- When you speak just
once, you always have to ask yourself the question, what do you really
wanna say to the people? Or, "What would God have
me select as a topic that would be important for you?" You know, we have the
privilege as traveling people, to be able to repeat ourselves. Pastors don't often have that privilege. They have to be so fresh week after week, and it's a very challenging
call, but I wanna bring to you today a message that
I think will be meaningful for you because it answers one of the most fundamental questions of life. Life is punctuated by questions. The moment you begin to use language, the word why, what, how, when, all these questions come
up very, very quickly in your mind and mine. So the subject that I want to
address for you this morning is entitled, Who are you, God? Who is God? I'll never forget, years ago, speaking at the Lenin
military Academy in Moscow, and all but one person in
the audience were atheists. They were all atheists, except one guy who came to me afterwards and told me he'd been praying
for years that somebody would come and share the
gospel in that setting. And through my talk, one other
officer kept going like this, the whole time, giving me the choke sign. But I kept going. I just looked in a different direction, because sitting next to me was
the general who'd invited me. But as soon as I finished my talk, this guy with the choke
sign, bounced to his feet. And here's what he said. He said, "God! What do you mean, God? You have been talking
about God for 45 minutes. What are you talking
about, I have no idea!" So whenever you get
jolted with a question, you have to quickly pray. So I said to him, "Are you an atheist?" He said, "Yes." I said, "What are you denying? If you say you're an atheist,
a is the negative in Greek, theos, for God, negative God. You say you're an atheist? What are you denying? You're asking me, who God is, but you're telling me you deny God. So what is the God you're denying?" He was stumped and didn't know
how to backtrack and respond. So I gave him about a
two or three-line answer, from God being the creator and
the designer of the universe, to the one who's made us in his image, and that our hearts
are ultimately restless until they find their rest in him. I want to read for you
a prayer this morning from second Chronicles, 20,
where there are questions asked about God, implicit in which
are the answers themselves. So second Chronicles, 20
reading from verse six, Jehoshaphat is surrounded
by a massive army, and he doesn't know how he's
going to deal with this. Invariably, when you're
attacked by a massive army, you really go immediately to prayer. I remember talking to one
of your generals, H. Slater, years ago, during the revolution. And he and 800 of his men were at Edsa. And all of a sudden he
said, we opened to the book of Psalms and we're reading from Psalm 91, crying out to God, dwelling in the shadow of the Almighty. Napoleon, when he surrounded Moscow, and the spires of Moscow were burning, the Czar who had had no
time for God, goes to church and falls on his face before
God, crying out in prayer, and God answered his prayer by sending a minor, minor
prophet, the winter. And that took care of
the rest of the battle, as Napoleon's army couldn't withstand the severities of the winter. So here's Jehoshaphat,
surrounded by the armies that he didn't know he could handle. Notice the three questions he asked. This prayer has both passion of heart, and intelligence of mind. It retains theological
integrity, while blending it with deliberate passion and
desire for God to intervene. The first part of the chapter
describes the army's coming and surrounding him, in
verse six he says this, "O Lord God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the
kingdoms of the nations, power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. O our God, did you not
drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and gave it forever to the descendants of Abraham, your friend?" First question he asks, "Are you not?" Verse seven, Second question
he asked, "Did you not?" In verse 12, he comes up
with this, "O our God, will you not judge them,
for we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do,
but our eyes are upon you." And in these three questions; are you not, did you
not, and will you not? You see the answers
that he ultimately gets. In 1952, "Encyclopedia
Britannica" published one of its most popular series ever. It was called, the "Great
Books of the Western world." It's about 53 volumes of compilation. And I remember as a
young student studying, actually more of a professor
in New York at that time, walking past the bookstores and wishing so much I could buy that series. But I kept waiting and
waiting till it went on sale, and one day it did. And today it sits at the top shelf of one of my sections there, the "Great books of the Western world." 53 volumes. The first two volumes are
entitled, "Syntopicon." It combines two words,
the synthesis of topics. What does it mean? The way the books are distributed? The first two volumes deal
with themes, great themes; history, philosophy, law, ethics, God. In the first two volumes. Then in the remaining 51 volumes, those very themes are
covered by the great writers of the Western world. So if you read the essay
on law and you want to know what Augustine said about law, you'll turn to the 18th
volume on Augustine, and see his section on law. Great themes covered as topics, great writers, and how they covered them. The chief editor is a man by
