So, we're going to be talking about Fit for a Fight today. I just want to thank all the brothers who shared. That was an emotional, spiritual feast. And a testimony to the glory of God, the patience of God, and His transformative power when we allow the Word of God to work in our lives.
I'm really, really grateful. And you know, I did a lot of church shopping before I found this fellowship I've seen a lot of fluff and a lot of testimonies that were not, you can tell when it's just a testimony to be a testimony. I wanted somebody's world changed like and I thank you that that was what we that's what we were treated to today.
You're all a testimony. I think we've chosen six or seven other guys. It had been just as moving in just a different way. Don't ever forget that you're a miracle. Okay, so fit for a fight. So many years ago I used to play rugby. My last major tournament was an international one and we had an all-Australian select team fly to Washington D.C. where they played us. And then together our team and their team flew to the UK and played several teams from the UK. And but the first match was with this all-Australian team. I have played a couple of seasons. We played mostly college teams, although we weren't college. We, we got to get on their roster because where we were in the United States weren't a lot of rugby teams at that level.
So they let us play. And we won most, not all by two-thirds. We were a decent team. We were, we were a solid, solid team. And then. We trained, we were in the weight room, and we were training for this tournament for two years, not just the season, but two years. You know, you're looking at films, you're, we had guys coming all the way from three hours away by car, coming up to train with us on the weekends.
Spend the whole weekend with us and then they go back home. So this was this is quite an endeavor. When the all-Australian team came, I was sure it was going to be a fight because they're pretty good at rugby. I had no idea. It was, I, I've done many sports in my life. I did track and field, cross country regular football, soccer, and all kinds of different things.
But this was my worst defeat of any sport in my entire life. 86 0. We did not get one single try in the entire game. 15 guys on a team and of our starting 15, five of them were bleeding from several places at the end of the match, myself, one of them. I was the guy who, when they have the scrum, they pass the ball once out.
Then the first guy who's a running back, the first running back guy, that was me. So I was the guy attacking to get the ball, and I run at him, and I have to take some hits to kind of set up the play, and pass it further out. But sometimes I broke through and made a try, and things like that. But, that was me.
And I never met Samoans like I met on that day. That's all I've got to say. I mean, I walk out on the pitch, and the first thing that I was comforted by was the sheer size of these guys. I was thinking, there is no way. A guy 315 pounds is going to be running me down. That is just not happening. I have never met such genetics in all of my life.
That's all I have to say. I don't want to not see Mr. Big Man there. I'm gonna do my usual, usual thing and he went right with it. Oh my gosh! I tried another little thing, and he's right there. I'm like, there's going to be a collision right here now, man. It was just, he just swallowed me on up. I was gone. That was all day.
I was weak and surviving. So, at the end of it, these are the guys who wear high-top cleats with strew on and aluminum studs. You know what I'm saying? So when they rub for the ball, if you're in or near that, You're getting shredded. I felt like I was under a what's it called? A rototiller. So here's the thing.
I studied the book on rugby. I played a bunch of matches with other people who were not as near as intensive of an opponent. I was in the best shape probably at that point of my life running-wise, muscle-wise, and everything else. Our team had gelled over two seasons. We knew each other. But we had no idea who the enemy was.
And they showed up looking like a rugby team. They had rugby uniforms on. At the end of that match, I walked up to their, well, limped up to their coach. And I said, whatever I taught our guys because I was a coach-player. Whatever I taught our guys to do, So if I can just have a couple of hours of your time when we get to London tomorrow, after the plane, meet us in this park and give us a couple of hours of working out with you and give us some plays.
Something. That was a mess. Okay? But what I learned is if you don't know who your enemy is, you will not accidentally be prepared. That is not happening. And if you don't know who your enemy is, it's almost never a good outcome. It's not like, Oh, they were surprisingly weaker than we thought. That almost never happens.
Okay. I think that most, you can tell a Christian how intensely they fight the battle by how spiritually minded they are and how much they're aware of Satan's schemes and his relentless pursuit being a lion who has no other desire than to destroy your faith, ruin your family, trash this planet, take you all the hell with it.
