Vintage message from September 7, 1997.
In my mind there’s no controversy. The Bible is accurate, and the Bible is true… Daniel is simply and only another man in a long history of men that God has spoken through to our world. Even up to today, God is speaking to men to give a message to our world of obedience to Him; of loving Him; of being part of Who He is. We have an obligation to study God’s Word to find out if it’s true, and the fact is, as we study God’s Word we find out that God’s Word proves itself.
Vintage message from September 14, 1997.
How can you know that this stuff is true? Well, let me tell you, I know it’s true because I study, I read verses like this in Isaiah, and I see the fulfillment of the prophecy within Daniel, and that tells me that I can trust everything else. This is the foundation that we have to work off of: if God’s Word says it, we can believe it, and we can trust it… This is what the study of God’s Word is all about: is choosing what we’re going to believe, choosing why we’re going to believe it, choosing how we’re going to live our lives… This is what life is all about. This is what the study of God’s Word is to bring us to: a place of having a right heart and a right attitude toward God… Daniel was a man who came to the place of saying, “I will be committed to my God. I don’t care what happens to me. I will be committed to my God.” When was the last time you made that statement?… You know, I think sometimes we think that because we’re committed to the Lord that that means that our lives should somehow become more comfortable; that our lives somehow should become easier. But let me tell you what. History proves to us when you make a commitment to God, your life can become very miserable. Let me lay it out for you honestly, that when you make a commitment to the Lord Jesus, when you ask God the Father to rule over your life, to have control of your life, you are diametrically opposed to everything that you are living for in this world…When we ask Jesus into our life, this world is opposed to us.
Vintage message from September 21, 1997.
We don’t need self esteem. The Bible is very clear that we should esteem others as better than ourselves. The only esteem that we need, the only way we need to be esteemed, the only way we need to be built up is God esteem, Holy Spirit power, Jesus Christ salvation. If Jesus is in our life, then He’s the One that we’re lifting up. He’s the One that we’re building up. He’s the One that we’re living for. And if we’re living for Him, then we know that we’re living for everybody else around us, and not myself. Then it becomes natural for me to do the acts of kindness. It becomes natural for me to reach out and help… The point is, we are serving a Mighty, Living, Faithful God. That He is all of the esteem that we need. He is all the strength that we need. He is all the provision that we need… How many of us believe that today our God will come through for us? Regardless of what the situation is, regardless of where we find ourself, do we know that our God will come through for us?…
I don’t have to prove to you today that the Bible is true. I don’t have to prove to you today that Jesus came and died on a cross for our sins. I don’t have to prove to you today that God can provide for you and meet your every need. I don’t have to prove that to you because God is more than capable of proving Himself. My responsibility is to say, “Let’s let God prove Himself…”
God does not always answer prayers the way we want Him to answer prayer. God does not always do things the way we want Him to do things. But you know, I’ve found God always answers our prayers, and God always does what’s very best for us. We just don’t see it as God’s best, because it’s not our best. It’s not our way. If it’s not our way then it certainly can’t be God’s way!…
God wants us to allow Him to prove Himself. He doesn’t expect me to prove Him. He expects me to stand firm in what I know about Him. He expects me to stand firm in faith believing in Him.
Vintage message from September 28, 1997.
We sometimes find ourselves in situations that we don’t like, situations that we question, situations that we’re uncomfortable with, and we say, “God, why did You allow this to happen? Where are You, God?” And I’ve even heard some people, “Well, this proves that God doesn’t exist! There mustn’t be a God because if there was a God, all this bad wouldn’t be happening.” Well, God knows. He sees it. And in this case, He’s telling them, “I sent you into exile. I’m the One that put you there. Live in that city in such a way that you are a testimony…”
Make your life such that when people look at you, they see your strength, not your cowering, not your complaining, not your griping, not your fear…
We, today, are captive. We’re captive to our flesh. We are captive to a world that does not want to let us go. It wants to drag us into its sin. It wants to drag us into its decay. We are held captive… But you know what? My Lord said He would come back for me one day. He said He’s gone to prepare a place for me and that He’s coming back for me. I can trust His Word, and in the meantime, His plan is to prosper me, to fulfill me. But mostly, do you read it here? To bring me into a place of relationship with Him. This is the most important thing we can learn: is how to be in relationship with the God Who created us…
How many of us live our lives in such a way that when we encounter the world, instead of cursing the world and telling these guys that they’re filthy sinners going to hell, how many of us just simply look at them and say, “Let me prove my faith to you. You may not believe there’s a God, but let me show you through my life that there is a God, and He’s more powerful than the world, and He’s more powerful than the flesh. He can overcome the corruptness.
Vintage message from October 5, 1997.
We have questions in our lives today… There are things going on in our lives every day, decisions we need to make that we do not feel that we have the wisdom to make, and so what do we do? We stop and pray. We say, “God, do You want me to do this or do You not want me to do this?” …God speaks today through His Holy Spirit. He has poured His Spirit out on all men, but most of us are afraid. We’re afraid to trust in, we’re afraid to know what, we’re afraid to allow the Holy Spirit to work in and through us, because, you know, there’s people out there who abuse it… But, see, what happens is we have these phenomena happen in our lives and because they are out of our ordinary, because they are things that do not regularly happen to us, we become afraid of them. We have experiences that come from the Holy Spirit and all of a sudden we start trying to rationalize it away, “Well, the Holy Spirit doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t speak to us that way…” I think many times we are content to just sit down and read the Bible and say, “This is all God has to say to me.” And you know what that causes? It causes people then to fail to pray, to seek God for guidance in their life. I’ll tell you what, if you believe that the only revelation there is, is the revelation that God has already given us in the Bible, then you’re never going to pray. Because there is personal revelation to our life that all of us need… All of us, at times in our life will experience God in a personal way with personal revelation. All of us will. Understand that it is natural, it is normal, and it was what was foretold. It is a fulfillment of God’s Word to us that He will fill us with His Spirit, and it is only by His Spirit that these things can happen.
