Sermon and Testimony | Dr. Ben Carson

[Music] free angels broadcasting network is pleased to bring you something better a faith-inspiring picture of a loving god from the book of hebrews welcome to 3abn's virtual homecoming camp meeting again happy sabbath to each one of you we're so glad that you are joining us here today we're coming to you live from the three avian worship center and what a blessing it's already been here we've just come from sabbath school q a which is a lot of fun we've had a lot of questions come in thank you so much for joining us and sending us your questions and comments but i know today we're going to receive an incredible blessing because we have dr ben carson here with us today speaking for the divine worship hour but before he comes and speaks we're going to have a lot of music testimony about what god is doing we want to say thank you for being a part of our three abn family though you may not be here in person right here in front of us at the three event worship center in front of us here at the stage you're there joining us at home maybe listening on the radio watching on your iphone or maybe you're just sitting there in your living room watching on television thank you for being a part of the family and we praise god for technology because even with covent and shutting things down we can still reach the world with the undiluted three angels messages of revelation chapter 14. what a blessing to be alive in this time in earth's history amen it's an incredible blessing i love camp meetings i love the opportunity to share with you at home and with our family you are our family and you know david says this is the day the lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it that's what we want to do on this day that the lord has consecrated and set apart and made holy what a privilege to be here amen amen it's amazing to me because every camp meeting is like a time of revival and so you just get excited because you know god has a special word for us during this time so i'm really excited and can't wait to continue to participate in this it's amazing well i am too you know we used to have one camp meeting a year but then you those of you at home you said well why don't we have fall camp meeting why don't we have spring camp meeting then some was how about summer and winter and so we said well we can maybe do two a year and uh so it's always great so we welcome you to camp meeting thank you for your love and your prayers and financial support of three abn as we continue to take this great gospel of the kingdom into all the world it's such a privilege greg as you were saying to be able to serve the lord and to work with the folks at home and around the world so those that watch whether it's television whether it's radio whether you're on the internet there's so many ways you can get 3ab and now it's incredible the new communication highways that god has given us pastor john that's right uh you know covet could shut down a lot of things but it can't shut down the internet and praise the lord that god has still given us a presence around the world through technology amen amen i know we've been blessed with pastor james rafferty of course sharing the word we had seminars of course yesterday but he's going to speak a couple more times here today this afternoon and then this evening so make sure you stay tuned to 3 abn and get the rest of cam meeting pastor john why don't you lead us in a word of prayer as we start sure loving father in heaven what a blessing it is to know that whenever we stand we don't stand on our own you're standing with us or more specifically we're standing with you and we thank you for the blessings that we have already experienced in this fall camp meeting we pray an extra blessing on dr ben carson today as you have given him the responsibility to be the spokesperson for your name's honor and glory we pray that those who are watching and those who are listening will listen with ears touched by the spirit of god hearts molded by your influence and we pray that what is done here today will bring us closer ever more closer to being the ideal christian to reflect your glory in the world may all that is done here today bring glory and honor to you and to you alone in jesus name we pray amen amen amen amen we want to welcome also tim parton at the piano morning happy sabbath mr tim good morning pastor john lead us in an opening song please sure let's join with our voices in hearts today as we sing the song fairest lord jesus [Music] ruler of all nature [Music] glory joy [Music] robbie [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] there is [Music] jesus shines brighter jesus shines pure then all the angels had [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] glory and on earth [Music] forevermore [Music] [Laughter] [Music] wow and the church said amen thank you so much pastor john and brother tim you know three ben mr danny is all about evangelism and i just love working with you side by side being a part of the ministry jill and i do with you and to dr yvonne and the one thing that he keeps mentioning to us is greg 3abn is all about evangelism but he doesn't just stop there he says it's all about evangelism evangelism evangelism evangelism you could go on and on and don't lose that spark basically is his encouragement to us and i just want to say thank you at home for not losing that focus of evangelism because mr danny i think about 3abn it's all about evangelism there's always so many things going on from 3db and cuba focus on truth cover 19 what's next book africa all these things but to see the people through the years they've never lost that focus either have they you know greg i'm amazed i'm marvel i was talking to some people here a while ago i marvel that after almost 37 years that god continues to bless we've never had a bagathon i mean praise us on i think they call them the network that's right yes that's never had those we we've never begged for money but simply we we ask people if the holy spirit's impressing and you would like to support three amen you may do so at the following address i'm amazed at god and how he works but god he blesses individuals i'll give it that when we do what he asks us to but really most of the time i know from being a ministry a long long time god blesses us in spite of us that's very true right so we have nothing good that we can bring to god nothing ourself to offer him except ourself and our hearts when we give him our hearts or soul or minds then he says go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit so go ye so our greatest