Between you and me, a sentence from 1 old man has really upset
me. Now as you know, as a street
preacher, I take all kinds of criticism, all kinds of
statements and I've got quite a thick skin and I just sort of
brush them off. But this one man said to me
whilst I was debating another group of people, he came in the
middle and he said you're wasting your time.
Now of course I've heard that before, but for some reason over
the last few weeks, the last few months, I can hear the voice of
that old man saying you're wasting your time.
And then sometimes I'll say I'm wasting my time.
And I've felt a real sense of that recently, that I've wasted
the years. You know, I look at how much
time I've wasted on YouTube, on different videos, on TikTok,
watching things, scrolling, reading articles that I'll
forget in an hour. I won't remember them in an
hour. And yet I spend so much time
doing that. I look back and I think of all
the times that I wasted money on junk food and even eating the
food, and I regret it. I regret not learning.
I regret not educating myself. I look back at my youth and I
think of some of the people that I used to spend time with.
And I think, Joe, why did you spend so many years of those
people? You know, when you're young,
you've got so much energy, and yet I wasted time doing wrong
things. And I know I'm not the only
person who feels like they have wasted away the years.
If that's you, if right now you're in a place of
hopelessness or despair, I want to give you some hope because
with the Lord God, he is in the business of restoring those
wasted years. So let's get to work.
Now. If you are new to the channel
here, this is my coffee channel where we basically just drink
coffee and we, we study the Bible and I've just got to be a
bit careful there. I've overfilled that one there.
But yes, we drink coffee and we study the Bible.
Very different to my other channels.
This is just very basic, very simple, no sensationalism.
We just talk about the Bible. And a big thank you to everyone
who's bought one of our coffee mugs.
We'll put your face up here on the screen.
If you'd like to also be put up here on the screen or you'd just
like one of these mugs as a reminder to pray for this
ministry, well, get one of them and I'll send you an e-mail and
we'll put your face up here. OK, firstly there are people who
are listening to me right now. You have wasted away your years
in what's called backsliding. Now what does this word mean?
Well, it's, it comes through from a Hebrew word which I can't
pronounce, but it effectively means to retreat, to turn
around, to not be LED. It's, it's this kind of picture
that you'd have a young heffer or a young cow.
And this cow, it won't follow you.
It won't be LED. It does its own thing.
It turns its own way and it's kind of got this picture in my
mind. Whenever I think of backsliding,
I kind of picture, you know, I don't know if you live in a hot
country, you might not experience this.
But in my country, in a place like the Lake District, if
you're climbing up a mountain and it's muddy, you just start
sliding down. And sometimes it can be really
funny, actually. You try to get further and you
fall flat on your face. And that's what I kind of feel
like backsliding is It's you're trying, you know, you need to
get up the mountain because it's so difficult.
It's so much easier to slide backwards.
You end up going back. So how does this look in the
Christian life? Well, you know, you, you've
stopped reading the word of God, you've stopped praying, you've
stopped meeting with the fellowship of believers.
You've started playing around with sins that you know you
shouldn't. You started getting closer and
closer to the edge and you're changing and people can notice
that a bit. Like, you know when you've got a
grey hair on your head? Well, listen guys, but the day
you notice your grey hair, hair on your head wasn't the day all
of your friends noticed it. They noticed it a long time
before you. And yeah, that's what it's like
when we backslide. People notice it before.
We've noticed it ourselves. You're not the same as you once
were. You're not spending that, that
private time with the Lord God and, and the inner life often
reflects in our outer life. People can tell if we've been
with the Lord. Sometimes in just the way we
look. We've got a bit of a shine about
us, a bit of a joy in our eyes because we've been spending time
with our Saviour. But hey, if you're a backslider
and you feel like I'm too far gone, I've messed up too much,
good news, God can restore you. Look at Jeremiah 3 with me.
You will need a Bible for this little study, Jeremiah 3, and
we're going to look at verse 22. Return you backsliding children,
and I will heal your backslidings here.
The Lord God is, is calling to his people and he's saying
return to me, return from your backsliding.
