Don Stewart | The Christian Faith: Is It True? Can it Work For Me? 7-18-2021

we have a special message from pastor joe i told you he's um at a conference so here he is to share about that at the sas conference at charlie kerr conference we're having a great time here i'm here with my good friend heir pastor eric so we will not be doing the scripture reading today the responsible reading but uh i just asked and keep us in your prayers we're praying for y'all don stewart will be taking my place he has a wonderful message for you missing everybody i wish we were there god bless you guys and see you soon bye [Applause] i didn't tell you it was a scooter conference no well we are blessed to have a friend and family with us don stewart so let's go ahead and give don a warm welcome thank you morning everybody yeah that looks like an exciting scooter conference doesn't it uh joe's telling me he's like one of the best people in the world and scooter so you have to test him on that when he when he comes back anyway it's nice to be here it's always a pleasure um you know i consider you guys like my second family here at this church um i really do you guys such a blessing and so um thank you yeah you great you've got joe and kathleen the staff here all the people that serve you you couldn't get a better group anyway you really couldn't i'm just so thankful that what god is doing here he has done here and he will continue to do so it's a pleasure anytime i get a chance to speak and he asked me back a while back because he had no he knew he was going to this conference if i could speak on this sunday i had it free so here i am and so we trust the lord is going to bless our time all right if you have your bibles would you turn with me to first corinthians chapter 15. first corinthians 50 we're going to read that in a couple of minutes we're going to read the first eight verses and as a background of this i want to tell a story i was thinking about how long ago was probably some 30 years ago as a backdrop of what we're going to be talking about today i was uh speaking to a group of uh students at a theological college in sydney australia and um my good friend ross clifford who was the and still is he was the president you know he's the principal of the school as a former lawyer who was an atheist who came to faith in christ by someone sharing a book on the evidence for jesus and now he's a world-class defender of the christian faith anyway he was talking these uh students who are about to go out in the world he said something that not only stuck with me is so profound but it's something that you know i always want to share whenever i can about the christian faith and here's basically the two questions ross said people are asking the christian faith is it true and can it work for me okay people wanna know is it really true are we believing a fairy tale are we believing the truth and can it work in my life if it is indeed true we're gonna talk about that today but first we're gonna talk about the christian faith is and the explanation of the gospel here in 1st corinthians chapter 15. so let's look at it paul is saying this to the corinthians starting at verse 1. he so i i'm making known to you brothers and sisters the good news that i evangelized to you which also you received in which also you have stood faster standing through which now also you are being saved if you hold fast to the word which i evangelize to you unless you've believed in vain for i delivered over to you and the first or primarily that which i also received that christ died on behalf of our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures that he appeared to cephas or peter then to the 12 then to over 500 people 500 brothers and sisters at the same time of whom the most are still remaining with us are still alive but certain ones have fallen asleep or they've died then he appeared to jacob or james then to all the apostles and last of all one who is kind of born out of due time or at an untimely birth paul says namely me all right this in essence is an explanation from the apostle paul of the gospel notice what he says past present and future to the corinthians you have received it you're now standing in the truth of the gospel and you're in the process of being saved salvation is actually in three tenses we have been saved the moment we came to jesus we are being saved or set apart from jesus uh right now in this life and someday we'll be in his presence it's called you know justified in the past just as if we'd never sinned made right with god now we're being sanctified or set apart to the lord and someday will be glorified in his presence so in the in the process of being saved and here's the gospel real simply christ died for our sins he was buried he rose from the dead upon the third day then he appeared to a number of people this is the good news now one thing here just as an interesting aside but the apostle paul does what a lot of writers do what a lot of speakers do he makes what is known as a met meta comment m-e-t-a comet uh what it is it's a rhetorical device it stops saying what you're saying and tell the people you're about to say something profound in other words you're not giving people any content it's kind of like pay attention to this next point or when paul writes to the thessalonians in 4 13 i don't want you to be ignorant brothers and sisters he's not telling people anything but he's getting him ready for what he's about to say now whenever you see this in scripture it's slowing down what the people are reading the narrative but it's making a new big point coming up so you know speak i do it too speakers do it all the time you get to a point you want to emphasize so the point is first corinthians 15 is emphatic he wanted people to understand the gospel the good news that we preach later in the uh the book of acts chapter 20 verse 24 he talks about the ministry which i received from the lord jesus basically to solemnly testify the good news of the grace of god the grace of god means it's not works you and i cannot do anything to please god we don't have the capacity to please god in and of ourselves it's not in us no matter how good we are we are not good enough because the standard isn't the drunk down the street the standard is jesus he is the perfect standard and we all come short of that interestingly along this line in the gospels the disciples in john 6 28 asked jesus what must we do to work the works of god in other words what must we do to please god in john 6 29 is a very important verse you all ought to know jesus said this this is the work of god