Well, hello. We'd like to welcome you to a rise in shine with Tony and Melissa Hurst and we're just excited about God's Word and we just can't wait to get into it because we believe we have some things that the Lord has instructed us to bring and I think it's going to be helpful. I think especially in the time that we're living in today, I believe it's going to be extremely helpful and help us to get to that place where God wants us to be. So if you have your Bible and you can, once you get it and let's sit down and let's look into God's Word, it's really important for you not only just to hear but also to see it will increase your ability to be able to grasp what's being said.
So if you have time and you've got your Bible just do that right now, let's get into God's Word. Please connect with the rise in shine by visiting our Facebook page at Facebook.com slash a rise in shine TV show or emailing us at a rise in shine TV at gmail.com. We look forward to connecting with you. Well, hello.
Let's go ahead and let's pray before we get into God's Word right now. Father, we just want to invite your presence into this time and we thank you for your word. We thank you for the privilege to look into your word and thank you for the Holy Spirit who is the great teacher and we just expect him to just unfold and reveal to us the truth from your word. We want to see the things that you desire for us to see at this time and this hour and this moment of our life and we thank you for ears to hear and eyes to see Father and we believe that we receive it.
Thank you for utterance and boldness Father God right now in Jesus name. Amen. So we're going to start in the book of Acts chapter 1 and we've talked along these lines before but we're backing up and looking at it from a little bit different angle and we're going to talk about it a little bit for a while and we're going to probably stay on this for a while till we believe that the Lord's done with it because we believe that you know you do some teaching just for information you know when it's not like it's a word of God's always pertinent, it's always relevant, it's always up to date and there's really no truth in there that you could say like well we don't need that right now. No that's really you need it all and you need it all all the time but what we're teaching on right now we believe it's something that needs to be taught right now at this moment in the church because primarily you know when you look around in society today and where we are at especially during this year and the things that are going on you begin to kind of do some research and I hope everybody not just myself you know or Melissa but we do some soul searching on our own to try to you know discover us and what we do is human nature if you're still at that point in your life where everything's always somebody else's fault then you are a long ways from what's right you know because we've learned that even in marriage relationships very seldom I don't care what the situation is I don't care really what the circumstances is it's very very very unlikely that one of the two in a marriage relationship would be absolutely totally 100% blameless no matter what the situation is you say well they did something it was really dumb and stupid well yeah I know but what kind of a relationship or what was going on in your life with you and that other person up until that thing happened you know and so a lot of times it's like well I didn't do anything you know they just did some really stupid see we all have parts to play and we always want to see when the human nature wants to blame it on somebody else well for every action there's a reaction and that's what causes you know the thing to keep going or it to stop so right right you know and so it's it's a so what we want to do is we want to look around and we've as we look around you know you could point the blame and you know everybody wants to blame leadership everybody wants to blame politicians they want to blame the police department they want to blame the fire department they want to blame their pastor they want to blame the leaders in the church and or you know or if it's on a if it's on a personal level then it's can't be your fault it's got to be your wife with the children you know or the in-laws it's always somebody but as we begin to look around especially you know not only necessarily a personal level rather but you know on more of a open you know just kind of like a global you know or just a regional or even just around us what's going on around us and you have to look for answers what's what's the deal here what's going on you know why is this like this is well this isn't something that just all of a sudden just popped up out of the blue you know it's you know just all of a sudden you know it's just like somebody you know that gets into an adulterous affair they don't just wake up one morning never had to thought never thought about it never entertained anything just always went along your life you know you know everything's just kind of hunky dory as you say everything's good and all of a sudden they decide they want to go out on their husband and wife so that doesn't happen that never happens it's always something that has been thought about meditated out you know and and and and I mean and there's things that feed those kind of thoughts it's really the key to all that stuff is is what you think about the longest and the most is exactly what you're going to do you will act it out you will act it out and it just depends you know what it is how it will be acted out but you will you will your your thought life your inside life the inside you the things you think about that nobody else knows about it will eventually work its way externally if you don't check it and if you don't stop it and know how to deal with it you know and so what we're going to talk about is is what's going on and look at it from a perspective we've talked a little bit already you know when Jesus you know in the gospel see he very clearly called the church he called his disciples who eventually became the church you know the body of Christ the Bible even goes on further and gives us revelation that that the disciples became the church the church actually became referred to as the body of Christ and and he but he called us light and when you think about what light is and they also called us salt when you think about those two elements and what they are why would he why would he do that well when you go back and you study what light that really literally is and what salt literally is he expected the his disciples or the church or the body of