You're retreating, you're turning the other way, you're
turning away from me, but I'm calling you to come back and
I'll heal these backslidings. All of the mess, all of the the
stuff that you've got yourself wrapped in right now.
And perhaps that's you listening right now.
You're entangled in all these things and you don't know how to
escape. Well, God will cut the cords of
that and he will allow you to escape.
He will heal you from your backsliding.
So what do you have to do then? How does the backslider get
restored? Well, he, he gets restored in
the same way that he came in, in the 1st place.
He just has to run to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I've shared this story, this message with you so many times,
but I love the story of the prodigal son.
After this prodigal, he goes out and he's messing around in sin
and he's done all that he wants to do and he's sold his, he's
finished all of his dad's inheritance.
He's got no money. He goes back, doesn't he?
And as he starts to be seen on the horizon there he sees his
dad in the distance, and his dad sees his son.
And his dad has a choice. Now his dad can just turn away.
Think this son, this son of mine, rebellious, evil, wasted
all of my money. I'm not having anything to do
with him. He could walk back into his
house, but that's not what he does.
When he sees his son running towards him, what does the
Father do? Does he run in the opposite
direction? No, he runs towards his son and
he embraces him. And friends, no matter how much
you have messed up, no matter how many years you've been gone
from the Father backsliding, God will restore you.
Just like that son had the the ring put on and the fatted calf
and threw a big party and he restored him.
So the Lord God is waiting to wrap his arms around you and to
restore you. I am really sorry if you watch
my last video on Saturday and you've already heard this story,
but I do think this is a beautiful story.
There was a Brazilian girl and her parents had smothered her in
love. They'd done everything for her.
They'd sacrificed lots. They'd given her all that they
could to look after her. But this young girl got into the
wrong crowd in her teenage years, and she began to mess
around again with sin. And eventually she, because she
was in the wrong crowd and she'd got herself a habit, she had to
run away from home. And she had to somehow fund that
habit by spending lots of time on the streets.
One night, after years away from home and a really hard night on
the street, she gets into a sort of crummy apartment.
You can picture it. It's just it's dirty.
There's stuff everywhere. And she just sort of slumps on
the floor. And then she notices something
in front of her. There's an envelope.
She picks it up. She opens it and there in front
of her is a picture of her mother and father.
As tears fill her eyes, she turns the picture over and just
reads these simple words on the back.
We don't care what you've done. We just want you to come home.
My dear friend, if you are a backslider, remember God is
saying this. I don't care what you've done, I
just want you to come home. So you better come home to him
today. OK #2 What is the other person
who feels like they need to be restored?
Well, it's the man or the woman who perhaps a situation has
arrived on your doorstep that is out of your control.
Something is here in your life and you have no control over it.
You just don't know what to do and it's destroying you.
It's destroying your life, it's destroying everything.
What do you do? How does God restore you with
that? Well, let's look at Joel chapter
2 with me. Joel chapter 2 and verse 25.
This is a very famous verse. So I will restore to you the
years that the swarming locust has eaten.
Now, I don't want to take this out of context.
So who was this passage written for?
It was written for the nation of Israel.
You see the nation of Israel, much like the backslider were
thinking about they've done their own thing.
They've tried to run the show. They've they've ran away from
the God who made them, who created them and loved them.
You know the Lord God said about Israel, you were the apple of my
eye. And yet for them that wasn't
good enough. So what did God do?
Well, sometimes, just like Jonah when he ran away, sometimes God
has to send storms into our life to get our attention.
So he sense these swarming locusts onto the land.
And these locusts, they, they ate all of the crops, they
consumed all of the wheat, they ate it all.
So there was nothing left. And if this was in our day right
now, it'd be like an economic ruin.
You know, there's no food, there's not no plenty.
Abundance has gone. It was a real time of
difficulty. So what did God do?
Here they are. They're devastated.
So what did God call them to do? Well, he sent the prophet Joel
to say fast, mourn over your sin, weep, cry out to the Lord
God for forgiveness and repent. And that's exactly what the
people did. They mourned they they cried
out, they, they fasted and the Lord God, he did restore them.
