Board's done and what you've just seen has to take some time
to probably to sink into your mind totally outside of the box
and the opportunity to there are about 400 and something 1000
people in the country, but we've literally can give the gospel to
every family. This is this is what we're
dealing with fulfilling the Great Commission.
All right so we get into Psalm 63.
What a what a passage of Scripture.
It's, it's I hope that you are blessed by this.
When I was saved at 11, I was given a book to read or
purchased a book to read on the power of the Holy Spirit and the
Lord. I didn't know what he was doing,
but was leading me in a life of directing the spiritual life
that we have, that God created breathed into us a second time
at our new birth, the salvation of our soul.
And that directing that into an emphasis of a personal
relationship with Christ and not a list of things that we do just
because we think we ought to do them and avoiding things that we
think we ought to avoid. It comes down to a relationship
with Christ. And I got serious about the
things of the Lord a couple years later, real serious.
And and within by the time I was 14, the Lord called me to
preach. And I came across this Psalm as
I was reading through Psalms real quick after that point and
memorized it and it kept me where I needed to be all through
high school and seeking after the Lord.
So let's read, if you will, this, and then we'll get into
really our presentation. And if you want to load that
presentation, it's ready. It goes along at the same time
simultaneously. Let's read this Psalm.
O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee.
My soul thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth for Thee in a
dry and thirsty land, where no water is to see Thy power and
Thy glory, so as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary.
Because Thy loving kindness is better than life.
My lips shall praise Thee. Thus will I bless Thee.
While I live, I will lift up my hands in Thy name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with Morrow and fatness in my
mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips, When I remember
Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night watches,
because Thou hast been my help. Therefore in the shadow of Thy
wings will I rejoice. My soul fall with heart after
Thee. Thy right hand upholdeth me.
But those that seek my soul to destroy it shall go into the
lower parts of the earth. They shall fall by the sword.
They shall be apportioned for foxes.
But the King David says here, that's him speaking, he's
talking about himself shall rejoice in God.
Everyone that sweareth by his name shall glory, but the mouth
of them that speak lies shall be stopped.
Let's have word of prayer. Father, I pray that you please
bless this time together and use this Lord not only to get across
the needs of Chicago and but we want to glorify your name and
what you've done and thank you and we'll praise you in Jesus
name, Amen, Amen. This says, oh God, I recently
heard a pastor say we need to return the OS to our prayers.
We say a lot of things like God, I need this Lord right now and
you better hurry because I'm in a hurry.
I mean, we come to God and approach him in such a casual
nature. And instead we need to put back
these OS and say, get on our knees and say, oh God, I need
this. Oh God, I have a need.
I have a need. And the need is internal.
It's an internal need. He says thou art my God, so he'd
better be your God, and not just the God of your parents or the
God that is abstract, but he is my God, my friend, the knowledge
that I have a relationship with him.
And he says early will I seek thee?
We ought to seek. Him early in our lives to seek
the Lord. He says to seek the Creator in
the days of our youth, but to seek Him early in our
experiences. If you get saved, it ought to
turn your heart to seek a pursuit of God through the rest
of your life and seek him early in your ministry, early in your
family, to dedicate your children as God gives you
children to bring them and seek God to say these are not my
children but yours, and to seek the Lord in the morning, early
in the day, so that the rest of the day belongs to Him.
He says, early will I seek thee? My soul thirsteth for thee.
So Christianity really should be summarized not not just in the
theology of our doctrine, but it ought to be in the the
experience of a Christian could be summarized in those words.
I thirst for God. When our Christianity becomes
something else like I seek to please man as the verse we
talked about today, seeking to fit in with the church and what
they require, seeking to follow some kind of leader, we have
wavered from the fact that Christianity can be summarized
just in those words. My soul thirsteth for thee.
Do you thirst after God? Can you describe your prayer
life as being thirsty for him? Is your Bible reading seeking
for him in the pages of Scripture?
Is your so many efforts done for duty or is it something you're
doing because you're seeking after God and his will and, and,
and proclaiming him to the others around you that they
might know him as you do? My soul thirsteth for thee now.
This is incredible. My flesh longeth for thee now.
The New Testament begins a, a, a picture of our body, our flesh,
referring to our carnal nature. And this is not that because our
carnal nature is never going to be improved.
God's answer to carnality and the carnal flesh is to kill it.
