Herb Reavis "Defeating Discouragement" 3-22-17

much for allowing me to be a part of this and I've been so blessed thing I've received the blessing from the great worship from the fellowship but the preaching of the word of God I I'm a preacher but man I need preaching and this is this has been a rich experience for me pastor thank you for having me I'm going to ask you to take your Bibles and turn with me in the Old Testament to the book of Judges the book of Judges chapter seven judges chapter seven and I'm going to begin to read in verse 9 and I want to speak this morning on this subject defeating discouragement the feeding discouragement from the book of Judges chapter 7 and verse 9 and it says in judges chapter 7 and verse 9 it happened on the same night that the Lord said to him arise go down against the camp for I have delivered it into your hand but if you're afraid to go down go down to the camp with pora your servant and you shall hear what they say and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp then he went down with Perea servant to the outpost of the armed men who were in the camp now the Midianites and Amalekites and all the people of the east were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts and their camels were without number as the sand of the seashore and multitude and when Gideon had come there was a man telling a dream to his companion and he said I've had a dream to my surprise a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and it came to a tent and it struck it so that it fell and overturned and the tent collapsed then his companion answered and said this is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of joash a man of Israel into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp and so it was when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation that he worships he returned to the camp of Israel and said arise for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hands let's pray together dear God I ask you to put your words in my mouth your thoughts in my mind and I pray God that I'll elevate you and Lord Jesus that I'll lift you up Holy Spirit empower me to lift up Christ Lord I pray that even through the evening hour you'll continue to awaken the loss to their lostness I pray that you'll continue to shake up the backslider so that they can get things right and I pray O God through this message that you will give hope to some servant of God that's getting ready to throw in the towel and I'll give you the praise Lord in Jesus name I pray amen Gideon is one of the great heroes of the Bible he never really saw himself as a hero even though he's listed in God's Hall of faith in the book of Hebrews chapter 11 we first find him mentioned in the sixth chapter of Judges for seven years the Midianites had invaded the land of Israel and they would take the freshly harvested crops the best livestock generally terrorized the people and so the people lived in constant poverty and want and in constant fear and cried out to God for someone to bring them deliverance and God set aside Gideon for that task we find him in the sixth chapter of Judges threshing grain in the bottom of the winepress the angel of the Lord appears to him and says o gideon thou mighty man of Valor I believe you probably looked around thought it must be somebody else here named Gideon I'm not a mighty man of Valor I'm just a poor farmer and I'm hiding from Midianites in the bottom of this I'm pressed just hoping to conserve a little bit of this grain we've harvested so my family don't starve to death and the Lord had to convince him that he was the man and it took some convincing and you know that's really the kind of person God can use because listen God doesn't just see what your God sees what you can be with the touch of His grace and God delights in using folks who have no confidence in the flesh who aren't going to depend on their personal charisma talents or gifts but they cast themselves on the mercy of God and say God if there's gonna be anything come out of this it's gonna have to be you doing what only you can do through me God gave him a strange army God reduced it from 10,000 down to 300 men whose sole qualification was how they lapped up water God was going to give them some strange weapons not swords and spears but trumpets and earthen vessels to concealed torches and and they were going to have a battle shout it just was an unusual situation 300 men who weren't battle tested and never men to military boot camp up against a hundred and thirty-five thousand Midianites out there in the valley who were fighting men and in fighting form if there's anybody in the Bible who had a reason to be discouraged thinking about what God had called him to it was this man Gideon God was calling him to what seemed like an impossible task and sometimes it weighs on me the task God's given to us to go into all the world and preach the gospel I don't know how it is at 10 where you are but a lot of folks in Jacksonville don't want to hear the gospel they they that you preach the gospel to them but it seems like you're throwing a tennis ball in a concrete wall and it's bouncing back at you and then you are called by God to preach