Ministry Conference 2021 // Don Stewart

thank you stephen morning everybody i am from california the land of crazy people hurt steve yeah and you know what what's funny if we took a poll about half of you are from there too but you don't live there anymore so we won't ask okay tell you how crazy it is well two things number one i got a text this morning from a friend said breaking news guess who announced their run for california governor caitlyn jenner i know i'm not kidding you this is caitlyn jenner is now going to run for governor of california it is it is it is an absolutely crazy state in fact my wife cannot be here today with me because they have a rule in california if you cross the state line the state line and you come back whether you drive or fly for 10 days you have to quarantine i guess people in what washington arizona nevada are going to give you some but anyway so she can't she can't be here and she is in essential services and so uh i wish she could be here but she cannot anyway it's very nice to be here i love coming here i thank god for steve for the people here for all of you i've seen some familiar faces here um first of all i want to thank god that i'm here many of you have prayed for me and i want to um thank you for that publicly some of you don't know what i'm talking about i just give you a little brief history here because it's going to actually going to fit in the talk that i'm giving um december 2nd this last year i was doing uh what i had been doing for a number of years his channel his channel.com 24 7 christian television on the internet i was doing six programs a week uh one radio program a week besides speaking i had been i think 23 straight days of getting up in the morning going somewhere anyway on that particular wednesday i started feeling really weird you know and uh very very strange and uh you know i thought i just counted it to um well you know i've been working hard and i run myself from the ground i always do but i love doing i love what i do you know so it's no big deal but then it got worse and worse and worse where i basically felt like someone pulled all the pulled all the air out of me pulled the plug on me to the place where i just was so weak but i really knew and i thought okay i'm running i'm just running on empty because i'm doing too much but i knew when it was really really difficult and when it was something very strange i started having hallucinations look i haven't had a hallucination since 1968 when i was at a jimi hendrix concert okay and so literally that's true and so um basically it was um it was very very strange and about five days later my wife which i said look i gotta go to the emergency room the er i waited for um basically uh five hours to get in the day before they told me it was 11 hour wait so when i didn't feel that bad anyway when i got in there they you know if i got in they tested me and the doctor looked at me said sir you have the chinese communist party coronavirus and i said oh okay and they gave me some stuff they uh sent me back home five days later i started getting worse and worse and so uh again providential things happened my wife dragged me back to the er a second time doctor comes in and says well your your test now for your uh you've your pneumonia test you took five days ago you're a lot worse we're going to put you in the hospital so i was in there four days and uh obviously i came out alive but it was not not easy at all um we got back home and we're reading the notes of the doctors there and they had such things as organ failure sepsis uh do not resuscitate this and this kind of stuff so literally i was fortunate to be basically they said i had one foot in the grave the other on the banana peel that's how bad it was at that particular time but i did come back but the problem was i was out for five zero fifty days and yeah and i um literally i forgot if my wife hadn't taken me to the er the second time i probably wouldn't be here today that's how tough it was so anyway i'm thankful to be thankful to be anywhere and much less here but anyway i'm very thankful that i'm here but you know during the 50 days when you have something happen like that you've got no voice i literally literally didn't have a voice for two months i finally got to speak after two months and when i spoke the first time you know my strength was coming back but a week or two before that i couldn't even pray a short prayer for food i started coughing it was that bad but i'm looking out the window there and wondering okay lord obviously you've allowed this i know you're a sovereign god and i had the strongest peace of god i've ever had in my entire life i just felt god's peace there and i said okay lord what do you want so what i did i obviously could not do the daily grind again on his channel so i stopped doing that and i started doing some other things and i'm still doing ministry and i'm still doing it full time and i'm back to health more than ever but the point is the lord spoke to me at that time and it was really a blessing because he said you know i want you to go a different direction so anyways we talk about today what i'm going to talk about are principles for successful ministry i did i'll give you a background of the talk in a minute but i want to talk about some resources i have that you can take advantage of okay and please do that we have a website called educatingourworld.com educatingourworld.com believe it or not that name wasn't used i thought well let's try it so i've got that on the website now i have 61 books that are there for free download if you you know i've got the i've got them in i've got 33 of the 61 in print form are here with me but if you want them it's all for free you can download them if you want to print them all out come to about 14 000 pages of material but you're welcome to do it you know and it's again it's it's our ministry we've had over a million downloads in the years since we've been doing this but please use it and shamelessly promote it it's for you it's on 11 different topics god the bible jesus christ the afterlife the last days bible prophecy the church we've got things on the unseen world angels satan and demons bible and science and books like that so there's 61 of them total and you can take advantage of that now what i did decided to do when i stopped doing his channel although i'm back doing programs on his channel on honor educating our world i'm doing videos all the time kind of giving the update of what's going on but basically uh what i've been doing now is audio books i've done five audio books and you've got 30 hours of free audio to listen to where i answer questions because people say we want to hear you answer questions again well here it is okay you got them on the audiobook so we're recording those so please take advantage of that that is our ministry we're doing this uh to help others out and again it's on uh very these 11 different topics that are essential to the christian faith you know god the father son holy spirit the such like and we're very blessed to be able to do it so i want to offer that to you first and foremost oh also too if uh we've got some great seminars afterwards