You don't have paltry quiet times if you realize who your enemy is. If I realized what the Australian team was going to be like, our training, Would have been a whole lot more intense and we were already intense, you know, I wouldn't be missing my five times I wouldn't be not confessing that sin thinking I’ll get over it myself I wouldn't be just letting that brother who looks discouraged wander on through the fellowship not take care of him realizing It's a wolf, not a wolf.
No, it's a lion a roaring lion They can cover a full basketball court in three and a half seconds weighing 400 pounds who's coming after you Did I get your attention? Fit for a fight. So, Mike Tyson said once, Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. Yep.
I shared some of these thoughts after we had church leaders kick off in Salt Lake City. And I said we've had a great kickoff here. We made some great plans and I'm sharing this with you so you can all play for Salt Lake City. I said, for once, we have a numerical rule, which we haven't done for a long while.
The church is right around 70. And I said, let's be frank. The church has been around 70 for a while. It's good. It brought up to like 110. Then shrunk back down. The church has been through two, two times when they sort of split. When other churches came to town, got established. The worst it was, it shrunk back down to 12.
This was long before we ever came. But they've, they've been right around there for, you know, 30 years. As in a lot of you, you kind of like to go to a little church, because you get to know everybody, hang out with everybody. We can go away at campouts and all fit in one campsite. It's kind of nice, all that.
So, but I'd like to propose the people that were not bringing our souls to the workplace. Where numbers are not for number’s sake at all. They're precious souls. So I'd like to say let's dream of 100. And unlike in the past when we said by November, no, I'm not even going to put a time frame on it. But I want everybody to lift up their mind and say, let's not just stay here, hold hands and sing Kumbaya.
Let's get to 100. Why do we want to do that? Because we have a city an hour north, Ogden, and an hour south, Provo, that needs a church. And the mother church has got to get some momentum going for us to get out there and do that. And they're all, Oh yeah, let's do this. It's a dream for a hundred. Even the people who are really comfortable with their small church, even like to meet in smaller groups.
I said, yeah, that's fine. We're going to get vibrant, small groups, no matter how big this church gets. It's a combination of great small groups within a bigger church. Okay. And so, okay, we're going to go, we're going to go, let's pray for a hundred. Okay. Let's also pray that we can train a team to plant Ogden by next summer.
Ooh, we actually put a date on it. Well, I mean, if God doesn't do that, fine. I mean, God can do whatever he wants to do, but I know we've got to put something out there. If you aim at nothing, you hit it every time. Okay, so let's go for Ogden and see what happens. So that means some of you gotta get yourself ready.
And here's some people who are thinking we're going to start training, let's go ahead and do that. Another thing that I wanted to do, and this was our whole leadership team together, not just me at all, but a big team. I said we want to be a blessing to our community, not just a religious group that's great at studying the Bible and singing songs.
We want to actually help our community be a better place. So let's find where there are kids who are at risk. Let's find where the homeless are. Let's find where the people who have addictions and other things, and people who have no friends at all. And let us be a blessing. And it's, yes, we hope they become Christians, but Jesus blessed a lot of people who never became followers.
out Because he loved people. And I know that when we're involved in helping those who are suffering, it keeps our hearts soft. So let's have a goal that everybody in our church who's physically capable is volunteering in some meaningful way with their house church At least once a month by the end of the year.
And so we have a consistent relationship on not just the whole day of giving, but like all year long. And we have a contribution for the poor every single month. All year long. So we keep that on our minds. And they're all, that's a great idea. That's a great idea. Then we have our core group. All the core groups are almost boomers.
Almost everybody in our core group is boomers. Or at least just close to that. So, I'd like, and I, these are the people that we'd like to kind of add. And they're younger people, all as young as, you know, early 20s. Let's be a joke, a young married without kids, a young married with young kids. We want to add because we want to, we want to be able to have another core group.
We want to raise up core leadership people. And that means other new people have to start raising up to be house church leaders and all this. So we had all these goals and everybody was cheering like crazy. It was an exciting time. So here's why we're going to have this talk because we're all enthusiastic about our goals and hopefully you've realized it involves everybody in the room because we're not that big.
We got all of this together. But very few people realize the spiritual price tag for these kind of goals. The Lord is incredibly pleased that we're putting these goals before, but we're not making him do this. He can do what he wants, but we're not going for this. Satan is not pleased. And Satan is very real.
