Hey there, thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you, if you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org. Good afternoon, everybody. Let's pray, Lord, as we just sang. We've never known a love like yours.
Because you've loved us. with an everlasting love. And therefore with loving kindness you have to be able to do that. You've drawn us to yourself, and we come to you now, Lord, with hearts that are hungry for the word of God. With hearts that long to hear truth in a world filled with half-truths and outright lies.
So speak to us as we open. Scripture and help us to see how we're not alone in life, and Jesus is with us. and we don't have to be afraid.
So we commit this time of Bible study to you now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Can I be seated? All right, well, let's grab our Bibles and turn to Judges chapter 6.
We're in our Jesus in You series, part 2, and the title of this message is Jesus and the Person. Who is afraid? You know, it's funny how expressions change with the passing of time, isn't it? Certain expressions are no longer with us unless you're really old. If you use the expression hunky dory, you're pretty old.
Or G. Willikers, or that's Malarkey, as you spray your hose at people near your house. You're probably an old person. But it's funny how other expressions have somehow stood the test of time that go all the way back to the 50s. Like, cool.
Cool has stayed with us. We were saying cool back a long time ago, and we still say cool today. And what's funny is, hot and cool are interchangeable. They mean the same thing. That's cool.
That's hot. Means it's good still. But then there are some expressions that are not as popular, like in the 60s, we used the word groovy. I don't know if I actually ever use that word, groovy. Larry, did you ever say groovy?
You actually said it, okay. Larry's a little older than me, so okay, he used it. He was in a rock band, so I guess he could say groovy. But then Rad, that was big in the 80s. That's rad, right?
So if you're saying red still, You're kind of an... Old young person, that's what's happening to you, okay? And so then we have newer expressions. That's killer, that's been around for a while. That's sick, that's bad.
Those all are good, by the way.
So if it's killer, it's good. If it's bad, it's actually good. If it's sick, maybe it's really good.
So the whole script has been flipped. And then there are new ones that we use today. We'll say, you know, that's lit. Or uh You're goaded. You're the goat.
Someone said to me the other day, You're goaded, Greg. I said, Wow, you mean like the greatest of all time? No, you're like an old goat. That's a... Really?
It's kind of offensive.
So everything sort of flipped around, right? And things that seem like they're saying something is good actually might be bad and vice versa.
Well, the Bible talks about People doing that in Isaiah five: destruction is certain for those that say evil is good. And good is evil, that say dark is light and light is dark, who say bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter. I feel like this script has been flipped and our culture is upside down right now. We're celebrating things that are bad. We are criticizing things that are good.
It's all turned around. What's wrong is now trending. And when culture is upside down, hearts are going to be anxious. As an example, 84% of Gen Z kids say they're anxious or stressed regularly. One in three adults say they lose sleep over their finances.
Nearly 70% of Americans say the future makes them afraid. And the top fears that people have today include failure, rejection, loneliness, global conflict, and their health.
So I want to look. of what Jesus has to say to to the person who is afraid. And that person might be you. You might come here to church today filled with fear. or anxiety.
And this is a story of a man who was afraid, and Jesus came to him. This man's name was Gideon. And Gideon was hiding from his enemy, the Midianites. And in his encounter with Christ, his life was changed. He went from being fearful to being faithful.
From hiding to fighting, from panic to purpose. And man, you wanna talk about things being upside down? Against the backdrop of Gideon's life, we have the book of Judges that introduces us to him. And in Judges 17:6, it says that in those days Israel had no king, and whatever seemed right, In the eyes of the people, they did. Everyone did what seemed right in their own eyes.
If we were to put that in the 60s vernacular, we would say everyone was doing their own thing. And that's really true of our culture today. Everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes.
So God raised up 16 judges, excuse me, 13 judges to judge his people through these difficult times. times. And Israel was going from bad to worse. And when you contrast the book of Joshua, which Jonathan talked to us about last week. That's a book of conquest.
Judges is a book of defeat. Joshua is about the adventures and exploits of Israel as he obeyed God and entered into the promised land, while Judges is a book of unbelief and disobedience. And so everyone's doing what they want to do, and what happens? Jesus shows up. Jesus always shows up.
