Special Guest Teacher Ravi Zacharias | Calvary Chapel Chino Valley

[Applause] always grateful for the fact that people can't tell when I'm blushing very years ago we were not kids were young and by the way before I do any of that I should introduce people that I know from don't often hag at the opportunity to have my daughter is here with me my oldest daughter Sarah is here she lives in these parts I don't know why she shows up there's nothing I've said that she hasn't heard before and probably would say it better than I do and then I have some very special friends here from the Philippines right in the front row then I want you to welcome a family that I actually met for the first time through some common friends in Thailand this is the first time they have ever been in a church and they here tonight from Thailand visiting here so I brought my train of thought so it wouldn't make any sense now what I was going to say but let me say it anyway when we when our kids were young and we were vacationing in Cape Cod Massachusetts and we didn't go having fun all day and by the end of the day of course everybody looked red as anything except our kids they looked fine and my son Nathan looked at me was quite little and he said thank God for the pigment a dad so it's nice to have the pigment when especially when you are quite embarrassed about it all thank you for coming you know the story is told of art Linkletter who has let me back up a bit I think I don't know it was Einstein some people say it was Einstein some people say it was another professor from Harvard who was actually visiting the Princeton campus and as he was walking a young man driving a golf cart or something knowing the renown of Einstein said would you like me to show you around sir so Einstein garden and they drove around the campus and at the end of it he said could you please drop me off where you pick me up so the man brought Einstein back and I censored before I get off I have a question when you picked me up was I coming from that side going here I was I coming from this side going there and the students said as far as I know you were coming from that side going this way Einstein said good that means I've already had my lunch or art Linkletter visiting a convalescent home was walking around and the lady just waved at him and he said do you know who I am she said no but if you go to the front desk they'll be happy to tell you I'm beginning to feel that way these days I'm not sure where I am I think I know my name I don't know whether I've had lunch or dinner or what the time zones that we hit when I woke up this morning I looked at my watch and fortunately I have two time zones in my watch and the smaller one tells me my home time and the bigger dial tells me where I am so I figured out I was in the Pacific time zone took me a moment or two to get recalibrated tomorrow my colleague Matt and I head off to Minneapolis pray for us 16 degrees as we go there for the next two days and then three days later the Lord is gonna bless us and take us to the Grand Cayman Islands so we'll go from the ridiculous to the sublime and have some meetings there I want to thank you all for having me we had a great forum last night at Biola along with Dennis Prager they had a great dialogue we were doing two more this year one in Washington and one in Arizona the theme that I want to talk to you about tonight being a church and you know in my kind of work we are most often standing in front of hostile audiences I would never have guessed we were in an Ivy League school of two weeks ago never would have dreamed that I'd be walking into an auditorium with people holding placards discouraging people from coming in to hear a controversial speaker can you imagine that who creates the controversy and all other kinds of things were going on but place is packed they couldn't stop them from coming in and overflow rooms are opened up and they're such watching online all over the world and so while they're always those who may take offense or like to think they take offense of what you say when you really engage them in dialog they realize that if you do your homework and know how to defend the Christian faith they will end up at least respecting you and giving you the opportunity to make that claim so I don't often get to be in churches as much as love to be there one of the reasons I've told you is our calling is into adversarial settings where people disagree or hold to a different worldview but it's wonderful I just had to rework my thinking every time I get back into the church my wife actually what she does she'll always book me in a church after a particularly tense engagement because she knows I need it at least so that people will applaud before I begin and otherwise they have to wait till the day at the end time and wondering whether they should now after it's over I want to talk to you on the subject that sort of grandly titled interpreting failures and conserving victories how do you interpret the failures that you face in life and all of us do somebody my brother in Canada he's a medical doctor he's a pain management specialist and one day I said to him all of life is pain management how you deal with pain how you deal with struggles how you deal with losses how you deal with disappointments how you deal with your own failures and your shortcoming your shortcomings in fact I just finished the latest book along with my colleague from Oxford Vince Vitale it's called if God why suffering so we go through a lot of those but then at the same time when we enjoy successes when we seem to think we've reached the mountaintop with a grand X grand moment of success or blessing or whatever how do we put this all into context one of the most