Straight Talk with Pastor Raul Ries // Special Guest: Mike MacIntosh // EP 37

well good afternoon we are back here in the somebody loves you studio we are excited for this show today the theme is going to be the power of the gospel and i have pastor all in studio as well as pastor mike mcintosh you don't want to miss this show tell your friends and family and we're going to be back in about 20 [Music] [Applause] seconds [Music] like i said we are in the somebody loves you studio and i have pastoral you got your cast off my castle starting to move my shoulder now you ready to fight again or what great to fight again and we have your close friend mike mcintosh thanks for being here hey thank you for inviting me to be here you know when we have been doing the show like we were talking about before we went on uh we were doing on the radio once a month and then this has been a good thing for pastoral too just to be able to communicate with the audience on various issues exhortations we've covered so many topics and a few weeks ago we talked about having someone on and i wanted to reach out to you that's why i reach out to you and so glad that you were able to make this how was it drive was it pretty rough [Laughter] later on well guys you know that we're living in a crazy time in our nation and in world history and church history 2020 um i with my kids my three kids i told them when i was a kid i thought 2020 would be more like the jetsons like we'd be on you know our cars that would be flying and stuff but 2020 has always had that earmark of like what's gonna happen and now we were confronted with a year that has totally changed our world and right now with media and so many outlets that are out there we are inundated with so much information so much news so much bad news and i thought it would be appropriate for us to focus today on the theme of the power of the gospel uh this is your wheel wow this is where god's changed your life that's why you guys are here you know your guys lives both could have been ripped off at a young age because of the world and because of the enemy so i wanted the show to be really encouraging to our audience right now because both of you guys have been touched by the lord but you come from different backgrounds raw let's go back a little bit obviously people know your story but let's kind of overview it a little bit because uh what kind of man you were at that time you were angry you you had this pla in your life you wanted it to be over talk about how the power of the gospel changed your life well i was a family hater i hated everybody you know went to vietnam came back with even more hate and then i got saved you know i went to pastor chuck smith's church i met mike and all these guys and our life has slowly been different over the last almost 50 years almost 50 years it has been you know traveling with him being in ministry with him so many years i went with him to china we went over to uh what was it yeah all over the place where we've been and god has really used mike for evangelism he he worked in mexico mexico 30 years 30 years in mexico i mean he's been crazy and then he went to china so he has a great ministry that god's given to him and now what he's doing he's going across the country evangelizing because evangelism has become dead yeah so he can tell more about that yeah yeah you guys both have a heart for evangelism and it all comes back by recognizing the love of god and the power of god in our lives mike i'm i'm aware of your your testimony and you know myself and ryan you know we're all son you know we both got deep into drugs and alcohol for many years so when you you came to the lord in that early 70s they grew up in my home yeah we grew up there but just like any stoner or person that gets involved in lsd uh like we did in the 90s we always reverted back to like the beatles and the music of that time and that culture of that time uh which you kind of lived through um so different than rawls aspect of like going to the marines all that kind of stuff you were you know into drugs alcohol the philosophy is part of this world um how was that change you have a dramatic testimony but the power of the gospel in your life what took place i one common denominator around i have is we were both angry young men i didn't have a dad i was in foster care for my early three four five six year olds when you should be with your mom and dad it made me very bitter so i grew up with a lot of anger and i'd go into a rage if i'd get into a fight i wouldn't even feel anything i just just just going to a rage and one of the great things when i heard the gospel that all just went away i was baptized with the holy spirit the night that i stood up at calvary costa mesa and i had four members of the sds students for a democratic society one of my brother card carrying communists overthrowing the campuses of orange county and i was renting them a room each rented a room from me i had a house in huntington beach and that night i flew open the door and guys jesus is coming back you've got to get saved we're all headed to hell without jesus and they said go to your room mike but when i went to a men's prayer meeting as a christian for maybe a month and i i went to every service chuck taught and uh every men's prayer meeting and a 20 year old young man i was 26 i got talking to him he had epilepsy and he said if i don't take my pills i'll be paralyzed and go into spasms on my right side and i'm going to be prayed for i says wow and i heard a little voice as the spirit i know now that why don't you go up and i said why don't you go up get prayed for i said well mine's mental his is physical and i went up and i had a really horrible acid trip where some people were going to shoot me they may led me to believe they did a bag over my head hands behind my back tied and boom the gun goes off and um obviously they shot it in the ceiling or the floor but it's so close to me it just i just saw my whole head blow off i went up to chuck smith and explained i don't see my face and i'm not sure that i'm alive or dead but i did accept jesus so they prayed for me that night and it was just amazing a little electric bolt went and my eyes were closed and i heard michael i have not given you the spirit of fear and as mr paranoia but love power and a sound mind at that instant i was healed and i opened my eyes i'm back i fell in my face and cried and said god i'll never ever walk away from you thank you for doing this so a year later my wife saw such a change she accepted the lord we