He said crucified the flesh and so we're not on a flesh self
improvement course, we're on a flesh killing course.
OK, that we're supposed to die to self and to put on the new
man Amen. But this is referring to our
physical body in the Old Testament that our physical body
think about this can long after God and think about this.
This means that throughout the day, not only should I want God
in my soul, but they were going through our day saying, you know
what, I really wish I were back on my knees with the Lord Jesus.
I wish that my and even my body desires to be in that place of
fellowship with the Lord. What a difference this
Christianity would be and how it would impact this world in such
a greater way if our Christianity was from the source
of our prayer closets emanating into the rest of our lives
rather than just coming from maybe the preacher preaching.
Thus you should do to please and be a good, good little
Christian. It ought to come and flow from a
heart that is totally on fire, or we need revival in a dry and
thirsty land where no water is. We live in that kind of country
and I'm going to tell you, I've lived in another country and
believes and it needs the gospel.
Back in the 60s and 50s and beyond the, the, the Moody Bible
types had planted the gospel. And so there's gospel chapels
all around Belize and, and they've even gone into the
villages and not just the cities, but friend, it didn't
last. Their ecclesiology not being
right, they, they found the replacements for the pastors as
they died off. When I moved there, some of the
old pastors were still there and they were retiring or dying and
they went off to other churches of charismatic style to find the
replacements and and friend. Now the gospel is watered down
with no eternal security in that country and it is time to really
to seriously re evangelize the country for the Lord.
But so is America. America has fallen from its
Bible roots and it has gone its own way.
And Christians, we need to re evangelize our entire country.
Notice verse #2 and it's the title at the top of your hand
out it says to see thy power and Thy glory.
So as I have seen thee in the sanctuary, David had been down
to the sanctuary, to the Tabernacle.
It was his Son who built the temple, remember?
And so he had a Tabernacle to go to.
And there he had first hand witness the presence of God, His
glory manifest. He had heard as was gifted to
him the ability to to be inspired to write the scriptures
that we have very an example, this very one we're reading.
And so in a very unique way, he saw the power and the glory of
God. If you write down in your notes,
fill out the first word, it's the past.
We have seen the reality of God, not just talking about him, but
it's a it's something you know to be true.
And I'm afraid of what's happened in Christianity is a
strong disconnect between what we are saying and what the
children are watching in the home and experiencing in their
lives. Like promises that we put on
plaques and hang on a wall like my God shall supply all your
need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.
But yet Christians, when they really come to a crisis
financially, often they are not running to God in prayer.
They are running to their credit card to solve their problems.
And there's a disconnect between kids who are raised in a
Christian home who never know what it is to see the power of
God demonstrated. And that disconnect has lost a
generation, at least of our Christianity, and has set them
to say, oh, there's those blowhard pastors who preach loud
messages, but they're empty of the power of God.
And the fact is that there is the power.
I've seen it. I've watched God do some great
things, and I'm here to tell you that it's very real.
In spite of the problem of Christians living in that
disconnected way, God is still God.
In the House of God you can see the great power of God.
Debbie and I started in our ministry there at Fair Haven
Baptist Church and I was hired on staff in 1994, stayed on
staff until 2012. And the Lord did some among the
many things that we did there. And you wear a lot of hats as an
assistant pastor. I was Debbie's dad's assistant
pastor for 18 years. And but my favorite ministry was
there in the bus ministry. And I put this on there so you
can see that Once Upon a time I had hair and enough hair and I
was skinny. But your pastor and and and
brother Brian and their dad is here would remember the days
when God did some wonderful things.
And I'm going to tell you that going out and bringing people to
church on these buses wasn't just here.
Here's a piece of gum if you come to church, but it came from
praying. Oh God do something.
And after a while we started to see people rescued off the bus
ministry and families coming in and getting saved and, and then
a lot of times I'd have to do their wedding.
I've done a lot of weddings and I was in charge of the senior
ministry. So I did a lot of Wendy's and a
lot of funerals over those years and, and, but saw God work on
people's hearts. And you know your pastor with me
a lot of times he started out young with me and going out
there and, and, and knocking on doors and seeing prostitutes
come to Jesus and clean their lives up, watching drug addicts
get clean, watching and, and in the middle of it, seeing a lot
of disappointment at the same time, but knowing what it is in
the ministry to stay at it and watch God.