the word and to preach it in season and out of season not compromise but to preach the truth and you preach the truth as if people are repulsed by that and the church down the street that's growing is the guy that's all touchy-feely and everybody talks how nice he is and you're going I'm doing exactly what God's telling me to do it seems like an impossible task and then and then what we got to work with he got 300 men who lap apart like a dog laps up water and that's who he's got to work with and go fight 135,000 Midianites and we got a church full of folks they've got to be babied and burped that are in and out up and down and we're supposed to take this small group of people in charge hail with a Bible shake the world with the gospel of Christ if you get to thinking about this thing and looking at this thing and listening to the negativity of people who have the gift of discouragement that say it's enough to make you want to quit it's enough to make you want to quit Joseph Parker the great british preacher said that gideon is one of those men who needed constant encouragement and i'm just gonna be honest with you i'm one of those men who need constant encouragement now this is what i found in my life after all these years if you're waiting for somebody else to encourage you you never going to get encouragement the Bible says David encouraged himself in the Lord and I believe that every believer has to learn how to encourage themselves if they're gonna stay in this work if you're gonna finish the race if you're gonna if you're gonna fall into the arms of Jesus someday having crossed that finish line so I just this morning want to give you three truths from these scriptures that constantly encourage me they constantly encouraged me first of all I am encouraged by the several promises of God I'm encouraged by the settled promises of God now the Lord more than once promised Gideon that he was going to succeed in defeating the Midianites for instance in judges chapter 6 and verse 14 God said to him you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites and then he says in verse 16 of the sixth chapter you shall defeat the Midianites as one man and then over here in the seventh chapter in verse seven it says I will save you and deliver the Midianites into your hand and then the Bible says God gives him a promise again he says arise in verse nine go down against the camp for I have delivered it into your hand let me tell you God's Word is settled and God's Word is true but our faith is weak and faith comes by hearing and constantly hearing the Word of God and if you go stay encouraged you've got to be constantly fixing your heart on the settled promises of God so no matter what your circumstances say what matters is what God says because what God says is the truth no matter what and the Bible says the Lord is your Shepherd and you shall not lack and the Bible says that you're not the tail you're the head and the Bible says that no weapon that's fashioned against you is going to succeed the Bible says if God is for you who's going to begin to you Bible says that God hadn't given you a spirit of fear but a spirit of power and the sound mind and Bible says nothing can separate you from the love of God and the Bible says that Jesus said lo I am with you always and I will never leave you and I'll never forsake you and David said I've been a young man and now I'm an old man but I've never seen God's seed begging bread Paul said my God shall supply all my need according to his riches and what I do to encourage myself when I get a little discouraging word I just begin to listen to the Word of God because in the Word of God over and over and over and over and over again it says everything is gonna be alright if you'll just stay in the center of God's will and do whatever it is that God's called you to do and God said over and over and over to him I know there's a hundred thirty-five thousand of them and I've whittled this thing down to three hundred you because I'm gonna get all the glory in this endeavor but I'm telling you that the battle has already been won and they're already defeated before you ever fire a shots the settled promises of God encouraged me there's a second thing that encourages me constantly and that's the sovereign plan of God the sovereign plan of God some call it Providence and I believe in the Providence of God I don't believe things are happening by chance in fate I don't believe in that I believe that we're a part of a divine plan as one old preacher said we are golden links in a divine chain of Providence I believe that God's got a plan that he's working out in this world and we all a part of that plan and I believe that nothing can stop the plan of God I believe God's kingdom is coming I believe that Jesus will sit on the throne I believe that every true believer in Christ is not only justified but gonna be glorified I believe we will stand on the shores of sleep deliverance one day in total victory I believe that souls are going to continue to get saved I believe life is filled with divine appointments I mean you see it in the New Testament Jesus is walking through Jericho and he stops at a tree not just any tree a tree and there's a