No matter what you're going through, he will show up. in your life. When things are going great, And when things are not going so great. I think it's important for us to call on the Lord in the time of trouble. But it's also important for us to give thanks to Him when He's gotten us through the time of trouble.
I like what it says in James 5:13, when it says, If anyone is among you who is in trouble, let him pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise.
So probably right now, you're either in trouble or things are going reasonably well. If you're in trouble, pray. Absolutely pray. But if things are going well, just remember to give God Thanks for that.
So it's around twelve fifty-six BC. And Israel is reaping the consequences of bad decisions they made earlier. As we saw in the book of Joshua, they were to drive out the inhabitants of the land. They were to destroy them, but they couldn't. Half did the job.
And the Midianites were left and they grew stronger. And now as time has passed, the Midianites are dominating, even terrorizing the people of Israel. You know, it can happen in our own lives too. We'll deal with a certain problem in our life, but we won't deal with it completely, like a tree. You know how trees sometimes start Tearing things apart as the roots spread through your yard, so you've got to remove that tree.
But you can't just chop the tree down. You gotta take the roots out too. You gotta take the stump out as well. Otherwise, it will come back again with a vengeance. And that's what Israel was facing as things they should have dealt with earlier were now coming back to haunt them.
But the Lord shows up and He brings deliverance to them. Through a man named Gideon, because Jesus meets fearful people where they are.
So we're introduced to Gideon in Judges chapter 6, starting at verse 11. Read along with me. How many of you brought your Bible to church? I want to see your Bible. Time six.
Good, good. How many of you didn't bring your Bible? Oh, d tablets count, phones count. You can download an app, okay? But so read something.
Preferably scripture. with these, preferably Judges chapter 6. Verse 11. By the way, I think everybody should have an actual Bible too, you know? I think downloading apps is great on your tablet, your phone, or whatever, but having a Bible and marking it up.
This is a good thing to do. Anyway. Judges 6, verse 11. The angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Opera. which belonged to Oprah Winfrey.
No, I Threw that in because you were thinking that of the clan of Abiziar. Gideon, the son of Joash, was threshing wheat at the bottom of a wine press to hide the grain from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, Mighty hero, the Lord is with you. Kind of a funny scene. Here's a guy hiding from his enemies.
Hoping they don't see him. And an angel shows up and says, mighty hero. The Lord is with you. He's probably looking like he's talking to someone else.
Well, you're talking to me? Me a mighty hero? The Lord is with you. And then Gideon says, Well, if the Lord is with us, Why has all of this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about?
Didn't they say the Lord brought us out of Egypt and now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites? And the Lord said to him, Go with the strength you have to rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you. We'll stop there. What a powerful text that is.
Heard the story of a mother that was reading Bible stories to her little girl. And as she heard the great stories of the heroes of the Bible, Moses, Joshua, Daniel, Esther, and others, she said, Mommy, It seems like God was more exciting back then. You know, and you might wonder: why can't I see something like I see in the Bible? You know, you hear things that have happened in the past. Oh, the Jesus revolution.
I hear about that. Why can't we have that in our generation? And maybe we're starting to have that right now. Because God is certainly at work. Or you might say, well, God's working in that person's life.
Why isn't He working in my life in the same way? God healed that girl. God provided for that guy. The Lord got this other person out of that crisis, but I'm still sick and I still need His provision and I'm still facing a crisis. And that's what Gideon was saying: Lord, why?
Why is this happening to me? It's interesting, you know, life is full of questions. And even after we become Christians, we still have questions. I can be honest with you and say, I have questions for God. Unanswered questions.
But I've learned in life that I cannot live on explanations, but rather on the promises of God. But one day, all of my questions are going to be answered, and yours are going to be too, when we stand before God. And 1 Corinthians 13 says, Right now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely as I am known by God. Isn't that great to know?
So Gideon says, why? And God responds with who? As in, you got the wrong question, buddy. Don't be asking why. Be asking, who should I turn to?
So Gideon says, Why is this happening? God says, I am with you. I'm with you. That's the answer I'm giving to you. You are not alone in what you are facing, and Christ appears to him.