So what I can tell you is that God wants people to be saved and
he wants people's lives to change.
And I've seen it and I've experienced it.
And as he got older, and his brother.
Was with us. There in in that city and my
children started to replace them as my partners.
And so my children were raised going into homes and, and seeing
things like the way that sin destroys people's lives.
And it was a constant appearance to them and what happens and
speaking to them of the effects of sin.
Hey, I saw the power of God do some things.
And then God moved us to Belize, as pastor pointed out, and we
started the church there and pastor talked this morning about
starting this church and, and having a special event and all
of those things and nobody came. And we got there on Wednesday
and started the church on Sunday night.
I mean they speak English. So, you know, I didn't have to
go to language school. I already kind of know that
language a little bit and. So I remember that night, I, I
went out front and I was pacing out front of the property
saying, Lord, I, I don't think I would come to hear me preach,
but I, I really appreciate it if you send somebody and five
people came. And so with our five and then we
had 10 and three of them received the Lord as their
Savior. And then the next Sunday morning
when we had our first Sunday morning service, we actually had
a mom and a dad and three kids come.
And you know, I know that feeling, you know, like, man,
this is great. It's a real family.
Amen. And you know, I preach
salvation. And that 13 year old came
forward to be saved and I took him over with my Bible into the
other room, sat down and started to show him how to get saved.
And his dad, very shy man, came in and said, I think I belong in
here too. And the both of them got.
Saved that day. And you know what?
They became faithful immediately.
Sunday morning, Sunday night, midweek service and you know,
God began to if you don't come, you can't have God work on your
heart, you're missing out. And but because they were
faithful. Six years later, he became the
pastor of this church and only God can do that.
A grand opening we had. We had 78 Belgians come.
Twelve of them came forward. I think more came forward, but
12 got saved that day. And most the unique thing is
most of these people are either still in that church.
I know where they are or they've passed away.
And you know, this is an amazing what God did.
Again, I've seen God, I don't have anything in me that can
start a church. Somebody has said, well pastor,
you've started 2 very successful churches so you know what you're
doing. Listen, the only thing I know
how to do is say God, I don't know what I'm doing.
I need your help and I need God to empower.
But I've seen it. I've seen it and my children
have seen it. And because they've seen it,
they know that God is real. He's real to meet your needs.
Every promise in the Bible he will fulfill if we meet his
conditions. And there we began to do things
like you do, baptize. We baptize there in the ocean,
right out there. And for four years we baptized
in the same place. So they put up a sign, said no
swimming crocodiles, you know, and we never saw a crocodile
there until after they put the sign there.
And one time I was baptizing in a dolphin swim right by.
At least we think it was a dolphin.
Anyway, then this is the first vacation Bible school was after
three months of the church, we reached 100, the church service
after that. And then we taught them how to
go. So winning door to door
visitation. Very important thing.
We bought buses. They're the short buses.
They're they're very good. I use these in Pocatello too.
I love those, those buses they because in the city you can drop
by and drop off if you're all over full and then go back and
get more, you know, you're not that far.
And, and I bought that big bus at the beginning And then the
guys I was training to drive kept bumping into other people's
cars. And so I, I got tired of paying
for the repairs and got those smaller buses and they did fine.
So and nursing home service and our Bible institute there,
they're very good students. Worked hard and you know, I, I,
I taught at the Bible college there at fair.
Haven and taught the same courses that I taught there.
I taught them music is always. Part of a church.
You have outstanding music. I do not know a church that I've
been to and I've been into a lot of churches and.
I'm talking in my, my ministry now, I've been in ministry for
this is my 32nd year of ministry and I've been in probably 300
churches across the country. And, and to be honest, I've
never seen a Church of this size with music like you all have.
You have been blessed and it's important part, you know, of our
ministry. Music is part of that.
And, and then the Blanco family, God worked on their hearts.
I, I, I told the, I told some of the men, I said, the Lord's
calling me back to start a church in the United States.
And Pastor Blanco said, the Lord's been working on my heart.
How do you know when you're called to preach?
Now only God can work on people like this.
He's not the personality. I mean, he's his, he has a
college degree, but it's in agriculture.
And, and, and so, you know, he, he said, pastor, how do you
know? I said, well, I'll tell you how
you know, the, what it feels like is you find out, you know,
you have to preach or you can't still be right with God, which
requires a prayer life. You know, you have to pray in a
way that you're really getting a hold of God.
