And the word of the Lord came unto him saying get thee hence and turn the eastward and hide
thyself by the brook cherith that is before Jordan.
So God tells him to hide.
Now if you're hiding, that implies somebody's trying to get you.
Somebody's after you.
Somebody's actually trying to kill Elijah.
So the first thing we see when you get on fire for God is you're going to be persecuted.
That's number one.
You say, Brother Stuckey, you're coming here.
You're supposed to encourage us and motivate us and you're saying we're going to be persecuted.
Well, I'm sorry, there's about 99 other churches around this area that are going to lie to
you.
We're not that church.
We're not going to lie to you here.
This is not Joel Osteen up here who's going to lie and say your life's going to be blessed.
If you start living for me, you're going to be rich and everything's going to be great.
Hey, if you get on fire for God, you're going to be hiding by the brook.
You're going to be persecuted.
That's the first thing that we see.
You're going to be persecuted if you start living for the Lord.
Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
You see, if you've never suffered persecution in your life, either you're not living for
the Lord or the persecution's right around the corner.
Because if you live for the Lord, you will be persecuted.
The devil is not happy when you get on fire for God and he will persecute you in your
life.
One thing to note in the verses I just read though, Paul said he had persecutions and
afflictions at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra.
It goes everywhere.
You see, there's persecutions in Sacramento if you're preaching the truth.
There's going to be persecutions in Vancouver when you're preaching the truth.
It's not just that persecutions are going to follow anyone, it's going to be wherever
you go there's going to be persecutions.
It doesn't matter what country, what city, what state, you get on fire for God, the devil's
aware of it, there will be persecutions that are coming to you.
There are going to be persecutions that come to this church.
I'm going to preach to you the truth tonight, I'm not going to lie to you.
I'm not going to say it's just going to be a bed of roses these first couple months of
this church.
There are going to be persecutions that are going to come because the devil is not happy
about the work that's going on in this church.
He's not happy about a church that goes soul winning three times a week.
He's not happy about a church that's getting people saved and teaching them the things
of God.
He likes the dead, watered down churches that are around every single corner.
He's not happy about a church like this and the persecutions are going to come at Antioch,
at Iconium, at Lystra, at Sacramento, at Phoenix, in Botswana, here, it's going to be everywhere
the persecutions are going to come.
It doesn't matter what the location, it is going to come.
You are going to be persecuted if you live for the Lord.
Not just as an individual, but also as a church as well.
If a church is on fire for God, you will be persecuted for what you're doing.
My heart's desire at this time is to one day start a church in the Philippines, and I believe
it will be a very open area to preach the gospel.
But you better believe there's going to be persecutions if I'm doing something for God.
I mean, I hope there's persecutions, because if there's not persecutions, it means I become
watered down.
Because wherever you go, no matter how open, there will be persecutions when you get on
fire for God.
At Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, it's going to come to Vancouver, Washington.