that you believe on him whom he has sent the only work you and i can do is to believe we cannot do anything to please god the work of god is believing then of course the the reason for that second corinthians chapter 5 verse 21 it's talks of christ he who did not know any sin who never sinned became a sin offering on our behalf that we might be made right with god through him in other words jesus christ on calvary's cross took the penalty of the sins of the world upon us he was made a curse for you and i so we could have the righteousness of god by believing in him he is our substitute he died in our place so we don't have to suffer for our own sins that in essence is the gospel the gospel of jesus christ that we preach here we proclaim that no human being can make it on their own we've all sinned come short of the glory of god but the free gift of god is eternal life through jesus christ our lord and thank god for that okay so now that's the claim that the christian faith makes but here's the question we'll use ross clifford's question the first question is well is it true it's what we're believing really true are we believing a fairy tale are we deceiving ourselves i'm sure many of you have friends relatives people at work thinking you know you're crazy for coming to church or believing in jesus you know this is 2021 it's not the dark ages and so we have to ask ourselves that question we did a conference here at a conference here recently and it was a tremendous time and one of the talks i gave was called indisputable proof that the bible is god's word indisputable proof that the bible is god's word and i gave three examples from that based on three of the books that i've written now the good news for those of you that are watching those who are here i've done i've had 61 books on our website educatingourworld.com and they're all available for free download you can download them all for free print it out you can print them out if you want some people have that actually for all 14 000 pages they printed all you know god bless you don't want to do that um but they're there to print out whatever you want whatever you need they're there for you know your your edification anyway what i did and this uh is going to be the basis that we're talking about today i i talked about the patterns in scripture why there's indisputable proof and i said there are three specific patterns that tell us beyond any shadow of a doubt that the bible is what it claims to be the word of the living god and the first pattern was prophecies that were already fulfilled in history one of the books is called god's work in history 50 biblical prophecies made and fulfilled and we start in the garden of eden we go through scripture and we talk about specific predictions that were made that were literally fulfilled after the time that they were made and the first pattern we mentioned is that this is something that is objective proof that the bible is the word of god and in fact in the conference the example i gave were the four cities around the sea of galilee at the time of jesus christine capernaum and bethsaida and tiberius and i said there are four cities in the gospels that are mentioned during the ministry of jesus jesus pronounced judgment upon three of them and the fourth one he said nothing about and the point we made today if you try and you know the first city capernaum is in ruins never rebuilt corazines and ruins never rebuilt bethsaida we don't even know where it is we don't know the location of it because of the judgment of god but tiberius the fourth city still stands today i said isn't that interesting four cities four different distinct futures for each three destroyed one to stay and three were destroyed and one is staying and we give ex we gave examples like that and then we said okay that's the first pattern over and over again god speaks it's fulfilled but pattern number two is one that's really really interesting to me and that's what we call ancient mysteries of the bible solved ancient mysteries of the bible salt now i wrote this book during the time i got the chinese communist party coronavirus because i was out for 50 50 days and so i couldn't speak or anything like that so i finished this book i'd been you know i had all the the the um stuff for i'd been put together and i worked hard on it and uh basically here it is in a nutshell this is pattern number two and this literally blew my mind the evidence that's there until 150 years ago all the events and we're this is just dealing with the old testament the events of the old testament were only confirmed by other writers biblical writers but basically we had nothing to confirm the existence of abraham the patriarchs moses joshua jonah any of these people isaiah jeremiah daniel it was all believed by faith on you know because of the documentary evidence about 150 years ago the modern science of archaeology began and these towns cities monuments started getting excavated and what happened was when the excavation the bible showed itself to be a reliable historical document so much so that it is minutely not just accurate minutely accurate i took what we call 12 mysteries 12 different subjects and we looked at them like abraham and the patriarchs moses and the exodus from egypt joshua etc and we looked at the evidence that's there that's come up and it's amazing over and over again there's a pattern of evidence that shows these events actually took place these people lived at the time the bible says that they did it was incredible one of the instances i gave is from the prophet jeremiah we have a whole mystery section on him and the mystery meetings to something we didn't know the answer to but now we can find the answer it's been solved by the evidence that's there jeremiah as we talked about uh mentions a number of figures but six specific figures he mentions as the temple is about to be destroyed it was destroyed when he was there he predicted it he mentions three officials that were there in the in the country of judah at that time city of jerusalem and three babylonian officials who had something to do with the destruction of the temple mentions them by name minor officials in the in with the reign of the king at that time in judah and one of the persons was somewhat important in babel and the other two were kind of minor officials well the point we made all six of them now are known through from secular evidence to have existed in other words the verification that and the monuments from babylon and there's discoveries made in israel in the last few years that have the name of these people on a