everything is just like they want it. 

They probably call themselves there because they went by the carnal, pragmatic mind. And they went after what they want.  But when you, when God calls you, he'll send you to somewhere you didn't want to go, people you don't want to be with to a location you wish to God, you've never went there with a mission that there's no way under heaven, you're going to be able to do it without God's help.

And then when it happens, God gets all the praise and God gets all the glory. And you learn all the lessons about how to follow the will of God.  

You're absolutely right. He don't,  

he don't work like we work.  

A perfect example of what you're talking about. Men calling themselves. And you've seen it and I've seen it, I'm not going to name names, but if I'm going to give generic examples, if a small church that where the pastor has to be bivocational in out in the sticks somewhere becomes open  versus let's just say a large mega church was to come open unexpectedly and they're taking applications,  I've seen it and you've seen it, a lot of people all of a sudden feel it's the will of God for them to try out for that big church.

Yeah. But I've seen that little church go years without a pastor.  

Well, and, and I'm going to tell you something. And I think a lot of them learned these from our Bible colleges and things to, and other stories, I'm not kicking them. I'm just saying most people today go by demographics, what's the population, like what's the income base, what's the average income per capita,  what's the economy like that kind of businesses are, you know, what, when they're asking those questions, that makes pragmatic sense. 

But that flies in the face of the way God works.  

Which goes to, uh, my next point we're  covering was something he said. We want the Holy Ghost, but we don't want the Holy Ghost to lead us. That's the old cliche. We want a Savior, but we don't want a Lord.  Have you heard that?  

It's the same thing. Yes, I have. I have.

Uh, I've heard things like that. Romans 8 and 14, you know, says for as many as are led by the Spirit of God. They're the sons of God. The thing over in Galatians, go back to Galatians 5  and 25, it says, that if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit.  And we today have got a very different set of  measurables.

If you look at most of the measurables that we go by, and I was just thinking, I was one of the first ones talking leadership, church growth, teamwork, organizational stuff, many, you know, decades, decades ago. And I knew my craft because I came out of the corporate world. That was my profession. Plus I had the, the Holy Ghost spirit.

He meshed them together, biblical terms. But, but I'm going to tell you something. We, we had to get back to where the only thing matters is what this does say it for Lord.  And, and we have to be able to know, when I've got it, I've got it.  Personal examples, I want to give you an amazing one that'll blow your mind about the will of God.

But it's just exactly the way God taught me about 

the will of  

God. I gotcha. 

Well, I'm caught up on one of the things I wanted to cover. You left off with,  with God contradicts our pragmatic faith. And that was right after talking about Paul, straight street in the book of Acts and Paul. So continue.

Continue. 

Yeah. Our minds, you know, most of us like to try to be problem solvers. We'd like to figure things out. Some of us like to fix things. Some of us like to build things.  And, and so our pragmatic minds always kind of figure things out and that's good. There's nothing wrong with that.  But the, the, the, the non vortigiano regenerative mind is enmity against God.

It's carnal  and it can't discern the things. So we have to learn to have a spiritual mind  and the spiritual mind,  I could tell you examples all day long. Miraculous things happened. Because I allowed my  spiritual mind to overrule my pragmatic mind. And it flew in the face of conventional wisdom.  For example, just look in the Bible.

It's all over the Bible. But do you think it was, the pragmatic mind would have ever stepped outside that boat and walked in the water toward Jesus? No. He had to, override the pragmatic mind and step into the mind of the spirit in order to walk to Jesus.  That's the way God works. We take just any old testimony, a big testimony. 

Yeah, this is one of my many chapters. And again, I'm not making this about me, but it's a classic example. I was working in Beaumont, Texas. I was a member of the apostolic church. My pastor was praying man, probably the last century, Reverend Marvin Cole.  And, um,  So we were praying people and I was working one day and I worked for Stubbs Opelbeck engineering company in Beaumont is about one o'clock in the afternoon, right after lunch and the spirit of God moved on me so strong right there at my desk. 

And it was all I could do to not cry, just bust out crying.  I wanted to just start traveling, but I'm at work. I'm surrounded by everybody.  I fought, I fought a lump in my throat and a burden on my soul all day long.  I called my wife and I told her, honey, I can't come home. Something's happening. I've got to go pray to God's dealing with that.

So I'm I'm going to go by the church and pray and I'll be home. I mean, I went to church by myself. I was there for about two hours and I prayed, buddy. Yeah, great.  And the Lord called me clearly and specifically to Mexico, to the Mexican people. And that was the farthest thing from my mind. I went home and I told my wife,  her parental heritage, her  father,  his family was from Mexico.

And when I told my wife, I said, Honey, I believe God's calling us to the Mexican people, Mexico. She said, Oh God, anywhere but Mexico.  And about two weeks later, she got the same burden God gave it to her.  Our company  owned, we were partners with a Mexican engineering firm, and they had 14 offices in Mexico.

And, I flew down there, my wife and I flew down there. We stayed a week in Monterey. And we prayed all over that city, and that's all we did, we just went down there to pray, to feel that spirit. The burden was real, but while we were there praying, God said, I just wanted to know if you'd do it.  This is not my will, I'll reveal my will. 