two breakout times and a lot of great things to go to if you decide to go to mine here's what i'm going to do just give you a preview of coming attractions i at least get to promote mine the other guys don't um i'm going to do a two-part uh proof that the bible is the word of god ancient prophecies fulfilled against all odds i'm going to do 12 prophecies six that were fulfilled with christ coming and beyond and six that are being fulfilled right now to show beyond any doubt that the bible is exactly what it claims to be the word of the living god so that's what i'll be doing and i'll look forward to seeing some of you there all right um a number of years ago and this show this dates me i was speaking at a high school camp in lake geneva wisconsin in the year 1977 before most of you were born i can see out there well not all of you i guess but most of you anyway um 1977 and i was a new i was a fairly new speaker i'd been speaking probably a year too on the on the circuit and it was a whole week and i was the main speaker about 500 kids from chicago wisconsin going to the conference and they asked me okay now that we got one last meeting and we really want you to give a great talk here because you've done a good job but you got to leave them with something great well the problem was i'd only been speaking for a short period of time i didn't have anything else to say i didn't know what i was going to do maybe some of you've been in that case before so you start praying to the lord lord what do i do what do i say and so i was reading first thessalonians the end where paul says you know pray without ceasing and everything give thanks and uh this is the will of god you know abstain from every form of evil this and that and it started it dawned on me i thought wait a minute now i got an idea how about i do something like this i've been able 76 77 literally to travel across the u.s to meet different christians different groups so i thought what i do is put together a talk for these kids and it's called principles for successful living and um i did and it became you know they really liked it actually it was god's grace and so i've probably given it probably 500 times in various formats over the years to different groups now what i'm going to do today though i'm going to tweak it to you guys because it's principles for success successful christian ministry because i've been in the ministry the only guy here been logging me is don he's in fact i used to go to his bible study on friday nights at calvary costa mesa when he was a young kid at that time and he didn't know that i mentioned that before he probably forgot but i was in the audience and i learned an awful lot from him and i'm thankful for him very thankful for him always loved hearing him teach but anyway i've had been in the ministry 50 years now so because of that i want to share a few things that have helped me out immensely and hopefully will help you in the christian ministry so we'll see how many we can get through first and foremost if we want to live in a way and we want to honor god by our lives and by our ministry what should we do and the first thing i would tell people like i said i i would give these principles as paul wrote i'm not like paul to the thessalonians but the first and foremost thing i would tell people is to get a biblical view of god a biblical view of god here's here's the problem that i've found most people don't have a biblical view of god they have a view of god that's skewed a god that doesn't really exist the more you know about god the more you will trust him the more you know you can trust him jeremiah 32 27 the lord says behold i am the god of all humankind is anything too difficult for me what's the answer no nothing is too difficult for him but to realize that uh the late j.b phillips he was a bible translator of a many many years ago he wrote a book called your god is too small and basically what he says theoretically many people in their head they've got this view of god you know that's yeah he's the mag the creator the sustainer of the universe but in essence they have a real little pee wee god when it comes to their problems and so what turns out to be when the problems happen god is so small compared to their problems that they don't you know they the problems overwhelm them and so i do believe and i really mean this after all the years and all the ministry i've been in about 90 of the problems i think we would have we wouldn't have if we had the proper view of god if we really understood who our god is he's on our side he's pulling for us he wants us to succeed you know and so if we had that and realizing his grace his you know his his work in our lives it'd make all the difference in the world now it comes down to this like there's a a verse that i'm going to give you that you're very familiar with which is the basis of all miracles when i worked in 1976 77 with josh mcdowell i traveled with him and um we were in kalamazoo michigan michigan western state university i think it's uh where it was anyway i was there and there was a student there and i was answering questions too and he said i'm a christian but i have a problem that maybe you can help me with because you're an apologist you defend the faith okay i'll give it a shot and he said i i i'm a christian but i believe and i believe in the in the miracles of the bible but there's one particular miracle i have a problem with i don't know if i can believe it's keeping me you know from going forward i said really he said yeah i said what is it he said how the body of jesus christ could go through the grave clothes there through the tomb of joseph of arimathea and into heaven how that miracle really is mind-boggling to me i can't believe how something like that could happen in other words the resurrection of the body of christ he said can you help me i said i think so i see you have a bible there i'm going to tell you where to turn and i want you to you know i'm going to read you i'll have you read a passage to me and i want you to you know to hear the answer he said sure he said what do you want me to turn to i said genesis chapter 1 and verse 1. a guy says what says just trust me go to genesis 1 1 and start reading and i'll tell you when to stop because ok he says in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth i said stop stop and yeah okay i said dan do you believe this i said yeah he said yeah i do i said wait let me get this straight you believe genesis 1 1. yeah you believe that god spoke and something came out of nothing he said yeah i said dan if you can believe the first verse in the bible the rest is downhill from there i mean it's simple because this is the basis of all miracles the god of the bible can do anything consistent with his character all right we have to have that view of god the almighty god who is in control of all things one of the things i did for years on his channel and breaking news the events of the day i would talk about but how it fits last days bible prophecy and you know when i first started with pastor chuck smith we were doing it on a program called world news briefing and we were lucky you know we did it once a week we