When You Long For a Companion

The hour is late, much later than you think. Today, her trial by fire, and her new book. We think you'll find this hour compelling, uplifting, and informative.

Now, here is Jan Markell. Did God move Trump to move Americans out of the way, freeing up Russia to come down, like the Bible says they will? And then a friend who's in the news business sent me a picture of our American base in northern Syria, that the day after we left was filled with Russian troops, and they had moved into our Russian base.

They're now in northern Syria. So I'm just wondering if it's like a chessboard, and if the pieces are being moved to set up, maybe the last of the last days, but maybe also that Ezekiel 38 war. And welcome to the program. I played that little tease because I have, as my guest for the hour, the familiar voice of Anne Graham Lotz, and we're going to be hitting on a number of topics in this particular hour because a new book has crossed my desk in the last month or so, written by Anne, and I had the privilege of hosting her at my 2016 Understanding the Times conference just outside Minneapolis. I might even play a little three minute clip of her message a little bit later if we have time. Anne has had a five-year journey that qualifies her to write about trial, about heartache, and even about loneliness. It's the journey I think every one of us must embark on, and it involves illness, loss, coping with the struggles of life this side of heaven. Her newest book is titled Jesus in Me, Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a Constant Companion. I'm not sure I considered the person of the Trinity quite that way, and I'll kind of explain that as we move into the hour here, but I also want to talk to Anne about some current issues happening today. She's a watchwoman on the wall. That's why I played that little clip of her commenting on just what in the world is going on in Syria. Is that setting a stage?

We read about the Ezekiel War and Ezekiel 38-39. Welcome, Anne Graham Lotz, back to Understanding the Times radio. Jan, thank you so much. I'm always encouraged and blessed to talk with you.

You're very stimulating. Well, I'll do my best, but let me just comment and say this because I've certainly been following you over the last five years. You've gone through a lot, and we'll get into that here in this hour, but listen, whenever I saw a picture of you, I'm talking about here in the last three to four years, the media would be covering whatever, the funeral of your dad, your chemo treatment, the loss of your husband Danny.

Here's what struck me. You always had that wonderful smile on your face that seemed to say to me, God had everything under control. You know, Jan, the interesting thing when I look back, there have been tears, I won't say that, but underneath it all has been that deep wellspring of joy, and I've never lost my joy, I've never lost my peace, and never lost an awareness of blessing after blessing. In fact, I think this last year going through cancer surgery and chemo and radiation, I think my sense of God's blessing was enhanced, and you look for blessings, or at least I did, every time I went to the doctor, the hospital, you meet people that are dying all around you, they're in the waiting rooms, you know, and then the opportunities to share truth and hope and life and the way people rallied around me, the prayers of God's people that I believe in response to their prayers, God has healed me, and I'm filled with joy, and it doesn't mean I don't get tired, doesn't mean that I don't miss my husband and my daddy and wish I could do some things physically that I can't do, but God has been faithful, and he doesn't always deliver us from bad things, but he does take us through. I love that little preposition, he brings us through. So you're doing okay at this point, you've been through a lot of chemotherapy, and just chatting with you, you're on the rebound, would I be right?

You're absolutely right, and I'm back to walking two, two and a half miles every day, I'm eating good, you know, I feel I'm tired, and I'll be honest that I get tired easily, I don't seem to have the stamina that I had, but I think that's going to come back, and so I feel like I'm doing really well, in fact, the doctor looked at me, I went to see her last week, and she looked at me, she said, Ann, you are doing great, I was pretty strong going into all this, I was healthy going into it, as healthy as you can be and have cancer, you know, and I think that helped, and I wasn't afraid, so I think that also helped, I had that peace through everything, and trusted the Lord, my life is in God's hands, if he wants to take it, so be it, you know, if he leaves me here, I'm going to serve him longer, so I'm okay. Well, you've written an outstanding book, and I'm going to get to that in just a moment, quite frankly, as we were chatting here before the program, I even said to you when the book crossed my desk, I said to myself, am I going to learn something new from this, and I said that with skepticism, and I started getting into it, Ann, and I love it, it is just outstanding, and we'll get into that in just a moment, I just want to ask you here a couple of questions first, because in the few years since you've ministered here, you were here in 2016, lots of things have exploded, of course, you were here right before our 2016 election, and literally two weeks before our 2016 election, and you filled my auditorium in a suburb of Minneapolis, as a matter of fact, what you may not know about that year, Ann, is partly because, and I'm not saying this to flatter, honestly, I'm not, partly because of your participation in that conference, and our venue holds 4,300 people, we had 6,000 people in that facility that day to hear my conference, and hear you and the other speakers, the traffic was backed up on the freeways, in a way it was a nightmare, it was a delightful little nightmare that we had on our hands, folks wanted to understand the times, they wanted to hear what you had to say, what Amir had to say, and what the other guests had to say that day, all right, the Middle East seems to be the epicenter, we constantly look at where all the turmoil is, it's quite often somehow having to do with Jerusalem, having to do with Israel, this is one of your burdens as well, I mean, we've got both capitals as we speak, Washington and Jerusalem, as we speak, are in turmoil, they're trying to get rid of Prime Minister Netanyahu, they're trying to get rid of President Trump, I mean, there's some kind of spooky parallels going on here. There are, and so I don't know that I can decipher it, but I know that God is moving. It's not a coincidence that those two things would be happening simultaneously.

You know, I don't know what the outcome will be. But I know that God is the one who places kings and presidents on their drones, and then he's the one that removes them. And all of this turmoil in Washington in particular, I just can't help but think it's a huge distraction to keep the presence marred into something when his full attention, if he gave his full attention to the Middle East, he probably wouldn't have enough time to give it the attention it needs. And yet you've got North Korea now that's threatening and you've got so many things around the globe.

