Dr. Eric Walsh Part 3: Tribulations Song

all right so we'll get right into this because there's a lot and so I want to make sure we get all the way through it we'll start in the Book of Micah the seventh chapter Micah chapter 7 starting at verse 8 the Bible says rejoice not against me o mine enemy when I fall I shall rise I shall arise when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me let us pray father God we thank you for this opportunity Lord ask once again that you make me just a rusty sorry nail hammered into a wall Lord upon that nail I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ Lord I ask that you speak now and not me now let your people be blessed edified and father God allow this testimony to show them just how powerful of God they serve is our prayer in Jesus is precious and holy man amen so the title of the talk is a tribulation song and I title it this way is as you're gonna see we go through this testimony like you go through a song so their stanzas and a prelude and a postlude and all kinds of different things and the preload is a verse of scripture that to give encouragement and remember I said this morning about making sure you have Bible promises readily available this is one of them and one that's very near and dear to me now when we get into it by stanzas and the first stanza is the man before and so my testimony is different and probably a lot of ones you'll hear because again I preach from the position of transparency and I think you get far more from the word if you see how the word helped me to grow and experience helped me to grow and if I just come up here and pretend I've got everything always had everything right and always get everything right because we are human we make mistakes we can go astray Peter and Judas followed Jesus for three and a half years and they went astray and I can go through the scripture from cover to cover and show you David a man after god's own hearts a giant slayer they saying david it's all has killed his thousands and David has killed his tens of thousands yet David was a murderer and an adulterer before it was all over so the Bible gives you that transparency because God needs you to see that you are not the only one with a sin problem but he is the only one with a sin solution so I talked about the man before I was this whole story starts in the beautiful city of Pasadena California and if you live in Los Angeles Pasadena really is probably one of the better parts of it to live in big trees and beautiful neighborhoods that are well-established and go back for decades and there's a lot of money and a lot of places to shop and eat there's more restaurants per capita in the City of Pasadena than I think any other city in the world or in the country while I know because I was there as the health officer so we inspected all of them all of the restaurants and there were tons of restaurants and a little bit about myself you know I like this church one thing I like is you guys gonna do long introductions about people so I just get up and speak which I like vetted well I know but I do like that because I don't really like to talk about myself but for the story that makes sense you need to know that I was raised by a single mother my father left my mother when I was 2 years old and ran off with her cousin and she didn't remarry till I was 21 to a gentleman from Santo Domingo from the Dominican Republic and my mother's Jamaican born and she is a very ambitious woman so I watched there get her associate's degree bachelor's degree master's degree I watched us move up like The Jeffersons of old if some of you remember that and she did good financially we did well and we were raised in the church so we had worship in our home we were pathfinders we were members of the children's choir I couldn't sing but I was still a member and church was really the center of our universe we went to public school but church was the center of our universe we look forward to the Sabbath cos we'd see our friends at church and you know we'd sit we go to Sabbath school we loved our Sabbath school teachers they taught us present truth way back then it was really nice they taught us to be careful of certain things and I fell in love with this gospel I love the word in our church preachers even when I was young I always loved the truth that we teach every summer we would pitch tents and baptize hundreds of people when I was a kid in Hartford Connecticut is where I grew up there was only Faith Church and by the time you know now you look there's Faith Hope charity grace there's a three or four Spanish churches French churches Brazilian Portuguese churches I mean the Adventist message is really blossom there and when I was in 2nd grade a kid in my class Tommy turned to me and said well you know when we get older we should start our own practice we should be doctors and on the carpet in the second grade I looked at him and I said hey that's a great idea we should be doctors and ever since that day I wanted to be a medical doctor and as you can imagine in a you know it was tough I mean we were poor especially when I was younger we like I said my mother did better and better as we got older but she wouldn't get cable television for us we are our remote control with a pair of pliers because it was sticking of the thing in turn the channels we got four channels PBS NBC CBS and ABC that was it and usually there was no children's programming on as some of you would remember except Saturday morning when we were in church and so my mother invested instead of in cable television she invested in in cyclopædia Britannica so I grew up in my spare time I would actually lay on my belly in the living room and read the Encyclopedia Britannica for fun and you know we play outside back then kids played outside and we'd play until it got dark and I wanted to be a doctor I really thought that's what I supposed to be it kept me out of trouble you know I didn't try never drank a smoke not just because I was Adventist because I just thought that's a bad way that you know I might mess up my chances of medical school if I did that stuff and God was good we went through public school we got involved with church of course in high school I rebelled a bit and went off to Oakwood University now Oakland University was Oakwood college and I heard great preachers preach elder EE Cleveland CV Brooks Bradford Mosley Benjamin Reeves I mean I heard people bring the thing the whole house down Sabbath the Sabbath and I've never studied theology at Oakland but I didn't need to I mean these guys preaching talk to you all the homiletic you needed to learn just if you just if you had a good ability to listen and imitate and so I went off to god bless me I went to Oakland went to medical school at University of Miami in Florida full scholarship left there and was accepted to Loma Linda University for residency program I did a family medicine residency at the foodie University Alabama Birmingham preventive medicine public health residency at loma linda wall at loma linda got a master's in public health and I went on to get a doctorate in public health so I by the time I've done had four degrees to doctoral degrees a master's degree when it came time for me to leave Loma Linda as faculty I said lord I want to work in public health and he opened up a door in Orange County I became the medical director for the Family Health Division for the Orange County Health Department which is called a Orange County health care so you know ordinarily does everything differences they it's not called a Health Department it's called something else and then while I was there I was actually the medical director for the jail's for ins County all five jails so I was in and out of the jails and I could give you all kind of incredible stories about that experience the job came available for the City of Pasadena to be a health officer and the director so two positions in one and the City of Pasadena California and that was my dream job as you know Pasadena is a pretty pretty reputable city I mean the Rose Bowl the Rose Parade you know there's a lot of reasons people like Pasadena and I never thought I'd actually get the job honestly but I agonized and I prayed I specially while I was working in that jail I said lord please I could really live the guys like you could get a get-out-of-jail-free card please father so I was able to get the job God got me that job and I was there for four years and while I was there God really blessed it I always say it was like the story of Joseph because wherever I land wherever I was god prospered the organization the problem was I didn't know it was the Joseph I was at the stage that a coat of many colors I wasn't active Farrell's stays at the end I had this really early mid Joseph story and so we started we did we we started our programs or we start we passed city ordinances against smoking in multi-unit housing so you couldn't smoke in an apartment building or a condo because the smoke could drift into the next-door neighbor's apartment and affect people with asthma and COPD and of course we got people fought us on that up the hill and I took the beating over that in the press but I fought for because I knew I talked to the people whose children had asthma and a neighbor smoke was ill affecting their child interestingly enough Ellen White when she was alive worked with women in Pasadena who were against addiction and I forget the name of an organization and one of the things was tobacco control so Alan White had worked in Pasadena on a very issue really interesting if you look it up and then we passed an ordinance that the city could only serve food or sell food in their vending machines that met certain nutritional criteria and that was a fight with to the police officers call my office and tell you dr. Walsh I said yes man I can't get water over here now it was so bad that coca-cola and their Mountain