got remarried after three years her mom and dad saw the change in our relationship they accepted the lord my mom at 60 years old saw the change and said you're not my son anymore are you and i said no i'm a new creature in christ she accepted the lord so um there's a lot of angry young men in our country we're seeing it in the news for sure and it's a way of expressing your individuality but it's a bad way to do it and the power of the gospel changes all of that to love like you just said and we both have become what you wouldn't expect gentle and loved and being strong for my size i wasn't afraid of most guys i got beat up a lot but i broke a nose or two in my day probably and to not have that anger i think we're al is it's a miracle in itself because it's with you as a little boy and you grow up as a teenager then you don't take bullies and then you grow up in your 20s and the stakes keep getting higher the more angry you get and i think with raul when he became a christian i think i came to the lord a year before him yeah uh you could just week by week see him change i mean he still had the macho and his results and then i want to read the bible and then i want to save souls and it just we all just began dying to ourselves and we were just talking about our friend yeah and unfortunately there are still friends that we have that have been with the lord a long time they're still trying to be something yeah and what we learned from pastor chuck was to be nothing be nothing be a servant of all and we don't need to make a name for ourselves and as a fatherless child you somewhat have to make a name for yourself either on the football field or the wrestling which i did both those in track and it was the rich kids even though they were lesser as high school athletes their dads gave money to the sports program so they got in and you were pulled out so i always carried that bitterness and to not be a bitter man today is a miracle from heaven the gospel took that all you know that's so freeing and it's interesting that you said what you said right now because it's something that raw has echoed and i know you guys have the same heartbeat when you look at the world today and you've seen all the way back for the last four or five months there's been riots or been chaos uh there there's angered this rage but wrong a heart of a of an evangelist like let's not forget like i'm praying that god changes those lines yeah you know don't forget that paul the apostle thought that his mission was to throw christians into prison and god changed and transformed their lives sometimes we could get so caught up and we we forget like that heart of the gospel the man that you or were once at one time the the church in the congregation that god has called you to teach and preach and they've seen the transformed men but you know the men that you once wore you know the power of the gospel the same thing with you and i think it's important for us to not lose that focus that gospel um the ability where god can change lives today well speak on that a little bit just of that heart for the those that seem unreachable well i think that chuck the way chuck treated us and the way we never thought we were going to be aboard you know he has more for 40-some years and he saw something in us that we couldn't see in ourselves and god had spoken to him and with mike and i and all of us got together became friends you know we never talked about betrayal we we had a heartbeat for we looked after and the lost how are we going to get to the lost so individually god began to speak to us and we you know had different ministries but the same heartbeat you see and that same heartbeat hasn't changed i was telling mike before he came in here that that harvey continues to beat that we people need to get saved you know that group of people that are angry today they might talk about who's going to go out and preach the gospel to them you see that's what the church has to come in and say okay look you know what am i going to do in my community what am i going to do for the states what am i going to do for the world you know and if we don't do something about it at the end we will he just projected a vision and a good majority of pastors don't have a vision yeah what would you add to that mike just as far as you kind of alluded to it already but you have a good pulse of what's taking place in this nation you've been around you look at 2020. we know the power of the gospel but when you see that the heart of man and what's taken place in so many platforms we're like confronted with the reality of evil rebellion um what would you say to the listeners right now well um i would encourage everybody to read their bible like they've never read it before in january of 2020 the american bible society found out that 28 percent of evangelical christians are reading their bible daily and being impacted by the scriptures they at the end of that six months took another uh now kovids here uh so in june the end of june 1st july they found out that it dropped to 22.6 percent are reading their bible that means that 78 of people say they're christian are not reading their bible and faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of god secondly i'd increase my prayer well i have but i mean in answer to your question another was taken by the barna group and they had the the recent state of the church they found out since covet one out of every three christians that attended church regularly are no longer attending church nor are they watching their church and their pastor online so a third of christians in america have disappeared and i think and this should strike fear in all of our hearts actually i think it's the wheat growing up with the tares and the lord said don't try to pull the terrors out because inadvertently you'll pull up the wheat meaning even the pastors won't have pure discernment and it'll be such deception going on he'll send the angels out and i think that that's what we're watching right now we're watching angels separating god's kids getting them ready to go yeah yeah because when that took place here mike it was um a very interesting time you've known me yeah i talked about this you've known ralph for so many years so you know he's always on the go yeah he teaches uh so many things that this congregation has so many things going on and then when we had to go to a halt uh that was a challenge but through it what you said there was the the faithful the remnant locked in tuned in and when we started opening up doors what we would