little clay-packed as royal seal sitting there for 2700 years and finally you know in the first part of the 21st century discovered that has the precise name of these people that jeremiah mentioned six different ones meaning he was there he was there and so what we're talking about is actual fact and the point i continue to make is look not only we have the prophecies fulfilled one after another when we have people places and events mentioned and they keep coming up showing to be true there's a pattern here that a book that was a legend or a just a bunch of myths would not would not have something that's historically accurate would have so that that was number two the number three the third uh pattern the third line of evidence it's what's happening today because the bible predicts many future unknowns things that have not taken place yet that they're going to take place sometime in the future and we talked about the prophet ezekiel mentioned what the world is going to look like at the time of the end we went through 11 specific things he said the world would look like at the time of the end writing 2600 years ago all 11 of them we found were in place today everyone literally fulfilled he talks about the nations who are going to invade in the last days and those who aren't and we see they're all lined up in the right place but we mentioned the fact a couple of decades ago they were all in the wrong place but now we're in 2021 and all are in the right place so the point is if you look at the totality of the evidence these patterns past predictive prophecies fulfilled historical events proved to be true and future unknowns to stage set for those the biblical writers were always correct so that was the whole thesis there and so anyway that would answer the question is the christian faith true the pattern makes it clear that god's word is true but as they say there is more because this week believe it or not just this week we have five more examples that have come to light in the last week proving what we were talking about and then i mean so i'm going to talk about these today and show you i mean you can't make this stuff up it continues on that we see it the bible's true now the first one here this this is rather profound this is about um well you'll get the example what it means this is from the financial times of london there was an op-ed and basically here's what it argued for sustainable financing to work we need central planning of the economies central planning of the economies of the world hmm does that sound familiar what scripture says yeah revelation 13 there's going to be a central economy in the last days a worldwide economy in other words we won't have the us economy the french economy the chinese economy one economy one economy in the entire world unto this final antichrist the man of sin the man of lawlessness will come and he with his cohort the false prophet will control this system the famous 666 you can't buy or sell without the mark on the right hand or the forehead but to have that you have to have basically a central economy central planning with the economy all has to be united together so no more free markets you've got that coming and this again the financial times is not some pinko communistic group they're they're they're left at the wall street journal but they're not out there but the fact that they would say this in an editorial in other words for the world to survive economically with all the problems we got what we need is central planning well that has to be in place when this person comes on the scene because what he is going to do he's going to co-opt that and make the whole world as we read in revelation 13 buy or sell with his mark as his cohort the false prophet will do this but to be able to do this you have to have this sort of thing in place and now you have legitimate organizations that are saying well you know this is really what we need with all that's going on in the world and the whole problem is of course what you got the pandemic you got all this going on all the nations against each other it's all about a globalistic world where there are no borders none whatsoever we're you know there's one giant community with one giant economy and that's precisely what the bible says is going to happen in the future interesting isn't it that just came up this from the financial times this week this op-ed and so we pay attention when that comes from an organization like that now example number two and this is another one that's fascinating the united arab emirates have now established a embassy in the city of jerusalem you have an embassy now from a muslim country in the city of jerusalem run by jews this is beyond unheard of this is something it's a historic step that was basically stage being set last year with president donald trump and the abraham accords that allowed a normalization of these nations the normalization of the uae of bahrain and other nations are joining that with israel now why is that important it's important because the bible says that in the last days when israel will be attacked by certain nations there will be other nations who will not join in on the attack meaning they'll have some type of relationship with israel or at least a normalization of their relationship and those include the gulf states the saudis the united arab emirates bahrain kuwait and etc and so what we see here is the stage further being set that divides and this is one of the things we talked about on the conference you've got one side here that's going to be involved we've got another side that is neutral not going to be involved and it's been amazing just in the last few decades how they're all in the right place now on stage i used to give the illustration when i was in junior high i was in a play in my in eighth grade and our our teacher uh in fact i had the first line so i had to wait you know to for the curtain to go up in the lights to go on but our teacher i never forget mr smart wonderful man he said okay gang you the curtain can't go up the lights can't come on until everybody has is on their mark on the stage so you've got to be standing on your mark then once you're standing on your mark curtain will go up the lights will come on then the play will begin and so i had to wait and i'm standing on the stage curt goes up the light's gone i had the first line and in fact i remember what it says how long is this dress rehearsal going to last i remember that from the eighth grade it shows you know trivial things anyway um but the point is everybody now has hit their mark they're all on the stage in the right