Now remember we're calling these Christophanies. That's a theological term. for an appearance of Jesus in the Old Testament. The first Christophany we looked at together was in the book of Genesis when Abraham. Offered his son Isaac in obedience to the Lord, and the angel of the Lord appeared, who was none other than Jesus Christ.
Then we looked at Jacob wrestling with an angel, which turned out to be Jesus, because he said afterwards, I've wrestled with God and I've seen God face to face. Then Jonathan told us the story of Joshua, who encountered the angel of the Lord, or actually Jesus, before he went into battle against Jericho. And here we are now with Gideon having an encounter with Jesus. You say, well, Greg, you're wrong because the Bible says an angel of the Lord came to him.
Well, actually, it says the angel of the Lord came to him. The angel. That's different from an angel.
Now, if an angel were to appear right now, Yeah. be pretty awesome. Angels are magnificent creatures. and they are surrounding the life of the believer. And they are actively involved in our lives.
And in fact, the Apostle John had an angel appear to him. and he bowed down to worship it, and he was strictly forbidden to do that by the angel. But this encounter is different. Because first it's identified as The angel of the Lord, and then the narrative shifts, and we find Gideon calling him the Lord. And also, this angel or the Lord says, I am sending you.
So he uses the first person pronoun, assuming divine authority.
So it's not an angel, it's Jesus. And Jesus is commissioning. Gideon To lead the people of Israel into battle. Gideon's thinking, you got the wrong guy. Are you kidding me?
I'm the last guy you should choose to do this. Look at verse 15. But Lord Gideon replied. How can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I'm least in my entire family.
Another translation put it this way, I'm the runt of the letter.
So not too long ago I was thinking about buying a dog. My wife is not in favor of this. And she hates sweeping up after dogs. But I was looking at a possible dog because we have friends in the church. They have a chocolate lab and it just had a litter.
They said, you want to come see the puppies? She said, Kathy said, don't buy a puppy. But I went over and I'm playing with the puppies and they're so adorable. And some were black and some were dark brown. And I said, oh, I like this one.
Oh, that one's spoken for.
Okay. I like this aggressive one.
Now that one's already been bought, hell. What about this one? That one's already spoken for.
Well, what's left? And they show me this one kind of sad little puppy. He would sit there, sort of fall over, not really, but he was in the pick of the litter. He was the runt of the litter, literally.
Now I wish I could tell you, but I bought that puppy, and he's a wonderful dog. I didn't buy them, I didn't want them. I don't know who ended up with him. But let me just say, even he would be better than any dog with the word oodle in its name. How many of you own some kind of an oodle, a labard oodle?
Raise your hand. Get out. No, don't.
Okay, now let me give you my opinion. And it's not a criticism as much as it's an observation. Because I wondered what is with these oodles, what's with the Labradoodles and all the rest of them? Because they all seem to have the same collective personality. They're very active.
They run around a lot. They don't always seem to obey their owners.
So I did a little deep dive and why is this happening? I'm not the only one who thinks it. You see, the Labrador, very affectionate, loyal dog. Poodle, very intelligent dog.
Something weird happens when you put it together. Oh, but Greg, they're hypoallergenic, duly noted. Still. Anyway, I digress.
So, because I know I'm offending people right now, and there's no point in going on. But you probably know him right. But Gideon was the runt of the litter. But that's okay because God seems to go out of his way. to use unexpected people to do unexpected things.
God loves to do the extraordinary. through the ordinary. For a lot of us that were never the ones chosen. You weren't the homecoming queen. You weren't the pick of the litter, so to speak.
I remember when I would engage in sports and High school and before, I just always wanted to do well in athletics, but I never did. I know what it's like to be picked last for the team. I literally was always picked last for the team. I'll take him, I'll take her, I'll take him, I'll take her. Then at the end there's me and a three-legged dog there.
It's this thing. I'll take the three-legged dog, all right. All right, we'll take Lori. We had Lori last time.
Okay, Greg, you can be first base. You want me to play first base? No, we want you to be first base. We're going to slide into you with our cleats. That's what we actually want.
Though I was really honored recently. to be chosen to be a model on the cover of a magazine. They wanted to use my hands. They said, can we use your hands? Because there are hand models.
Did you know that?