And then you know, God wants you to do something and you know,
you can't get away from it because he's pursuing you.
And I've been there and he came back after fasting and prayer
and said, I believe God's called me to preach.
And I said, well, that doesn't mean you should pastor our
church. Maybe you should start another
one. I said, because it's going to be
hard. And he has gone through some
hard things. So he went and fasted and prayed
again. And he came back and he said,
you know, Pastor, I'm afraid of failure.
He's just being honest. I mean, aren't we all afraid of
failure? But he said this, He said I'm
afraid of God more now that is an honest, transparent man.
They're very unusual people. I've never had them once ask me
for anything. I have to ask them what do they
need? I'll call them and I'll say in
conversation, how are you doing? Do you have everything you need?
And they'll say, Pastor, you taught us that if we need
something, we go to God in. Prayer.
I have to go there to find out what they're missing.
Last. Last February, I was sitting
there in their kitchen and they're serving us a meal.
And I look up and they on a little table, they got a
refrigerator like what you have in your hotel room, about that
little tiny size. And they're running a whole
ministry. Off of it.
And I said, where's your refrigerator?
They said, pass through it, don't finish now.
That means it can't be fixed anymore.
They had to throw it away and we bought them another
refrigerator. But the point I'm making is
that. That they're very unusual people
that would never, ever ask for anything.
And I praise God for them. And God made him unanimously.
They voted him and is their next pastor and now?
He has been the pastor there longer than I was their pastor
because we've passed that. Point and then the Lord.
Called us out West to the mountains.
And in a city, a little town, maybe 100,000 in the total
outreach area, and it has these small mountains on both sides of
it with a valley. The bottom of the valley is at
4500 feet above sea level. And you know the, it is, it is
the home of the university there, right there on the right.
You can see the football, the stadium there.
And it is Idaho State University.
All, all three of my kids graduated with a degree from
there of some kind. And in 2018 we started the
Mountain Valley Baptist Church and we did it in a city that's
75% Mormon. They even build a temple there.
And but I'm going to tell you something.
God will save Mormons. You know, it's a, it's a simple
process, but it is a process. But God has to be involved.
You have to have a prayer life to see a Mormon saved.
God has to work on their hearts and God has done just that.
We started with the grand opening in 2018 and we had 1100
square feet. I don't know what.
That would look like, but it was 50 people crammed in that little
room and my son is teaching. That's Ezekiel teaching the
Sunday school class. And it was so close to the
morning service where they were that the Sunday school class had
to be whispered. They had to whisper, kind of
like your vacation Bible school was that one day.
And then as quickly as I can tell you this story, I was out
knocking on doors when the church was about 2 1/2 years
old. And I was in an apartment
complex, a rundown apartment, not, not well taken care of.
And so the doors weren't really marked really well.
And I accidentally knocked on the maintenance room, the boiler
room, and the landlord was in there.
And he opened the door and I said, oh, I'm sorry because I
thought he was Mormon and going to kick me out of there.
And so I said, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you.
He said, no, I'm a Christian. I want to know what you're
doing. And he said, I used to go to the
Presbyterian Church before they quit preaching the gospel.
And I, I know they're about to dissolve or do something like
that. And he said my son-in-law who
was with him, he said he's a real estate agent and you know,
he, you too should get together and see if you can get that
building for your church. Well, I got excited about that.
I mean, the church planners, we, we look around at every
building. I was telling pastor, you know,
we, you get into this mindset in an area, you sit down in a
coffee shop and you say, I wonder if this would make a good
church building. That's just the mindset of a
church planner. My dad planted a church.
I know he was a policeman and then a preacher and he planted a
church when I was 8. And he turned a gas station into
our church building. And so, you know, I know that
that gets into our head. So I left there really excited
after exchanging information with Chris and went down to the
building and I walked around this building and, you know, my
head was like this, wow, wow. Like this got to be 18,000
square feet and it's got to be worth millions.
We had just. Started a building fund and we
had gotten it up to the whopping sum of $4500 and the next year
I'd already picked the theme was so built with the walls.
We're going to preach through Nehemiah and I thought, well
we'll save up a couple, maybe 25,000 and buy a piece of land
and start paying on. It and start you know maybe 15
years from now we'll build a building and.