Brother Yates, from that day forward, anybody and everybody that knew us knew that was our birth.  We didn't know when it would happen, how, or what, we just kept on living for God.  One day I was praying,  and when I was praying,  I saw a vision, a literal vision.  So I heard, I heard a voice, so I'm getting ahead of myself.

I heard a voice, and the voice spoke two words to me. Del Rio. Del Rio. I knew Del Rio was  the place, but I didn't know where it was.  So I went and got a map. And when I looked at the map, I saw Del Rio was on the Mexican border.  And the moment I saw it, it looked like that scene in that old Bonanza series. 

Yeah. Well, I saw the map, but to me, it looks like a, a plane started right there and it started burning  and the burden for Del Rio came. I went and told my wife, I said, I believe God's not be calling us Del Rio. Where's that? It's on the border, Mexican border. She said, Oh my God. Then he went to the border.

About two weeks later, she got the birth.  Now let me tell you what happened.  For over three years, anybody, anybody that knew us knew we were going to go to Del Rio.  Now, I didn't do what other brothers did. Everybody else would have gotten in the car and went and checked out the city. They'd have gotten information on the demographics. 

They'd have seen that there was a church there. Do you know what I did over the next three or four years? Not one single thing.  But everybody knew we were going to Del Rio.  And then, after three years, I was with Wayne McLean for a couple of years, Brother McLean in Pasadena, Texas. Great man.  And we were going to leave there and I was going to go assist a preacher  in Wharton, Texas. 

I didn't want to go, but the gift of the spirit told my wife and I to go.  So, I'm going to keep my job in Houston. It has to be engineering, but We were going to move to Orton, which meant I had to drive an hour one way.  And, but we're moving to Orton to be near the church.  And, and we had a new couple in our church and they offered to keep our children, like two little babies. 

We dropped our babies off. We did the movie. When we came back with the last load, we went to, was about to pick up our baby.  Last time I'm going to stop by this couple's house ever.  And they had a little guest, a young lady visiting them.  And they introduced us and we talked for a minute. She says, Oh, I wish you could meet my former pastor.

He is so much like you and sister Charles and he and his wife are so precious. And they, they had a big church and they gave it up and went to an area and a real hard area and tried to save a little church and they're really  been doing without suffering, but they're great. And I just thought, man, that's great.

I'd love to meet somebody right there. What are they?  He said, they're real tech. 

That's 

good. Oh my God, that's where my wife and I have a burden for. We told her about it. I mean, 10 minutes later, we're on our way to work and never saw her again.  A year went by. Last night of Texas can't leave. I have never done one thing about Del Rio, but I knew I was doing it.

There was no doubt.  And the only thing I did during that year is I wrote a letter to the presbyter in that section beating Moore. And I told him about my burden. I said, Brother Moore, if there's ever an opportunity, just remember my name. That's all I ever did.  Well, I knew there was a church there now because that little girl, that little lady had told me there was a church.

But for a year, I didn't do nothing. I didn't do one single thing except write that letter.  So my wife and I can't believe we came along to Texas County. We went to the last night. It's the only one we could cause of my working.  And we went to the last night. We're probably the last people to leave the campgrounds with dog tires. 

We found the hotel room on the far side of Luskin,  right next to an old truck stop with a bunch of truckers and Pentecostals in it. And I told my wife,  probably one o'clock in the morning, I'm hungry. I want some coffee or something. Can we go to that truck stop? She said, yeah.  We walked in the truck stop where the eight. 

Didn't even get waited on. Too crowded. Too many people.  So I turned to my wife, I said, Honey, let's just go back to the room. We're not gonna get waited on. And when I turned around, I bumped into somebody. And I bumped into them pretty hard, so I turned to apologize. It was B. P. Moore. The presbyter that I'd written that letter to. 

And Brother Moore said, Both childs. I said, Brother Moore.  We shook hands. I said, Hey, did you get that letter? He said, Yeah, I did. We're standing there having this conversation. We hadn't been talking 30 seconds.  And who comes through the crowd but that little lady we met a year before that told us about her pastor in Del Rio.

And she said, Brother and Sister Charles, can't believe you're here. You're not gonna believe he's here with me. Brother and Sister Miller from Del Rio, Texas. Here comes Brother Miller.  Brother Miller's putting his coat on. He's a hyper guy. He said, Brother Charles, I gotta leave right now. I gotta get back to Del Rio because I've heard about you.

If I don't call you in two weeks, will you call me? I said, yes, I will. God put the whole thing together there. I called him two weeks later. I want you to come pretty to revival for three months later. My wife and I went to preach the revival.  We got 32 miles until real.  And when we hit back at bill, the Holy ghost hit us and we cried, spoken tongues off, went to deal real. 

We preached for him. We preached in old Mexico for him. We cried the whole weekend. We financed our own revival. We bought things, church,  blah, blah, blah.  We left there, but that Sunday night before we left.  Brother Miller, he didn't have a big church, but he had some people. Brother Miller said, Folks, God showed me.