the name of Mortimer Adler. One of the brightest minds in America, a late comer to Christ, Jewish scholar, a late comer to Jesus Christ. And Mortimer Adler, years
ago was being interviewed by Larry King on CNN. And Larry King looked at him and said, "Adler, I was looking at the themes of "The Great Books of the Western World," and the longest essay is on God. You've covered great themes! But the longest essay is on God. Can you explain that?" Mortimer Adler just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Larry, because more
consequences for your life, follow from that one issue than any other issue you can think of." More consequences for
your life, follow from what you believe or disbelieve about God. And that's absolutely right. You are here today and
cannot deny that statement. Your belief or disbelief in God, defines everything else you do. If you believe and trust
in God, your language, your giving, your behavior, your ethics, you may not always live
consistently with it, but your guilt or fulfillment comes on how you think about God I believe it was the famed
CS, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who put it in these
words, "The proper study of the Christian is the Godhead. It's the highest science,
the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy,
which can engage the attention of a child of God, is the name,
the nature and the person, and the doings of the
existence of this great God. There is something exceedingly,
improving to the mind, in a contemplation of the divinity. It is a subject so vast
that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity. So deep that our pride is
drowned in its infinity. Other subjects, we can
comprehend and grapple with. In them we feel a kind
of self-contentment, and go on our way with the
thought, 'Behold I am wise.' But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumb-line
cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye
cannot see its height, we turn away with a thought, 'I am but of yesterday, and no nothing.'" What Spurgeon is saying
is, that a large number of subjects in the world,
you can walk away and say, "Boy, I know an awful lot about this." But when you put your plumb-line
to understand the doings and the person of God,
you walk away saying, "I hardly know anything about
this vast and grand theme." Stephen Hawking years
ago wrote a book called, "A Brief History of Time." And he goes through all of the intricacies of how he sees the origin of the universe. And in the last paragraph, he says this, "I have now told you, what. If I could tell you why, I
would know the mind of God." It had to take the mind of
God to explain the, why. Why life exists, why we are
here in the first place. That is the exhaustive subject. And I wanna talk to you briefly
this morning, on exactly what it means to answer the
question of, who God is. So let's take the first one, are you not? If I were to give you
a blank sheet of paper, and give you a pen, and
begin the words like this; God, are you not? How would you fill it out? How would you fill in the blanks? There are many, many things you might say. You might say, He's my
savior, He's my friend, all kinds of ideas can come to your mind. And yet some of you might
say, "I don't have a clue. I don't have a clue." As Pastor Peter Tan-chi,
was talking about, he made one statement, on
raising your children and showing them what Christ can
do in and through them. Not every child has a privilege
of being raised that way. And some children may say, "I have no idea what the word, God means." So how do we come to this? We come to this first,
listening to the common person. And I listen to the common person, numerous times in my flights. Somebody sitting next to
me, will turn to me and say, "What do you do?" And depending on whether I want to have a conversation or
not, I answer the question. And if I've got all the
energy to answer the question, I will say something like this, "I travel all over the world, answering people's deepest questions." And then you can just see
the wheels are turning. And about 30 seconds later,
they say, "Like what?" And I say to them, what
is your deepest question? And sure enough, nine times out of 10, they'll tell you something
like, "What's life all about? Why does it, why do we
pay, Why do we suffer?" And then I'll say to them,
"That's one of the questions." And they'll say, "What's your answer?" You see, the common person
struggles with the issue of God. This is why one of the finest
philosophers in the world today, Alvin Plantinga from
the University of Notre Dame. He refers to the belief
in God as a, PBB category, Properly Basic Belief category. It's a basic belief in
the masses of humanity. He says, you don't even have to prove it to the masses of them, it's
a properly, basic belief. They don't care to argue about it. They don't want to debate about it. It's deeply entrenched within the soul, a properly basic belief. In India today, in the
Pantheon of Hinduism, there are 330 million gods! And they're making more
of them, all the time. That's why they say, in the
Eastern part of the world, you're asking the question,
which god to believe in, and the Western part of the world, you're answering the
question, if there is a God. This properly basic belief is right there, but how do we come to it? Several years ago, "Life
Magazine" in a December issue, had the lead article, "Who is God?" And on the cover was a beautiful