see is that those who did come back desire for worship it meant something you know the word i want to hear it being around people fellowship because the enemy always he he works in isolation i i in the book of proverbs 18 1 i've always it says a man who isolates himself seeks his own desire he rages against all wise judgment we need fellowship we need the word of god being taught to us so that we can be convicted that we can be encouraged in the days that we're living in and truly have a biblical world view as we look at the world around us to see it through the lens of scripture your heart will stay right pure gospel driven encouraged those things are so important and that's where it comes you can't just be a sunday morning christian um people need to read pray and and and you know grow in the relationship you know what your your heart has to burn yeah you know it has to burn if you don't have that burning heart for christ and you won't read you won't pray you won't do anything but like mike and i you know we have that burning heart for evangelists and then i i can go to a store and see somebody like we talked about before the other girl the other day and you'll share the gospel because god gives you discernment and you see people that need jesus if they don't have jesus they're not going to have a life and i think that's something the church needs to see to go outside of their building and look at the world a mess of people that are going to hell that's how i leave the house every day yeah see yeah it's just uh yeah i i learned a lesson maybe 10 years ago i should have learned it earlier but um i was in the supermarket and i was in a hurry and i'm always in a hurry uh i've slowed down a little bit there's this woman in her late 20s and she had five children a baby on her arm a little girl pulling on her leg two little boys throwing the cans in the boxes standing up in the cart and i'm five people back and i'm saying come on lady hurry it up and then another little guy over here doing something and she's trying to get her card out of her purse holding the baby crying and the lord said why don't you pray for her well that's novel and so i said okay lord i remember sandy going to the store with five kids would you help that lady and things calm down and i never looked at going to a grocery store just like you said again and then i put together the story of the man who jesus spit and put mud balls on what do you see not too clearly yeah i see men walking like trees blowing in the wind well that tells us that he must have seen it one time because he know what a man looked like he know what a tree looks like and he knows the fruit of the wind blowing so he was probably pretty excited to get his sight back but he had blurred vision and then the lord touched the second time and he saw clearly well i always walked into a grocery store or pumping gas with blurred vision what's going on in my head what am i going to do next how do i do this what study am i given what's my schedule say and now i walk in and i realize man i've got a lot of power i can pray for everybody in this world as i'm walking down and get my cereal and i may be the only person in the world that's praying for him or the people on both sides of the stoplight blurred vision is very very big in christianity and he's given us focused vision and we focus it through the cross and we always see his love father forgive them and a lot of pastors do not have the joy that we do of having that heartbeat for evangelism uh they don't understand on a trip i just came from i had several tell me in 15 years of ministry in 10 years they'd never done an outreach until this and that's what he's seen yeah and that's in our heartland yeah i have friends in mexico i mean we filled stadiums arenas bull rings tens and tens of thousands of people at a time you know and thousands coming to the lord for over 30 years it just got borne out and at our last conference here two years ago yeah i said to one of those pastors uh we should do another festival festival davida and he said oh no we're all too busy we could we don't need a festival you know i remember the day when you're begging that we would come then i went to another guy that's older more closer to my age and i said why don't we start like we did just you translate i'll stand on the street corners of mexico city and we'll just other churches to want to help let's go win those souls he said i'm with you yeah so it's an attitude i think don't you role yeah it's an added to the heart you know if you don't have that heart and that attitude and that vision and the passion to do that then you'll never go anywhere you know you could have success yeah yeah but it's you're walking with a limp in a way because you're holding the body of christ right that's what i learned when i say hey would you guys like to do something for the poor in san diego yeah they'd follow me hey would you guys like to go to mexico yeah hey as our ground zero next year we're going to take people 1500 people went to new york city the next year we did five festivals in all five boroughs for five days so that's five times five is twenty-five times five and then we'd end at night at nine and eleven in the in a 2000 seat auditorium down by 42nd street and go till midnight and we'd have people getting saved there but i found as one of the classes we took together in leadership i think as smith he said uh he was a businessman he said if you want to know if you're a leader turn around and look behind you and see anybody is following you and when a pastor leads the real sheep will follow him you know leadership's important evangelism is important it's interesting hearing your both you guys heartbeat the same time because i'm with raw like you some all throughout the week and for the last weeks and months even more so he's exhorting the church and exhorting us on evangelism and he's always talked about what you're talking about as far as having that vision whether it's at the taco shop whether it's at the supermarket at the gym and building relationships and seeing that need when god changed both of your lines this comes into the call of god we've already we've already kind of spoke about it a little bit obviously but you would have never imagined god using your life i'm sure you would have never imagined god using your life but i think this is encouragement to the audience because as we said both of you guys were saved with anger in your hearts you know you're just done with your lives you had a bad acid trip you know experienced