I had not mentioned a word about this to Brother Miller. God showed me that if we ever leave here, Sister Miller and I, he moves me on. These are the people God has called to deal with.  My wife and I went home, and three months later,  Brother Moore called me and said, Brother Miller, Sister Miller left. The church wants to know if you'll be there faster. 

Brother Yates, I never did one thing. Not one thing. And that was a foreign culture and area I'd never been to before. But because I purposed to do the will of God, God opened the door.  So I went,  I went by, I'll tell you, I'll make this brief because I could talk on it hours. But  before we left, I resigned my church.

I resigned my job.  I, I resigned as assistant pastor and youth leader at the church.  And we packed it up. We got rid of our furniture and we were going to move to Del Rio. And on the way out, it was going to be a Sunday night, and we went through Bullock, Texas, to have Brother Cole pray for us.  And when he prayed for us,  boom, tongues interpretation come, and the Lord said, that I am the God who spoke to you and called you into this world. 

And because you have honored my steps, I will put you where I'm leading you.  And man, he made us many, many, many promises. And he said there would be great hardship, but always remember that I am the Lord that has set thee into this work.  So I get to Del Rio.  I can't tell you how hard it was. I can't tell you how bad it was and what we faced.

What we faced when we got there, no preacher in his right mind would have ever went there.  Two weeks later, Somebody knocked on the door of the church and it's a huge black man. And I knew immediately who he was. It was Lonnie Green, Dr. Lonnie Green. He pastored the only other apostolic church in town, different organization.

And, and I'd heard about him and he came in and we became friends immediately,  but we shook hands and he said, bro, child, I don't want to be rude. I don't want to be mean,  but he said, I'm praying God will bless your work here. But he said, there's been so many pastors come through here and every year.

Hardship runs 'em off, and he said, did you know there's a curse against this church?  I said, no, sir. And I said, that don't really bother me at all. He said, no. He said, there's a prophecy against this church.  I said, would you mind telling me what it is? He said, yeah. I said,  I'm not telling you this for the child to be offensive.

I'm just gonna tell you what the prophecy is. I said, please do. He said.  There would never be revival in this church and there had not been until a man is sent from God.  And man, I just started to praise the Lord. So with brother Graham,  I was sent from God and I told him the story.  So  let me, let me boil that down to this. 

If you'll wait on the Lord, you'll hear from God, wait on the Lord,  put your steps in the foot fret that he lays before you and let him light your path.  He will lead you where he wants you to go. And that's the way. It's the will of God as to work.  Not my will be done, thy will be done. And, and, and help me to hear from God so that God can, can do it.

And we need more preachers today that aren't looking for daddy's church, uncle's church, granddaddy's church.  We need more men that aren't so hungry to become bishops because they're ready to retire. With the income that they appointed a son or a nephew or a grandson or somebody.  I'm, I'm not, I'm not being critical of those people.

I'm just saying, we have mastered the art of having it our way. And lost the art  of following  God's will.  And the will of God, God would delight to tell you exactly what he wants you to do. Whether he's zeroed out. He's moved me multiple times.  He has caused us to abound and to abate.  He's got me right now about to enter into something that I've been waiting on for years and the door's opening right now.

I won't say what it is  because God don't leave you astray, but you have to wait on his timing,  let God open the doors and let God make a way. And then God gets all the praise.  And then, and that's just to me so special. And I believe that we need to be  Teaching more and more, and exemplifying  more and more, how to follow the will of God and not our own self. 

You know, you really hit something there.  You said we've become masters of having it our way. There really is a philosophy, and I even had a pastor try to tell me this is how he prepares his sermons. He said God never lays a sermon on his heart. He literally told me God never puts a message on his heart.

He always finds something he wants to preach and he asks God to anoint it.  Uh, I don't. Good Lord. Yeah, I don't practice that. I, I actually pray and hear from the Lord. But people live their life that way. God, here's my plan. Please bless it.  This is what I want. I 

want to really interpret. It's becoming more and more part of our accepted culture.

Now, it wasn't so much that way 80 years ago, I don't believe. But it's become that way.  And I'm going to tell you what, we're losing a lot of power and authority,  we're losing a lot of miracles, and a lot of supernatural things because we've become religious to the point that we don't know we're missing the other. 

But when you start, I'm going to tell you, I've had God send me into these hard places, and I'm not pleased I'm not patting myself on the back.  I have faced things and seen things and seen things arise that most men don't even know happens anymore and I have watched before my very eyes as God performed the miracle, moved the mount, stopped the adversary because when you are in the will of God it allows God to be glorified  and and we have just got to where it's all about filling there's an opening in this church so let's all try.

I have never and I never will. I've been asked, when I traveled, I was offering, and I promise you, I've been asked  200 times, if I've been asked once, would I try out for a church, I have never, and I never will, and I never would try out for a church once, because if God isn't God enough, and I'm not man enough to hear for God to tell me, I don't need to go. 

I, I believe that God can tell you and when the doors are open, now that's just the way I believe it. When I've seen it, I've done it,  and I've experienced it.  I never knew I was going to speak with James Kilgore.  I, I never tried to do it. I never tried to, I tried to turn them both down. I said no to both of them.