picture of a night sky. And then in big white words, "who is God?" So I picked up that issue
and started to read. Early in the reading,
they're interviewing people. And there's a woman, an elderly
woman who's dying of cancer. And she says, "I have
believed in Jesus Christ as my savior, all my life. He's been my savior, and now in my cancer, he's been my strength and
my sustenance and all." It's a beautiful testimony,
only one paragraph. The next one is from a preacher, a minister who'd lived a duplicitous life, lived a dark life in the background, and a publicly preaching
life in the foreground, and he now had AIDS. And he said, "I've lived a
double life, I've lived a lie, I have always preached about
the savior in Jesus Christ. This is the first time
while I'm living with AIDS, and all of my regrets that
I've find out how gracious and merciful my God really is. Even though I have lived
such a horrible life, He has stooped down to pick
me up in these last days, and to give me hope and peace." These were the kinds of testimonials, till you come to the editor himself. And the editor says, "I
don't believe in God at all, God is an idea, or an energy, or a source. May the force be with you." That's the idea. You don't wanna have a person. You wanna have a force,
because to a person, you have a relationship
and an accountability. To a force, you just use
the force for your purposes. And so at the end of it, there were so many
conflicting testimonials. You just put it aside and say, "I didn't get any answers here." So then they talked to philosophers. You can talk to philosophers. And after you begin to read philosophers, you wonder whether they are real people. Do they really care about real things? You know, I had to study
a lot of philosophy. and my friend Lee Strobel, who's written, "The case for Christ"
and "The case for God," and so on, and so forth. He one day contacted me and he said, "I have to get even with you." I said, "Why?" He said, "My son came to listen to you and now he wants to study philosophy." So I said, "Is that bad?" He said, "Yeah, I looked
at my son and I said, 'What is the difference between
a professor of philosophy and a large pizza?'" He said, "Son, do you know the difference, between a professor of
philosophy and a large pizza?" And his son said, "I don't
know what you're getting at." He said, "Son, a professor of philosophy, and a large pizza, here's the difference; A large pizza can feed a family of four." (congregation laughing) In other words, the
professor of philosophy is not gonna feed you,
they don't get any money. (audience laughing) And philosophers will climb up ideas, and at the end of it
all you say to yourself, "I don't understand where they're going." You listen to two philosophers
debate the idea of time, and at the end of that one
hour, you will probably say, "I have just wasted my time." I better head on and go back home. So you can talk to the common person, you can talk to the philosopher. Then you get closer and closer, and you get to the scriptures, and you start reading Revelation. What do you see? Things like this; God is omnipotent. God is omniscient. God is Holy, God is immutable. Omnipotent, all powerful. Omniscient, knows everything. Holy, distance away from me. Immutable, He never changes,
cannot be destroyed. They're wonderful, wonderful concepts. And all of a sudden you
say something like this, "If he's omnipotent,
why have I got cancer?" If he's sovereign over everything, why did He allow my baby to die? If he has complete control, why is my body so wracked with pain? And all these terms, as powerful
and meaningful as they are, become almost abstractions,
when you are going through a lot of heartache and a lot of trouble. I remember one year some years ago, in my office at my secretary
came to me and said, "Ravi, we've got a telephone
call from a stranger, I think you should take it." I said, "I'll be happy to, if
you tell me what it's about." She said, "It's about a man,
who's been in an accident and he's totally paralyzed,
and he wants to talk to you." So I picked up the phone, I said, "Hello sir, my name is
Ravi, can I help you?" He says, "Ravi, I listen to
you on the radio all the time, but I'm calling you from a hospital bed." He said, "A few days ago, I
went out on a company picnic. I'm a father of a few children," and he described how many and so on. He was in his forties, I think. And he said, "We were
having fun playing baseball, and I hit the ball and was
running around the bases, and being just a fun game,
I was running full speed, I didn't realize that a guy in one of the bases was not gonna
move, and he was a big guy. Had his foot on the base and standing. And as I ran there, I put my head down hoping
he would move, he didn't. I hit him full tilt with my
head and I've snapped my neck. I am paralyzed from
neck downwards for life. And I have a young family." So I'm listening to
this, and I say my word. And then I said, "And
you're calling me because?" He said, "Do you pray for healing?" So I started to talk to
him, and discuss with him what we really think of
when we think of healing, how we think of it, trying
to explain all of this, but what was he saying? "God is sovereign. Why is this happened to me?" And by the way, I should mention to you, and this is the truth; years
later, one of the ladies who was a great supporter of our ministry and was on our advisory council, she said to me, do you
ever remember a man calling you from Dallas, Texas,