So they photographed my hands and then I found out the name of the magazine, Old and Decomposing. Look for it at your newsstand. Those are my hands on old and decomposing. These are my own jokes, people. What do you want from me?
I write my own material, obviously.
So Gideon says Who am I? And I love the Lord's response. Who am I? Verse 15: the Lord says, That's not the issue. It's who am I?
Not who are you? Who cares who you are? Who am I? and I'm going to be with you. And the Lord calls them a mighty hero.
Hey, mighty hero! The Lord is with you. I think Gideon felt more like a pathetic zero than a mighty hero. But God doesn't just see you for what you are, He sees you for what you can become. You know, we see a vacillating Simon.
God sees a rock like Peter. We see A hate-filled, persecuting Saul of Tarsus, God sees a powerful. Apostle Paul. We see a frightened Gideon. God sees a military leader.
And he chooses him. I mean, to call Gideon a mighty hero, that would be like seeing some kid who can't throw a football and saying, hey, Tom Brady, let me ask you a question. The other day I was throwing a football with my granddaughter Stella. I don't know what's happened. I can't properly throw a pass these days.
It just sort of flying around, and she threw a perfect spiral to me. I said, where did you learn that? She said, Papa, you taught me.
So, somehow, in a moment of lucidity, I taught her how to throw a spiral, and I can't throw one anymore. And my hands are decomposing. This is a bad situation. But I still write my own material. I digress, but the point is: you know, hate Tom Brady, far from it.
or finding some kid who's failing in class and saying, Einstein, come up here. It's kind of a joke, but it wasn't a joke. God saw him for what he would be. But before public victory, We have to obey God at home.
So the Lord says, here's your first test, Gideon, before you lead the troops into battle. You gotta make a stand in your home.
So as it turns out, Gideon's father had erected an altar to Baal. The Lord showed Gideon he needs to tear the altar down. Which Gideon did. But the problem is, maybe it's a problem. I don't think it is.
He did it at night.
Now, some would say, well, he should have done it in broad daylight so everyone could see. Oh, he did it at night. It's his dad's altar. And then the people were so angry, they said, we should execute Gideon. And the funny thing is this father was really moved by what he did and defended his son and got closer to the Lord as a result.
But he took a stand in his own home. And I appreciate that. And I think it's important for us to never give up on our families. But also to remember this, the hardest people to reach with the gospel. is your family.
You know, and there comes a point where they don't need any more sermons. They need you to live the sermon. But every one of us should do everything we can to point our family to Christ.
So if you're a kid living with your parents, Be the best Christian kid you can be, especially if they're not believers. Do your chores, be responsible, be respectful. And that's how you can win your parents to Christ. If you're a Christian woman married to a non-Christian man, be a godly, loving woman. That's how you're going to reach them.
The Bible even says you can do it without a word by the way that you live. And for a husband, if he is married to a non-Christian woman, he should love her as Christ loves the church. Even as we came to Christ because of his love for us. You can win that lady over in time, God willing. Don't give up on her.
But I would like to say a word to men. How many men are there out there? Raise your hand if you're a man. Get up that muscular arm of yours. Men God has called you to be the spiritual leader in your home.
Ladies, You need to do everything you can to support him. as the spiritual leader in your home. You should be able to say, guys, along with Joshua: as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Men, husbands, fathers, you should be reading the scripture to your children. You should be leading prayer.
You should be saying, We're going to go to church now. You say, But what if my kids say we don't want to go? Say, that's interesting. Get in the car, right? Be a man.
Be a leader. Set an example. Here's some interesting stats you might consider. A survey was done that found a mother and father attend church regularly, mother and father. 72% of their children will attend regularly when they're young adults.
That's pretty good.
So if you are here at church today with your family You are setting a great example. And chances are your kids when they're young adults are going to do the same thing. but it goes on. If only the father attends. 55% will attend church regularly.
Sorry, ladies. If only the mother attends regularly, only 15% of the children will attend regularly. These are the stats, I didn't write them. But if neither mother nor father attends regularly, only 6% or remained faithful. You see how important an example is?
You see how important that discipline is?
So, Gideon made a stand in his home.
Now it's time to go to battle against the Midianites. He manages to rally 32,000 men. That's pretty good.
But the problem is the Midianites had 135,000 men.