It's interesting the other strong democracy would be the United Kingdom. And they're in turmoil. It's a mess. A lot of the world is in turmoil, some of it's bad turmoil, some of it's almost the spirit of Antichrist, because it's lawlessness, it's rebellion. In other places like Iran, they're simply belonging to be free. Hong Kong, Iran, those are I think I would call them more freedom fighters.

A lot of the areas it seems to be anarchy, lawlessness, rioting, just trying to perhaps overthrow corrupt leadership. I just sense the spirit of Antichrist being poured out across the earth as we head more and more into the last of the last days. Let me move into the issue with, let me get your book out here.

I got this probably a month or two ago, I think it came out first of October. Folks, the title of Anne's book is Jesus and Me Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a Constant Companion. You say this, I'm going right now to a comment you have in your book. You say, because you're no stranger here to trial, but you say, the indispensable necessity of the Holy Spirit has never been more evident in my life than during the writing of this book. And then you say, as I began the challenge of putting words on a page, my father whom I adored went to heaven. I was already a widow and his homegoing left me an orphan.

Your father's homegoing left you an orphan. Six months later, diagnosed with breast cancer, went through follow-up surgery, and then began the brutal chemotherapy treatments through the ups and downs, the tears and joy, the grief and comfort. I have experienced the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit.

Let me just back up a little bit more, Anne, because you lost Danny in 2015, followed by, I would say, five years of turmoil. And yet, my goodness, the product you have produced here on the person of the Holy Spirit really left me almost speechless. Did that all come about through all of this struggle? I have had the message of the Holy Spirit on my heart for years. And I actually tried to submit it to a publisher before I did, I think it was a magnificent obsession on Abraham, and we went with something else. And then this last, maybe two years ago, I just felt the burden heavy on my heart. And I actually switched publishers and submitted this, and they just jumped at it. So that was in process. I had just turned in the rough draft in May, and then in June, I went to Jerusalem and spoke at the prayer breakfast.

And then went back, I took a tour of 200 people, came back, and it was one week after coming back from that second trip to Israel that summer that I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And so the rough draft had been written, but the editing, the rewriting, the theological review, all of that had not been done. And the neat thing, Jan, was that God had my focus at a time when you would think you can't take anymore, but he had my focus on the Holy Spirit and who the Holy Spirit is in the nitty-gritty. You know, he's not just someone that's there for some high and lofty worship service in a cathedral or stained glass window or just super spiritual people. He is Jesus in me. And Jesus said, I'm going to ask the Father to give you another comforter, meaning that he was a comforter, and the Father would give us another one.

And that word, another, means someone exactly the same as. So that's why I get the title of the book that the Holy Spirit, he's a separate distinct person. I don't want anybody to misunderstand me, but he is exactly like Jesus. He is Jesus without the man's physical body, without the skin.

His will, his intellect, his power, his emotions, all that Jesus is, lives inside of me in the person of the Holy Spirit. And I can tell you, going through what I've been going through, I know there are people listening who have gone through worse things. So I don't mean that mine is the worst, but I do know that at the depths, and when you get slammed again and again, and there's those bends in the road, and life throws you a curve, the Holy Spirit is there to give peace, to give comfort, to give wisdom. The biggest thing I faced at the very beginning was just, I don't have a husband to talk to, I don't have a father to run to. Where do I go for treatment?

When the mammogram showed that I had breast cancer, it's like, now what do I do? And so I was recommended a doctor, and I went to her and saw her several times, and I just couldn't sleep one night, and asked the Lord, four o'clock in the morning, why can't I sleep? And he just whispered to me, I wasn't with the right doctor.

And that scared me. Then where do I go? Who's the right doctor? And within six hours, I had the answer. I had lunch with some friends and a friend who'd been through cancer, and she set me up with the head of the cancer center in Chapel Hill, which is our big university hospital. And when I went over there, I knew that was the right place for me. So he gave me wisdom. When I was desperate, I had nobody to turn to to ask.

I mean, I had my primary care doctor and all that, but they had sent me to one that I felt like the Lord told me, that's not right for you. Let me read what you write here, because you comment on this. I love the way you say it. It's on page two and three. I'm just reading two short paragraphs. You say, what I needed is a walking partner for life, someone who would come alongside me and share every step of my journey, day in and day out, someone in whom I could confide, someone with whom I could discuss issues that are on my mind, someone who would answer my questions, help me with decisions, listen to my complaints, my fears, my worries, my dreams, someone I could trust, believe, enjoy, someone whose very presence would bring joy and peace and hope, someone who would know me, who would understand me, someone who would love me. Where have I found such a walking partner? Amazingly, as a child of God, I didn't have to look around for one. I just needed to look within, because God has given me the ultimate walking partner for life, His Spirit, and not just for life, but forever.

And then you conclude, and I'm skipping some paragraphs. I have learned day in and day out that the Holy Spirit is all that Jesus is, though without His physical body, He is Jesus without skin. Just as Jesus is the exact representation of God, the Father, the Spirit is the exact representation of Jesus' mind, will, and emotions.

He is the invisible Jesus. The Holy Spirit is Jesus in me, which therefore is the title of the book. And that was beautifully written.

And you know what? As I read that, there were thousands of people identifying with what I just read, because they need that person too. Well, you know, I dedicated the book to the lonely. Yes, you did.

