This Paris situation just got even worse.
Immediately after billions of people chose to laugh at Jesus
Christ at the Olympics, some pretty insane things have been
happening in Paris. New information has just emerged
about how an Olympic surfer was told to remove his picture of
Jesus from his board or else he'd be disqualified from the
competition. There is more to the story, but
first, did you see the footage of the total blackout of the
city of Paris the night after the opening ceremony?
You tell me, is this a coincidence?
Because one thing no one can deny and it's this.
Christians will not be silent. Thousands of believers arrived
on the streets of Paris on Sunday praising the name of
Jesus Christ. And I am going to make a strong
statement now. I believe millions are currently
boycotting the Olympics and I want to know are you one of
them? If you are, please tell me in
the comments. And if you are new to the
channel, please do subscribe. OK, back to our Christian
surfer. His name is Joao Chianka and he
is from Brazil. In a post that he has since
deleted on Instagram, Chianko claimed that two weeks before
the Games, he received an order to remove an image of Jesus
Christ from his surfboard or else he will be excluded from
the competition. Their reason?
I quote Christ is a religious figure and the Games have strict
rules and focus on total neutrality.
Am I the only one who finds this incredibly hypocritical?
So you can exclude 2.4 billion people who hold Christian values
to express your own agendas and to help your own communities,
but a surfer is somehow not allowed to express his faith
through a bit of artwork on his board?
Now, I know that some of my longtime subscribers are
probably thinking you don't even like pictures of Jesus Christ or
any representations of actors. Joe, why are you talking about
this? Well, you are right.
My personal conviction and, and this is just me, is when I'm
praying, I want to make sure that I don't have any images,
any preconceived ideas of what Jesus looks like, just so that I
know when I'm praying, I'm praying totally in the spirit.
Now, this is just my opinion, but that isn't the point.
The point is this. Listen very carefully to the
words of Paris's spokeswoman when she talks about why
Christians shouldn't really be that sad about the opening
ceremony. Clearly there was never an
intention to to show disrespect to any religious group.
On the contrary, I think that to imagine he really tried to
really intend to to celebrate community tolerance.
That was his word yesterday. And looking at the result of the
polls that we shared, we believe that this ambition was was
achieved. If people have taken any
offence, we are of course really, really sorry.
Did you catch that? So the Paris Olympics are
telling us that they believe in tolerance, that they are big
believers in let's let everyone have freedom and let's let
everybody be included. And yet a Christian surfer is
told that he cannot express his faith by having an image of
Jesus on his board. How is that tolerance?
But is it all doom and gloom? No, a 16 year old skateboarder
again from Brazil chose to use the moment when she won a bronze
medal. Instead of putting all of the
attention on herself, she chose to bring it all back to Jesus.
Using sign language, she went up on camera and she said Jesus is
the way, the truth and the life and he is there is only one way.
And that is why all of these people, all of these organisers
are going after Jesus because there is only one way to heaven
and it's through him. But guys, listen to me.
If you read one thing into this power outage, read this.
It's almost as if a message was sent out to the Olympics.
Paris, if you want darkness to reign in your world, fine, you
can have it. You see, my dear friends, as we
live in these last days, it really does feel like everyday
badder and badder things are going on.
Every day it feels like things are happening that 10 years ago
just one of these things would have made massive headlines and
now they're happening day after day and I am really struggling
to come to terms with a lot of these different things.
It almost feels like God could slowly be removing the
restrainer and evil. That restrainer that has held
everything in place for so long could slowly be being lifted as
we speak. You see right now as I film this
very video, many of you, you've seen me preaching in Southport
many times on my street preaching channel.
And yet, as we speak right now, something unspeakable has just
happened in Southport. Just 2-3 days ago in Manchester,
again, there was great unrest. You've seen me preaching in
Manchester in America. What happened to America at the
beginning of this month, July 2024?
A lot of big, big things have been happening.
And my dear friends, it does make you wonder, what days are
we about to answer? Because the Bible did say, did
it not, that in the very final moments of earth, this world
will see things that it has never seen.
It will experience evil that has never happened in all of human
history. And my dear friend, that is
precisely why we cannot be neutral any longer.
That is precisely why you must choose a side right now.