Vintage message from October 12, 1997.
Sometimes in life we are treated unfairly. Things happen around us that are out of our control. It has nothing to do with what we’ve done; it has nothing to do with what we’ve said; it has nothing to do with how we live, but things happen in our lives, and it is unfair… You know, we get faced with situations all the time that are out of our control… but the one thing we can ask for always is a little more time. Let me pray about it. Let me seek my God on this issue. Let me go to the One Who I know can deal with this situation…
The one thing [other religions] lack is the realization that God truly does forgive; that God truly does share mercy; that God truly does speak to our hearts and make a difference in us. And you know what the greatest power of all is that is available to us? It’s not that we’re just forgiven, but that we can forgive. Do you want to display real power? Do you want to show someone that the God that we worship is truly alive and real? When you encounter something that they do to you and they ask you for forgiveness, that you actually, honestly, truly give them forgiveness. That doesn’t happen of ourself. We can’t forgive in and of ourself. That is a power and ability that can only come from a living God…
It was His wisdom and His power. He changes times and seasons. He sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to wise and knowledge to the discerning. The next time you want to complain about the ruler that God has put over us, the next time you want to complain about the president of this country or the governor of this state or the major of this city or whomever it may be that is in authority over you, understand something: God put them there. He’s the One that sets them up and He deposes them when He’s done with them. It has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with God.
Vintage message from October 19, 1997.
It is vitally important for each of us to have people we can pray with. It is important that we have people that we can turn to; that we can share our lives with; that we can share our hurts with; that we can share our hard times with. Daniel did not say, “Oh, man, I better not burden these guys with this. This would just really crush them…” Hey, it affected them. It involved them, so Daniel went to them and said, “Pray with me.” …The one thing that we need to be very careful to do when we pray, when God answers our prayers, [is] that we give Him the glory for it… We need to give God His place in our life and we need to give Him the credit for the things that He does…
Vintage message from October 26, 1997.
There is a God in heaven. How many of us here believe that there is a God in heaven? We say that, don’t we? There is a God in heaven, but how many of us live as though there really is a God in heaven? You know, it is easy for us to make a definitive statement that there is a God in heaven. I believe that there’s a God in heaven! But is our life motivated by the fact that there is a God in heaven?
…But you know what God’s also going to tell you, and I hope He can tell you this from this moment on, always in my life, that He’s going to tell you that, “Dave was motivated because he knew that I was in heaven. He knew I was watching.” There are so many things in my life that I find myself saying and doing and then all of a sudden I look up and say, “Oh, yeah. You’re there. You saw that. Okay. Yes, Lord. I realize You saw that.” Do we believe that there’s a God in heaven? Do we truly believe that? We can say that to ourselves. We can get up on Sunday morning and we can come to church. We can pick up our Bibles and read and we can do all the good, religious, holy things, but just because we’re doing them does not mean we truly believe…
How many of us here just simply have struggles in life? Do you realize that there’s a God in heaven that knows that you’re struggling?… Do I live [like] that there’s a God Who knows, Who reveals mysteries, Who knows my life, Who can deal with my life? …I believe that there is a God in heaven Who directs my life.
Vintage message from November 2, 1997.
We need to be able to stand before anyone and tell them, “There is a God, and I trust fully and completely in Him, and if He wants to save me, He will and He can, and we have no doubt that this can happen. But understand, even if He doesn’t meet my need the way I believe it should be met, it doesn’t stop Him from being God. I still will not bow and worship this world. I still will not find myself in a place of abandoning the One that I know loves me and saved me.” But all too often people quickly abandon their faith because God did not perform for them, because they were not firm in their resolve to trust the God Who created them, the God Who loved them, the God Who even gave His Son Jesus to die for them. Are we resolved in our hearts that no matter what we may encounter in life, no matter what may come our way, no matter how hard it is, that God is still God, and He can do in and through us whatever it is He pleases? Are we resolved to allow Him even maybe to put us through a little bit of discomfort?
…When was the last time you prayed and said, “God, this is what I want, but even if You don’t…” I don’t find myself praying like that often. I don’t find myself saying, “God, feel free to not answer my prayer. Feel free to use me as You will. Feel free to put me through very uncomfortable times.” I don’t pray like that! But isn’t this what Jesus prayed when He found Himself in the garden, when He found Himself facing certain death?…What did He ultimately pray? “Not My will, but Yours be done.” This is the place we need to find ourself. This is real faith. This is true faith. Faith that says, “I am the instrument of God, and He can use me how He pleases…and I’m going to trust Him through it.”
…You know what? We’re going to run into people who do not believe in God. We’re going to run into people who do not trust God. We’re going to run into people who despise us because we believe in God. Do you realize that? Let me tell you. We don’t need to beat them up. We don’t need to argue with them. We don’t need to fight with them. We just simply need to love them.
Vintage message from November 9, 1997.
