Hey, this is Pastor John Ryan Cantu from PNEUMA Church in Houston, Texas. Thank you for listening to the message today. I hope that it blesses you and all those that you share it with. God bless you. Amen. Welcome to the house of God this morning. Amen. Anybody excited to be in the house of the Lord? Couple of you. Amen. Praise the Lord. You can take, take your seat, but don't, don't sit down just yet. We're going to get straight into the word this morning. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, you know what I mean? You know how we do it. Stand by your seat. All right. Are we ready for the word this morning? Amen. We got, we got to be ready to receive it because if we're not ready to receive it, um, you're going to miss out on some quality, quality content of spiritual meat. Right. And so you got to come to church hungry. There's, there, there's this restaurant that we really like going to Chama Gotcha. And, uh, amen. Right. And it's, it's a great place, but when you go, you got to prepare yourself. You're like, can't eat. Don't, don't spoil your appetite. You know, don't have like, you know, like breakfast. Don't, don't, don't do any of that. You got to come hungry so that you can enjoy and get your money's worth. Amen. So I hope that you are here this morning, ready to receive what God has for you. Second Kings chapter two, we're going to read one through 15. And if you're visiting here for the first time, welcome to Numa, you're already family. We you're already in, you're already in, you're locked in already. Can't go anywhere else. I'm just, just kidding. Uh, but we do love you. We do love you. And we thank you for, for joining us. Second Kings chapter two, one through 15. You got it. Amen. And it says this, it says now when the Lord was about to take Elijah to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elijah were on their way from Gilgal and Elijah said to Elijah, please stay here for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel. But Elijah said, as the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethel and the sons of the prophets were in Bethel, uh, who were in Bethel came out and said to Elijah and said to him, do you know that the Lord will take away your master from you? And he said, yes, I know it. Keep quiet. Elijah said to him, uh, Elijah, please stay here for the Lord has sent me to Jericho, but he said, as the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you. So they came to Jericho, the sons of the prophets who are at Jericho drew near to Elijah and said to him, do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from you? And he answered, yes, I know it keep quiet. Then Elijah said to him, please stay here for the Lord has sent me to Jordan, but he said, as the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you. So the two of them went off. 50 men of the sons of the prophets also went and stood at some distance from them. And as they both were standing by the Jordan, then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water. And the water was parted on the one side and to the other, to the two of them could go over on dry ground. When they crossed, uh, when they had crossed, Elijah said to Elijah, you still with me, right? I know this is long. Ask what I shall do for you before I am taken from you. And Elijah said, please let there be a double portion. Somebody say double portion of your spirit on me. And he said, you have asked a hard thing yet. If you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you. But if you do not see me, it shall not be so. And as they went, as they, this is really, this is a long passage, so I'm already losing it. I need you to stay with me. All of this is important. As they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a world, went into heaven and Elijah saw and cried, my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen. And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. And he took up the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water saying, where is the Lord, the God of Elijah? And when he had struck the water, the water parted to the one side and to the other. Then, uh, and, and Elijah went over. Now, when the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho saw him, they said the spirit of Elijah rests on Elijah. And they came to meet him and bow to the ground before him. Amen. Do y'all need me to read that again? Let's go to God in prayer. Heavenly father, we thank you, my God, for your word. We thank you because you have spoken this over your servant, my God. And I pray that as you have spoken it over me, Lord, as I have received it, your people would receive it here this morning. My God, Holy spirit be on my lips. Let nothing that I speak be from me, but all from you, my God, let me be sensitive to what you want to do and what you want to say in Jesus mighty name. Amen. Amen. Now you can take your seat. Amen. I struggled a little bit with this sermon. Um, God will usually, you know, let the week kind of preach to me and then I'll just relay the message on Sunday. And I was ready because, you know, I thought this is election week. So surely by Wednesday, God's going to give me a word. And, um, it was Friday night and God was still kind of taking me in some different directions. And I felt like he was saying a lot of things and there was a lot of passages of scripture that I wanted to use. Ultimately I ended up here and God had really put on my heart to speak about the Holy spirit. And I didn't really want to use an old Testament text because the Holy spirit is very clearly seen in the new Testament. But I just kept coming back to this portion of the scripture. And it reminds me a lot of a new Testament text that I really wanted to use, where the disciples of Jesus were saddened and confused by the fact