place the curtain can go up and that that's the great thing but this thing about the ua uh uae uh the ambassador a new paradigm for peace and a model for a new collaborative approach to for conflict resolution the normalization of these arab states with israel these are the ones that are going to be normalized during this attack again you can't make this stuff up now number three is very interesting when joe asked me to speak for him today had no idea that today in in the israeli calendar is tisha b'av or the ninth of ave the ninth of aub is the traditional date every year they celebrate on their calendar of the destruction of the first temple and the second temple they believe both temples were destroyed on the same day in their calendar one in 586 587 bc by the babylonians the others in 80 70 by titus the roman and they mourn at this time so today has been a day of mourning there in israel with respect to the first and second temple's destruction again uh every orthodox jew three times a day prays for the lord to speedily rebuild the temple morning noon and night you ever go to a jewish wedding you see a glass broken at the wedding that's to give everybody the remembrance that the temple has been destroyed and the nation isn't whole until the temple is built again and so on this day tisha b'av where people are mourning we had another story this week that that came to the headlines again all this week you can't make this stuff up um there was an uncovering in the old city of jerusalem a section there of actually a wall that was built during the first temple period during the time of solomon that was there when jeremiah was there which was destroyed in 586 bc it was amazing discovery in fact it says and the archaeologists there uh it said that when they uncovered the remains they were very emotional because they find a wall you know that existed basically you know at the time of jeremiah 2600 years ago built before that that again gives further you know confirmation that there were jews living in that time the city of jerusalem was their holy city the temple was indeed destroyed and he found the wall there that the babylonians breached you know many many years ago now what's fascinating about this you had a response to this from the the terrorist group hamas and here's the headline in response to archaeological discoveries proving jewish presence in the city hamas accuses israel of falsifying jerusalem's history yeah this is false even though you found it's 2700 years old this didn't happen this would hear because they believe there was no temple there ever you go up to the temple mount today in the city of jerusalem the little guidebook you get says this was all been always an islamic holy site there was never a temple in this place it's a myth uh if you went in the 1920s to the same site up there the guidebook they hand then say no this is the place where david you know gathered the implements and solomon built the temple on the temple mount they used to believe it say it they haven't done this about 30 40 years now but they deny any temple is there and here's what's interesting you've got um you've got objective evidence there's plenty of evidence that there was a temple sitting there in 1999 they decided to build illegally on the temple mount islam a mosque there and they brought some ridiculous amount like 400 tons of dirt and debris they moved off the temple mount dumped it in the kidron valley and some very quick thinking israeli archaeologists surrounded it with you know with with tape with the old yellow tape the crime scene tape and they've been sifting through it for the last 20 years and they found amazing testimony to yeah there was two temples there on the temple mount that was buried there uh there are basically uh arrowheads babylonian arrowheads were discovered from you know 600 years before the time of christ that were on the temple mount the roman catapults that were there for the destruction of the second temple were also discovered there voila the evidence is there but isn't interesting this week and particularly today as we're meeting here the tisha b'av to remind us that the first and second temple did exist both of them were predicted to be destroyed in scripture jeremiah predicted the destruction of the first temple the lord jesus predicted the destruction of the second temple and both predictions were literally fulfilled and so here we have today of all days as we're meeting a reminder that the temple sits broken now we've talked about this before there will be a third temple built on the temple mount someday in unbelief of jesus which this final antichrist the man who's gonna control the economic policies of the world will go to that temple in the holy of holies claim to be god have a image of himself put in there demand people worship it on the pain of death and that's where the old mark comes in if you don't take the mark you don't worship the beast you will be put to death now the good news is christians are not going to be here at that particular time but the stage is set for that so that announcement came this week the week of tisha b'av that yeah we found this 2700 year old wall there in the city of jerusalem and like i said the archaeologists actually became misty they became teary-eyed because they gave further confirmation right there where they were excavating of the truth of holy scripture now a fourth thing that took place again in the heartland of israel not in the temple mount on the heartland of israel they found two thousand year old coins saying freedom to zion freedom designer freedom to to to you know the the jews what's interesting about this these were minted in 67 a.d 67 in a.d 66 the jewish revolt took place they were started revolting against the romans they slaughtered one of the roman legions and that caused the romans to come to jerusalem to surround the city destroy the city and the temple which of course they did in the year 80 70 destroy the city and the temple what's also fascinating about that there's so many fascinating stories about this titus the roman who has actually was called away during that time because he became the roman emperor the next emperor uh he met with his general said okay we're gonna destroy this city but we're not going to destroy the temple no we are not barbarians where romans got the real heavy arguments with his generals this look the t that and accordingly in the ancient world they had like the eight wonders of the ancient world the temple of jerusalem was one of them one traveler said if you've never seen the temple of jerusalem you've never seen a