Because the Tomb is empty…Anything is Possible-Pastor Joby Martin

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You're not crushing a power nap right now. You're ready to be on Truth Talk. Well, it's an honor to have you. And I really enjoyed your book. I want to love this first segment, talk a little bit about you and your testimony.

And then get into maybe some of the book for sure in the second segment or some of this segment. But who is Joby Martin? I am just a nobody willing to tell anybody about the somebody who wants to save everybody. Man, I grew up in a little tiny town called Dillon, South Carolina. It's a truck stop basically off of I-95. And my daddy said best thing ever come out of Dillon is I-95.

And that's a fact. I didn't really grow up in church. Got radically saved as a teenager at a church camp.

Fell in college as I was graduating. I actually was going to go to med school, I thought. I just wanted to be rich and respected.

And so I thought if I was a doctor I could do that. God called me to ministry. So I started preaching and pretty much doing that. I've been on church staff for 30 years now. Planted this church in 2012. The church of 1122. Now I got to know, everyone wants to know, and I've heard some versions of this, but I want to hear right from Pastor Joby's mouth, you know, the how you came upon that name. I got to hear. Well, I'm a total accidental church planner.

I didn't mean to. I was a youth pastor at my church at Beach United Methodist Church, and they let me be in charge of a service. And so we just called it 1122 so that people would know what time to come to church.

That was it. And we met on Sunday mornings at, you know, at a church that already had services. So in about within a year, God breathed on it and our service had outgrown the church. And my pastor, Pastor Jerry Sweat is the best Christian I've ever met. He just said, I think it's time that we should launch you and you should plant a church.

I didn't even know what that was. And he said you should be the lead pastor. And so at that point, lots of people in Jacksonville had heard. 1122 and we just we decided to just keep the name. Now, we did proof text the Bible.

We looked through the whole thing and found Mark 1122 says Jesus answered, had faith in God. But it really just started with the time. I love it. And I love the notion of that.

I love it. I want to talk about this a little bit. You know, you mentioned a few times your book, you know, an island of misfit toys, just how God brings so many together. And this is what church should be. And it's so refresh.

Just a breath of fresh air to be here. Dylan, South Carolina. Now, your show, this program will be heard on 100.9 FM, the cross blasting all over Dylan and all of those areas down there near Florence and everywhere in Myrtle Beach. It's a famous resort area. People don't know about Myrtle Beach. Have you ever heard of Myrtle Beach or been there? Yeah, man, I've spent many, many days. Yeah, I lived there for a couple summers and worked at Barefoot Landing and did many things at Myrtle Beach, of which Jesus died to pay him. And so it was just a little throwback to Dylan.

And we blessed you with some muscadine juice is a blessing because that's a big, you know, that grape grows all over North and South Carolina. So I just want to ask you, Joby, this is a just an interesting question from I'm not going to mention any names, Trey, but how does a guy that doesn't get saved till he's 16, grows up in a very rural area, goes to a liberal seminary, has become an expositor of God's word, preaching all these people? How does that happen? Because if the tomb is empty, anything is possible, man, because I mean, God's famous for taking the least likely and least qualified and and putting them to work for him. Right. So, I mean, the reason that I just go verse by verse in the scripture is because that is where the power is. The power is not in my story.

The power is not in my ability to deliver. The power is in the word of God. And so I did have very good roots in regards to even though I grew up in church. But but I got saved at Camp Pine Hill Baptist Retreat Center.

So all the people in Dillon will know what that is. And I am forever indebted to places like First Baptist Dillon and First Baptist Marion and all of those P.D. churches that came together that funded Pine Hill. There's a bunch of us in ministry now that got saved in those Piney Woods, man. And so when I did get saved, I had a great reverence for God's word. And the thing is, when I went to that liberal seminary, first of all, I didn't know they were going to be liberal. It had Baptist in the name. So I figured all Baptists were the same, apparently.

They're not. It just made me love and appreciate God's word even more. I came out more theologically conservative than when I went in.