Do you realize you can justify anything you want to do. You can justify anything you want to say; any lifestyle you want to step into. If you try hard enough, you can justify it. And you can ignore God and deny God in the whole thing and justify it… We oftentimes turn and run away from the things that we’re afraid of. We turn back to the flesh. We step back into the flesh because we’re afraid of the adventure that God holds for us going forward. I find myself oftentimes turning back to the flesh because I’m afraid of the change of eternity. That’s too radical! Eternity is too radical…
Do you realize that sin is death? But yet, we put that gun of sin to our head and pull the trigger regularly… But how many of us here are actually willing to walk away from the things of the flesh that God calls sin? And each of us can think…of some things that we struggle with, and it’s not necessarily just the things we do outwardly but the things we do up here…
And understand that how we live our lives, the statements that we make, the times that we cower to sin and give in to sin become a major statement to the people who are watching us… One of the things that I’ve come to realize, actually several years ago, is that it’s not my responsibility to save people. It’s my responsibility to live my life before Christ the way He’s called me to live as a servant, as a submitted person to Him, and as I submit to Him, then He allows people around me to observe that and to watch that and then He begins to speak to their hearts and make changes in them…
I need to be prepared, not to defend myself, but to live my life in a way that when I’m brought before people, He then can speak through me. That’s a great challenge. That’s where each of us need to find ourselves: challenged to be at a place that at any time Jesus can call on us to speak through us… They need an example of a person who will truly trust God and even face eternity and the changes that eternity will bring. Even if we’re afraid now, understand, the Holy Spirit will help us to not be afraid when it comes time.
Vintage message from November 16, 1997.
You know what? I have many times done things where my conscience has begun to…smite me… I felt guilty. I was convicted. I knew I was doing wrong. I knew that something was speaking to me. God speaks to us. His Holy Spirit works in us. He tries to convince us. And you know what? He will bring us sometimes to the very point of being terrified. Now, of course, psychologists would tell you that you shouldn’t have those terrified feelings; that those come from people putting guilt on you and that you shouldn’t really feel guilty; that you should have high self-esteem; that you should feel good about yourself. Well, let me tell you something. I don’t always feel good about myself! And I don’t believe God wants me to feel good about myself. That when I am endeavoring to do something that goes against His principles and His Word or what He would have me to do to live for Him, if I’m going against that, then I need to feel terrified. I need to feel bad. I need to feel lousy. I need to feel all of the things that we end up feeling when we are working against God and what He’s trying to do…
Don’t look at the things you have. Don’t look at the things you do. Don’t build yourself up. You know, when you hear the world say you gotta have good self-esteem, let me tell you, you don’t want good self-esteem. You want God-esteem. You want God to esteem you. You want God to build you up. You want God to run your life. You want the Lord Jesus Christ to live inside of you and work through you and work out of you so that when something good happens, you can simply say, “It wasn’t me. It was Him. It wasn’t me.”
…We all struggle with this pride. We all struggle with this need to build ourselves up, but you know what? God wants to build us up. He doesn’t want us building ourselves up. He doesn’t want us putting ourselves on the throne. He wants us putting Him on the throne. He wants us glorifying Him and saying that He’s the One that’s great. He’s the One that does it because, in fact, He is!
Vintage message from November 23, 1997.
[I] have to ask the question: is God in control of our kingdom? Is God in control of my life? Does He have the sovereignty to do with me what He will? …Being a great man or woman of God sometimes means that there are long periods of time in your life when it seems like nothing happens, but you still trust the God Who is sovereign in your life. That’s what makes a great man or woman of God. We don’t have to see a miracle every day even though I believe we see miracles happen around us everyday if we would just open our eyes… God is doing the miracle regularly, but He expects us to continue to serve. He expects us to continue to make the statement of faith that I’m going to trust Him regardless of what’s happening or how exciting it seems. You know what? Life is not always exciting, but life can always be fruitful. God can use us everyday to bring fruit, not just from our life but possibly from others, and it’s not always exciting work…It’s not good enough for us to tell our kids that we believe in Jesus. Our kids have to believe in Jesus themselves. They have to come to the place of understanding the sovereignty of God and, you know, they’re not going to do it if we’re living lives that are contrary to that… We want our statement of faith to last through the generations of our family… We need to live lives that make that statement every day…
Do we want to be like Daniel? Do you want to have a life like Daniel’s that will be always remembered? …Do you want to be known as the man in the kingdom who has the spirit of the gods in you? That when people think of [you], are they going to be saying, “[He] is a man of God, who knows God. If you have a problem [he] can solve them because he has the Spirit of God in him.” …I doubt that I’ll ever be the man of God that Daniel was, and it’s probably that very doubt that keeps me in the sin pattern and the bad habits that I have, but you know what? I still want to be used by God, and I definitely want to make the statement that my God is sovereign… My God is sovereign and has the right to make a blood sacrifice to save my soul and to take control of my life. He has the right. And I want to live a life so that my daughters will grow up knowing that and they might live that life, and their daughters and sons may grow up and live that life…; that people will be able to look back and say that at least…Dave was a man of God.
Vintage message from November 30, 1997.
When Daniel said something, it was from God and it was true. He had no problem with mysteries, and he had no problem with riddles, and he had no problem with dreams because he took the time to consult God. He took time to pray. He took time to go before the One Who had created him. How many of us actually do that? We run into a problem — how do we try to resolve the problem that we run into? …Oftentimes we turn to the world first! The first thing we try is the methods of the world… There is no problem too small for us to take to the Lord… He doesn’t want to always supernaturally do everything for us because He wants us sometimes to encounter the people of the world so that we can share with them, so that we can become a testimony to them, so that we can allow them to become part of our lives, so that then we can open our mouth to them about how great our God is; about how wonderful He is, and the things He does for us, the provision that He gives to us…
We have to remember where the blessing comes from. We have to remember Who it is that’s working in our life. Otherwise, God simply humbles us… God doesn’t expect us to walk on water. He expected One Person to walk on water, didn’t He? The Person Who was His Son Who He placed on this world…
People will say, “How do we know that the Bible’s even true?” Well, you know what? I’m not going to stand here and argue with you and tell you it is or it isn’t. It’s not my place to prove to you Who God is. It’s not my place to prove to you God exists. It’s my place to tell you that He does, and then it’s up to you to decide… We can decide today that God doesn’t matter… Our kids can grow up and choose to ignore all that we teach today, but we need to at least make sure they have the knowledge.