man up in the top of that tree in Jesus knew that at the moment that he got to the base of that tree that man was in the top of the tree because that was a divine providential encounter that's Providence and Jesus says Zacchaeus come down I'm going home to eat lunch with you and Zacchaeus got saved it was a divine appointment I mean the Bible says in John 4 that Jesus must needs go through Samaria I mean he wasn't there by accident chance what some call mistakenly faint he was there waiting on that woman when she got there to say to her ma'am could you give me a drink of water and by the way if you drink the water out of that well you'll first again but if you drink the water that I give you you never thirst and the woman was gloriously saved Paul and Silas in jail they weren't jail backs Adia got all beat up and they probably wonder what's the purpose of God in this there's a jailer at home sound asleep God sends an earthquake when they begin to praise the Lord everything turns around as oh the doors pop open and the chains fall away and that Philippi jailor knell under Holy Ghost conviction comes in there and says sirs what must I do to be safe and he gets safe and then his whole family gets say that's Providence so you see I've learned as a minister of the gospel I don't have to manipulate because you can't manipulate anybody into true salvation and when I preach the gospel if not one soul responds visibly to the invitation I've done exactly what God wanted me to do I planted the seed because divine providence says God gives the results have folks in our church they'll come up to me you know over the years they brother just preached it just preached your heart out and I just feel so bad nobody came this morning I got up not long ago and told him I was preaching along these lines I said don't worry about me I'm gonna get up here and do what God's called me to do and that's preach the truth and then I've planted the seed and if and I just want you not to feel bad because if not one so visibly responds I'm going to tell you what I'm gonna do we're gonna say Amen I'm going down the street to customer is and eat Mexican food and I'm gonna go home and take a nap and I'm coming back tonight to preach the Word of God again because one sews another waters but God gives God gives the results and let me just say this not to take a detour but one of the reasons that our church roles are just bogged down with a bunch of folks that's never gotten saved is we saw numbers hungry that were out there just easy believe isms just get down here and sign on the dotted line and I'm telling you brother I believe in whosoever will may come and that Jesus died for the whole wide world but I'm telling you nobody's gonna get saved unless the Holy Spirit of the Living God calls them and convicts them and they from their heart under conviction place their faith in Christ and experience a new birth so I'm a seed so that's all God's called me to do what listen when that little lad gave Jesus is lunch Jesus is the one that produced the miracle and multiplied the loaves and fishes and then the disciples just went out there and handed it out do you understand listen I'm not in the manufacturing end of it I'm in the distribution end of it Jesus is the one that brings about the miracle I'm just out given up just one beggar give another folks bread and telling them how to come to Christ so all through the Bible we find this idea of divine providence and we see it right here that's what the Lord tells it the Lord says here here here's I'm giving you a promise again but if you still haven't if you're still struggling with this I want you to go down to the camp of the Midianites and I want you to eavesdrop because you're gonna hear something that's gonna give you so much encouragement it's gonna seal the deal for you even though you only got 300 men up against a hundred thirty five thousand fear is gonna fade and you're gonna have confidence and you're gonna go forth and so this is what he does with his servant they sneak down there by that camp and they overhear a conversation between two of the enemy and one of them is telling his friend about a dream he had he says in verse 13 when Gideon had come there was a man telling a dream to his companion I want you to see this this will bless you he said I had a dream and he says to my surprise a loaf of barley bread now that's what poor folks ate and it looked like a little dried up biscuits he said a loaf of barley bread a biscuit tumbled into the camp of Midian and it came to and in the Hebrew it's not a it's thee it came to the tents it's talking about the tent of the general the commander-in-chief it came to V tent and struck it so that it fell over it overturned and the tent collapsed so a barley biscuit rolled into the camp hit the generals tent and flattened it like it was a missile fired from a submarine the Bible says in verse 14 then his companion answered and said this is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of joash a man of Israel into his hand this is the enemy talking folks God has dead livered million and the whole camp you see the barley biscuit in the dream the man realizes that's Gideon and through Gideon God's