profound chapters in the Bible is in Deuteronomy chapter 8 I'd like to read for you from this chapter and if you don't have your Bibles I'll read it for you from the New International Version the book of Deuteronomy is referred to by commentators by biblical commentators as the most favored book of Jesus because he quoted so often from the book of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy Turin almost literally meaning the reiteration of the law as the law was given to them if the proliferation of usage is an indication of favored status then chapter 8 must have been one of his most favorite chapters of all because in his temptation or testing in the wilderness all of his responses come from this chapter that tells me how defining this chapter was for the people of Israel and for your walk and my walk with God if our Lord Jesus in the wilderness has been tested by the enemy of our souls and all of his response has come from this particular chapter this had to be very germane in the biblical passage chapter 8 verse 1 be careful to follow every command I'm giving you today so that you may live an increase and may enter and possess the land that the Lord has promised on oath to your forefathers remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these 40 years why to Humble you and to test you in order to know that what was in your heart whether or not you would keep his Commandments he humbled you causing to hunger and then feeding you with manna which neither knew you know your fathers had known why to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these 40 years no than in your heart that as a man disciplines his son so the Lord your God disciplines you he goes on to later on when he says in the in verse the latter part of verses 6 and so on he says observe the commandments of your Lord walking in his ways and rivairy revering him the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land a land with streams and pools of water with Springs flowing in the valleys and hills a land with wheat and barley vines and fig trees pomegranates olive oil and honey a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills when you have eaten and you are satisfied praise the Lord your God for the good and he has given you be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God failing to observe His commandments his laws and decrees that I'm giving you this day father I pray you will bless Minister inspire and help us to learn what it is you're trying to say so that we too may be wise in this day as we live and know how to go through the pain and suffering we sometimes have to go through and how to celebrate the triumph which also so punctuate our lives in Jesus name Amen when you look at the Old Testament many of the teachings come in threes it is this for example their salvation was accomplished at the Exodus their identity was defined at Sinai and their preservation was guaranteed through the 40 years wandering in the wilderness their salvation accomplished in the Exodus identity defined at Sinai and then the righteousness and the path that they were to follow is shown in that 40 years of wandering in the wilderness how they would be preserved they were to refresh their memories of God's saving grace at the Feast of the Passover they were to renew their commitments at the feast of Pentecost they will respond to respond as a blessed community at the feast of tabernacles they were a redeemed community a commanded community and a blessed community and yet things went wrong things went wrong because of the way leadership went wrong leadership is critical in the home in the Academy in politics in church where it is at the center of a column will always stand one person who has to lead who has to blaze the trail and if you read the history of Israel you'll see where the failings scam amongst the leadership you see the untamed passions of a gifted man wanton power in a privileged man and the unteachable temperament of a man with a possessed promise you see untamed passions they gifted men wanton power in a weak man and the unteachable temperament in a privileged man in Solomon you saw all of that capacity never able to control his sensual inclinations in rear boom you saw all the power that suddenly came to him but he was weak unable to know how to handle genuine power Jeroboam was given extraordinary promise a promise that he would be blessed like unto David but he is not teachable and he lost out and if you look at leadership today you'll see one of these three failings you'll see the essentially driven unable to handle power with thinking de themselves are the beginning and the end of it all and an unteachable person this is where our failings really come but as they were going in through the wilderness Moses is leading them he himself has had a tough time coming to this point of believing that he was called to do this and the most fascinating and ironic thing about preparing Moses to me at least comes in the passage when after all of the miracles he'd seen all of the empowerment's given him all of that he really said how will I know that you've actually called me to do this how do I know that God gave him the most incredible answer which probably caused Moses to say that's really not what I was looking for God said when you get there you will know I'm the one who brought you so that's not what I'm asking for Lord I want to know before I get there whether you really want me to get there when you get there you will know I am the one who has brought you you know the younger you are the more you think you can manage it all the older you are the more you realize if it weren't for him you would never made it that's how the Grand Weaver works the designing threads