in that kind of mindset and philosophy you your age all that you went through same thing as a young kid and yet god redeemed you changed your life you know the scriptures say that at one time we were a vessel of dishonor being used by the enemy and then the lord takes our lives and makes us a vessel of honor and that humility and that brokenness that both of you guys possessed is a result of the simple teaching of god's word pastor chuck smith pouring into your lives and you having a desire to teach the word of god well do you remember like where god was just stirring your heart like lord how can you use me talk about that where it wasn't just like your life was changed or transformed now it was like now what do i do you feel a burden first of all i never thought like mike said i never thought that god could use my life you know it's a miracle of what god does i have this burn in my heart people don't get saved what's going to happen you know people go to hell believe it or not every single day and the church has this responsibility yeah to get the gospel out you know and pastors have lost a vision you know when you lose the vision you have nothing else in life you know you're going to get become cardinal you're going to just kind of do what you want to do not what god wants you to do and i think it has to burn in your heart you got to spend time i might say with the lord god has to speak to you you need to be empowered with the holy spirit and then you need to give the gospel to people because the gospel changes people's lives absolutely mike with that with the call of god but let me let me kind of set it up like this how does a leader become a leader um how does you know the call of god as it begins to expand in your life and god calls you to be a leader how does someone just become a leader by making lots of mistakes you learn from your mistakes you should learn from your mistakes i'd mentioned that to chuck smith when i just knew into san diego i'm making so many mistakes and he said but are you learning from them i said yes sir in the gospel of mark in the first two chapters in the new king james version the word immediately pops up 10 times in those two chapters king james i think it's seven times but the point is is that when jesus started moving immediately things started happening immediately this person was healed immediately uh the people were getting baptized the holy spirit came and a leader is given a gift there's a gift of rule the gift of administration um david learned as a boy i think by leading the flock for his dad so somewhere along the line we have this gift and when the holy spirit comes in it ignites it i think and uh i use my leadership as a young man of leading people astray to clubs and bars and drinking and parties and i had people follow me and i was leading in the wrong way then when the word of god got in my heart i began to realize i can't do anything that is contrary to the word of god and i'm not going to compromise that i compromise for 26 years i'm going to live what this book says and if i don't do well then okay but i'm going to do that so i think a leader has to get strong in the word more so than the average christian i think we should all be strong in the word but i spent got to realize i had lost my mind in my first six months i was memorizing scripture for five to six hours every day and that's what really cleared my mind out the washing of the water of the word and the word is so important and your private prayer life is so important that's where you hear the lord we not only talk with the lord but a leader hears it and then as you're learning there's people i do home bible studies just as an intern pastor with chuck people would ask you could you come over and teach and there'd be 20 30 people there and say that's kind of strange i'm an evangelist when i went to san diego there was 10. when i got to 75 i brought 150 flyers and i said have a maranatha music group coming next week we're going to this junior high school auditorium bring two people i showed up the next monday night in san diego there's 150 people by faith i brought 300 flyers for those 150. i said next week i think it was love songs going to be here this well-known group at the time bring two friends the next week there's 300 people so it went from 75 in one week to 150 the next to 300 the next really cool and then it was about a thousand people every year since and that's what you guys experienced but we were leaders and sadly to say i trained leaders that have gone their own way in san diego they're in defaults doctrine they're into the bethany model and the demonic laying on of the cemeteries and all this crazy stuff and they have some of the biggest churches in san diego but they've opened the door for another jesus and another gospel so a leader has to break himself you're not a celebrity because you have a large crowd you're the most foolish because god uses the foolish to confound the wise and what i think the two of us have learned as leaders is that our relationship is with him with god the power of the holy spirit in the gospel and we're not anything other than a servant to his children and the minute we lose sight that we're servants to them that we're the pastor the senior pastor the quadruple pastor the mega pastor whatever we want to call ourselves there's only one chief pastor he's the chief shepherd of all shepherds and those little words are even very subtle and deceptive that you begin thinking well i'm somebody because these people all work for me i always look like he did that no we're a team together we're serving together and uh i think god uses that when you become a leader that is a servant even to those that you bring on to help you don't you yes i mean you can't there isn't a hierarchy no we're all saved by the same blood you know you said something that i really spoke to me because i tell these guys you know if you don't pray you don't study you don't wait how can you talk to the people right you know god has to speak to you before you speak to the people and i think that pastors today they're not listening to god they listen to somebody else and they're trying to mimic other people instead of being what got called right yeah they're listening to other people yeah yeah yeah there's a another verse a a saying that chuck said and i don't know if it was in one of his books i've heard him in a teaching and it always stuck with me i have it written on the back of some of my bibles he says this the greatest danger you will face in ministry is