But years before I was ever, uh, on, uh, as their executive pastor. Years before each of those men, I did it. God spoke to me in prayer. One day, you're going to be asked by James Kilgore to be on his staff. Take me one day. You're going to be asked to be okay. I knew it. I knew it.  But until the day that I ran across them and they asked me and I said, no, no, they finally talked me into it.

I walked into the willow  and it wasn't easy either.  That's the way God works.  

Now you've confused me now, though. I mean, you could feel it, but.  Because of our organization, depending on their bylaws, there has to be a trial process. And so are you saying God would never call you to that church?  

Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to get it, but you'd need to have your tryout profit.

If you can have your God profit, it's up to you.  But if you're only  

that's God's will, it could still wind up with you. I don't understand. I don't understand the problem of going through the process and still, and God's still having his way. 

They have to have some means to fill the church.  But if you have, and I'm not kicking that brother, don't let them stay.

I'm just saying I would never do. I've been asked. I wouldn't do it because if God hadn't talked to me, I wouldn't.  And,  and if you have,  if you've been around as many boxes, I have,  you get 10 different preachers to try out for the same church  and about half of them will have had a dream.  It's, it's, you know, uh,  it's so funny how that each one of them can feel like that's it.

But let me tell you the proofs. Here's where the proofs in the pudding. Have you ever seen somebody go and take the church in the will of God three months later and he's out of hardship?  Six months? Yep, sure have. Somebody missed their signal. That's all I'm saying. So again, don't get hung up on that. I'm just saying that man has processed  substitute. 

Yeah. I was initially talking about the 10 preachers coming through process. I was just like the church I'm at now. I believe with all my heart that God called me there, but I had to go through the election process, but I was the only preacher that they, I was the first and the only. So, but it was,  but it was the,  

yeah, it does work for that.

It, it meant because.  I've seen people in voting sessions that didn't have the mind of God. I've seen preachers in voting sessions for district and general conferences that didn't have the mind of God, you know? That's why a third of them will vote for that one, and half of them will vote for that one. 

But I know what you're referring to, and I have seen other churches of people, preachers, voting for four of them. Yeah, I understand. 

I think it was then when God.  audibly let somebody know, or, or very, very explicitly. And, and that's all I'm saying. It's different. We learned to settle for less than the pure mind of God. 

And I'd like to see us reverse that. 

You said something earlier that we need to learn to have a spiritual mind.  How do you practice being consistent?  

Well,  that's a great question. Let me, let me address that because  for some people, it's easy for them to trust God, have, have the mind of God or, or follow the spirit.

Some people, it's very difficult. I know someone very dear to me, a relative  that is an engineer that is so pragmatic. He's got to figure everything out. He has tormented himself and wrestled with faith for 60 years of living for God. If he can't figure it out, he can't believe it. It's like giving, sacrificing, tithing, offering.

It eats him up because it don't make sense to him I can give 10 percent and God's going to bless it.  That's a pragmatic mind. Coronal mind is infancy against God. A spiritual mind. I thank God for spiritual minded people. They can let the spirit talk to them and they can overrule what evidence looks like or what everybody else is saying.

And they can hear from God  say, yes, Lord, I got you. And I really appreciate that. And I've had several great.  examples before me, my pastor, my brother, my older brother, that, that really allowed me to see what following the spirit is like.  And, and, but you know, going back to our original point tonight, the will of God. 

God calls, God sends,  God puts people into special places. If you go back and you look in the Bible, you take me into God's use for special missions, Noah, You don't read one thing that Noah had any shipbuilding experience  or anything like that, but he built the greatest ship in the history of the world up until the 18th century.

Then, then you look at the others in the Bible, Joseph.  Joseph, look at the obstacles he had, and yet he becomes such an anointed leader to, from prison to leadership, and one day to lead an entire nation on a great mission that ended up being their salvation as far as survival or death.  You look at men like,  like Moses that led  a rebellious Israel in the wilderness and David and Solomon could build a temple. 

All these people and many others in the scriptures  went where they never expected to go  and depended upon God to, to give them wisdom and leading and guidance and deliverance. And he did it.  If any entity in the world ought to be able to say, I absolutely know  I'm in the will of God, it ought to be a morning, get older, feel proud of God. 

And if we can't,  then it's an indictment against us that maybe we're,  you know, we're, we're too busy having it our way. So let it be God's way. And it's just some things that aren't going to open to you. You may have a great life. We have a great church, man. But there's some things that are never going to happen if you're not in the perfect will of God. 

And there's doors beyond that that you'll never know about because you didn't go through the first door.  

So true. So true.  So, getting back, I know you started that, but let's see, you were left off with your testimony. Let me, let  

me throw a few things out there just to add a little bit of a spice to it, you know.

I've had people tell me that, you know,  I just, whatever I do, I'm going to do it with all my might. I'm going to do whatever my hand finds to do, and that's the will of God.  That  is the distortion of the will of God. Now, God might bless us, you might be doing a good thing,  but that's not like God saying what he wants you to do.