You know, so I walked around this building, looked at it, was
intimidated, had a good laugh, and I drove away and forgot
about it. A lot of faith in me, right?
There's not. I am not.
I am not a man. Of great faith.
But I have a God of great faith and you can trust in him.
About a month later, Chris called me and said it's on a
pocket listing and we want you to come and see it.
I said, man, I'd love to see it. It's a beautiful building.
So Debbie and I went over there, we went on this tour.
I was wrong. It's not 18,000.
It was 22,000 square feet and and I know it's worth millions.
We have to, we have to insure. It for four point. 3,000,000
today and so I know it's expensive and I got through this
whole thing and got down to the third row.
I was sitting in the third row of the church auditorium and
seat about 300 people and Debbie was in the back with a real
estate agent and his wife. And I was just looking around
and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said you better pursue this.
This is what I want. Now the Holy Spirit doesn't tell
me everything to do like he didn't tell me what tie to.
Wear, but there's times when your pastor is going to hear
from God. And he's going to have a
something to do that you're going to say that doesn't make
sense, but God told him to do it.
Our church was really on Sunday morning we'd have about 50
people maybe in church. But Sunday night we'd have
really 3035 people. And you know, I brought on
Saturday, I told the church on the midweek service.
And then Saturday we brought all 35 people.
Over to the. Building and we're walking
around the building and I could hear the men.
I was walking behind the men, you know, I'm wondering what are
they thinking? And I could hear them because
they're saying, why do we need a building this big?
How are we going to ever afford this?
There's no way we're going to be able to do this.
And. You know, I kind of agreed.
With them in in, in truth, but God had spoken to my heart.
We got all the way done with the tour and we got down to the
auditorium and I really, my motive was I wanted to see what
35 voices sounded like in that 300 seat auditorium.
And so we borrowed their piano and we found even in their
liberal Psalm books they still had it as well with my soul.
And we sang all four verses and at the end of those 4 verses all
the ladies were crying and all the men were pretending not to
and God had touched their hearts.
The next night. I asked.
For a vote. They the asking price was only a
little bit over half a million, but when you only have $4500,
that might as well be billions. And I told the church, I said
I'm going to, I'm going to, I got a little plan if we could
put together this much from within the church.
And they did. They sacrificed, put together
$35,000, only 35 people. And I said, I'll sell my house
and move into the apartment that's in there.
We'll give the house to the church and try to get 50,000
from there. And I'll write, I'll write a
note to my supporting churches, but I need the church to vote.
And they voted unanimously to follow.
And that night, so think about that, what God can do if people
will just get a hold of the vision that as, as as we said
tonight, if you get a hold of the vision that your pastor has
and get behind it. I called the real estate agent
the next morning and he accepted.
They accepted the bid. I offered $150,000 down.
I asked them to hold the mortgage for 10 years.
I'd never heard of anybody doing that before, but they accepted
that the price was half $1,000,000.
And I asked them to come down. They came down like $5000.
Yay. And And so I, you know, I, I, I
decided. Well, I better.
Write my supporting churches. So I had an e-mail.
With just like. Four or five pictures I said,
here's a building, an opportunity, been well cared for
and I can get it, but I need some help.
Maybe you'd pray and the Lord had laid on your heart to give
us an extra love offering. And I wrote 5 emails that came
out and told my wife, I just can't keep this up.
I said I can't. This is these men all have their
own buildings. They're all projects and my
wife's always trying to encourage my melancholy spirit.
And it's just then one of the pastors and he was from brother
Bishop over here in Alexandria. He wrote me an e-mail back and
said, brother, we have $10,000 to give your church.
And I shouted really loud and went back in my little office,
which was in my closet, and I wrote 50 more emails and for 12
weeks, because it's 12 weeks later that we had the the
deadline for buying, putting the paying for that $150,000.
And for 12 weeks, I can only explain it as if God just opened
the windows of heaven almost every day.
I was texting all our people. You know, I'd start texting
somebody called, they got $1000 for the building and I'd get all
these texts back. And I was texting And then
before I got done texting everybody, somebody else had
call. They didn't tell me afterwards.
I could all the way at the end they said, you know what group
texting is? I had no idea.
So I I could have gotten saved a lot of time, but with with one
church after another church. Even think about this, even the
Blancos found $1000 which is a huge sacrifice.