were lucky to get enough stories to to get you know through the whole hour fortunately pastor chuck talked real slow so that helped us get through the hour at that particular time but then the story started growing and they started happening i'd come in a week with 20 stories 50 stories 100 stories and so we see as things get closer to the time of the end the story is increased because everything is falling into place precisely as the bible has predicted it because he is in control of all things so not only god exists we also know he's he knows the future he's in control of the future and so he's got it all amazingly amazingly in his head it it never ceases to amaze me we're reading the news every day what's going on and it's literally mind-boggling to see what's taking place how the stage is being set so perfectly to fit the events of the end that god is in control one of the things i'll uh share with the people in the session tomorrow and just a little bit of the coming attractions of that um you know when we used to teach you know don taught it i taught it in the 70s we taught about the future you know bible prophecy this and that and in one instance in the early 70s i remember doing that and we um we we you know you i became a christian 19 march of 1970 i started teaching like 72 in fact don ran the bible school and i was one of the teachers in the bible school there anyway so i get out there and i talk about you know this is the last days and god's you know fulfilling his word and we're seeing the stage being set for um you know the coming of the lord jesus and one of the the subjects that we talk about is the ezekiel 38 39 invasion where we read you know that there's going to be a number of nations seven or eight depending on how you number them that are going to come down from the north south east and west and attack israel in the last days we have their la their names their ancient names mentioned the bible whether it be gog gog is the leader uh it's the name of the title of the leader from the land of magog and then you've got things like persia which is modern-day iran you've got rosh which is russia not because it sounds like it there's no is that's not why we believe that's the country of the far this north of both babylon and israel then beth tilgarm and gomer which is modern-day turkey you've got put which is modern-day um libya maybe morocco and algeria too cush which is modern-day sudan and these are the nations that are going to attack israel now the pr and here was the issue here was the problem uh two of the nations there which were turkey and um iran were at that time the best friends of israel okay and they're going to be the ones attacking now the ones who are going to be on israel's side are jordan egypt and the saudis and the gulf states who are the biggest enemies of israel at that time so when you put the charts up you think people wait a minute you got it backwards here the enemies are who you said the friends are and the friends are who you said the enemies are this was true in the 70s and so what do you do we said wait just give it enough time give enough time and it's going to change and here we are in 2021 and guess what the biggest threats against uh israel are from where it's from the iranians by far the biggest and of course the turks and the russians who are their friends now hard to believe the normalization of relations saudi arabia the gulf states jordan egypt and that totally turned around but see the bible doesn't change but circumstances change but just give it time sooner or later everything will fall into place it's literally amazing the things we've seen just recently that everything fits into place anyway i didn't mean to get off on that but god's in control if you know that god's in control and everything's falling into place in the world then you're going to take a step back and say okay it's also falling into place in my life too as we look back on our lives we see the dots being connected we see the wisdom of god and what he has done in our lives and sometimes it takes a while but sooner or later the dots will be connected and then you realize okay if i have that god if he is god almighty if he's in control i can trust him so here it comes you know particularly if you're in the ministry you get difficulties okay you got issues three questions you have to ask yourself number one i've got this problem have i done everything i can to deal with it everything i can and if you have done all your responsibility and the issue is still there the second question you ask is well okay can god can the god of the bible do anything about my problem and here's what you do you remember you rehearse what the bible says well genesis 1 1. he could speak and something can come out of nothing he part of the red sea uh miracle after miracle and scripture and so in your mind then yeah well yeah god's able to do something about my problem and then once you get that in your mind then number three is he willing to do something about my problem now as the late pastor romain at calvary costa mesa used to say too many christians instead of you know god wants to pour a bucket of blessings down on them but they're like having a bent straw trying to suck up a few god is not only willing he wants to bless us he wants to do it he is more than able but he's willing to do it and so that's why we let god be god one of the toughest things for each of us to do is not get involved and try and work everything out for ourselves to be a fixer we can't always fix everything sometimes it's up to god i'm sure all of us have been in the situation i know i have where i had i had an issue i couldn't do anything about it i was totally totally helpless and i said god please be god and miracle i can tell you i'm not going to do it i've got four situations that happened to me absolutely miraculous when i prayed that the lord would fix the situation out of the blue out of a place i couldn't even imagine him doing he fixed it because he is god so please please please have that view of god and know your god and realize he's there he is the god who is there and he is the god that wants to guide us and so when you're having problems in the ministry problems in life remember he's more than willing to do something about our issues so jeremiah 32 27 get a biblical view of god all right a second principle to you know have a successful ministry and this is very very important gang is learn to accept yourself for who you are learn to accept yourself your strengths and your weaknesses don't try to be someone you're not god has made you very very special and you know it's not bragging if you got gifts but don't try to be something you're not accept yourself for who you are now early on you probably have found out in the ministry you've tried to do certain things and you want to do them with a clean heart you know but you just didn't have the gifts i wanted to be a christian musician when i came to christ in march of 1970 it was the musicians that were the ones that bringing all these people to christ i would sit on the stage there at calvary costa mesa we had to bang down the doors to get in for the services every night literally