or Dallas or Houston, I forget about a broken, snapped neck? I said, "Yeah." She said, "He's my brother." She said, "He was healed." God touched him some years later, he was starting to walk
again, just an amazing thing. (congregation clapping) Now, I don't know how it happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know all the details
and I can honestly tell you, it doesn't always happen. I myself suffered with my
back for many, many years. It doesn't always happen. But you see the moment you
are thrown with your back to the wall, at a point of tension, all these terms begin to beg
for different definitions and different meanings;
sovereign, Holy, omnipotent, omniscience, immutable. And so we move from the common
person of demure experience, to the philosopher of ideas, to revelation of how God has
chosen to speak of himself. And then we realize that
sovereignty can seem to tyrannical, but only if it's unbounded by goodness. Holiness is terrifying, if
it is untempered by grace. Omniscience is taunting, if
it's uncoupled with mercy. And you've got immutability
become torturous, if it's uncertain of goodwill. What we long for is goodness,
grace, mercy, goodwill, how do we find all of this? How do we know all of this? See the apostle Paul was a
product of many cultures. He was a Hebrew by birth. He was a citizen of Rome, and
he'd studied in a Greek city. A Hebrew by birth, a citizen of Rome, and he'd studied in a Greek city. He was writing epistles
to all of these cultures, and all of these nations, after he had come to know Jesus Christ. And it is interesting to me, what all he must have
had packed into his mind. If you'd asked the
Hebrews for what is ideal, they would have said, "The light. The Lord is my light and my salvation. This is the light that lights, everyone that comes into the world." If you'd talked to a Greek, they would see the idealist knowledge. They're the ones who
formed the universities. If you talked to the Romans,
they would have said, "Glory!" For the Hebrews, it was light. For the Greeks it was knowledge. For the Romans it was glory. These are all ideas;
light, knowledge, glory. They are abstractions. Writing to the church at
Corinth, the apostle Paul says this in second Corinthians four, "God who caused the light
to shine out of darkness, has caused his light
to shine in our hearts, to give to us the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Christ Jesus, our Lord." He's given to us the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Christ Jesus, our Lord. All these abstractions
get poured into a person. This is the difference. This is the cardinal difference. You know, when I was growing up in India, we used to love to see movies. Indians still love to see movies. One good thing about
many of Indian movies, even if you fall asleep, halfway through, you have really missed
nothing, all you've missed is, fellows chasing girls around
the trees, most of the time. We had an Indian comedian
by the name of I. S. Johar. Because when I was growing up, there was no kissing on the Indian screen. You'd never see a kiss
on the Indian screen. So somebody wrote to Johar and said, "What is the difference between
love on the Indian screen and love on the Western screen?" He answered in one word, "Trees" (congregation laughing) You run around the trees
chasing each other. And as soon as you catch
up with each other, the scene changes. And of course there
have to be 5,000 songs, in all of the movies. (congregation laughing)
And as many dances. So we used to see a lot of movies. We had a servant in the house,
whose name was Arumugam, which literally means six faces. Arumugam: aru is six,
mugam is face, six faces. Named after an Indian god. So one day my mother put
money into his hand and said, "Would you like to see a movie?" And he said, "I've never
seen one you know." She said, "Go and enjoy it." It was a Sunday, his off day. He got on his white shirt, white trousers, polished his black shoes and
marched off to the theater. And we saw him going so happily with the money in his pocket. And I waited about three or
four hours for him to come back. Saw I'm coming from a distance, I said, "Arumugam how was it?" He said, "Yo, sir," and
then he goes on to tell me, "I made a big mistake." I said, "What happened?" He said, "I'd never been to
a movie before, as you know. And I lost my way, and I came late. And I walked into the middle door, and the whole room was dark." (congregation laughing faintly) "I don't know what to do. So I looked at a wall and I saw some lights coming out of holes. And I said, 'Why have I paid money to see lights coming out of holes?'" (congregation laughing) "And then it took me
about 30 seconds to look in the other direction and
see faces on the screen. And I started to shout,
'Oh, those are beautiful, they're beautiful.'" Somebody had to come and silence him and sit him down and watch the movie. You know what I thought,
his name was six faces, but he only had one and he was looking in the wrong direction. But all those beams are like some of the religions of the world. There are beams trying
to shine on something and when all these beams
come together in truth, they shine on the face of the
person called Jesus Christ, the savior of the world. (congregation clapping) Who is God? Who is God? Listen to Jesus. I want you to listen to Jesus. He is in prayer in John 17. Three times, he addresses