beautiful building so titus said nope not going to destroy it well someone greater than titus had spoken and he said not one stone would be left upon another it'd all be torn down that's precisely what happened in the year ad70 but these coins talk about freedom because oh we're free from the romans now no in three short years after that their temple would be destroyed their city destroyed why because they rejected the messiah of the lord jesus when he came there the first time there will be freedom someday for these people but it isn't gonna happen right now so i thought in this fascinating uh four huge stories this week basically confirming the truthfulness of the word of god the pattern that we talked about in the conference the pattern i mentioned to you earlier continues to show wherever we look god's word is vindicated so that's the first question that ross clifford asked so long ago to those students is the christian faith true is it true but now how about the second question can it work for me now this one here is also going to have some profound truths for you so hang on fasten the old seat belts in the book of judges the sixth through the eighth chapter we have the story of of one of the judges it's fairly famous because of his asking god for the you know to do the sign of the fleece the judge named gideon now the times of the judges were a horrific time in the nation 350 year period and the last verse of the book of judges 21 25 says there was no king in israel in those days and everybody did that what seemed was right in their own eyes it was like modern-day america right everybody's doing what's right in their own eyes well for 350 years this is what happened the people in a right relationship with god they got into sin they got into idolatry so the lord would send some nations some group to put them into you know bondage so after being in bondage they would cry out to the lord cry out for forgiveness and the lord would send a judge or a chieftain to lead a charge against his enemy and they would the enemy be clobbered and they go back to a right relationship with god but then the cycle would go again seven times in the book of judges in this 350 year period that happened and one of the times there was a man named gideon there but this person is especially noteworthy for our purposes today in the world in which you and i live why well we first meet gideon the judge in judges chapter 6 verses 11 and 12 where it says the angel of the lord came and sat beneath the great tree at oprah which belonged to joash of the clown clan of abuser gideon son of joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a wine press to hide the grain from the midianites the angel of the lord appeared to him and said the lord is with you mighty man of valor all right this is some of some of the biblical humor there gideon was an absolute coward you thresh grain up on a mountaintop because you throw it up and the wind hits it there's no wind going on on the on the they're thresh the on the wine press gideon was hiding from the midianites he was a coward and the lord appears to him and he says the lord is with you mighty man of valor and yet he goes who came in you know who are you talking about and basically the lord as we're going to see took the least expected individual to do the mighty work of him during this particular time so gideon basically then starts questioning the lord as he shows up there and he says wait a minute uh if the lord is with us then what's happened to our country we read about it's interesting he says this we read about hmm all the miracles by the way ecclesiastes 12 12 says of the making of books there is no end three thousand years ago there's more books made that people can even read so they read about these people weren't neanderthals at that time believe they could read and he says uh we hear about this you know brought us out of egypt how come the lord has abandoned us and the lord says go i'm going to give you the strength to overturn the midianites now what we find about the midianites they were a people group that actually descended from abraham through his wife katura you recall in genesis when sarah died abraham married another wife named katura and they had a number of children and part one of the children was named midian and the midianites came from them they were traitors they were part of the trade route if you recall in the book of uh genesis later where when they pass by the city of dothan where joseph has been thrown in a pit by his brothers it was midianite traders who happened to be passing by who sold joseph into he was sold to them and they sold him into slavery into egypt and they sold him to potiphar so the midianites were a roaming group of people they're tradesmen and they were very numerous to the place where they were like grasshoppers they were everywhere they outnumbered the people of israel and so what they did as a judgment against israel they came and took about everything that the cattle took the food the people were starving everything they're in a terrible terrible situation there in israel because they turned their back on the lord and they're starting to cry out to the lord even though they're worshiping baal or baal um these the false god and so the lord says to gideon you know you're going to be the one that's going to be the judge of israel now this is interesting gideon says look he's from the tribe of manasseh manasseh was the weakest of all the 12 tribes he was the youngest son in the in his clan the basically the lowest family in the lowest tribe of all of israel he's he's at the bottom of that and yet god says i'm going to use you to be the one to do and amazing for the glory of god to deliver them so he gave gideon a task and that is to destroy an altar that was there of baal and an asherah pole that was there again you know for false worship so gideon of course goes at night because he didn't want anybody to see him he took some guys and he destroys he destroyed the altar he destroyed the ashrae pole and then he sacrificed made a sacrifice to the war to try and get the people back on on with it and so he pulled that down but the people woke up the next morning got so mad they wanted to kill gideon for that when they found out he did it for destroying the altar but here's what's interesting his father comes and says he shouts to the mob why are you defending baal this god will you argue his case whoever pleads his case will be put to death in the morning and then he says this if baal is truly a god let him defend himself and destroy the one who broke down the altar from then on