asset is our own personal testimony of what god has done for us and i've read that in in ellen white and it really impressed me tremendously so i want to thank each and every one of you for what you do for the cause of god maybe right before we take up an offering greg can you and jill maybe update on some new stuff i'm telling you this technology is so rapid god had to bring your young folk in to take over because evonomy there's like wow we can hardly keep up with all of this but we sure love hearing about it well you know we have a hard time seems like keeping up with it as well there's so many things that are happening it's like wow what should we talk about today so today we just want to give you some quick updates about some of the projects one of them being cuba you want to talk to us about cuba and what god is doing there it's incredible i would love to do that 3b and had the opportunity in june of this year we launched june 8 we launched on the package in cuba 3bn is the first ever christian channel there in cuba the first religious christian programming to come into that communist country of course the package is how the local people access western television it's how they get their movies their sports their soap opera now they get three abn latino and that is available across the country of cuba 11 million people now have access to the gospel amen incredible so this is what's amazing too maybe it's kind of letting that is it the cat out of the bag so they say so they're looking at because this is becoming so popular that they may only they may make just the religious aspect available as its own package three a b and latino as its own thing isn't that incredible yeah that is amazing and it's supported from the government down right so the council of churches in a communist country absolutely and we're already getting reports back of people having bible studies studying with people people finding truth and it's just incredible see jesus says the gospel when this gospel of the kingdom shall go into all the world i'll never forget several years ago when president obama was president he was visiting the guantanamo bay prison and so uh reuters news agency were there and they put a picture i guess up that was all over went worldwide and it showed the president standing in front of a cell where these prisoners but up on the screen people started writing us and have you seen the news up on the screen on the television in the the cells of guantanamo bay prison was pastor c.a murray and myself it was 3 abn and they were watching it even there so the gospel is goals that's an amazing technology yes that god has given us that literally anywhere around the world speaking of prisons dr yvonne why don't you tell us about 3am going into prisons i am so excited because that is just such a a tender place for me and knowing that god is reaching out to inmates all around the country we have uh i think it's two years worth of programming that's going to be on hard drives that's going to go into prisons without any change you never have to change it for two years so it doesn't have to be refreshed it's 24 7 for two years and the programming is it's like over 3 900 programs and i'm just i'm super excited it's going to be on the inner less box and so prisons don't have to have um or internet to do that and they can just run these programs and the inmates can watch it and learn about jesus because someone once said that inmates will either have crime or christ while they're in prison they have time to learn about christ or they can learn more about crime so why not teach them about christ and we have that opportunity so i am so excited i'm thrilled yes amen we have a couple of other projects that three ben has been involved with this past year and that is three abn in africa and that god has just given us an opportunity and doors are opening there we were covering the country of africa the continent of africa for a number of years then that stopped but now god is opening that door again and we're going into all the different countries in africa moses primo dr promise dr moses primo boy i'm so excited i'm getting untied send me an email and said greg god has opened an incredible door there's a cable company that looks to be distributing three avian signal across who knows maybe the entire continent of africa so praise god for that and plus we launched on freeview africa which is 45 million homes in the country of nigeria now have access to 3bn 3abn plus is on-demand programming you can watch 3bn when you want it as well as all of our nine television streaming networks and the five radio streaming networks we send bibles into prison so there's so many opportunities for you at home to partner with the ministry of 3abn and helping to share this undiluted three interest messages amen and dr vaughn we're going to have you offer the prayer here for the offer in just a moment but if you feel impressed as mr danny's always mentioned through the years it's only if the holy spirit is impressing you to give toward the ministry of three abn 100 of what you give goes for evangelism that's what three even is all about you can see the contact information right up on your screen right now you can donate online you can always call our call center during regular business hours there are many ways that you can support support the ministry of 3abn and all these different projects dr yvonne please have a prayer lord we just praise you and thank you so very much that you have brought us together once again lord we just thank you for the offerings that are going to come in for all these projects lord because these are your projects getting the gospel around the world through technology lord we just thank you and praise you for this platform and for the viewers who have the vision and the listeners on radio as well who share the vision of evangelism to get this gospel across the world so we thank you and we pray lord that you will bless this offering and that you will bless those who are giving and you will bless those who are going to receive the great gift of your gospel through this offering in jesus name we pray amen amen all right we're going to have some special music right yes we have reggie smith coming out and candy carson on the violin and i think tim on the piano okay this is incredible and this is a special treat for us because we not only get dr ben but we get candy who's a incredible musician she loves music singing playing i think she plays a number of instruments too but today we at least get her here and so we're thankful that candy's here along with reggie