Christ to be exactly that and he never has changed that he never has come back and said well I've decided now you're no longer the light you're no longer the salt you know you know you're something else no God's word has been settled nothing else has been given and it won't be given so that's what we are to be light and be salt when you think about now when you look around and you see all the things that are going on in society at so many different levels and and it's in so many different avenues and so many different ways you know you know you have to wonder and it's so easy to call it I mean it's darkness is exactly what it is that God's word calls it darkness and and it's just that's what evil is evil is something that people want to do in the shadows you know but now it's like that darkness is trying to take over and like I said it's so many different levels and so when it comes down to a darkness is an amazing thing we talk you look at darkness from even from a natural standpoint you know how do you get rid of darkness or how does darkness how does darkness invade our lives how does it how is it allowed to become dark it's so easy all you have to do is extinguish the light it's darkness is the absence of light that's what darkness is really is and so when we're talking about you know natural physical darkness you know the way it gets not time is the sun goes down the sun ceases to be in a place where that it can you know throw the light on the earth and on us and so dark and then if the moon is out then you'll have a little bit of light but not much and then if it's cloudy you've ever seen a real cloudy night you know when the moon can't even shine through it you're talking about dark especially when you get outside you know out in nature and into woods and things like that it can be so dark at times when the moon's not shining that it's hard to see your hand in front of your face so see we're talking about darkness but all you have to do in those environments is have a flashlight so no matter how dark it is flip on the flashlight got good batteries everything's good you have a certain amount of light so that you can see where you're going what we're trying to get you to see is right now is is the reason that darkness and I've said it before and I'll say it again the only thing that man has to do to allow darkness or to allow evil to overtake or overrun a society is for good men to do nothing all you have to do is extinguish your light or put it under a bushel so to speak as the Bible says as Jesus said and just don't allow it to shine see and I think that's exactly what we have done and this just did not happen in this year it didn't just happen last year it didn't even happen the year before that or even the decade before that I believe it's been a gradual thing of the church as a whole allowing things to creep in over time you know and begin to rob us and steal from us the truths of God's word and has and and every time you lose every time you're allowed a truth from God's word a principle from God's word to be robbed from you and you no longer embrace it as being the truth and you no longer are walking in the light of it the enemy has just been able to rob you of power see knowledge natural physical intellectual knowledge that's been said that knowledge is power and it is you can't do something you don't know you know you it's hard it's hard you know to do anything knowledge always has to come first of something you can't drive a car without knowledge or at least without hurting somebody you have to have that knowledge and that understanding so that you know how to operate that car and it's the same way with spiritual knowledge see spiritual knowledge is power but see it's only spiritual level and so every time the truth is able to be able to be extracted from you and you no longer are willing to embrace it or grasp it as the word of God and walk in the house you can know the truth but if you're not walking in the light of it it's like a book folded like this right here and sitting upon a shelf it may be full of all kinds of information you may even know what's in that book because you read it but see it's up on the shelf and it means nothing to you but it's when you take the knowledge that you have you take that understanding of the truth that you know and you're willing to implement them into your life to the point where that you can walk in the light of it when the Bible says walk in love you begin to pursue that you begin to okay I need to find out what love looks like I need to know because if you don't know what it looks like how do you go to recognize it when you see it and a lot of people have a real huge misconception of what love is and now the church most of the church world has allowed the world to give them their definition of what they think love is and now the half the church world believes that so you need to read 1 Corinthians 14 verses 4 through 8 especially how they amplified because it'll define love so that you can actually even recognize it so see you can know that you need to walk in love but if you don't understand what love is and then know how to actually implement it into your life and walk in the light of it then it does nothing for you you don't have power but see if you do know and you begin to go that way and walk in the little bit of light and understanding you have of it that you've got more light begins to come and with that with that coming of that understanding of the truth comes of power and the ability to overcome the circumstances around you and it literally it literally drives the darkness back and also gets easier it gets easier to do something than all you know you have knowledge of it but sometimes it's hard in the beginning or you know you fumble around and it looks kind of weird and so you bitch the more you keep doing it and you're not even sure you're doing it right and you wonder if it you know does this even do anything yes but if you don't quit and you keep going and you keep going and it's just keep doing it over and over and it gets easier and it looks better well that's that's that's that's that you know Maslow's Law we talked about that before you know well you're ignorant you don't know it and then you go that second step I was saying you see something you've never seen before and we're all ignorant about you know a lot of things because nobody knows everything you know but when it becomes the God's word God doesn't want us to be ignorant of his word he wants us to have an understanding of it that second step you know was now you're ignorant you know it and then the next one was you remember you do