And over the course of 12 weeks there were amazing things.
I can summarize it by saying even people that I know didn't
like me gave money. To the church.
And at the end of that we had not just 150,000, we had
$374,000 in cash and we put 250,000 on the building and
moved into the building. I'll show you some pictures.
We had the 3rd anniversary of the church as a building
dedication. Had 194 people in church that
day. And then then in October of that
year we went full time. We told our supporting churches
you were supporting us. And I'd I'd sent that letter
out. We went independent.
And in December I was opening up the church building 1 Sunday
morning walking around the church and I forgot to open the
mail from Friday and I found a letter and it opened it up and
it was an anonymous check for a quarter $1,000,000 more to pay
off all of the mortgage. We were able to fix the roof and
and The thing is totally debt free.
Let me show you some pictures of it what you're seeing.
On the right is our library. The left is our Chapel room.
That's where I teach the Bible institute and our main kitchen.
There are 4 kitchens in the building.
And on the left is the lunch room.
We have vacation Bible school. This is the auditorium on the
day we had 190. 4. And by the way, they had last
Sunday a special day and had 203 new record in the church last
Sunday had about 12 people walk the aisle to be saved and five
of them seemed ready and got saved.
And it's amazing what God has done the the pipe organ in that
building is worth much more than we paid for the building 12150
pipes. And it's a kind of organ that
when you play it, it rattles the floor when you're playing it.
It's amazing that the nicest building in that, probably that
whole, that region, maybe the whole state belongs to a Bible
preaching separated Baptist Church.
I've seen God do some things. I rejoice in that.
Notice our second point in verse #3 because thy loving kindness
is better than life. You know what's better than
life? Watching God in your life, I
mean, you can say, well, what was your life made of?
Well, I worked this job and I I have a good retirement, I have a
nice house, I go on nice vacations, and all of that would
gladly be traded for seeing the presence of God in your life.
Point #2 is the word pleasure. Pleasure, it's better than life,
houses and cars. And when you see him, there's
nothing else that will ever match up to the glory of God.
Working #3 and verse 4 is the word praise the result of this,
thus the result of what I've seen and God's greatness that
I've watched. Is that it is?
Better than life. And my lips shall praise thee.
Thus will I bless Thee. While I live, I will lift up my
hands in thy name. It's something that can't be
held in. It's the praise that ought to be
due to Him for everything that he's done.
But when you see God do miracles in your own life and in your own
family, you get to see the presence of God.
It's like when the Lord put it on my heart to give the house to
the church. And I don't recommend that.
The Holy Spirit told me so I'll obey him.
And I brought my kids together and I said, I just want you to
know that God's laid this on my heart.
And you know, any hope of an inheritance just disappeared,
you know, And my oldest son said.
Dad, that's all right, because every time you do something like
this, we get to see God. And I'd rather have that for my
children, the faith born in their heart, not because there's
a promise placed on a wall plaque, but they have lived and
experienced that God wants to do something in your life.
And I've seen it. #4 is the word plenty.
Look what verse? Five says my soul shall be
satisfied. And the world doesn't understand
this. You see, the joy that they find
in their earthly things is nothing compared to the joy when
God does something in your life and you're in the will of God
and you're working for Him and God is showing up.
In other words, the joy that they things are calling joy
don't compare to the real joy that is the sustaining through
all of the battles and all of the trials.
The joy of the Lord is our strength and when you see that
He will satisfy you. It is a satisfaction that
reaches down into the deepest part of your soul.
It is the satisfaction that will raise you up in this world to
have a vision of heaven in this life like nobody else that walks
in this earth will ever know. Notice the pondering in verse #6
When I remember thee upon my bed, what do you think about in
your idle moments? And meditate on thee in the
night watches. I'll tell you what you talk
about the regeneration of that church in Idaho.
That witnessed the power of God demonstrated all of the rest of
their lives they will be talking about.
Let me tell you how we got this building.
I mean everybody comes into that building said wow, what a
beautiful place. Look at the stained glass and
the people that were there. They always say, let me tell you
what God did. And that's what people in this
world need. It is an amazing thing.
The last point is the protection of God.
Look at verse #7 Because thou has been my help.
Therefore, in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice the
protection that comes. Under the shadow of his wings.