and um i was on stage behind these musicians i saw people coming to jesus so i wanted to be a christian musician that was going to be my life's goal the pro there's one slight problem i didn't have any talent you know any ability but now we're not going to stop me but that and then you know i was actually kind of humbled i won't go into the details trying to become part of a group but the problem was all right this is something i cannot do i cannot do i don't have that gift i need to look for other things i can do for the body of christ there's nothing wrong with saying you don't have that gift uh or this particular gift now in serving the lord and being in the ministry and i know it's it's not easy it's tough it's um sometimes we have these ideas you know i'm gonna be a great this for the god or that for god and then we run into the difficulties that are there and literally you want to give up and you want you want to quit but you know god is always there to brought us along to encourage us one of the things that has helped me immensely immensely is in doing ministry i take it extremely seriously what i do when i write books when i speak when i you know do tv or radio programs i take it very very seriously but i don't take myself seriously at all okay i can laugh at myself i have the freedom to make mistakes i have the freedom to fail i don't want to fail but i'm going to fail and i've given myself that freedom i cannot be perfect i would like to be but i cannot and so i need to learn to laugh at myself illustration in the early years when i was working i was on staff in calvary costa mesa in the late 80s early late 70s early 80s and i was sitting in the office one day and the phone rang and it was someone from the city council i believe is newport beach at that time and they're asking for someone who could do a prayer at the city council meeting and so i'm looking around i'm the only guy you know in the office i answer the phone i guess well i guess it's me you know by process of elimination and they said okay on such and such a date this is a very important city council meeting after the pledge of allegiance you will give the prayer and the mayor and everybody will bow there you know and pray okay fine okay as soon as i hung up i thought wait a minute what did i just agree to do pray what do you pray at a city council meeting you everything i mean i i couldn't say god thank you for being here in a great way you expect your spirit to work i'm not going to pray something like that because a bunch of pagans i know that's not going to happen uh and i'm not going to do what they used to do with the you know these people that read these printed prayers oh holy god you know i'm not going to do something like i'm going to talk to god and i and i i thought of maybe i should call down fire from heaven like elijah on these guys i didn't do it but as an afterthought maybe that was the right thing to do so i didn't know what to do i would you know i would i'd hardly ever get nervous before i speak but i got really nervous and fortunately we had a guy on staff gib allen and gibb said don here's here it's really easy what you do you go there and you pray the gospel to them it's what you do now they're never going to invite you back anyway but you got one shot at him so okay so anyway i got there and after you know the pledge of allegiance dawn sewer from calvary chapel went out lead us in prayer and the mayor and city council bowled their heads so i just let them have it i prayed for about five minutes i thank god for existing for you know coming down 2 000 years ago in the person of jesus christ for fulfilling prophecies beyond any human manipulation or fulfillment for dying for the sins of the world for coming back the third day 10 different appearances the publicly uh you know and that why not i mean you know it didn't tell me what to pray and uh and then i went on the whole thing i went to the gospel you know how do you become a christian this and that and they never did invite me back by the way but anyway [Applause] and so at the end i thanked them and left now here was the problem though during the prayer you ever get stuck on a word you can't say it properly you ever have that happen all right i did it was the word specifically i tried it four different ways it wouldn't come out right so i event i could hear people laughing too and snickering because it wasn't well wasn't that funny but it was it was funny so anyway as soon as i was done i waved goodbye to the mayor and everybody else i went out the door you know what i did i laughed i laughed at myself because i have the freedom to fail i'm going to make mistakes and it was funny as far as the audience was concerned but they still got the gospel the point is you're a human being okay give yourself the freedom to fail you're going to make mistakes you're not perfect you want to be i i hate failing but it's going to happen you know and so um if he accepts us again for who we are if the living god accept us for who we are we should certainly learn to accept ourselves and um uh you know give ourselves that freedom to fail as we're working in the ministry we're going to do it and don't and don't be afraid to admit failure i'm i'm sorry there are people out there uh particularly in in certain fields one of them is these uh these get me off on this um these guys that uh are you know kind of like prophecy specialist okay they predict something's gonna happen it never comes to pass never happens they say it's going to and they just keep on going keep on going and the problem is they can't admit they make a mistake you need to admit to people if you make a mistake you make a mistake they will people need to see our humanity as folks in the ministry we're going to make mistakes we're trying but and we don't mean to but we do and so again learn to laugh at yourself and don't be so arrogant to think you never make mistakes or your words like coming down from mount sinai or something like that no it's this is not at all not true so first of all know who your god is second have a correct view of yourself know what you can do and what you can't do number three know what you believe as a christian and why you believe it all right this has been the whole idea of my ministry first peter 3 15 sanctify yourself the lord tells that peter said yourself peter says for the ministry being ready always to give an answer to everyone who has a reason for the hope that's in them yet with gentleness and reverence to bring people to christ to know what you believe as well as why you believe it okay if i would take a poll here of all of you and you're this is a special group if when i'm speaking to a regular audience it'd be quite a bit different and i would say you know most of you can tell me what you believe as christians you know the bible's god's word christ is the one way to get to the one god etc etc he died rose again coming back but if i if someone would ask you why you believe that what would you say do you have reasons for a belief and many people would just give a blank stare or they would say well i know it must be true because i believe it well the problem is there are people out