gideon's name was changed jerob all that's what's his name meaning let ball defend himself because he broke down the altar in other words what if this idol really let him defend himself so gideon's name was job ball so anyway bottom line is he gets an army together as god said thirty two thousand people and uh you know to fight this innumerable number of midianites and the lord said gideon i have something to tell you about the number of your people your army and gideon says yeah and the lord says no no they're not too many they're too they're not too small they're too many i want you to tell everybody that's afraid to go home and don't want to fight and 22 000 went home um like jay vernon mcgee i always wonder why gideon didn't leave too because he didn't want to fight but he didn't they all went home so now they're down to ten thousand and the lord says gideon still too many so they went to the place probably know the story to get a drink most of people threw them face in the water and just lapped it up you know face in the water there were only 300 of them who were you know had this had their swords ready and you know basically took the water there being on guard the lord said those three hundred those three hundred are the one to use because you you have i'll let you fight the midianites and but you have to do it with impossible odds because he said if the army was any size they would take the glory the lord's i want the glory so the bottom line was gideon was still cowardice about that still afraid that uh it might not happen so he and the lord said he says please one more sign and the lord allowed one of their people to sneak into the midi night camp and they heard these midi nights talking saying i had a dream last night and this man named gideon came and overthrew us and said oh great and went back and told gideon so gideon now thinks okay we're gonna do it we're gonna we're gonna overthrow it so the lord is finally vindicated with 300 men uh surrounding them with pictures and you know uh kind of their their torches the sword of the lord and of gideon and basically the midianites were so confused they just basically killed each other they destroyed each other and that was a great victory for the lord so again with impossible odds the lord used the least likely person the least likely person to be the one who would be uh to destroy this great army of the midianites against all odds in an impossible situation now if you remember in the beginning i said there's five examples this week's of god's confirmation of his word being true what is the fifth confirmation all right this week it was mentioned that a five-letter inscription written three thousand one hundred years ago was discovered and on the name of this little artifact was the name jahubal or the nickname of gideon thirty one hundred years had been sitting there and all of a sudden it was discovered this last week this artifact inscribed with the nickname of gideon a name that is found nowhere else and so isn't this interesting again you can't make this up in the week where we have the you know financial time saying we need a worldwide monetary system we need a central system we've got israel celebrating or not celebrating but mourning the destruction of the first and second temple hoping the third one will be built when you got these arab states now putting their uh you know their embassies there in the city of jerusalem when you see these coins come about talking about the freedom for israel right before the destruction as the lord predicted of the second temple you find this little five-letter inscription on this um little shard inscribed with the name gerard gerald ball the first evidence of a name in the book of judges on a contemporary artifact written some 3100 years ago sitting there just waiting to be discovered in the year 2021. yeah wow indeed now to me this is evidence of the second question ross clifford asked can it work for me look at the odds we're facing look at the tough world war look at all the horrible things going on it's true but like gideon we can overcome them because we have a god who is more powerful than anything else the god like baal who doesn't exist and so to me i thought wow what a tremendous testimony of the lord sitting there for 3100 years to bring it here in july of 2021 to emphasize the fact that he was with gideon he did a supernatural work with the you know remember that the story of the uh the one night he wanted us to have it dry all around and and the the the fleece be wet and then the time the fleece is dry and it's wet all around supernatural working there to show that the lord god will fulfill his word and he will work with people who are the underdogs who all around them there's there's there's problems again seemingly in in in unsolvable problems yet god used gideon and it's this is a true story and the same thing is true now here in 2021 with you and me we live at a time sort of like this the time of the judges everybody doing that which is right in his or her own eyes right i mean uh there doesn't seem to be any leadership any king every day the censorship of christians continue if you saw joe and i the last time uh we did a vertical view on tuesday night here the last month we'll have one a week from tuesday doing another one there were certain words we couldn't even say if we wanted to remain on youtube because joe got thrown in the youtube jail for saying some of these things in the past to you guys so we had to uh put up words on the screen and have the people read that or we had to do things like when we're talking about this you know that goes on in the arm uh we didn't we couldn't even use the word because words like that what would be taking you off uh james kades and i do a radio program called um countdown to eternity and james has been thrown in the jail many times the youtube jail and he said he got thrown in jail for using the name of our last president just saying that and so we have to say 45 every time we're talking about our previous president or else we'll get polled our program not that something now what it's telling us is we're living in a day where they're afraid of us and for good reason because we have a message we have an answer going back to the gospel i read at the beginning christ died was buried rose again he appeared to people but also he's coming back to judge the living and the dead and the evidence consistently is there that's why we talked about prophecies fulfilled the pattern of historical events actually occurred uh predictions about the future setting the stage and now all this stuff five