Dew was gone I guess that's how they kept awake when they had to make shift but God was good we passed those ordinances we made news because we were doing things that really try and impact people's lives I worked with gangs the Crips and the Bloods a lot of people don't notice but on the on the westside of Pasadena or the poor neighborhoods were blood neighborhoods and if you go north into Altadena those were neighborhoods so there was gang warfare on one small you know the city as it gentrified those areas got smaller and smaller but they were still there and once I actually went when they were going to retaliate because wanted to get one of the members had gotten shot and his girlfriend had gotten murdered all in one shooting they were in a car together in LA and all of these gangsters were had now they'd been rehabilitated they were going to church one of the local Sunday churches had taken them in and I'd preached at that church and worked with these gang members to change their lives and they're about to retaliate and they called me from work to come and stop them from going and shooting people and [Music] and that doesn't was a testimony within a testimony but I remember sitting at the table with these hardened criminals guys who would go and kill someone and I said Lord what do I say by not even having Bible study and stuff and God just revealed to me and he said just speak these words and I just quoted vengeance is mine saith the Lord I shall repay and I said if anyone goes to seek vengeance you're claiming the position of God and those big hardened criminals began to weep and cry at the table and not one of them ever retaliated and the young man who was shot not only did he live I got him into mental health therapy and he did well and he's a functioning member of society today working has a family all of that stuff so God was blessing and one of the areas that God really blessed us in was in the area of HIV and AIDS so we had our own department that treated HIV and AIDS for low-income individuals and as you know there's still a serious public health problem well many people are still affected there are many good medications that actually keep the virus under wraps so that people can live really pretty much a normal life they do get chronic diseases earlier but they can live abroad pretty much a normal life and their viral counts now go to zero on these multiple drug regimens and so we brought brought in millions of dollars for that and staff hired many many people and we transform that program I built one of the only if not the only city run dental clinic in the whole state of California maybe in the country that focused on HIV and AIDS for in low-income individuals and one one week that was actually in the paper the story about the one-year anniversary of that clinic being built and I was just in praise God it was good stuff that was happening people were getting medical care they were getting the help they needed the story changes when I was asked to speak as the commencement speaker for the Pasadena City College now I've never attended Pasadena City College I had no ties to the school and I actually asked the president of the school why he would ask me to speak I don't you know I mean connected to the school I saw a list of people who wanted they wanted to speak people like Magic Johnson and others another guy I'm not on that level why would you ask me well rewind two years I was the keynote speaker for the mayor's Prayer Breakfast and the president of the schools there and I got a standing ovation when I spoke for the mayor's Prayer Breakfast now the mayor's Prayer Breakfast so of course it's a Prayer Breakfast so I quoted some scripture but I was very careful you know I found some great quotes from Arab scholars and put in I put in a quote from even from Mother Teresa that I use them in public health talks you know I was trying to be very balanced you know so I didn't come across a certain way but at the same time if you looked at the whole speech you knew I was a Christian you would know I mean it was no way you would not know that and so he said listen you know I heard you speak for the mayor's Prayer Breakfast two years ago and I want you to speak for our students they could use the hair from you of course he didn't tell me something you know in life I'm reading a book on investing now and one of the chapters is entitled trust no one you're gonna invest don't trust anybody and I should have read that chapter before I talk to the president of this College because he had a whole mess going on behind the scenes he had invited a guy to come and speak who was a leader of the LGBT community who would won an Oscar I believe as an Oscar award for a movie about Harvey Milk the famous LGBT politician out of the Bay Area and you know he and this guy was actually also a former student of Pasadena City College so to me if they had asked me and I said well you know it's nice not an ad for this school out of thing he should probably speak not me it's not not my school but nobody told me that this was going on and so the President had already invited this guy to speak then they rescinded his invitation when they found that there was a video online of him with what they thought might be an underage boy now I don't know what happened I never went online to look into this I decided that was none of my business and so I never did but so they rescinded his speaking engagement and guess what they do they gave it to me now you instantaneously see how this is gonna go bad right now this is where this part of the story before I come back around to that what's important to know is I didn't pray before I took this speaking engagement and I've learned even in small things you should put things before the Lord not that he wouldn't have told me to do it anyway but for the record I didn't pray the other thing I want you to get is that as I was in this position of prestige and privilege I was becoming a solo chol celebrity in Los Angeles County specifically in Pasadena now Medina was pastoring and or associate pastoring at the out to the end a seventh-day Adventist Church and I was on the local TV and I have a government TV channel like I forget what they call them but they little you know they just kind of do to the town news but Pasadena the city so the City News and every time I gave a speech on whatever issue like health they ran my speeches on that TV channel so I would be walking out of store there was a hey dr. Wallace I want you to talk last night especially poor people because they don't have cable so they don't we see that channel and it was kind of cool I mean people knew me everybody knew I was adored in love the city manager later said we don't know what's going on because last week you walked on water everyone loved you in this town and and but that has its that takes a toll and I said something to you this morning about how the devil will swing it to the left or to the right to destroy you I will tell you that the devil will use failure or success to lead you away from God and then my success if not that I really went to man I don't know that I was be getting big-headed but I think I began to let my guard down I remember one night I found myself at a fundraiser in Beverly Hills at a mansion that was you know something out of a movie set and some of the things that were being said and the music that was being played and the food that was being served now that I ate or drank because I don't drink and I don't eat meat or you know stuff like that but just being in that environment was toxic spiritually toxic and so you start to just you start to be in places you shouldn't be start to be interact with people you normally wouldn't interact with on a way that you would normally interact with them either and your success literally becomes a way for the devil to seep things into your life that otherwise wouldn't be there and so I start by saying that I didn't start this pole story off to tell you I was drifting I was still pastoring preaching but let me tell you something just because people come in a pulpit and preach just because people give Bible studies just because people teach Sabbath school doesn't mean that their core spiritual life isn't is in the right place Judas of all 12 disciples was the one that if they had if they're going to elect an MVP he would have been in they really loved Judas if you read in the spirit of prophecy they love Judas but Judas was in the end the most corrupt of all 12 of the disciple so you can't judge a book by it's cover you've got to know God for yourself you can't put your trust in man amen so I tell you that to tell you that God knows work God needed to do with me and that's really where the story starts because if you look at it any other way it'll be me against all these other people when in fact God was dealing with me inside of myself and the stuff that I was going through and the stuff that I was dealing with so to to really try and illustrate that you go to Revelation chapter 3 it says and unto the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans write these things saith the Amen the faithful and true witness the beginning of the creation of God I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot I would thou wert cold or hot so then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I will spew you out of my mouth because thou sayest I am rich and increased with Goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked most of us don't realize our spiritual condition and God allows trial to come into your life sometimes so that you will realize your spiritual condition God will allow you to go into that crucible I keep talking about in order to get you to see what you need to see about your life but then it says I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich and white raiment that thou mayst be clothed and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve that thou may is see look at this last verse this last verse became a comfort for me and this is a Bible promise it says as many as I love I rebuke and chasten be zealous therefore and repent God literally says listen if I love you I'm gonna allow you to go through some stuff and what I want you to do when you're going through it I want you to be quick to repent I want you to recognize your fault and I want you to come around to me and I want you to follow me so he allows you to go through some stuff so that you will see your spiritual condition in fact Luke 21 in verse 34 it says and take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life and so that day come upon you unawares be careful that you don't get so intoxicated with the world that the day come upon you the second coming up on that second coming comes and you're so busy with the world that you miss what God would have had you to do so he invited me to speak and of course when I was invited to speak it was published in newspaper the Pasadena Star News put it out there now of course there were students on the campus from the LGBT community who were furious that someone a day respected and wanted to speak was no longer speaking so whoever was going to be the speaker after that person was going to get some pretty serious scrutiny and if they could figure out a way to get that person out and get their guy back in they were gonna do it and little old me who didn't know what was going on at all you know they put my name in the paper and of course when my name goes in the paper the students go to work I've seen their Facebook page that they came you know they said hey dr. wall seems like a nice guy he says but he says they said yeah we're gonna destroy this guy we're gonna get him out from speaking and that's what they did so they work to write stuff up about me and and and put stuff in the paper about me and all of a sudden all these things began to happen and you know I just I prayed and I understood what was going on but at the same time I loved everyone and I want you to get that from this testimony no matter who you are no matter where you are god loves you and if we are God's children we love everyone and there is nothing that disqualifies you from God loving you and a lot of people miss that so long story short the whole thing exploded it wound up in the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Times wrote an editorial and in an editorial the woman who wrote it in a Las Vegas Times the second largest newspaper in the world in the country and it was written and they said well dr. Walsh is should not is disqualified he should not hold a scientific position in the United States and she gave two reasons why number one because I believe God created the world and so they wrote a whole thing in the paper that I should not hold any scientific position because I believe God created the world and in the second reason they said is because in one of my sermons they said I said I don't want my children to wish upon a star I want them to pray to the Living God and they said well he hates Disney and of course in Southern California you can't hate Disney so is it for that reason I shouldn't hold a scientific position so once it hit Los Angeles Times it was over obviously but the way social media works it began to travel and you know got on the news strips underneath the emails and and in the local newspaper once they caught wind of what was happening Pasadena Star News they started every day for the next for the next few weeks my picture was on the front page and they were writing more articles and I think what was so scary about this storm was that they lied about me they said I said things I never even said in fact the PR guy at our church in one of the articles they put links online to four of my sermons and he went and listened to all four sermons and he wrote a newspaper called the newspaper and asked the lady he was he said he never said anything you said in this article so why are you publishing that he said these things and she hung up the phone she wouldn't talk to him because at this point it was more important to sell newspapers and get clicks on articles than it to be truthful and so you know Who am I they could destroy me no problem and the problem is most Americans if they read something on the internet they think it's true even if you never said what they said you said even if I mean clearly and I couldn't have been the guy they were writing about based on just the work I had done at the health department if you really just put two and two together the very community I served and did the most for and hired I couldn't I couldn't feel that way about them if it didn't even make sense but once they started doing that they started selling papers they just started but he started really laying it on thick on me because they wanted to sell stuff and they wanted notoriety and all of this kind of stuff and so what I learned in those first few days when it happened and I was in a great deep state of depression I was hurt Here I am a young african-american male against all odds statistically speaking how many of my cousins and friends have been murdered or in prison I'm a son of a single mother and God had blessed me to go to school to get these degrees so I could do this job and here now I was being destroyed because I'm a Christian literally because I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ I believe what the Bible teaches and I can't apologize for that they called me people call me so listen if you'll just renege on what you believe if you'll just say you don't believe this anymore we'll well you know we'll get you your job back we'll go set up a sting at this church and we'll have the media come out and we'll have allow you to kind of recant and I told him I said no I would rather shovel dung in the street then to recant on what God says in his word because at the end of the day it was that God that you're telling me to give up on when my single mother when we didn't have enough food and we were going to the living room and we would pray and we would ask God how are we gonna make it through the month we have more months and we have money it was that God that when we were done praying the doorbell would ring and there would be bags of groceries sitting at the front porch of our house and that's how we were sustained I know God is real I'm not asking anybody right so long story short the storm really hit and I was laying on my belly and I did too that was praying and some of you have come to me and say my church was praying for you or I was praying for you and let me taste that what happened the prayers that people gave me I could feel the weight of the stress of what was going on lift for the first two days I just I laid on my face I just laid on my face and the other thing I did which is why this testimony set up the way set up is I use the Book of Psalms the Book of Psalms became my antidepressant and prayer became my anxiety I would read the Psalms and I would pray read the Psalms and I would pray and in doing that God would calm me back down he'd quiet me back down so let me read some of the Psalms Psalms 30:5 verse 11 false witnesses that rise up they laid to my charge things that I knew not they rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul but as for me when they were sick my clothing was sackcloth I humbled my soul with fasting and my prayer returned into my own bosom David says I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother I bowed down heavily as one that mourning for his mother but in my adversity they rejoiced and gathered themselves together yea the objects gathered themselves together against me and I knew it not they did tear me and cease not with hypocritical mockers and feast they gnashed upon me with their teeth Lord how long will you look on rescue my soul from their destructions my darling from the Lions david says pulled me out of the net that they have laid privily for me for thou art my strengths into thine hand i commit my spirit now has redeemed me O Lord God of truth I've hated them that regarded lying vanities but I trust in the Lord I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy for thou has considered my trouble thou hast known my soul in adversities have mercy upon me O Lord for I am in trouble my eyes consumed with grief yet my soul in my belly I was a reproach among all my enemies but especially among my neighbors and I fear to mine acquaintances they that did see me without they fled from me david says I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind I am like a broken vessel for I heard the slander of many fear was on every side while they took counsel together against me they devised to take away my life but I trusted in thee O Lord I said I said thou art my god my times are in thy hand deliver me from the hand of mine enemies and from them that persecute me make thy face to shine upon thy servant save me for thy Mercy's sake let me not be ashamed o Lord for I've called upon thee let the wicked be ashamed and let them be and let them be silent in the grave I began to read the Psalms I began to free Psalm 31 18 let the lying lips be put to silence which speak Grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous and I began to read the Psalms and study and by this point you know my job was in trouble and you know by now people in a community like hey we don't want this guy leading the health department calling a city manager who he and I got along very well and he didn't want me to go but he you know at some point I said well listen it's not gonna work so you know I can resign and peace and you know and so he you know all supposed to get a severance they only want to give me half of the severance because I hadn't done anything wrong and they fought to trying to not give me the severance is where I first saw God show up so the