that Jesus was about to leave them. Jesus says, I must go so that the helper can come. So Jesus had to go so that the disciples could be empowered by the Holy spirit. And Elijah had to go so that Elijah could be empowered by the Holy spirit. And so I thought, what, what, what are we holding onto that? If we just let go a new level of anointing and power could come like, what good thing is necessary? I'm talking to you to leave your life right now so that something better can come. And in no way is the Holy spirit better than Jesus. But see, Jesus knew that it was necessary for him to go so that the disciples could enter a new season of anointing and blessing. I think a lot of times as Christians, we like to overextend our season. We like to overstay our seasons because they're good seasons. We learned a lot there. We grew there. We met some great people there and we never want to leave what's good. But you see, I believe that with new levels of growth and with new levels of holiness will come new levels of anointing. And I believe that many people in this room, for many of us, there are greater seasons of anointing ahead of us. If we could just step into the holiness that that season requires, that might mean letting go of something that is good for something that is better, even if the better isn't something that you see right away. See, when Jesus originally called the disciples, they all left something, they all left something behind. Some of them left their businesses, some of them left their jobs, some of them left their families, some of them left their their homes, their areas of comfort, all so that they could enter a season of spiritual preparation for what they were going to do once Jesus left them. The Holy Spirit is in the business of making us holy. He is the spirit of holiness, right? Jesus saves us. He makes us right before the father, but it's the Holy Spirit's role to sanctify us through this new life that we now live in Christ. So Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is the helper. He helps us do what we cannot do on our own. And so the title of my sermon this morning is holiness, holiness, any holy people in the house this morning? Come on, any saints in the house this morning? You can't be holy without the Holy Spirit. You can't be holy without God, period. You know, when we talk about holiness, we've got to understand something about holiness. We have to understand that the father requires it, the son models it, and the Holy Spirit helps us with it. The Holy Spirit, the father requires us to be holy, to be connected to him, Jesus shows us what that looks like as humans, as he lived the perfect life and the Holy Spirit helps us get there. So without the Holy Spirit, we can't get there. We can't be holy without the Holy Spirit. And we're a Pentecostal church. We talk a lot about the Holy Spirit. The name of our church is Numa, which means spirit. We're a church with the mission to be moved, led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. I know that we know about the Holy Spirit, but I think we need more Christians who know the Holy Spirit. I don't care if you've got great doctrine and theology concerning the Holy Spirit. That's good. But how many of us know the Holy Spirit deeply and intimately? This is not a Pentecostal thing. Pentecostals are not the only ones who have relationship with the Holy Spirit. This is a Christian thing. We, we read, listen, we read about Moses, right? In the Old Testament, we read about Moses. Moses was the prophet who spoke to God face to face. The Bible says that there was no other prophet like Moses because of the way that he spoke with God. Moses knew God in ways that nobody else did. And Jesus, we, we, we read about Peter and the disciples. These men knew Jesus in ways that no other men knew Jesus in ways that you and I will never know Jesus because they sat with him, they ate with him. They talked with him face to face. We read about Paul. Paul was a man who didn't know Jesus like Peter knew Jesus. He didn't speak to the father the way that Moses spoke to the father, but he walked so closely with the Holy Spirit. He was filled with the spirit and because he was so closely connected to the spirit, his anointing was so high. So just like the father and the son can be known on intimate levels, so can the Holy Spirit be known on intimate levels. Now there's no question that all Christians have a degree of holiness because we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit. We have been set apart. We belong to Jesus. We've been made right, but the Bible, listen, the Bible does make it clear that certain people operate at different levels of anointing and at different levels of holiness. Not a lot of amens this morning. This is not just, I'm not just saying this out of my opinion. This is what the Bible clearly shows us. Now I'm not, I'm not saying that there are different levels of Christianity. You can't be more saved, but there are absolutely different levels of holiness. And this isn't something that we talk about enough. I think this is probably not something that I've spoken enough about. Sometimes in our effort to lead people to Jesus, sometimes we forget that we forget to lead those same people to greater fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Lead leading people to Jesus. I mean, that's, that's the goal of every church. Every church should be reaching people for Jesus. We should always be the hands and feet of Jesus. We should always preach the gospel. This is why we extend an invitation to accept Jesus every Sunday, because that is the most important decision you will ever make in your life because it echoes into eternity. So I'm not making light of that, but also somebody say also. The Christian life is meant to be greater than how so many of us choose