things just just this week just the last five days all these have come to pass god's trying to speak to us he's trying to encourage us to show us he is there he is with us and just like he was with gideon he's going to be with us even though it seems like overwhelming odds and it is overwhelming odds uh you know many of you know i do a program on his channel in fact i do two of them and uh we plays uh three times three times a week i've got two today's bible question answer bible questions that are on twice a week i have another program i'm going through i've gone through uh joseph's story jonah's story and go through the gospels in matthew 8 and 9. but after this i'm going to do the gideon story too there's so much there i mean i could go i'll get three 30-minute programs on that anyway his channel the beginning of this year 2021 immediately the audience rose 40 you know why because all these great great christian ministries were de-platformed on these social networks they you know some people had over a million subscribers yeah we'll just take you off and so because the message of christ the message of you know the gospel the bible they just took it off because they could this is the persecution we know we're experiencing and it's gonna get worse that's why we need to encourage one another the writer of the hebrew says we encourage one another as we gather together as the time draws near so look i can't emphasize this enough there's always things we can find out to gripe about to complain about there's there's always things wrong but look when it comes to meeting with other brothers and sisters let's encourage each other let's let's you know bring up the fact that god is working we we know it's a tough time it's a very difficult time we're praying for one another but also be an encouragement to point out the fact that the lord is indeed in control and so we see this happening now i likened it before and i like it again to it's like a hurricane that's coming our way it's not an earthquake an earthquake quite comes totally unexpected we're all very painfully aware of that right uh a tornado have you ever been in tornado alley they come but you get a little bit of warning at least there not much sometimes but a little a hurricane you get plenty of warning you see it coming and you can prepare to a degree we have a hurricane coming and it's already here with each and every one of us as bible believing christians the governor of this state has called us regresses not progressives in other words we're regressives because we believe there's a god who's spoken that believes a book where there's the answer in and so according to him and according to others we're like neanderthals or their knuckles dragging on the ground because we believe in in you know in right and wrong and with god but like i've shared with you just in this talk the evidence is so overwhelming that what we're believing is true we don't have to assassinate our brains we don't have to we're not believing a fairy tale over and over and over and over again it's confirmed in one way or another so the idea today gang is to take heart please take heart and be of good cheer be encouraged because the lord's program is going right according to schedule and the great news about it all because we got god's word we know how this movie is going to end right we know we know the end of the story and he tells us if we're in christ we're the victors we are the overcomers because of him and so what we need to do in the meantime is love one another gather together like we'd gather together today here and encourage one another be a blessing to people encourage them you know and pray for each other everybody's going through things and there's so many christians i've met lately everywhere i go i just want to get out of here i want you know i just i've had enough or you know i want to move someplace where you know there's no um no problem that reminds me of i might have told this story before i remember reading this in a newspaper when the onset of world war ii was about to take place there was a very learned australian who saw that there was going to be a world war so he wanted to set out the war in a place where he could live in peace so he decided to move to an island around you know there in the pacific to basically get away from the uh the fighting of the second world war and the island he moved to was called guadalcanal um true story uh if you don't know guadalcanal of course was the seed of some of the greatest battles in the second world war and uh to me that was hilarious because you can't get away from it okay you can't we're here to be salt and light we're not here to you know i had a question the other day on the bible program should we you know be prepping for the time of the end in other words buying freeze-dried food you know living in caves and this and that no no no no if that's all we're going to do we we might as well not even be here we're to be salt night we're to get out to the world and preach the gospel of jesus christ we're we're on the offensive not the defensive okay and so good so so again if we can have that attitude before us that we are going to win because of christ we are the victors because of jesus it's not going to be easy no one says it's going to be easy no one's downplaying how tough it is but look we're here for a purpose you know and if we we're the salt and the light we're we're the gospel message that the lord brings to the world without us there is no light and so we're here to be used we are not here by chance we are here by design as we've said so many times before so that our grandparents our great grandparents great great grandparents seeing this we're all seeing this happen right now and we are the ones god has chosen like gideon and his little band of 300 to be the ones that uh you know take over and beat the big bad midianites and we will because of jesus christ well you know we've got the victory now uh it's going to be like i said it's going to be tough it's going to be worse but the good news is we're going to win in the end so this week again we stand back and we stand in awe when i when joe asked me to do the talk i was thinking of doing various actually i had another talk i was going to give and then all of a sudden all these stories popped up you know you've got you know financial times we need you know a basically a central uh economy in the world really okay united arab emirates we're now today establishing this week our embassy in jerusalem one of the gulf states the temple today tisha b'av the ninth of the date the first and second temples