And I guarantee you, he's in our plans. And what I'm afraid of, this group I share with them, I've been here a couple of years and I know you now. I've met so many good, hardworking people, faithful for years, but your fit for a fight muscle has not changed. As soon as you get some opposition, as soon as it gets tough, you think, oh, maybe it was the wrong plan.
Maybe we were a bit too strong. They were trying the wrong thing. You question yourself. You question some things that are clearly godly, biblical goals. As soon as it gets hard, as soon as it gets opposition if we get good at helping Mormon people become Christians, I can tell you the opposition in Salt Lake City is We'll be like, let me get good at converting Catholics in the Vatican.
I'm not kidding. It's coming. We're going to be in the news. We're going to be on TV. It's coming. Are you, are you fit for a fight? Or midweek? Okay? So we, we gotta, we gotta be ready to pay the price tag for what we're about to do.
Okay. Point one. Great love and obedience. The onslaught of Satan, great love, and obedience attract the onslaught of Satan. Look at Matthew chapter three,
Many Christians have the wrong notion that if they're a faithful, obedient, disciple of Jesus, they're Many have the idea that when they became Christians, they were entering their magic kingdom. I remember when I became a Christian, evangelists used to boast, There hasn't been a divorce in our movement yet. And the shock I felt, the first time I heard of what I considered strong, faithful Christians having marriage trouble in our church.
I remember our church preaching Proverbs 22, 16, raise a child the way you should go. I And when he is old, he will not depart from it. Meaning they thought that if you just bring your kids to church, you have your weekly family devotional, you yourself and your wife are good Christians that your kids will automatically by age 13, 14, latest 15 become Christians under your roof and stay disciples faithfully the rest of their lives.
I remember my shock when I began to see people who I knew gave their lives to the kingdom. And their kids filming their nose at Jesus, not just not being part of the church, but almost being against the church. I was shocked. How does this happen? The godly people, great love, and obedience attract the onslaught of Satan.
Matthew chapter three, verse 13, when Jesus came from Galilee to Jordan to be baptized by John, but John tried to deter him, do you imagine Jesus coming to you after the church service? He actually shows up at church. Would you baptize me? And you knew it was Jesus. John the Baptist tried to deter him. I bet he did.
I need to be baptized by you. Do you come to me? Jesus replied, let it be so now. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness. Always the goal of Jesus. Fulfill all righteousness. Incredible. Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was open.
And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a dove from heaven said, This is my son, whom I love. With him, I am well pleased. Then Jesus went, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, If you are the Son of God, Tell these stones to become bread.
Jesus answered, It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took them to the holy city and had them stand on the highest point of the temple. If you are the son of God, he said, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone.
Jesus answered him, It is also written, do not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give you, he said if you bow down and worship me. Jesus said to him, away from me Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God, serve him only.
Then the devil left him and the angels came and attended him.
Great love and obedience attract me on, thought Satan. Verse 17 in chapter three, this is my son with whom I am well pleased. You don't get any closer to God than that. You might be cranking your quiet times. You might have kept yourself pure for four days, four years straight. I don't care what your little goal is.
You're never going to be this good. You're never going to be this righteous. You're never going to be this close to God. This is my son with whom I am well pleased, whom I love. And what happened then? Verse 4 1, then, that little conjunction, then. That word in the Greek conveys In the sense of, because of, because of what God just said, you are my son with whom I will please, whom I love, and because of that, the spirit, somehow the Holy Spirit, even working together with Satan in some strange way.
God used Satan to disciple Job, didn't he, in the Old Testament? That's how powerful God is. Even the very forces of evil, God bends to his will. But the Holy Spirit got Jesus out in the desert because he needed to get there. Then Satan took over the discipleship. But that's what immediately happened when he was super well-pleasing to God, because he was well-pleasing, it attracted the onslaught of Satan at his baptism.
Extreme temptation to do what? Verse 3. Well, what was this temptation to be translated for us today? The tempter said, came to him, if you're the son of God, tell these stones to become bread. I have never fasted for 40 days. I've fasted long times, but 40, never hit 40. I can't imagine. I can't imagine alone 40.
