The Moral Foundation Dr Ravi Zacharias

if you've got your Bibles with you excuse me while I clear and clear my throat but I'm gonna ask her to turn with me to second Kings chapter 21 and before you do that I would like to read for you something that is on a lighter note because I think it lead into what I have to say to you this is a young would-be orden and being interviewed by the leadership of the denomination well Sam will you tell me the parable of the Good Samaritan yes sir I will sir once there was this man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among thorns and the thorns sprung up and choked him and as he went on he didn't have any money and he met the Queen of Sheba and she gave him a thousand talents of gold and a hundred changes of raiment and he got into a chariot and drove furiously and when he was driving under a big juniper tree his head his hair caught there on the limb of that tree and he hung there many days and the Ravens brought him food to eat and water to drink and he ate five thousand loaves of bread and two fishes one night when he was hanging there asleep his wife Delilah came on cut off his hair and he dropped and fell on stony ground but he got up and went on and it began to rain and it rained forty days and forty nights and he hid himself in a cave and he lived on locusts and wild honey then he went on till he met a servant I said come on take supper at my place and he made an excuse and said no I won't I've married a wife and I can go and the servant went out on the highways and the hedges and compelled him to come in after supper he went on out and come on down to Jericho and when he got there he looked up and saw their old queen jezebel sitting down way up in a window and she laughed at him and he said throw her down out there and they threw her down and he said throw her down again and they threw her down again seventy times seven and of the fragments that remained they picked up twelve basketfuls beside women and children and they said blessed are the peacemakers VI ECE blessed are the peacemakers now whose wife do you think she will be on that Judgment Day now that's brilliant marvelous clutter of scripture with a totally messed up story the irony is that you would just about have to know your scripture in order to see the humor of it and in many audiences today I think they might wonder if this really was a story lifted right out of the scriptures so when you're talking tonight and for the future about living for the word living with the word and finding yourself equipped and strengthened for the future to face the future as it is rushing towards us at an incredible pace how do we meet it how do we challenge this generation I have been on the road now as a full-time apologist and evangelist for 40 years I have never sensed the challenge being as daunting as I see it now incredible redefinitions extraordinary distortions and on the one side you face a rabid strident naturalism that wants to do away with God in all paradigms and in the other side you see a new spirituality so-called the end result is the same in both of them because when you think about it what the secularism really do when it is taken out to its logical and systemic conclusion it is the eviction of God it is the eviction of God and what does the new so-called spirituality do that basically defies the individual same end result there is no transcendent infinite all-wise personal being it's all about you one way or the other either in spiritual terms or rabidly naturalistic terms at such a time like this you and I have been called to live it is by divine appointment that we are here at this style and we have set our hand to the plow and we don't look back there is a path ahead of us and as we are called to live for the word and empowered for our future I want to bring to you a message tonight that I hope will stir your hearts touch your mind and ultimately bring a response from your wills to the honor and to the glory of God in second Kings 21 the passage of Manasseh reads thus Manasseh was 12 years old when he became King and he reigned in Jerusalem 55 years his mother's name was cepsa he did evil in the eyes of the Lord following the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites he rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed he also erected altars to bail and made in Europe all as Ahab king of Israel had done he bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them he built altars and the Temple of the Lord of which the Lord had said in Jerusalem I will put my name in both courts of the temple of the Lord he built altars to all the starry hosts he sacrificed his own son in the fire practice sorcery and divination and consulted mediums and spiritists he did much evil in the eyes of the Lord I wonder if you caught one line there very simple line he basically destroyed everything that his father Hezekiah had stood for you see there's no guarantee in the next generation his father had ushered in the greatest revival of that time and now comes his son his father Hezekiah had done it now comes Manasseh shortly after Manasseh his his son Amnon just led for two years Manasseh 455 and then comes Josiah and I read a few verses for you Josiah was eight years old when he became King and he reigned in Jerusalem 31 years his mother's name was Jed Ida daughter of Adia she was from both cough he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked all in all the ways of his father David not turning aside to the right or to the left you know the story of Josiah if you have read it Percy Bysshe Shelley pendous many many decades ago I met a traveller from an antique land who said two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert near them on the sand half sunk a shattered visage lies whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command tell des the sculptor well those passions read the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed and on the pedestal these words appear my name is Ozymandias king of kings look on my works ye mighty and despair nothing beside remains