God, how does he call him? "Holy Father, Holy Father, Holy Father." That's who God is. He's Holy, He's at a
distance, but He is father. He comes near as He sends
His only begotten son. Do you know what that means? Do you know what that means? I was in a major city of
the world a few months ago, with my colleagues. And we were speaking to some of the members of
parliament and city leaders. And the man sitting two away from me was the chief of police. And he, with all of his
medals and uniform flashing, he leaned over and he said
to me, "You know, Ravi, what you've spoken about today
on the values of a culture," he said, "let me tell you
something, we're about to celebrate Father's Day in our country, a couple of weeks from now." He said, "I have 18,000
law enforcement officials, working under me, 18,000 in this one area, I'm talking about, we have our biggest difficulty,
and I'll tell you why, Father's Day is the loneliest
day of the year for them, because over 90% of
that community there in that neighborhood don't
know who their father is." 90% of people in that community don't know who their father is. This is at epidemic level globally, where the father comes back home, to have his thrills and
frills and whatever, consummates his physical desires. And oftentimes he's gone, and leaves the mother
alone to raise the kids. And I wonder so much if the
mothers had not been there, what would happen to our world
and our society at large? In America, at least
if at this predicament and this problem, we are
raising a whole generation of young men who have become
so violent, and so indulgent, and so irrational, because
they've never had a person in the home with strength and
character at the same time. In Atlanta, I know a family very well. In fact, the more the young
man I'm talking to you about right now, I first met
when he was only 12 years old, when he wrote this letter, and
that, his story is amazing. His name is McKitrick Simmons. In 1989, his father, Greg Simmons, very powerful businessman in Atlanta, very well loved, great
investments, and all of that. He and his wife Christie
had five children. McKittrick is the oldest, four under him. In 1989, the youngest was one year old, and Greg Simmons bought
a beautiful property in the highlands, North Carolina. And McKittrick said to him, "Dad, can we come and
see that vacation home?" He said, "Yes." So he left his wife Christie
with the one year old baby, he took the other four kids, asked a friend and his son to go with him. And so there they were, seven
of them, got into his van and they drove for some hours to go to highlands, North Carolina. And while they're in the
highlands looking at this, it's a beautiful city. Look at this beautiful home of theirs. He built a waterfall in there. McKittrick says to his dad, "Daddy," he said, "Can we
go up to the waterfall?" And the father said, "You
know, I haven't gone, very close to it." He said, "I'd love to see a dad." And so they all walk over
towards the waterfall. And as he's about to get
closest to the waterfall, he puts his arm out, Greg
Simmons does for the children and says, "Let me check it
out first, you stand back." So he takes two or three steps
forward, one step, too many. The soil underneath him gives way, and he falls down a quarter
of a mile to his death. McKittrick and his other
brothers and sisters and this friend and
young son, fortunately, the adult was also there, shattered by what they
saw, shattered by it. And of course they go through
all of the police report, and all, and get back to
Atlanta, to their home. Their closest friend were the Wheelands. And this 12 year old
boy McKittrick, writes to the Wheeland family,
here's what he said, "Dear Ms. Wheeland, You don't know how much your family has helped produce my father. He admired your husband and you a lot. He would talk about how good
your faith was always with God. He tried to be as generous
as you all have been to the church, and to
many other good things. Since his death, the true
friends are now revealed, your family's at the top of our list. You're a great source of
energy for my mother and I. My father loved you very much and was always trying to be like you. My father was like one of the three men in the Bible who were given the talents. One went out and invested
them and multiplied them. But one went out and took some stock that failed and came back with nothing. The last one, buried them and did absolutely nothing with them. All of them returned in a few
days, and the Lord was pleased with the two who had
tried to multiply them. But with the third man who had come back with the same amount, the
Lord was disappointed, because he didn't even try. My father multiplied and lost many things, but he was always trying
to please the Lord. He got that from your family. You see, my daddy was a risk taker. That's just how he was. Genesis 1:1 says, 'In the
beginning it was God.' And that was the most
important thing for my father. In the beginning of my dad's
life, he was something special. He was so brilliant and successful. No one will ever understand why my daddy fell into the waterfall. Please do yourself a favor, and don't even try to figure it out. My daddy died for his children. He was making sure it was
safe for us to come up. You may hear different things,
but only six of us saw it. And only three of us really understand, or understood what happened that day. I am one of those. My mother has lost her
treasure chest; her husband. Most of the others have lost Greg. You have lost your best friend. My grandparents have lost their son. Forrest, John and Barbara