and the lady loves smith here in just a little bit uh this is going to be some good times that we're having right we're going to have a great time amen hey candy thank you for being here thank you for having us we are so happy to be here this is going to be fun right oh yeah all right we're going to have some we're going to walk off and let you guys bless us with your music thank you so much [Music] why should i feel discouraged why should the shadows come why should my heart be lonely [Music] and long for [Music] heaven when jesus is my portion my god instant friend is he his eye is on the sparrow and i know he watches is [Music] he watches me [Music] i sing [Music] because i'm happy [Music] [Music] and i know he watches me [Music] let [Music] and resting on his goodness i lose my doubts and fear [Music] but one step i may see his eyes on the sparrow and i know he watches me his eyes on this [Music] and i know he watches me i sing because i'm happy and [Music] is and i know he watches [Music] [Applause] [Music] amen thank you beautiful okay candy you and you and then dr dr ben is going to have to move here and join our team so we we we love music and we love you all being here speaking of uh dr ben carson it's our privilege to uh introduce uh dr ben and we've known him for a few years but in the last couple years we've gotten closer with him and and uh we're so thankful that he came to our camp meeting a couple years ago in loma linda but what an incredible individual that god has hand-picked from the foundation of the world to have an impact on the world and i'm thankful for modern day daniels and modern day joseph modern people who's willing to stand up and take the gospel to the world and rightly represent the lord jesus christ so such an honor why don't you give us a little bit of his bio for us okay surely surely dr benjamin s carson senior md founder and chairman of the american cornerstone institute most recently served as the 17th secretary of the u.s department of housing and urban development for nearly 30 years secretary carson served as director of pediatric neurosurgery at the johns hopkins children's center a position he assumed when he was just 33 years old becoming the youngest major division director in the hospital's history in 1987 he successfully performed the first separation of craniopagus twins conjoined at the back of the head he also performed the first fully successful separation of type 2 vertical craniopogus twins in 1997 in south africa dr carson received dozens of honors and awards in recognition of his achievements during the presidential medal of freedom the nation's highest civilian honor he's also a recipient of the spring arm medal the highest honor bestowed by the national association for the advancement of colored people naacp dr carson authored nine books four of which he co-wrote with his wife's candy the u.s news media group and harvard center for public leadership named him among america's best leaders in 2008 dr carson and his wife co-founded the carson scholars fund which recognizes young people of all backgrounds for exceptional academic and humanitarian accomplishments the fund is currently operating in 50 states and the district of columbia and is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the first awards ceremony in honor of that we have now reached more than ten thousand scholars awarded more than 8 million dollars in scholarships and before the end of this year we'll have installed more than 250 ben carson reading rooms around the country so what a blessing they've been absolutely we're going to do a little song it's a song that's kind of been customary we've kind of made it every year we do it but right before that brother ben comes to to preach to us to speak to us we want to invite the holy spirit to be here and we do it through song of ask reggie and lady to come out here also yes and we're going to do the song holy ground [Music] as i walked through the door i sensed his presence and i knew this was the place where love abounds for the this jehovah god abides in [Music] we are standing [Music] in his presence [Music] on holy ground sing it with us if you know it we are standing [Music] on holy ground [Music] and i know that there are angels all around [Music] [Music] in his presence [Music] in his presence there is joy beyond measures and at his feet peace of mind can still be found if you have a need think about it my god and your god has the answer reach out and claim it for a child you're standing on holy ground everybody sing now we are [Music] and i know that there are [Music] [Music] let us praise jesus [Music] his presence we are standing in [Music] his presence [Music] well that was certainly a wonderful song to come in on it's been so wonderful being here candy are so delightful to be with you for this fall camp meeting and i just want to start with a word of prayer most kind and gracious father in heaven thank you so much for bringing us together on this holy ground we ask that your spirit would be here that the words that are spoken not be mine but yours let your love and compassion wisdom and intellect shine through and let us be willing to receive it in the worthy name of jesus i pray amen you know these days we have the little bible with us all the time no matter where we go it's like having a whole library with you i want to direct you to matthew 24 starting at the end of verse 3. and the disciples were saying to jesus tell us when shall these things be what shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world and jesus answered and said unto them take heed that no man deceive you for many shall come in my name saying i am christ and deceive many and you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars we've certainly heard those see that you be not troubled for all these things must come to pass but the end is not yet for nations shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there shall be famines we certainly see those in different places around the world and pestilences like covet 19 and earthquakes and diverse places all of these are the beginning of sorrows then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted how many people are being tortured how many people are being persecuted not just around the world we used to say around the world now it's happening right here in the united states of america you should be afflicted and shall kill you you shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake and then shall many be offended we know about that don't we political correctness wokeness offending everybody got to have