you realize more and more how sometimes you blundered into the right you had no intention to turn out to be looking so right in it all and God brought you through I look at my own life born and raised in the city of Chennai in India called Chennai blong before the British came they changed the name to Madras and then when the spirit of nationalism arose they hopped back and changed Madras back to Chennai in the early days when I used to go and visit the home where I was born and raised when I take my wife my wife's from Canada I'd go or take friends there if you'd put about three people with an outstretched span like that that'd be as wide as the street was and where I lived if May May 3 and in that one tiny little room where seven of us would be raised and it's okay nothing to complain about I'm just telling you the grand Weaver had a different story in mind for the years to come for all that he was preparing one individual for another individual for and if you tonight are sitting here wondering what does it take to get to the place of God's choosing how do I get there I promise you if you honor the directions he is given when you get there you will be absolutely certain in your mind that if it weren't for him you would never have made it through this terrain I'll guarantee you that and so what is it that God tells them he wants of them you see he was going to take them across this little over a hundred plus miles it should not have taken them more than six weeks to cross maximum forty years you know the old story is told of the Texan Rancher who was talking to a Punjabi Indian in Punjab and he said to him mr. Singh how big is your farm and the Punjabi farmer says you know if you stand here and look straight ahead you see that lamppost that's how long it is and that's how wide it is and the Texan said do you know how big my ranch is back home if I got into the car at six or walk in the morning and drove and drove and drove several hours later I still wouldn't have reached the end of my ranch the Punjabi says I know exactly what you mean I used to have a car just like that we can brag about how big things are how long it is and here's God taking them through this terrain imagine in that rugged terrain with such a vast number how annoying it must have become after some time to put up with all of the grumbling and all of the complaining forty years here's the first lesson I want to lead leave with you the shortest route is not always the best route because it can bypass some of life's most important lessons the shortest route is not always the best route because oftentimes it can bypass life's most important lessons and he says I took you through all of this wondering why so that you would get to know what was in your heart one of God's great designs in your life and mind is for us to look at our own hearts and understand who we really are on the inside not what people think we are not how it looks with the plasticity on the outside and all the makeup that we can have many years ago in the year 2000 the former Soviet Union was releasing its political prisoners and one of them was a Hungarian prisoner by the name of Andres Thomas he had been incarcerated in the Soviet Union in 1945 when he was 20 years old and was released in the year 2000 when he was 75 years old a lot of that time spent in solitary confinement they basically almost devastated this man psychologically when he was when the prisons were being as is a true story when the prisons were being emptied they were going to do away with this man because he was talking total gibberish they thought he was a psychiatric basket case and well somebody else said you know don't do that why don't you bring a Hungarian psychiatrist let him at least talk to this man and see if there is some hope and so the psychiatrist spent a protracted period of time with Andres Thomas came out and said the man is not talking gibberish this is an old Hungarian dialect give him to us we will work with them we will reshape his mind we will beget him back into society and so the Soviets granted that and so they put him in a wheelchair and the psychiatrist was wheeling him out if you have never read the story you will never guess what his first request was as he's being wheeled out he looks of the psychiatrist and says can I have a mirror I haven't seen my face in 55 years now you figure out you're a strong determined young man at the age of 20 and the next time you see your face you're 75 politics ideologies does these things to people and he could only lost of glimpse for no more than a second or two when he held up that mirror he bursts into uncontrollable sobs and put the mirror face down he couldn't for the life of him believe that this was the same man they'd picked up when he was 20 we get up every morning put on our innocent forms of disfigurement look at the mirror we like what we see and then we go out let me ask you this is there a mirror for the soul is there a reflection God intends for you and me so that we know what we are intended to look like it was George MacDonald from whom CS Lewis borrowed this statement you do not have a soul you are a soul you have a body you do not have a soul you are a soul you have a body is there a mirror for the soul here's the first lesson I took you through that wilderness for all these years so that you could see in the humility of your own heart what you really are like humility you know god alone knows how to humble us without humiliating us and to exalt us without flattering us God alone knows how to humble us without humiliating us and how to exalt us without flattering us so said the famed Australian and New Zealand writer am Blakelock many many decades ago it's a statement I remember reading in