there running around today saying i'm a buddhist i know it must be true because i'm a buddhist i'm a mormon i know it must be true because i've had these supernatural things happen to me etc etc so it's got to be something more than that the good news is there are reasons there are excellent reasons for belief okay and you need to know those things you need to know why you believe what you believe and be able to explain it in certain ways one of the things i like to do i wrote a book called 25 signs were near the end and as an appendix there something i've always wanted to do for years and years i went through unfortunately through amazon now you can buy all these old books i got about 50 old books written anywhere from 100 to like 400 years ago from christians who were prophecy specialists who predicted what based on the bible what scripture what the world will be like in the last days and it's amazing the faith these people had nothing absolutely nothing was going on at the time that would fulfill what god's word said would happen but they believe by faith they really believe by faith that someday these things would take place and it's literally amazing to see they believe there'll be a lot we're going to talk about a modern state of israel rebuilding a third temple uh taking place setting the stage for the ezekiel 38 39 invasion that the christian gospel is still around at the time of the end that christians and jews will both get persecuted that's what the bible talks about and all these things were coming into not taking place in their day and age but they're taking place right now in ways we can't even imagine so not only know what we believe but know why we believe because the evidence is plentiful it's there there's no excuse and again i've done a number of books on the subject ten reasons to trust the bible the case for christianity 25 signs were near the end and again get them for free you can print them out hand them to people and tell them and do talks on these things show them the evidence is there if people are willing to hear if they're willing to listen to it now one of the things about you know giving a defense of the faith apologetics giving a reason for the hope that's in us is pretty much in many cases more for the christian than the non-christian because we're living in a day where people think if you're a christian you've assassinated your brains you know you've got to be some type of imbecile because nobody that has any education can believe in jesus christ anymore which everything is just the opposite as like i said if we see as we see things today so minutely falling into place minutely i used to have a phrase i'd give all the time in fact somebody actually gave me a cup that said that you can't make this stuff up it's exactly as the bible said it's going to be we are seeing it right now you know people in previous generations did not we are seeing it and that's why the lord jesus to his disciples said in matthew 13 blessed are your eyes for they see in your ears for what they hear for many prophets and righteous people longed to see the things you see and didn't see them to hear the things you hear didn't hear them and for you know thousands of years in the time of the fall of adam and eve they wanted to see the coming of the messiah they wanted to see all these things come to pass they didn't now they did at the time of jesus well same thing in our generation isn't our granddaughter granddad or great-granddad great-great-grandfather it's you and i are seeing things right now that are so magnificently falling into place it just literally drops your jaw when you see it when you understand see daniel 12 9-10 tells us when daniel was getting these last days bible prophecies it'd only be at the time of the end people would understand daniel 12 8 says i don't get it i we hear daniel said i heard but i didn't understand one of these things going to happen and the lord says shut up the book daniel it's only at the time of the end people will understand and what's really fascinating about this it says the wise will understand the wicked will never understand who are the wise the wise of those of us who take god's word seriously and we see it coming to pass the wicked of those who do not have any idea what's going on it's so sad to watch people so confused in our world but gang if there's ever a time people needed the ministry that you guys are given it's right now because we live in such a dark time in such a dark world they need light and we are the light of the world now that jesus is uh out of here you know and he's coming back so he's using us these uh vessels that are let's put it this way let's just say that um he's uh he's using ones we can give him the glory so anyway number three what and why you believe number four don't compromise your beliefs don't compromise your convictions oh my goodness this i'll be careful not to get off on this subject but right now during during the time of this of the chinese communist party coronavirus that's literally affected the war and that's what it is by the way that's the right name for it's not the china virus it's the chinese communist party coronavirus and just as an aside it is not something that sprung uh just you know from nature in wuhan china at the end of 2019 it is a developed virus that developed in a bio lab as a bio weapon there in wuhan china's got 3.7 million square miles and we're led to believe it just so happened to you know in a in a wet market there in the city of wuhan to come about where the only level 4 lab in the entire country of china happens to be in that same city there oh coincidence right yeah no no no no no and like i said what if some of you have had it i've talked to somebody that had the this is not the normal virus like i said i don't ever get hallucinations i've been sick with every you know sickness as a kid chicken pox measles the whole thing flew in that i've never had anything like this happen to me something's going on here but anyway i want to get into that um oh i know it's necessary we don't compromise our beliefs because what do we see churches doing today thank god what steve i love what steve shared i hope i want to get a copy of that and share it with people about and both what tracy said too because this is something that every christian every church needs to hear needs to believe the bible says where to get out and preach the gospel there are laws we live in a country of laws that you know unfortunately now they're not being obeyed by the leaders but we live in a country of laws and we have the opportunity to preach the gospel in california just recently the united states supreme court thank god on a five to four ruling now allows home bible studies to take place small groups getting together that was disallowed not only we couldn't even meet we were just allowed to have even home groups or something like that with a five to four ruling there uh we've we're okay now in california to do something like that so the bottom line is what we're seeing is that in a day and age in which you and i believe we don't want to compromise i cannot tell you how many churches have gone so woke today you know have