So he's thinking about how he's going to attack and what he's going to do, and the Lord has another test for him. Let's look at it, Judges 7, verse 2. The Lord said to Gideon, you have too many warriors with you. If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast. That they did it in their own strength.
Therefore, tell the people, whoever is timid or afraid. Leave this mountain and go home. And 22,000 went home. And only 10,000 were remaining who were willing to fight. Wow.
Okay, go to your 32,000 men, Gideon. Say if you're fearful and afraid, go home.
Okay, see ya. 10,000 guys walk away. Why did God want the fearful people to go home? Because fear. is contagious.
I titled this message, Jesus and the Man Who is Afraid. And this is obviously for a woman as well, any person who is afraid. young person, old person, any person. And maybe there's something frightening you right now. Let me share.
Some scriptures about fear. You might want to write. these verses down. Here's a great one. David said, The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom then shall I be afraid? That's Psalm 27. God promises in Isaiah 41, 10, fear not, for I am with you.
Don't be dismayed. I'm your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Proverbs 3:24, you can sleep without fear. You need not be afraid of disaster or the plots of wicked men, for the Lord is with you, He protects you. Why should you remember these? Because the next time you're afraid, you need to quote these verses to yourself.
Something's scaring you, something's freaking you out. Remind yourself, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Of whom then shall I be afraid? The Lord is the strength of my life. Or, as scripture says, 1 Timothy, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Use the word of God. Oh man, Gideon loses two-thirds of his army.
Now what is he going to do? How's he going to handle this?
Now, the Lord's going to bring another test. The Lord says, okay, you still have too many men. Wait, hello? Hello? I have too many men.
Only have 10,000. Yeah, it's too many. I want you to do one more test.
Okay. So go down to this little spring of water. Tell them, go ahead and drink some water. They were dehydrated, really thirsty.
So they went down to this spring, and the Lord says, I want you to observe these men. And those men that go down to the water and just bury their face in the brook and drink without any concern of any enemy attack or ambush. I don't want you to take them into battle. We'll call them the Loppers. But then there's the other group.
who get down by the brook And they are on one knee and they bring the water to their mouth. We'll call them the cuppers. Says those are the ones because they're drinking, but they're watching. They're alert. Dump the loppers, take the cuppers.
That's not technically in the Bible. I'm just summarizing it so you'll remember.
So, what is God looking for? He's looking for people that are aware, who are alert.
Okay, now here's the battle plan.
So, he ends up now with 300 men. 300 men. He had 32,000, now he has 300.
Okay, here's the plan. Kayla, what is it?
Okay. You're going to take a torch, fire. And then you're going to take a trumpet.
So light the torch, put a clay pot around it, And run down the hill and say, For the Lord and for Gideon, smash the clay pot. and then blow your trumpet. Yeah, okay, where do the swords come in? No swords. Shields, no.
Just run down the hill. Crack your little pot. Blow your little trumpet. And yo, for the Lord and for Gideon, that's the plan.
Okay. And as you know, the Bible says, and all the Israelites were murdered that day. It doesn't say that. What happens is the Israelites obey God. They run down the hill, do the craziest thing you've ever heard.
It's about as crazy as marching around Jericho, maybe a little crazier. And the Midianites see these Flames and they hear these trumpets, they think they're being attacked from all sides. They get disoriented, start attacking each other, and they kill themselves. And by the time the Israelites arrive, all of their enemy are dead.
So, God got the glory for that. This is crazy. You can go into plug for that. It's a Bible story. Applaud.
This would be like a Pop Warner team beating the Buffalo Bills in a football game. This would be like a little league team beating the LA Dodgers. How does something like this even happen?
Well, God did it. And we're in a battle. If you like it or not, You're in a spiritual battle. And the only choice you have is are you going to fight or are you going to lose? Are you going to gain ground or are you going to lose ground?
Well, I'm like a pacifist, okay?
Okay, cool, but you're gonna die, all right?
So you better put on the armor of God. Ephesians 6 says, We're not fighting against people made of flesh and blood. But against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, against wicked spirits. in the heavenly realms.
Now I talked about angels. Angels are powerful. Supernatural beings created by God, but there are also fallen angels. When Satan, who was once a high-ranking angel, also known as Lucifer, rebelled against God, he led an angelic rebellion and took one-third of the angels with him. Those angels.