safe spaces to live in and shall betray one another and shall hate one another boy if that doesn't sound like the time that we're living in i don't know what does but it's not a time to be fearful you know fear can cause us to do a lot of strange things i remember when i was a youngster i was deathly afraid of dogs and it really altered my life because i would be going to school and there would be a dog and i would turn around and go all the way back around the block and sometimes be late to school because of that silly dog the dog wasn't silly i was the one who was silly because a man told me after hearing about my phobia of dogs he says dogs will not bother you if you're not afraid of them don't manifest any fear whatsoever i said really he said yeah absolutely this is guaranteed so i said okay so there was this dog his name was rusty and rusty was a mean dog and he chased people and nobody liked to go down near that part of the neighborhood i said i'm going to try this out on rusty so i bravely go walking down there and rusty's looking he's like i can't believe this home delivery my mail he could not believe it and as i walked right by where rusty lived he came running out barking and snarling and i said this was a mistake but he ran right up to my leg and then he stopped and he went back to the porch he didn't bite me and you know that was the last time rusty bothered me i would walk by there anytime i wanted rusty knew i wasn't afraid of him he didn't bother me anymore isn't it interesting how that works you know when we put our faith in god is there anything that we really need to be afraid of something to think about because who really is in control but i was also afraid of non-physical things i was afraid of failure because as a youngster i was kind of dumb or at least everybody thought i was dumb let's put it that way they were always calling me names and the teachers didn't think i was smart my classmates didn't think i was smart i didn't think i was smart the only one who thought i was smart was my mother she was always saying benjamin you're a smart boy you're much too smart to be bringing home grades like this i brought him home anyway but she was always saying that she was always being encouraging but she did know what to do but you know my mother even though she had less than a third grade education had gotten married at age 13 discovered that her husband was a veganist she believed in god and she asked god to give her wisdom what could she do to get her young sons to achieve in life and god gave her the wisdom at least in her opinion my brother and i didn't think it was wise at all i mean turning off the tv making us read book reports read books and write reports for her and in today's world we probably would have called the social services on her and they'd carried away in handcuffs but in those days you had to do what your parents told you to do and i started reading those books and even though i didn't want to do it after a relatively short period of time i began to enjoy reading those books because when you read books you have to use your imagination and it actually becomes extremely interesting as opposed to looking at somebody else's imagination made a big difference and in the space of a year and a half i went from the bottom of the class to the top of the class much to the consternation of all those people who used to laugh and call me dummy and interestingly enough you know we lived just on the other side of the railroad tracks there was white on one side black on one side and we lived on the white side of the track so i had to go to white elementary school and junior high so it was interesting because the teachers really didn't expect much of me anyway because they didn't think that the black kid would do well so no one was really pushing me other than my mother but the other white kids had seen this transition occur in me going from the dumb kid to the smartest kid in the class and they accepted it it was fine with them but in the eighth grade they would give out a special award at the end of the semester to the the young person with the highest academic achievement and i was thinking it's going to be me and you would take your report card to every teacher and they would mark it and give it to you and you take it to the next teacher and i was all the way to the last class and i had all a's this was going to be a breeze my last class was banned and i was good in bands so i knew that was an a the turkey gave me a c he wanted to ruin my report card he wanted to make sure i didn't get the award to his chagrin it turned out that band didn't count so i got the award anyway and interestingly enough at the award ceremony one of the the teachers got up and berated all the other kids how could you let a black boy be number one in the class you children are not working hard enough it was very embarrassing it must have been and the kids were just sort of looking at her and they were making the crazy symbol and point to her because they knew that i legitimately had earned that award and they had no problem with it but isn't it interesting how people have misguided concepts of what should be happening and the question is how do we react to people like that and if you go to if you go to micah 6 and verse 8 it says he has showed thee o man what is good and what does the lord require of thee but to do justly what does that mean to do justly means to treat people fairly and to love mercy even when people have done you wrong you don't have to do wrong to them and to walk humbly with thy god he has given us instructions for how to react to situations like the one that i faced in the eighth grade but it wasn't the end of my problems i also hated poverty you know some people hate rats and some people hate roaches some people hate centipedes snakes i hated poverty i couldn't stand it that is until i started reading those books and reading about entrepreneurs and scientists and surgeons and explorers and people of great accomplishment and seeing how they were able to take control of their lives and i began to recognize that the person who had the most to do it what happened to me was me what did i want to do what did i want to take advantage of that was in my environment and what a difference it made and i began to recognize that poverty was something that i had control over i didn't have to be poor if i didn't want to i could change that based on the energy that i was willing to put forth to chase my dreams and at that point i didn't mind poverty anymore i'm still poor i had a different attitude because i knew it wasn't a permanent