one of his tiny little books and writing it down and here's the first lesson God intends you and me to have a humble heart and a humble spirit do away with pride do away with arrogance the difference between David and Saul was that David was a man of a humble heart Saul was an arrogant man who always wanted to look good and powerful in front of the people humility there are two ways to learn humility number one is this to focus on the person of Jesus Christ the Bible says in Philippians chapter 2 who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God Dogma Jesus but made himself of no reputation and humbled himself being found in fashion as a man he became obedient unto death even the death of the cross wherefore God also has exalted him and given to him a name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form of a sermon if the very Son of God can go all the way down to the humiliation of the cross showing us that he was a humble servant and walked with the ordinary talked with the needy found himself with the destitute and the poor and the widow and the fatherless for whom he placed such value in life so often he found himself with the common person and the Bible says the common person heard him gladly it was the power brokers that were really fighting him human you learned this emulating capacity by observing a very Lord and how he lived how he walked how he died God also finally exalted him gave him a name above every name that's the best way it's a tough way I've seen people like that in my walk I've seen the humble of heart and every time I've been with people like that I have walked away just overwhelmed by it all just this week I think about me if it was not here it was we came here from Indianapolis I think it'd have been somewhere there somebody was talking to me about a man that I knew in Calcutta his name was Mark Montaigne I have some special friends and colleagues from India here tonight as well they all know who Mark Montaigne was he was known as Saint Mark of Calcutta thousands were fed by his congregation every day one of the humblest human beings you could ever meet when I was 19 preaching my first two or three sermons he was sitting on the platform in his church and gave me the pulpit to preach I was a nervous wreck standing in front of that people and preaching it was the second or third time I've ever had ever stood in front of an audience and I'll never forget as I sat down and my whole body literally trembling I was glad it was over with the saint of a man reached out and grabbed my hand and he said that was anointed anyone who knows mark Montaigne if you're in the audience you'll know I have not exaggerated what I have just said to you an extraordinary human being and the hallmark of Mark Montaigne his humble heart his humility and I call upon you whoever you are no matter how successful God wants you to humble yourself and when you watch the person of Christ that humility naturally comes if you don't come to it that way I'll tell you he'll get you there one way or the other and here's a terrifying statement from stomas Aquinas the first time I read this I didn't like it I'm not even sure I agreed with it but the more I've read it it is chillingly true listen to what he says in order to overcome pride God punishes certain people by allowing them to fall into sins of the flesh which dome they may actually be less Grievous than pride are outwardly more shameful from this indeed the gravity of pride is made manifest for just as a wise physician in order to cure a worse disease allows the patient to contract one that is less dangerous so also the sin of pride is shown to be more grievous by the very fact that as a remedy God allows men to fall into some other sins Wow do you know what Aquinas is saying if you don't deal with pride he'll know how to bring you to that point of dealing with it that which in culture may be atrocious that when the eyes of God is actually less Grievous than the sin of pride itself he'll bring you to recognize the grievousness of pride by help by allowing you to fall into something lesser where culturally you'll be seen for what your heart and my heart really is you see this happen time and time again I think that's why Billy Graham prays a prayer every morning I heard him say this every morning I pray Lord please today let me not do that which has taken you do that which will destroy that which has taken decades to build let me not do today to destroy that which has taken decades to build humility of heart and the humbleness of heart one of my great heroes as a young theological student was John Wesley I don't know how many of you read John Wesley's life he was not a gigantic personality he's fully stretched he was five foot four so not exactly a towering presence to walk up in front of an audience Wesley traveled 250,000 miles by horseback preaching he preached 40,000 sermons in his life compute that when the famous Oswald J Smith in Canada was celebrating his 80th year Billy Graham came to Toronto to preach and talked about the fact that o J Smith had preached 12,000 sermons in his life that's 12,000 of the day of television and radio John Wesley 40,000 in the day of horseback the original version of the sermon on the mount mount his horse gun feet mounted horse go and speak 40,000 sermons to earn 50,000 miles worked with 15 different languages or 600 pieces of literature some of them massive journals at the age of 83 he was angry with his doctor because his doctor didn't let him preach more than 14 times a week at the age of 86 in his journal he writes laziness is slowly creeping him there's an increasing tender there's an increasing tendency to stay in bed after 5:30 in the morning now I've consoled myself by