God, God knows  before, you know, while we're in the womb, God knows who we are. And he knows to play into your hands for us.  And it's just something, you know, We're missing in our spiritual walk if we don't include God in everything.  And, and, and the Lord will  lead our, our, our footpaths. He will establish them.

And then God, God, when God calls you to do something like that, and it may mean sacrifice, it may mean suffering, it may mean hardship. It may not. But when God calls you to do it and you do it, then there's going to come opportunities.  There may be trials, there may be resistance.  There may be many things to the will of God that, that you face, but one by one, God will work out details. 

If you'll continue to pray and keep doing what God told you to do until he, until he challenged you to do something different.  And all of a sudden you'll see  the miraculous hand of God in ways that just a normal everyday Christian will never even think of seeing.  

Let me, uh, run something by you, tell me, and you tell me if I'm, I want to make, cause I want to make sure that I'm on the same page with you, and I agree with it, I just want to make sure I'm keeping up with you, on the, I read a book, and I don't remember which one it is, but he talked about the difference between serving in the flesh, this goes to your first point, people just,  uh, basically thinking whatever the opportunity presents itself is the will of God, I'm, I'm talking, I'm speaking to that, serving in the flesh, serving in the spirit, serving in the flesh is, What using whatever you're, you're born with, you're using yourself, your skills, your talents, your abilities, because that's what you have.

So, and that's what you would have to use to, in order to conquer the opportunity in front of yourself, but the, to serve in the spirit now that requires relying on him and only what he can give you.  So if you are to have a mindset to only take advantage of the opportunities, and then you would have to.

Rely on yourself more. You'd have to rely on your talent. You would have to rely on your abilities. And does that not remove God from the equation or at least lessen him that, that  

is exactly right. You are exactly right. And, and I'm not picking anybody. But today, we have turned so many things into an art form, whether it be music in our churches, the singing, the presentation,  the pulpit oratory,  uh, the cameras on, the lights are on,  that  we can have a really good emotional experience,  and maybe even at times, a good performance.

Move with the Holy Ghost and not ever realize that we substituted and missed  what God might could have done if we were truly led by walking in the spirit.  Yeah, okay. I'm with you. It's just  that I think walking in the spirit is something that we need to cling to because it's fading away.  

And why is that?

Because it's easier to do it our way?  

Well, we've been far removed from it. for so long where we, many people, I would think, and I don't have numbers for this, my friend, but I really think, because I've traveled a lot, you know, I've been around a lot.  I really believe the vast majority of our people in our churches, good people, but I believe the vast majority of them, the vast majority of preachers,  have never ever really truly seen  a profound earth shattering miracle.

Now they believe it, they preach it, it's in their language, it's in their sermons,  but I don't think they've ever seen it.  And you can get so far removed that you don't even hardly realize you're missing.  Because you're just talking about it preaching  and, and I mean, I've seen moves of the Holy Ghost  in years past that was so incredible, but they are so rare.

They may still happen, but they're more rare nowadays.  And preaching has taken the place many times of profound moves of the Holy Ghost.  And so, I just, I just would love to see a trend  back into the spiritual depths of God.  

I 

gotcha. I really would.  

Yeah, 

or the gifts of the spirit. And I'm not talking  casual gifts like, like we see sometimes operate nowadays, but the gifts, the spirit, the prudence spirit  and things would just so fit  the atmosphere that, that God would just be doing things and it would blow our minds.

But, but I really believe that we'll look at God. God has a will for where I live.  God has a will for who I marry.  God has a will. For everything in my life  and I'm missing it if I don't seek him for it  and I'll I'll lead my own life because I want that right but I'll never know I missed the will of God  and if anybody needs to know they haven't missed the will of God it needs to be the church 

right.

Because we're supposed to have intimacy in relationship with our God.  That's good.  

That's good. That's good. 

Yeah. It's not to be judgmental. It's not to condemn anybody  or challenge anybody, you know, are you in the will of God or not? You know, no, that's not what's up.  It's about that closeness with God  that, you know, to where you're so close to him that, you know,  man, that's really beautiful spot to be. 

But it's hard to do when God's got to compete with everything under the sun to get into your mind.  

I don't, that's the, that's the vibe I'm getting from this lesson is the beauty of it. I'm not getting anything ugly. I think our listeners  would understand that. But let's let's move old.  

Well, there there's an Endless opportunity to grow and and i'm so thankful.

Uh that I learned From my pastor early on brother cole that prayer Opens the doorway to access the spirit that because we're in the kingdom now we can have open access to god Let me give you a beautiful little thought when god  Hey, look, I don't know the time schedule, so be sure, you probably know what I need. 

In the, in the beginning, and I'm not, I don't have any notes, and I'm just talking. But, in, in the beginning of Genesis, when God began to create the heavens and the earth.  And then God made everything in their order, first, second, third day, fourth day, et cetera. God made everything. He made the plants, and the animals, and all those things.

Before we made man, then look at what he did. He took cattle.  Uh, Bible said, and he took the man. I'm paraphrasing, but I think I'm very accurate.  Took the man that he had made and put him in the garden that he had planted.  So God made man and put him in the garden.  Now, if you did a deep enough study on the word Eden, it does mean a garden, a closed garden.