And I did that at the very beginning. And then, in a sense, in my life, I got lonelier. You can sit on a chemo bed, and everybody understands that. And I found out afterwards that loneliness is, like, 22% of adult Americans are so lonely, they have suicidal thoughts, and that it's an epidemic among millennials. And I think one reason they live on their ear pods, you know, they're just live in a virtual world, and they're desperately lonely. And so I have been alone, and I understand what loneliness is like, but I've not been lonely because of the presence of the Holy Spirit. He is a very real person. And I think we do him a disservice when we think of him as a flame of fire, or dove, or an ecstatic spirit, or all these other things, but he's a living person. And when you open up your heart to him, and yield your life to him, and surrender everything to him, the Bible says he can fill your life. And with that filling comes not necessarily 24-7 feelings of his presence, but that deep sense of, I'm okay, I'm in his hands, he is here, he's guiding me, he's taking care of me, he loves me. It's deeper than feelings. It's a faith that's rooted in God's Word, but God's Word is authored by the Holy Spirit. So it's all wrapped up together.

That's right. If you just join me, folks, you're listening to Understanding the Times Radio, Jan Markell talking with Anne Graham Lotz. Her book came across my desk probably six weeks ago now, Jesus and Me Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a Constant Companion. You can find it anywhere books are sold, christianbook.com, any Christian bookstore, other places, outlets as well will carry it.

It's hardbound, you can get it as an ebook as well. And just let me comment here on a little bit on what we're talking about. Because we're in such a busy society, and it's tempting to mechanically read the Bible, or maybe not even daily, maybe skip a day or two just because, again, of busyness. But you encourage readers to hear the Spirit's whispers. Now, to hear anyone's whispers, we have to be quiet, and we have to shut out all the external and internal noise, and that is not easy here in the 21st century. That's exactly right. And I think one reason the 21st century is so noisy, with all the distractions and the pressures and things like email and cell phones have made life more convenient, but busier.

Busy, busy, busy. And I think some of it is the enemy is behind it, just to keep us from that stillness, where the Scripture says, be still and know that I am God. And it does require stillness. I remember in Ezekiel, it's when the angels dropped their wings and they were still, that's when the voice spoke from heaven. So at the back of the book, I have four appendix, and one of them is how you hear the Spirit's whispers. And it's just a simple method of reading your Bible. I do it every morning.

I did it this morning, I'm working through the Christmas chapter, starting in Matthew. And just amazing when you go through, you just read a paragraph and ask, what does it say? List the facts, and then what do the facts mean? I try to draw a spiritual lesson from each one of the facts.

What does it mean in my life? And I just form it into a question that I would ask myself. It's amazing. And Matthew starts with the genealogy.

I can't tell you how much I got out of that genealogy, just about that simple little format. And then I hear the Spirit whispering. And by that, I mean, it's like a verse or a thought, a principle seems to leap up off the page. And I know it's God speaking to me through His Word.

In fact, it was a word that He had not so much for me, but for someone that I love, and it was something I shared with them that day. I think very often, if we're not in the Word every day, for me, I do that in the morning. If I'm not listening to His whispers all day long, but especially in the morning when I read my Bible, then I may not have the very thing that somebody else needs during the day that I bump into. So often, it's what I've received from the Lord in the morning that then is the bread, so to speak, that I share with others during the day. And that was true this past Sunday.

It was so sweet. So I just try to tune my heart and my spiritual ears to listen to the Holy Spirit whispering to me through His Word. And He does speak through the Word. God's Word speaks. It's a supernatural book. It's one that you can read for prophecy, of course, in history and theology and poetry.

But it's more than that. It's God's living Word. And He speaks through that living Word to His children. And if we open up our hearts, and I pray first, and I ask the Holy Spirit to speak to me, and again, again, not every day, but again, and again, He'll whisper to me something that's just what I need, or just what I need to give to somebody else. We're gonna play just a little clip here. It's a little one minute clip of you because I love the way you wrap up this little comment of yours.

I'll comment when we come back. Can I just underscore that God is inviting you and me, not into a denomination, or into a tradition, or to an organization. He is inviting you and me into a personal relationship. What could be more personal? What could be more intimate than having Jesus on the inside of me?

I want to share with you my experience of the Holy Spirit as a constant companion. He is not a flame of fire. He is not a dove.

He is not an ecstatic emotion. He can be represented by those things. But the Holy Spirit is Jesus in me. And my prayer for this book is that as you read it, you too will come to know Him and to love Him and to experience Him as your constant companion.

God bless you. And you say you cannot go through trauma or trials without the Holy Spirit. Now, first of all, every Christian has the Holy Spirit. We really are all equipped with His presence in us. What do you mean when you say we cannot go through trauma and trials without the Holy Spirit? Well, you can't go through triumphantly.

Okay. I mean, you can go through them, you can survive, but you can't go through, I don't think, with that joy and peace and awareness of God's blessing, the hope that you have for tomorrow, all the things that the Holy Spirit gives us if your life is not filled with the Holy Spirit. And yes, we all have the Holy Spirit. I firmly believe when I invited Jesus into my heart and the little girl, that He came into my life. And because the Holy Spirit is a person, I've received all of the Holy Spirit when I was a little girl that I'll ever have.

But the difference is, does He have all of me? And so I go through life, and as I surrender my life to Him, and I believe that's why He lets us go through breaking experiences, things that crush us, because it expands our capacity as we surrender to Him and submit to Him in that, it expands our capacity to be filled with Him. And our experience of Him is richer and deeper and more wonderful than if we hadn't gone through that terrible experience. You're right, we each have the Holy Spirit, but I'm not sure He has each one of us in a full capacity. Let me ask you this, because it's kind of one of the bullet points, and that would be, what are some misconceptions about the Holy Spirit?