saying he probably went to sleep at 4:00 in the afternoon I don't know what he wrote down he was one of 19 children raised by Susanna Wesley Susanna herself was one of 29 I don't know that their shoes 19:29 one day Susanna looked at John and said this to him and he said mother how do you define sin she said son whatever weakens your reasoning impairs the tenderness of your conscience obscures essence of God or takes away a relish for spiritual things in short of anything increases the authority and the power of the flesh of the spirit that to you John Wesley becomes sin however good it is in itself so he covers the two great continents brings in this great evangelical awakening you go to his home in London there's a monument at the back there a tribute to him and these words reader if you feel constrained to praise the instrument stop and give God the glory if you feel constrained to praise the instrument stop and give God the glory we have nothing extraordinary over anybody else just because you stand in front of an audience and proclaim it we ultimately preach our last sermon and are called to give an accountability before God which also as Li said God buries his workmen but his work will go on humility number two spirituality he said I took you through these 40 years so that you will learn that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God isn't it interesting here in America the more bread we have now got the less time we have forgotten in places where our so impoverished people are still crying out to God in the hope of getting in communion with them we have so much here we have forgotten how to even say thank you before we bow down and enjoy a meal spirituality God desires from you and me that we understand this body will one day be shed and cast away what really matters is that spirit that God has given to you that in a reality that inner you how much it'll ultimately count for ultimate things I was reading recently again the story and the life of Elvis Presley because I remember as a young teenager growing up in Delhi you know Elvis was the big thing everybody combed their hair like him I tried today there's no point just leave it and let it flop just give them individual names and move on we all wanted to look like Elvis walk like Elvis Rock like Elvis sing like Elvis Elvis was a smile like Elvis everybody want every kid wanted that the theaters were jammed to see this man's life read about his last two years nineteen thousand doses of narcotics the coroner said his body when it was opened up he was a pharmaceutical freak every morning they would swab his nostrils with cocaine just to get him breathing normally again I knew I know his half-brother rick stanley who lives in georgia he came to me one day and said i want to talk to you he's written the book after Elvis died he's the one who who found Elvis Elvis his body and he wrote a book called between two kings because after Elvis died he said I was shattered I had nothing left my entire identity was with him and his money and his fame and when I lost everything I had to come to the only King that really mattered come to Christ but I looked at Rick and I said Rick you know what boggles my mind how was a man like this so driven to drugs and ruined his life how did he get to that point of drugs destroying him he said Ravi I think this is where we've got it a bit wrong I said what do you mean he said drugs didn't destroy elvis fame destroyed him and when he started to lose his fame drugs was his only escape and his recourse he is not all accidental that many of our icons in the movie world turned to drugs turned to something else because they found out that being famous amounts ultimately to a hill of beans as somebody else shoves you aside and they reached the top of the ladder and you are on your way down what really matters what really matters is if you know your God and you know that that's spiritualists primary in your life I couldn't help but think during the winter games and just now I didn't watch too many of them those watching these great athletes coming down the slopes I remember in a story that I've told many times I was in my office one day when the telephone rang from this man and he gave me his name I said is this for real he was an Olympic medalist in one of the events that was just run in the Winter Olympics he said Ravi can I come and see you I said sure I said are you who I think you are he said yes I am he flew 2,000 miles to come to Atlanta and we went out for lunch solidly built and he said I want to tell you my story and I'm telling you my story because I hear you have read your book and I think you have a similar story at least in your past he said from the time I was 12 I wanted to win an Olympic gold medal he said and I trained and I trained and I trained I would look at the world champion cut stride by stride try to feed a figure out where I was losing this precious fractions of seconds and so on my father never encouraged me never had a new relationship with him he told me I was gonna be a loser and that I was no gonna win he said finally I got selected for the Olympics I go in for the Olympics in Japan and I'm breaking all kinds of records and all of a sudden I'm in the last run and now it's for the gold he said I couldn't believe what plateau I had reached I was about to go down the hill for gold my dream was about to come true everything I'd longed for from the age of 12 and the nation is watching with bated breath as they're fair-haired boy was gonna do it he said something went wrong at a fraction of a second as that gun was sounded he said I lost my concentration when the question came into my mind is my daddy watching I wonder if my father is watching he said I lost the