city manager gave me a paper for me to get my severence and when HR manager came to meet with us she brought a paper to give me only half he said a lot of people don't want you to even get this and I said well I'm getting it and I said if you don't give me what my severance I'm gonna sue I've never told anybody that in my life that doesn't assume it actually felt good in that situation but I said and she knew that she was wrong you know the rules and laws of HR and so she said well I only brought this one they give you half and she took out the papers about sign it and I pulled out of my pocket the one of the full severance and I said actually we're gonna sign this one that's when I first saw she signed it he signed it and that was it but other things that happened by that point rewind to January of 2014 I had applied for a job with the state of Georgia and to be a health officer for the North West district of the state of Georgia and I'd gone through two rounds of interviews through FaceTime or whatever he's got a Skype or whatever we used and they really liked me I saw the stuff later on I've gotten the highest marks run away with it the week after everything happened in Pasadena I was called to interview in person in Atlanta Georgia I left California went to Atlanta I thought well it's a red state I'll probably be okay over here don't trust colors in this day and age you can only trust the Word of God and when I landed I went through a in person interview and it went very well in fact about it I couldn't almost get home before he offered me the job and I said look that's not enough money I need more money now you're thinking with all the stuff going on in Pasadena I've been just took whatever they gave me but I was bold I said no and they gave me a raise on the before I get started and I was thinking God so it got published in the paper again that I'd gotten a job in Georgia and once it was published in Los Angeles there was a rebuttal article the next day we have the activists in Southern California that we have friends in Georgia he will not get this job we will follow him wherever he goes and the next day I was on the news in Atlanta Georgia on a nightly news I was on the nightly news and in LA before that when all the paper stories about it you know they even ran a clip of one of my sermons on the news it was a good clip salving yeah all right can't get too upset about that and my picture of a good picture in the paper the picture on it at least the Lord is making us a good pictures you know sometimes in these terrible situations you do have to laugh and just be like and whatever or she'll go crazy and so I was flying to the flew to New York to speak at the Haitian youth Federation in Connecticut and when I landed you know my fall of messages that coming to my phone when I landed I saw had some voicemail and I started listening and one of them was from a state of Georgia and I they said listen dr. Wallace we are not going to be able to offer you a position after all and they forgot to hang up the phone so when they didn't hang up the phone I could hear them laughing at me and you know mocking me in the background because they didn't realize they didn't hang up the phone they'd ask before that a couple days before that they'd actually asked for copies of my sermons and everything I sent them to him which actually was a violation of pretty much every HR ruler is because you can't judge a person by the religion if you're hiring them for a job right and as Adventists we you know we believe in religious liberty and freedom so you know that wasn't supposed to happen but I still I gave it to them so long story short now hitting the paper that that job was rescinded or really I was fired because they had hired me and fired me and let me tell you something as I sat on a plane and at John F Kennedy Airport I wept that was the first time I actually cried because at that point I realized this was a crucible I wasn't quickly gonna get out of and this was something that I was gonna stay with me for a while in fact I'd gone to an attorney in LA a secular attorney and that's what he told me he said I you have no case against anybody he said you this is gonna follow you for the rest of your life he was almost thrilled that this was happening to me that I was being persecuted from our religious beliefs of course it's Los Angeles so you can imagine what his beliefs are he probably doesn believe in much of anything and was happy to see me suffer and I wept and I said Lord how could this be and second Timothy four and verse 16 says it like this at my first answer no man stood with me but all men for Sydney but before I move on to how deep into depression and darkness this thing got me I want to read why God allows us to go through trial and trouble reading difficulties develop spiritual muscle otherwise says it is it is his Providence that brings us into varying circumstances in each new position we meet a different class of temptations how many times when we are placed in some trying situation we think this is a wonderful mistake how I wish I had stayed where I was before and that's what I thought I should have stayed in Orange County I should have stayed out on us I stayed out of the limelight I said you start thinking I should have I should have I should have but money my mother uses they shoulda coulda woulda it doesn't change a thing you are where you are you got to deal with life where you are right now what Ellen White said goes on she says this but why is it that you are not satisfied I want you to get this this this text but why is it you are not satisfied it is because your circumstances have served to bring new defects in your character to your notice but nothing is revealed but that which was in you so sometimes we go through these things and the way muscle is developed in the human body is when you go and you lift weights I like to lift weights and you lift weights it there are microscopic tears in your muscles that are produced and God is so smart so amazing the designer if the tear is from here to here he doesn't fold it back together and repair it what God does is he fills in the hole with new muscle watch this so that the next time you go to lift weight you can manage the weight better than you could before all y'all missing this thing in other words God puts you through trial so that the muscles of your faith will be tested they might get ripped they might get torn but what God is doing with you is that he is allowing new faith to grow scripture says it is given to every man a measure of faith right but when you go through trial and your faith is tested your faith can grow and you can have stronger faith not for this trial the faith you're growing is for the next trial in fact for all of us living in the last days the faith we're growing is for the last days it is for the time of trouble so we're going through what we're going through because God is trying to strengthen you to give you a spiritual physique that can withstand pressure that's the point of my testimony we're gonna talk about a lot more stuff but I want if all you get from this is that that in fact God allowed me Eric Walsh to go through what I went through because God wanted to grow me he wanted me more prepared for his second coming all the stuff that happens around that will not matter 5,000 years into the new earth are you getting what I'm saying because the only thing I get to take to heaven with me is my what my character so you got to understand and God allows these trials for a reason and one of the major ones is your spiritual growth so don't get mad at folk I'm not mad at anybody that said stuff about me didn't mean anything wrong like Joseph when he met his brothers you met it for evil but God meant it for good bye because wishing it on you is only gonna make me sick me hating you not gonna make you sick makes me sick I thank God because I would rather know that I live in love as Christ did gonna be angry would folk over something that happened years ago Wow it's fine I am a child of the Living God which means you can't really mess with me nope only gonna allow you to get but so close so guess what what matters isn't what you do to me what matters is how I respond to it because God is trying to grow my muscles my spiritual muscles so the third stanza is at this point I got into a real deep state of depression and I'm never you know I mean I don't know those clinical depression but I was pretty sad I'd watched my career evaporate to doctoral degrees a master's degree a bachelor's degree all seem now like they would do me no good I couldn't get a job anywhere I was lecturing for USC I was opposed to lecture for a class of them they told me nope I was on I was on advisory panels with people all those organizations cuz no we don't want you the stuff they were putting out about me in the newspapers were so vile so terrible they made a monster out of me and it was so unfair and I'm people who only read a newspaper believed it right you're like an ignorant brutish Christian when in fact the opposite was true that was a very accepting trying hard to help my community serve my community getting paid far less than I would have made if I was in private practice as a doctor trying to actually make a difference in a community so it was depressing but it really got the press after I lost that second job because one of the one of the calls I made initially was to a friend of mine or someone I've known acquaintances who works at the general conference for the general counsel office for the North American division I think and I called them and I said I know this guy from I done church retreats for his church and stuff and I said dude I'm in trouble I need help you know you know they're coming after me and what they're saying isn't true and I don't know how to defend myself and I'll tell you this every time when NPR called me when the TV stations