And so but it was, you know, it was a real wrestle. And so that's what we do, man. We just teach the Bible here. We tried to do it in a way that whether you're a long time disciple or you're brand new in your faith, then God's word can speak to you through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So one hundred twenty two is a movement for all people to discover a deeper relationship with Jesus. So we just go I mean, we we just just finished teaching the book of Philippians. We we're going to teach the book of James all summer.

I mean, we just teach the Bible. That's the voice of Joey Martin, Pastor Joey Martin, pastor of one hundred twenty two, who just preached his heart out and I just heard him. It was just got a page of notes in here in my Bible. Pastor Joey, who has inspired you to preach the word like you do and into, you know, focus with a Christ centered, you know, gospel centered focus? I mean, there's some old school guys, you know, Dr. Charles Stanley and Adrian Rogers and those guys that just had a gift to unpack the word.

I think a little more recently, but a generation ahead of me would be the John Piper's kind of those guys of the world. And then what's great is some of my best like pastor buddies are some of the best preachers on the planet. Matt Chandler and J.D. Greer, you know, some of those guys. I love listening to them and being sharpened by them. And some of those guys, we swap sermons around and just try to help each other get better, too. So I'm so appreciative to to the number of people that are just teaching God's word, you know, in a way that people can understand it. Your newest book, Anything is Possible How Nine Miracles of Jesus Reveal God's Love for You.

Just quick general question about that. And I'd love just to do a quick boom, boom, boom on each chapter in the next segment. But Pastor Joby, talk about what what led to this book. This is this is now out. People are getting it.

It's doing real well. You just preached a whole sermon on it. And I thought I read the chapter thoroughly and I heard things and I took notes on it, you know, that are just just hit me real fresh. But what what what is it that drove, you know, that drove this? Well, a couple of things. It's really like part two. My first book is called If the Tomb is Empty.

And this is like part two, Anything is Possible. So I've been a pastor for 30 years. And I can't tell you the number of times that I have sat with folks from our church and they say, Pastor, I am in an impossible situation, impossible marriage, finances, health, whatever the thing is.

And then one day it just kind of fell out of my mouth. I was like, listen, man, if the tomb is empty, then anything is possible. If God can breathe new life into his dead son, he can breathe new life into your marriage.

He can, you know, those things. But I also think the evangelical church needs some gospel centered books on miracles, because we're not chasing miracles. We're chasing the maker of miracles that in the gospel of John.

John never calls them miracles. He calls them signs because a sign points to something greater than itself. So the point of this book is to point people to Jesus.

That is it. And so the only reason I started writing books is to just is one more platform to help make disciples. So there's a chapter on what do you do when God didn't do what you think he ought to do. Because while I was writing this book, my best friend died. There's another chapter on how do you respond to miracles?

I mean, we it should be a gratitude party every time we get together and and have church. And and during the same time, another one of my best friends comes out with a brain tumor. They told him he had three years to live, maybe a year and a half good.

And then he'd be in hospice. That was two and a half years ago, man. And so but God healed him. So but the point is not the miracle.

The point is knowing and believing and trusting in the maker of the miracles. Wow. And I just met some of those people before coming in here. You went back to hug some new believers and share some love and some stories and some copies of God's word. I was able to meet some I was able to meet your buddy Ben.

I was able to meet some of these folks. Amazing testimonies. Want to get into that next powerful story about praying for your grandma. What a story there.

And how can a law enforcement forgive and adopt the man that murdered his son? What a story. We'll come back with that, OK, and just do a quick go into this. We're not going to give away too much so people don't get the book. We want people to pick this book up and it would be a blessing to them. Pastors, anyone that want to hear and be just blessed and reminded of the great miracles of Christ. The book is anything is possible. The author, Pastor Jobe Martin, back with him right after this quick break.

Hang on. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. What happens when the unexplainable intersects the undeniable? Miracles are impossible.

They defy explanation. What about the miracles of Jesus? When's the last time you saw a miracle in your own life? I was just in a room with people who have had miracles happen to them.