just totally turned from the gospel and now we're just falling into place with the time you know okay let's see you know here's this how's the wind's blowing and i want to be popular i want to be famous and what's going to happen well i'm just going to follow the crowd i'm going to support black lives matter the heck if they're a marxist organization they don't they don't care about black people i don't care about civil rights they're a marxist organization you probably may not have heard the story you know um the leader there did you see that story you wouldn't unless you read the new york post or the epoch times you never would have seen this story that the leader of black lives matter has been given millions and millions of dollars she owns five homes now and uh the people in the various black lives matter different you know groups have not gotten a dime from her you know and she's made interesting marxists i thought everything was supposed to be equal everything's supposed to be shared well yeah welcome to marxism get the people in in charge with that but you see that sort of thing got antifa of course the uh anti-fascist if they're never a bigger group of fascists they're there in fact it was interesting got to share this with you now um apologies for all those you who live in oregon but i had to fly through portland yesterday i wasn't planning on it i got a my flight got canceled i don't want to tell my wife so i'm going to go through portland to get here to seattle to get here to uh pasco you know tri-cities and watching what's going on there in that city is beyond belief the lawlessness that's there the government or the mayor there who is behind it and seeing all these things but we have the same thing happen of course in seattle we've had it in minneapolis minnesota and there atlanta georgia rochester new york you name it baltimore maryland new york city and los angeles california all over the place where we see lawlessness abounding and christians are becoming how can you put it they just don't want to fight against anymore people are wanting to give up because of you know the lockdowns this and that the mask thing i don't know if you had it here we just we had actually i live in l.a county we had a couple of curfews believe it or not where they wouldn't let you out after you know and we weren't any major going on they just want people out after ten at night to five in the morning and some of the laws and regulations that are still there are the most ridiculous things ever so a lot of christians instead of fighting it or just punting they're just giving up i uh in 2020 i think i lost count i think i gave 32 messages where i was just talking to a camera because the churches weren't open because of the you know the chinese communist party coronavirus they wouldn't meet because of that so what i would do you know i and you know a lot of people got the gospel there but people were afraid to get together now one of the things we did mention now i know it is real obviously i'm but i'm i'm a candidate unfortunately of one of the of the age group and of the uh people who could uh be taken aback by it one of the things we would mention why did world news uh breaking news 94 of the deaths in the united states according to cdc that have that people who died with corona virus not because of it with it had 2.6 other problems going on at the same time core mobilities they're called and the average age was something like 79 or 80 of the people that died forty percent of the people who have died from this are in rest homes and they're you know let's face it you know when you we get to a certain age we get we get weakness in our system and and you're on your way out but for the most part it stopped people from going forward uh people have lost their jobs they've been you know told that they can't do this they can't do that and i love what tracy said this is it's it's coming this is not the end um now that they found out what they can do to us they'll find other ways of trying to shut us up shut us down so we know at the time of the end there'll be two groups persecuted in the world the christians and the jews which is amazing to even think about that because how did how did jesus know that the jews and christians would still exist at the time of the end because it didn't seem possible but he's predicted that here we are 2021 being fulfilled but the problem we see here are people compromising their belief system they're not preaching the gospel they're not they're not meeting together and it's so heartbreaking to see i um i don't want to get into that any much more you've already seen it too and thank god for you're here thank god you're you're participating you don't mind assembling together and we're seeing the lord you know work in many mighty ways okay number five the fifth one is don't major on the minors don't major on the minors okay if you know who your god is you know who you are you know what why you believe you're not compromising those convictions let's have our life majoring on the things that are important i remember in bible school i had a teacher i became like a christian in march of 1970 and i went to biola university in 1971 to take some classes there and our professor dr mitchell made a statement that i've never forgotten and he just rammed it home to each of us and it just it really got me between the eyes he said this he said those of you you know who are christians and you're all we're assuming we all were as you're in the ministry you're going to be against certain things okay and that just comes natural but don't let every anyone ever peg you as someone who there is brother so-and-so or sister so and so he's against this or she's against that no first and foremost when they see you coming you are someone who is pro-jesus you're a jesus person first and foremost that's your message the coming of the lord jesus christ you know i do i get invited a lot of these which is kind of interesting i've written 25 books without even touching bible prophecy now because i've started writing people ask me to speak on the subject but whenever i give a talk i always close with this i said the real message is not the second coming of jesus christ oh no the message is when he came the first time the gospel is the cross so we never want to forget something like that but unfortunately we live in a day where people are majoring on the minors and majoring on things that are of not eternal value there is an old hymn of the faith called with eternity's values and view and i think that's what we need to ask ourselves as we're trying to serve others we're trying to minister it's what i'm doing have any type of eternal value i do a talk on a book i wrote on called resurrection and judgment and it's basically uh god's going to judge us someday as believers reward us its reward did not condemn us and there's about a dozen things that he lists in scripture of how what he's going to judge us based upon and the point is we're not going to lose our salvation but we will lose rewards if we don't know you know what kind of things he wants us to do and one of the things he encourages i mean us to do if anything else is make sure you