The Power of Perseverance (cont'd)

And he told me during that time, he said, By the way, you are never going to be on radio again. He wasn't trying to curse me. And I said, Well, we'll just see what God does.

And when he was told he'd never again have a radio program. But God had other plans. And today, many years later, Destined for Victory is a thriving ministry, one that, with your help, is transforming lives all over the world. At the end of our last broadcast, Pastor Paul began telling the story of how Destined for Victory got its start. It's a tale, not only of faith, but of perseverance and a lot of hard work.

And it continues today. So stay right here, or stop by pastorpaul.net to listen on demand. That's pastorpaul.net.

Here's Pastor Paul now with today's Destined for Victory message, The Power of Perseverance. You say, How did Destined for Victory get started? They said, You better figure out what to do. Start yourself a new radio ministry. So, we started one.

No money, no resources. But it was a clear indication that we might have to go back in here. And then I'm listening to that man in my head, well-meaning, good Christian brother, but he's from the old boys club. He said, You will never be on radio again.

And I found myself starting a radio ministry after being told I'll never be on radio again. So how does that translate to you and your vision? Don't listen to what people say. Listen to what's in your heart.

Listen to what's in your heart. Who told them they know what you're going to do? All they can do is, John 3.11, speak what they've heard, testify to what they've seen. When people are telling you what they think, you know what that means? That's what they think. That's all that means.

That doesn't mean that's it. Broaden the concept. Look at the principle. Principles run parallel. They can apply to religious things. They can apply to non-religious things. How is it that all of us, not all of us, but those of us that are in the will of God, have all these Apple devices? We have these devices because one day, a couple of Steves envisioned taking computers out of the big mainframe, sitting up in a big, huge industrial office, and said, Why don't we put a computer in front of everybody?

One that they can work and get real stuff done and make a difference. It didn't matter what other people thought. They envisioned Apple before you bought your first Apple. Everything has two creations.

The first creation is division. You've got to envision it before it happens. It doesn't happen, and then you call it something. You have to see what is not as though it is.

It's a principle. That's why worldly people are often more successful in terms of money, monetary things, than us because sometimes we want to pray about something that we need to be doing something about. Prayer is never wrong, but prayer, in that case, ought to fuel you to step out in faith and do what God has put on your heart to do. If anybody ought to be successful, it ought to be somebody who walks with God and knows that God is a miracle-working God.

So you've got to make it happen and ask God to help you and bless you as you go. The next thing I know, we're on a station, got a radio ministry, and started. I got one of the brothers. I announced myself. I went in. They said, Well, show me what kind of mic should I use? I went and got a mic, and I set up. I don't have a booth.

I don't have a recording studio. I just went in my library and put the mic in front of me, and I started announcing. Hello, and welcome to Destin Christian, Destin for Victory, the radio ministry of Pastor Paul Shepherd. We're glad you've joined us for today's broadcast. I'm my own announcer. Who the announcer? Me. Who the speaker? Me.

Who God pay the bills? Me. You've got to do it. Quit trying to be cute. Fine. I need seven people, and I need a staff, and a staff?

Are you kidding me? I didn't have any staff. If I got money, it was going to go to the radio station. God had to do it all, and you've got to step out and believe that you've heard from God and get it done, get it done. What's in your heart?

The good man out of the good stored in his heart brings forth good things, and it takes perseverance, and we persevered, and we made sure that station. Now they get something that has an announcing, and then message, and then an ending, and on the ending, I ask for some money, and the money started coming. Why did money start coming?

Because they start asking for it. Some of you all, at a certain point in your vision, you're going to have to go out and get you some investors. The Apple guys got investors. Bill Gates got investors early on. Everybody who did anything that we all know about now started out getting somebody partners. You see how this is working together? You've got to find some folk who buy in.

They buy in, and they started buying in, and people started sending checks. I said, oh, wow, look at this. We might mess around and have a ministry, and then other stations said, I was driving through the first station with San Antonio, Texas. I was in San Antonio for something, and I heard it sound like Pastor Paul, but last thing we had heard, he was long gone.