They've had prayer. They've been delivered from addictions and all kinds of things because their pastor has just he's written this first book. If the tomb is empty and then he writes this second book, anything is possible. And we're talking about that book right now. And we're it's just fascinating to see someone write. It's one thing to write a book on theory. Pastor Jobe Martin, where, hey, this happened in the Bible a long time ago.

Here's the flannel graph Sunday school version of it. It's another thing to see someone absolutely healed miraculously like your grandma, who you talk about at the beginning of the book. And then thank God you brought it back to that at the end. Well, I mean, one of the last time I've seen a miracle, I saw thirty three tonight. I saw the only eternal miracle is salvation because my grandma has since passed away since then. You know, it's long. I mean, she was eighty eight. So it's not a tragedy. You're right. She lived a long, glorious life.

Yes. So in the book, I'm in college back when there was this thing called the answering machine. And I come home in the nineteen hundreds and see that my mom's left a message and my grandmother was having a stint put in and they nicked her aorta and she was bleeding out. And as at a little place in Marion, so they can't really handle it. They life flight her to Charleston. And and all I know to do is pray, man.

And man, if you get like John 13, 14, 15, just that whole run, there's a bunch of times where he says you have not because you ask not. And so I ask I get two days later, I show up at my grandma's house and she's vacuuming and it's it's miraculous. My mom is a registered nurse and she would say they can't explain it.

So what do you do? It's it's it's inexplicable, but it's undeniable. So I'm believing God healed her. Yeah. And this whole book is chronicles of that.

And again, it's not just theory, it's practice. What's God done? What God has done in your life? But you're not bragging about it because there's some there's some messy stuff. There's some there's Jesus weeping.

Correct. I mean, the Lord of the universe weeping over a whole lot of things. But so it gets messy ministries, messy. And, you know, and you talk about your church to church is being a place of misfit toys or a bunch of, you know, wounded warriors are coming together. And so that's that's been a lot of your testimonies you shared in our first visit segment together. But that's that's kind of how you describe your church.

Yeah, for sure, man. This this place is a movement for all people. It's not just for church people. It's for it's for all people, man, all the people that Jesus say, but we're not into the crowd business. We are into in the disciple making business. And so that's why we exist as a church and you come as you are. You just don't stay that way. Jesus changes you forever.

We're going to do a blow by blow of the chapters. But first question, I come into a church like this. I mean, the lights are perfect. The camera angles are great. The worship team is all they're all on note.

Great voices. But there's a real sense of God's presence. There's there's a vertical to, you know, nature to the worship. But then the message I'm expecting some, you know, if you're expecting some kind of lightweight, you know, shallow kind of milk, you're going to be caught off guard because, pastor, you got up and you preached expositionally from the scripture. Some folks say that doesn't fit.

You got it. How do you have all these people here? You got to be more secret, secret system.

You got to quit talking about repentance and censor. What's wrong with you? Yeah, we're not in the crowd business. I mean, so here's what happened when I was in high school. Remember when the military would come and like and like come do high school assembly and get people to sign up for different branches? Well, God bless all the branches and all the military. I'm in high school and Air Force, Marines, Army, Navy are all there. Navy guy goes first, goes, You guys are shining up for the Navy. We'll show you the world on Uncle Sam's dime. The Air Force guy goes next. He's like, Nope, don't do that.

You can work nine to five, give you a nice apartment. The Army guys, if you want to get a job after service, then you come sign up with me. They all went over their time. The Marine steps up and he goes, Well, these boys all went over time.

I've only got two minutes. He scans the the crowd of high school juniors. And he goes, But that's fine, because there's only about two of you that have what it takes to be a Marine. If you think you're one of those two, come see me.

He has a line out the door. OK, so I think the seeker, even though the Bible says that no one seeks for God, I think it's changed. I have I have an appreciation for those guys that fought the worship wars and I can preach in jeans. I have a great appreciation for that. I think today's quote unquote seeker is thinking, all right, if I'm going to show up to church, just give me the goods, man.