situation isn't that the reason that god gives us these amazing brains that he has given us so that we can think through situations like that we can analyze situations you know if you look at an animal's brain and you compare that with a human brain it looks very similar except the animal has a very developed midbrain and the midbrain is an area that allows you to react have you noticed how fast animals can react to things but they have relatively small frontal lobes on the other hand people don't have that well-developed midbrain but they have these gigantic frontal lobes where you engage in processing of intellectual material where you're able to plan what you're actually going to do based on what you've seen before it's kind of interesting right now we live at a time when people are pushing forth things like critical race theory that say you ought to look at somebody and react to their physical characteristics which they have no control over as opposed to their character which they have a lot of control over but to analyze their character you need those frontal lobes to see what color they are you just need your midbrain so what they're saying is you should act like an animal and not like a being that was made in the image of god that right there tells you that it is on the wrong track when we're looking at things like that where do we get courage from courage is so important in a society that has decided that if you don't act the way you're supposed to act we're going to punish you we're going to restrict what you can do we're going to cancel you we're going to hurt your family now how in the world is somebody supposed to live in a society like that and feel free and that's where courage comes in you know i can remember a situation that really required a lot of courage on my behalf when i was a neurosurgery resident at johns hopkins and there was a national conference neurosurgery conference going on so almost all the faculty members had gone off to boston to this conference the one that was left behind in case there were some significant emergencies uh was the one we were supposed to reach out to if something happened and i was on call and a young man was brought in a teenager who had been beaten with a baseball bat and he was unconscious his head was bleeding he had hemorrhages in his brain the brain was swelling and he was going to die and the only chance of survival that he would have is if you took out part of his frontal lobe and part of his temporal lobe along with the blood clot well you know that's a complex operation not an operation i had ever done before i'd seen it done before but i couldn't do anything about it without an attending physician and we couldn't reach the attending physician and the paging operator couldn't reach the attending physician and the young man was dying it's illegal for a resident to take them to the operating room without an attending i had to make a decision shall i risk my career and take them to the operating room what if it doesn't come out okay and i have never even done this operation before or should i take him and risk everything and i prayed i said lord help me to do the right thing and you know after i prayed that prayer i felt so calm and i said we're taking them to the iowa and we took them to the operating room and uh you know i remembered everything that needed to be done to do that operation correctly he did fine in fact today that young man is a psychologist helping other young people but not only did i not get in trouble i got a lot of praise for having the courage to do what was right and again where's that source of strength that source of courage it comes from god it helped me with a lot of situations i remember there was another situation where a young man had something called van hippo landau syndrome which causes these very vascular tumors to form in your brain and this young man had formed one right in the middle of his brain stem an inoperable situation and none of the adult neurosurgeons would touch him with a 10 foot pole well unfortunately for me it turns out that his wife was a pediatric neurosurgery nurse so i couldn't get away from her and she said you're gonna have to operate on my husband and i said but he's an adult i'm a pediatric neurosurgeon and she says well he acts like a child but uh you know i just couldn't get away from she kept after me and i finally said okay i would go and talk to him and i went i talked to him and i said craig this tumor is in the middle of your brain stem the brain stem is like a coaxial cable there's nothing in there that isn't being used and i said if i try to take the tumor out there is at least a 50 50 chance that you will die on the table and he said doctor if you don't take the tumor out there's a hundred percent chance that i'm going to die so i'll take 50 50 any day i said you know that's a very mature attitude and i took them to the operating room and went down to the brain stem area there are all these blood vessels new blood vessels that had grown into that area in response to the tumor worked away through them all and got to the surface and made a very tiny hole over the area where i felt that the tumor was located and then stuck a probe in there to just see if i could feel for a difference in consistency and when i met that difference in consistency i put in a very tiny forcep under the microscope grab the edge of the tumor started delivering it while peeling the surface away from the other tissues around it and as i was gradually and very slowly delivering this tumor through this very tiny incision the evo potentials went flat those are the electrical impulses that come from the brain to the brain stem and the anesthesiologist said he's dead you may as well stop the operation you killed him i told you you were going to kill him and he's dead because obviously he wasn't a big fan of this operation but uh we continued got the whole thing out the evo potentials remained flat there was a sense of depression in the room because we knew that he was probably dead but closed them up sent them to the icu intubated comatose and the next morning when i came in he was sitting up in the bed they had excavated him and he was telling jokes now i recognized at that moment that that was god he gave me the courage and he showed me what to do but you know sometimes there comes a point no matter what's going on you just have to put it all in his hands and when i've done that he always comes through and he never puts us in a situation from which he cannot and will not deliver us and it gives you a sense of of peace you know it's sort of what