Vintage message from December 7, 1997.
How many of us in here can say that there is no corruptness in us? [Daniel] was found trustworthy. How many of us in here can say that we, if someone examined our lives today, would find us trustworthy? You know what? I can tell you. Most of us in here could actually say that, yes, we’re trustworthy — for the most part. You know what? I’m trustworthy — for the most part. I’m not corrupt — for the most part. And, I’m not negligent — for the most part. And, you know, I would venture to say that most of us in here find ourselves in that same place… We all have struggles in our lives… We all have our limits. We all have those times when we are challenged. But you know what? We don’t have to respond to the corruption that is brought to us. We don’t have to respond…
We, as Christians today, all too often allow for the Christian radio, the Christian television, the Christian media, the Christian books, tapes, you name it, we’ve got CDs out the wazoo — we allow those things to be our source of strength through the day… We begin to worship the very thing that’s supposed to be honoring God, and we begin to worship it rather than setting it aside and going straight to the Source Itself…
I have struggles in my life, and you know what? It doesn’t change if I’m only going to give God fifteen minutes of my day… When I open up my Bible it’s going to be so that I can grow stronger, that I can become closer, that I can give my life in a more real way over to the God Who is my source of power, my source of strength. That I wouldn’t just give Him fifteen minutes in the morning…fifteen minutes isn’t enough…but I can increase my time more and more before God, for your sake, for my sake. And can you imagine if each one of us even added five minutes this next week, to give that over to the Lord, to be genuine in our lives before God and say, “Make me who Daniel was.” If we just added five minutes this week, can you imagine that with all of us adding that five minutes together, the difference that it would make in the lives of the people in just this fellowship?… I don’t believe we’re going to change the world, but we can sure be a source of strength for each other.
![Wouldn't that be a great testimony to be able to share? That people can not find anything against us unless [it] is the fact that we honor God with our lives?](http://mariaelkins.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/daniel06_05-600x600.jpg)
Vintage message from December 14, 1997.
I don’t care what we’ve done in our life; I don’t care where we’ve been in our life; I don’t care how bad we’ve been in our life — do you realize that God can still make you trustworthy? He can take the corruption away. He can erase it. He can make it as though it never existed… If we are living in the power and the knowledge of a Living God, that Living God works in and through us to cover our corruption with His blood, to wash it away… One of the things I hope God sees in me is a vessel that’s able to be used…
Daniel 6:4-5 At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. 5Finally these men said, “We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God.”
Wouldn’t that be a great testimony to be able to share: that people can not find anything against us unless they find it against us because of the law of our God that we live by? Because of the grace of God in our life? Because of the love that God has for us? The only thing they can find against us is the fact that we honor God with our lives? …And so I would hope that men, if they wanted to find anything against me, would have to do it because of the fact that I’m serving God, and I believe that in the very near future that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Persecution will begin to take over the church in the United States as it is all over the world right now. That there will be laws made that will say that we can no longer worship God. That we can no longer pray…
Do you realize that today you could be making a difference in someone’s life? Even though they’re ungodly, even though they’re living in sin, even though they have no clue Who the Living God is, they could be looking at you and considering what God is doing in your life. And they could be making the decisions that they’re making in their life because of who you are. It is vitally important that we allow God to work in and through us. I’m not telling you to be good, because I know we can’t be good. I’m just telling you to allow God to work through you. If you believe that God is in your life, then you have to allow Him to work in you and through you.
Vintage message from December 21, 1997.
We don’t always do things the way Daniel would do it. You can, and if you do, great! If you don’t, that’s okay. But if you’re not praying, if you’re not seeking God, if you’re not spending time in relationship with Him, then you’re wrong. Then you’ve missed the boat. You’ve severed the relationship that God wants to have with you… If we’re not communicating with the Father, if we’re not entering into relationship with Jesus, if we’re not allowing the Holy Spirit to work in and through us, we have problems because the communication is closed. It will only go from bad to worse. You think you’re having troubles in life? Continue to walk through life without consulting and having communication with God…
Do you realize that oftentimes the decisions that we make, the way we live our life, the things we do have greater implications than just what’s going to happen in our life? Our moment of pleasure, our moment of desire, the things we want are not necessarily only affecting us. It’s not just about me, but it’s about the people who are around me… you know, we live our lives in such a way that we never think about the consequences of what’s going to happen when we make the wrong decision. But yet we continually, moment by moment make wrong decisions, and then it’s after the decision is made, all of a sudden we begin to see the consequences, and the people around us are being affected…
Oftentimes, if we are living our lives right before God, that also affects those that are around us. It’s not just the wrong decisions that we make but also the right decisions we make. If we make the decision to honor God, there are people around us who are watching. There are people around us who are affected by our relationship with Christ… Do the people around you today know that your God is a powerful God simply because they see how you serve Him? Do the people who associate with you see in you a power, a strength, a life that they themselves can not find? They’ll notice the wrong decisions if you make them. They’ll notice the bad if you do it… [God has] taken those wrong decisions that I’ve made and those mistakes I’ve made and then, in His power, He’s used it as a testimony in my life, and people have seen that, too. Are people looking at you today as a person who truly loves and lives your life for the Lord, because of the relationship you have with Him, and are they affected because of that relationship?
Vintage message from January 4, 1998.