He gave them their abundance back.
Now, if you're watching this now you might be saying to me, yes,
but Joe, I'm not actually too sure that this is happening to
me because of a sin I've done. You know, I find that hard to
believe. And I'll be honest with you, I
think you would know. I think you know deep within
yourself, yes, this is a, a chastisement from the Lord.
The Lord is disciplining me for a sin here.
I think you know it. I don't think you're left
guessing. Just like when you remember
Joseph's brothers, they appear before Joseph, but they don't
realise it's Joseph. He's, he's dressed up like an
Egyptian kind of Pharaoh, the, the Prime Minister and they
don't realise it's him. And this, this Prime Minister,
this, this, this leader, he, he treats them very harshly.
He, he's very rough with them and he does all kinds of things.
And the brothers whisper amongst themselves saying maybe this is
God. This is God repaying us for the
way we treat our brother Joseph and I think it was they knew
within themselves. So if you are wondering is this
trouble are the locus in my life right now because of something
I've done wrong and you're not sure I would perhaps say I don't
think it is because you've done something wrong unless you've
got that conviction inside you. But sometimes these things in
God's mysterious Providence that we just don't understand.
Sometimes the Lord God does allow the locusts to come for
us. Whether that's a difficulty in
your home, whether that's a relationship breakdown, a loss
of a job, health trouble, sadness, some unfair thing that
has arrived, we don't. But God does allow these things
to happen. Why?
Because at times when we feel totally hopeless, at times when,
when the locusts chew up everything and leave us with
nothing, who else can we go to but the Lord God?
And these things, very often, they do actually build our
faith. Right?
I understand everything you're saying, Joe, but that kind of
doesn't explain how is the Lord going to restore me?
Well, obviously, I don't know your situation.
And this video will hopefully go out to a number of different
people from different backgrounds.
So I don't know whether the Lord will restore you.
I can't say that for certain with everyone, but I do know
this. Just like the people of Israel,
when they called out to Him, when they sought His face, when
they fasted, when they mourned, the Lord God took pity on them
and He did bring them back. He even gave them abundance, He
restored them. So what would I say to you?
I would say the same thing, call on the name of the Lord God and
just keep knocking, especially if you feel like this is an
injustice just like that, that that poor widow who who went to
the the unjust judge and she just would not leave him alone
and said give me justice. And eventually the judge said,
listen, this woman will not stop bothering me so I will give her
justice. And this is a a wicked judge.
How much more than your heavenly Father.
So keep calling on him. Now, if the Lord God does not
restore you in this life, I do have a hope for you that we're
going to come back to in a moment's time.
But I will say this, you probably have heard stories of
how God has restored the years that the locusts have eaten.
I actually heard this verse for the first time.
I was in a charity shop. I'm not sure what you call them
in America, but it's basically where people take their old kind
of goods like this jumper. If I didn't want it anymore, I'd
take it to a charity shop and then the charity would go on and
sell it and then the money would go to to the charity.
Well, I was in a charity shop and I met a Christian woman
there who had been at one of my evangelistic services when I was
a very, very young man just starting out in ministry.
And as I said, I'd never even heard of this verse before.
And here I was preaching. Anyway, she came up to me and
she'd spoken to me at the meeting and then she said, you
know, I've lost my husband. I've been going through a
terrible time with so many different troubles, but I
believe the Lord God is going to restore to me the years that the
locusts have eaten. And he does do that, doesn't he?
Sometimes in in very miraculous ways, He restores us.
Now here's the part of the message I'm dreading because I
really, really didn't want to share this with you.
And I thought, I'm not going to share it.
And then as I was doing more research for this message, one
of the things I came across was when we go through these trials,
when we go through these difficulties, God uses it so
that we can teach another generation, so we can share our
testimony. And I kind of felt like that was
the Lord saying, come on, Joe, it's about time you shared this
with the people. As you know, I've, I've written
a book called 100 pure thoughts. It's been a thing on my heart
for many years to, to help men and women find that purity and
seek the Lord and to live a life that is holy despite all of the
things that we've watched and we've filled our mind with
thoughts that are unclean. And it's been a long journey for
me over many years, many different lessons to try and get
myself pure. But I'll tell you how the Lord
finally did it for me a number of years ago.
