Jerry Leachman | BCC Breakfast February 16, 2023

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Transcript:

I love coming back to the South. It’s the only place left in the United States where bacon’s still good for you. And Richard is Mr. Excitement; gave me his usual exhortation before I came up here. Jerry, don’t try to be overly smart or overly funny. Just be yourself. Thank you so much, Richard. That fires me up.

I’m gonna share some things with you today I’ve already spoken about, in this room before, and a lot of new stuff that I haven’t. I’ll share the old stuff because there’s a saying in coaching and teaching, that If you don’t repeat, you’re not coaching. And 70% of the guys that I’ve ministered to in Washington just call me Coach because they say, you know, you don’t sound like a minister, you sound like a coach and we all feel like we’re back on our ball club or a military unit when you teach us. And I take that as a high compliment. I really, I really love that. But one of the places I usually fly past, it’s a couple of groups in DC I didn’t want to give up after so many years. One’s in a little, we call it a civil war town, Middleburg, Virginia, which is outside Washington. And there are horse estates out there and it’s English in nature. They have English jumpers and stuff like that. And Brit Hume calls it the biggest tweed coat competition in the world because they’re all trying to be English. And you know, Luther went to Shades Valley High School. He came up to me recently said, did you know you led me to Christ when I was at Shades Valley? I said, no, I didn’t even know you were a Christian, Luther, you know. Then he said, well, don’t you remember where we were going down, what’s the highway that goes to Tuscaloosa? 59, the freeway? Yeah. He said, you don’t remember going down 59, 80 miles an hour on a motorcycle and you were driving? I said, not at all. And the size of his legs, he had to be lying. You couldn’t ride on the back of a motorcycle unless you were laying down. But it’s good to see you.

One of the things that happened to me, I usually go back to this, back to Middleburg every month and, and teach these men, we have a, we call it, it’s called Second Tuesday. And all the wives wanted to put these big spiritual names on it, you know. I said, no, it’s gonna be second Tuesday. They said, why? I said, well, men can’t remember anything and I’m one of them. And you can go, are you going to second Tuesday? When is it? Oh, second Tuesday.

We’re into our third year. The first year, I think I’ve told you this before. There’s this big Italian guy. I mean, he looks like Pavarotti. And he always walked in a little late and when he did, the men would just become docile around him. And he looked Italian, thick, black, wavy hair, little open here, some gold chains. And somebody said that guy could light a wet mule with hundred dollars bills. He owns a big glass company that they build skyscrapers out of. And he would sit at a table, and nobody would sit to his left and his right and he’d just stare at me the whole time. Then he’d get up and leave and I used to think, who is that guy? What’s he thinking? Why is he staring at me like that? Well, in the May session we were gonna adjourn for the summer, and you know how people come up to the speaker and they wanna say something then so, quite often, you’ll see somebody over there and you know they’re gonna wait till all these people are gone because they got something to talk about. And he was doing that. I wasn’t gonna be back till next September. Finally, the crowd kind of trickled out. He came up to me. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever known any real Italians, but there’s only so close to a man’s face where he’s comfortable. You get in his space, he’s not comfortable, especially with another man. And Italians do that and then they kind of spit on you when they talk, you know. And he got my face. He said, Jerry, I want to tell you something. I grew up Catholic in Jersey, but your teaching has changed my life completely. I play your messages to my wife. It’s changed her completely. Now look. And then he got even closer and he, I don’t know why he does like this. If I can do anything for you, I mean anything. And I’m thinking, who the crap is this guy? You let me know, capiche? I said capiche. It was like an interview with Don Corleone.

Well, one of the things I like about Jersey is their sense of humor. I’ve always liked New York humor, New Jersey humor in that accent. And they have a greeting, I know we’ve done this be here, but it’s my favorite thing to warm an audience up. They come up go, hey, who’s better than you? Huh? And then they get in a fight. Only you. No, no, no, you, you, you. And they’ll stand there and argue about that for a while and it’s very endearing.

Now, Christ rebuked people for their lack of hospitality. I feel hospitality when I come back to the deep south. So I want to give us 60 seconds. I want you to greet all the guys around you with an Italian accent, some attitude. And I want you to argue who’s better than you? 60 seconds. Let’s go, get up.

Hey, well I know I was here a year and a half ago and I don’t hardly remember being here. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was forbidden by all these world-famous doctors that operated on me at the Texas Heart Institute. I couldn’t travel for a year. But I don’t know, four months out, I came here. I wasn’t supposed to be here, and I have almost no recollection of it. I hope the talk went over okay? But I’m allowed to travel and speak now. So, I’ve been kind of on a little Alabama speaking tour. I was down in Montgomery yesterday and seeing all my homeboys down there from Lanier High School and I love all my friends here, you guys included. This is one of my favorite groups, but I do remember, you remember if you were here, I gave a message and I with references to hell because I died for 10 to 15 minutes. It’s on my medical records and I was on the other side. I’m an eyewitness to you today. You know, especially when you get older, you start saying, man, it sure would help if there really is a Jesus. I mean I hope this is real because you only die one time. I’m an eyewitness to tell you it is real. And I think I told you last time, I’m telling you now, hell is real.