And I've had to run there in temptation and in trials and in
danger and, and the things that have happened to us as a family
and the things that we've gone through and whether it be the.
You know, the hurricane that filled our house with four feet
of water running through the bottom floor and our roof kind
of every. It was like it was breathing.
It kept getting sucked up and we're looking out the window and
there goes our neighbors roof down.
We don't know where it went. We never found it.
And amazing what God's will can do, put you in those places
where you say I have nowhere to go but the shadow of his wings.
And I've been there and I can tell you that he'll.
Protect you there, parents, Let your children go and serve the
Lord. They are safest under the shadow
of his wings, even if that means in some foreign land serving and
preaching the gospel someplace to people that you don't know.
And you say, I'd like to have my children right next to us and by
us, and so would we. And but yet God can protect them
and guide them and make their life fruitful.
And at the end of it, you will glorify God and say, Oh glory to
God, my children are serving the Lord.
But in giving of their hearts, let God protect your family, the
shadow of his wings, the protection that he wants.
The greatest part is the people people like this is on a special
picnic day. I took a shot just.
Threw it up there, but look at the left hand side up there with
the McLaughlin family and she was saved, married a Catholic
and for 60 plus years she prayed that God would save him.
She went to different churches and when we showed up, she saw
that our church was the church she should be in.
And she became one of its earlier members in the first few
months of the church. And we began praying for her
husband. He started attending church and
listening to the sermons. And he's a, he's a, he's a very,
he's not, he's, he's a studier. And he liked that the Bible was
open, He said, all of his life as a Catholic.
They never read the Bible. And it was really special as he
got closer and closer to understanding salvation, what
really brought it to a head was I had Pastor Blanco come from
Belize and preach and he talked about how he got saved, you
know, from from an altar boy to a preacher of the gospel is the
type of sermon he preached. And and it was Terry's testimony
of being an altar boy. And he came to me and he said,
Pastor, can I come and see you tomorrow?
He came in my. Office.
And he bowed his head and prayed and asked Jesus to save him.
After 60 years, after 60 years, you should have seen her cry
through the next time we were all together at the Lord's Table
and she just cried partaking with her saved.
Husband, you see, these are the stories and by the way, this is
this is certainly fruit to the account of this church for
supporting this ministry for so long.
Look at what God's called us to do after my son.
We had trained him, you know, he graduated there from our Bible
institute. There he is getting his degree
and there we are ordaining him on my son's in the middle of
that picture. And Debbie's dad is on his right
and my dad is on his left. And I'm past my dad and all
these preachers, a heritage of preachers.
And we thank God for that. And my son ordained, you know,
my father-in-law started a church and my dad started a
church and I've started 2 churches.
And my son, he, he said, well, I got to find a place to start a
church. That's the family business, I
guess. And but after the Lord was
leading on my heart, I went to him.
And even though he's young, I said, would you pray about being
the next pastor? And he prayed and fasted.
Doesn't that sound familiar? And he came back and he said,
I'm really surprised, but I believe God wants me to be here
long term. And Debbie's parents are there
helping him. In February, they voted
unanimously and then to take him as their pastor.
And he is doing a great job. He used to work for Charlie
Kirk. And this assassination is really
allowed him to have an inroads in people's lives and people are
getting saved. We had a good time last week,
but he's been dealing with people, especially the days
right afterwards. Every day.
He said he had over 100 phone calls.
God's been working and doing the work on him, on our other two
children that are all there serving the Lord.
It reminds me of this. I mean, you know, my son is the
pastor, His younger brother is the song leader, an adult Sunday
school teacher, and his brother-in-law, my son-in-law,
is in the sound booth and he's running security and he keeps
the financial books on the computer for them.
And, you know, the Lord's worked and the church has grown.
There are people in that church that I did not know.
And it's only been since May. God has a plan.
If we just follow God's plan here, we have this great city.
I love this city, the concrete jungle, right?
It is known as the city of DL Moody.
Moody Bible Institute is there. They preach the gospel.
You know, they're hardly, you could find the gospel there, but
it's not proclaimed like it used to be.
And it's sad. It's no longer the city of BL
Moody. It was known for the city where
Billy Sunday not only played baseball, but he got saved and
we used to go and preach. At the Pacific.
Guard mission right where he got saved and but now it's known for
its crimes and violence, it's homicides, it's gang riots and
looting and everything else. But there are.