I, and I'm going to be vague here, but I found something in
an area that no man wants to find something.
And I put it bluntly, I freaked out.
I was really, really scared. And I went to the doctors and
kind of thought, oh, it's just me, you know, just me worrying
over worrying. They're going to tell me
everything's fine. But they said no, there is a
concern here. And they sent me for a scan.
Again, when I was in the scan, I was just kind of, it should be
OK and I was, but I was still very, very nervous during the
scan. The the lady who was conducting
the scan took a long, long time. And yeah, again, just while
being vague, she she said, you know, we're going to have to get
the results back to the doctor. The doctor got in touch me very
quickly and said, yes, what we were looking at, we are
concerned about it. It is suspicious and it has a
blood supply, which for the particular thing I'm talking
about is not good news at all. And so that was it.
I thought in the particular area it was with everything that's
gone on, I thought that's it. The Lords just, it's just, I've
just gone one too many times over the edge.
I've crossed that invisible line that I've talked about before.
I've sinned so far that God's just going to block me out.
That's it, I'm dead. So I am.
This is all while I've got this YouTube channel.
I took some time off YouTube a number of years ago, if you
might remember. I took a break off and during
this time I I spent just 10 days in prayer.
I must have walked. I don't know how many, but tens,
20, dozens of miles. I was walking mile after mile.
I was fasting and I was just calling out to God.
Please, please give me a second chance.
Please, please don't take me yet, Lord.
I just can't go with this sin looming over me.
Please don't let this be the reason.
Because it's all right if if the Lord takes you and that's your
time and he calls you, as hard as that is for us to say, but
it's another thing to be taken because you've done wrong.
And that was what was really in the back of my mind.
And I called on God's name over and over.
Anyway, I had to go and see another specialist and have
another scan. And on this other scan, they
said we can't find it. We don't know what this other
radiographer was, was concerned that we can't find what this is.
And then I went to have another scan after that.
And no, it's, you're absolutely fine, young man, Don't, don't,
don't worry. And during that time, actually,
I'd made when I was didn't know, when I was left in limbo, shall
we say, I made two vows. I won't share one of them.
But the other one, the first one was, I will never, Lord, if you
get me through this, I will never watch that stuff again.
And he got me through it. And I can look at you straight
in the face now and you read whether I'm telling the truth or
not. I've never watched it since, and
I give all glory to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in what He
did. He really did restore to me the
years that the locusts have eaten.
Although I'd spent years on this stuff and now in the Lord's
grace, I've been able to help people get off this stuff.
He restored it for me and I just felt I should share that with
you now my friends who? It was part of a little
accountability group that we had where we shared these things.
He put it like this because I thought, is it just me just over
worrying over and over again, just worrying about things.
And there was actually nothing to worry about.
And, and you know, the radiographer, she just made a
mistake in the 1st place. But he said, no, I don't think
it was that. I think you probably did have
that. You know what?
But the Lord God healed you. You make up your mind what
happened there. And yeah, just forgive me if
this was too personal, but I just felt I've been sitting on
this story for a long, long time.
And I make videos every week, multiple videos.
And I've never shared this yet, but I feel like it was important
to. I thought, I thought the Lord
was asking me to share it today. OK, lastly, let's talk to, I'm
going to call the people who are more seasoned in life, people
who've been on this earth a little bit longer than the rest
of us, let's put it that way. I remember when I was going to
join a new church and me and my wife, Emma, we went to the
pastor and we shared difficulties we'd had in
ministry, in Christianity and in churches in the past.
And the pastor said something that's very, very interesting.
I've never forgotten. He said it's mega, mega
concerning. He didn't put it like that, but
he said I am concerned to hear you talking about this as young
people in Christianity. You see, these are supposed to
be your happiest years. These are supposed to be your
years where you're you're full of joy.