He was through. People make up their own stuff. I heard stuff about me. I'm like, hey, I'm here. Hello.

That's not true. People have said I was dead. People have said I was all kind of stuff. He's out of ministry. Oh, he's selling insurance. People have me selling insurance. Let me tell you something right now.

If I try to sell you an insurance policy, don't buy it. I don't know the first thing about that world. They just make up stuff.

They like just having something to say and getting a rise out of people. What? So now we've got a ministry. You've got to make it happen. You've got to find the investors. You've got to create the business plan. I don't know anything about a business plan.

Find. Find somebody who knows, and let them sit down with you and make it. Go to a business school. Say, you all got any students who need a project?

They can help me write this business plan. I don't care what you've got to do. The good thing is stored up in your heart.

You've got to bring it to pass. So go figure it out. I don't know. If you don't know, read James 1. Ask of God.

He'll give you wisdom you don't have. This is good. I'm getting this CD myself.

More of you all should buy this one because you all didn't buy that last one where I was wearing you out in the word. It's available. I know you don't want it, but it's available after. Listen, you've got to make it happen. And perseverance means you don't take no for an answer because this is a good thing stored up in my heart, and I've got to bring it to pass. So no is not an option.

Changing course is not an option. I couldn't go sell insurance even if I knew how. God called me to preach. God called me to pastor, and God called me to radio. He told me in 1988 that I would have a radio ministry. In 1988, I was the associate pastor of a church in Philadelphia. That church had a radio ministry, a weekly radio ministry, Sunday night. But the Lord showed me a daily radio ministry, and I'm not even a senior pastor. I knew it would be named Enduring Truth.

I knew the theme song in 1988, the original theme song. I had all that came to California with that vision. None of it was going to be a reality automatically. Nobody was going to knock on my door and say, would you like to be on radio every day?

No. We'll be right back with more of today's Destined for Victory message from Pastor Paul Shepard. To listen to any of Pastor Paul's recent broadcasts, be sure to stop by pastorpaul.net and listen on demand. That's pastorpaul.net. And stay tuned after today's message when he joins me from his studio in California.

First, let's rejoin Pastor Paul for the second half of today's teaching, The Power of Perseverance. So when we started on radio, I started pastoring in California in 1989. I went to the leading Christian radio station in the Bay Area. At the time, I said, I'm a local pastor, and I'm thinking about doing daily radio.

Do you have any info sheets you can send me? When they gave me the information on how much it costs for one broadcast once a week, they said, no, no, you don't want to see daily. We'll show you weekly on the weekend cut rate. They tried to help me out because they knew I was passing a little church. And when they sent me that, I said, OK, thank you very much. It was out of the question. But I kept going around and said, well, there's got to be another station. I found a station that was located out in the valley, but the signal came into the Bay Area. And it was not a high-falutin' station, but then they were looking for broadcasters. And they said, oh, no, no, no, we'll come. They drove in to meet with me. They had desperation.

I needed to get on with no money. So they sat down in my little office. We could barely fit in there.

You remember Bird Jimmy, barely fit in that little side office at Saratoga Avenue. Most of you all don't know what I'm talking about. Forget about it.

Don't worry about it. And we sat in there and they said to me, I gave them samples of my preaching cassettes back in the day, y'all. Gave them cassettes. They listened and said, oh, you're quite a preacher.

Wow. They were impressed. They said, oh, yeah, you're what we're looking for. And they said, we want to put you on.

I said, I'd love to get on daily, but I don't know if the cost is prohibitive. And they said, all right, we want to put you on. What can you give us? They asked me what I could give them. I said, well, you see, in this building, we're a small church. I said, I'm going to have to raise the money for whatever it is because it's not in the budget. I told you when I first got here, the whole budget was $60,000 a year. The whole budget for the whole church. And 24 of that was my income. And they made me promise when I first got here.