What are you asking me to sign up for? And so that's what we do. We just lay the gospel before them.

So, yeah, it's only going to cost you your entire life. That you've got to lay down your life for the sake of the cross. We're not trying to trick them with three steps to be a better version of themselves, because, well, ultimately, I'm not ashamed of the power of the gospel. It's the only thing that has the power to change a life. So Jesus said, we lift him up, he will draw all men unto himself.

So that's what we do now. We don't take ourselves very seriously. I don't mind laughing, having a good time, telling a good story and that kind of thing. But I'm also not trying to preach to impress you or my dead seminary professors or my famous preacher friends. I'm just trying to share the gospel in a way that the regular person in Jacksonville and a long time disciple can understand and apply, because the real teacher here is the Holy Spirit. If you've ever learned anything through my preaching, I didn't teach it to you. I can expose you to the word of God, but only the spirit of God can expose the word of God to you. So I have a great trust in the power of God through the gift of preaching. In a world where the church has lost its moorings, where the church has become more like the world, rather than being a change, rather than the transformation of Romans 12, there's this conforming going on.

So it's really refreshing to hear that. But when you show up to a church like this, you see all the lights, you see all these people, you may not know anything about your church or your preaching style. In my first time here a couple years ago, if I were to hear you're preaching about miracles, I'm thinking, well, he's just like those TV guys that worship the miracles. It's all about the miracles. But you celebrated 33 miracles tonight that this is like Lazarus, he might have died again, right? How about having two funerals?

How does that feel, Laz? Yeah, that's right. I just don't know why so many churches have tried to make it either or. Like either you could have like a dynamic worship experience where you're just, you see, here's the thing, man.

Church, people argue all the time. Somebody asked me the other day, is church for Christians or church for lost people? And I'm like, church is for God. When he is your audience, he wants people to grow in their relationship with him and be conformed to the likeness and image of his son Jesus. And God is really into saving people.

He sent Jesus to die on the cross for those people. So when you aim at exalting him. So we try to do that in our worship and the environments we create for sure. We try to do it in teaching the word of God. We're not aiming at people.

We're aiming at him. That's fundamental difference. Yeah.

And you. But it's putting faith. You claim to believe the word. You talk about it being all sufficient and it's inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. And so you saw the word of God do its work in the party is the glory goes to Jesus, which was sung about and preached about. And you even have a self-deprecating way of reminding people that it's not, you know, it's not Joby's church. It's Jesus's church. Right. A hundred percent. And my sermons are moderately delivered and exceptionally received.

I mean, that's just true. Like the real preacher here is the spirit of God, not me. I'm glad I get to do it while he'll let me do it. But there will be a day where I'm done and he's going to raise somebody else. My goal is to love my wife, be a great dad, be a decent preacher, priest the gospel, die and be forgotten.

That's what I want to do. Wow. That's the voice of Pastor Joby Martin. I'm with him right now. We're in his study. He just preached and a great time in worship. Many came to Christ celebrating the empty tomb. Thank God the tomb is empty.

Our life doesn't have to be. Right. And he's here. His sequel to that book is Anything is Possible. This is this is OK. Now, this book is got nine chapters and I'd love to just go through these chapters, if I could, Pastor Joby, with you and just give a little a little punch on each one.

You know, we'll just kind of walk through. So the book again, Anything is Possible. How nine miracles of Jesus reveal God's love for you. And this is by the way, if you like Bible study, this is an intense look at scripture.

I mean, I'm open to this up in the other stories. There's anecdotes, but there is a lot of scripture exposition. You're getting to Greek words, like the Greek word for faith and other things, which is really, you know, so I'm underlining and marking and saying, wait a second, I could use this for my Bible studies.

Chapter one, take us through chapter one real quick. Your summary of that water into wine. Do you believe enough to obey?

I think the greatest advice in the Bible for the believer is found in John, chapter two, verse five. They run out of wine. Mary goes to Jesus.