stripe I've got the bronze I was getting a bronze they're not exactly that bad is it he said no but that's not what this is about he said I give their bronze up we've gotta have a relationship with my father big solid guy he knew I would connect with him that's why he came you see deep within that soul of yours and mine is a longing to be connected with our Heavenly Father the one who created us and shaped us in his own image with all of your material pursuits with all of the materiality that we chase around do you realize that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God the very word of God where is the word of God in your life are you reading it are you meditating on it are you imbibe in it are you drawing it into your very being I'll give you a simple story of years and years and mainly because it is so beautiful you meet many other stories along the way but this is one of those ones that shape my own soul the 1980s when I used to go to Lebanon quite often while things were terrible out there I met a man in the 70s actually by the name of Sammy dagger Sammy dagger is he a high probably makes John Wesley look like he plays for the basketball or something like that you know it's tiny little teddy bear of a guy but he expends more energy in saying good morning than most people would in a whole sermon how are you my friend yeah that's what he talks he got caught in North Carolina for going through a red light and you know what he told the police officer when he was visiting his son he said mister officer in Beirut when we see a red light we think it's Christmas time that's Sammy dagger so Sammy knows no fear and that's the problem I was thrown with him going through the country and he knew no fear and so his wife was English George oi where they were telling me this story was driving in 11 o'clock at night during curfew everybody's home Sammy is driving to visit somebody and as he's driving he sees a suitcase on the side of the road now you don't pick up a suitcase on the side of any road particularly in Beirut and he looks at join says darling there is a suitcase on the side of the road she says Sammy I can see it and it's not ours let's keep going he says but it is somebody's he pulls up and he Pat's it he says it's full she says Sammy please leave it and let's go home you know and he says no somebody has lost it so he lifts this thing puts it in the trunk of his car and he if I were him I'd walk home what I wouldn't go with him you know he drives it back goes there opens the lock opens it packed to every square inch with money nobody ever has that experience and says why me Lord so he looks at that empties it out and there's a business card and he calls the man he says have you lost anything the man pauses and says have you found it man is shocked he says I'm coming right now sir look it's curfew if I had any other plans for this I wouldn't be calling you you come tomorrow I'll give it to you so the man comes the next day and he's staring at Sammy he can't believe this who is this man sterling all this suitcase full of money and so finally he puts his hand in takes that and says here you're a pastor give this to the church Sammy says we take that on Sunday morning you come and put it in so he invites the guy he comes in on Sunday and he couldn't believe what he heard couldn't believe what he saw music song he said I want to bring my whole family to meet you I happen to be that that day when he came that's how I know his story Sammy was gonna take me back to the boat so that I go go to Cyprus the airport was closed at that time and this man comes with his wife and his children to meet a man who had such honor you know Sammy says Tim you think you got all your treasure back that's what you think I want you to know this is nothing more than rust are gonna corrupt this he said have you ever wondered how many people outside of Beirut are looking for Lebanese money you thought you had your riches he said I'll give you the thing that is the greatest treasure of all and he gave him a Bible he said we didn't study it give your life to Jesus Christ this is his word this is the Word of God the guy sitting there with tears running down his face as I'm being told in interpretation what is being said he takes the Bible kisses it won't take it away from his lips because he's just met a man who lived it out and demonstrated that's where the treasure really lives realize you do not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God humility actuality and finally faith how you trust in God ultimately with all that is within you faith is not credulity faith is not Perdue leti you know naturalness love to make fun of those of us who believe in God as if we are believing in tooth fairies we believe in something intangible and non demonstrable and on and on and on let me tell you something about what some of them actually believe so Fred recoil what the great cambridge astronomer remember during my days at cambridge there seeing his name writ large great cambridge astronomer highly revered he and Chandra Wickramasinghe who is professor also of astronomy at Cardiff were colleagues in their research and Chandra Wickramasinghe came out with the statistic that the human body in its enzymatic makeup is so complex the enzymes are so complex and he goes into a description why with the number of them and the chemical interaction between them big words and big time Laden equations and all of that and he said it is so complex based on the number of any by a number of hormones involved and all of this kind of stuff he comes up with the fact that in order for all of this to come together for us to have this human DNA of ours he said the possibility of that is one in ten to the 40,000 