in Los Angeles called me I could have been all over the all over the TV I could have been on national NPR radio I could have been everywhere you know what what God did every time I thought to open my mouth and defend myself he would whisper in my ear like a lamb led to the slaughter is dumb so said he not a word and he said I will fight for you God kept saying that to me do not fight for yourself see the problem a lot of us have as we fight for ourselves we jump up and we want to fight for ourselves and you don't understand well I said be still and know that I am God I will fight for you and if you stop sometimes just let God fight for you God will take care of you but when we jump in and start fighting we don't always fight fair right and fight dirty we want to fight for self and for pride anyway I talked to this guy and he's an attorney would it would anywhere whoever he works for and he said listen doctor they don't distance themselves from me and so I knew it was coming in the next morning in a newspaper of statement was released through SCC Southern California conference which I found out later on Southern California confidence didn't write the statement it was set to them from headquarters as it were and the poor lady whose name was attached to it that actually defended me she showed me the emails she told them don't do this don't write this I've listened to his sermons he's being mischaracterized she actually told them that even a president in the conference I saw his email where he said listen water this down I don't think I don't think you should put on a paper a guy against this guy or about this guy but they put it out and they said listen he doesn't speak for us he's not ordained you know basically saying look whatever he said he's on his own and let him let whatever happened to him happened to him that's sad because the truth of the matter is the issues that were being up issues around creationism issues around spiritualism issues around marriage and family all of those issues are vital issues that the world is looking for who's going to take a stand for God listen when Mitt Romney ran for president he almost he could've brought almost one president probably I was we got the Mormon Church stood for certain things right people attached that to him in a sense you got to stand for something you can't just be afraid and backpedal all the time and so they put that out and that was it I mean at that point I mean the wheels kind of came off I mean I had no support now and and and and I just was I was broken because of Matthew 18 is that it says before you do stuff like that you are inside a church not to talk to each other God does not like discord in his church he does not like the spirit of rebellion in this church it is not like us fighting amongst each other and and going against each other he God does not like that so I was not gonna do that to the church so I've never spoken in word and we'll never speak any word against the church David when Saul was in his full corruption and David could have slayed song slauson's David said no Who am I that I would lay my hand and touch the Lord's anointed and at zyg lag when the messenger came back and said Saul is dead and a messenger lied and said I killed Saul are you would you dare to touch the Lord's anointed well solve a good guy nope but guess what he still was the Lord's anointed because David understood there's a principle in it and what hurt me was had they just called me we could have talked it through and we could have come to an agreement a way to approach it and we would have everybody with a problem better even if they didn't want to defend me just defend what we believe don't you have to defend me I don't need the fencing God will defend me but don't let the world think the church is wishy-washy on creation and on on marriage a little world think the church doesn't know what it believes on those things Psalms that came to my mind and my God my God why hast thou forsaken me why are they so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring oh my god I cry in the daytime but thou here is not and in the night season and am not silent but thou art holy o thou that inhabitants the praises of Israel you know what I learned when you get in trouble praise God when trial comes to you and you're in your crucible experience praise the Lord God inhabits the praise of his people you want to feel God close to you when you're going through trial and difficulty praise his name in the storm you know a lot of folk awaiting for the storm to be over and then nailed then they'll praise Miriam didn't dance and sing until they got on the other side of the Red Sea the reality is it would have been just as fine to praise God on the front side of the Red Sea because God will win the three Hebrew boys give you that don't Dave they said listen we're not worried about what you can do Nebuchadnezzar what they said they said we're not even careful to answer you because our God can deliver us you know I learned in life it is enough that God and he doesn't need to so if I have been and whatever happened to me and I would have my life completely ruined and never rebounded I'm fine with that because God could have delivered me are you understand what I'm saying that means there is no more such thing as a storm the storm can no longer exist when you get the position that the three Hebrew boys had the storm no longer exists because it doesn't matter the storm you trust in God [Music] our fathers trusted indeed they trusted in doubt it's deliver them they cried unto thee and they were and were delivered they trusted in thee and the end were not confounded look what David says I'm a worm in no manner approached him and despised of the people and all they that see me laughed me to scorn remember that he laughed on that event on that on that thing they shoot out the lip they shake their head saying he trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him my favorite bible verse became this one first Kings 19 and verse 4 this is a crazy Bible verse to be a favorite one this one was it I read this all the time but he himself speaking of Elisha went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree and he requested for himself that he might die and said it is enough now O Lord take away my life for I am NOT better than my father's and I would read that and say Lord I am fine if you want to take me now because this is too much to bear I wasn't prideful I wasn't arrogant I wasn't jumping up and down ready to fight anybody I was like Elisha well I got Lord I'm good yeah you know if you want to tell my suicidal but if you want to take me I'm happy to go to sleep in you right now and see you when you come but isn't it interesting Elisha is the only prophet to pray to die and never die I lied to pray that he would die and never die instead chariots of fire came from Elijah chariots came and rescued him for twas Psalm 55 misses well this is one of verse that came to me when the church statement went into the newspaper Psalm 55 twelve war was not an enemy that reproached me then I could have borne it neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me then I would have hid myself from him but it was you a man my equal my guide and my acquaintances but in the spirit of prophecy folk was sending me these Bible verses and spirit of prophecy so these are stuff people sent me otherwise this trouble as times are before us in many instances friends will become alienated without cause men will become our enemies the motives of the people of God will be misinterpreted not only by the world but by their own brethren the Lord servants will be put in hard places a mountain will be made of a molehill to justify men in pursuing a selfish unrighteous course the work that men have done faithfully will be disparaged and underrated because apparent prosperity does not attend their efforts now when I finally the folk came from DC and met with us at White Memorial Church in Los Angeles they had a list of things you know that I shouldn't have said in sermons and and all this kind of stuff and nobody would listen to me didn't want me to speak or and tell them what actually happened and I was really disappointed in the process because the reality is you can allow a process to happen you can be feared I mean there's no harm in that but otherwise says listen you need to expect this if you're going to stand for the principles of God and it will be the people closest to us our own acquaintances that'll turn on us she says she goes on to say if I miss it my misrepresentation these men will be clothed in dark vestments of dishonesty because circumstances beyond their control made their work perplexing they would be pointed to as men that cannot be trusted and this will be done by members of the church she says God servants must arm themselves with the mind of Christ they must not expect to escape insult and misjudgment they will be called enthusiasts and fanatics but let them not become discouraged look at this last line God's hands on the wheel of his Providence guiding his work to the glory of his name God's hand is on the wheel of Providence God is in control and yes you will be misinterpreted you will be viewed as evil and as an enemy but I when I saw that I said well I'm gonna ride this thing she also says when the religion of Christ is most held in contempt I like this one this is from the testimonies when the religion of Christ is most held in contempt when his law is most despised then should our zeal be the warmest and our courage and firmness the most unflinching to stand in defense of truth and righteousness when the majority forsake us to fight the battles of the Lord when champions are few this will be our test look at this last part she says at this time we must gather warmth from the coldness of others courage from their cowardice and loyalty from their treason when I read this