It is time to rise up. Pastor Cheryl Dixon Colburn teaches in this message that the enemy does his best work between the miracles, in the quiet stretch after one victory and before the next, where he plants doubt, fear and confusion. Using the showdown between Moses, Aaron and Pharaoh’s magicians, she shows that the devil may score a point, but God always wins the battle, and believers seated with Christ can stand firm until He does.
Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, the Scriptures she uses (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps for rising above the storm this week.
Sermon at a Glance
Pastor Cheryl Dixon Colburn ministered this message as a guest at NTC Ministries; it was posted on November 18, 2025. She opens with her own story. Her husband, Pastor Gary, to whom she was married almost forty years, went home to be with the Lord seven years earlier after a heart attack while they were on vacation in Branson, Missouri. She never expected to become senior pastor, but she has led the church with her son Rob ever since, and she says it is flourishing because God prepares us for what lies ahead.
She prays for ears to hear and hearts to receive, then turns to the theme of the morning: the battle is in the mind, and the believer’s job is to stay in faith. To rise up, Pastor Cheryl Dixon Colburn says, you must recognize what the devil does between the miracles.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Pastor Cheryl Dixon Colburn (guest speaker) |
| Series | Single message |
| Main text | Exodus 7:10–22 and Exodus 8:16–19 |
| Key theme | Standing in faith between the miracles, seated with Christ above the storm |
| Length | About 50 minutes |
People Are Not Your Enemy
She begins with Ephesians 6:12 in the Amplified Bible: we are not wrestling with flesh and blood. That means, she says, people are not your enemy. The enemy rules through oppression; he is cruel and does not care about you. Our wrestling is against the powers and spiritual forces of wickedness behind what we see.
Then she reads 1 Peter 5:8–9. Be well balanced, sober and vigilant at all times, not sometimes, because the devil roams like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Staying focused on God’s Word is how we stay balanced. Withstand him, firm in faith, at the onset, the very moment he starts putting thoughts in your mind. Submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee (James 4:7).
How do you know whether a thought is from God or the devil? Pastor Cheryl gives a simple test. God brings peace. The devil comes with anxiety, stress, pressure and confusion. When you sense those things, resist them. Peter also reminds us that the same sufferings are experienced by believers throughout the world. You are not the only one, so do not give the enemy your attention, because your focus is what he is after.
She stresses that “the word is voice activated.” When the enemy attacks, answer him out loud: I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord (Psalm 118:17); by His stripes I am healed (Isaiah 53:5); I am more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37).
She knows we can drop troubling thoughts when we want to. Once, while she was driving on the bypass in Eagle River, turning a worry over and over, a siren suddenly came up behind her. Her heart stopped for a second, and afterward she could not remember what she had been worried about. If a siren can break a train of thought, she reasons, so can speaking to the enemy and telling him to go.
Seated Above the Storm
Everyone goes through storms, but the Lord is Lord over our storms. The confidence to rise up, Pastor Cheryl Dixon Colburn explains, comes from knowing where you are seated. Ephesians 1:21–22 says Christ is far above all principality, power, might and dominion, and every name that is named, with all things under His feet. Pastor Cheryl draws out the picture: He is the head and we are the body. If all things are under His feet, and the body has the feet, then storms are under our feet.
She has been praying Paul’s prayers in Ephesians 1 to 3 daily for several weeks, and says she can feel the Holy Spirit rising in her as she sees who she is in Christ. When Jesus was raised, we were raised with Him, and when He was seated, we were seated together with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). That is why she can say she is above the storm and knows she is coming through.
Jesus Himself kept His focus beyond the cross. For the joy set before Him He endured it (Hebrews 12:2), seeing our faces and the victory He was bringing us before we were ever born. So she declares that greater is He who is in her than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). She also knows where the devil is headed, the bottomless pit of Revelation 20. His time is short, so why let him torment us?
The Showdown in Egypt
Pastor Cheryl calls Moses before Pharaoh one of the greatest showdowns in the Bible, second only to the resurrection. On one side stand the devil, Pharaoh and his magicians. On the other stand God Almighty, the great I Am, with Moses and Aaron. Moses was eighty and Aaron eighty-three (Exodus 7:7), she notes, old enough to be relaxing on the porch with sweet tea, yet they were ambassadors of God on a mission. Moses did not feel qualified, so God sent his brother to speak for him (Exodus 4:14–16).
The point of the story, she believes, is to show how the devil entraps believers, bringing delays and blockages until we wonder why things are taking so long. He wants us to think God does not care and is not answering our prayers. The battlefield is in the mind, and she points out how many people are searching for help with that battle.