And for you to be disillusioned and confused and have headaches
with the church already, that really does concern me.
Because he said it's fair enough for us in our older years when
we're more skeptical about the church and we've seen many
different things. And that's really the point.
I want to drive home to us right now.
If you are older and you're listening to me right now, you
are a bit sceptical of life. You are a bit sceptical of
preachers, of the church, of different things.
Because you have had many years where you, perhaps you think
you've wasted the years, but the years have taken something from
you. And you look at yourself in the
mirror and you think I'm not the same as I was when I was a young
man. I'm disillusioned with life.
I'm fed up, and perhaps you've even given up hope to be happy.
Well, let's have a conversation. Psalm 71, verse 9.
Just turn to Psalm 71. We looked at Psalm 72 a few
weeks ago, if you remember. Well, actually, if you're an
older person and you're struggling in life right now, I
think Psalm 71 is the one that you need to focus on.
Sorry, I've just realised it was Psalm 73.
We looked at the other week, but Psalm 71, verse 9, do not cast
me off in the time of old age. Do not forsake me when my
strength fails. So here we've got David and he's
entered into old age. And David here is saying that he
feels almost as if God has forgotten him.
He's he's given up on him. He sort of feels like, listen,
I've done my years of evil and trouble.
I've had all of this already and he expects a little bit
different now I'm in old age. He kind of thinks, will this let
up right now and he's saying, God just just don't forget about
me. Then I want you to look at verse
18 with me. Look at verse 18.
Now also when I am old and grey headed, oh God, do not forsake
me until I declare your strength to this generation, Your power
to everyone who has come. So again, here is David and he's
saying, listen now I've got grey hairs.
I want to share what the Lord has done for me just like I was
trying to share. Then I want to share the, the
story, the testimony, the goodness of God with other
people. It is interesting in, in my
nation, in the UK, they did a, a study, a big poll of, of all the
people in the UK, all those aged 65 and older and they asked
them, are you lonely? What do you think it came out as
saying? It said basically 90%, nine out
of 10 people in the UK struggle with loneliness.
They feel like no one cares. Their family, they're just far
too busy to visit me. They've got children, they've
got their careers. I've got no friends.
My, some of my friends have passed away who were so near and
dear to me. My job, you know, I would have
worked longer but I got the impression that they didn't want
me there anymore and they just feel lonely.
They fill their hours watching television, They fill their
hours just sitting in the house on their own.
And honestly, that that breaks my heart to think about that.
The people who have built this nation, the people who who have
loved this nation, who've paid taxes, this nation, and yet we
just leave them. I don't want to put it as
bluntly as what's in my mind, but we just leave them there,
don't we? And it's and it's wrong and it's
not right. And yet for the Christian, David
is saying differently. For the man of God, he's saying
God, The reason he calls out to God, don't forsake me because he
knows that the Lord God will not forsake him.
He knows that God is different. He knows that that like wine,
that only gets better with age. So it is with the Christian.
It only matures. It only gets better the older
you grow. What's the evidence of this?
Look at verse 20 of Psalm 71. You who have shown me great and
severe troubles, shall revive me again and bring me up again from
the depths of the earth. You see, This is why I believe
David was called a man after God's own heart.
Here he was, he's had severe troubles.
Here he is. He's struggling with with old
age, and yet he still puts his faith in God.
He has this wonderful, extravagant faith in the Lord
God that God will not leave him. Even though he's gone through
this trouble, God will not leave him.
He will revive him again. He will renew him again.
He will transform him again. And what does he say out of the
depths of the earth? What is David talking about
here? He's talking about the ultimate
hope for every single Christian, the glorified body, the
glorification where the Lord God makes us into the image of
Christ. He gives us this new body, this
glorified body, and revives us. These knees that creak, this
body that isn't the same. The pain and the trouble that we
all go through. We all go for it, young people
and all the like. We know that this isn't our
heaven. It doesn't take a genius to see
that. And yeah, for the Christian,
there is a hope that he will one day return and give us all of
this glory, all of this hope. Let me finish with one final
challenge because there's been something the Lord has laid on
my heart, and I've wondered when it might be that I'm going to
share it. Turn with me to Second Timothy
chapter 4, verse six. Second Timothy chapter 4, verse
6. Here we find the apostle Paul,
and he's writing to the younger preacher, his apprentice, his
successor, if you like, Timothy. And he says this, For I am
already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of
my departure is at hand. Now, as you know, I love coffee.