when you have success in ministry it echoed and he broke it down because how are you going to respond are you going to think it's all about you yeah the danger and he goes on the importance of humility in the believer's life in the pastor's life um we have seen this we've talked about this a lack of humility and some of the pulpits across this nation across this world um it's an uh attribute raw that is so needed and you talk about you this is one thing that you've always said sure raw you said stay simple stay humble and know your word and god will use you powerfully i can't help but to think too if just like the different walks of life that would have been there at that time because for myself as i look back on history and i i've always been like a music person and stuff so i would look at the history from the 50s to the 60s from elvis presley to the beatles to all that music into the jimi hendrix and you know the civil rights time kennedy shot martin luther king jr is shot it was a huge the vietnam war was taking place and then coming out of the 60s into the early 70s the impact and the temperature of this this the culture you you went through so many things you went through anger you went through unrest or rebellion against authority a quest for spirituality and psychedelic drugs and that kind of aspect but it levels off and it leaves you empty yeah it you know i and that was the thing with scripture for me like i love the beatles i love john lennon and paul mccartney and everybody would say that they were some of the best songwriters of all time and influenced so many but when i would read scripture and understand scripture in comparison to their lyrics it paled in comparison it had no depth any longer right and it that's what when i think about the hippie people movement i think about all those walks of life from all over the place that were touched by the power of the gospel think of buffalo springfield that became crosby stills and nash our buddy uh i forgot his name colorado yes yeah um um okay i don't know who you're dying keep going i'll excuse me yeah me too but anyhow the lord reached into the top ten yeah and started winning uh people chris hillman uh the birds and on and on and on and then in hollywood he started moving and then in television and uh all sorts of christians pat boone was a great spokesperson and then irv kessler a jewish man from liberty records the vice president or president and i was doing marinated music that time and i went to the jewish lady in charge of the treasury for all several record companies and she said uh what do you want i said i want five thousand love song albums she said what's your dun and brad street and i said what in the world's it done in brad street i have two shoe boxes one where people at the bookstores owe me money and other where i owe money to maranatha music to buy the book the records she said what are you talking about so i shared the gospel this very powerful lady there were five men on the couch before me that owed her millions of dollars and half a million dollars and she was just a mean and and she mellowed out she says do you know erv casler and i said yes he said well he keeps inviting me to pat boone's house for a weekly bible study should i go and i said yes and i watched the lord work inside of hollywood's music and he worked through playboy uh he worked all over hollywood and then he started working in uh washington d.c and being in iraq a couple times a few years back i heard over and over everywhere we met well we hate you americans and this young member of the kurdish parliament was at the other end of the table and there's 30 of us at this boardroom table approximately and i for some reason ended up at this head and he stood up and he pointed at me and he said you know i represent tens of thousands of muslims who hate you just because you're an american and i heard that too many meetings and i said sir washington dc and hollywood california do not represent the americans they represent america if you come to my house and you be my guest i'll tell nobody who you are and you'll find out americans are different than the image of america and i think god hit those two power places it sounds like it was it tom state no it wasn't thompson richie fury okay so he's twice in the rock and roll hall of fame yeah when you look back at that time that time changed um the culture here i mean there so many churches were birthed out of that time you guys have been in both the ministry for for so many years and as time went through the 80s and the churches are are developing you in san diego you and west covina then eventually here at calvi travel going springs in diamond bar radio ministries teaching ministries conferences with pastor chuck festivals exits somebody loves you all the crusades that you did too or the horizon and then there was a moment in both of you guys life because you both went to school and you you came up with a a movie called adventure of fate tell the audience about that we do have it online roll paint that story uh yeah well i'll tell my story with me and mike we were gonna we had to do our thesis so so mike and i we're gonna be clean we took that into lunch so on our way to lunch you know you have to have a theme you know what's your paper going to be on and i told my don't say nothing okay let's just keep walking and then we came up with it tell them the story we're walking along and i said okay i won't say anything but he leans behind you says we had no idea so chuck says well what we're going to do is a video called venture of faith and i looked at him a video you can't do a video you have to do your thesis paper you know 100 pages or single blah blah blah and he said no this first time ever and he said tell me about it he made it up right in the spark by the time we're at the salad bar the guy said i'm liking this idea i'm liking this idea and uh by the end of lunch as the first ever doctorate thesis we had to do paper but not as much yeah and uh it just came together so so great it was uh there was one person in there that we interviewed and he said when church history is all said and done calvary chapel will be a footnote and i like this guy from ufc yeah yeah um and i look at uh the person and think you're the footnote i mean chuck left behind uh 1800 churches but there's way more neck because i know of seven one man who's planted seven in uh uh mexico and another man has plan planted planted six or seven in the philippines only in the last two or three years so it just keeps going and