In Exodus 7:10–12, Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw down his rod and it became a serpent. God got a point. Then Pharaoh called his wise men and sorcerers, and the magicians did the same with their enchantments. The devil got a point. She warns firmly against fortune-telling, tarot cards, mediums and horoscopes, which she says open the door to the enemy. The devil is powerful and can defeat us without God, but he is not more powerful than God.
The verse does not end there. Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. God won that round too. Then, in Exodus 7:20–22, Aaron struck the river and the water turned to blood, the fish died, and the Egyptians could not drink. Another point for God. Yet the magicians did the same by their enchantments, and Pharaoh’s heart grew hard. It looked like God was winning, and then the devil seemed to match Him again.
The scoreboard below follows her round-by-round reading of the showdown.
| Round | What God did | What the magicians did | Her point |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exodus 7:10–11 | Aaron’s rod became a serpent | Copied it with their enchantments | The devil can imitate and confuse |
| Exodus 7:12 | Aaron’s rod swallowed their rods | Could not stop it | The story is not over yet |
| Exodus 7:20–22 | The river turned to blood | Did the same by secret arts | Between the miracles, doubt creeps in |
| Exodus 8:16–19 | The dust became lice | Tried and could not | The dark side cannot outdo God |
What Happens Between the Miracles
This is the heart of the message. We go from one miracle to the next, she says, and God shows His mighty hand again and again. But what happens in between? That is where the enemy camps, trying to get us to lose our faith and cast away our confidence. When it seems the devil has won a round, he whispers that things are not getting better and asks, does God really care about me? “Your story is not over yet either,” she tells the church. Jesus is the victor, and He lives in you.
She illustrates with a trial from about twenty-four years earlier. A surgeon told Pastor Gary that a cancerous mole had probably spread to his brain, bones and organs, scheduled major surgery, and told him to put his house in order. She was in her early forties and devastated. That night fear tormented her, but she had just read a magazine story about a mother told by the Lord to take communion, stand on the Word and get out of fear. The words rose up in her: you can’t be in faith and fear at the same time.
Night after night she knelt in front of the recliner and came against fear, declaring that God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). She prayed in the Holy Spirit, worshiped and took communion until the fear lifted, then prayed in faith that her husband would live and not die. When the surgery ran long, the enemy said it was because they had found so much cancer. She answered, no, in Jesus’ name. The doctor came out and reported that they could not find any cancer.
The enemy’s playbook, she says, is to throw fear and confusion at you so you start speaking the wrong things. She tells of sensing in a service that someone had been “bitten by a scorpion” of confusion. A woman came forward weeping, saying she had not known how to make any decisions, and they prayed for her. Believers have authority to trample on serpents and scorpions (Luke 10:19).
That is why she warns against undoing your prayers with your mouth. Death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21), and a spring cannot send forth both fresh and bitter water (James 3:10–11). After a powerful prayer of faith, do not turn around with doubt and unbelief. Say instead, God, I don’t know how You will do it, but I know You will.
She quotes Colossians 2:9–10 from the Living Bible: in Christ there is all of God in a human body, and you are filled with God through your union with Him. All of God is inside you, she says, so access it through faith and the Word. Rise up out of depression, confusion and discouragement. Never just say “I don’t know”; ask the Lord to bring the answer up to your mind, because the answer is in Him.
Rise Up: Pastor Cheryl Dixon Colburn on Awakening
From Romans 13:11, she explains that it is high time to awake out of sleep, which means turning from a spiritually dead state to a vibrant life. Some Christians love the Lord but are not alive. At the Autumn Assembly prayer conference in Branson, she heard a woman evangelist tell how two armed men climbed into her cab intending to harm her. She began praying loudly in the Holy Ghost, and they became so unnerved that they ran away.
At the same gathering she saw what looked like a haze of God’s glory filling the room as thousands prayed in the Holy Ghost. One minister testified that he saw angels standing behind the people. Behind those who were praying, the angels were moving with swords; behind those sitting idle, the angels simply stood with nothing to do. We have to arise out of sleep, she urges, and go after what God has provided.
Psalm 119:165 says, “Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.” She explains this means not being easily offended, which is a tactic the devil uses to bring unforgiveness. Moses and Aaron could have taken offense at God when the magicians matched them, but they kept obeying. Ephesians 5:14 calls us to awake, and Christ will give us light.
Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God,” means stop, listen, wait and meditate. Bible patience, she says, is doing something while you wait: praying, believing and watching your words. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11). The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came to give abundant life (John 10:10). Our fight is the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12), because the devil is already defeated.