They said, we'll pay you $24,000 a year. We know that's not, pastor, just work with us. Since you got this big, they used my vision against me. They said, you said, the Lord said. They used my vision against me. They said, you said, the Lord said that thousands were going to come.

They said, pastor, when the thousands come, we're going to hook you up. I said, that's cool. You don't use somebody's vision against them like that. So what happens is, I said, you know, we don't have money. He said, what can you afford? I said, I don't know. I could see if I could get you $200 a week.

I'm just throwing that out. I thought they were going to laugh and then start negotiating. They said, you got it.

$40 a day, $200, Monday through Friday, $200 a week, half hour broadcast. They were desperate. I was broke.

Perfect match. Now, see, some of you all think, I got to be on the leading station because I got a message. I got something to say. I wanted to be on there, but the budget said no. So get on somewhere else. Compete with who they have on. Come on.

See, some of you all too humble. Now, I was never going to say publicly I'm competing. They had on Chuck Smith at the half hour on the big station that they were going to give me on the little station. I said, yep, give me that. I go up against Chuck.

How do you do that? Do you know who Chuck Smith is? The man is the founder of a whole movement. The man was at the center of the Jesus movement of the 1960s and early 70s.

He is a world changer, earth shaker. I'm talking about, yeah, put me up head to head with Chuck. Do you know, we started hearing from people who said, you know, I used to listen only to Kay, what's her name? And then finally, I just one day I was surfing and I heard you. And the people started saying, I haven't listened to Chuck Smith since since I found you. And then we started getting visitors to the little church because they heard me.

Some of them would come and say, the way you preach, I thought you had a big church. Said, well, it's going to be big one day. Just hang in there. Stay with us in the small time.

Be like the little red hen. Go through the whole process with us. See, some folks don't want to wait till you're all set up.

Dinner's all served in. Y'all come here. Y'all come. I need some folk who gonna help me with this week and help me with this harvest and help me with this. I needed some folk. And some of my most faithful people came in those days where there was nothing impressive at all. Came in those days when people weren't getting saved.

I came with this vision. Thousands were going to get saved. God had made me a soul winner. I was making altar calls every week. Nobody getting saved. I just make the altar call just for spite. I knew nobody getting saved. Anybody want to come to the Lord?

Come on right now. Everybody just stand there. Of course not. Let's stand. I'm telling you what you got to do in the season of persevering. You got to keep going.

No results. No encouragement. We got to press on. To get that $200 a week, I had to get people to pledge. People had to pledge to get that. I asked the little church, little handful of us. I said, God's going to put us on the radio $200 a week. If I can get 10 of y'all to give me and the saints, okay, pastor, yeah, that's great. We're glad that our church is on the radio. They gave me, as an extra offering, above ties and offering, they gave me the $200 every week.

Sent it to the place. Then finally, after doing that, the big station called. We've been hearing about you. They had forgotten I had called the first time. They weren't calling in response. They had forgotten. They didn't know who I was.

It wasn't on a piece of paper anywhere. They said, we've heard about you. We heard you on. Then they started talking about the other station. They said, you know that that's hitting a lot of farmland and that's missing a whole lot of people.

We, on the other hand, we are reaching. They showed me. I said, oh, that's interesting. Now look at me. I think I'm something.

What do you have in mind exactly? Tell you what, why don't we do lunch and we can discuss it? Long story short, I started on there Sunday night at 8 o'clock, weekly broadcast. The weekly broadcast on there, one half hour Sunday night, cost substantially more than the $200 I was getting every day on the other station.

But it was the opening of a new door. And God worked it out. The other station had to call me and say, unfortunately, secular people have bought our signal. We're no longer going to be broadcasting Christian. We're sorry you had to get off. I said, that's okay. I appreciate the time I was on and wish you all well. But the truth was I was going to pull off anyway because I needed a lot more money to go on the other station.

I'm talking about perseverance. I want to be on every day. I'm on Sunday night at 8.

But that took it to another level of recognition. Finally, they called back. Would you be interested? We have a quarter hour slot daily in our lineup.