have lost their brother. But Ms. Wheeland, I think
it is different for me. Totally different for me. He was my best friend and my idol. But when I got my last glimpse of him falling down the falls, I lost my most prized man on earth. He was my father, my one and only dad. I had a dream three
nights ago, Ms. Wheeland, but it wasn't a dream. My daddy is all right. He told me that himself. Thank you for being a true friend. I love you a lot. McKittrick Simmons, 12 years old. You know my kids are all grown up. And one of the hardest
things of the itinerant life is that you're gone so much. It's a hazard, but I'll tell you what, the thing that gives me
one of the greatest joys is when my phone rings and I hear, "Hi, dad?" "How're you doing dad?" "I'm missing you, dad." "How're your meeting's going, dad?" My daughter was here for the conference. She's on her way and stopped in Italy. Two messages within an
hour of her landing, "I've landed safely, dad." "I'm in my hotel room." We need this, they need this. My mother-in-law is 96 years old, and possibly in her last
few days, I don't know. After an accident. And her daughters are around her bed, and going there, and following
and watching her closely. No matter how old we get,
we always need our parents, because they are our biggest fans. No matter what happens, they will cheer loudest when you succeed, and weep for you the
most when you're broken. And we have a Heavenly
Father who loves us, who cares for us, who is God. He is your Holy Father. You can come to him in a relationship, not connecting with an idea,
but connecting with a person. Because as the word became
flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth, I find it fascinating when Jesus is dying on the cross, bringing redemption to the whole world, He looks at a young man
and points to his mother and says, "Take care of her." "Take care of her." This family idea was instituted by God. It was not good for man to be alone. And I'm saying to you today,
there is no other worldview that will tell you what I am telling you. And that's why Bilquis Sheikh, the Pakistani Muslim convert,
titles her testimony, "I Dare to Call Him Father." In Hindi, it's (speaks foreign
language), Heavenly Father. I give to you who God is. He offers a relationship with you, and calls you as a child to himself. Are you not? Put down the first answer;
He is my Holy Father." Secondly, did you not, did you not rescue us a long time before, when we faced huge enemies,
did you not rescue us? I'm gonna ask a very difficult question, and I want you to be honest with yourself. Have you experienced him? Have you sensed his
intervention in your life? Do you know he has met you at some point? So many things happen in life. Not this year, but last
year, my son Nathan, they were celebrating July 4th, we were out of town, my wife and I. So the kids came to our
home, to celebrate July 4th, and Nathan was grilling
some hamburgers, my son. He has a two year old daughter. And so she was just a
little passed over one, but she was standing next to him. And he was frying something on the stove, and all of a sudden where
she tried to get to him, he bent down and flipped the
handle of the frying pan, and the hot oil just splashed all over. And his daughter's face was
covered with that burning oil. And on the phone, he was just sobbing. He said, "Dad, I don't
know how I did this." And this sweet little face is now getting blistered and covered. And of course they took
her to a burn unit, and it's amazing from what I gather, they heal and they heal marvelously. But the doctor said to him, "You know what, Nathan? I'm amazed that not one drop of that hot oil went into her eye." God was there. God was there. There are times where he puts that handout and says, I'm gonna guard you. You'll be hurt, but I'm gonna protect you, and that face as sweet
as it is, restored now with all those blisters and
all of those marks gone. In my sermon book, I have a story, written in the reader's digest. It's a fascinating story. It's a story of a man
called Marcel Sternberger, who gets into a train in
Brooklyn, on the subway. And it's a middle of the day. He'd gone to visit a sick
friend who was dying. And he visits the sick
friend and takes this train that he doesn't ever take
because he doesn't live there. And it's the middle of the
day, he's normally at work. And he gets into the
train and it's crowded. But as soon as he gets
in one man gets off, and there's one seat. He makes a beeline for it and sits down. But the man next to him
is reading a newspaper with his arms outstretched. So Sternberger is sort
of craning his neck away, but he looks at the
newspaper and it's in Polish. And Sternberger understood Polish. So he started to read it
and he noticed that the man is reading it from the
classifieds section. So he looks at the man and he says, "Are you looking for a job, sir?" He said, "No, I'm not looking for a job. I'm looking for my wife." He said, "What do you mean? Are you looking to find
somebody to marry?" He said, "No, no, no, no, no. I'm from Hungary, the
Debrecen in Hungary." And he said, "During the war, I was taken away by the Russians
to bury the German dead. And by the time I came back,
my city had been liberated, but I was not sure
whether my wife ended up in a concentration camp in Auschwitz or whether she was liberated. I've had no contact with
her, so I've come to America, looking for my wife, to see if she was