When you're fasting, you want at least company around you to keep you encouraged. You want at least your favorite juices, maybe. Things like this. Some diversion, occasionally. Okay? You want to be in at least a nicer environment. You want to be kind of gentle to yourself. Make sure that the bathroom is close by in case weird things happen.
This is the desert. Okay? And, you know, when he took him out in the desert, what is the desert? It's a place of desolation. It's a place of loneliness. It's a place of extreme hardship, physical agony, and maybe worst of all, boredom. The scenery doesn't change, and it's not pleasant. That's what, that's what he got because of his extreme obedience of being well pleasing to God.
That's where he was. And this, this first temptation to satisfy his own very real physical needs by his own strength. If that isn't a very real temptation for all of us today, Everything from the single man who can't find a wife yet to go out in the world, or worse, look at porn and masturbate. Well, there's all kinds of ways that he tries still to tempt us to satisfy our very real physical needs in our own strength.
He hasn't changed his strategy very much at all. Rather than await God's appointed time. Verse six. What temptation is this and what does this have to do with us today? If you're the son of God, throw yourself down at the step. He'll command his angels concerning you, he'll lift you up on your hands, just so you won't strike your foot against the stone.
Well, this is a temptation to demand that God show his power and care for you right now. Show your power and care for me right now. I want to know you're with me right now. I think spiritual waiting is one of the hardest things to do. That kind of person persevering when you can clearly see the enemy or the opposition or you're in the fight and all this kind of stuff.
Yeah. But the boredom of day after day after day, waiting, being faithful and fired up in the mundane, every day, day after day, demanding that God shows his power, care for me now. He does. Does he have to show it in such a way? Who are you to command God? The third temptation. What does it have to do for us?
Verse 9. All this I'll give you if you'll bow down and worship me. All these kingdoms. Well, kind of interesting. He wanted Jesus to become king of the universe without going through a crucifixion. And Jesus knew that on the other side of the crucifixion, Matthew 28, what does he say in the Greek commission?
All authority. In heaven and on earth has been given to me. I am the king of the universe, not just the king of this world. I'm the king of the universe. Post crucifixion, Satan was trying to give a spiritual shortcut to become king of the universe. I'll give you all of these kingdoms. He can only offer the kingdoms of the world.
If he could do that if it wasn't a lie. Well, what he was trying to do is I want to give you this authority. I want to make you king without a cross. Oh man, that is a temptation for our spiritual growth. Try to grow to the next level. You're trying to get spiritually more mature without going through some kind of crucifixion.
Satan tempts us all the time for that growth, for that next step, for that next bit of maturity without a cross. Crossless Christianity is not Christianity at all. These temptations are, I mean, literally, it is the prototype of how Satan tempts us today. He hasn't changed his strategy that just the mask was off with his final temptation.
What he really wanted is praise me. I want anything other than God to be your God fall down and worship me. And that's what Satan is, he might even put good things in your way, like your kids or your godly wife or your physical fitness after a heart attack. All these are good things. All he wants to do is make sure God is in your God, but something else, God can come in with, get the silver medal in your life.
That's all he needs.
Point two, to hold fast to the testimony of Jesus is to engage in battle, to hold fast, the testimony of Jesus. Is to engage in battle Revelation chapter 12.
Why am I talking about this guys? Just to remind you of my little intro there. If you made even one positive spiritual decision to grow, I guarantee you, you will be vehemently opposed by Satan. If you think you're going to walk out of here, that's it. I'm going to be pure. I'm not going to, I'm not going to look at stuff anymore.
That's it. I'm going to confess this thing. I'm going to get a hold of my stinking ego. I'm such a dog. I don't let the brothers disciple me. I always have to have the last word with my wife. I am, I am, I'm going to be a representative of Jesus in her life. I want my compassion easily awakened. I am, I am a stinker when it comes to compassion for people.
Whatever it was. If you're serious about that, you're going to have to fight for that. And you can't do it alone. You're going to need other brothers on your rugby team. They help you play, but you got to go out of here knowing your decision and knowing the price tag and knowing who you fight. If you don't know how to fight the battle, the battle, you got to know where is the battle line, who is the enemy and how do I have to fight?
Do you understand what I'm saying? Okay. So hold fast to the testimony of Jesus to engage in battle. Revelation chapter 12. A great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant, and cried out in pain. She was about to give birth.