And there are legions of them. One might be that He's the lesser of three people, and He really isn't. But no, He's not. But we think of that because He's referred to as a third person of the Trinity. So you have the grand glorious God the Father, and then you have the beloved Son of God, Jesus. But we don't know what to do with the Holy Spirit, and so He's like a P.S.

We tack Him on, and therefore we neglect Him. We think He's not necessary, but He's called the third person of the Trinity because God the Father is the one who's more fully revealed in the Old Testament, God the Son more fully revealed in the Gospels, and then it's God the Holy Spirit revealed in Acts and the Epistles. And so He's the third one to be more fully revealed in Scripture. So it has nothing to do with His position, because He is God.

He's equally God with the Father and with the Son. And so that's one misconception, and one that I had, Jan, growing up. I was raised in a Christian home, raised in the church.

We were in church every Sunday. I can never remember being taught about the Holy Spirit, and maybe I wasn't. It just went in one ear and out the other, but in my church where I was raised, He was referred to as the Holy Ghost, so that there was a benediction in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and then you're baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or you're married in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The ghost was off-putting to me as little girls. That was a misconception that He's spooky. He's a ghost.

He comes and goes, and He's just not somebody I wanted to draw near to at all. And it wasn't until I was studying the Scriptures for myself as a young adult that I came across that passage in John that said, He's another me. And Jesus said in John 16, it's better if I go away, because if I go away, then the Holy Spirit will come. In other words, it's better to have Jesus absent visibly and to have the Holy Spirit invisibly present than it would be to have Jesus visibly present all the time.

That was an amazing thing to me. And so I began to look into who the Holy Spirit is, and He's not an optional extra. You know, He's a divine necessity. He's wonderful, and He makes life worth living.

And you have someone to go through everything with, whether you're a widow or an orphan like me, or maybe you've got a full house and you're happy in relationships. But deep down, nobody can truly understand this except Jesus, really, and Jesus in the person of the Holy Spirit. He understands us. We don't have to say a word. And He knows what we're thinking, what we're feeling, what we're hoping for, what we're afraid of.

And we can talk to Him about things that we would never talk to anybody else about, not even our husbands. I think another title for the book could have been something about my constant companion. That's kind of what I walked away with as I read the book. You put in some interesting anecdotes. You've got a story in there about a car accident. You've got a story in there about you could have been killed by a black bear in some wooded area. I love it when you bring in those kinds of miraculous stories and how you survived and things like that. Could another title have been the Holy Spirit being your constant companion because He's by our side at every minute and He's even looking out for us.

That's right. This is a new thought to me, Jan. So I'll share with you, as I was studying the Holy Spirit, I thought when I received Him as a little girl that He came into me because the Father told Him to. Anne has received Jesus. Now, Holy Spirit, you go into her and you make her good. So that one day the Holy Spirit would present me to God the Father and He would say, Well, I've done the best that I could with what I had.

And I thought He was like a professional partner. And then I found that word in Ephesians where it says, Don't grieve the Holy Spirit. And grief, I grieve for my mother because I loved her and I miss her. And I grieve for my daddy because I love him and miss him. And I grieve for my husband because I loved him and miss him.

And I thought grief is a love word. And if I can grieve the Holy Spirit, it must mean that He loves me so that when I do the right thing, He rejoices. When I do the wrong thing, He grieves because the Holy Spirit wants what's best for me. He wants me to experience the fullness of God's blessing. He wants me to fulfill the potential that God has for me. So He takes full responsibility for me.

But I love the fact that the Holy Spirit loves me. He's emotionally involved in my life. He's not detached. It's not mechanical.

It's not professional. He's all wrapped up in my life. He loves me. We think of Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so. Well, the Holy Spirit is Jesus in me and He loves me also and is going to present me one day before the Father without fault, blameless. And that old nature will drop off and I'm going to be like Jesus. And, you know, we can't look at the Holy Spirit, but He's going to be there. And I'm going to know that He's brought me to completion.

He's done it day by day as I've yielded my life to Him. You'd like to learn more? Visit Ann's website, anngramlottes.org.

Anngramlottes.org. Let me just say this as we kind of wind down our first segment here that I have the book in front of me, Jesus and me experiencing the Holy Spirit as a constant companion. And I was able to read a good portion of the book. Honestly, when I originally got it, I kind of thought, don't I know pretty much a lot about the Holy Spirit after years and years in church? Well, I learned so much in this book.

Honestly, it's such a blessing. But not only that, I know Ann lots. I know her because we had her here in the Twin Cities. She was able to minister to one of my conferences.

I'll hopefully play just a short clip in the second segment of the programming. All I'm trying to say is she lives what she teaches and writes. She just lives what she's talking about here. And she has been through the fire in the last five years. And we kind of went through that the first part of the program. I'd like to take my first break of the program and want to get back. Ann, I want to hit on just a couple of other topics, too, before time gets away from us. I do want to ask you about the funeral of your dad back in March of 2018, which I was able to catch the whole thing, fortunately, on YouTube. I also want to talk to you just for a few minutes about what you spoke to my conference about in 2016.

Because at that time, we were literally weeks before an election, national election. And here we are, we're heading there again. Now we're months before the 2020 election. I just want to get some comments from you as we look back and as we look forward. Folks, we're going to do that. I'm coming back in just a couple of minutes. Please don't go away.

We appreciate hearing from our listeners. Contact us through our website, olivetreeviews.org. That's olivetreeviews.org. Call us Central Time at 763-559-4444. That's 763-559-4444. We get our mail by writing to Olive Tree Ministries in Jan Markell, Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. That's Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. Thank you for your faithful support of understanding the Times Radio now in our 20th year.