going and that's no footnote that's that's a move of the holy ghost for some reason though and i see what you're getting at for some reason the power of the holy spirit has not moved yet the power of the gospel is waning so it's going to be when nobody can take glory that might be right up to the day of the rapture yeah and we're underground in a way we're under the radar we're still out doing it and we see many of our brothers that have waxed weary and we you've got to have the heart for the souls and i don't know too many churches that haven't split over the last 50 years and that hurts that's that's painful but you can't let anything make you bitter as a pastor no or i've been slighted or i belong i i deserve more people than that guy does you can't yeah can you it just it's a reflection of him the church and our walk with him is a reflection of our walk with him we just happen to be the vessel it's not that we're more gifted than anybody else but he does know our prayer life i don't know everybody else's prayer life and i know we spent two weeks together uh in graduate school and uh we prayed yeah and uh he's like me i'll pray sandy will say and i'll say let's pray pray unceasingly billy told me that face to face billy graham i asked him about his prayer life same as chuck pray unceasingly he said for instance the last half hour in this motel room together he said i've been praying for you i said what he said i've been asking the lord what can i do for this young man i used to be young and to help him get to where you want him that's the hardest jack smith he opens doors for people he may not like somebody but he sees the gift and he wants them to exercise that guest and billy was the same way and uh hearing him say that i've i've done that but now i do it all the time just i pray for everybody i look at it and see and you may be the only person praying for that person and to do it uncease he's honest he said i don't have long bouts with the fallen on my face or kneeling down beside the bed because of my schedule it's just so insane so i pray in the car in the airplane in the cab i pray when i walk into my room i pray when i sit down ann told me one time billy had said that ruth was more spiritual than he was and i mentioned that to their daughter anne she stopped we were walking together and she said it's not true and she was kind of upset and i said well what are you talking about he says how can you be more spiritual than a man that's eating his tv dinner tray there and watching his friend on television doing the news and the phone rings and he gets up and says lord i don't know who's calling but you do and i don't know what their need is but you do i don't have the words but you do i said your dad does it he says ever since as a little girl imagine that before the phone rings he's saying prayers yeah and those kind of things are what we look for is come on we need some we need some more food lord come on show us those those witnesses in those examples now when you get older it's hard to think that you could be a witness or an example because i don't know about you but i see all my failures and mistakes and i just don't size up to what i think god would have me size up to but when it's time to exercise my gift i have great confidence but apart from him i can do nothing and we need to never see ourselves apart from him and i think that praying unceasingly keeps us i feel it in your hallways yeah in this building i feel it every time we have a pastor's conference here that all of you are praying and that's part of the power somebody walks in they don't know the lord they don't know why this crowd is here they feel something it's those prayers and and when i was in the midwest i'd never seen this i walked into an area in a outdoor amphitheater and i saw these like petals flower petals just floating through the air and i'm walking through them it's like a vision and i heard a little voice these are the people's prayers i'd like to have a revelation and i was walking through all that fragrance of prayers that people on facebook and my friends and the people here you know we need to pray more than ever yeah darkness i agree you know going through like everything that we've covered here today we've talked about prayer the importance of the word humility i mean very very important um phrases statements um truths that i hope our listeners are gleaning from you know because it kind it comes from both of you guys like i hear how you're speaking let's talk about today uh wrong you have been teaching you said it in the beginning 50 years you know and uh teaching all three sunday morning services wednesday you meet with us you're doing this where is your heart for ministry today the same heart when i first started you know i want i want to reach more people i want to teach more people and make more disciples you know like you guys that when we're gone you know the world will continue the vision that chuck gave us that's what that's what our board's about it's not about young people what to do we're there to pray for those people in the philosophy calvary chapel is not lost and then god can do a work in their lives that he's done in our lives mike the same thing your vision for ministry today in 2020 you were the senior pastor in horizon fellowship for many years god led you you've done multiple different outreaches you've done so many things many people follow your life but let the audience know what you have done of late and where your heart is today um there's a proverb that i've lived by for many many years i found it in 1972 it says first prepare your field without and then build your house i knew uh when i came to the lord in 1970 that someday i'd get a chance to speak to america and i've done it through the radio i've done it through traveling but i feel right now my focus is our country of all the ways i can sabotage the work of the devil in all the ways i can get the gospel like i said i don't have a staff or a team or money but the lord said go to the midwest i went to the midwest i told holland davis i don't have any money i can't pay he said i'll go rodrigo rodriguez the guitarist i said i know you're supposed to go but i don't i'll go and they they went uh we all paid our own expenses and people walked up to me and said uh you guys are paying for this yourselves i said yeah that's all right and they'd hand me an envelope and i was able to pay both those guys they showed their hearts and so i'm not looking for a splash in the pan or notoriety i don't really get along with