Then another sign appeared in heaven. An enormous red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns on his head. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and plummeted to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth. So that it might devour her child, Ramona who She gave birth to a son of Hellchild, who will rule the nations with an iron scepter.
And her child was snatched up to God, and to his throne. The woman fled into the wilderness, to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken of, hero, for 1, 260 days. Revelation always sounds kind of mysterious, but there's always the time, and history explanation, This woman is Israel, and the 12 stars on her crown represent the 12 tribes of Israel.
This is Israel about to finally give birth after a couple of thousand years of waiting for the Messiah. She's about to give birth to her Messiah, the nation of Israel. That's what's about to happen here. The dragon is Satan himself. And Satan is aware, he is at least aware, that this is the Messiah coming to the world.
And so he's literally, what a gross figure of a woman in labor, and he's there right where she's about to give birth. Waiting for the baby to come out of her body so he can eat her, eat the child. That is Satan trying to kill Jesus at birth and wasn't that exactly what happened? Once evil King Herod found out, oh the Messiah is supposedly born?
Well, why don't you wise men tell me where he's born so that I can go and worship? He didn't mean that at all. He wanted to kill the child. And in a dream, these wise men were informed, hey man, Herod wants to kill this child. This is literally the dragon trying to eat this baby in his vision. And so they knew to go home a different way.
Herod was enraged. So he knew roughly the area, kind of the county, where this, this child was supposed to be born in. And roughly, plus or minus two years. That's a pretty big gap. A whole county, plus or minus two years. He didn't care. Every male child, two and under, in this entire county, killed him. That's, that's not the face of Satan.
Genocide like that of innocent babies. That was Satan himself. The dragon trying to eat the child. Well, he didn't stop there. Once that failed, well, who's he go after next? Verse 7. Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.
The great dragon was hurled down. That ancient serpent called the devil or Satan. Who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled into the earth and his angels with him. So Satan, like I said, he's relentless. He will not stop. He doesn't take a break. Satan never stops evangelizing. Never. And once he couldn't get the baby, well, then he says, I'm going to start a ruckus in heaven.
There's a whole revolution in heaven. I'm going to try and take over up here. His angels fight against white from their angels and they weren't strong enough. They got thrown down to earth. Satan and his angels. This is real, guys. How often do you think about the spiritual realms? How often do you think, I appreciate the angel introduction today, and amen for, you know, those super buds being found.
Angels do a whole lot more than that. I got some news for you. A whole lot more than that, although I appreciate that intro.
Then look at this. Verse 10. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, Now hath come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. Wow, you think, wow, now the authority of God is on earth.
Now came the triumphant moment. Now God is in control. Peace will reign on earth. All of God's people will finally be able to bask in the sunlight of the righteousness of God's reign. Now we can finally breathe easy. Peace and righteousness will flourish on earth.
Verse 11. They triumphed over him. This is the Christians. Now look at the three things it took for triumph. While the authority and salvation of God are on earth, they triumphed over him by the blood of the lamb. That's Jesus dying on the cross, the blood that's available to all of us today. The blood we celebrated in the communion.
If we walk in the light, it's the blood that continually cleanses us of our sins as we go along, even before we confess what an incredible blessing, the flood of blood over us all the time. Amen. And that is number one and a big number one on that but number two, the silver medal. In how they triumphed over Satan, the word of their testimony, their evangelism, their persistence in the mission, their sharing the gospel of Jesus, wherever they went, how's your evangelism?
We want to be covered in the blood, but he wants us to do more part, a small, teeny secondary part compared to his blood. But it's what we got. It's like that woman in the alabaster jar. She did what she could. This is what you can do. Open your mouth. The city is as open as your mouth is. And your heart is.
It's on the list. Of weapons against Satan after Jesus’ blood. And then number three, they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice you heavens and you who dwell on them. But woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has gone down to you. He is filled with fury because he knows that his time is short.
The third weapon is they were willing to give up their lives.
What deters you from being faithful as a Christian? What would get you to shut up sharing your faith? What would get you to quit going after that goal that you made after this weekend? Satan knows as long as you're afraid of dying, I got you. When he sent the guys out in Matthew chapter 10, the pep talk, the first time he sent them out on the mission.