power mathematically almost impossible in the words of Frederick Oil it would be like saying that a jumbo jet came about because a tornado went through a junkyard that's his words on intent of the 40,000 power so he says how did this all come about you know Doyle concluded I know have you heard this I footnoted it in one of my books he believed in the pan sperm Ian's theory that he colluded with he agreed with Vikram a singer hoofers who postulated it that spores from another planet seeded the earth Sir Francis Crick said maybe a spaceship brought those spores nobody asks what that spaceship was maybe a tornado went through some junkyard in another planet and brought it out here and the spores come to see the earth and that's how we produce our Einsteins and they tell us we have faith but here's the deal when Noah was in the ark do you know what was not present in the ark all the detail white bread depth names of atoms do things missing no sale or rudder Wow which means shut the door but there's nothing else you can do nothing to control no chart no compass no sale no rudder you're at the mercy of the flood and the waters in the waves it takes that situation and life for you and me to realize that only God is big enough to explain some of our stories of how we came through what we did it was only through His grace and through his power I think if you and I will just pause long enough just on this thought I don't know where you're at tonight your world may be collapsing everything may be falling apart my daughter is here and we all remember when we buried my father in law some years ago he thought he was having a pain in the back because he'd be moving some bookshelves turned out to be a tumor on the kidney from diagnosis to death two and a half months and he was just numbed by the news when the doctor told him he didn't give him more than eight weeks just stared at us he cried and cried a great man good men and yet when he breathed his last his last words looked to the heavens and said amazing just amazing and then he looked at his wife for 63 years and said Jean I love you and he was gone that last breath has taken you will ultimately see what God it is what God has created you and me for for living in his presence if you're going through a tough time tonight I just want you to think of this trust him trust him he will bring you through on to the other side and when you get there you will know it is he who has done it you could never have done it on your own and as I look at my own life now in its sunset ears I look at my team and I humorously say to them I'm not ready to ride out into the sunset but I do know which side my horse is facing and it's true you're closer to the finishing line than the starting line and I look back and I say this Lord if you were to take me home today I'm okay because you gave me a life I never dreamed about what you have provided to raise a calling out of an absolute failure God does his miracles best and greatest in people who will least take credit for what it is has done my brother and you gave the introduction tonight I'm so glad you made it brief I get tired of listening to these long accolades of what all we've done and accomplished and you sit there and say to yourself what is it all made really what it really means is have you trusted him have you run the race well I want to close with a story that I know many of you may be familiar with when I travel over the globe people tell me of all the stories you've recorded near books this one makes the greatest impact on me and it makes so me for all I know the man I'm going to talk about may be present here because lives in Los Angeles in 1971 when I was just 25 I was in Vietnam preaching to the American troops through the helicopter gunships and the courtesy American boys had be taken all over from right down from the south in Vung Tau through Saigon through Benoit way yeah trying Danang a lot all of that right to the Demilitarized Zone in Quang tree-covered that I was only 25 and my interpreter was a 17 year old Mae young man by the name of Ian Thumb ienzo a guy high-pitched voice everywhere we went dynamically would interpret everything and it was only years later I realized when I was reading the history of the church in Vietnam that they said revival broke out in Vietnam and changed the course of the church in Vietnam in 1971 when a young preacher 25 years old and his interpreter 17 years old preaching I I didn't you know I'm sitting in an airport reading this I said I think this talking about us when we were there cumulative age 42 I only had one sermon book used to put in my pocket and repeat them wherever I went you know three or four of them this guy was a packet of dynamite absolutely anointed in one message I remember he stopped in the middle I said he said I think you've said enough already moved let's just stop to the people now to bring them up to the front 17 so while I was leaving him in yet trying going on to Saigon give him a big hug I said he and I don't know if I'll ever see you again in 1971 1988 my phone rings in Vancouver British Columbia and he says brother Ruffy I said how did you know it was me I said you're the only one who ever called me brother Ruffy I swear it was my mother he said really I said yeah he said yes it's him I said what on earth are you doing he said I'm in California I said really I said how did he get Jay said I've got a few minutes I said sure I'm talked to you for 17 years he said brother Rafi after Vietnam fell I was arrested because they accused me of working for the CIA I said I did not work they even knew I interpreted for you he said some preacher came here and you would interpret he said I never worked for the CIA but they wouldn't believe