Hey, boy, they're out of wine. She goes, woman, what does this have to do with me? Husbands never quote that to your wife, by the way. And because he's like, my hour is not yet come. And then she gets some service together. And here's the best advice.

John, two, five. Do whatever he tells you to do. That's a pretty good definition of discipleship, by the way. What's your next step of obedience? And what's crazy?

He tells them to do like five crazy things. Get water jars, fill them up with water. It was dirty water where people have been washing their hands, get a ladle, scoop it out, take it to the master of ceremonies.

None of that makes sense. And little do they know, there's a miracle on the other end of about five steps of obedience. Now, the real miracle is not water to wine. The real miracle is you are the dirty water and that God does not just flavor you or strain out the bad stuff. He transforms you into something completely new.

Okay. Chapter two, the paralytic. Do you believe Jesus will carry you? Man, as a pastor, I love this because one of my greatest fears is that the crowd will keep people from getting to Jesus. One of the things that's impressive to me is this brother, this paralytic on the mat has four friends that will tote him to Jesus.

I mean, you want to get real practical? Name your four friends that will tote you to Jesus that will drop what they have going on and will go through the burden of picking you up and dragging you to Jesus. And when they get there, not stop because there's no room, but tear a hole in the roof. Also, a part of the reason we will do virtually whatever it takes to make room for one more person is because that's what these men are commended for. In fact, when the brother is being lowered down through the roof, through the hole in the roof, Jesus says that he sees the faith of the friends and says, I forgive you.

Imagine that. I mean, do you have the kind of faith on behalf of your friends that's leading them to Jesus? And then he heals the man only as a sign just to prove that he is God and he has the power to forgive sin.

Wow. Chapter three, healing at the pool of Bethesda. Do you believe Jesus can heal you? What a question. Well, Jesus asked this man, right? Thirty eight years, he's laying by the pool of Bethesda.

I was just there like three weeks ago. And he asked this man, I mean, it's such an important question. Do you want to be healed? And on the surface, you're like, what a dumb question.

Of course he does. This is why he's waiting by the pool where he thinks the angels are going to stir the water and get in. But 30 years of ministry, there's a lot of people that don't want to be healed. They have so identified with their wound that if that wound goes away, their identity goes away. There's a lot of people that don't go don't want to be healed because if they're healed, then what excuse do they have for their bad behavior anymore? And so it's a key question. Do you want to be healed?

And then it's interesting. Jesus tells the man, take up your mat and go. And the Pharisees, they missed the miracle for the mat. I wonder how many church folk don't see the miracle of life change because all they can focus on is that person is not using the right words or they're not dressed the right way or they don't have the right hair cut or color or whatever the thing is, man. And so I want to make sure that you see the miracle and not the not the mat that they carry.

Wow. And there's a whole lot more in all these chapters, but we're doing it. We're doing a blow by blow with Pastor Jobe Martin, his new book, Anything is Possible. And chapter four, I know people have heard about this, the feeding of the 5000.

Do you believe even when doubts creep in? Yeah, right. It seems like the peak of Jesus's growth in his ministry, maybe 20,000 people there.

They got 12 baskets full of leftovers. The disciples are probably thinking we have made a wise choice to follow this rabbi. And then Jesus starts with crazy talk. Unless you eat my flesh, drink my blood, you have no part with me.

People start leaving. It's very difficult. The disciples say this is a hard teaching.

You think the Jews can't even eat pork, much less a profit. Like, what is he talking about? Then he looks at Peter and says, Do you want to leave, too? He's asking him because he knows the heart of every man. He knows Peter's like, I've made a terrible decision. I think I'm out because I don't understand what he's doing. So what do you do when God doesn't do what you think he ought to do?

In the midst of writing this chapter, I'm on a hunting trip with my best friend. He dies of a massive heart attack. He's 56 years old. I led him to Christ. I baptized him. He's a general contractor building all of our campuses. He dedicated his whole life to literally build the facilities where people get saved and hear the gospel. OK, I have a long list of people that I think God ought to take out.