Sure. It was a garden and they'll tell them how beautiful it was. He's gone.  But the deep meanings Hebrew means Hebrew is a language. It's not like English. It's more like Chinese Japanese It's a language of strokes and the strokes mean something in the strokes and the word Eden mean things like presence delightful spot Atmosphere it said so what even was even was not so much a physical location  Eden was a place, a spot on earth where like swoosh, down from heaven,  there's a spot where the presence of God is, the atmosphere of heaven. 

There was no sin, there was no separation from God. It was a place of beauty. And God took Adam and put him in the garden of his presence, in the atmosphere of his presence. And it was there that Adam could walk and talk with the voice of the Lord in the coolness of the day.  Beautiful. It was there that God gave Adam his marching order, be fruitful, multiply. 

God gave him his wine. Everything was there.  Everywhere Adam walked, he walked in the garden of his presence. Delightful,  a beautiful spot, the environment.  It's beautiful, until Adam sinned and he sinned. And then that  lifted back up, that swooped, swooped back up. And there was a gulf between God and man, and man could no longer bridge the atmosphere of heaven because of sin.

Persians came, sin came, death came,  so on and so forth. But Jesus comes to seek and save that which is lost. What was lost? See, in that, in that garden, in that spot, in that presence of God, in that delightful spot, that environment, that atmosphere, Adam had dominion.  He was the king of the world, so to speak.

King of, God's king of kings.  And Adam had dominion, complete dominion, authority. The authority of the king's word, of God's word on earth.  Well, it was lost. And then Ezekiel can say that it was lost. What was he seeking? Just lost souls? No, that's part of it. That's not what he was seeking. He was seeking the dominion, the kingdom.

The covenant that was lost  and Jesus restored that. So what happened on the day of Pentecost? On the day of Pentecost, after Jesus death, burial, resurrection,  when he had done everything, he said it's finished.  Then on the day of Pentecost, suddenly there came a sound from heaven. As a rushing mighty wind filled all the house where he was sitting, filling them clobbered in tongues like it's a fire.

It set upon each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost.  Began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit of God gives the others. You know what happened?  There comes that environment, that atmosphere, the presence of God, the King, Heaven,  except this time  when God made Adam, first Adam, he took the man he made, he put him in the guard of his presence.

The first gift God gave Adam,  and what did God do? When he came in flesh, the second Adam,  when it came time for him to pour out the Holy Ghost spirit, the new birth experience, the first thing he did was he took his spirit, his presence and put it in us, Adam walked in the garden.  We everywhere we go, the presence, the garden, the environment, the delightful spot.

God walks in us.  Right.  That is so profound because we're supposed to take him to the world that  How can I do it if I can't follow the spirit and walk in the spirit and be in the will of God? How can I truly be offended?  The Holy Ghost isn't just about our salvation.  It's about allowing God to use his children It's ambassadors in the earth to present him. 

Yes.  

I teach that. Amen.  That is a good thought brother That is a beautiful thought as you put it.  

It's peaceful.  

I got questions about that  I'm not sure what the flaming sword that was guarding the presence, but we'll talk about that later.  That'd be a good, that'd be another good Bible study. Another good talk. 

It doesn't fit right now, but you're right. If we,  and I like to, you know, we are to, Take that Jesus into the world, but we've got to have that Jesus and  We gotta know the will 

of God.  Let me, let me conclude it this way. We're born again into the kingdom, right? Because Jesus told  Nicodemus, unless you be born again of the water and the spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. 

And the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom.  And we're in it now. We don't have to die and go to heaven to get there. We're in it. When we die, then we enter into the presence of God forever. We're in the kingdom.  And a kingdom is, part of our problem is, is, we tend to think of, of, of God, kingdom, and all that stuff in, in our terms,  democracy, republic, uh, communism, totalitarianism, democrat, republican,  we tend to think along those lines we're familiar. 

Kingdom is completely 100 percent different than any of those things. The only law comes from the mouth of the king, the word of the king.  The only thing that matters is what the king says. The king owns everything.  And as in the kingdom, the king has the right to tell you what your occupation is.  What your craft is, where you go, what you do.

That's the king's sovereign right. So we're born into a kingdom.  And we need to learn to convert, come out from the world we are thinking and be sacred unto the Lord.  And God will set our, our, our steps in these paths. And God knows how better than anybody else. To use our strengths, our talents, our gifts, and our weaknesses and teach us things that we would never learn and mold us on the father's will to become a vessel fit for the master use.

And it gets back to him. The first thing is, is his will be done, not my will be done.  And so that to me boils down what the will of God, the will of God. Yes. What does my King want me to do?  And let me be able to be sensitive enough to God to hear from him so that I may do it. And God will empower me to do His will. 

That's awesome. That, to me, is so cool.  

Yeah, that's awesome.  Looking at the notes that you gave me, you did have a couple really good questions that we've not covered yet, and I wanted to hit those. Okay. What role do other men and women of God play in helping you find the will of God?  

You know, I've seen,  I've seen young men get anointed. 