If you actually, I've coached a lot of teams. I've done a lot of motivational speaking and I studied that. And I thought this is the worst pep talk known to man. I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves. Oh, weren't you supposed to say those guys are sheep? You're wolves. You're going to eat them up.
No. You know, and you're, you know, you're going to be beaten. You're going to be flogged. People are going to say all kinds of stuff against you and all that. Hey, listen, don't be afraid of those who can kill you. You need to be afraid of the one who, after you're dead, can throw your soul into hell. That's what you should do.
Don't, don't just fear getting killed. Jesus wasn't kidding. And if you're afraid of your life, we're our lives. You don't even threaten here. Not even close. Okay. But would you be ready? And he says these are the three tools that defeated Satan, the blood of the lamb, their testimony, fearlessly sharing their faith and being willing to give up their lives.
And what's the dragon busy doing now? Verse 17 tells us, then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God's commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. Well, who's that? If you're just trying to be a good Christian, You're in the crosshairs, like I said, godliness and obedience attracted the onslaught of Satan.
He's not concerned with most people. He's especially concerned with disciples. This is not some hyper-authorized message. This is real. And we don't talk about this very often. And you can tell by, by shallow fellowship and paltry quiet times, the brothers who don't think Satan is out there real after him.
What about the Book of Acts? It says at the end of chapter two, probably one of my favorite chapters, if not my favorite That the church was growing. They had this incredible fellowship, 3000 baptized after one message. That's amazing. And toward the end, the very end of the chapter, praising God and enjoying doing the favor of all the people.
Acts 2 47, that atmosphere of favor lasted until Acts chapter four, verse one. And then the persecution started and you find persecution. In some cases to the death in every single chapter in the book of Acts to the book ends. And the book ends with Paul sitting under house arrest. That's the book of Acts.
Look at Acts chapter 9. This is the conversion of Paul. And one of the most inspiring things that helped me come to faith that this is really true, is that this guy who killed Christians, within a three day period of time, turned around to be a proclaimer of the very message he was persecuting. And it's a historical fact that this happened.
How did this guy change? And we have 13 of his letters about how he was moved in his heart from killing Christians to just exalting Jesus Christ as a son of God. Incredible testimony. Well, what happened to him with his persecution? Acts chapter nine, verse 17, then Ananias went to the house and entered it, placing his hands on Saul.
This was after Saul saw a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus, but not a Christian yet. Brother Saul, the Lord, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, As you were coming here, I sent me to you so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again.
He got up and was baptized. And after taking some food, he regained his strength. Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. And once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God, all those who heard him were astonished and asked, Isn't he the man who raised Habakkuk in Jerusalem among those who call on his name?
And as he came here to take them as prisoners to the chief priest, yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah. After many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him. Okay, now hang on. He becomes a Christian in verse 19.
He's persecuted by verse 23. He was a Christian five verses before they wanted to kill him.
The first Christians were persecuted on and off in the Roman empire for 300 years.
By the third point, the most open doors are the most heavily guarded by Satan. The most open doors are the most heavily guarded by Satan. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 16.
It amazes me the shock and awe on the face of some of the younger disciples when we get some ridiculous article that has some truth in it and needs to be dealt with and the issues in our church that are real and true we need to deal with and be humble. But we're 80%, 90 percent or more Amen. Aren't true at all.
The repercussions and just people kind of being ashamed. Satan is the accused. He wants to smear Jesus reputation anytime he can. If you're not getting persecuted, you have to ask if you're doing anything. 1
Corinthians chapter 16, verse 8. This is a very curious verse from Paul. But I'll stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost because a great door for effective work has opened to me. Wow! So many open people, so many studies, so many people who just can't wait. They they're standing in line to study the Bible. Well, there's kind of a weird ending to the verse though.
Wait a minute. A great door of effective work is open to me. And there are many who oppose me. I thought this was an open door. Well, yes, the most open doors are the most heavily guarded by Satan. I literally can't tell you how many times I've been out street evangelizing. And I'd get some real, person cursing me out, why don't you shut up, especially in the foreign country, Yankee, go home, all kinds of stuff, right?
And within the next five or six minutes, one of the next people coming down is the most open person I've met all day. Satan was trying to get me to shut up a hundred yards away from somebody who just prayed the night before, help me find God. The most open doors are the most heavily guided by Satan. Now I'm going to share some examples from my own life.