round that colossal wreck boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away my name is Ozymandias king of kings look on my works ye mighty and despair nothing beside remains round that colossal wreck boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away even as I'm speaking to you demagogues are being felled hither and yon once upon a time they built busts and statues of themselves fallen now in some desert terrain but they thought of themselves as omnipotent tauren themselves as all-powerful that they will never be brought down that they will never be felled history records again and again for us people who thought that once upon a time as they came on the scene that once upon a time would last forever and they would never be taken from their demagogic aspirations I believe it was Coleridge who said this if men could learn from history what lessons it might teach us but passion and party blind our eyes and the light which experience gives is only a lantern on the stern which shines on the waves behind us but the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us I want to take you tonight to the story of two kings one after another because we are living in turbulent times we are living in times where we desperately need the wisdom of God and when you think of being empowered for the future and you think of living by the mandates and the precepts that God has given to you and me it is important for us to understand the lessons from history to see what actually transpired how these demagogues come and go what builds a nation what gives it longevity what gives it sustenance what gives it that power that comes from God and what ultimately destroys and devastates them no matter how rich or wealthy they may be at one time I look at Manasseh 697 - 642 before Christ he takes on the reigns and he is going to make history he thinks he makes three significant decisions and we must follow the plan in his mind and see the impact of what he did James Russell Lowell the famed American said once to every man a nation comes the moment to decide in the strife of truth with all sewed for the good or evil side with each choice God's speaking to us offers them the bloom of light then the man or nation chooses for the darkness or the light he is the same one who wrote truth forever on the scaffold wrong forever on the throne but the scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadows keeping watch keeping watch above his own truth forever on the scaffold wrong forever on the throne but the scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadows keeping watch keeping watch above his own Manasa came on the same three definitive decisions he made them willfully one was to repudiate the faith by which the nation was founded the precepts that governed its instruction the moral framework that gave it impotence it had gave it the impetus from which to move forward and in that divine impetus to move forward through the moral framework one king after another came and faced the challenge and now Manasseh comes and he decides he's going to repudiate and remove the moral framework of God this is a terrifying decision he made it's the kind of decisions we are making all over the world at this time this entire monetary crisis that is now upon us is based upon a framework that defies the moral law of God that you can live beyond your means that you never have to pay back that you can violate the rules that you can cheat on paper that you can build and build your own storehouses while exploiting others in the process these are the governing ideas that have shaken the world to its boots right now but we've gone beyond that we've not just desacralized our word we have D sacralized the very essence of human life we talk so much about all the freedoms and human rights we want to talk about very seldom do we talk about the right to be human you know what I'm saying how can we talk about human rights when we don't even talk about the right to be human these are the issues that are strangling us the desacralization of a word the desacralization of life the de sac realization of sexuality the desacralization of the home and of marriage and we think we can do all of this with impunity GK Chesterton said before you remove any fence always pause long enough to find out why it was put there in the first place why are these moral boundaries set for us in the Ten Commandments you can sum it up with one word sacredness the sacredness of your life the sacredness of your word the sacredness of your property the sacredness of your marriage the sacredness of your worship the sacredness of your time that's what it is all about that God brings all of these for the provision of your moral and your spiritual protection they are there for a reason and before I end my message to you tonight I'll demonstrate you why I believe so strongly in what I've just said to you but he removed it he decided to root out all of these pull all of these down that was the first decision he made then he said made the second choice he accelerated the development of hedonism any time you take away the truth nature a Bors of vacuum and something false will come into its place Chesterton went on to say the tragedy of disbelieving in God is not that a person ends up believing in an aid in in and nothing else it is much worse he may end up believing in anything the tragedy of disbelieving in God is not that a person ends up believing in nothing it is much worse a person may end up believing in anything and that's precisely the nature of what we are encountering today the kind of stuff that we actually end up believing and the pronouncements we end up making he led a reaction against the faith of his father's and the very structures on which the nation was founded which resulted in the development of hedonism and then the third result which was natural he instituted a bitter persecution of the prophets three things happen removing the truth allowing all kinds of beliefs to come in and then his option was to persecute those who stood for righteousness and stood for the truth