Bradley was not one of them. So you know what you do when you're faced with that question? It's Peter's answer that gets you through it. He says, To whom shall we go? You're the only one that offers eternal life. So what do you do when you don't get the miracle you're praying for? You pick up your doubts. You follow after Jesus just because you trust him.

You know he's good, even though you because he could explain this. Eat the flesh, drink the blood thing. He could say, I'm going to institute the Lord's Supper. It is to point people to the gospel.

That's what I mean. Apart from the gospel, you have no part with me. He doesn't explain a thing. There will be a day when I step into heaven.

The curtains are peeled back. I see clearly and I'll go, look, you did it again. I knew you were up to something that I couldn't understand. So right now, by faith, I just have to believe. Well, I just tell you, and I've had a few moments like this reading a book and I love to read. And I love reading people that are bringing people to Jesus. But man, you got me when you're because you were writing this book.

Your best friend just died on a dream trip where you're staying in castles and hunting stags in the beautiful fertile land of Scotland. And you're writing this book, Pastor. This is a crucible of pain that's real, I guess. I mean, 100 percent.

And yet the craziest. I'll tell you what, man. You know, I hear some pastors kind of kind of like poo poo and the importance of the weekend gathering. And they'll say things like, well, you know what? The church doesn't exist.

People just come sit in rows and listen to me do a talk. And I think, well, if that's the only thing that you think happens when the saints gather together, no wonder nothing's happening in your place. I think it's the it's one of the most important things we can do. I mean, lives are transformed. Marriages are saved.

I mean, chains are broken. When Bradley went down, I was on sabbatical and all the sabbatical coaches were like, hey, you got to stay away from your church while you're on sabbatical. And I thought, no way in the world. The only thing I wanted to do is I wanted to get here with our people. I wanted to sit under the word of God. I wanted to sing the songs, pray the prayers. And at the end, I wanted to sprint to that altar and get down on my knees with my church family around me and pray that it matters. So this is is really one of the painful ones here.

And then I mean, it gets more painful. You know, Chapter five, the raising of Lazarus, we were mentioned, you know, referenced him a little bit earlier. Do you believe Jesus can raise the dead to life?

Yeah, man, there's a lot in this chapter. I mean, the Bible says that, you know, Mary and Martha send the messenger to Jesus and say, hey, the one that you love is sick. And so two things can simultaneously be true. Jesus loves Lazarus. Fact. Lazarus is sick.

Fact. So how do you deal with that? And then he waits. You ever notice he's not on our timing? Then he gets there. Lazarus is dead. Both girls ask the same question. Where have you been?

What you doing? And Jesus meets them right where they are. For one, he has a theological dissertation about I am the resurrection in life. So that seems to help Martha out for Mary. He just puts his arm around her and weeps. It's crazy that we we serve a God that bleeds and weeps.

And think about this. Why is he crying, man? He knows like how long did he wait?

Forty five minutes, hour and a half. I don't know. The Bible doesn't say he knows the end of the story. He knows, like, hold on, man, this is not going to end in death. He knows it's going to be cool. He's going to call Lazarus.

He's going to come out. But we serve a God whose name is Yahweh. I am that I am the eternal present.

And he is eternally present with you right now in what you were going through, even though he knows he's at work and all things for the good of those that love him are called according to his purpose. And then one of my favorite things about this whole event is that when Jesus calls Lazarus out of the grave, the first thing that he commands him to do, he says, y'all take his grave clothes off because they don't fit anymore. Living people don't need to wear dead people clothes. Wow. And there's a bunch of believers and they're alive and you still got grave clothes on.

Think about how silly it would be two weeks later to see Lazarus and he's still got his dead men clothes on. What are you doing, man? You stink. Take those off. They don't fit you. That's what sin in the believer's life is.

It's not just bad. It just doesn't fit you. That's not who you are. You don't have to do the things you used to do because you're not the person you used to be. You were dead.