gonna flatten their army and I got to study in that hell could a little biscuit roll into camp and overturn that tent well friend there was no strength in the biscuit but there was almighty power in the arm that flung that biscuit in there friend I'm telling you it's like God went bowling man he's gonna take Gideon and I mean we flung that biscuit in there and that biscuits gonna hit something with such power it's gonna flip so what Gideon realizes is there's an unseen hand of Providence that's at work in this world and that's why sometimes you just never know when you're having a divine appointment you remember when a few years ago the whole economy just tanked and like one week I mean just everybody's losing their job I felt me talk about discouragement I thought if I had one more church member come and tell me they've lost their job I'm about you know I'm gonna have a nervous breakdown here and I was preaching along the lines of trying to give folks hope from John 14 and I went to get some gas one night and I was at the gas station your self-service there and it's dark shadows and in Jacksonville you know we got a lot of crime violent crime so you kind of when you're in the in the dark in a gas station you kind of you know you're keeping your eyes open well suddenly just out of the darkness this man stepped and he said pastor Revis I said yes he said well I've been coming to your church so we kind of sit up in the balcony and he said I just lost my job I didn't see it coming and my wife saw you pull in here and so I just need to talk to you so just just give him it let me finish pumping the gas I finished pumping the gas and I put it in there and I began to encourage him and tell him God's make away when there seems to be no way began to give him promises from the Word of God told him I was going to be praying for him and so we just prayed right there behind my car - gas station we just we just had prayer right there and I didn't realize but the guy getting gas on the other side he is over there he was pumping gas and he was listening to what we said and as he was pulling out he stopped that God just prayed with he said I just moved to this side of town and I heard you guys praying over there I've been looking for a church could you recommend one sure Nour Jacksonville Baptist Church that's the preacher see folks it's divine appointments man you see I'm not one of these guys like you are in these church growth conferences they got all these plans there I'm not gonna have one creative bone in my body all I know to do is just preach worship God set your sails and let God take you where he wants to take you but I'm finding brother he's arranging my schedule to have me at the right place at the right time you see what God's doing he's he's missing with the minds of the enemy he's psyching them out before Gideon even gets up on that mountain they start blowing of trumpets God's blowing their minds the battle is the Lord's no wonder they don't need swords and spears those men are terrified before they ever get up there to do what God's telling them to do I was preaching one Sunday and gave the invitation during the invitation I just said now you know what the devil won't tell you not to get saved but sometimes he'll come and he'll whisper in your ear this he won't tell you not to get saved he'll just say well you need to wait because he knows if you wait long enough you'll die and go to hell or Jesus will come and you'll be left behind and gave the invitation left went home next Tuesday I was gonna fly out to Fort Smith Arkansas and I was gonna preach at a church I'd never preached it before in Lavaca First Baptist Church Levac Arkansas and it's I don't know if I'd ever hardly ever ever flown on American Airlines always flying on Delta so I go out there on a Tuesday morning and I walk up to the podium and my boarding pass and when I hand it to the guy he looks up and when he sees me he seems a little startled he has a funny look on his face it didn't say anything take my boarding pass and I get on well that's that all about so I'm on there I'm sitting there just waiting it's about half-full people climbing on cramming all their stuff up in the overheads you know and all of a sudden this hair American Airlines representative he gets on the plane the guy that looked at me funny and he's walking and he's looking at me and then I'm going must be an emergency you know something's happened at home they're trying to catch me before this plane takes off he stops right beside me people having to climb over him and he says are you the pastor at noir Jacksonville Baptist Church I said yes sir well then I really got concerned he said I thought that was you he said I was at your church Sunday morning sitting in the balcony and he said when you said that thing there that at the end that the devil will tell you to wait that's what I did he said I did exactly what you said and he said when I looked up and saw you standing there this morning I said this is no coincidence and I said sir it is not a coincidence I said the Holy Spirit's calling you God wants to save you man but it's time the planes just about full I said could we talk Thursday I'll be back he said too sure we made