all the media stuff i mean i sit two weeks ago at 12 000 emails unanswered i'm at 44 000 now okay so uh i mean i can't answer a thousand phone calls i just can't so i'm learning to trust the lord in a brand new way uh paying our own bills and taking care of my wife and those kind of things um and he's showing me you go from faith to faith and i hate it when i see a christian say something like oh we're too busy we don't need evangelism no you've got to keep growing evangelisms helps churches grow and now some of the pastors of these churches in the midwest are doing their own outreaches since and many got mad at me because i had to cancel ohio because i'd done uh in 19 days spoke 16 times and drove through four states um i was i was excited to come get a hip shot from the doctor and uh just a lot of agony and pain and waking up at three every morning and i just okay i can be tough but i'm a little older now could you be a little more gentle lord so i just think the encouragement is is that you never outgrow god you grow into god and don't give up because i'm retiring there is no retirement for somebody in the ministry yeah you may have less assets to work with and less people but for some reason the lord has paired me down to zippo and i'm wanting to learn from that and it's lonely i'll be quite honest with you and i try to explain to some pastors like we were talking the other day and they say oh okay that's good to hear mike and one guy wrote and said i like to hear about your escapades well i'm not having an escapade i had a call to god to go without any money and lay my life on the line and you know nobody's wearing mask or quarantine so my encouragement is take all that god has given you up to this moment and let him multiply it and don't do everything the way he used to like he sees a new vision for the younger people and somebody else has got to keep taking care of the older people and he's doing it and his son is out there multiplying it yeah yeah phenomenal so keep learning yeah don't ever stop learning keep learning 2020 has been an interesting year we're going to wrap up here in a minute but i'm going to ask you guys these five simple questions as we close you just break it down however you want what is missing in our pulpits today raw the teaching of god's word being spirit-filled pastors not waiting on god to speak what god wants but not our own topics i think that's really important what is needed in the pulpits today mike humility expositional teaching not just series that's an easy way out because you can buy series but for you to study i think expositional teaching from humble leaders is definitely missing faith is missing and the power of the holy spirit is missing in the churches too many people are afraid to step towards the holy spirit chuck smith what as you look back on his life his impact what's the greatest impact chuck smith had on your life oh man the way he lived i mean the way he lived he lived symbolized he wasn't really a man that wanted to become somebody or to have this or to have that but he had a heart for us a heart that he was not only pouring himself into that when he would leave we would follow up on what god has told him to do same question mike um his love uh i think he's a much misunderstood man and in the final years uh we spent a lot of time together he's very open with me in all the years as with chuck he never ducked a question i mean no matter how personal god he would and i needed to know and he knew i was a guy that needed to know uh his love was with the holy spirit was always flown from the pulpit and it flowed from his counseling sessions and that love opened doors for people like myself that never in the entire life had anybody open a door for him and he was always there i went through a trial of five years and i'd call him crying and we were trying to build out his old radio network and i hired the wrong people and i was bawling he said get in your car and drive up here and i said chuck it's 4 30. by the time i get there be 6 30 with traffic i'll be here and he'd be there he waited for four years yeah that went on and on and on uh and he would sit there and he never once sandy said what was he like the first time and i said he was like the man that sat in his little office with a 25 desk in a 15 chair and counseled you and me to get remarried after three years divorce he simply loved me never told me i could have told you so never wagged a finger just always pointing me back to how much jesus loves me i i just i've never had anybody love like that yeah well what have you learned as a husband then my wife beats me every weekend if he needs it or not she needs to stop she knows no you know i've learned you know she has cancer so we've learned to get closer to each other she suffer a lot and our our goal is to be that example to our grandkids and to our our children so that when we leave here they'll know that you know everything we did was for the lord we don't want any credit for ourselves we want all the credit to the lord that they can see that god got a hold of our lives and we try to give them the same thing god gave to us and that's the love of christ like he said let me pair it up mike um what have you learned as a husband and a father one of the great things i've learned probably in the last eight years is a verse that says husbands understand you live with your wife with understanding from day one we've never been able to communicate she comes from a very sophisticated high-ranking u.s family and a wealthy family i was a beach bum we fell in love got married three weeks later got divorced three years later and got remarried three years after that so i'm just now understanding oh that's just her personality she's not talking that way to me that's just how she would react that's one thing and then being a father not having a father uh the day of our wedding that chuck was marrying us as christians i cried when i was doing my devotion i said god what about david mindy our two children we had uh i don't know how to be a father and he said look to me as your role model so i try to do everything lovingly with them as they were growing up as children as teenagers one of my daughters said you gave me a lot of grace i didn't see it that way but she did and i try to love them help them i extend myself financially sometimes when i don't have it and i might take a loan out for them or something there isn't anything i wouldn't do as a father and they see the sacrifice and they understand they understand sandy and i did not get