Are now fallen angels, also known as demons. And they're actively working in the world today.
So we fight a spiritual battle. And to fight a spiritual battle, you need spiritual armor. Ephesians 6 says you need to put on the helmet of salvation. to protect your mind. You need to put on the breastplate Of righteousness.
You need to have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And most importantly, you need the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And this battle rages on every day. And it's not easy. Because as Christians, we're going to be misrepresented.
We're going to be attacked. We're going to be criticized. We're going to be slandered. We possibly could even be killed. Charlie Kirk was an outspoken Christian.
And he died expressing his faith and his beliefs. You say, well, Greg, you've kind of talked me out of wanting to be a Christian.
Well, I hope not. Because the Christian faith is not only worth living for, It's worth dying for. It really is. Greg, could you do a message instead on how to be successful in life and how to have perfect health and well?
Sorry, I'm just telling you what the Bible says. But here's the deal. We need to. put our armor on. and realize we're in a battle.
and trust the Lord. Why did the Lord Purge this army because he didn't want any half-hearted people. And the problem is there's a lot of half-hearted people. in the church today and what's half-hearted, it's kind of like, yeah, yeah. I'm kind of in, I'm kind of out.
I'll go to church this Sunday. Maybe I won't next Sunday. Maybe I won't for a whole month. Then I'll come back and go, you know, just half-hearted. I'll read the Bible.
Maybe I won't read the Bible. I'll obey God here. Maybe I won't obey God here. I'll do this. I won't, you know, and you just sort of.
Go through life doing it. Without a complete commitment, and God is looking. For people that are totally committed, God can do more with 300 committed people than He can do with 10,000 half-hearted followers. Which one are you? Are you a half-hearted person?
Or are you a committed believer? English evangelist John Wesley once said, and I quote: Give me a hundred men who love God. With all of their hearts, and fear nothing but sin, and I will move the world. End quote. There's more than 100 here.
If I could find 100 men, 100 women, 200 in total, maybe 150 of each. We could see our whole county, our state, Our nation changed. who love God with all of their hearts and fear nothing but sin. I started my message by pointing out that things are upside down in our culture. And there's a passage in the book of Acts describing Paul and Silas.
And wherever they went, there was either a revival or a riot. And there was a criticism made of them. When it says, Paul and Silas have turned the rest of the world upside down, and now they're here disturbing our city. Lord, give us more disturbances like that. They've already turned the world upside down.
Now they're disturbing us. Oh, yes, because our world is upside down. We need to turn it right side up. That's what Paul and Silas did. That's what we need to do as well.
We hope to create a disturbance in Utah. in our harvest event called Hope for America in just four weeks. God is looking for men and women who will blow the trumpet, so to speak. Men and women that will make us stand in their own homes. People who are willing to step out from the half-hearted, fickle multitudes and be true followers of Jesus Christ.
Would you be such a person? Because if you will, God will use you to change your world. Because God can turn zeros into heroes. He can turn fear into faith. He can turn hiding into fighting.
And he can turn panic into purpose.
So let me close now. And shift gears a little bit. when I was a brand new Christian. I remember I Everything was so new to me. In fact, it was so new to me, it was sort of alien to me.
And let me explain. I came from an alcoholic home. My mom was married and divorced seven times. And I never was told I was loved. I was never hugged.
And so I go to church, Calvary Chapel, experiencing the Jesus movement. And there's all these people. I love you, brother. Praise the Lord. And it was a little too much for me.
It was. Why? Because I was a broken person. You know, I was a person who had kind of been chewed up and spit out, and I was very cynical and I was very hard. I developed these skills, if you want to call them that, to survive.
And now I come into this environment of real Christianity. And I remember I was invited over to a house where a bunch of Christians were gathering and they're eating and singing and praying and quoting scriptures. And I'm like, I don't know if I could do this. I knew it was right. I wanted to do it, but I thought, I don't know if this is going to work for me.
I'm just too cynical about these things. And literally, I was thinking of walking out the door. I like it, it's good, but I don't know if I'm going to be the best Christian out there. I'm not the Christian type. They need to find someone else.