major on the not the minors but on the majors you're don't waste your time on secondary matters i remember um uh pastor chuck smith i had the privilege of doing the uh radio program with him uh pastors perspectives for the last how many years we do it six seven years of his life and i never forget when um chuck was dying and he knew he was dying he didn't let anybody know it but we knew it and and i remember being on the program with him and watching him to the very end fighting the fight preaching the gospel to the very very end i'll never forget that last sunday he comes out on sunday morning and he says one more time one more time because he'd gotten the word just a few days before he only had a couple weeks to live never said that to him but never gave the slightest impression that he was weak or that or that he wasn't going to do it and to the very end he preached the gospel and a lot of people say you know chuck showed us by his life the way to live he showed me how to die as a christian how does someone to the very end you know holding forth preaching the gospel holding forth the faith and i'll be forever thankful for something like that to seeing him and watching his life his lifestyle i'm gonna you know what most people don't know i'm not telling tails out of school here the last three services he did you know he had the little oxygen mask backstage as soon as he was done he was laid on a table giving him oxygen just so he could get up there and preach again the next service that's how bad it was for him how tough it was he got up there and did it because his heart was to tell people about jesus and tell them the gospel and so the thing is we are to again uh not major on the minors but go forward in our lives okay and preach the gospel to the very end number six oh boy this is a really important one for each of you and i hope it ministers i know there's gonna be a few people out there that's going to minister to in the ministry gang you need to remember to forget remember to forget say what are you talking about philippians chapter 3 paul says forgetting those things which are behind i prized i pressed forward the prize of the high calling of the mark of god in christ jesus you and i need to move forward constantly being forward but you know something here's what the enemy does you're a christian how dare you get up and minister those people i know what you've done i know what you've thought and people have been either stuck in neutral going backwards because they haven't put the past behind them when you ask the lord to forgive something he forgives it and he forgets it the sense he doesn't hold it against you it's past it doesn't belong to you anymore and so keep moving forward remember to forget those things but the enemy wouldn't like you wouldn't like you to you know live in the past oh you know you did this so and so you did this such and such a time you know so many years ago and how can god use someone like you come on i remember the late uh adrian rogers told us i got to meet him once it was almost it's like pastor chuck you meet with this guy he was former head of the southern baptist association i met him in was 1977 and uh at a church right there in memphis tennessee arkansas border anyway i it was it's like meeting some guy who'd just been around the corner talking with jesus the glow that was there on him and he tells a story he says you know satan you know he's talking about the lord being our advocate all right our defense attorney and you know he's the one that pleads our case when we sin because we all still sin and he talks about he gives us examples a number of times he's about to speak okay and satan starts whispering in his ear you're really going to talk to those people if they knew what you just did or you just said or you just thought how dare you know how dare you do that and adrian rogers said every time i would hear that i would say satan see my attorney and that's what you and i need to do too our advocate tell him listen i've got someone pleading the case for me yeah okay i'm um i'm not perfect i make mistakes but we put it behind us remember to forget this uh same time i was in 1977 78 i did two uh straight years these uh retreats in uh uh lake geneva wisconsin and it was interesting because um the second year i was there there was this big empathy i don't think they still have it there uh where they had all these concerts and people would come from mill either milwaukee or chicago because kind of like halfway between the two and these open air concerts and amphitheater and um before i got there a few days early they said you know there there's a concert going to be at the amphitheater would you like to go i said no no no no i'm not i'm sorry before i was a christian that was my god these people who were in the rock musicians literally was my god uh in fact it was uh yeah i had to stop i got i had all my out i probably wish i didn't do it now broke all my albums got rid of them and that because i couldn't handle it as a believer so i'm not no i'm not going to go to something like that but they said no no it's the group shauna if you remember them they used to sing the songs the 50s remember that bowser and that and those guys so i went and it was a really you know what it was it was a really good good show they they're great great music but here is the thing and this is what was so weird gang i go there this was in 1978 and i get into the um this big amphitheater and everyone was dressed like it was 1955. i mean they're wearing clothes they had you know the guys had the jelly roll you know hair and that and the girls wore these you know they had some of them had the beehive things you know that they did hair doing that and i'm looking at these people and i'm hearing them talk too and here's the thing i gathered from that the 50s were a very idyllic time they're a nicer time to live in right and we're in the 70s here of course nothing like it is now but it was a tough time going through the 60s uh all that went on they didn't want to live when they were alive they were thinking of a better time so human nature says okay i either want to think of the past live in the past or live in the future but we have to live in the nasty now and now you know there's blue skies ahead it was tough in the past but i'm gonna live right now uh and i'm gonna live in some past time or some future time when you and i have to live now and now uh the lord says one day at a time you know tomorrow never comes when tomorrow comes it's today yesterday's gone forever we have to live right now and a lot of times as human beings human nature as well you know it's bad now but there's blue skies ahead or it was so great in the past wasn't it wonderful no we've got to live right now and face the tragedies and the triumphs and the everything that we have and that includes the good things too you got to forget everything you know in the sense that we got to keep moving forward and unfortunately many christians are stopped they're either stuck in neutral or they're moving backwards because of something that it's six weeks ago six months ago six years ago that god has forgiven and forgotten you haven't