rich in the ministry we have a beautiful home but it fits all of them and when you have 42 people that you're the patriarch of you need a big home and then you got all those christmas presents and all the birthday presents all the anniversaries and you get a second trustee pay it off in november now you gotta start again with another one they know that sandy and i sacrificed for them since they're little they know that we were not phonies in the ministry and i've just learned to love like i've never loved in so many different dimensions wife and family and i'll lay my life down for any of them and as i know he would even though we're old guys the lord protects our families and if he can't do it through us i pity the man because he'll do it on his own strength of his own arm that's right yeah three children how many grandkids eight or nine nine nine now oh that's right because ryan has done more than mike i mean how many how many grandchildren you have i gotta think this through 20 uh 21 and nine great-grandchildren he's not mexican either i'm not catholic or mormon it just i started early god's been good god has been good uh just some final words uh mike some final words to the audience words of encouragement during these days well i would like to say to those of you that are christians pray more for your pastor and his family than you ever have and when you're with them in church just don't go out the back door walk up and say thank you pastor they need encouragement second thing is love your spouse like you've never loved her or him before and get rid of the pettiness in your marriage and love your children they need to see real christians and then love your neighbor even if you don't like them love people like you've never loved before that they could see jesus and many would come to him bro same thing the the key is love you know loving loving loving and then god will take care of the rest yeah you gotta see that mike thanks for being here oh my honor this is awesome oh it's one of my best friends here with him no i love when you come through and just a connection and you just see the transparency between the two of you and i think that's really encouraging to the audience doing ministry for so many years continuing having vision there's no time for retirement because there's a world that's dying that is dying in need of the gospel we have to i love what you said about this heart for america we need it we need a move of god's spirit across the united states of of america it's not going to be one in political realms it's going to be the work of the holy spirit good very good appointment a point like i told the kurdish parliament guy america doesn't represent us as hollywood does and the white house does or the republicans are democrats american people look at them through the eyes of jesus and we cannot fall for this dominion theology that's out there that if we elect all christians america will come back no it's not there's christians everywhere in the u.s government every level no we're being deceived by this that it's another gospel that has come into the church and some pastors have given all their time at the pulpit now talking about why you should elect donald trump no you should elect jesus in our own lives get them praying get them on their knees get them fasting it's a spiritual warfare it's not a at the ballot box it's spiritual yeah and i think it's very important as you say that and we've been talking about this it's so important to know what you believe biblically it's important to stand for truth and righteousness in the days that we're living in it's invo it's important to vote it's also important to have a heart for the gospel and to be in communications with people with differing views and opinions i've shared this often friends that i've grown up with that have a very vast different opinion i wasn't going to let it divide and so someone said something on social media they got really mad at me about something very general and then we inbox and then we talked on the phone two days later it was the most amazing conversation like i'm not here to change your mind on a political realm or any of these things i know what i believe that's cool but i want you to know though i don't agree with what you you say or what you stand for i love you as a person and that's okay i mean one one thing that is happening in our nation we're getting so divided and people are not respecting each other and that's dangerous and for christians we have to have a heart for those with differing opinions yeah and we had cannot forget where we came from can i just add this jimmy davis was a communist card-carrying communist at orange coast college he was a friend of my brother who is a card-carrying communist and the other student for democratic society radicals they're radicals and one of them being my own brother jimmy davis got touched by the gospel at calvary costa mesa he gave up the communist party gave up everything he became a missionary in southern mindanao a pretty rough area of the philippines and i can't tell you the tens of thousands that he's led to jesus and the hundreds and hundreds of churches that he has planted and like raoul said at the very beginning somebody's got to lead those people to jesus and we can't let a political thing separate us from eternity uh no keep it at eternity and they'll hear eternity call on them but we keep it no i'm a republican you're this i'm like you're a radical i'm a no they won't hear god's call and this is only four years when we're eternity in jesus yeah yeah we got to keep the focus of the gospel the power of the gospel we thank you so much for tuning in we are going to continue doing these shows on tuesdays at 12 p.m these straight talks with raul reese with all of these programs you'll see that they stay archived there so this show with mike mcintosh you can share it with all your friends and family you can like on it comment we'd love to see all your responses we are going to be doing a q a with pastoral here in the next week or two great things in store we love you guys so much make sure that you subscribe to somebody loves you youtube worldwide as you will see pastoral he's teaching through the book of first corinthians right now wednesday and the book of daniel on sunday mornings thank you guys for tuning in we'll see you next week take care [Music] you

Channel: Somebody Loves You Worldwide

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Length: 55min 37sec (3337 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 06 2020