What I don't want to do is draw attention to myself. I want to draw attention to this principle. And I want to draw attention to you being willing to take it in the face, get a big smile, and go, Ah, I must be right in another building. And keep going. Two weeks after I was baptized, I was baptized as a freshman studying engineering in Boston.
I was very zealous, trying to share my view with you guys on my dorm floor. But two weeks after my baptism, I came back from my second-only Friday night devotional, campus devotional. I was so excited. Normally I'd be drunk and passed out at somebody's place on a Friday night. And I was totally sober in my right mind.
Didn't even feel like having a beer or drinking anything. And I was way happier than ever before. And I came home to my dorm and the dorm music Friday night was totally wild, totally crazy. It was like house. It was terrible. But it was quiet and nobody was in their rooms. And then I looked down the hall and the RA had an extra big suite.
And there were some people sitting outside his door and all filled his room. All the guys on my floor were in there. And I'm like, Oh, there's a floor meeting. I missed this. Oh man, so sorry. I come on in and I apologize. And I see this, this priest sitting there in his full outfit with a big silver cross, he had a Miller light in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
And he's talking to the guys and my RA goes, Oh, father Frank, this is Chris. And I just kind of realized, like, this speaks about me. Oh, come on in. And I realized that he was warning everybody on the floor that I had gotten involved in a dangerous cult, that I was mentally unstable, and because of that, be very gentle and kind with them, but he's not, he's not good.
Well, I've been one of the worst partiers on the floor. I was a source of corruption for some of the other guys and all that. And I literally, in a couple weeks period of time, changed night and day. And they thought, this, this, what is wrong with this guy? Okay, and the persecution continued from there in some other ways.
But that was just two weeks after I became a Christian. Well, why was that? Because I was reaching out to all the guys on my floor, but several were actually open. And when they saw that and saw how I took that, three of them were baptized within ten days after that meeting. It was an open door. Satan tried to get me to shut up and back off.
One and a half years later, there are picket lines outside of where we're meeting in Boston. I had been tasked, one of my early responsibilities in ministry was to be the songbook guy. That's when we had hard times. And I was one of the few guys in my campus ministry who had a car. Now it was a 17-year-old Volvo with 350 million miles on It was, it was so bad when we put the songbooks in the back of my Volvo, it jacked the front end up, because there's no spring to have it. I'm going to church like surfing, you know, in the world. All right? But I was the guy that had to come there early, and there were picket line people out front. And I'm carrying his songbooks, and a few of them hit me on the head, as I'm going into church, protesting our church.
You know what I thought? Glorious. Glory. Bring it on!
Would you go home? Would you have gone home? I was bringing the songbooks. I was bringing the praise. They were bringing the critique. It's easy to criticize. Well, why did they do that? Okay? Because over the next 10 years, the Boston Church sent out 60 mission teams all around the world, reaching tens of thousands of souls. If we can get them to stop right now, that, that would probably be pretty good. That's it. There's a wide open door. Of course, it was heavily guarded. Stockholm, our second year in the church planning. There are multiple news articles against us. I was called an angel of light. You know where that reference is?
Satan masquerading. And we had ministers from the Lutheran church who disguised themselves as open visitors coming to our church services, just sitting there. Like at one time, we had eight different ministers at different places trying to hand out pamphlets against our church secretly in the fellowship. undermining our sermons, even as we're preaching, you know, luckily when you're up there preaching, you can see who's talking to who.
Yeah. So why was that? Well, that team of 11 through 270 planted churches in Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki, and Reykjavik over the next 10 years. It was a completely wide open door. Satan tried to discourage us at the start. When we got to Copenhagen, I was only four months into the planning. And the pastor of the largest Baptist church in the city organized an ecumenical weekend for all the leaders of all the churches in Denmark to equip them to get rid of this dangerous call that had just come to the country.
Us. Somebody I evangelized actually said, Oh, I heard about you guys. Cause there's going to be a conference about you guys. I'm like, Oh, really? And I got the guy's number. He was organizing and called him up and I said, Hey, can I attend? This is not a positive conference. This is a conference, all of us, literally against you.