it so they put him in prison and he said I Here I am labouring away in this prison and they took away all my English books and took over my Bible just gave me French and Vietnamese marks and angles marks and angles marks and angles French and Vietnamese French and Vietnamese till they knocked God out of me he said I decided to go to bed one night and say that's it he said brother Rafi I thought of you many times and I thought maybe it's not true not true said I woke up the next morning and the commander called me and said I want you to clean the latrines so he said brother Rafi in that camp the latrines he said they were their dirtiest and the filthiest place you'd ever want to be I used to take a piece of cloth and tighter on my nose cleaning it off the floors cleaning all the excrement and all the the foods and all of that on the floor he said horrible stuff he said as I was emptying out a bucket of used paper I thought I saw one piece of paper with English in it I looked around hosed it off but in my hip pocket I went back to my room that night sitting under my mosquito net everybody is asleep I took out my flashlight and there's damn piece of paper and I shine it on it on the right corner it said Romans chapter 8 and he said I started reading and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them that are called according to his purpose for who shall separate us from the love of God all of this that that no and he goes on to talk about how they were triumphant through it all he said brother Ravi Isaac so all I could do to keep the sobs and the cries in my heart from bursting out I said God you didn't let me out of your reach for more than 24 hours I prayed I said forgive me next morning I go to the commanding officer and said you mind if I clean the latrines again he said I found out the commanding officer on the Bible he was staring out pages from the Bible using it as toilet paper he said I would wash it off take it to my room am i under my mosquito net and read the Bible at night every night I'd have my devotions now in English and from the Bible said finally they decided I was not guilty of her things they said and they released me he said 52 others join me and I started to build a boat to escape this is he and for you start to escape one of them was the daughter I think the vice-president something right so he's building this boat and it's how do you hide a boat so he's building this boat and he's getting it already and four Vietcong come to knock on his door one day and said we hear you're trying to escape is that true he said no it's not said are you telling us the truth he said yeah so no I'm not building a boat he said no not trying to escape he said no said so they left he said i sat on my court and I said there I go again trying to do it my own way he said I prayed a prayer that I prayed would never be answered inside me I said alright God if you want me to tell him the truth bring them back hours before his departure these four boys come knocking on the door they're armed to the teeth said you're lying you're trying to escape he said yes with 52 others you're gonna put me back in jail they said no we want to go with you they've joined him escape and he's our brother Rafi we were caught in some violent storms if it weren't for these four men who are the best skippers you could have had they got us to safety into Thailand and there we were in a refugee camp and then I got my papers and now I'm in America and he was heading to Berkeley to study business flew into Atlanta to meet me my family because he had met a beautiful young Vietnamese girl to whom he was gonna get married and he said I want you to come and officiate at our wedding and so on what a precious guy and here is it he sits across the table and he says this the greatest pleasure in the world is to have that intimate relationship with God and no you will never win doing it your way you will only been doing it his way [Applause] humility spirituality and faith my message to you is over I close with Oh him from Charles Wesley and I want you to just close your eyes and listen to these words o thou who came us from above the pure celestial fire to impart Kindle a flame of sacred love on the mean altar of my heart they let it for thy glory burn with inextinguishable blaze and trembling to its source return in humble prayer and fervent praise Jesus confirmed my heart's desire to work and speak and think for thee still let me guard the holy fire and still stir up thy gifts in me ready for all thy perfect will my acts of faith and love repeat till death die endless mercy seal and make my sacrifice complete if you don't know Christ tonight will you invite him in with humility of heart the spirituality of value and faith and trust in him if you do know him will you recommit to live with these virtues so that when you step aside onto the other Shore you will know it is because of him that you're actually there do you Donna me ain't to remember I took you through the wilderness so that you'd see what was in your heart so you'll no man shall not live by bread alone and you'll know in the forty days of wandering I preserved you and kept you humility spirituality faith if you don't know him give you a life to him tonight if you do know him commit to live for these precious truths

Channel: Calvary Chapel Chino Valley

Views: 264,105

Rating: 4.7529154 out of 5

Keywords: Calvary Chapel, Calvary Chapel Chino Valley, CCCV, Pastor David Rosales, A Sure Foundation, Ravi Zacharias (Author), Book Of Deuteronomy (Book), Christianity (Religion), Ravi Zacharias, Ravi, Zacharias, Deuteronomy, Sermon, Deuteronomy 8

Id: rlLr9i0OqyU

Length: 58min 17sec (3497 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 24 2014