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We have a media team that works daily on your behalf. The King is coming, perhaps even today. And Jesus said in verse 32, Now learn this lesson from the fig tree.

As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it's near right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. So Jesus could have been saying, when you take all these signs and you see all these things happening in one generation, that's the generation. So that would be legitimate. That's a right interpretation of that. But in the Old Testament, the fig tree always represented Israel. And several days earlier, He was teaching His disciples and the fig tree represented Israel. So in this parable, I believe He was speaking of Israel. When you see Israel, who's been dormant, no leaves for 2,000 years, and then she puts forth leaves and she begins to come to life again, the generation that sees Israel reborn, becoming a nation again, is the generation that's the last. Some of us have grown up with this. We just don't think of the phenomena that after 2,000 years, after 70 AD, when Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were dispersed all over the world, Israel did not exist anymore.

And after 2,000 years, the descendants of her ancient people went back to her ancient homeland, speaking their ancient language, and were re-established in the family of nations. That's a phenomenon. That was a God thing.

That was supernatural. And I believe Jesus is saying, when you put all of these signs together, and they're ratcheting up, remember the birth pains, in the same generation, when the nation of Israel was reborn, that's the generation. So my daddy says, Ann, what's the generation? And I said, Daddy, I don't know, 40 years, 70 years, but it's mine. The nation of Israel was reborn May 14, 1948. I was born May 21, 1948.

That's my generation. I believe with all my heart, if I live out my natural lifetime, I will live to see the return of Jesus Christ to planet earth. We have appreciated the ministry of Ann Graham Lotz and are so pleased to get an update from her this hour. Jan Markell wraps up her discussion with Ann in this segment. They revisit her message at our Understanding the Times conference in 2016.

Here is Jan Markell. And it says, I do not want you to be ignorant, Ann, concerning those who have fallen asleep. And fallen asleep is just the biblical term for when God's children die.

It's just the falling asleep. It's when you close your eyes to this life, you open them to the face of Jesus. It's when your faith becomes sight. So I don't want you to be ignorant, Ann, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if you believe that Jesus died and rose again, and I do, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord. This is God's word.

It's not fantasy, it's not wish, it's not a hope zone. This we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord himself, Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus, will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

That's my daddy, that's my mother, that's my husband. Then you and I who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. And this is the comfort. There is hope for tomorrow. This life is not all there is.

The best is yet to come. And welcome back. You might remember that was Ann speaking at her father's funeral back in March of 2018. My goodness, getting a message of the rapture being given forth there at the funeral of Reverend Billy Graham.

We're going to talk about that and some other things in the time remaining. Just let me quickly add here that I will be speaking at Rock Harbor Church in Bakersfield, California next Sunday. It'll be Sunday, January 12th in the morning and the following Wednesday, January 15th. If you would consult the church for times and details, it's Pastor Brandon Holt House Church in Bakersfield, California, January 12th in the morning and Wednesday evening, January 15th. Rock Harbor Church in Liberty High School is where they meet on Joetta Avenue in Bakersfield.

Call the church please for details. I'll have some further details about the month of January as we move further into that month. I want to go back to the focus of my attention for the hour, which has been primarily Ann Graham Lotz because a new book crossed my desk, Jesus in Me, Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a Constant Companion.

Ann, I'm taking just a little detour here. I played a clip of you speaking at your father's funeral. This is March of 2018. You had some very high profile people in attendance.

You referenced last days there. Did you have any feedback? The President was in the front row, Vice President Pence in the front row? You know, I got feedback from all over the world and I think as I share in the book, I shared the preamble to that. It was remarkable in that I had no time really to prepare a message or pull my thoughts together, just the intensity of the time and the schedule. And when I stood up, all of the distractions and doubts just melted away.

If you can ever feel the Holy Spirit coming through and speaking with force, I felt he gave me the words, he gave me the inflection. And what I likened Daddy to was, according to the Jewish reading for the day, was about Moses's death. And Moses was the great liberator of God's people. And that Daddy, as the great liberator of God's people, the one who led them out of bondage to sin, to the cross, where they were forgiven and received Christ. Then after Moses, of course, comes Joshua, who brought the people into the Promised Land. And I just wondered if my Daddy's death, his life was very significant in the history of God's people. And I wondered if his death was just as significant, if it was a shot across the bow, and if God was just letting us know Moses, in a sense, you know, spiritual Moses has died, but Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus is coming and he's going to take us home.

He's going to take us into the Promised Land. Then I read that passage from 1 Thessalonians, because when I would go see my father, whether my family was with me or not, we always had devotions in the evening, and I would gather whoever the caregivers were with Daddy, and anybody who was in the house would come in, and then I would lead them in devotions. And Daddy, he loved it. He would comment, he would stop and ask questions. Towards the end, he wouldn't say much, but he would just come out in his preaching voice and say, Amen, when I finished. So I did that Bible reading, as though it were our devotions with Daddy for the last time. And if he had been there, present at that moment, I mean, he was in his spirit, I guess, and his body was there in the coffin. But I read that, as though I were giving it to the family for devotions.

And the greater family in front of me was the Who's Who of the evangelical world, including, as you said, the President of the United States, the Vice President, the Governor of our state, all sorts of Congressmen and Senators and dignitaries. But I believed his death was a wake up call to God's people, even though that's been two years ago, or maybe just not quite two years ago. And we say, well, God hasn't done anything yet.