forgiven yourself god's forgiven you he says put it in the past you need to do it and go forward we all have things like that we all need to move forward as one good friend of mine once said if you're going to fall he's fall forward you know move towards the finish line because that's where the lord wants us to be and so learn to you know remember to forget forget the past and god's put it behind you and you should put it behind yourself okay number seven another principle will help you hopefully it's helped me to live a christian life that's pleasing to god and that is to reach out to others reach out to others i'm going to close with this one here i'm only getting through seven of the ten but this one uh i think will really minister to you god has told us philippians paul to the philippians says look not on your own needs but also on the needs of others our prayer should not be god bless you me us for no more we want to look out on others because that's what we're here for if you want to sum up the life of jesus christ in one word it's the word others matthew 20 28 he came not to be ministered unto but to minister and give his life a ransom for many great story i heard when i was in biola university many many many years ago there is a guy came and preached and he was rather eccentric that is a that's a charitable way of putting it but he had a huge church a huge huge church and he told a story and again one i've never forgotten i'm going to leave you with this and he's talking about the need to reach out to others he said because it has had a church like 15 20 000 people he said because of that you know i've got all these different pastors assistant pastors assistants the assistant and that and that he said if someone came up to see if they got in to see me they really had to have a problem in other words if no one else could handle it really have to have a problem and then she said okay one day this woman came in to see me and she said pastor i'm so glad to see you i'm gonna have a nervous breakdown i've scheduled it for tuesday unless you can help me and i've got a problem that is seemingly uns insurmountable he said okay go ahead he said she talked for like 30 40 minutes shared her problem and he listened to her and he listened and she said can you help me and he said i think so really i knew that she said uh he said i want you to go home and do two things okay i want you to write them down she got a piece of it write them out first thing i want you to go home and bake a cake he said what yeah bake a cake bake a cake okay what's number two after you bake a cake i want you to make a whole big batch of cookies now she said it he said he's telling the story at that time this woman started getting mad and she started looking you know says i think this is the senior pastor he's always way up in the in front you know but i see these pictures on the wall this must be am i talking the right guy make some cookies and she's and he's telling the stories and she thought i'd lost my cookies by tell learning this okay pastor what do you want me to do about it he said here's what i want you to do i want you to take the cake cut it in about a dozen slices and go down to the old folks home and give it out to the people there the cookies i want you to take into the children's wing of the hospital go give them out to the kids there then i want you to come back and tell me about your problem she thought he was nuts she left didn't see her again two weeks three weeks four weeks finally he said about six weeks later it's a huge church building on the other side of the church he saw this woman leaving well he couldn't reach her so there's only one thing a pastor could do he said i cup my hands to my mouth and i yelled i won't yell it as loud as he did hey lady how's your nervous breakdown coming you know and he said she heard him she turned around with the biggest smile you ever seen look like she swallowed a coat hanger her smile is so big and she cupped her hands to her mouth and she said this pastor i'm so busy reaching out to others i don't have time for a nervous breakdown and she learned a very very valuable lesson when you reach out to other people when you give of yourself god will meet your needs above and beyond anything you could imagine okay and so bottom line is these principles have helped me over the years working through the ministry particularly now in this day and age the biblical view of god learning to accept myself for my faults knowing what why i believe uh you're not compromising the convictions not majoring on the minors uh reaching out to others forgetting the past if you can put those into into a place i think it's going to really help you because it's again like i said i've been doing this for 50 years and it's got me through to remember who my god is remember what i can do and what i can't do and remember he's the one that's going to pull me towards the finish line so as we all again have our time here on this earth and particularly as i've discovered that i'm thankful for every minute every day i always have been but more than ever right now that we are here to make a difference we're here to be salt and light we're here to be people people of god you know and and we're we're the lights of the world jesus is gone you know we're the ones that are ministering for him and we can do it if we allow god to be god in our lives so may god give each of us the grace in this dark and dying world who really really really needs to hear the good news about jesus the grace to get through it to handle the problems to handle the issues all the things in the ministry and to be that type of man or woman that god would have us to be as we wait for the day when we will see him face to face may god grant us the grace to do this let's pray heavenly father thank you so much that for this group for their hearts for ministering where they're at the various churches various jobs there to help others and we're all we're all in the same boat we want to we want to be effective as as in the ministry whatever it would be music ministry pastors whatever it might be women's groups this or that what lord we all want to be we all want to be your people but many times we feel like a failure we feel like we've fallen short like we we've let you down and lord you know us better than we know ourselves we didn't surprise you when we failed you knew we're going to fail but you pick us up and you keep us going towards that finish line and i thank you for it so i thank you for this church for steve and i you know and this conference and all of you that that are here that lord you bless these people and encourage them and uh help us to love and encourage one another especially in these dark times and again remember who's in charge who's in control and lord the way we're seeing things happen that someday very soon we will see you indeed face to face we thank you for that promise in jesus precious name we pray amen all right god bless you guys

Channel: Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

Views: 7,620

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Id: UdggM5oSEqY

Length: 56min 6sec (3366 seconds)

Published: Wed May 12 2021