an appointment and so then the planes full were getting ready to take off I'm all ready take off all strapped in here he comes again everybody's looking this guy he walks down to me and I'm just sitting there and he says listen preacher he says I got so blessed Cindy could I offer you a seat up there in first-class well man you know I knew there was a place up there but they draw the curtains when you take off it's like the Holy of Holies you know you can't see what's going on I said absolutely man I got my overhead down I walked brother down that aisle looking like man I'm somebody I walked up there I got strapped in they gave me a menu what we're gonna eat they gave me the whole coke in a glass to pour it in when it was time to eat put a little linen thing on the table in his house Florence at West I thought many place to serve Jesus hallelujah brother he will meet your need in that next Thursday he came to my office and sitting write and share in front of my desk he bowed his head and he asked Jesus Christ to be his personal Lord and Savior and when all that was said and done you know what I thought about divine providence I thought about how God moved on the heart of a preacher in Arkansas to schedule me to speak on a Tuesday night and how the only way I could get there was to get on an American Airlines flight in Jacksonville Florida and God engineered the circumstances of that lost sinner to have him there to hear what I said and then God worked it out so he was standing on one side of the podium when I walked up to the podium and in that moment God brought it all together and I'm constantly encouraged by the sovereign plan of God God's got a plan let me tell you this I'm constantly encouraged by the sure presence of God the sure presence of God settled promises of God encouraged me sovereign plan of God encouraged me but the but the shore presence of God now once he hears this dream and it dawns on him man this battle is over it's over God's got it all sewed up the Bible says in verse 15 that Gideon worshiped you see worship is an acknowledgment of the presence of God that's what worship is and he realizes God is with me in these present and he's here and he's at work so when we gather together and we worship we're acknowledging that the unseen God is on the premises and he's alive and he's working in our behalf the worship is also an appreciation of the presence of God and in those moments when he hears that dream he appreciates the fact that God's out there in the front fighting his people that God has a plan and that I don't have to be strong because he's strong and I don't have to know everything because he knows everything and since I know who knows I don't have to know I'm just trusting in the one who knows and taking life one step at a time I'm just going to live my life in the power of the Holy Spirit and leave all the results in the hands of God and when I worship Him folks that's what lifts me up out of my distress my anxiety and even my depression do you not understand today do you not understand that you can't judge your life on the visible results do you not get that do you not understand for instance that Jeremiah ministered his whole life and didn't see one visible result not one convert but it was the plan of God and when it was all said and done Daniel is over there in Babylon and he's reading the Prophet Jeremiah and he reads that verse it says they're gonna be over there seventy years and he counts them says well we've been here seventy years so he claims that promise of Jeremiah and all of a sudden the wheels begin to turn and in the book of Ezra chapter 1 it says the king of Persia because now the Persians are ruling Babylon it says the Spirit of God moved him he wasn't even saved to decree that the children of Judah the children of Israel are to go back and rebuild their temple and rebuild their city and he takes up a love offering to finance the plan tells them to head that way you're free it says to fulfill the words of the Prophet Jeremiah so all those years Jeremiah was just simply doing what God wanted him to do and this won't tell you this all you that are preachers whether you pastor a Meg Church or a mini Church or a medium church when we all get to a certain age they gonna say we're too old we gonna have to leave and we're all gonna be out there fighting over the same interim pastor it's all right so don't don't stress about this thing brother because all that matters is when we stand in the presence of the Lord is to get his well done that's really all that matters we don't need no earthly recognition but I know that I know I feel in my heart that in this meeting there there's some folks dealing with discouragement and I found that there's some men you know Billy Graham said immorality money and pride is what heals most ministries but there's some men they got enough heart heads in their life to not get proud because they're getting the their kneecaps kicked off you know they get reminded you're nothing on a regular basis and there's some guys money they realize God's gonna meet their need and they stuff didn't matter to him and there's some men the morality things never going to be an issue because they stay close