I can't drink enough of it, but I know I should.
Only this is about the amount I have every single day, a full
cafetiere to myself. And some of you thinking, whoa,
Joe, that's a lot in itself. But there is a sadness every day
when the cafetiere, I know there's just One Cup left as I
pour it. I know that this is it.
That's my last cup now for the day.
And I can't have any more, or I'm not going to sleep or it's
just not great to have more. I'm being greedy and there's a
sense of sadness. Oh, it's finished.
Oh, that's the highlight of my day, the coffee.
And now I can't have any more and it's gone.
So I'm going to savour this. I'm going to enjoy it.
Well, do you know that's exactly what I think Paul is trying to
say here. He's saying I'm I'm like a a
drink offering. I'm like a drink.
I'm I'm I'm at the very last dregs.
The last of it is done. My life which I've lived, I've
spent it for the Lord God. Yes, I had many years and he's a
good example of someone who the Lord God restored those wasted
years. I've wasted many years, but I've
the time from since I met the risen Lord, I've given
everything and now my drink is down.
Now I'm at the final drink, the final cup of the day.
I'm just about to see the Lord and listen, you might be older
in years and you might be able to relate to this and think,
yes, I'm at the final lap of the race Now I'm I'm just near the
sights of seeing my Lord God. But there could be a young
person, even me, myself, we none of us know when we've got that
final cup left on that final cup of coffee is to be drank when
we're at the very end. None of us know that.
And yeah, what do I want to say to you guys if you feel like
you've got no hope, if you feel like I'm never going to be
restored, I'm never going to get rid of this trouble.
If you've trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, as David said,
he'll bring you out of the depths of the earth.
There is always hope for the Christian because soon you're
going to see the Lord Jesus Christ.
Soon you're going to see the prize.
Because this world is difficult. And this is what you've been
living for all these years. You've been living as a
Christian. You've been building up to this.
It's very difficult to be a Christian.
You've got to live a life of sacrifice.
You can't just earn lots of money and then live it and spend
it all on yourself. You've got to give it to others
that Bible says to share with the poor.
You can't just go out and do whatever and anything in your
eyes. You see, you can't just go out
and fulfill every desire inside of you.
No, you've got to sacrifice. You've got to read the Bible and
be disciplined. And it's not easy at times.
It's not easy to to pray at times it's not easy to be a
Christian to to keep trying to turn away from these sins that
drag you down. It's not easy, but you have
lived for it. Why?
Because it's the truth and you believe in the risen Lord Jesus.
You've put your trust in Him and you love.
Let me leave you with one final quotes.
GK Chesterton said. The Christian ideal has not been
tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and
left untried, and that is the reality.
It's difficult to be a Christian.
It's really, really hard. And that's why very few come to
the Lord Jesus Christ, because they count the cost and they see
it's too costly to follow Jesus. And yet you're different.
You're listening right now and you have followed the Lord Jesus
Christ and you've lived this life.
But it's worth it. Why?
Because the Lord God, he's no debtor.
He's no man's debtor, and He will reward you tenfold, A
hundredfold. If you've given up things in
this life, He'll give you so much more.
He'll restore everything and more in the new Kingdom.
But above all, you don't need all of these riches.
You don't need this perfect life and all of these different
things. You just need Christ and you're
going to have him in heaven for all of eternity.
That's the restoration we wait for.
I really am enjoying doing these videos with you.
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Thank you so much for everyone who's joined the channel as a
member, everyone who's prayed for the channel, everyone who
supports, who allows me to continue this ministry.
I am so grateful. If you would like to see my last
video where I was talking about Psalm 73 and talking about being
tired out, being worn out as a Christian, click here.
God bless you all and thank you for watching.