were destroyed and and and then also the announcement oh by the way we've just discovered a 27-year-old old wall there was there at the time of the destruction of the second temple just like the bible talked about then the coins also too uh the freedom coins that were discovered in the heartland of israel that were minted thinking well now with the jewish revolt in 1866 we're going to overthrow the romans four years later city and temple were destroyed as jesus predicted and the people were sent into exile and then of course gideon his name just pops up his nickname jerob let ball defend himself well ball didn't do a really good job of defending himself did he but the lord the god of the bible did and as he used gideon guess what he's going to use you he's going to use me to get the gospel out to the world in spite of the fact we may be from the tribe of manasseh as it were the lowest family the youngest in the fact it doesn't matter as martin luther said one with god is a majority and as paul told the romans if god be for us who can be against us so is the christian faith true it certainly is can it work for me you better believe it let's pray heavenly father thank you thank you thank you thank you for the evidence you've given us just for the stories this week that are further encouragement to keep us going that you are who you claim to be your word is true you mean what you say and you say what you mean and we thank you for this lord we thank you for the evidence that we've seen just this week and the encouragement you give us and so please lord i pray for everyone here everyone watching that they'll be encouraged with the truths the truths that we've seen that your word means what it says it says what it means and sooner or later it all come to pass thank you for joe kathleen all the wonderful people of this church the people that serve here what a great testimony they are to you and these great folks continue to bless and continue to expand this great ministry in jesus name we pray amen okay bless you guys so if after the service if you'd like to pick up one of don's books or a couple of don's books he'll have that on the patio oh by the way uh pastor joe will be on his channel with don stewart a week from thursday so tune in to that his channel.com um just in closing uh just a little bit we're going to have different people up here that will be able to pray with you i want to share with you something that happened uh just last week we had a gentleman come forward after pastor joe had shared and uh he came up and gave his life to the lord and so uh i saw him so thursday night we have our prayer night we normally will break up into different groups and do like more intercessory prayer in smaller groups well he joined our group and so we started talking to him and he was sharing and he shared kind of what had happened to his life he said you know what i said well who brought you to church he said god and he said i i had just i have been going through like one of the most loneliest times of my life and i just felt i needed to be at church and so he came to church on sunday joe was actually able to share the gospel with him he received the lord and then while we were we were sharing he said you know what i just feel unworthy and i said i shared with them i said you know what we're all unworthy the bible says that all have sinned all have fallen short of the of the glory of god so we are all separated from god because of our sin but because of god's great love for us that jesus died on the cross that he would make us worthy so now by his blood by because he's shed his blood for us we can have that forgiveness and we can find that home and so it was really powerful we got to pray with the guy we were leading laying hands on him he broke down in tears and was just crying out to the lord and so god did just such an incredible work in his life and i want to share with you today so there's those of you today maybe you're in the same situation maybe you came and you said you know what i need to be with god but i'll tell you as i shared with him we are all separate from god because of our sin and the bible says that the wages of sin is death but the free gift of god is eternal life through jesus christ so you may have been isolated from god you may have been trying to earn his favor maybe you've gone to church maybe you've said you know what i've done these different religious things but i'm still separate from god so we cannot earn our salvation it's a free gift by grace but by when you accept that gift god has now counted you as his child so you will no longer be separated from god you may be in here maybe you're feeling guilty maybe you're feeling condemned and you're saying you know what i can't earn god's favor well we never will but it's the kindness of god that leads us to repentance he loves you god is for you and so today we are going to give you that opportunity come up here and pray with one of the either the brothers or sisters that are up here to pray and you can have that new life in jesus christ today is the day of salvation don't put it off don't say well maybe i'll do it next week or next week now there's never a right time today is the day because you don't know if you have a tomorrow it's not promised to anyone but know today if the if you were to die and if you stood before god that you would know for sure that i am going to go to heaven because of what jesus christ did on the cross see when jesus died on the cross he says it is finished all the work of salvation would it was paid for him for you on the cross so he has paid that for you let's go ahead and stand as we close in our last song [Music] [Music] is [Music] 10 000. [Music] [Music] [Applause] i worship your holy [Music] worship his holy [Music] [Applause] [Music] so once again so don will have his table on the back so i just want to say that god loves you he's for you and i just pray that you would have just a continual relationship with him where you know that he's for you that he loves you that he's on your side and that if god's for us then who can be against us amen amen so you guys have a great week may god bless you may he fill you with his peace with his love his grace may his face shine upon you have a great week god bless you

Channel: Calvary Chapel of the Harbour

Views: 12,578

Rating: 4.9815669 out of 5

Keywords: Christian church, church in huntington beach ca, churches in huntington beach ca, hb, Huntington Beach CA, seal beach ca, in person, Prayer

Id: tda_Au9WLT0

Length: 54min 27sec (3267 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 18 2021