She shares a recent storm too. Soon after she remarried, her husband Keith had a massive heart attack and was flown to Wausau just in time. A month later she had a heart attack herself and needed four bypasses. Afterward, fluid filled her lungs and for six to eight weeks she slept sitting in a recliner, fighting to breathe while the devil told her she would die. She kept standing on the Word and fighting the good fight of faith, and the peace of God stayed with her.
Finally, she returns to Egypt. When Aaron struck the dust and it became lice, the magicians tried and could not, and admitted, “This is the finger of God” (Exodus 8:16–19). Pharaoh then offered to let Israel worship, but only inside Egypt (Exodus 8:25). That is the enemy’s way: keep you worshiping in chains. Isaiah 52:2 says to shake yourself from the dust and loose yourself from the bonds of your neck. She urges the church to stop blaming the past, plead the blood, pray in the Holy Ghost and take their seat of authority every morning.
That is the call of the whole sermon. It is time to rise up, Pastor Cheryl Dixon Colburn concludes, because your book is still being written, and no one wants to read a story that ends with someone giving up. God wants champions like David, Esther, Ruth and Paul, and He wants to show off through you.
Rising Up This Week
Here are practical steps drawn from this message:
- Resist at the onset. When anxiety, pressure or confusion arrives, recognize it is not God and say no to the devil in Jesus’ name right away.
- Speak the Word out loud. Answer the enemy with Scripture, because God’s Word is voice activated.
- Pray Paul’s prayers. Pray Ephesians 1 to 3 daily until you see yourself seated with Christ above the storm.
- Guard your mouth after you pray. Do not undo a prayer of faith with words of doubt and unbelief.
- Refuse offense. Love God’s Word so much that nothing makes you stumble, and keep obeying between the miracles.
- Pray in the Holy Ghost. Ask the Holy Spirit for discernment and fellowship with Him every day.
Timestamped Outline
- 0:00 Losing Pastor Gary and stepping into leadership
- 1:48 Ephesians 6:12 and 1 Peter 5:8–9
- 3:53 Peace versus anxiety: how to tell
- 4:49 The Word is voice activated
- 6:32 Ephesians 1: storms under our feet
- 9:15 The great showdown with Pharaoh
- 10:18 What happens between the miracles
- 12:33 Exodus 7:10–11: the rods become serpents
- 15:40 Aaron’s rod swallows their rods
- 16:48 The cancer report and fear at night
- 19:56 No cancer found
- 22:39 Don’t undo your prayers with your mouth
- 23:40 Colossians 2:9–10: all of God in you
- 24:47 Romans 13:11: high time to awake
- 27:36 The glory and the angels at the assembly
- 29:23 Great peace and refusing offense
- 32:26 Be still and Bible patience
- 33:36 Overcoming and the good fight of faith
- 35:46 Two heart attacks in one year
- 40:55 Discernment and taking your seat
- 44:50 The lice: the finger of God
- 46:58 No worship in chains
- 47:59 No more excuses: arise
Frequently Asked Questions
Should we pray to the Holy Spirit?
Pastor Cheryl says we do not pray to the Holy Spirit; He helps us pray. But we do fellowship with Him. She models it simply: thanking Him for standing by her, asking Him to show her what a passage means and what to do, and asking Him to teach her. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are God, she says, and fellowship with the Spirit is a foretaste of heaven.
Why do some prayers seem to go unanswered?
She answers people who say they asked for something and never got it by asking whether they are filled with the Holy Spirit, flowing with the Lord and serving Him. When the Spirit fills you, she teaches, you ask for the right things, and God cannot help but bless those who please Him, because He is a giving God who so loved the world that He gave His only Son.
Can I blame my past for where I am?
Not according to this message. Pastor Cheryl acknowledges that bad things happen to good people and expresses real sympathy, but says it is no excuse to stay there. Once you are an adult, you take charge of your own life and stop blaming family or generational patterns. Plead the blood of Jesus, pray in the Holy Ghost, and let the Gospels come alive as you study the miracles of Jesus.
Scripture References
All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:
- Exodus 7:10–12 — Aaron’s rod swallows their rods
- Exodus 7:20–22 — the river turns to blood
- Exodus 8:16–19 — the finger of God
- Ephesians 6:12 — not flesh and blood
- 1 Peter 5:8–9 — resist him, steadfast in the faith
- Ephesians 1:21–22 — all things under His feet
- Colossians 2:9–10 — complete in Him
- Romans 13:11 — high time to awake
- Isaiah 52:2 — shake yourself from the dust
How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.
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