Millions of people there who need the gospel and we know what
is not the answer, right? The answer is not woke.
This. I mean, we have Lori Lightfoot
on one side and they she was so bad they threw her out and
decided to put another guy in and they got a guy, Brandon
Johnson. Who's who's worse?
More woke. Than she was, if that's
possible. He's trying to outlaw Christian
education and homeschooling in the city of Chicago.
Why? Why not work on a lot of other?
Problems that he has. It's not the answer, but what is
the answer? The Bible is the answer.
We have the gospel. It is amazing to me and I and I
really believe in this, that families that can leave the city
and say I want to raise my kids in a better environment.
I say Amen. But at the same time, we ought
to have we that are pastors. And have the answer in our
hands. We ought to be running into
those places where the fire is the hottest and where the the
the gospel light is the darkest. And, and, and it ought to be our
goal to plant churches and reach the people.
With the gospel answer and this is what we desire to do it by
the grace of God. We're going to go to Portage
Park, which is halfway between O'Hare Airport and the Loop, the
downtown area, and this is our just our target area.
The whole, the whole outline there.
I've had people ask that whole outline.
Is the city of Chicago. It's just that a.
Lot of big. Cities are all divided up into
neighborhoods. Not cities, not not communities,
not suburbs. The suburbs are beyond this, but
inside. There are 77 neighborhoods in
the city of Chicago. And this is just, we highlighted
an area that is sort of a target spot or target area for us to
go. And here's an aerial view from
that area looking back at the Loop at the downtown buildings.
And you'll notice the bottom there that those are called
bungalows. It's this Chicago phenomena of,
of of 10s of I don't know how many, there's probably several,
100,000 of these in the city. They call it a bungalow belt.
It goes around this area of Chicago, even around the South
Side. And they're, they're kind of
skinny longer. Houses with a little gangway in
between, usually paved like a sidewalk.
You know the. About four feet you can open
your window and wash your dishes and talk to your neighbor
washing her dishes at the same time.
And but it's a lot of doors to get to individual home, single
family dwellings where there are literally millions, 3 millions
of people that need the Lord Jesus Christ.
Pastor Courtney Lewis, you know him well.
He does a good job in the city of Chicago.
He is down on the South side of the city from the where the
downtown is. He is in Hyde Park.
They'll be approximately 2 million people between His
church and where we're going to start the church.
And our timing is that we've already moved it up, planning to
start the church on June 14th at this point.
And the support is already coming in, in, in in a great and
fast way. You look at this last point as
we close in your conclusion in verse #8 my soul followeth heart
after thee. Thy right hand upholdeth me.
After everything the Lord's done for us, there's something that
happens in the heart of a Christian that has seen this is
they say Lord, there isn't anything else worth it.
I want to see more. I want to see God do better
things, greater things. I want to see more of the
release of those that are trapped in sin after receiving
Christ finding victory. And the life.
Totally given over to God. I want to be that kind of
person. I want God to do better things.
I want, I want it to be known that I'm giving everything I
have all the rest of my life to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And is that your calling? Isn't it all of Our Calling?
That your soul, not just something you do, but your heart
that pursues God in a way that you could say my soul followeth
hard? Or are you following your
business? Or are you following any
substitute? From giving all.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you
please bless the invitation here.
The Lord the things we've seen might affect, and the words
we've heard might affect our hearts, but there's no.
Sin. There's no earthly.
Thing there's nothing that ought to be between our soul and the
Savior, the Lord you might. In this time.
Give us that surrender. That we need.
To do everything we can, to pray, to pray, to seek you, to
do everything we can in our own local church.
To give so the word can be given.
Out. To other places and around the
world the Lord begin that. Work of revival in.
Each one of our hearts with your heads bowed and your eyes
closed. Let's have a time of invitation.
Would you? Has the Lord worked on your
heart? Would you stand with me at your?
Seats there wouldn't you like to be?
Numbered among those whose soul? Say my intention is that I would
follow hard after the oh. God come and talk to him about.
That the invitation. Is open, the altar is open.
Please come and say, Lord, count me in.
I want to be among those, whatever that.
Means wherever that. Takes me at whatever cost to my
comfort. And to my life.
I want to be numbered among those whose heart followeth
hard. I want to see God demonstrated.
In my life. Don't be in a hurry.
Spend time with the Lord.