to their wife and close to the Lord and they live all their life the wife of their youth and that's just not an issue but I believe this fourth thing is what gets most its discouragement the devil the devil's it's a weapon man he can take more people out with discouragement than all those other three put together take great godly hold in I'm talking people that sing in the choir I'm talking people that that that serve on a staff I'm talking people that teach little boys and girls in Sunday school teach teach teach students in Sunday school I'm talking about people that are praying for lost loved ones you just want to quit and you get discouraged because it just didn't look like God's doing anything my first church was wonderful absolutely wonderful I'm not from Georgia but it was in South Georgia first Sunday we had 86 in Sunday school I was 23 years old and I didn't know how to have any plan know what to do in the first year at that church two miles outside the city limits the first year we had 88 baptisms and I think about 70 people move their letter 150 additions I mean just it was a it was a miracle of against the sovereign providential plan of God well that second year you know we didn't have that much visible fruit but God was still working but you know I've been riding ego nothing then boy if I if I can do if I can do this out here man if I could actually get in town somewhere you know sometimes God gives you what you want which is going to be tough because he needs to kick some sense into you and man I I took this church people tried to warn me and I hadn't been there thirty days and I realized God had written it about across that church it was dead they were in a neighborhood the demographic had changed but the old folks living in that neighborhood did not want those neighborhood people because their skin color was different did not want them coming to that church which was wrong y'all not gonna bless that so there were two factions in the church that wanted to relocate it but one of them want to relocate it over by the past or iam and the others wanted to relocate it over in another place and then you have this one crowd that didn't want to relocate at all but didn't want the folks around it to come to the church it was an impossible situation it was dead it was cold my wife started a children's church she loves kids but basically so she didn't have to be in those dead worship services she says I'll take these kids over here and we'll sing if you're happy and you know it shout Amen while you're over there in the deep freeze man and then this didn't help they talked about this relocation I said well you you know you can dig a body up over here in this Cemetery and you move it across town and bear it in this Cemetery over here but the problem is you still got a dead body and you can dig this thing up and move it all over town but it's still dead and man they didn't like that they didn't they weren't receptive to that I got sewed down every Wednesday and I'm not big on fasting I'm not gonna try to act all spiritual but I began every Wednesday to fast I told my wife I'm not telling anybody about this I'm just gonna fast and just gonna drink water and you'll know it and every Wednesday I fasted and I knew that that church the guy it was God was absent and I said God would you move me I mean would you move me and this is what I said god the only thing I'm asking is could you just put me in a place where people smile and have some joy I don't care where it is if you'll just move me to a Playboy I mean I've come I've come to the end of this I can do it and every Wednesday I fasted one Sunday morning I woke up and I was laying there in bed with my wife and I said wouldn't it be wonderful if a pulpit committee came this morning and and just as they were going out said we'd like to talk to you this afternoon it would just be like we just our hearts and yet she said herb really emotionally I can't take I can't take the fantasy stuff all do you know I can't I can't deal with this I can't deal with it so I went to church that morning and you know I had to deal with stuff like the family that control that church their sister was the one that ran the surveillance program over the past or iam she drove past the pest aureum to make sure that we were there and in the winter she was a tall broad-shouldered woman she wore capes and when I was shaking hands in the back she'd stand back there like she was the associate pastor shaking hands and so there I am I'm shaking hands on that particular Sunday and Jerry Scarborough friend of mine to this day he stopped and he said I'm with pulpit committee man I want to kiss him right there brother I'm not you know you know I'm talking about the brotherly kind of kiss you understand what I'm saying brother man I nearly spoke in tongues and got slain in the spirit all at the same time and I and he said we're gonna go to Shoney's and eat could we come by your house after we eat and I quickly was able to give him a number and I I said yes because I got the Caped Crusader right over there at the surveillance you say she's watching listening to everything trying to be discreet so my wife and I always ended up she go by the nursery