something you can do something but you have to do it consciously you have to pay attention to what you're doing because you're not familiar with it enough that you know that you have to really pay attention I know when I first started doing electrical work some 47 years ago you know especially with wiring diagrams and stuff and how circuitry for it and all that stuff because I'll taste them sometimes I can be pretty overwhelming pretty complex you know especially if you've never been exposed to it and I hadn't at that time so what I would do is I would always if I had to wire something up and it wasn't something just real simple you know I would have to write it down and what I do is I'd make a diagram so I'd make a diagram of it I said okay I've got this wire going here this wire going here and I would mark what they are and then I would look at it so then what I would do is I would take that diagram that I had see and I would implement it into what I was doing and I would work it out and then I would come back the next time I'd have to do the same thing again because it'd be a week or two maybe a month or six months since I did that particular situation you know I remember something that was saying so simple to most people is turning on a lot from two different locations you know just wiring that in such a way where you can do it right or three locations it turned the same line on you know I know a lot of journeyman electrician that had been through school and everything and they still struggled with that really struck but that's what I did seemed I don't know what they did I guess they probably didn't want to take the time they just kind of did what they did you know but I sit down I drew it out we know well I have to do in that you know time and time again after a while I don't need the diagram anymore see I go into a situation today you know and could have done for years now I can go in and I can even repair where somebody else has miswired it and some and I don't know it's harder to fix them that somebody else has messed up than it is to install something fresh from the beginning because now you got to figure out what they did and that can really be challenging but what I'm getting across to you is now today I do it without even thinking so I can do it without thinking and that's why because I can't practice in it over and over and over and over again till it became a part of my life you got some okay well let's go now we're going to talk about the church is the church in these last days are we going to be a church a powerful church or a pitiful church a pitiful church you know if you just think about the word pitiful somebody something pitiful is what it's kind of weak you know just kind of helpless you know and you feel sorry for it because it's pitiful you know you pity somebody you know and so I believe what we are right now into a great degree that the church has allowed itself and I say itself because we and I know people don't think that you know they're in much control of their life they believe that everything's destiny destiny destiny that's not true even in destiny we still have a wheel you know you can get up the morning go to work or you can sign call in sick and lie even lie about it or you can go out and do something today just I mean just some randomly you know just okay I'm just gonna go down here to the grocery store I was gonna rob the grocery store you know you can do anything you want to do because you have a wheel you know so it's not all God you know doing these things and so what we have done because what we have allowed into our lives and into our thought lives and much of it has been preached from poor pits much of it has been preached in churches and or I should say this let me say it another way a lot of stuff has been neglected it's not that the wrong has been portrayed it's just that much of the truth has been pushed to the side and and not been been preached and proclaimed and put in front of people so but so now we have a church that doesn't know a whole lot about the Bible see the God's words not important to them like it should be and so we better probably read a verse shouldn't we let's do that let's go to Acts 1 4 through 5 and 3 these two verses now this is right before Acts's part Luke wrote this account here and this is right before Jesus ascended upon high matter of fact it gives all indication that it was the same day you know it was just moments possibly before this happened and he had already been walking with them for some 30 40 days or something like that before he ascended you know and so if you know this is the last time that he's going to be talking to them in this type of a setting because he's going away that he'll be able to communicate with them down the road to the person of the Holy Spirit but this is the last time that he can really give them a personal up close impression of what he desires know so so and I say all this because a lot times we read over this like oh yeah well okay that's okay well you need to understand the setting of it you need to understand the importance of emphasis that Jesus put on this and in why did he say this like the very last thing that he said to them so it had to be extremely important and in the way he said it it wasn't just the words that he spoke but you know you can say words and the way you say them is just as revealing as what you say sometimes what the way you say it will totally overpower what you say it's the it's the emphasis expression you give it what you say how did you say it you know and so you can say the right thing and say it the wrong way and he can be a mess you know so when you look at this verse 4 let's read this you want me to read it you want me to do is King James okay you got King James just a little reason King James okay verse number four and being assembled together with them commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father which says he he have heard of me number five is for John truly baptized with water but she shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence now see here he he told them very plainly and and I don't think that Luke accidentally put that word in there commanded so evidently when he said that to them it wasn't like he said it as a suggestion he didn't say it as this is something you may want to do no he commanded them in other words they had if they're going to continue to follow him if they're going to continue to be his disciples which literally means followers of Christ okay if you're going to be my disciples then you've got to do something there's no option you have no other choice but you have