david in the bible was missing when he strayed away from god you know he started out on the right pathway as a shepherd boy depending on god allowing him to kill a lion and a bear and protect the flocks giving him the courage to face goliath the giant to slay him and to do many other things but then he wandered away he start depending on himself he started catering to his own selfish desires and he was the king he had riches he had honor he had all the things that you could want but it wasn't good enough because he didn't have god and he came back to god and he said create in me a clean heart o god and renew a right spirit within me cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy spirit for me restore unto me the joy the joy of thy salvation that's what he was missing and uphold me with thy free spirit then what i teach transgressors thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto thee you can have everything in the world but if you don't have jesus if you don't have the joy of his salvation it's not good enough we have to always remember that in times of joy and times of sorrow in times of plenty and in times of need he is in control i remember there was a case in south africa of conjoined twins they were joined at the back of the head similar to the case that had gained great fame for me and you know they obviously want me to come over and help with that case but the kids were deteriorating very very quickly so it had to be done under semi-emergent conditions and uh you know we were in the operating room doing the separation we got to the part where we had to put them on hypothermic arrests which meant the cardiac surgeons had to go in and you know cool the temperatures into the heart stop pump all the blood out and then we would be able to do the critical part of the operation and then they would start the hearts back up after pumping their blood back in and warming it up well it turns out that as they expose one of the hearts they could see that it was not functional and then they figured out the reason that the kids had been deteriorating is because one of them was doing the pumping for both of them and as they grew it became more and more difficult for that one heart to be able to pump for both of them so they were going into congestive failure so it was clear that that one wouldn't be able to survive but we were able to complete the operation and the other one seemed to be okay for the first day then that one started having seizures and all kinds of problems and over the course of the next day died and it turns out that that one didn't have any kidney function the one that didn't have heart function had the kidney function the other one had the other functions so they were symbiotic they couldn't live apart and they couldn't live together and i remember as i was traveling back to the united states after that operation i was so depressed and i was thinking anybody could have failed i didn't have to come all the way over here and get involved in this case you know lord how did you get me involved in a case that didn't turn out the right way this is just horrible but i was thinking more about me see that was the problem because three years later there was another case a case from zambia of vertical craniofacus twins they joined at the top of the head facing in opposite directions something we call a type 2 vertical there had been 13 attempts to separate twins like that previously none of which had been successful and you know i was asked to be involved in that case and we brought the case to south africa and interestingly enough we were able to reassemble the team that had worked on the previous failure all the equipment that had been imported for that was still there the training was still there and that turned out to be the very first complex cranioplasty case where separation was successfully done with no neurological deficit that would not have happened has we not failed on the previous one the previous one was going to die anyway but the lord used that to prepare the way for one that would be extremely successful you see we come sometimes don't see the whole picture god plays the long game we play the short game sometimes we get very disappointed because things haven't gone the way we want them to go that's when we need to just say lord it's you it's all about you it's not about me recognize that he is completely in control that's what we need to recognize about our nation right now our nation which was formed under judeo-christian values values like love your neighbor instead of cancel your neighbor and try to help people not try to hurt people you know how do we get into a situation like that a situation where we try to force people to do our will if we have power those are not things that this nation was known for it's not the reason that so many people came here and our nation was known as a as a nation of communities where people worked together people who had different talents and skills why were they able to be successful in far out of the way places in remote states it's because they knew how to work together they didn't have to all believe the same thing that was not necessary what was necessary is for people to work together you know it was jesus who originally said a house divided against itself cannot stand abraham lincoln later said that and it's absolutely true you take a nation as strong as the united states of america too strong to be brought down by russia or china or north korea or iran or any other place but easily destroyed by its own people who have been manipulated into believing that they're each other's enemies when they're not each other's enemies that's the real shame and i think that's where it requires courage courage to point out those things that are creating the problems you know we have groups saying that this group takes primacy over this group black lives matter lives do matter but you know what jesus christ died for all lives there's no life that doesn't matter to him from the least to the greatest that should be our cause as well now we live in a nation that has a lot of different people in it from different backgrounds there's no question about that but some people want to make that into a problem is it really a problem i mean how many people for instance would want to go to the national aquarium if every fish was a goldfish it really wouldn't be that interesting but it certainly wouldn't be worth paying for who would want to go to the national zoo if every animal was a thompson's gazelle it wouldn't be that great who would want a beautiful bouquet of flowers if everyone