to live it. And that's because we don't involve the Holy Spirit enough in our everyday life. What blessings do we miss out on? Because we haven't invited the Holy Spirit in our midst. How much time, how much time could we have not wasted? Have we just allowed the Holy Spirit to lead us the first time than our emotions? Come on. There, there are a lot of things within the Christian life that are permissible. Paul says all things are permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Right? When we read that verse, we usually have in mind things that we could do, but don't really benefit us spiritually. Right? So we tend to use this verse as a, as a way of justifying doing things that aren't sinful. What about things? What about things that aren't required by God for us to do, but would be beneficial if we did them? I don't know if that made sense. Like what, what kind of blessings do we leave on the table? Because we're not required to obtain those blessings. You know what I'm saying? Like it's permissible for me to not fast. I don't have to fast. That's not a commandment. There's no commandment in the scripture that says a Christian has to fast. So January comes are, are, are Daniel fast or 21 day fast? You don't want to fast. Okay. You don't want to fast. That's fine. You're not being disobedient. You're not being sinful, but what kind of blessings might you be leaving on the If you would make fasting a part of your life, I don't have to go to church all the time. God will excuse me if I don't go every Sunday, but what kind of blessings are you leaving on the table? If you would make Sunday a part of your regular routine, it's not a requirement of me to spend every single moment with God because he'll understand if I miss a day, he'll understand if I miss a week or even a month, I'm still covered by the grace. I still love Jesus, but what kind of blessings are you missing out on because you're not daily connecting with the father? What, what kind of anointing, listen, what kind of anointing do you miss out on by not being holy? Look, Elijah wasn't required. Elijah wasn't required to follow Elijah. Elijah even excused him. He said, Hey bro, you can go home, stay here. You don't have to follow me. But Elijah was after a new level of anointing. Elijah didn't want just what Elijah had. He wanted a double portion of what Elijah had. Elijah wanted the privilege of being used by the father. He wanted the honor of being a prophetic voice in the midst of a godless society. He didn't have to have it. We might even say that he wasn't even called to it, but as his level of holiness increased, God knew that he had to use him in greater measure. If you never seek greater levels of holiness and greater levels of anointing in your life, you'll probably die and you'll go to heaven. Okay. Because anointing doesn't save you. The blood of Jesus saves you. But what blessings are you and maybe your family and the people around you missing out on because you choose to stay satisfied where you're at. I believe we're in a time where the Holy spirit is saying, I've got more for you. If you just give me more from you. I got a lot of amens here in the front. I don't know how, I don't know how I'm doing back there. Look, God, God told Abraham, I will make your name great, but first you got to be small. I will make your name great, but first you got to go to a land where nobody's even going to know your name. But if you trust me and if you remain faithful and, and I see more levels of faith in your life, I promise you, I will make your name great and all the families of the world will be blessed by you. But it requires greater levels of holiness. Hmm. Some of you, this might, this might be a message that you're not ready to hear. You're fine where you're at. You're good. You got a good thing going. You got your salvation. You got your family. They're growing up in church. You got your ministry. Ministry is good. You got, you got the word, you love Jesus, but you're not ready to commit to a new level of anointing. Can I tell you honestly, I'm not here to judge you and I'm not here to shame you. You are a brother and a sister in Christ. You are not any less saved. This, this message just might not be for you and that's okay. That's understandable. Elijah, Elijah didn't guilt Elijah into following him, right? He didn't say, oh, you weak sauce, you can't handle it. He didn't say that. He didn't do that. Look, these are the types of sermons that make people not like the preacher. No, no, no, no. I'm being serious. Look, I've sat where you're sitting. I've sat there. I've, I've, I've, I've been, I've been on the other side of these types of messages. And I'll tell you the truth. I felt judged. I felt like my Christianity was being diminished by the person up here because I somehow wasn't doing enough. So I'm not, I'm not here to, I'm not here to do that. I relieve myself of any blame. Okay. Because this is how it goes. Pastor, I want to talk to you about that sermon. I really felt judged. I'm not here to do that. I'm serious. I'm really not. In fact, there should probably be a disclaimer to this sermon. For those of you that are getting fired up, those of you in the front, you're fired up and you're saying, amen, I want you to read the disclaimer because that's what Elijah gave to Elijah. He said, what you're asking for is something hard. He didn't say that's right, baby. Come on, fist bump it right there. I knew you could do it. You're not like those weak people over there. No, no, no. He gave, he gave him an honest disclaimer. What you are asking for Elijah is hard. I need you to know it, Elijah, because you're over here, you're following me everywhere, you're at my hip, man. This is hard. Once I'm gone, all the burden is going to be on you. In fact, that's what, that's what the Hebrew