don't you see the analogy don't you see what's happening you know I have to be so cautious on campuses today I have to be so cautious even of the invitations I accept and where I choose to speak now because somebody has wisely stated at what one point that any stigma can lick a good dogma and they will stigmatize you brand you in certain ways and when you get up to speak at a certain setting and a certain conference all of a sudden one wrong word and they will slay you they will persecute you they won't only stop your thought they will want to stop you from going anywhere to present your perspective that's what's happened it's exactly what's happened it comes under the false nomenclature of being liberal very few things are illiberal when relativism holds sway very few things are liberal when relativism whole sway it becomes extremely liberal true relativism if they want to stand for it ought to give perspectives and counter perspectives a chance to be spoken and shared but the truth of the matter is what we have got today is kind of a bigotry and a prejudice that blocks out somebody who holds to the sacredness of life and to the sacredness of our commitments and a persecution takes place at all levels till they hope you will ultimately be silenced as precisely what Manasseh did in his time as he led a reaction against the faith of his father's accelerated the development of hedonism and instituted a bitter persecution of the prophets he is the one who is credited with having murdered Isaiah the book of Hebrews talks about how some of them was sawn asunder and extra-biblical evinced a narrative it it as if it is correct Isaiah went in hid under the hollow bar inside the hollow bark of a tree and NASA had that tree cut down and literally had Isaiah sawn asunder this was the Prophet who had spoken to us much of the Messiah I say to you the analogy is inescapable when you think of what is happening in society today three results came of Manasses choices number one it is this it is possible for one person to lead millions and to untold evil it is possible for one person to lead millions and to untold evil think about that think about the professors who have controlled and taken away the ideas of absolutes from scores of minds the writings of some that influenced thousands and thousands thousands exponentially millions I remember one day in the 1980s when I was speaking in Warsaw Poland and my host was a medical doctor and on a given day he said to me Ravi would you be free tomorrow morning I'll take you to see a schvitz I said you know Henrik I've already seen many concentration camps he said which ones I said booked involve Dachau and Birkenau no he said no no these are all concentration camps the death camps were in Poland primarily I want to show you a death camp I said okay we'll go we got into his car early in the morning it was a cold and a damp day we drove for a long time and we arrived into this the confines of what used to be called house wits I wasn't emotionally prepared for what I was going to say as I walked from room to room I was stunned into silence in one room behind glass there was 12,000 pounds of women's hair as the women had been taken and scalped before they were sent in to stand in those showers that they were told was just nothing more than an ordinary shower as they saw the vents above them but they were being gassed by the thousands over 12,000 every day were dying in Auschwitz alone I saw little suitcases little toothbrushes pictures of men women and children as they had arrived there and then looking so emaciated and almost ghost-like with their cheeks sunken and their eyes looked deep inside their skulls they had been dehumanized brutalized and ultimately exterminated it came at the whim and the passion of one man who wanted to build a Superman mentality in this world one man remember after Ivan tickle pepper was talking about my time at the Lenin military academy it is almost a flashback for a moment it was several years ago I remember speaking to the faculty there the scent of the geopolitical strategy and then after the Lenin military academy standing in front of a completely atheistic faculty that were so hostile to start with I spent about three hours of them my wife and a colleague of mine were with me i sat alone at a table as it were as they hurled their hostile questions at me I remember telling one of the generals the story later on and rassa after it was over and he said they're about to put a fork full of food into his mouth and he stopped and his whole mouth started to quiver had started to tell him the story of Joseph Stalin who used to be a man preparing for the ministry and then abandoned his faith in God completely and clenched his fist towards his own people a woman one day looked at Joseph Stalin and set him how long do you expect to be torturing your own people and expect them to still follow you he was silent he asked a waiter to bring a live chicken and a chicken was brought to him he clutched it fiercely under his arm and started to D feather that bird and the chicken tried to squirm out of his arms to jump out with pain he clutched it tighter completely denuded that bird put the chicken down on the floor picked up a piece of bread and walked away and face the chicken and the chicken hobbled over towards him nuzzled between his trouser legs he put his hand down with a piece of bread in it and the chicken started to peck away at that bread he said madam do you have your answer I have just tortured that chicken it will follow me for the food the rest of its life people are like that chicken you torture them and they will follow you for food the rest of their lives - that's my answer to you the general who'd invited me they had taken Marg in me out for dinner and as we were for meal that day and as we were sitting and talking and I told him that story I said general he murdered 15 million of your people on the basis of a philosophy that there was no God the general lifted up his fork and his hand started to quiver his lips started to quiver had the privilege of leading the