was identical it's pretty but it's not as pretty as one that is carefully orchestrated with lots of different things and who would want to get up in the morning if everybody looked exactly like you in some cases it'd be a national disaster so we should be very pleased that god was kind enough to give us variety and what is it that makes a person who they are is it the color of their skin is it the quality of their hair is the shape of their nose or is it their brain and see that's why we have those big frontal lobes you know dr martin luther king was on to something when he said he dreamed of the day when people would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character and we find ourselves in a situation where people are teaching exactly the opposite now it takes courage to stand up against that to speak out against that because you will be attacked there's no question about that you know in in the book of timothy second timothy and [Music] it's the third chapter and the twelfth verse it says yea and all that will live godly in christ jesus shall suffer suffer persecution now what do you think that means you know there's some people they see things going on they don't say anything they just kind of hide in a corner put their head down i hope nobody calls them a nasty name is that what we're called to do or are we called to stand up for those who are in a difficult situation if you go to the book of proverbs and you go to chapter 24 verse 10 it says if thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small if thou forebear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain if thou saith behold we knew it not does not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy soul doth he not know it and shall he not render to every man according to his works in other words bad things are happening to people you can't just sit around say i don't know about it i'm close my eyes not my business i don't care the bible says that's not what you should be doing it says if you do that god knows that you did that and holds you responsible but some people said but if i do that then i put myself in a line of fire then i may be persecuted yes that's absolutely true but remember this even if people say nasty things about you or persecute you or even put you in jail or even kill you what is that inconvenience against the backdrop of eternity with christ that's what paul was talking about he says you know it's like dung i don't even think about that stuff it's so insignificant compared to the glory that i will experience with the lord doesn't mean you should go out and look to be persecuted don't try to be persecuted but it does mean we have a responsibility to do what is right and when we see liberty being challenged we need to deal with it and uh you know you look at something like freedom of speech one of the key tenets of our constitution and the bill of rights one of the things that attracted so many people from the shores of so many distant lands to america they want it to be free to live the way they wanted to live to say what they wanted to say to pursue the careers they wanted the career to to pursue without somebody stepping on them all the time and telling them what they had to do what they couldn't do and particularly what they could say and what they couldn't say that's why the whole concept of political correctness is so evil it's really antithetical to our first amendment and when it is enforced by big tech and the media by isolating people by canceling people by destroying people's livelihoods and the government does nothing about it it's complicit then it is exactly the same as if the government imposed that themselves and i think there's a responsibility to resist a situation where people's rights their fundamental rights which is our declaration of independence states those rights come from god and not from the government and therefore those who are godly people will protect the rights not only of themselves but of others that are being challenged and that are being taken away and will not be fearful in the process of doing that recognizing always that god is in control you know i remember that situation in which you had a little girl whose little baby whose head was not growing and her brain was progressively being compressed and we had to do an operation to expand the skull and during the process of that operation she started hemorrhaging and it was a very very significant hemorrhage and then her heart stopped and then she had to be resuscitated in the operating room for several minutes and we were not able to get her heart to start back up and the anesthesiologist was saying i think we should call it i mean we've lost her that's the end of the case and i i just couldn't couldn't let her go i said no let's keep going we went another five minutes still nothing another five minutes after that but then we got a little heartbeat and uh you know a little epinephrine and a few other things and her heart started beating again and we were able to get things closed up and take her to the icu but at that point she had no neurologic exam brain dead flat waved and i remember her father and he was a christian and he said doctors there is there even a small chance that she might survive and that she might wake up he said one in ten maybe and i said no he said one in a hundred i said no i said one in a thousand no and then he and i challenge each other to see who could pray the hardest because that would be the only chance that she had and interestingly enough over the next 12 hours she began to have some function her pupils started working everybody was talking about this and she woke up it was unbelievable but then she started having pulmonary problems and portions of her lungs begin to fail and the pulmonary specialists came and they looked and they said she's going to die we're not going to be able to save her interestingly enough uh that next day i was supposed to go to ohio to speak at one of the medical schools uh early that morning my youngest son had a severe asthma attack every had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital all this is going on while this kid is dying and i get a call from one of the nurses saying the last part of that lung is failing and would you like to come in and speak to the parents well i couldn't because i had to get to the airport and i i called when i got to ohio to speak to the parents because i figured the baby was dead by then and they said no the the baby's still hanging on and you know i got back the next day and in fact the lungs were starting to repair themselves but now the