something stirred up inside of me and I realized that how I responded to what the church put in the paper was gonna be very important and people started to call me and tell me look they're not sending their tithe then no more folks that they leave in a seventh-day Adventist Church and I said don't you do it I said don't you leave the chair don't you hold your tithes back and you know I told them that I said because you want to make a decision like that you make it about your own self in your own life don't use me as an excuse to do nothing like that don't you do it because that's not that's not where God has led me I know time tough times they're gonna come for the church but the spirit of prophecy told me what was going to happen now that white shows us that the difficult times are going to come and I like the last line she says when this happens you supposed to gather warmth from the coldness of others so the more the more to ignore me the more I got disinvited to stuff I got the warmth from that the more cowardly it seemed that everybody's running and hiding and trying not to be politically incorrect I got courage from that and the more treasonous everyone became I said you know what I'm gonna be more loyal to the Church of the Living God to God's remnant Church despite the fact that they're true treasonous and let me show you why the church the noble ship and what God showed me this dot as a church upon the earth who are his chosen people who keep his Commandments he is leading that straight offshoots not one here and one there but a people there's no need to doubt to be fearful that the work will not succeed God is at the head of the work and he will set everything in order if matters need adjusting at the head of the work God will attend to that and work to right every wrong let us have faith that God is going to carry the noble ship which bears the people of God safely to port and when I read that I realized I can't jump ship because there are young people who are looking for an excuse to jump ship they're dying for a reason to leave the church and if I go and I bash the church and I talk about about the church those people's eternity they don't know what I know their eternity is going to be in jeopardy and so I said no I'm going to preach and I've got called to preach and give my testimony and I go around and I tell young people you stay in the ship you stay in the ship because Christ is the captain of the ship and God is going to leave Ellen White says he will lead this ship to port so I believe that he will leave this ship to port the fourth stanza is the cleft of the rock so at this point I don't know where I'm gonna work I'm in trouble Georgia's reneged on me by now I've had to find attorneys but I'll come back around to that in a second and I'm no longer with Pasadena now I am Jamaican so I always have at least four jobs so I was so I was moonlighting got an urgent care I was pastoring at the church you know so I had a couple other gigs that I was doing so I was able to continue to to work you know I mean that was never I was actually in this whole process I was never actually unemployed I think got good but I didn't have a career job and I didn't have a main job job with benefits and so I am I am was at my friend Derek's house and we were sitting on his couch and he said what are you gonna do you don't have a job and I turned to my said you know when I was a faculty at loma linda i got a call and the the Adventist clinic in Guam asked me to come and work for them yes you know I want to go to Guam would be a missionary he's like what church would in 30 minutes I got an email from the physician recruiter of the Guam seventh-day Adventist clinic dr. Walsh we would love to have you come to Guam and work in the Adventist clinic within 30 minutes but in six weeks I was licensed and everything and by August this all started in May so was that the last day of April first day of May is when the first newspaper stories hit by now it's them probably like late May but by August by July I was in Guam full-time benefited working in a missionary clinic and let me tell you it was annexed our philanthropic of mother pride I told God and I told him even when I was in Guam I'm done preaching Lord I quit as a lord if this is what preaching does I quit I'll teach Sabbath school somewhere I'll happily help out of church but I'm not gonna be the I'm not going to front doing this stuff no more but of course by the time my year in Guam was over I'd preached that almost all of the eight churches on the island did camp meeting in Saipan you know did a week of prayer for the clinic so you know that didn't last very long but that was when I'm still reading that verse out of first Kings 19 to verse 4 but God brought me back into the preaching work and and we were able to do great work on that they still they're doing that work you know the Tomorrow People the native people of that island called Guam they call it the rock and I was reminded a son says he hide it's my soul in the cleft of the rock and he hit me in the rock church literally I was able on the other side of the world to a tropical paradise suburban neighborhood some more footage neighborhoods in my life boy it was awesome I was snorkeling and carrying on and hiking up tropical mountains and picking fruit off the tree and eating it I was having a good time because you know what God does for us he gives you a respite God understands how much you can bear he will always give you a break it give you a chance to catch your breath you put you on the bench for a minute so you can hydrate before he puts you back in the game God is a good God he thinks about these things and he put me in a place where I was safe and I loved it and this is some of the Psalms unto the old Lord do I lift up my soul oh my god I trust in thee let me not be ashamed let not mine enemies triumph over me yea none that wait on thee be ashamed let them be ashamed which transgress without cause remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness sake my eyes are ever toward the Lord for he shall pluck my feet out of the net turn thee unto me and have mercy upon me for I am desolate and afflicted the troubles of my heart are enlarged they'll bring thou me out of my de-stresses look upon my affliction in my pain and forgive all my sins and David says this consider mine enemies for they are many and they hate me with true hatred Oh keep my soul and deliver me let me not be ashamed for I put my trust in thee that integrity and uprightness preserved me for I wait on thee look at verse 22 redeem Israel O God out of all his troubles while I was there is when I actually went before I left actually to go to Guam I call from many religious liberty law firms and so there are bunch of them in the country one of them is based up here in Washington state actually Pacific Justice Institute a thing they're called something like that and they called and they actually wanted a public records request act for the state of Georgia and they called me back and said listen you've got a case this is this was plain and simple religious discrimination they basically didn't hire you or fired you because they didn't like your religious beliefs and that's that's against the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America and I didn't I didn't agree to go with them and I prayed about I said Lord how do I know who it is that I'm supposed to go with and when I proper a specific prayer sailor so whoever is gonna come they're not gonna just call me cuz I was getting calls so they're gonna be willing to fly to where I'm at and they're gonna take me to lunch be specific and sure enough I got a call from Dallas Texas from a group a group called first Liberty and I think not even their first Liberty Institute the first Liberty and they are based out of Dallas Texas Jeremy dice great guy he called me and said myself and wanted to lead attorneys for the organization we want to fly to California and sit down and talk to you over lunch and it wasn't about food but it was about specificity because I knew that this is a serious battle and we went to Glendale we went it out in the mall in Glendale and we sat and i gave them my store and they couldn't believe it and then I said and I have a tape on my floor that I have recorded on my phone when they called me to tell me they weren't giving me the job in Georgia and and they were laughing at me they said what and I played it for them to my fall on it and I said we got to get a copy of that so they we don't know how to do it but I did not afford to message so they just played it and recorded it and I ended up losing and fortunately we had recorded it you know they told me on the spot I said whenever God wants us to take a case there's always some quirky piece of evidence that lets us know we're going to win the case he said there's always a quirk indeed the guy was like this is for sure he's like you don't have to worry there's always a weird piece of evidence like this that's so that we know that we're gonna win the case and they were happy to sign me up and of course you know what the legal system so it's hurry up and wait we went to the EEOC and file the thing and you know it was under the Obama administration at the time I don't know if that would have made a difference but they rejected it and I was ready to quit I said look this I've had enough cuz every time is like so actually you know when we were ready to file that to the heels soon EEOC I have to fly to Atlanta sit in one of the attorneys offices and go on on TV all over again my name's all over the place and you know then the haters come out to bash you and all the comments say you know there are a lot of cowards in this country now the Internet has created a whole generation or a whole subculture of cowards who hide behind their computers and they talk like big stuff they wouldn't say nothing to you in your face