And because they get anointed to testify good people in the congregation of calling the priest  or parents  or or pastors and others Now i'm not speaking against the pastors. I don't mean that  but the only one The ultimate one that needs to know the will of god for their life if god calls them to a ministry or anything else  Is the individual? 

because if if others call you To do something in god as you can be You correct.  And it can, it can be a hard crash landing for you.  So no matter what anybody else's influences are, no matter how much confidence they have in you,  if you go into a ministry, especially if it involves sacrifice or, or moving,  You stand your ground and stay put until you absolutely know in the spirit you've heard from. 

Yes, sir.  You'll be doing your thing. Don't let men call you, let God call you.  

Well, let's, let's flip it. What if,  as a pastor, you've got someone that thinks they're called and, and you are pretty confident they're not?  

I have been there. 

I have been. 

Yeah. You know,  There's some people are going to do what they're going to do here, regardless of what advice they get,  you know,  and, and, but the bottom line is, is  I don't think I would want to open my mouth and tell somebody else yay or nay until I felt like I had heard from God first,  and there's some people that you can't pass them.

We're in a society today that it's hard to pass them because sometimes they'll go in one ear and out the other  and sometimes they'll just ignore what you're saying,  but I've had people  tell me that God's called me to do this, pastor, can I do this, it's what God wants, and I do it in my heart.  That wasn't right. 

But I can, I don't think I've ever seen that work out good for them. I think it's always ended up bad. It's somewhere down the line. They end up getting bitter, disgruntled, backslide or something because they can't have the will of God.  But if I, as a pastor, had a,  I've been the only one to tell them that, um, that he ended up blaming me.

A lot of times,  some people  will  come against anybody, but don't let them do what they know they're going to do.  And it's hard to stop people from their human will. 

You've done a good job at describing the problem, but I don't know if you've given my listeners advice for when they pastor in that situation. What do they do? As a pastor. Well,  I'm trying 

to, sometimes the best thing to do is just stay quiet  and let God truly speak to you. Why are you saying when you said 

that?

Okay. 

I got you. Yeah.  Uh, I mean, I mean, I see the pastor according to my will or God's will.  And so, but now God tells me specifically. No, he's making a mistake. You know what I need to do? I need to go to that interviewer said, no, you're making a mistake because God told me you are.  Then the buds not on your, your watchman on the wall. 

But pastors are not God.  Pastors  bring the word of God in to help people and inspire people to live for God. But we're not God. We don't manipulate people's lives.  But we do try to guide them and love them and shepherd them. And  it's just like that sheep that's trying to slip off into that ditch. You know he's going to do it. 

And you keep pulling him back and pulling him back. But there's just some of them that'll go over and get in that ditch anyway.  

Okay. I understand what you're saying  now. Alright. You covered that one.  We've not really covered the last one there.  What, uh, what is the difference between going by a burden and being called and sent?

I know the answer, but I want you to explain it, please.  

So many people, you know, ministry involves a lot of burden, you know, caring about things and, and wanting to make a difference in things, and that can result in carrying burdens. But my advice, and I've, I've been saying this for 40 years, but my advice to anybody  Don't move, don't go, don't change, don't reorder your life and your family's life  based on a burden. 

Now you need to have a burden, and if God calls you, you'll get your burden for it. But if you go by a burden alone,  not having heard the voice of God.  They'll come a day that burden will get up and walk out on you. That's right. People in the church, the people you're ministering to, will talk against you, disappoint you, make you mad,  hurt you. 

There'll come a day that you'll want to curse the ground your own sometimes because people are making life miserable.  And if you have a burden only, And that burden walks out, you'll get angry, bitter, or whatever, disgusted, and you'll pack up and you'll leave.  But if God called you and sent you and told you and you knew beforehand, I am in the will of God, then when opposition  comes and the burden walks out on you, you'll stick it out.

You'll be there. You'll stay. Why? Because you know God sent you,  and you're going to wait and see the salvation of the Lord.  

And what do you tell the, the new minister who tells you, how do you tell the difference?  

If he can't tell you he hasn't heard from God to be sent,  then he's the one that needs to be explaining to you why he's going.

I was waiting. I'm just trying to put myself in a new listener's shoes. That's who, that's who this is for. 

I'm not picking nobody. I'm just trying to keep people from making mistakes. Absolutely.  Absolutely. You wait until you hear from God. You know, and what I found about God, let's just say it's you, Brother Gates.

Let's just say that God has truly spoken to you about going to Timbuktu, okay? Which means a lot of change and all that. You know what God will do? If you start saying in your heart, yes, Lord, not my will be done. It breaks my heart to do that. But you know what? I love you. I know what I'm here. You start putting your steps in order.

You know, what'll happen? God will send witnesses.  God, God, God, or somehow in the mouth, two or three witnesses, whatever would be established.  You might attend a, a sectional conference that somebody give a tongue's interpretation, come right directly to you.  He has ways of witnessing his will.  

Does the spouse always come around? 

