Sheryl Brady - Don't Be Shocked, Just Be Unshakable

On your way down, just hit somebody and tell them not to be shocked—don’t be shocked, just be unshakable. While you’re sitting down, I want to say welcome to Terry and Joe Johnson. Where are y’all? You’re visiting today—God bless y’all! Glad to have you. They pastor the Courts of Praise Community Church. What city is that, man? Tika? We thank God that you’ve chosen to visit with us today. I also want to say thank you to our ministers and our elders, to Prophetess Caway, and to all of you who are in the house of the Lord today. I hope you’re hungry! I want you to get your pen out, your pad out, and gather some things because we’re going to do a little bit of writing today. I will try my best to wrap this up and not to be long, but this is a supernatural Sunday, amen? I was thinking this week, as I was listening to some things on the news, that the older I get and the longer I live, the more I have an appreciation for truth. Come on! Yeah, because truth is often hard to come by today. It used to be a part of our core values—truth was imperative; it was what we thought and how we lived. My mother always had me scared half to death to tell a lie because she would always quote that verse that says all liars shall have their part in the lake of fire. Yeah, you heard that too! So, I was always scared to tell a lie, but people today, well, even back then, we might try to tell a little white lie—what they called it—meaning it’s got a little truth in there, but it’s still a lie. But people today are not telling little white lies, okay? They are turning our world upside down with things that don’t even come close to resembling truth. People will just make up a story that didn’t even exist, but they will make it up! It’s not just little kids, you know, when your mama comes to you and says, «Now, Johnny, tell Mama the truth; did you really eat that cookie in the cookie jar?» No, it’s not that simple today. Today, we have people from all walks of life that are pulling things out of thin air, and they are calling it truth. They are persuading nations of people to believe that what they’re saying is true, and it is really as far away from truth as truth can get. People who have been sworn in to tell the truth are lying! Come on! We have politicians lying, we have presidents lying, we have companies, CEOs, preachers, and we even have prophets lying. I mean, they’re making up stuff, making up stories, lying on the witness stand—come on! Lying even though they put their hand on the Bible, they’re lying on the witness stand, lying while standing behind the holy desk of God, lying in the pulpit, lying on job applications—just lying! You know you ain’t never worked that machine, but you’re telling everybody you did. People lie in advertising every day. This right here—if you take two of these every night, it will melt away the fat. That’s a lie! Oh, if you use this, it will deal with every wrinkle you’ll ever have—never have another wrinkle in your life. People lie in academic settings because they hope it will give them a way to have a little advancement. People lie in healthcare; they lie to be able to get medicine that they know they don’t really have the symptoms for, but they’ll get it because, in their mind or their life, they feel like they have to have this particular medication. People will lie! Y’all got mighty quiet on that right there. Mhm. People will lie in financial matters; they will go into a bank and overinflate their worth just so they can get more and more loans, getting further and further in debt. People lie in relationships; we lie to spouses, we lie to our children, and then we wonder why they lie back to us. People lie on social media, come on, y’all! They do that to create a false narrative for their life—they’re lying. People lie, and the bottom line that I’m trying to get to today is that they lie and don’t think a thing about it. It’s not new, though, but I do feel like it’s getting worse by the day. The boundaries that we have used for generations to create a healthy society are being trampled underfoot today. The prophet Isaiah warned us about this thousands of years ago. He warned us that our culture would collapse if we continued to disregard truth. He said in Isaiah 5:20, «Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; woe to those who call darkness light and light darkness; woe to those who call bitter sweet and sweet bitter.» He is saying to us right here that when your great culture begins to disregard what made you a great culture to begin with, then your culture has no other choice but to collapse. And we, who have been watching what’s going on in our world, are seeing that happen right in front of us.