but they hide behind their computer and bash people and so every time I'd come in you know they'd start all over again and so if we did it for the EEOC and when they said we're gonna do this against it I don't know when Inc when they reject it as I don't know if I really want to do this and you know what they said they said your denomination hires pastors and gives them benefits he said not every denomination is like that many denominations thereby vocational like you were dr. Walsh you were working as a doctor in a government job and you were pastoring on the weekend he said many of the denominated Sunday churches in this country that's how they have pastors he said if you don't fight this many of those pastors will be lose their job on Sunday because their job on Monday through Friday because of something they said on Sunday he said you've got to stand up and when I opened my mouth to respond to them I'll never forget I said in a conference room table in Bakersfield California so they flew out again to meet up with me and I said what came out of my mouth was second Timothy 1:7 for God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind now mark I to explain to these guys the market of beasts I'd explained it on the Sabbath they wanted to know what we believe and why so I mean I was there giving them Bible studies you know not like not in the formal sense but you know we talked with different ones of them about these things and different people so God opened it up and later on God even showed me he said listen all this attention that you got all the hatred sent against you all the love that so many people had for you has driven people to listen to sermons and many of them have listened to your sermons even people who the people who hate you on Judgment Day many of them God told me they will be without excuse because they would have listened just for all students to do what they did to me they had to listen to at least 12 13 hours with the sermons dad to because they just need the spirit out of context things that they took they have to listen tons and tons of sermons to do that so God said don't worry the word even in this God's Word cannot go out void then I go out and come back void so don't worry anyway so we said we're gonna do that and I said oh man and this thing was tough and of course this last round now I'll give you another piece of the of the testimony so once I was done in Guam I needed to come back to the United States of course and I didn't know where I was gonna work I didn't have a job in the States I started talking to one of my friends and she was on the board of a Christian federally qualified health center in Riverside California and I became before I even left while I was CMO of that clinic chief medical officer and it was a part-time no benefit job so I came back I started working with them and I started moonlighting elsewhere so yeah I'm Jamaican so you know I work and when what you know after a while is him and this is too much I'm all over the place working I'm driving a Bakersfield moonlighting and everything and I said lord I need a job with benefits I could be in one place cuz I can't driving around Southern California is enough to drive anybody crazy and so so I said Lord show me show me will show me where to work and I and I said Lord I mean this much money and I sat down I rode out to the decimal point how much money I needed to make and I said Lord whoever will give me that much money to start the job I'll know that's where you want me and they'll take me to lunch that was the other thing and I was moonlighting it sounds crazy I was moonlighting in Bakersfield the CEO and the CMO of the of the of the company I work for now call me and said listen we need leadership we need someone to run our urgent care and some other things and join our executive team and they said listen we want to take you to lunch and we want to discuss this let me tell what's interesting I've never even told on what I was asking for never made a salary request they wrote down on a piece of paper how much they would pay me and slid it across the table and it was the exact number to the decimal point exact number and that's one money ask me how do you want up in Bakersfield that's I want up in Vegas so let me take some church trust God okay so he would he David said I was young and now I am old I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread trust God for what you need he'll take care of you and so long story short I was working in so of course now when we when the lawyers go to re start the whole thing guess what happens it's back in the paper now my job in Bakersfield finds out they didn't know all of this stuff it happened to me in Pasadena biggest they were you know they just googled media to seed it all and so you know the CEO of the company calls me into our office not because I'm back in the papers and stuff and their Christian papers this time the bullet publicity is farmer and on to the political right though see before I was getting bass from the left now the political right is coming to my defense because like the scripture says God says I will fight for you so now I've got people fighting for me I'm not five not even going on radio programs of defending myself the attorneys are doing that for me right so I'm able to just work in ignore the whole thing and just pray about it and she caught me into office I said oh man this is gonna start all over again but she's a Christian she respected my stand she had been beat up by the media before and she was and I said isn't God good he just protects us and sends us where we need to be and so in November of 2016 now I was having my morning devotion and I'm I was reading and I just started and I went down my knees to pray and I just started to cry to God I said Lord I'm tired now so we're going on for over two years is still a case going on and lord I really want this behind me I want this done while I was praying my phone vibrated and you know so what I was done prayer and I want to check the text my my attorney one of my attorneys in Dallas and every time they call it text my heart goes into my throat because I'm assuming their give me some horrible news and and so I called him back and he said listen dr. Walsh they want to go to mediation I know what that means but you know the good lawyers you gotta you gotta make sure they're not speaking some extra layer of Legally so I said what does that mean he said they may want to settle he said I can't promise you but they may want to settle this case we may not even have to go to trial I'll ask them many times before why won't they settle when there was when would that public records request act the evidence I mean I looked through the emails and stuff it was all about me being a Christian about me having certain Christian beliefs and about people who didn't want someone with those beliefs in office that's literally I mean it was it was very blatant in my opinion and I'm so I said why would they settle he said no the state of Georgia has a policy they don't settle they fight they have an army of lawyers full time so there's no reason for them not to fight okay he said they want to settle and so I got on my knees I mean I just gotten off my knees and I said to I said to the attorney I said I had just been praying I just finished praying asking God to get this thing to finish he said well God answered your prayer yesterday because the call came from the state of Georgia yesterday and so I'm just calling you this morning because of the time difference and I didn't want to call you while you were at work or to later whatever he said and you know what the Spirit of God the description that came to me before you call he will answer I hadn't even reached the point of Tears and frustration yet and God had already sent the answer to my tears and within six weeks we were in Atlanta again in the mediators office going through the whole process now you know me I get there and I'm all afraid I'm like okay I've watched all these you know lost shows on TV everybody's all serious my attorneys are laughing and joking they go off a jogs in the morning I'm fasting and praying be serious and we get there in the mediators friendly listen now Sandler this is weird it's not like on TV and so then they're like you gotta go over to the other room so they have you in separate rooms and this is how antiquated the system is they have pass a piece of paper between the two rooms with offers they have a computerized app program or something for that so you know we're sitting there and we pray argue that's the beautiful thing about having good Christian lawyers we're an Adventist buddy we're good Christian lawyers and we prayed and uh and and and they said well you the doctor walk you're gonna we're gonna have to go to this other room and face this all of the people from the state of Georgia all the attorneys and everyone and accountants in all kinds of people were there I said don't really want to do it but okay and they bring in a room with this super long table I mean it looked like it was 40 feet long I'm sure it wasn't that long and they line up on one side we line up on the other side they said doctor walks do you want to say anything this silence thing has been working pretty good for me so far I'm not about to start talking now I'm good let my attorneys handle this and my terms of this was a public thing the way you disparage them it was on the news you've ruined his career and Wow yeah and you know so when we were done with that part I went back over you know they'd said their partner when we went back to our room the first offer they sent over was six figures six figures and my attorneys I better go dance a jig and I said what is that well you know why are you guys so happy they're like if this is the first offer they came today to settle he said dr. Walsh it's over and i sat there the paper went back and forth and