translates to when it says a hard thing, the Hebrew is Kasha. It literally means a heavy burden. There is a burden that comes with what you're asking for. That's the disclaimer. It's, it's the same type of disclaimer that Jesus gave to his disciples. He says, if you don't hate your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, and even yourself, you cannot be my disciple. I said this last week, holy holiness comes with a cost. The holier you become, the heavier, the weight that you carry becomes. The only man who carried the entire weight of the world's sin on his shoulders is the same man who demonstrated holiness to perfection. The greater your holiness, the greater your calling, but also the greater the burden. And so again, I don't shame you for not being ready for this type of message. Some of you are sitting there. You're thinking, man, I've got kids. They don't let me be more holy. Some of you got a career, it's taking all your time. You've got this, you got that. That's, that's fine. Maybe this is not for you. Maybe one day it will be for you. But I also know that many of you in this room are hungry for more right now. I know this. I know this. I know that many of you have been asking for God to use you in greater measure. You've been asking God for more, more anointing, more reach, more effectiveness in ministry. More growth, more wisdom, God, more discernment for those people. I want you to understand that this is so much less about gifting. It's so much more about holiness. If you are gifted steward, the gift that God has given you show up, prepared, show up, practice, take lessons. If you need to do the work to give God your absolute best gift, but don't neglect the Holy spirit in the process. Do not neglect the Holy spirit because listen, even though man can elevate the gifted, it's only the Holy spirit who can open up supernatural doors. I, as a pastor, if I see a preacher in you, I'm going to give you the mic to preach. If I see a singer, I'm going to give you the mic to sing. If, if I see a administrative wisdom in you, take a seat at the board table. If I see a leader in you, Hey, take a ministry. Because that's all I can really see. And, and all I have to do, I have to pray that God give me discernment to judge the fruit that you have to make sure that the fruit that you're showing is not fake. That's all I can do though. And so many times we're so concerned about what people can see. And so we work so hard to fine tune the gift, because if I work so hard to fine tune the gift, well, then they're going to see me and then they're going to give me a position. They're going to see me and then they're going to ask me to teach a class. They're going to see me and then they're going to want me to preach. But instead of focusing on what man can do for the gifted, be concerned with what the Holy spirit can do for those who truly seek him. Be more concerned with the doors that no man can open than the doors that man can open. Man will always see giftedness way better than he can see holiness. That's why, that's why sometimes we're easily deceived and we have to pray for discernment. We got to pray for wisdom, but even the most discerning spirit, sometimes we just, we get it wrong. The men who walked with Jesus, his disciples, they didn't know Jesus. Judas was going to turn out to be Judas. They were with him. They were with Jesus. They were connected with Jesus, but none of them knew it. Jesus did. Jesus did. Jesus saw the heart. I don't know what's in that heart of yours. I don't know what's in that mind, but the Holy spirit searches all things, all things. And so when God sees a man or when he sees a woman that is after his image and after his heart and after his mind and after his purpose, God will use the most unqualified, least talented, uneducated person because holiness will always outperform gifting. Always. You got, you got to give God some praise for that, especially if you're not talented, give God some praise. Come on. Holiness is what we should be after. There, there's a lot of gifted people in churches all around the world, man. There's churches that have the most talented musicians, the best audio engineers, all of the pastoral staff has a doctor in front of their name. Production teams that'll blow your mind. They've got a staff member everywhere making for a seamless church experience and all that's great with me, by the way, I believe in doing things with excellence, but at the same time, if all that church has is talent and no anointing, that that's not the place I want to be. I don't think that's the place you probably should be because even though, even though we might open doors for promotion and exposure and you get connected with some of the big names, if the Holy spirit isn't doing the elevation, there's no spiritual benefit there. Don't chase doors that man can open, chase a Holy spirit who can open doors that no man can open, chase a Holy spirit church. You're with me still. Elijah, you're not confused on who's who. Right. Okay. Cause when I was growing up, I, who Elijah. Didn't want to be like Elijah. I want you to understand that because there's, there's no doubt that Elijah loved Elijah. There's no doubt that Elijah respected Elijah. He submitted to Elijah, but I don't think Elijah was trying to be the next Elijah. You know, and that's how we read the story. I mean, their names are basically identical. We can't even tell who's who half the time, but Elijah wasn't after Elijah's gift. You have to understand that he was after the spirit that was over Elijah. He says, what you have, Elijah, I want. Elijah was inspired by what the Holy spirit was doing in this man of God. Elijah, you know, I've got, I've got people who I admire in, in, in different, different areas that, you know, I think it's good to have all types