we had two two children at that time little dis little babies I got out there to the the car and when we got out there I said I'm telling you pulpit committee was there this morning they came out they're going to show knees they want to come by the house and talk to you just stop it stop it I said look in my eyes I'm not kidding you she said get in the car we got to clean the house up man we jumped in the car we ran home and we cleaned that house up and they came from the Westwood Baptist Church in Live Oak Florida I didn't know we're live up Florida was halfway between Jacksonville and Tallahassee on the Suwannee River right off i-10 man they walked into our house and when they walked in and sit down they were holding our babies in their laps it's like we knew these people all our life we fell in love with each other right there and they call me to be their pastor and I want to tell you something we loaded up our automobile and the powers that be sent a deacons wife over there supposedly to help my wife clamp that past or iam who spent the whole time running me down reducing my wife to tears I had a deacon show up and started rebuking me out in the front yard and I had taken all I could and I just stood there and I I just wasn't gonna I just wasn't gonna respond to that stuff man I'm leaving and I stood there just weeping in that front yard and we got in the car and the moving van pulled out and I said to my wife I said let's pray and I said God when I cross the county line I'm gonna ask you to strip every demon off of the fenders of this automobile Lord and we're not looking back brother I fired that thing up and I mean we headed out of that we headed out and as I cross that that County line I want you to know brother I just could see the unseen angels of God just ripping demons off of that thing just leaving all that behind and when we we crossed that county line in my heart I was singing free at last free at last thank God Almighty I'm free at last I thought about it just the other day I was coming up by 75 to go up and speak you know one of Robins and I passed just it's it's the first exit when you go into Florida last going out the Jennings Florida exit used to be a little holiday in there that's the best night's sleep I've ever had in my life that was my first night of freedom I woke up that next morning and I thought oh yeah I'm free and I went had a wonderful ministry in Live Oak I never looked back and never wanted to go back and never even want to think about that church the Providence of God the years past ended up coming to Jacksonville and several years ago a young pastor over in Tifton Georgia asked me to come to speak in a Bible Conference and I went to speak in a tall young man came up to me and he said brother herb used to pastor such-and-such Church it's that dead church man I started having flashbacks brother man Kate woman coming at me you know I mean that was Lord and mercy first thing I did was brace myself I thought his parents probably hated my guts you know it's a brace myself this is what he said he said while you were there I was in the third grade and he said you baptized me and he said now I'm the youth pastor in this church few months later I was preaching in Valdosta Georgia he came to the Bible Conference he said where the herb God's called me to Pastor and now I'm heading out to graceful Florida to the Baptist College of Florida to study for the ministry and last summer I look out there and there he and his wife sit they'd been on an anniversary trip they came back he's a great pastor a fruitful pastor and it reminded me again that God's working even when I can't see him working in one single soul matters and even though you didn't see God do anything that doesn't mean that God didn't do anything and I realize God sent me to that dead church because there was a young man in the third grade that was gonna get saved gonna get called to preach and it's preaching the gospel to this very day does that make sense can I tell this one more story just one more story because this will help somebody because you've got to understand that its fulfillment in men Street is just being the hands and feet of Jesus and then I'm gonna pray a promise one day I got a note at the church there were our servant Jacksonville it said there was a man in Saint Vincent's Hospital and that he didn't come to our church but he watched our television broadcasts and he considered me to be a pastor want me to come visit him and I thought I can't start that if I start visiting all these people don't go to our church there's no end of that but the Spirit of God you know how you get that in your heart said you got to go see this guy so I went in there sweet little wife she said she was saved he said he was saved homebound folks prayed with him minister to him few weeks later got another note it was from his son said that that man had died and they wanted me to do his funeral I thought man if I I started in funerals for all these people you know that don't go to our church there's there's no end of that Spirit of God said

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Length: 40min 56sec (2456 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 12 2018