back and forth and the number doubled by the time we were finished and and um at the end they said is there anything else you want this is their final offer and my attorney very smart guy he said we want an apology and I said yeah we want my apology he said all right we'll take that back overs and he walked over to the other side and asked for an apology and a guy came I said sorry they won't give an apology but they'll give an X to $25,000 so that they don't have to apologize and that's how it ended just like that and what was interesting is the mediator came to me after and said listen I love your preaching he said I preach too he said I love your preaching keep preaching the truth the mediator said that one of the attorneys for the other side came the truck came when we were praying came one to come join us in prayer when I went into the room and met all of them they the people were so for all every one of their attorneys and hi dr. wells pleasure to meet you they were all so friendly to me you know what that's the pastor scripture God gave me God be said I will prepare for you a table in the presence of your enemies and that was it just like that the psalm says alike just plead my cause O Lord with them that strive with me fight against them that fight against me take hold of shield and buckler and stand up for mine help draw on also the spear and stop the way against them that persecute me santé my soul I am thy salvation let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul let them be turned back and brought to confusion that divides my hurt like I told you I did not wish evil on anyone I will not wish evil on anyone because I don't want that I don't want that energy and me right I'd rather pray that they come to know Jesus Christ I'd rather take my energy and pray for folk than the wish evil on folk because guess what if God treated me like I want to treat them I have done God wrong right instead he loves me and wants to bring me homes I'm praying for folk who don't like me I'll pray for folk who hate me I will pray for you because I am a child of a God and forgives and my Bible tells me in the Lord's Prayer that Jesus says forgive forgive my trespasses even Lord as I forgive the trespasses of others against me right so I gotta forgive you if I'm gonna be forgiven so I I have a mantra around that and it let me tell you what that does for you because somebody in here needs this word it liberates you when you can forgive the people who hurt you you're liberated you hold on to that pain and you are in Chains to the person for the rest of your life but I was so glad not to die and it's interesting because the head of the State Department of Health the lady who ran it who was who well you know ultimately was you know by this default she would would take culpability for a lot of what happened she went under the Trump administration to lead the Centers for Disease Control and she got she had to resign because she bought stock in the tobacco company you can't run the Centers for Disease Control and to invest in tobacco I'm not sure if you check the latest news on the effects of tobacco but isn't that interesting and I know again I didn't wish I still know I mean I hope she does well she's a brilliant woman but you know I hope everything works out well for her but you don't you know you don't have God will take care of what he needs to take care of you don't you don't have to go and get revenge on folk you're not the wish revenge on people let God deal with what needs to be done well because guess what God's got a crucible for all of us and maybe one is their crucible turn they're the growth that they get will help them to be saved let them be as chaff before the wind and let the angel of the Lord chase them but there may be dark and slippery and let the angel of the Lord persecute them now David doesn't sound like he is very forgiving here but for without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit and without cause they have digged for my soul let them not say in their hearts ah so we would have it let them not say we have swallowed them up let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice in my hurt at my hurt let them be clothed with shame and dishonor that magnified themselves against me let them shout for joy and be glad that favor my righteous cause Halon let them say continually let the Lord be magnified which have pleasure in the prosperity of his servant I want to read the rest of 2nd Timothy 4:16 and my first answer no man stood with me but all men for suddenly I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me that by me the preaching might be fully known and all and that all the Gentiles might hear and I was delivered out of the mouth of the line who stood with Paul the Lord did and what you got to understand like the three Hebrew boys is if you go into the fire Jesus comes in with you and that's the experience I had I listened my relationship with God grew a thousandfold because in the crucible of the experience I went through I had to get to know God for real not intellectually due doctrine and and through you know form as we talked about this morning not because I've studied the Bible in them and the spirit of for I have to get to know him on a personal level I had to call on his name and know that he heard me you get what I'm saying I could it couldn't just be an intellectual exercise it had to be my soul touching he saw his heart and him reaching in and and comforting me in a very practical sense go read a couple more passages I already did a victory party hold I have refined you but not a silver I have tested you in the furnace of affliction isaiah 40:8 and verse 10 the furnace fires are not to destroy but to refine in noble sanctifying without trial we would not feel so much our need of God and His help and it would become proud and self-sufficient in the trials that come to us we should see the evidences that the Lord's eye is upon us and that he means to draw us to himself it is not the hole but the wounded who need a physician it is those who are pressed almost beyond the point of endurance who need a helper the fact that we are called upon to endure trial prove that the Lord sees something in us very precious which He desires to develop if he saw in us nothing whereby he might glorify his name he would not spend time in refining us we do not take special pains in pruning brambles Christ does not cast worthless stones into his furnace it is valuable or that he tests the blacksmith puts the iron and steel into the fire that he may know what manner of metal they are the Lord allows his chosen ones to be placed in the furnace of affliction in order that he may see what temper they are of and whether he can mould and fashion them for his work and maybe that much work needs to be done in your character building that you are a rough stone which must be squared and polished before it can fill a place in God's temple you need not be surprised if with chisel and Hammer God cuts away the sharp corners of your carrot until you are prepared to fulfill the place he has for you no human being can accomplish this work only by God can it be done and be assured that he will not strike one useless blow his every blow is struck in love for your eternal happiness he knows her infirmities and works to restore not to destroy when trial arise that seemed unexplainable like they were for me we should not allow our piece to be spoiled however unjustly we may be treated let not passion arise by indulging a spirit of retaliation we injure ourselves we destroy our own confidence in God and grieve the Holy Spirit there is by our side a witness a heavenly messenger who will lift up for us a standard against the enemy he will shut us in with the bright beams of the Sun of righteousness beyond this look at this beyond this Satan cannot penetrate he cannot pass this Shield of Holy Light whatever happens to you God allows it I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my supplications last few pieces otherwise as God has a purpose and sending trial to his children he never leads them otherwise then they would choose to be led if they could see the end from the beginning and discern the glory of the purpose they are fulfilling she says it is the triumph of the Christian faith that it enables its followers to suffer and be strong to submit and to conquer she says do not dishonor God with words of repining but praise him with heart and soul and voice look on the bright side of everything do not bring a cloud or a shadow into your home praise Him who is the light of your countenance and your God do this and see how smoothly everything will go last two slides Lord be gracious to us we have waited for you be there arm every morning our salvation also in the time of trouble the assaults of Satan are fierce and determined his delusions are terrible but the Lord's eye is upon his people and his err listens to their cries their affliction is great the flames of the furnace seemed about to consume them but the refiner will bring them forth as gold tried in the fire Dodd's love for his children during the period of their service Severus trial is as strong and tender as in the days of their sunniest prosperity but it is needful for them to be placed in the furnace of fire their earthliness must be consumed that the image of Christ may be perfectly reflected the last slide it was the one this was one of the verses that most helped me and I'm gonna leave you with this one Matthew 5 10 through 12 when I was going through this at first when those first articles came out in the path unistart news and in at times someone sent Matthew 5 10 through 12 to me blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were

Channel: Countryside Sabbath Fellowship

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Length: 85min 3sec (5103 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 06 2018