of mentors. I've got some really good business mentors and people that I would call pastoral mentors. I've got financial mentors, people who inspire me in different ways. Everybody needs a spiritual mentor. Everybody needs spiritual inspiration and spiritual admiration. You might not know pastor Heather, but when you watch her worship from the other side of the room, you might think, man, I want what she's got. I, I, I want, I want that joy. I want that freedom in the presence of God. You might look at pastor Larry because pastor Larry, last week we went to eat some of the guys and after, after the lunch, he started ministering to the, to the waiter and he, and he prayed for him and everything. We wrapped, you know, we, we all held hands and everything. I'll pass her Larry does. Um, and, and, and, and we, we prayed over this man and I just thought, man, what an inspiration that is. You might not know pastor Larry. You might not know him at all, but you see things like that. And you're like, man, I want what they have. I want that hunger. I want that fire. I want that joy. I want that. I want that freedom. I want whatever it is that you have. So Elijah had something that Elijah wanted. And so he tells them, I want what you got times two. That's, that's a lot of holiness. It's a lot of anointing. The text says that as Elijah was with him, they made three stops, Bethel, Jericho, and Jordan. Each time the Lord sent Elijah into one of the towns, I want you to notice that Elijah told Elijah, please stay here. You don't need to come with me. Those are, those are some important words that we miss, right? Because he didn't say, come with me. He didn't say, the Lord is calling you to a greater level of anointing. The man of God said, stay here, but it was the zeal and the intensity and the desire for more that made Elijah say, as the Lord lives, as you live, I will not leave you because if I leave you now, if I go home right now, I might miss out on an opportunity of greater level of anointing. So wherever the man of God goes, the man of God in the making will go wherever this holy man, whatever he does, this holy man in the making will do because greater anointing comes with greater levels of holiness. I understand that this might disrupt my plans. I understand that it requires sacrifice. I understand the burden is heavy, but I'm after the double portion. So wherever you go, I will go. You still with me? I'm almost done. I promise. The text, the text says this as they entered these towns, other prophets met up with them and, and they pulled Elijah to the side and they said, Hey, Elijah, you know what? You know, your master, he's leaving, right? You know that he's not going to be here anymore. What are you going to do? What are you going to do when he's not here anymore? Don't you think you're wasting your time following them everywhere you go? He's about to leave you. What are you going to do? Then the disciples were asking Jesus the same type of question. What, what are we supposed to do when you leave Jesus? What are we going to do without you? Jesus says, well, that's when the spirit will come. See, Elijah kind of knew something that the disciples didn't really know, which is weird because we're talking about the old Testament, but Elijah said, I know he's leaving, leave me alone. He said, he said, I know he's leaving. Shut up. The prophets of Bethel told him the prophets of Jericho told him, and he said, yeah, I know, I know he's leaving. That's what tells me that Elijah wasn't after Elijah. He was after the spirit that was on Elijah because Elijah knew that this man who went head to head with the prophets of bell, this man who confronted queen Jezebel and King Ahab, the man who called fire from heaven was about to leave. But the spirit of God that was upon the holy man, Elijah would now need to fall upon another holy man. Just like the same spirit that descended upon Jesus at the Jordan when he was baptized, needed to descend upon the disciples at Pentecost. When Jesus left, you ain't getting it. Oh, you ain't getting it. They had to stay. They had to stay with Jesus all the way to the end because, because in order to receive it, they had to stay with Jesus the entire way. If, if in order for Elijah or Elijah to receive what Elijah had, he had to stay with Elijah the entire way to receive it. Church, when you go the distance, when, when you do the work, that's not even required of you to do when you seek the spirit, when the song stops. Yeah, I ain't getting it today. When you, when you can still pray after everybody says, amen, when you go to church and your family doesn't want to go to church, when you remove the distractions, when you're willing to leave the good place in pursuit of something better, when you strive for holiness, your holiness moves God in ways that he cannot ignore, but sometimes there's only a few left to receive it. Because no one else was willing to, to increase their levels of holiness. Everybody else went home. Nobody stayed to help. People got tired of praying. People got tired of worshiping. They got tired of having faith. They got tired of studying. They got tired of seeking like the Israelites. They got tired of waiting. And so sometimes you're the last one in the room. So you're the first one to receive the anointing that no one else was willing to wait for. There was no other prophet following Elijah, like Elijah was in fact, Elijah just had haters, you know, he's about to leave. What are you going to do? You're about to leave. What are you going to do? What are you even doing here? No other prophet would cling to Elijah like Elijah did. So when Elijah asked for the double portion, what did Elijah tell him? What did he tell him? Kind of a weird thing, right? Kind of a, it was a weird, like when I read that the first time I got to