neurologist and the rehab people had come by and they said the baby can't see the baby can't hear has lost most neurological function there's really not even much point in sending her to a rehabilitation facility and i had to go to california to do some stuff with the nih and uh when i got back first thing i did was go into that baby's room and the baby looked at me and followed me with her eyes and the baby could obviously hear and it turns out that the rehab people and the neurologists were right she was not a candidate because she was perfectly fine and you know what you know what that told me again who is in charge no matter what is going on in our lives who is actually in charge i remember the case of a little girl from denver and she was having seizures up to 130 seizures a day they would did everything they could to stop the seizures they even put her in a pentabarbital coma for two weeks figured if they could just keep her sedated and then let the brain rest it would be okay but after two weeks went by and they lifted the sedation and the seizures started right up again and you know i was contacted to see if i would consider doing an operation called cerebral hemispherectomy something that had been done in the past and had fallen out of favor because of the high morbidity and mortality associated there with and you know i did some studying and uh concluded that maybe there were some things we could do differently than had been done before maybe there were some techniques that had improved and some materials that might make this feasible now and i remember when i was talking to the parents and they said doctor have you ever done this before and i said no and i said but i've studied the issue and i think there's a good chance that it might work what did it take for those parents to trust this young neurosurgeon to do something so radical it's pretty amazing to me that they they did that but they did and the operation was very difficult the brain was swollen there was a lot of bleeding we had to do massive transfusions and she didn't wake up immediately but she did within a matter of a couple of hours and the parents were by the bedside and she said mommy daddy i love you oh they were like on cloud all right and she made a tremendous recovery she was very photogenic as was her mother and you know they got a lot of media attention the story uh was broadcast far and wide about hemispherectomies a little girl living with half of brain and doing well and that encouraged others and pretty soon you know we were doing a lot of hemispherectomies and i remember at a press conference and they were the first 14 13 of them were girls and one of the reporters said does this only work in women and girls why is it that 13 are girls and one is a male and i said well women only use half of their brain anyway that's telling a joke of course and one of the female neurologists said no that's not correct she said women only need half of their brain to be as smart as men [Laughter] but in fact we had a lot of fun but but the key thing was that first case which required a lot of courage and a lot of study opened the pathway for many others who had very difficult situations to get them resolved and now that operation is a common operation that's done by virtually all pediatric neurosurgeons but the lord opened that pathway up in a way that i would not have expected by the same token when i left medicine and came into government i also ran into a lot of resistance because there was a which surprised me there were a lot of people in washington who didn't want to get people out of dependency and i want i said everybody should agree with these things that will help people move up the ladders of opportunity and become you know independent and it was very difficult but we were able to get several things done including envision centers which comes from the bible proverbs 29 18 without a vision of people perish we would take all these federal agencies 13 of them combined with state agencies local agencies faith faith organizations nonprofits and amalgamate the services that they provided and put it all under one roof so that that teenage mother of two had a place where she could go and be able to get child care at the same time find out how to get her ged and after that be able to get some additional training so she can become independent and subsequently teach that to her children that's the only way you break these growing patterns of dependency those are the kinds of things that we have to start thinking about in this nation in which we live and perhaps most important and one i want to close with is we have to seek god we have to seek him now times are difficult that we live in and if we don't have him we're not going to make it and here we go yes isaiah 55 6 seek ye the lord while he may be found call ye upon him while he is near let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts let him return unto the lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our god and he will abundantly harden we have such a gracious and accepting god who has everything under control we don't need to worry about all this horrendous stuff that we see going on around us every single day all we have to do is trust in him he will take our fear away he will give us courage he will direct what we're doing all we have to do is what is right and let me close with a prayer kind father in heaven you are so gracious you are so good you are so kind you're so generous and yet sometimes we forget about you and sometimes we neglect you help us to seek you while you may be found that you might use us all in the specific way that you have ordained that we may bring eventual peace and prosperity and the conditions that are ripe for your triumphant return in jesus name amen [Music] [Music] glory be to the father and to the son [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] holy holy holy lord god almighty [Music] early in the morning our song shall rise to thee [Music] god in three persons [Music] blessed [Music] though the darkness [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] there is [Music] love and purely [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Music] and see [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] shall we [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN)

Views: 51,219

Rating: 4.8075881 out of 5

Keywords: Dr. Ben Carson, Ben Carson testimony, amazing testimonies, how to have courage, 3ABN Virtual Homecoming Camp Meeting 2021

Id: 2u23QF3kne0

Length: 87min 30sec (5250 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021