general to Christ and before I left the Sun of a geopolitical strategy the head said to me as age as they kissed the back of my wife's hand and my colleague shook hands and he grabbed me and pulled me towards him and he says mr. Zacharias I believe what you have spoken to us today is the truth but it's very difficult to change after 70 years of believing a lie with a lie with a lie you led a nation into the kind of the horrors that we still continue to witness see it's possible for one person to lead millions into untold evil don't ever underestimate that and the reason that is possible is the second result it is because it is true that most people do not know how to think for themselves most people do not know how to think for themselves we think so pragmatically we think so momentarily we do not even think with reason we do not think with logic we do not know the simple laws of induction and deduction and we are led whimsically into patterns of behavior and we see the rot of culture setting in because of an unthinking generation and lastly I say the result that he brought about is this a nation has reached its lowest ebb and the ultimate test of a civilization we see in what it does to its children a nation's civility civility is tested by what it does to its children and I ask you to think about that today what are we doing to our children I was so thrilled to read that little one line and I was telling mark before I came here his little line to his boys to tell them he would still be their father and still be a father to them what a reassurance to a young mind to a young heart to know that your dad will be there for you your mum will be there for you the ultimate test of any civilization is what we do to our children if you read one of the commentators describing what Manasseh did to them and how he offered his own sons and in the in the in the arms of a flaming Idol it says this night time seems to have been the special time for these awful immolations the yells of the children bound to the altars are rolling into the fire from the brazen arms of the idol the shouts and hymns of the frantic crowds and the wild tumult of drums and shrill instruments by which the cries of the victims were sought to be drowned it rose in an awful discordance over the city forming with the whole scene visible from the walls by the glow of the furnaces and flames such an ideal of transcendent horror that the name of the valley became then and still continues in the form of Gehenna the usual word for hell what was happening in this city is that the idols arms were set ablaze as it were chilled weber children were being brought and rolled into the arms of the of the idol and as the amber colored sky would reveal all the flames coming from below the shrieks and the shrills would be heard Manasseh was smart in all of this he brought loud instruments to drown the shrills of the babies that were being burnt to their death and that name was given at that time after Manasseh they called it Gehenna meeee the place of Hell that name still stands still this very day reminding us of the people who looked at what happened at the loss of their next generation at the sacrifice of their own children and they cried out and said this is what hell must be like this is what hell must be like you know I'm a father of three and have the extraordinary privilege now of having all three of them working with me it's only the grace of God that has done this I'll tell you because if I had to do my life all over again I tell you the truth I would do it quite differently I would not have been traveling as much in the early days they were as young and needed me to be there it's a tribute to their mother that their lives and all were held together so well I started in the days as an itinerant evangelist where you move literally from city to city and lived off Flom offerings preaching Sunday night to Sunday morning driving another 200 hour 200 miles and getting down to start somewhere else that next Sunday night and you'd go about five weeks in a row preaching 60 or 70 times and then coming back home totally exhausted that's the way it was when I started out in the 70s I was and still am a licensed evangelist for the Christian Russia Alliance for the last 40 years but when I started that's the way it was and if I had to do it today and start with them this day age I wouldn't do it that way it was just too heavy a price it is my loss when you miss the thrill of watching those very precious and tender years and now God in His grace has kept all of them safe in his fold and under his wings and I have all three of them working with me now as our ministry bills and in ten different countries as I'm speaking to you right now my oldest daughter Sarah is in India meeting with people for the cause of planning some meetings ahead my second daughter Naomi is in Amsterdam she visits the brothels around the world carries on the humanitarian side of our ministry called wellspring International she puts a tiny little Bible into her purse and literally walks into these red-light districts with another friend and they both go in together one but they know her now if you have seen the movie Slumdog Millionaire and feature filmed in Mumbai that's where my daughter did a lot of her work in raising funds to rescue men and women from the sex trafficking industry and children suffering from AIDS that's my second little girl's calling which what she does and my son Nathan works with us in the radio department I'm so proud of his writings is a quiet gentle person why do I say this to you because I remember watching them grow up and sometimes coming back week after week and saying my goodness how they've changed their faces change the stature changes I'll never forget my son Nathan asking me if I would register him in a church t-ball league I've told this story before but I didn't know what t-ball was I used to play cricket so I thought tee ball meant you go and watch them play ball and they'll serve you tea that's really what I thought it was all about because when you play cricket you take a