I will say this,  mine certainly did because we made it our point and I never forced it on her. We made it a point to speak the will of God. If the spouse is not on the same page,  you're asking for trouble. You, you, you could make a huge mistake dragging your spouse and your children into situations  that they don't want to And they didn't ask, just cause you went don't necessarily mean your spouse  has that calling and that burden. 

It's wonderful when you come in alignment.  It can be horrible when you don't.  And um, and so I would, I would encourage someone to don't just rashly  stand up and say I'm the head of the house. My God, we're gonna do this together. That's what God wants. Don't be a rebellion woman. Don't do that. Don't do that.

Fear from God. And then pray God talks to you then too.  Fear your heart, but then give her time to think. See, I told my wife, God called us the Mexican people.  And she could only think of Mexico. And, and, and she said, Oh no, anywhere but. But then God gave the burden to her. And the calling to her. And then when we knew that that's not really what God wanted for us.

But we were to continue seeking in the will of God would come. Then I told her, God showed me Del Rio. Where's that on the Mexican border? And she said, Oh God, anywhere with the Mexican border. But two weeks later, she had the same bird. 

God's not the one that divides families, but people can divide their own family by following their will. It's not God's.  And that's why you got to know, you just need to know  

God's 

revealer. God's a talker. He's, he started out talking. He's never stopped.  God publishes what he's going to do. God says,  but we just need to tap it.

It's like turn on the receiver and get the signal in here.  

That's good stuff.  Dr. Childs. That is good stuff. I'm looking over. I think that's  everything on that one.  Do you feel  like we've covered it enough for tonight? Or do you have something else? Did you not? Yeah. I'll tell you why. 

There's things I could have said that maybe I'll, weeks later, add up and vice versa, but  there's an audience that's only going to listen so long anyway. 

And so in kindness and deference to them, I would say they probably got some nuggets to chew on. They may not even agree with something that I said, but my main plea to them, Is let's reverse every trend that allows our mind to take the place of God  and let us submit our will to his and get the mind of Christ.

Because in the mind of Christ, you're going to find the will of God. You will reveal it to you. Wait for his voice, wait for this timing,  and then go and do whatever God told you to do. But wait on the Lord.  Well, there you go. Don't  Don't just call youself. Yeah. In the meantime.  Do good things. Be involved in the church.

If you want to be involved in extracurricular ministries like jail ministry or nursing home ministry, things like that. Praise God.  Do those kind of things. But we're talking about For overall life callings here, make sure you know what God wants you to do so you don't miss it. You only go around once and you don't want to miss what God asks for you.

Yeah,  yeah, I do like that you clarify that. One year from my youth group, I gave them  a key ring and it had a little piece of lead fishing weight on it.  I said that too many times people won't do anything because they don't feel led. So now you can always rub this and say you feel led to do something.  Um, yeah, but I wasn't trying to remove the will of God from your life.

I just was covering that excuse. So by all means work, work, work, work, but stay in the will of God. Absolutely. Dr. Childs, I have enjoyed this thoroughly and I 

feel like we've just been slapped two three inches off him. I appreciate that so very much. 

Well that is the goal. That is what we're supposed to do.

I would like to get in a few months I'll call you back and have you back on again. No 

problem. Let me let me put in one last plug  for biblical kingdom  I've always been a Holy Ghost preacher. I love I love the gospel  And in 2007, six, I was sitting in my office preparing for a Sunday message and the Holy Ghost audibly spoke to me, scared me, spoke to me, and whether it was audible or in my head, it sounded like an audible voice. 

And, and I just read what Jesus said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. First words out of his mouth  and in his ministry.  And I sit there thinking, man, and all of a sudden that audible voice spoke to me. When's the last time you heard an apostolic preacher teach a preach in depth on the kingdom of God? 

And I sit there brother Yates for a few minutes, just in total shock that I'd heard that voice. But then I couldn't think of nobody.  And I'd been around some of the greatest preachers in Pentecost. I've been on the circuit. I couldn't think of nobody that ever heard a teacher preach on the kingdom of God other than mentioning it. 

I'm sitting there in shock when the voice spoke the second time.  When's the last time you preached to teach thoughts in depth on the kingdom of God? I wanted to crawl under the carpet  because I knew I never had.  And I'm sitting there in absolute shock and that voice spoke the third time.  And how do you even know if you know what it is? 

And man, I began a journey because I wanted to understand the kingdom of God.  And that's, that's why I started the website and there's a book that'll come along with it. I just want to help people understand what we've already got. It's precious. It's beautiful  and it's powerful. So may God bless you.

Thank you for allowing me to be on the program and may God bless everyone that hears it. I love everyone.  

Yes, sir. And, uh, I do encourage my listeners to go to the website, but also if you are a podcaster only and that's the only thing you want to listen to. He was recently on my friend Kyle Maddox's podcast, Life and Ministry Podcast, and I believe the topic was the Kingdom of God. 

That's right.  Yep. So you can look that up on Facebook or it's a, it's a different type of podcast. He does Zoom meetings. I have to put that information on my,  I'll put it on my Facebook page where I'll put a link to that episode on my Facebook page. I'll put a link there.  All right. Thanks so much. You're very welcome.

Thank you. God bless everyone. We appreciate you.