Sometimes when I’m teaching, I’ll repeat myself over and over again. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed to have to say something over again to remind you; to give a message even over again if I have to, because sometimes it’s important that we be reminded so that we can firmly be established in the truth…
Why did God give us prophecy? So it’s a light to us… He tells us that we need to pay attention to it so that it will shine in the darkness that’s in our life… We need to study prophecy even if we don’t fully understand it because it becomes a light and it points toward that day that His physical kingdom will display itself…
As we step into these prophetic chapters, we’re going to read a lot about nations and the corruption of nations and the building up and the tearing down of nations, and we’re going to begin to understand a little bit about how God views the nations, but you know what? God has called us to live in these nations. He’s put us in the United States currently. He’s given us a nation that we must be part of… [Jesus says], “And now occupy until I come.” He gives them a direct order as He goes away… So, what are we to be about? …We have a responsibility to take that which God has given us and use it in the world that He’s placed us in. We’re not to hide from the world. We are to go and be ambassadors.
Vintage message from January 11, 1998.
Do you know what a real man is? A real man is one who knows and loves and follows Jesus. Ladies, you too! This doesn’t exclude you. If you want to be real, if you want to be real in God’s eyes, if you want to know that you are what God has created you to be, then be in relationship with Him!
…I thank you, Lord, that You make it very clear to us that we can not be God. We can not be You. We can not take Your place. And, Lord, I don’t want to sit on Your throne, though, Lord, I may sit on the throne of my own life all too often. Your throne is so much mightier than mine. Your authority is greater than mine. I acknowledge that. I just ask, Lord, that You would show me and show my brothers and sisters here how to give up the throne; [to] turn to Your throne; [to] see You, Lord, for Who You are.
Vintage message from January 18, 1998.
(There is some interference during the first minute of the message.)
I don’t care where you’ve been in life, and I don’t care what you’ve done in life. I don’t care how bad you are. God can take control of your life. God can forgive whatever it is that you’ve done in your life, and God can make something good come from your life…
One of the problems that I see within the church today is saints do not have patient endurance [Revelation 13:10]. We think that God should hand everything to us on a silver platter. We think that because we know the Lord everything should go easy. Everything should be good. Everything should be paid for. We should have no struggles. We should have no hard times… You have to know, and you have to be prepared for the fact, that we as believers will see hard times. We will see persecution. We will see times of distress in our life. Just because we know Jesus does not mean that everything will go our way. But let me tell you: everything will go God’s way… No matter what is going on in our life, God is in control. God is still in authority. God has not lost control… We may have to, for a time, endure and be patient through the turmoil that will come to this world. But understand that God’s plan is laid out and, from heaven’s perspective…nations will rise, but God will take over. Bottom line: God will take over. God will have control. We get so caught up in the day to day grind; the day to day suffering; the day to day hardship. We sometimes forget that God is still in control. Yes, He allows us to be a little bit uncomfortable…
Do you know why the church is persecuted? Do you know why the saints are rejected? Why we can not be part of these kingdoms? Why, ultimately, we have to wait for the kingdom of God? Because we can not, in all good conscience, live by the philosophies that some of these nations bring to us. As hard as it is to understand, and as hard as it is for some people to comprehend and to receive, God does not want us believing every philosophy that’s out there. He doesn’t want us merging with every philosophy out there. He doesn’t want us walking hand in hand with the world… He doesn’t want to be part of all of the things going on in the world around us. He wants us to be separate. He wants us to be different. He wants us to be like Him…
I, too, have sinned, but I still don’t say that it’s right! Just because I did it, I don’t say that it’s right. It is sin against God, and I had to come to grips with that. The world has to come to grips with Who is God and what is His standard. We do not have to come to grips with the world and accept who they are and what they’re doing. I don’t know what you guys are into today. I don’t know what your lifestyles are. And you know what? It wouldn’t shock me or surprise me to hear any number of things that you could come up with and tell me today, and I would love you no matter what you told me, but you’ll still hear from my lips, if it’s sin, it is sin. Deal with it… I can not justify the lifestyle that I live if it’s sin. I can not say that it’s good [just] because I want to live it. And that’s a problem with the church today. Too many people want to live the lifestyles that are against God and then want the church to accept it because they don’t want to change it. They go and twist their pastor’s arms and they go to church boards and they get in big fights and they cause a big stink and there’s this big separation in the church because someone wants their sin to be accepted. I’ll accept you no matter what, okay? But understand, I’m going to still tell you you’re a sinner if you’re a sinner.
Vintage message from January 25, 1998.
I’ve actually had people ask me, “Why doesn’t God zap people like that?” Well, because, you know what? If God is going to zap people like that, then God has to zap people like this [me]! Because, understand, I have lived within corruption. I have lived within sin. I have tried to justify my own self and live my own life without God, and if God is going to zap people, governments and leaders, because they’re sinners, then God needs to zap me, too. And, you know what? I’m very thankful that God has not zapped me. Now, God doesn’t mind hitting me upside the head occasionally. He doesn’t mind getting my attention… Each of us in this room have struggles. Each of us in this room have trials… God says, “…I know they’re there.” How do we, then, respond to Him? How does our heart respond to the God Who put us in this situation?
…The end of the matter is that God is in control, and what He is allowing us to go through now is for a reason… God knows it, and He has not chosen to reveal every reason that He has for putting us in the situations that He’s put us in. But, understand, He knows, and the end of the matter is that He’s in control. We can get caught up in it. We can lose sight of Who God is because of our problems, or we can keep sight of the fact that there is an end to the matter. There is an end to this nation… There is an end to the corruption. There is an end to the struggles. There’s an end to the trials. The end of the matter is God and His control and His sovereignty and His power and His eternal Being. When we look at that, our problems seem like nothing because God will have His way…
I can tell you all day long, “Don’t worry.” But, we’re going to worry. I can tell you all day long, “Be faithful because God is in control. Trust Him. He’ll take care of it.” But you know what? We’re going to struggle and we’re going to worry. We don’t have to, but even Daniel did. Encourage one another, then. Strengthen one another, then. Be there for one another because we’re going to worry…
I just feel very strongly that God has laid it on my heart to make sure you understand that [persecution] can happen to us. That we need to be preparing our lives and we need to be preparing our children to be ready, if they’re going to stand for Jesus and the Name of Jesus, that they may find themselves, we may find ourselves, in very uncomfortable circumstances.