tea break so I said oh it's caught on here they're going to serve you tea nothing of the kind they give you uniforms that really don't fit them but look nice at least for a few minutes the helmets totally blind them they come over their eyes and I don't think they know where they're looking at and God in His grace designed at that age they would they would only play five innings and that they would only be able to score a maximum number of runs off the tie which the team would be out otherwise we'd be there for years with nobody ever getting anybody out and I remember standing under a tree watching my son Nathan whack that ball as hard as he could and he would run around the other guys were running looking for the ball all the time and they'd get it somehow and get it back and Nathan would run to the base and he was told what he was to do and he obeyed the coach perfectly but he added one more thing the coach never told him he would run to base get into that Crouch position hands on the knees and just before he got his eye back on the ball he would look at my direction standing under a tree with a book under my arm and he would look in my direction to see if I saw him whack that ball and if he caught my eye he would go like this he's a big boy now Staller than I am and it's wonderful to have him come alongside and just wrap his arms around you and say proud of your dad love you dad keep doing what you're doing dad what we do with our children you want to be empowered for the future raise up the next generation with an example of a life that'll be honoring to God that'll be honoring the god you know the irony is Manasseh came to God late he repented but so much damage had been done in the heyday of his clenched fist shortly thereafter just two years of a hiatus with Amon and then came Josiah Josiah just did two things number one he gave them back the book of the law he gave them back the book of the law the Word of God the Word of God that's what he gave to them now once you and I understand something follow me please follow me that the Word of God and the laws of God are given to us so that we might exult in life and delight in life and find out what life's actual purpose is about then we will say what David said as was read so beautifully earlier that his word is a lamp and a light and that I will commit to be to be one who delights in your law delights in your more let me tell you a little story about three or four weeks ago I was invited by a man who I can't say too much about this I want to be very careful he's a tycoon big successes in a country that I shall leave unnamed and the first time I met him at a conference he told me he couldn't stand Christians and didn't much care for Christianity either I said why are you here he said my wife my wife asked me to give her one week and I guess you're the speaker so you better be good he said I said look you didn't promise me anything but you promised your wife that you would come and enjoyed this week if you like the messages that's okay but give you a wife and your boys a good week I'm glad you're here I'm glad you've honored her with her request to give her one week of your life and if you don't like what's going on when I speaking you get up and walk out you won't offend me that happens quite often in audiences and I'm quite comfortable with it that you won't be you won't be bothering me you can get up and leave comfortably I'll be okay about it but give you a wife what you pledged her this week he came the first week his hands like this second first day second day he drops his hands third days listening carefully on the fourth day his son comes forward and says to me can I talk to you say teen years old long story he asked how can I become a Christian the son's life was transformed father looks at me later and says what happened to my son I said did he tell you what's happened he said yes he says become a Christian I said what do you think I said he looks different I said that's only the beginning a lot more different is going to happen on the last day he sat down on an island with my wife and friend and his family looked at me and he says I like you he said I like what I'm hearing he said I am going to help you in a significant way but I want you to make one commitment to me I want you to fly into my country and I want you to meet our leaders what you have preached is what my nation needs so three weeks three weeks ago he asked my wife and me to join him on a cruise don't be misled it was a beautiful cruise but I went to work he decided to bring people on that cruise about eight or nine of us and they he chartered this whole yacht along the coast of Sicily and so on and I was to answer their questions so I worked three days into it this man sits down one of the men he brought says down next to me 50 years old and he said to me you know said I let me tell you my story my life's a mess my marriage is broken nothing has gone right I'm a very wealthy man I don't need any more money but my life is shattered everything is wrong he said in fact said of a short while ago he said I called my former wife and I sat down with her I said our lives are a mess children are suffering why don't we put it back together I'll forgive you for what you've done you walked away on your word you walked around your commitment you picked up this other relationship I'll forgive you and I want to ask any more questions but let's just join hands together let's come back together just turn your back upon that and come back and we'll have you back as a family he says she stunned me by saying I need six months to think it over he said I gave her the six months after six months we met he said give me she said give me three months more and after we met three months later she said you know I don't like you laying down all these stipulations for me I'm just not comfortable with the way you lay all these ground rules for me and so on he said so Ravi that's where I'm at then he began to talk about his journey in life and so on and finally I said let me stop you and ask you a question what have you got