So Anne, were you wrong? And no, God's time is not our time. And He warns us, He wants all to come to repentance, because He doesn't want any to perish. But I believe, Jan, that we're living on the cusp of eternity. I believe we're right at the moment when the sky won't unfold, and the angel will blow the trumpet and we'll be caught up in the air to be with Jesus.

In my spirit, I feel it's very soon. And we talked earlier in the previous segment about the turmoil in the world. And that's turmoil that we can see.

What we see is the tip of the iceberg. But in the invisible world, I think is something that would take our breath away. And I think there's this tremendous battle in the invisible world, in the heavenlies, for the souls of men, and for human history, for the human race, for the rulership of this planet. And I think God has it all under control. But at the proper time, He'll send Jesus to take us home and then begins that period of tribulation. And then what we think of is the return of Jesus when He comes back to reign and rule in this world. But I believe we're very close to that moment, if not right on it. And yet, so many believers seem to be asleep. Oh, and I quote our friend, Bill Koenig, all the time, who says that we are in the most significant time in history with the most vital things happening on a daily basis as they relate to the Bible, to Bible prophecy, with the least amount of interest in the world and the church ever. Such a tragedy. But the sad thing is that within the church, there seem to be so many people asleep, so many walking dead. Yeah, walking dead.

I couldn't agree more. Physically alive, but they're spiritually dead. And it frightens me, Jana, for years. I've held Just Give Me Jesus revival poured out my heart. And I know some people are waking up.

I know that. I know that there are many people who've had a personal revival, but the broad revival that you and I long for, the waking up of God's people across the board, has yet to happen. And it may not before He comes.

We may have to wait. We won't be here. I mean, there'll be a tremendous revival in the tribulation. Church is gone, of course.

The 144,000 will be doing an amazing job of evangelism at that time. I want to play one more clip of you. This is back in October of 2016. And you are talking to my audience at Understanding the Times 2016 about judgment is coming.

And once the clip is finished, I want to come back and talk to you about it for just a minute or two. April 10th, 1912, the greatest, largest, most luxurious ship ever to be built left Southampton, England, the Titanic. And she set sail. And April 11th, she began to get warnings, multiple warnings that there were ice flows in her path. April 12th, she got multiple warnings. April 13th, she got multiple warnings. April 14th, she got seven different warnings from ships in the area saying, go around, change your course. You're headed towards an ice flow.

It's dangerous. And the telegraph operator on the Titanic because they were partying and having a good time, people sending telegrams, receiving telegrams, all, you know, their friends in Europe and the United States and telling them what they were doing. And the telegraph operator, he got the messages, all of them, all the warnings. He read them.

He just didn't heed them. So at 1120, on the night of April 14th, the Titanic hit an iceberg. And at 220, on the early morning of April 15th, two hours and 40 minutes later, a Titanic went down. And the rest is history. And I'm here to tell you that our ship of state is headed towards an iceberg. And the warnings have come one after another. Turn around, change course. You're headed towards disaster. But I don't see America changing course. I don't see her.

I don't even see, can I just tell you? Never mind America. I don't even see the church heeding the warnings.

So I won't worry about the people on the street. I'm worried about us. Because God is warning you and me. And the warning is this. Judgment is coming. These things have always happened.

Yes, they have, but not to this degree. So the warnings are credible, comprehensive, they are compelling. God is merciful. Yes, he is. God is loving. Yes, he is. God is kind. Yes, he is. God is forgiving. Yes, he is. God is patient, not willing for any to perish.

Yes, he is. But God is also holy and just and righteous. Amen. And there comes a point when he's had enough. He said in Genesis six, my spirit will not always strive with man. And God's spirit strives with man to restrain evil so life can go on. But if God removes the spirits, then there's no restraint for evil. And that's when you have chaos and confusion and catastrophe.

And can I just tell you, that's where we are. Not like we'll be at the rapture, when God's spirit is removed in a dramatic way as his people are caught up to heaven. But right now I believe we're in a Romans one judgment.

And if you go through Romans one, there are cycles. And when people refuse to repent, they disobey God, they continue in their sin, God just backs away, and he removes his hand. And the people continue to sin, rebel against him, disobey him, so he backs away further.

And people continue to sin and refuse to repent and disobey him, he backs away for until the end of Romans one. You have God giving us over to ourselves to a reprobate mind. We can't even think straight anymore.

No common sense. Okay, Anne Graham Lotz, that was October 2016. Since then, we've had a little bit of a reprieve since you gave that message. And some of the evil that had been going on, I think was a little bit altered by the current administration. And America has blessed Israel mightily in the last three years. I mean, I still think we're in Romans one phase.

Do you? I believe we still are. But I think we've had a little bit of a reprieve.

We've had a reprieve in some of our legal, political, judicial things, but not morally. And morally and spiritually, we have plunged into bankruptcy. The reprobate mind, I was just listening to that and understand why Jeremiah wept, because he warned Judah again and again and again that judgment was coming. And Judah mocked him, and judgment came through the Babylonians. And Jeremiah wept because he knew what was coming, but they wouldn't heed the warning.

And I know what's coming, Jan. Actually, I believe we're under judgment now. And the chaos, the confusion, Antifa, some of these resistance, all of that, what I think is an overthrow of our Republic. They don't just hate Trump, but they hate our way of life. They hate America. They want to overthrow us. And I see in that the judgment of God, we're going to have to make a choice.

We're going to have to choose. And I personally believe, whether the President knows it or not, whether he's aware of it or not, I believe God has placed him in office. And one of the things God's doing through President Trump is revealing the corruption and the depth and the breadth of so much muck that's been in Washington, D.C. that I never would have dreamed was there. You can call it deep state. You can call it whatever you want, but it's just it's rebellion against our way of life and against freedom and against God.