liberated and brought here. We have no contact
address for each other." And Marcel Sternberger starts to think, "You know what? A few days ago I was in a party," he's talking to himself now. And there was a woman
from Debrecen Hungary, who said she had been
liberated by the Allies, and brought to the United States. And her husband had been taken by the Soviets to bury the German dead. And he'd written her name
down because he said, maybe we'll get together some time. And he'd written her name down, and then he turns to
sternburger and says to him, "What's your wife's name?" He says, "Marya, Marya Paskin," Sternberger takes out that piece of paper, and it says, "Marya Paskin." Phone number. Then he says to the man,
"And what's your name?" He says, "My name is Bela Paskin." He says, "Mr. Paskin, please get off at the next station with me. I wanna make a phone call for you." He didn't tell him anything. So they get off and they
go to a telephone booth, and he dials in, tells
the man to stay outside. And after many rings,
this woman picks it up. He says, "Who am I speaking to?" And she says, "Marya Paskin." He say, "Marya do you remember me? My name is Marcel Steinberger." She says, "Yes, I remember." He says, "Marya, what
was your husband's name?" She said, "My husband's
name was Bela Paskin." He said, "Marya, you're about to witness the greatest
miracle of your life, hold on." And Bela Paskin comes in and
he has the receiver to him. And he says, "Hello." And Marcel is standing
outside the phone booth, and he sees the man slap his forehead and screaming out of control
with absolute disbelief, not believing what had really happened. So much Sternberger is
walking out with tears in his eyes and just thinking, "How did all this happened?" And he says, "You no what,
I don't take this train. I don't live here. How did all this happen?" And he gave the man some money
to go and meet up with Marya. And he ends the article with this, the man writing the article says this; "Skeptical persons would no
doubt attribute the events of that memorable
afternoon to mere chance. But was a chance that made
Sternberger some day decide to visit a sick friend
and take a subway line that he'd never been on before? Was chance that caused the
man sitting by the door of the car to rush out
just a Sternberger came in? Was it chance that caused Bela Paskin to be sitting beside Sternberger, reading a Hungarian newspaper. Was it chance, or did God ride the Brooklyn subway that afternoon?" (congregation clapping) You think you're here by accident? Do you really think your all your life is just a compilation of accidents? Do you think God's brought you here for a purpose this morning? It may be you really don't
know Him, but deep inside, you're wanting him,
wanting him very badly, and saying, "God, if
you're real, speak to me." I don't know what you're going through, I don't know what heartache you're facing. I don't know what struggle you're facing, but the Lord of the universe,
in his sovereign grace has brought you here, and
wants to speak to you, and tell you that his
love for you is enormous. That he wants to give
to you that relationship with your Holy Father, so
that you may know the truth, and the truth will set you free. This is the story of the gospel, the word becoming flesh
and dwelling among us, full of grace and truth. Again and again, I am
reminded that nothing in my life has happened by accident. Even the dark moments of bad choices, God has used in a marvelous
way for his glory. Are you running from Him today? In an audience like this there has to be those who are running. Remember what Francis Thompson wrote, "I've fled Him down the
nights and down the days, I fled him down the arches of the years. I've fled him down the
labyrinth and weighs on my mind, And in the midst of tears. I hid from him down Titanic
glooms of chasmed fears, up vistaed hopes I sped, from those strong feet
that followed after." And then he ends this poem by saying, "Ah, poorest, blindest, meekest, I am he whom thou seekest. Thou dravest love from
thee, that dravest me" When you drive God away from you. You're driving love away from you. Are you not my Holy Father? Did you not speak to
me and want to meet me? Did you not intervene in my path? And lastly, I say to you, he says in the prayer, "Will you not?" Are you not? Did you not? Will you not? Will you not deliver
us from this vast army? And God says this, "Do not
be afraid or discouraged, because of this vast army, for this battle is not yours, but God's." I am 99% sure, this
verse is the middle verse of the old Testament. The battle is not yours, it's the Lord's. I don't know what you're battling today. It's not yours, it's His. He's fighting it for you. There's so many battles that come upon. We've taken on a big
project in our ministry. And I said to my wife,
last week before we left, I said, "Boy, sure I hope I've not tried to bite off more than I can chew." I said, "This is huge." And she comforted me and said, "Ravi, the Lord's brought you this far. He didn't bring you here by accident. He's brought you here for
a purpose, He'll provide. He'll take care of what it is we need, and you need for this." And so here's my challenge to you; the only way you can say
the battle is not yours, but His, is if he has won
the battle in your heart. You hear me? If He's won the battle in your heart, then the battle is
completely his from there own because He said, "I am with you. I have overcome the