Now you're alive. So walk in the manner worthy of the gospel. Chapter six. Mary annoys Jesus. Do you believe Jesus is worthy of worship no matter what?

Yeah. So I love this. So right after Lazarus comes out of the grave, Mary's like, let's throw a party.

And I love this, too. They're at Simon the leper's house. Now, I wonder why everybody wants to identify people by their issue, because he's not a leper anymore. It ought to be Simon the healed man's house or Simon that used to be leper house. I can imagine that Simon is serving food because he's never been able to have anybody over.

He's never been able to touch his food. Right. And then Mary is overwhelmed with gratitude. Every single one of us live on a continuum between entitlement and gratitude. Worship is an expression of gratitude. If you've got a worship problem in church, you've got a gratitude problem with Jesus. So she takes the most valuable thing in her world and she just pours it all over Jesus. And then there's a group of religious people going, you're not doing it right.

We could have used that for something else. So any time you find yourself critical of the expressiveness of another person's worship, be careful. You're not on Team Jesus. You're on Team Pharisee in that moment.

And so I want to lead a church that pours out our heart of gratitude when we gather together to have a gratitude party. Pastor Joby, could you have refrained from talking about how much we love our money in that chapter? It was kind of convincing.

You got the medal in there, sir. Well, man, I mean, it's Jesus. I mean, he only talks about it like every third verse of his teaching ministry.

Yeah. I mean, Jesus says where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. Everybody values something.

And the only way to ever truly enjoy the treasures God gives you is to treasure Christ above anything that he's ever given you. OK, we're doing a blow by blow. The book is Anything is Possible.

And it's just as you can hear, this stuff is real. And this book just came out. I've got it all marked up here. I've got Chapter 7.

Pastor Joby Martin, the author of this book and pastor of the church of 1122 is my guest. I'm in his office and we're going to talk about all these antlers in a second. So maybe at the end you'll explain all these antlers. I mean, there's every kind of wild beast mounted in here.

So someone in here is a hunter. We're going to talk about that in a second. But Chapter 7, the bleeding woman. Do you believe Jesus is who he says he is? So this woman who's been bleeding for 12 years, it's a it's a gospel sandwich story because Jesus, he heals Jerry's daughter, who is 12 years old in the same thing. OK, so you've got this famous guy, this powerful guy with a name and right in the middle of it, he heals this nameless woman that can't even be around people.

She's a nobody. And yet I think the only way to understand this is to know the prophecy of Malachi that says, and there will come a day where the son of righteousness will come with healing in his wings. That word is khanaf.

It means the edge of a garment. And I think she's in Capernaum and she sees it. She thinks, I think that's him. I think he's the son of righteousness.

I believe the word of God to the point where I'm going to risk it all, because if I can just grasp that the hem of his garment and Malachi was telling the truth, then there's healing there. OK, and we just got two more here. This is a big one.

This is the big one here. The empty tomb. Do you believe God raised his son to life?

Yeah. And if you do, I mean, if he did not spare his own son, then what would he would hold from us? It is the foundation of our faith. We don't we don't have faith and faith and belief and belief, man. We believe in first with first hand eyewitness testimony that Jesus was crucified, dead, buried and resurrected in accordance with the scripture.

It is it is everything for us. And if he was not raised from the dead, then we are wasting our time and should be mocked. I want to come back to the to the law enforcement story, which just shook an entire, you know, hundreds of people just a few minutes ago.

But I want to go to Chapter nine real quick. The gift of the Holy Spirit, the final chapter of the book. Do you want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection? So other than salvation, which is the eternal miracle, this is the miracle guaranteed to everybody that puts their faith in Christ. I mean, the miracle of Pentecost, not the thing with the languages, but the the filling and indwelling of the Holy Spirit is guaranteed to every believer. And then Jesus says, you're going to do even greater things than I've done. And so I want us to live like the tomb is empty and the spirit indwells the believer. I mean, I've read my Bible many times.