Vintage message from February 1, 1998.
We know that what Daniel saw actually happened, and because…if it happened in Daniel’s day, and if, in fact, Daniel was seeing a vision of the Antichrist that is still to come, that we as believers…we need to be about His business. We need to be about telling other people that these things can happen; that there is an end time scenario that will happen. And believe me, if you do not know Jesus, if you do not know the loving salvation of our God, you will find yourself in the midst of that horrible timeframe. That’s what we need to be about. That’s what we need to be telling people… We have a responsibility to at least let people know that they do not have to face that timeframe [the Tribulation]. They don’t have to go into it. But we need to tell them. We need to let them know…
Lord, I just ask that Your Holy Spirit would touch each person in this room this morning; that You would cause each one to search out Your Word; to come to a conclusion as to what they believe, and why they believe it… Bring us to a place of loving one another and loving the world that You love and reaching out and bringing salvation to a lost and dying world. Lord, show us how to live our lives to honor You. There is no greater test, no greater challenge, than to know that we’re right with You and serving You even as imperfect vessels.
Vintage message from February 8, 1998.
One of the problems I see in society today is that we as believers think that God owes us something. We believe that God, because He’s made promises to us (and He has made promises to us, and He keeps His promise as Daniel points out here: He’s a great and awesome God and He keeps His promise of love), we think, for some reason, that God owes us that, and that we need not give anything in return… One of the problems I see in our nation today is not with “them out there,” not with a world that’s lost, not with a world that does not know God, not with a nation that believes itself to be the greatest nation in the world… The problem is me. The problem is my attitude. The problem is my heart that says, “He’s the one that’s the problem.”
…This is the problem. We live in a place as Christians where we continually live in our lies, secrets, and deceptions, and unfaithfulness to God rather than just being plain honest… We still need to come to this place of dealing with the issues of sin in our lives that we’ve lived by. We still need to come to this place of humbling ourselves before God and not assuming upon His grace, and simply mention to Him what He already knows. “God, I am in full agreement with You that, yes, in fact, I did that thing, and it is sin. Please forgive me.” …Confess before the Lord what He knows… Do you realize what we do when we live in sin, when we fail to admit that the things that we’re doing (that the Bible clearly says are sin), when we find ourselves engaged in them and we deny it, do you know what we’re doing? We’re leaving ourself open to destruction. Nothing, nothing that you can do is more pitiful than knowing, living in, experiencing the love and the power of God, the forgiveness of God, and then turning on God! Turning away from Him and turning to the things of the world and turning to the gods of this world…
God wants us to be in a place of right standing with Him, and just like with Israel, God has always, with those that He’s loved, gone out of His way to make a way for us to deal with our sin. He has always gone out of His way to make sure that we could confess and be right before Him. God doesn’t want us in a place of being separate from Him, but we find ourself in that place because we do not turn to God in righteousness. Righteousness is only confessing our sin and receiving that forgiveness that God has for us. I can not stand before God on my own…because there’s too much sin in my life. Too many things that I’ve done against Him that makes me unrighteous. Even the one unrighteous act has made me completely and totally unrighteous before God, so that if He sees me as righteous, if He gives me righteousness, I know it comes from Him. It’s not me. He has made the way… The bottom line is, when we receive Jesus into our lives we become His children. We bear His Name, and any good that He does through us is not for our sake, but it’s for His Name’s sake…
How do we live our lives for the Lord? Do we allow God, through the power of His Holy Spirit, to work in and through us to bring love to those people that we’re in disagreement with? And when we find ourselves alone, do we find ourselves dwelling on God’s Word, God’s truth? …Do you realize that the only way we’re going to know God is by knowing His truth? His truth is contained right here in His Word, and all we need to do is give attention to His Word. Read it for ourselves. Study for ourselves. Grow. Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us through His Word. I know this is a plague on our nation right now, that most of the church…does not pick up their Bible and read it. Most of the people who call themselves Christians today have no clue what’s in God’s Word. They do not give attention to the truth… Why do we have a nation that is in decay? Why do we have a nation, that when it comes to morals, has no idea what a moral foundation is? Because we, God’s chosen, God’s children, God’s bride, do not take God seriously. We do not seek God. We do not turn to God and His Word. We have no clue what God expects of us. But yet, we’ll turn to a world that’s decaying, who does not know God, and we accuse them of all the problems that there are in the world when, in fact, God has simply asked us to be an example and take this Word to the world. How can we take to a dying world the Word of God if we ourselves do not know or pay attention to the Word of God? That’s where the sin is. That’s where the separation is today. That’s why we see a world that’s in decay around us and we see a nation that’s falling apart… [We say], “What can I do? What do my prayers matter? I’m one person!” Well, Daniel was one person. Daniel was one man who felt that if he prayed, if he got serious with God, if he humbled himself before God…that maybe, for the sake of the nation, God would hear him, one person… It starts with one person.
Vintage message from February 15, 1998.
One of the questions I have to ask myself almost daily is, am I praying, am I seeking God for my good, or am I seeking God for God’s good? Do I want to see the things of God happen in my life? Do I want to see the things of God happen in this church? Do I want to see the things of God happen in the lives of those that God has put around me? Or am I only concerned about seeing the things that will make me comfortable in life? How do we pray today? What are the things that we pray for? What drives us to our knees?