world, I will equip you. I will empower you." The battle is His, once He
has conquered your heart. The piece that He brings from knowing that from you knowing, "I can't win this. I really can't win this." And you have to be a person
who has faced such battles. I've faced them. When you say, "I cope with
this, it's too much for me!" God says, "The battle is mine, not yours." It's at the heart of
the Hebrew scriptures. "The battle is mine, not yours." And so I say to you today, have you surrendered your heart to him? There's a muslim medical doctor converted to Christ from Pakistan. I sat next to him at a
meeting, and at the end of it, he told me his story. I don't remember a lot of it. He said, "I was a total
skeptic, total skeptic. And I went to listen
to a preacher one day, and I was utterly bored." Said, "I listened to nothing he said, but I was glad when he said, 'I just want to close
with two statements.' So I was happy the end had come. And then he said this,
'In surrendering, you win. In dying, you live'" He said, "I sat up." In surrendering, you
win; in dying, you live. He said, "I said, God I've
heard nothing of what he said, but those two lines make
a lot of sense to me." And he surrendered his
heart to Jesus Christ, and began his new life in God. (congregation clapping) Wherever you're seated this morning, what a beautiful crowd,
thank you for coming. Are you willing to
surrender yourself to Him, and die today so that
He might live in you? In 1939 King George, the sixth spoke to the world on the
brink of a terrible war. And he used to stutter and stammer, but he gave the most powerful speech, and he closed in the middle of
the speech with these words; "I said to the man at
the Gate of the Year, 'give me a light that I may
walk safely into the unknown.' And he said to me, 'Go
out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. It shall be to you better than the light, and safer than the known.'" A new year was about to
dawn when he said this, "I said to the man at
the Gate of the Year, 'give me a light that I may
walk safely into the unknown.' He said to me, 'Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God. It shall be to you better than the light and safer than the unknown.'" How do you put your hand
into the hand of God? With his word? That's his message to you. When you read this word,
and absorb this word and live by this word,
your hand is in His hand. That's how we put our hand into His hand, but we begin by surrendering
our lives to Him. And I'm gonna ask you to bow
your heads in prayer with me. And I'm gonna ask you to do this not because anybody else is doing it, but because in your heart today, you know, God has spoken to you, and you wish to surrender
your life to him, receive him as your
savior, and die to yourself so that he might live within you. I would love to pray for
you in closing and ask God to just garrison your heart, and pour his love into your soul. But if you are willing today to be totally surrendered to Him, maybe have never done it before, but today you say, "I'm
ready to commit my life to Jesus Christ and put
my hand into His hand." While you're wandering far off, whatever that need, you know, you need to turn to
Him in total surrender. Will you stand if that is your prayer? Don't stand because
somebody else's standing, but stand because God has spoken to you, and you wish to receive
Him into your life. Yes, standing here on the
ground floor, please do so. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. This is your moment between you and God. Just rise to your feet, and
as you stand to your feet, you're saying, "Ravi, please spray for me. I have that need for my Savior. I have that need to be surrendered." Upstairs looking across the balconies, just rise to your feet out
there, if that is your prayer, and that is your desire. Yes, God bless you. I see some of you rising up and the upper tier right up there. I'm gonna wait just one minute more. Maybe you're really
struggling, and you're saying, I really don't wanna do this. But you know, deep in your
heart, you need to do it. Will you do it, we win
that battle for God today? So I'm waiting about 45 seconds. Just rise to your feet and say, "Yes, I wanna be one
of these, pray for me." All across the auditorium. Father I thank you for
these men and women, these young people who are at their feet. If you can hear the cry of
their heart, Holy Father. You know why they are standing. And that soul, that really matters. But before they leave here, Father, I pray they will talk to somebody
and let that person know what has happened in their heart today. They'll talk to somebody
from this congregation so that they can be prayed for, and begin a new lockstep march with you. Thank you for this morning,
thank you for the music, Thank you for this church. And for giving me the privilege
of bringing them to you. Are you not, did you not, will you not? As your heads are bowed,
letting me answer the question. Who is God? He's our Holy Father, who
is the same yesterday, today and forever. And our hearts are
restless until they find their rest in him. He's the God of the past,
the God of the present, and the God of the future. He's your Holy Father who sent his son to draw you into his own bosom. That's who God is. May you know him, love
him, and follow him. Father in your sacred name, I commit them to you,
in Jesus name I pray. Amen. You may be seated. (congregation clapping) - [Announcer] Thanks Ravi.