I said, okay, can I come? Because, how could you know how to be against us unless you hear what we have to say? Fair, fair enough. He says I'll give you the Friday night two-hour slot. Okay. So my wife and our one intern showed up. There were about 80 clergymen in the room. All of them are professional clergy, okay?
And when Jesus says you brood a viper, it's a bunch of snakes. It was like, I tried to find common ground. I started off my sermon. What are the main, what are the main commandments that Jesus says we need to obey? And I figure, because they're all just different denominations in the room, let's find common ground.
Nobody wanted to answer. They're all, they're all like looking at me with squinting eyes. It was like I could hear the hissing of snakes. Honestly, it was like And one good-hearted guy sitting over here felt so bad because nobody said anything. And I waited. I stood, I mean, a minute of silence. If I stood up here a minute silent and looked at y'all, it would have been super embarrassing for everybody.
It was about a minute. This guy over here goes, Hey guys, guys, We all know the answer to this. He said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Thank you. Is anyone in disagreement? Nobody's saying, Okay, I guess we can proceed. What does it mean to love God?
You obey His commands. 1 John chapter 5. Okay? There's a number of commands I can talk about, but one of those is to make disciples of all nations. The second command is similar to that. Love your neighbor as yourself. I, I speak to some guys. Do you, how do you live? Do you live in an apartment or a house, an apartment?
How many, that's very common in Europe. How many of you guys live in apartment buildings? They all raise their hand. Okay, great. A little participation. So how many neighbors would you say you have? Well, I was like 16 apartments in my building. Okay. And you lived there 10 years. Okay. Do you know the names of your neighbors?
One. Have you ever had them in your house? Have you ever had coffee or tea with them? Do you pray for them? Have you shared your faith with any of them? No, no, no, no. You call us a cult, and you all disobey the second-greatest commandment of Jesus Christ. What are you doing? You are paid clergy. The hissing continued.
But, they had given me two hours, so it continued from there. Laughter
That first year, our team was eleven to plant the church. Only nine could not speak Danish at all. I was one of those who could not speak Danish. I had to learn it that first year and because of God those 11 baptized 48 people in an atheistic country, he was trying to discourage us in the very beginning.
And I'll tell you, I acted all brave and strong. I had to keep my hands in my pocket as I was talking. I was shaking so bad. I was so scared. I was only 27 years old. I just had my second child. She was three months old. We brought her on the mission field. My son was three. We, I was in a very vulnerable spot.
I was scared out of my mind. But I knew what we were doing was right. And I was starting to get the hang of this after a few years in the kingdom that when the opposition comes like this, that means some really good things are going to happen if I don't back down. Three years later, I'm back in the U S in Philadelphia, trying to start a campus ministry at the University of Pennsylvania with two students.
I don't know how we got the attention of the dean of students while we were only three. Those two and me, but somehow the dean of students found out about us. It was a very Asian Jewish school. And we did run into a number of Jewish people sharing our faith and maybe one of them got offended. I don't know.
Okay. But they were starting to move to kick us off campus. That's what they were going to do. So me and another of them just met with them and had a toasty meeting because I was giving advice. One of my good elders who's gone to meet the Lord, Bob Gimple. He said, why don't you research all the other you know, campus groups that they allow on campus and bring that up to the Dean.
And I'm sure you'll find some controversy or groups that they approve of. Which I did, including a radical Muslim group, a jihad group that they had on campus, fully endorsed, okay? They also had some other alternative groups that were known to be violent, and they were approved by the school. They were even getting a stipend as a club, okay?
And so when they brought up these things, these dangerous allegations, I'm like, we have two people. And they're both doing great in their studies. I mean, really, now as far as your other groups are concerned, sir, and I read them to them, okay? And, and, oh, oh, oh, we, we, he didn't even know about the Jihad group on campus, and they, and I, I had proof that they had gotten a stipend, okay?
So he goes, okay, okay, okay, okay, but just, just calm down to talking to people of other religions, okay? Fine. Well, he knew those two students in the next two years multiplied to 28 students, and several went into the full-time ministry. And I'm starting to smile now when things get really hot. A few years later, we're at the University of Maryland campus, campus ministry, and one of our students who became a Christian had been a drug dealer prior to becoming a Christian.
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