…Daniel is praying because he is concerned about God’s reputation. He is praying because he is concerned about the promises that God made and that he wants God to be looked up to by the nations. When we pray, are we praying, “God, use me so that people will look up to You. Fulfill in me all that you need to fulfill, and if that means tribulation and trials, then do that, Lord, so that people can see how You bring me through these hard things, and then they’ll look up to You.” Once again, I have to confess, I don’t pray that way often…
How do we deal with sin in the world today? For two thousand years we have been able, we have been given the right, we have the tools we need to deal with sin, to atone for sin. How do we do that? By looking at the cross of Jesus. By acknowledging that what Jesus did on the cross was accurate and true, and that He did it for my sin…
Jesus told us how we should live. He’s told us that if we do not live a way that is honoring to Him by allowing Him into our life, that we ourselves will find ourselves in destruction, find ourselves in separation. If God will fulfill His promises to Israel, God will fulfill His promises to the rest of the world. And understand, it can become very uncomfortable for us. We’re in a timeframe — have been for the last two thousand years — that Jesus has allowed His grace and His mercy to be poured out on a world that deserved to be destroyed long ago, and it has only gotten worse. The issues of sin have not been dealt with. We just continue to live in them and close our eyes to them. We have now, today, the privilege of dealing with the issues of sin in our life. If we don’t know Jesus, we have the privilege of saying, “Jesus, I want to get to know You.” We have His Word that we can read. We have comfort in this nation in particular. We have the comfort and the freedom to sit down daily and open up His Word and study it. We have the right to gather together with one another and pray with one another and share with one another and encourage one another and cry on one another’s shoulders. In other nations, they don’t have that privilege today, but grace is still being poured out. God’s mercy is still being shown. But understand, there will be a day when God’s mercy ends and judgement begins; that men will be held accountable for what they did with Jesus… Church, understand, that even though we may find ourselves eternally walking with Jesus, that there are consequences still for the sin that we live in. Jesus just doesn’t close His eyes to it. He forgives it. He throws it as far as the East is from the West. He doesn’t want it in His life. He doesn’t want to remind us for all eternity that we have the sin. He deals with it and He forgives it, but understand He says there will be consequences, and there will be a day of judgement.
Vintage message from February 22, 1998.
Think about your own life. Have you ever found yourself in a place where even though you’ve read the Bible and you know the truth and you know the rights and the wrongs and you know the Ten Commandments, you live your life in such a way that is dishonoring to God because somehow you think that it doesn’t really matter how you’re living. And then, all of a sudden, something happens and God’s Word comes alive to you, and you realize that you are the recipient of the fulfillment of God’s Word. All of a sudden, God is very real to you and you find yourself in a place where you have a choice to make. I can either live for my flesh…or [I] can choose to take a stand for God… It is important that we know that in our life there will be times that we will have to choose to take a stand for our God, for what we believe and why we believe Him. We have to take that stand… But see, the thing is, as we grow in the Lord, as we mature in the Lord we come to the place of realizing that not everything that defiled us or stumbled us or hindered us in our past is going to hinder us in our future…
Vintage message from March 1, 1998.
God’s timing is always perfect. We don’t see that. We don’t understand that. God’s timing is always perfect. No matter how uncomfortable we may find ourselves going through a situation, God’s timing is always perfect…
Because of our sin condition, we are not equipped to always receive the answers that God wants to give us. God has to deal with our sin nature first, God has to deal with our flesh first, and God has to open our eyes to spiritual things before we can get spiritual answers for the things that are going on around us. And, it is usually our flesh that is in the way… We find ourselves in ordeals where we are run down and it is not until we finally hit the very bottom that God will strengthen us…
There are things going on in this world right now that are well beyond our understanding and our sight. There are spiritual battles happening all around us that are far more important than the petty little fleshly things that we deal with from day to day. “God, I don’t have this. God, I don’t have that…” We complain about the pettiest things…but you know what? God cares. God takes the time out of His busy schedule, out of His running the universe, out of His fighting with Satan and his minions. He will draw on the resources that He has set against these demons to come to us, mere men that He loves, to give us an answer. Doesn’t that make you feel special? Doesn’t that tell you how much God truly loves and cares for you?
…Why are you important to God? Why am I important to God? Why would He leave His Holy Spirit inside this mess that I am? Why would He do that? I can’t explain to you the love of God. I wish I could. But you know what? God did it, and for a reason, and because He did it, we need to respond to it. We need to respond to God. If we have sin in our life, just like Daniel, there needs to be fear there because God wants to deal with the issues of sin in our lives. We need to give it up to Him. We need to be ready to fall on our face before God when He reveals Himself to us. We need to be ready and willing to live our lives as vessels that God can live in, work through, work with. And understand, if He’s doing that, there are far greater things, from my perspective, that God could be doing. But from God’s perspective, you and I are the far greater thing that He should be doing, and He has taken the time, and He has taken the resources of all of creation to bring us to that point. Jesus loves you, this I know for the Bible tells me so. It’s very simple.
Vintage message from March 15, 1998.
As believers, as Christians, there will be tribulation. There will be hard times. If you are claiming the Name of Jesus in this world today, understand, even though we may have it easy now, there are people all over this world today who are suffering because of the Name of Jesus, and we will eventually come to the place of suffering for the Name of Jesus. But you know what? It’s okay…
Understand that the promises that God gives us oftentimes come at great cost to our flesh. And oftentimes, the promises that He makes us are for the benefit of our spirit and our eternity. God will deal with our flesh just as He was dealing with the flesh of the Jewish people here…
Vintage message from March 22, 1998.