admit, I didn't understand it. Like, it doesn't sound very spiritual. He's just like, if you see me go, then you can have the anointing. If you don't see me go, you can have the anointing. You missed it. Why is that significant? Because Elijah had to stay with Elijah long enough to receive the anointing that was upon Elijah on him. He had to stick it out. He had to be committed. He had to go all the way because holiness requires sometimes going all the way when everybody else has left, when everybody else is gone, when nobody else wants to show up, when nobody wants to do the work, you are the only one standing in the room. And so the glory of God meets you and comes in to send his fire upon you. I don't know if you're ready for that level of anointing because it requires so much worship team. Can you come greater levels of anointing? Come to those who remain in holy places. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to say it again. You got to hear it. Greater levels of anointing come to those who remain in holy places. If you're in and out of holy places, you're only going to be in and out of anointing. You're going to only be anointed Sunday mornings because Monday mornings, you don't really want much to do with the Holy Spirit, but when you stay in holy places, God is like, I got to do something with that because that one, that one, he's getting my attention. There's two things that really get God's attention. It's faith and it's holiness. That's really it. We know that faith moves the heart of God, but did you know that holiness moves the heart of God as well? I'll prove to you. Revelation chapter five. We hear about a scroll that has been sealed. No one can open it. No one on earth, no one in the heavens, no one below the heavens. No one can open this scroll that has been sealed and is kept tight in the right hand of the father who was sitting on the throne. And in revelation five, an angel asks who is worthy to open the scroll and break it. Who's worthy. The Bible says no one, no one on earth, no one in heaven was found worthy. And so John, the writer of revelation, it says that he begins to weep. Can I just pause right there real quick? I'm going to get back into it, but I want to pause right there. I want to pause right there. Because I think that there are some people in your family and people in your life. Spiritually, they weep when there is no priest, when there was no priestess who was worthy enough to lead them to the Lord. What happens when the holy ones are no more? I remember going to a service. It was our district assemblies of God. It was a general, it was a district service and they honored all of the, all the men and women who had passed away. And I remember, I remember just weeping. I don't know why I didn't know any of those people, you know, any of them, but I knew that there were men and women of the faith who left this world and it caused something in me to, to be discouraged because I'm like, man, who's going to come up next? Who's coming after them? Who else is, who else is worthy to take up such great mantles? Who else is worthy to step into holy places of anointing that God would have for the people of God, if they would just do the work in being holy. So I feel for, I feel for, for John because he's seen this vision in heaven and there's an angel and he's saying, who is worthy to open up this scroll, this scroll that contains the sovereign will of the father, all the secrets of the father that he wants to do for the future of humanity, who is worthy. The angel says, nobody's worthy. No one's worthy. And then he begins to weep. And in verse five, I'm going to, I want to read it and it's another long passage, but I got to read it because he says, weep no more, behold the lion of the tribe of Judah. The root of David has conquered so that he can open the scroll and it's seven seals. And between the throne and the four living creatures and the among and among the elders, I saw a lamb. Hold on, hold on, we're, we're doing some revelation. So it's, it's, it takes some work. They said, there's a lamb. They said, there's a lion and John saw a lamb. There's a lamb. Standing as though it had been slain and verse seven says, and he went and he took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open it seals for you were slain and by your blood, you ran some people for God from every tribe and every language and every people in nation. And you have made them a kingdom and priest who are God and they shall reign on the earth. Verse 11 says, then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. See, because Jesus was holy, he was worthy, but because he was worthy, he was slain. Holiness will cost you. It will cost you more time and more commitment and more perseverance and more resilience and more hate and more burdens. It will cost you, but you also have to know that it will lead you to more anointing and more doors and more favor and more blessings and more victory and more salvation over your family and generations to come for those who would just go the distance and be and be willing to pay what it costs, just like our Lord Jesus did. Can we stand? What would the church look like? Not just the ministers, not just the pastors, not, not just the few, but what would it look like for the church, the saints to seek new levels of holiness? What kind of impact could we have if everywhere we went to the power of God went with us, where every room we stepped into, we lit up? I challenge you, Numa, seek holiness in your life and over your family. Thanks for listening. If you'd like some more information on Numa Church, visit us on our website at mynumachurch. org. If you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe or share it with your friends on social media. And tag us at mynumachurch. Thanks again, and God bless.