to do what I'm getting ready to tell you and he even explained that to him he suggests I know John came but John preached about me John preached water baptism he said but John even told you that there's one coming after me that's going to baptize you with the spirit and with fire see he he spoke of me and this is that promise right here he said you got to have this promise so see this was not optional to them and so what's funny to me is now we live in a society in the church world that this is totally optional it's like it's not that important it's like well they needed it but we don't guys I want to tell you some if you think you don't need it you just watch society and watch going on around you and watch and see that it's not going to get better it's gonna get worse and you mark this day that I'm telling you not you not only should have this but you absolutely had better have this experience right here because what's out in front of you today you won't be you may not be able to make it you know you won't be able to make it well in the same here you know they didn't know what the future was gonna look like they probably had an idea just like we do you know what it's gonna be happening and you based that off of pressure or what you're feeling now or what you've experienced before but Jesus knew and just like now you know if we don't have that we don't have that knowledge of the future what it's gonna look like either but if we have the empowering and we walked in that we were talking about earlier if you've walked in that and you have a close walk with the Lord then he's able to to empower you when you need it for those things that are coming up in the same year Jesus was telling them you have to have this and you better be exercising it and growing in it so that you're able to use it right when the time comes and you know he had a job for them to do right because he'd already commanded him you can go back to Matthew 28 when he told him he said all power and heaven earth is giving to me you know and heaven earth has been giving to me so now you go in the words of father sent me he said now I'm sending you wait the same commission that the father gave Jesus is the same commission that Jesus gave the disciples and that includes us you know and that and what was it go you know all the world preach the gospel to every creature you know and those that believe in our baptized will be saved those that don't believe they'll be damned you know and we're going to go and mark 16 gives five signs that would follow the believers you know and well it's just I'll tell you what let's don't get it I myself let's go ahead and here in this cause this is exactly you can see human nature in these verses if you look close to that for pay attention because now you know what Jesus just got through telling them he told them he said he said he said he command him you stay here you know well he didn't tell him that here he said but you shall be baptized and then it goes on a few re-verses six they immediately changed the subject because they want to know when his kingdom is gonna be established and when he's gonna come and all these things got to see they distracted from what he said it's like they didn't even hear what he said they were too busy thinking about something else because they wanted to ask his question and in in in in in so many words in verse 7 he simply told him he said that's none of your business he said my fact I don't even know only the father knows that's in his hands but then he goes but you know what that means change the subject let's go back to what I was talking about and in verse 8 he says but what did he say there in 8 but you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the Edermos part of the earth so we can readily say right there that Jesus commanded them to teary in Jerusalem for the initial outpouring of the Spirit after that initial outpouring of the Spirit right here you never see the word Terry and it's never implied at all in scripture so this is the only time they had to wait because they weren't waiting for God to make up his mind they weren't waiting for anything else you know what they were waiting was for the day of Pentecost because God had already predetermined on the day of Pentecost he said that's the day that I'm gonna pour my Spirit out so they were waiting for that time and it came exactly when God said it would come and now it's here right now for everybody and anybody that would dare to believe God's word and to receive it but he told them you must have power you must be in dude with the power what is this power he explains it here he said after the Holy Ghost has come upon you when the Holy Ghost comes on you he empowers you to do what God has called you to do and so we're gonna be talking about this more as time comes for a while because we believe it's very important but if you're out there today and you have never made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life see I honestly most and I talk all the time we don't see how people make it without without the Lord and I don't see how that how even some Christians make it without a total absolute reliance upon him you know but it's not easy so but if you're out there today you've never made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life we're gonna pray pray for you and with you and we want you to pray with us because this is your day the term things around and to be in dude with the power that God has for you so that you can even though no matter all the darkness is around you you can walk in light and you can you can have the victory that God wants you to have so if you're out there and you've never made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life where you say I'm out here and I have but really I'm not serving him this is your time pray this pray with me say Jesus I take you today as my Lord and my Savior sin Satan you are not my Lord Jesus is my Lord thank you Father for receiving me and for filling me with the fullness of your spirit I will follow you and serve you all the days of my life and I thank you for it in Jesus name now if you prayed that prayer and you made it from your heart you have been born again and I would have you to tell somebody because that's what seals it you need to tell somebody what God has done for you write us let us know emails how you do that and God bless you until we see you the next time may God's best be yours please connect with a rise and shine by visiting our Facebook page at facebook.com slash a rise and shine TV show or emailing us at a rise and shine TV at gmail.com we look forward to connecting with you