“Those who are wise will instruct many.” The only wise are those who walk in the power and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, who live in a loving covenant with God…
Why on earth would God allow for those who are in a covenant with Him, those who are in love relationship with Him, to fall by the sword or to be burned or captured or plundered? Why would God do that? Have you ever found yourself asking these questions? Why does God allow His church to suffer? Why does God allow those who love Him to suffer? To be taken advantage of? …Well, see, the biggest part of the problem is we see things from the perspective of our own little lives. The significance of what I have to do tomorrow, what I’m going to do tomorrow, where I’m going to go tomorrow, how I’m going to live tomorrow. It’s all me, all from my own little world…
God has loved every vile and hateful and hurtful person that has ever lived on the face of the earth. God has loved them. And God has desired to have a relationship with them. And you know what? From time to time, God has even won some of those types of men over. Throughout history, men who have despised God, who have gone out of their way to hurt God, have come to know His love and His forgiveness because God has allowed some of those who love Him to suffer under their hands. God will accomplish His work on this world. And you know what? God is not afraid to inconvenience me… Believers in God throughout history have laid their lives on the line…to show…how much He loves them… It’s worth it to give up everything to make sure that that one person knows God loves you. And those of us who are wise, know that, and we can only be wise when we have the power of the Holy Spirit living in us…
All you have to know is God loves you. Jesus died for you. His Holy Spirit will indwell you and help you through. And when God puts a wicked and evil government over us, it’s for a purpose and we can submit to the will of God and honor those men that He’s put over us. Not rail against them, not condemn them to hell, because none of that is our responsibility. Our responsibility is simply and only live to prove the love of Jesus Christ; to never forsake the holy covenant. Understand that there is an appointed end. God is in control. God knows. God will finish it. He will finish it. He will finish me as well. My life is under His control as well. And the outcome of my life is determined by how I live for Him today.
Vintage message from March 29, 1998.
If we are here because we have relationship with Jesus, then Jesus has given us a call. That’s to go out and instruct men. “Go therefore into all the world making disciples of all nations.” That’s our responsibility… Don’t get stuck in the things of the world, but use the wisdom and instruct many, because understand, there is a time coming on the face of this earth that I believe you and I will be taken away from but I would not wish on my worst enemy…
I just ask, Lord Jesus, that we would find ourselves amongst the wise that Daniel was seeing and not be insincere, but Lord, we would be here this morning because we love You and we love one another and we love the world that You sent us to. I just ask, Lord, that You would touch our hearts, that You would cause us to hunger, to yearn to fulfill that Great Commission… Let me do my part. Cause me to do my part. Cause me, Lord, to reach out beyond these walls as I run into people throughout my day that I would be sharing Your love, Your Word, the testimony of what You’ve done in my life… I just ask, Lord, that there would be no one in my sphere of influence who would ever stand before You and say that, “I didn’t know.” Cause me, Lord, to be vocal, outspoken, sticking out in a crowd always. I just ask that for each one of us here today, that we’d stick out in a crowd. That people would know what we believe and, Lord, that we might find opportunity to share with them.
Vintage message from April 5, 1998.
One of the things that I have learned throughout the years is that friends that are bought are not friends at all. If you’re my friend because I’ve done something good for you, and I continue to do something good for you, what happens when the bad comes in my life? And let me tell you, if you’re my friend, you’re liable to see the bad. I’m liable to do stupid things. I’m liable to make some major mistakes. Are you still going to be my friend then? See, if I’ve bought your friendship, if I’ve bought your loyalty, as soon as I begin to blow it, as soon as I begin to stumble, you’re gone…
We see devastating things happening on the world. Even today, we see devastating things happening. And somehow we convince ourselves that God must be out of control. But you know what? God is not out of control. God has not lost His power or lost His ability to rule and reign on this world. Everything that He says will happen, will happen. He’s established it for a reason. So you can understand this: that when you find yourself in hardship, when you find yourself in trial, when you find yourself struggling, God knows about it. God is not unaware of who you are and what you’re going through, and He will accomplish what He starts in your life. “He Who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” In His faithfulness, He is not unaware of what you’re going through…
God knows the time that He has laid out for us. God knows the end that’s going to come to us. But you know what? He’s still sitting on that throne. He’s still in control of the universe. He has not forgotten any one of us and what we’re going through… It’s you and I that God has put here to show that He is actually a God of love; a God Who wants to spare them from [the Tribulation]. That’s our job. That’s what God has called us to… It’s very important how we live our lives today.
Vintage message from April 12, 1998.
Everybody…has some kind of trouble, some kind of struggle, some kind of hard time that they’re going through… We all have struggles, don’t we? And we can, in fact, put ourself in that place of feeling like we are the only ones that are struggling. We can cut ourselves off from the fellowship. We can cut ourselves off from the body, when in fact, the body is where we need to be because there are people who are concerned…
Eternity away from God is not acceptable. It’s not about heaven. It’s not about mansions. It’s not about golden streets. It’s about relationship with the God Who created us. And, being away from that relationship is not acceptable. And He knew that some of us would seek Him out… He knew that there would be those…who love Him, who desire Him. He knew that we would want that relationship with Him. He knew that so He begins to purify us. He makes us spotless and refines us… Why do bad things happen to Christians? Why do we see hardship? Why do we see financial struggles? Why do we see marital problems? Why do we see times in our lives where we just want to sit down and quit? Because God is refining us. Because He wants to make us spotless…
Wickedness will continue. Understand, God is not going to stop wickedness for your sake. In fact, He may allow you to live right in the middle of wickedness. How do we respond to that? We live our lives for one purpose… There is an inheritance waiting for us. If we will endure, if we will just simply live our lives, if we will go our way, allow God to do in us what He needs to do, allow God to refine us, to work in us, to redeem us, we’ll have an inheritance… The only way to truly be wise is to see the fullness of God’s Word. The fullness of God’s Word is Jesus Christ. The fulfillment of God’s Word was Jesus hanging on a cross [so] that we might have relationship with Him.