against Jesus Christ he said well for one thing I don't like this conditional love of his all these conditions he lays but if we don't abide by him he's going to toss us into an eternal hell and he went on and on I said you know what I find it fascinating you begin your story by telling me you want your wife to come back and you lay some conditions for her on which she is to come back and now you're telling me the thing you don't like about God is that he lays some conditions for you I promise you here's what happened we were sitting in a sofa use on my left and looking at him this way he stares and stares at me gets off that sofa on his knees he covers his face and he sobs like a little boy but drawn out long heaves and sobs I just in order to do at the moment he sobbed and sobbed I had the privilege of getting down next to him putting my arm around him and praying with him as he gave his life to Jesus Christ that night that night and a tiny little island in Sicily at the end of the dinner he stands up and tells everybody can I say something to you today the 20th of June is my real birthday I have found Jesus Christ and I am a new person today the man who invited him is the man I mentioned I met before and he just looked at him and he said now you're gonna make me start crying and his three son said to me that night I've never seen my father cry before there's a law of God there are parameters there are boundaries you want to enjoy life you honor his law you do it his way you want to destroy your life you violate the laws of God there's any young people sitting in the audience let me tell you something the world out there will try to provoke you to live in a total violation of God's law and you lived that way and you'll be on the path to self-destruction you do it God's Way you live a life of Perpetual novelty do it God's Way you live a life of Perpetual novelty he gave them the law of God and the second thing he gave them was he taught them the privilege of worship how to worship the Living God see the book of the law had been lost in the house of God he found it and he gave them the privilege of worship of teaching them that it is worship that ultimately binds everything together all of your proclivities all of your proclivities are ultimately bound together in the expression of worship as Archbishop William temple said worship is the submission of all of our nature to God it's the quickening of conscience by His Holiness nourishment of mind by his truth purifying of imagination by his beauty opening of the heart to his love and submission of will to his purpose all this gathered up in adoration is the greatest expression of which we are capable now I want you to follow me that it is only in worship that all of the inclination zuv your heart come together defined an expression of the sacred God himself it is only as you bring all of this together in worship all of the inclinations of your heart for which God has provided the ultimate expression and worship now let me ask you this and I want you to think with me for a moment think very carefully how can a culture like ours define anything that is of value unless it first defines the very purpose of life follow what I'm saying how do you define values without first understanding purpose what is evil what is good how do you define those I was in Colorado Springs four days ago speaking to a group of chaplains of their annual conference my colleague Matt was with me and the more night we arrived early next morning he sends me a message this has been a tragic shooting here in Colorado at one of the movie theaters immediately turned on the television to watch the news and you see this gunman going berserk and slaughtering a dozen of them and everybody starts stalking on the news about evil what is it what is it you will never define good you will never define evil unless you have also included the very purpose of what your life is all about that you are the creation of a holy God a God for whom life is of value and sanctity that's why that's why brethren worship is so critical and I challenge you as leaders I challenge you as leaders and I challenge you as members of churches to make sure your worship retains theological integrity not just pragmatic fulfillment nature very food three things happen very quickly he built a conviction of safety he built a conviction of safety for his people isn't that the longing of your heart and mine that you send your children out or you go out and you have that sense of safety about you the famed Korean evangelist Billy Kim tells all the time during the Korean War a young man was being ordered out of the trenches to go and rescue his fallen mates and he said he would do it but he looked at his watch and ducked for cover and the commanding officer would go by few minutes later he came back he saw the man still in the trenches and he would say to him what on earth are you doing I told you to go and rescue your fallen mates there's an awful lot of them just lying wounded out there he said I will do it sir and as soon as he looked at his watch he crouched again and waited a moment or two till the commanding officer fled elsewhere to another post several moments go by again he comes and sees this man once moyses what on earth he doing go and rescue your fallen mates he gives looking looking looking at his watch jumps out of this little trench there and goes and rescues his fallen mates all night long the early hours of dawn as he sitting back tired and exhausted somebody looks at him and says what is the matter with you you were told three times to go and rescue your fallen mates and all you would do is look at your watch and cower and hide he said I'm embarrassed to tell you this really embarrassed to tell you this he said I don't know God and I'm afraid of dying but my mother knows God and when I left she gave me a Bible to put into my bag and she said son every day at the following hours I will be on my knees praying for you he said I was waiting for that hour to strike where I knew my mother would be on her knees and I was ready to go out at