You must make a decision. And know this, choosing Christ
will be very costly. We are as Christians always
called to turn the other cheek. We are always called and, and I
need to emphasize this in capital letters and underline it
in red. We are always called to say God.
No. We leave this in your hands.
We commit this situation in your hands.
You alone have the right to take action.
We do not have the right and we just let the Lord look after us,
for He alone is our shelter. Now please don't misunderstand
me. That doesn't mean that we are be
silent. As you know, I'm speaking very,
very loud about this situation. I'm being very public that I
will be boycotting the Olympics. As much as I love sports, I
cannot endorse it. I cannot partake in it and right
now I believe you and I. As Christians, we do need to be
loud. We do need to raise the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. But remember this, we must know
that as we seek to be lights for the Lord Jesus Christ, it will
not be easy. Christ did not promise us an
easy Rd. Have we forgotten what happened
to the early church? Have we forgotten about the
lions? Have we forgotten about our
brothers and sisters around the world?
We are called as Christians to walk a very difficult road.
And yes, we've had so much peace, we've had so much
comfort, we've had so much ease for so, so long.
But we must be ready because as we've seen just in this month of
July, just in the last few days, things are heating up and things
can turn just like that. So what will it be?
Who will you stand with today? Are you going to stand with the
world and partake and endorse all the wrongdoing that they're
doing? Or will you stand with the Lord
Jesus Christ? Will you be prepared to be
separate as the scripture says? Because right now put the let's
just move the Olympics aside for the time being.
The music that many Christians are listening to, they should
not be sharing in that evil. The films, Netflix, the things,
what you watch all alone, all of that.
It has to stop immediately because we need the Lord Jesus
Christ. We need him to be our shelter.
We need Him to be our protection.
As things heat up more and more, we cannot afford to step out, to
cross that invisible line and walk into the evil ones
territory. Because once we walk in those
that lines, once we walk behind that scene, suddenly we don't
have the same protection anymore.
Suddenly we've removed ourselves from the Lord.
So stay close to the Lord Jesus Christ, Abide in the vine and
soak up the scriptures. Pray and seek to look at what is
happening in this world. Seek to know the signs, but seek
above all things to be ready for when the Lord Jesus Christ comes
for his church. And maybe, maybe, just maybe, as
I've been speaking, you're not saved, but it is waking you up
this situation. What verse would I share with
you right now? Perhaps you're afraid.
Well, let me share a Bible verse with you, John 14 verse one
says, let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me.
Now perhaps I'm the wrong person to give this message because as
you know about me, many of you, I am afraid when I look at the
world, I am thinking how can so much go wrong in such a short
space of time? Literally from 2020, it's been
like a movie, everything that's happened.
But yet what does the Bible say? We are not to be troubled.
There is a sovereign one who sits on the throne, and he
laughs at the wickedness. He laughs at when these men plot
their evil schemes against him and he says no, I am God, You
are but dust and ashes. And when these men shake their
fists and think they can mock and laugh at the Saviour, they
have nothing. Compared to God, they are
nothing. They're just weak, fragile human
beings. And if you recognize that you
are a weak, fragile human being, I would say believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ, believe in him, come to the cross where he did
die, that death, just like the Last Supper that we've been
considering the last few days. He said I must drink this cup,
only I can drink it. And when he drank that cup, he
drank the wrath of God for our sins.
He drank it and only he alone could pay the price for my sin
and your sin, for the sins of the world.
So come to him, the one who died on the cross, the one who had
his body broken on that cross, so that you and I could be
forgiven and have salvation. And come to the One who has
conquered the powers of darkness, the light of the
world, who could not even be held down by death itself, but
rose from the dead. So follow Him, put your trust in
Him, repent, turn from all of this wrongdoing and put your
faith in the Son of God, for He is coming back and He will
create a new world where we do not have to fear, where we do
not have to be afraid, where wicked men will no longer reign.
No Christ will reign, and we will follow Him and live with
Him for all of eternity. I want to be there and I wonder,
do you also? By the way guys, it's actually
not the first time that a sporting company has tried to
silence Christians. A few years ago, FIFA tried to
silence the footballer Neymar Junior's faith and well, it
actually worked. Anyway, check out this video if
you want to know more. And if you haven't yet
subscribed, please do consider subscribing.
We'd love your friendship here Off the Curb Ministries.
God bless you all and thank you for watching.