Would you be interested in that? I said, let's do lunch and talk. Then that money, quarter hour on a leading Christian station in the nation, quarter hour, 15 minutes. In broadcast terms, 15 minutes means 12 minutes because the other three is advertising. So I start sending them 12-minute broadcasts. First, I was my own announcer. Then I got Petrie Byrd, my friend. If you all ever watched Judge Judy, the bailiff, Petrie Hawkins Byrd, he's my boy. He was a member of my church back in those days, in the hood. That's why I love him to this day. He rolled with me.

We were ride or die. You see him pop in every now and then. He lives in Sacramento, but he come through every now and then. So I was doing the voiceovers, and then Petrie had a better voice for that than me. I said, Petrie, come in here. He come to my house and use the microphone.

Oh, we sound like we were something, boy. I'm showing you what perseverance will get you. And with 12-minute broadcasts, Petrie would open about nine and a half minutes of preaching, closing, and ask for the money. Nine and a half, with my style of preaching, I was just getting rolling, here come Petrie.

Tomorrow, a little bit more, here come Petrie. People, no lie, people started calling mad. They were mad at the station. They were mad at me. Every time you get ready to say something I really need to hear, there you go off again. I said, I hear you, sir. I'm so sorry. Because back in those days, when you called the number on the thing, you rang my house. I'm telling you all about perseverance. Ain't no time to be cute.

I don't have no office staff. You called. I was listening to a broadcast.

I said, yes, you were listening to me. This is Pastor Paul. Oh, my goodness.

You got to do what you got to do till you don't have to do it like that no more. Thanks so much for being here for today's Destined for Victory message, The Power of Perseverance. Look for any of Pastor Paul's recent messages online on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net. Pastor Paul joins me now from his studio in California. Pastor, I know your heart is encouraged by so many of our friends who are listening and letting us know that Destined for Victory is having an impact in their life. Tell us and remind me, why are you so committed to using media as a part of this ministry?

Well, Wayne, I'll tell you, I'm sold on the fact that if we're going to fulfill the Great Commission, and of course, that's our job as the body of Christ, to go into the world to make disciples, to baptize people and teach them to observe all things that Christ commanded. If we're going to do that, I am more convinced than ever, it demands that we take a strong, fresh look at how to use technology and every other resource to that end. In other words, we've got to realize we who are boomers, I'm a baby boomer, born between 46 and 64. That's our generation.

Me too. And I realized that we were the last generation in American history that was typically raised in church or in some religious training. And we've got three full generations under us. And now there's an emerging fourth generation, they're still being developed. They're known as Generation Alpha. My first grandchild is an alpha baby.

Oh, is that right? So I realize that with these three, four generations we've got to preach the gospel to, they're not inclined to come to church and hear the gospel, if you will. But the vast majority of them are probably going to have to be reached where they are before we can get them into the life of a church. So technology is very important to the end that we can reach them with the good news of Jesus Christ. That's what it's all about, Pastor, reaching as many people as we can with the gospel. You know, media can often go where missionaries can't, into the homes of elderly shut-ins or those who have no way of getting to church.

It can travel into remote areas of the world that are often hostile to the Christian faith. Just one more reason why your gifts to Destin for Victory are so critical for the cause of Christ. And for your generous gift to Destin for Victory today, we'd like to send you a booklet from Pastor Paul Shepherd that goes hand in hand with his message, Junk Removal for the Soul.

Inside these pages you'll discover practical biblical advice about setting aside some of the habits from your old life in order to embrace the newness of who you are in Christ. That's our gift to you this month by request for your generous donation to Destin for Victory. Call us at 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. You can also mail your gift to Destin for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538.

Again, our address is Destin for Victory, Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538. When your guests say, go all the way, I'm tired of seeing halfway Christians. You were buck wild in the world and so you need to be all in for Jesus. And when you are, He can use your life in a significant way. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, Finding Joy in Strange Places. Until then remember, He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. And in Christ, you are destined for victory.