I have yet to find an expiration date on the power of the Spirit of God. And so he says that we should be doing the kind of things that he was doing and even greater things. I don't think he means greater in magnitude, like I've never walked on water. Right.

I've never ascended to heaven. Right. But we've planted churches all over the world. And the the the reach and the and the breadth of the ministry that Jesus is talking about.

I think that's what he means. More people may hear this broadcast podcast than Christ even spoke to in his whole ministry. And just but that's the power of his word. That's the power of the blood that was, you know, that still speaks like they just saying about. And then Pastor Joby Kleenex boxes were being passed around. People were in tears. You showed a video in the middle of your service and it wrecked us all about a law enforcement gentleman. The power forgiveness. Quickly speak to that as we wrap up. You just the this anything is possible fleshed out, you know, by someone that you knew that the community knew all over the news.

How could this happen? Yeah. So it's Sergeant Ike Brown. His story is in the book. He's a sergeant with a JSO Jacksonville sheriff's office. And one night he found out that his 21 year old son had been murdered.

Just wrong place, wrong time. He comes face to face with his son's murder in court. And Sergeant Ike can't explain it. He just can't deny it. First time he saw him. His son's murder. He just said, I loved him.

I just loved him. And so there were a series of letters. Sergeant Ike invited his son's murderer to be his son. He said, will you do me a favor and will you take my son's place? And well, interesting enough to get the murderer is named Tocoya. Tocoya is in prison saying, God, if you're real, show me, show yourself to me. The next day he receives a letter from Ike Brown saying, I love you because God loves me.

I love you. That moment, Tocoya surrenders his life to Christ. And then a couple of years later, Ike legally adopts Tocoya into his family as his son.

Tocoya is serving a life sentence. It is a picture of the gospel. 1 Peter 2.24 says that Christ bore our sins in his body upon the tree. It's our sin that murdered Jesus. And God the Father looks at his son's murderers and says, if you trust in me, I won't condemn you. I'll adopt you as my own. It's a picture of the gospel.

I love it. Check this book out. Get it anywhere Christian books are. You might want to read the first one. You know, if the tomb is empty, just a powerful. You had testaments for people in your church that were saved from, transformed from addictions, healed, delivered all kinds of things. This is your second book. And it's already taken off.

Anything is possible. How nine miracles of Jesus reveal God's love for you. I mean, what you got to explain all these all these props in here. Pastor, I mean, I'm looking I'm looking at all kinds. I can't even name all these animals, but there's some antlers around all around us. What what is this is the hall of the Hebrews Hall of Antlers.

You know, tell us. I write all my sermon and sermons in the woods, man. Acts 10 13 says rise up, kill and eat.

And so everybody doesn't have to do it. But, you know, I love getting out of the woods and chasing animals and hunting things with a bow. And man, if you need it just helps me feel closer to the Lord.

Jesus's invitation is abiding me and I will abide in you. So tomorrow morning at daybreak, I will be out in the turkey woods. And if you've never seen the woods come alive in the morning out where you're not breathing air conditioned air. Right. But you just hear the birds chirping and the turkeys gobble and the bugs buzzing. I'm just telling you, man, I just think we were meant for it. And so I do it a lot and I bring some trophies home.

And but we also, you know, we eat what we kill. So I love it. Pastor Joey Martin closes with a word. Any word you want to say to all the people listening out there?

They're maybe still kind of knocking on the door, checking it out. I'm not good enough for God to save me. You know, I don't fit in.

None of this makes sense. What would you say to just anyone there? You know, you're kind of your final parting word.

This book, anything is possible. You know what God's doing in your church and your ministry and your passion for souls closes out here. Yeah, man, God's love for you is is not because of how good you are or how bad you are.

It doesn't disqualify you, nor can you earn it. But God has ultimately, finally and fully demonstrated his love for you in this, that even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And then he put an exclamation point on it because he walked out of the tomb so that we don't serve a dead rabbi. We serve a living Christ who loves you.