And I was thinking of walking out the door, and I remember I saw a sign over. the doorway in the kitchen. And it was a statement of Jesus that said, be not afraid, only believe. And that really spoke to me. I thought, wow.
That's it, because I have all these questions. If you can answer this question or that question, be not afraid, only believe. And I made a choice. to believe. And I didn't walk out that door.
And that was the best decision I ever made next to coming to Christ. You have questions, you say, if you could answer this question, preacher, I would become a Christian, would you? I suggest to you And if you become a follower of Jesus, Most of your questions will be answered. Maybe not all of them, but most of them will be. But you must believe with as much faith as you can muster.
Just believe and say, all right, I'm taking this step forward. I'm going to do this.
Now I'm going to take the next step forward. And that's what we all need to do. God came to Gideon in a way he could understand, and God will come to you in the same way wherever you are in life. Maybe you're at the beginning of life and you're young and you're looking forward. Maybe you're at the middle of life.
Maybe you're toward the end of life and you're looking back, but Jesus is with you wherever you are and he's ready to enter your world and change your life. Don't be afraid. Only believe.
So we're going to pray right now, and I'm going to give an opportunity for anybody here who wants to believe, anybody who's watching, wherever you are.
Some of you are in another campus. You're in Riverside, you're in Hawaii, or some of you are watching online or watching this somewhere. Doesn't matter, what I'm saying to you is true. Jesus will come to you where you are and he will change your life.
So we're going to pray. Pray in a moment, and I'm going to extend an opportunity for you to come to Christ. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He came to this earth in a rescue operation. for you.
He died on the cross for your sin. He rose again from the dead three days later. And he is alive. And he is here, standing at the door of your life and knocking. And he says, if you hear his voice and open the door, he will come in.
If you want him to come into your life, that can happen for you right now. Let's pray.
Now, Father, we pray. For any person who is hearing this, maybe for the first time, maybe they've heard it before. But they need to believe. They need to come to you. They need to receive your forgiveness.
Help them to do that. I pray that your Holy Spirit will convict them and convince them of their need for Jesus and draw them to yourself now.
Now while our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed and we're praying. If you want Jesus Christ to come into your life, If you want him to forgive you of your sin. If you're ready to believe in him. Wherever you are, I want you to lift your hand up. And I want to pray for you.
Raise your hand up saying, I need Jesus today. Pray for me. I want him to forgive me of my sin. Let me pray for you. God bless you.
God bless you. and you. Raise it up high where I can see it, please. God bless you. I see you.
God bless you. Yeah in the back there. God bless. God bless all of you. Anyone else, raise your hand up.
I want to pray for you. right now. God bless. Now, some of you are in another campus and you're raising your hand. This is for you as well, wherever you are.
Now, I'm going to ask if you would please, every one of you that raised your hand, would you please stand to your feet? And I'm going to lead you in a prayer. I'm going to have you pray a prayer out loud again. You raise your hand, stand to your feet. And I'm going to pray with you.
Others are standing. You won't be alone. Just stand up. We're going to pray. Don't be embarrassed.
You're among friends and family here, okay?
So don't worry about this. This is good. Stand up. Even if you did not raise your hand, but you want to make this commitment, a recommitment to Christ, stand up, and I'm going to lead you in a prayer. Stand up.
There might be a few more. Stand now. There at Riverside used Stan. Maui, campus, stand. Wherever you are, stand up.
You're in an overflow area. You stand too. And I'm going to lead you in this prayer. I'll wait one more moment. Anybody else?
Anybody else stand now? God bless you. God bless you. Be not afraid. Only believe.
Take that step of faith. God bless you. I'll wait one more moment, then we'll pray. Anybody else? All right, God bless you.
Okay, all of you standing, I want you to pray this prayer out loud after me. Again, as I pray, pray this out loud after me. Pray this now, Lord Jesus. I know that I'm a sinner. But I know that you're the Savior.
Who died on the cross for my sin. I turn from my sin now. And I choose to follow you. From this moment forward. Thank you for hearing this prayer.
Thank you for answering this prayer. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. God bless you all who prayed that prayer.
Hey everybody, thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.org. And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest.org and click on know God. Mm-hmm.