So many of the people that are against the President are also against Christians and against the cross and against things that we would stand for our values. I honestly believe in Romans one, you know, God just those cycles, each one he backs farther and farther away. And on the end, he just gives them over. And I think that's where we are. I think he's backed away for a long time. I've just urged people to turn to him. You can repent now and return to the Lord, Joel said. And who knows, but that he won't bless you instead of judge you. I almost believe we're past that point of no return.

I don't know that. And I know we have another election coming up. And it's one of the things I pray for the President and his wife every day. I pray for Israel every day, the peace of Jerusalem, and just pray for God's strength and for God's protection and God's anointing on the President and his leadership, as well as on Israel and her leadership, praying that if the noose tightens around Israel, Jan, I'm just going to say it, and I know this is so offensive to people, but I'm praying the noose would tighten to the point that Israel will look up and she'll cry out to God and he'll send her not, you know, in the old days and Judges, he would send a Gideon or he'd send a Samson. I believe if they'll look up and cry out, he'll send them Jesus. Jesus is the Messiah, and he would come and deliver them. So I'm looking for them to have their eyes opened, that those blinders that have been on there for so long, that they would look on Jesus, they'll mourn because they'll see that the one they pierced was their Messiah who came the first time, but he's coming the second time and he will deliver them and they can be reconciled with God. So I long for Israel to recognize Jesus as Messiah. There's kind of a soft coup going on.

I referenced this first part of the program, both in America and Israel. Both governments are in turmoil, both leaders of both countries trying to throw the guys out, Netanyahu and President Trump. Even as we speak, I call it a soft coup. Progressives in both nations are trying to oust effective leaders, such effective leaders. I so resonate with what you've just said, and that is this Romans 1 mentality. You and I are looking at stories and headlines and news items on a daily basis. You can only see so much of, let's just say, for illustration here, Drag Queen Story Hour, and you realize we've sunk to a new low and we start dragging these little two and three-year-olds into the world of male homosexuals acting like women, etc., and trying to brainwash these two-year-olds to accept this. You know we've fallen to a new low. It's grievous because it goes against how God created us to be.

One year, my little girl, she wanted a red tricycle for Christmas, and my husband waited till Christmas Eve to put it together, and by the time he finished, every wheel went in a different direction, the handlebars were crooked, and then he reached in the bottom and he picked out a white piece of paper and it said, read very carefully, manufacture his directions for assembly. And I think we make a mess of our lives, and then we think, oh my goodness, there's got to be directions for life somewhere, and that's what we find in the Bible. And the Bible, the directions that God gives us are not to make us enjoy life less or to restrict us or to cause us to be unhappy. Actually, his directions make life work, and so when you go outside of his directions and you start making up your own rules and even deciding you were to make up your own gender, then you're going so far outside that your life is not going to work, and I don't care what you say, you can march to say all these things and assert your right for whatever, and in America we have the right to do whatever, we have the right to sin, we have the right to choose to sin, but we don't have the right to choose the consequences, and that's what scares me for this next generation, because they're being raised without any moral absolutes, they're being raised without a sense of God's love. They don't even know there is a God, Jan, they don't know that Jesus is his son. I'm talking about people across the board, and I live in the southeastern part of the United States where we have a lot of churches, but in the schools, my grandchildren are in high school, and those children are ignorant of the truth, they are so ignorant, nobody has taught them of the Bible. You don't read it, they don't go to church, the name of Jesus isn't allowed in the schools, it's stunning, and so they're going to make up life as they, you know, want to live it, and it's not going to work.

Somewhere the rubber will hit the road and it will crash, and then we're just headed for destruction is what it is, we're under the judgment of God, but I will still quote that verse from Joel that says, to return now says the Lord, right now, so people listening, if we repent of our sins, repent means to confess it, call it what God does, turn away from it, ask him please to come back into our national life, please come into our lives, he can redeem an individual, he can redeem a nation, and while I'm saying this, Jan, somebody who's listening who doesn't have a personal relationship with God, that relationship that we talked about earlier, because God's not inviting us into a religion or denomination or an organization, he's inviting us into a personal relationship, and so anybody listening, if you confess that you're a sinner and tell God you're sorry and you're willing to turn away from it, and tell him you believe that Jesus died on the cross as God's sacrifice for your sin, and you ask him to forgive you, to cleanse you with the blood of God's lamb who is Jesus, open up your heart and ask him to come live inside of you, he will take away your sin, he will forgive you, he will bring you into a right relationship with himself, and he places his Holy Spirit within you, so that you have Jesus living in you to be your walking partner for life, and one day to walk through heaven's gates and take you home to be with Jesus forever, so that's available to anybody right now, right here, just by faith, and if they go to my website where it says to give you Jesus, and I'll have the verses on the website where you put your faith in God's word, not what I say or you say, but just faith in God's word, take God at his word, and you can be born again into God's kingdom, you can be his child, and you can have security for the future regardless of what happens in America, regardless if Iran pits us with a nuclear weapon, if North Korea attacks, if, you know, all these things that are being threatened, if they come to pass, it's okay, because if the worst happens and we die, then we're just going home, our faith becomes sight, and we're going to go be with Jesus forever, so we're secure for the future. If you join me late, I've talked for the hour with Ann Graham Watts, spent the first part of the program talking about her newest book, Jesus and Me, Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a Constant Companion. You can find that any place where books might be being offered, your local Christian bookstore, christianbook.com.