that time when all the firepower in the world doesn't give you hope but your mother on her knees gives you the confidence that you will be secure under God that's what Josiah did for his people secondly he satisfied them with the power to change he satisfied them with a power to change by giving them the word and telling them they could change can I make this personal for a moment anyone here that needs to make some changes is there do you know where you're headed is the wrong direction are you in a relationship you ought never to have their gun and Benin are you in a habit that is breaking you and tormenting you are you a person of your word or you're constantly breaking it and living a lie I know of the only hope for somebody like that it's when the Holy Spirit of God will transform you after convicting you and telling you he will give you the power to change for the future I carry a letter on my blackberry and after this I'll turn to my last thought a brief one it came from man in prison he said dear ravi zacharias he said first of all forgive me he said I didn't know that was your name he said I thought you were Rabi he said I listened to you on the radio and I didn't know where you were from you sounded Scottish or Welsh to me my apologies to the Scots in to the Welsh he said I really thought you were from Scotland he said and so I thought Robby was an appropriate name for a Scotsman he said then suddenly I saw one of your books and I said is this the same guy Ravi he said you know what I was shocked to find out you were from India he said I'm writing to thank you for being on the air by listening to your programmes I came to know Jesus Christ he said but I want to tell you something why I'm writing to you and I'm asking you to forgive me he said I am in prison for life because I walked into a convenience store and I murdered a man who was Indian from your country he said Ravi my brother only the grace of God would have tracked me down in prison and brought the voice of somebody from India into my prison cell to bring me back to Jesus Christ you I keep that letter on my blackberry hair the power to change the power to change if some of you tonight need to change may God give you that power as you cry out to him he gives you the safety gives you the power to change and ultimately will rescue you from the tyranny of the immediate yes the days are dark yes the world is broken today I received a letter from Lebanon that I sent to my entire team globally and two Mayan tall of the board's in ten countries I said read this and get on your knees as I have gotten on my knees and seeing what is going on there they think the whole subcontinent is sitting like on a fire keg he told me of seven Christians in one place that were thrown out of buildings and the stories go on he says we're living in very dark days and we tend to look at the immediate and say it's not gonna work God is sovereign God is in charge God holds the threads God will honor his word God will lead the believer in the play of righteousness standeth God within the shadows keeping watch keeping watch above his own and every time I set out on a journey I keep that confidence in my heart that he is orchestrating my steps he is guiding my steps he will be there in every fearsome or fearful situation I believe with all of my heart that more than anything else if we end up being pessimistic we will become cynical which is the one step away from paralysis I say to you may the best days for your denomination be ed may the finest hours be ahead of you I had that extraordinary privilege of speaking at the University to see that packed Hall and see the young people sitting at the edge of their seats listening our young and young men and women are hungry they want to be told the truth they want to be able to defend it they want to learn they want to study they want to swim in the deep let's give them that let's give them that for you know why out of them might come a Josiah to overcome all the wrongs of a Manasseh Wesley wrote oh thou who Camus 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 i endless mercy seal and make my sacrifice complete I bid you all God's best you're a wonderful group of men and women and I'm honored and not worthy to stand before you I'm grateful for the privilege and thank you for giving me the honor but there's this gentle voice in my heart that tells me somebody here needs to get right with God and I would love to pray for you and whoever you are wherever you are there may be many of you will you give God the honor and do yourself the favor or sing Lord you've dealt with me tonight I'm at the crossroads I want to settle things with you lead me in the way of righteousness if he has touched your heart and spoken to your conscience and calling you to a different turn stand where you are I would like to pray with you just wherever you I don't wait for others you stand and God will lead you to do that yes I see you standing there don't hesitate hesitate stand where you are it may be a struggle it may be a deep struggle but tonight God has said to you get right get right I'm calling you will you stand if that's what he is speaking to you about and I would like to pray with you 1 bless God bless you Father for these that are on their feet in order to make a turn take them by the hand envelop them in your arms lead them all the way to the celestial city that you have prepared for them I pray for this marvelous group of people you have brought them this far lead them on their journey and guide them how wonderful to be in the midst of your children in Jesus name Amen god bless you thank you for joining us for this day star special presentation if you would like to receive prayer or find out more about this broadcast call or log on you can also watch many of these broadcasts in full with Daystar VOD online at des starcom

Channel: PiccadillyChurch

Views: 125,605

Keywords: Ravi Zacharias (Author), Jesus, Jesus Christ (Deity), Debate, Creationism

Id: u6rg6f5Y5CI

Length: 57min 47sec (3467 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 15 2013