It's also available as an e-book, so it'd be about half the cost as an e-book, otherwise it's hardbound. We've kind of drifted into some other areas I wanted to cover before the time ran out, because she was one of my speakers back in Understanding the Times 2016, and I want one more quick topic here, and then we can wrap it up. You wrote another book that affected me, because there are lots of listeners right now who are going to resonate with what I'm about to talk to you about, and that's your book, Wounded by God's People. As you say, we've trusted these people, and suddenly they betray, they slander, whatever. Perhaps the deepest hurt comes from fellow believers that think nothing of hurting us. You talk about how this brought you closer to God, because Jesus was rejected and betrayed, and I appreciated that perspective too. That book was sort of a quiet book.

I think publishers and booksellers didn't want to market it. They were afraid I was trashing the church, but I wasn't. The response I've gotten, I didn't expect to get so much response from pastors and church leaders who have been wounded by their congregation, who've driven them out for whatever reason, as well as church members who've been wounded by other church members or pastors. It's stunning, the hurt that we inflict on each other, and yet there is healing that comes through. You have to acknowledge it, and it comes through forgiveness, and God took me on that journey, and I learned a lot writing that book, because I was on my own journey of healing at that point. I had been deeply betrayed, wounded. People had really set out to destroy me and my ministry, and they were people that I had trusted and loved, and when God took me, as I wrote that book, it was a very difficult book to write. It took me four years to write, because it was so painful and so hard to go back into some of that, but at the end of it, I felt released, and I felt God had brought me through and brought me through in such a way that I could turn around and help the next person. It's like putting your hand back and saying, come along with me.

I've been there. I've done that, and I can tell you that God can bring you through, and wounded, yes, but we don't have to become bitter, and in the end, Jan, this is one thing that helps me, I'm going to trust God to set it all right. He's going to sort some of these things out. I don't have to take vengeance. God said, vengeance is mine. I'll repay, and I can just trust him.

He knows the motives. He knows what was going on, a bigger picture than I do, so I choose to forgive whoever it was. I choose to reach out and seek to bless them, and then I'm just going to trust that God's going to sort it out in the end, and I also want to make sure I don't become a wounder, because wounded people can lash out in pain and wound others, and I've done that, so I don't want to be a wounder. And I hear from other Christian leaders, and just plain from fellow believers and followers of my ministry, how they have been so betrayed, but particularly leaders and pastors, how they have been betrayed, and how heartbreaking it is, because, Anne, we pour our lives into these people that some, not all, thankfully, some turn around and betray us. We pour our lives into them, and that's so difficult for particularly a pastor to experience, for any of us who are Christian leaders and experience the betrayal process, so I appreciated that book, and you can find that anywhere online. You can find Wounded by God's People.

You can also find these products and information about them at AnneGrahamLott.org, and we're kind of going out of the program, and I want to turn it over to you, and you've given a wonderful call to salvation. I appreciate the fact that you do that publicly, that Franklin does that. Every opportunity, every little interview he gets, if it's 30 seconds, he's going to give the gospel in that 30 seconds. When the hour is so late, we appreciate it. The book is Jesus in Me, Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a Constant Companion. Folks, I do recommend, I can't read every book that comes my way. This one so impacted me, and it's got some wonderful little anecdotes in it that are going to absolutely, I think, you will be delighted to read. If you'd like to wrap it up, Anne, it's all yours.

You've got a couple of minutes. Jen, I want to thank you for the opportunity to come and talk to you. I always enjoy talking to you, and then through you to your listeners, and I just would say that Jesus is the answer. There's so much going on in our world today, so much going on in my own life, turmoil and confusion, and I've written about some things that I can publicly talk about, other things I can't.

They're private. But I can tell you that the Holy Spirit is, he's credible, he's legitimate, he is real, and he's present. When we receive Jesus by faith, he comes into us in the person of the Holy Spirit, and it makes all the difference. Jesus told his disciples, the Holy Spirit is with you, because they were with Jesus, and the Holy Spirit was in Jesus, so being with Jesus, they were with the Holy Spirit. But then Jesus said, but he's going to come and be in you, and it makes such a difference from having Jesus on the outside to be with him, and having Jesus on the inside in the person of the Holy Spirit. So those listening, I just encourage you to take it seriously, and to know that as we face an uncertain future, and the world is just melting down, how wonderful to know that we can stand on the rock, which is Jesus, and our faith in God's Word, and we're empowered, enabled, equipped by the Holy Spirit who lives in us, never to leave us, never to forsake us.

I want to go out of the program. I'm reading from Ann's book, page 44, just a paragraph, just take me less than a minute. She writes, what unexpected emergency has erupted in your life? How are you handling it? Are you emotionally flailing about as you find yourself swamped by the waves of fear? Are you spiritually spiraling down in confusion, wondering what you could have done wrong to deserve this?

She writes, are you physically exhausted from the lack of sleep, and from straining to find a way out? Then it's time to cry out to the one who is standing by. Stop doubting his presence. Ask him to give you comfort through his Word. Invite him into your situation. Give him absolute freedom and authority to take charge. Trust him to bring you through. He will, and your faith in him will be stronger as a result.

You can read such things in her new book titled, Jesus in May, Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a Constant Companion. Ann Graham Lotz, thank you for giving up the time today. We'll stay in touch. Thank you so much, Dan. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll talk to you next week, folks.

God never wastes the trials we go through. We are here to encourage and to inform and trust we have done both this hour. If we have, let us hear from you by writing us through our website, OliveTreeViews.org. That's OliveTreeViews.org. You can call us Central Time at 763-559-4444. That's 763-559-4444. Or drop us a note at OliveTreeMinistries.org and Jan Markell, Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. That's Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311. All gifts are tax-deductible. You can also text to give. Check our website for instructions. And always look up. Everything is falling into place.