Ministers won’t say hell anymore. They don’t wanna lose donors, they don’t wanna lose members. The difference between some of the megachurches is, this is not an anti-church talk it’s just facts, is most of churches that grow big, not all, they really get people from other churches or from kind of a quasi-Christian culture. The early church, they were converting pagans. They were an illegal entity. They were contraband, our ancestors. I’m gonna read you a few excerpts from historians from the second century on our unbelievable ancestors.

I was invited one time to speak at a little country church in Arkansas. You know, that saying in Arkansas’s, not the end of the world, but you can see it from there. It was just chicken houses and woods for an hour and a half trying to find this place. And we finally found it and I thought, man, I, sometimes in the south you see these signs. Primitive Baptist church, you go, what is that? Well, I kind of got it when I saw this church. It was nice and neat, but there was a women’s outhouse, a men’s outhouse. There was maybe 30 people there. I don’t think they were into the church growth movement. I think that that was it. It was 30 people. That’s all they could get. The pastor was what they call a lay minister. He was a mechanic during the week, and he had oil up under his fingernails. It’s funny, when you’re from the south, you notice stuff like that because my generation, we all grew up fixing stuff because if something, nobody had any money and if something broke, there wasn’t a repair truck coming up the driveway. You had to figure out how to fix it. My brother and I were a team. If it was anything electronic, he could fix it.

If it moved, had a moving part, I could fix it. This guy had a blazer on. He was standing just like this to greet me at the church door. And he had on a blazer and his tie stuck out about that far below the blazer. You would’ve thought I was the ambassador to the United States. They’d never had a guest speaker as far as they knew in the history of that little church. He shook my hand and all I just about put me on one knee, you know? Well, it wasn’t any competition. And he said, we’re so honored to have you here. God, Washington, all the way from Washington. Well thank you. Well my oldest son was with me and we sat there and we were watching this church service commence. And if you wanted to be in the choir that day, you just went up front and turned around and sung.

They had an out of tune piano playing like saloon style, Jesus is coming soon, a morning or night…you know, like those kind of hymns or whatever you call it. And most of my ministry in Washington was trying to get highly sophisticated, highly educated people just to come off of it and get real. You know, people know how to dress. Men know how to present themselves. They know how to speak. But one thing I learned in Washington and working with people with immense power in fame, number one, if you want to have influence with somebody, and it could be local power, local fame doesn’t have to be national or world. There are some powerful people that are kind of patriarchs of little towns in Alabama. They have the power there. If you wanna minister to people like that, here’s rule one. Don’t want anything they have. If you want anything they have that line goes out the door and around the corner. If you don’t want anything from them but friendship, you’ll probably be all alone in their life. Because you know the saying, everybody wants something. Well my son Josh leaned over to me and said, Hey pop, do you have a message for these people? I mean, I know your gift is getting men to get real. These guys look pretty real to me, I don’t think they could be more real. I said, I’m thinking the same thing. I got nothing, you know, and I said, Holy Spirit, just tell me what to say and I’ll say it, but I’m blank. And, he did, you know what it was? I could perceive they thought I was a real connected guy in Washington and that I love and knew Jesus and they were so heartbroken over what was happening in our country and they thought I was gonna come and give them three steps on what to do about it. And then they’d know they could commence on their mission after my instructions. The message was not like that at all, that the Lord downloaded on me. You know what it was? I thought this is the remnant God always saves for Himself a remnant. What about you? What about me? Are you part of the remnant? Some of you are and some of you aren’t. Some of you, and I’ll talk about this more are Airborne rangers in your faith and some of you are just drafty butt sitters and you’re not gonna do anything. People go, why do you say that? What if they what? What if you offend them? I said, who cares? What are they gonna do? Nothing.

I would fear the Airborne rangers in this room, but not a draftee. No, you don’t scare me a bit. You know what I was to tell them? You’re the remnant. Keep doing exactly what you’re doing. They were on praying grounds. This church was on praying grounds and God gave me a lesson that day. He said, Jerry, it’s cause of little churches and little groups like this in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, out in the plains of Texas. They’re the ones keeping this country in business. Not the powerful machine; it’s people on praying grounds. Are you on praying grounds? Now let me tell you, in James it says a fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elijah, a man of like passions. I’m so glad they put that in there because we tend to deify the prophets. They were just guys like us, like passions. You know what that’s talking about? And yet, when he prayed, the rain stopped three and a half years, he prayed again and it started.

What is the fervent prayer of a righteous man? Well turn back to the left and go to James chapter one. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men liberally and upbraideth not, but let that man ask in faith. Let him not be double minded tossed to and fro by every wave of the sea. Get this. Let that man expect nothing from God.

That’s why I say if you profess to be a Christian but you’re nothing but a draftee, one reason you ain’t gonna do nothing because your prayers aren’t gonna be answered. That’s it. If you have secret sins, you can have a private life but not a secret life. Sometimes I’ll ask a man, you have any secrets? And they go, uh uh. What? What do you mean? I say, you know exactly what I mean, you just answered me. Yeah, you do. If you’re double minded, don’t expect anything from God. That’s not the fervent prayer of a righteous man. Now do you have to be perfect? No, you can’t be perfect. Martin Luther said you can’t stop a bird from flying over your head, but you can stop it from building a nest in your hair. If you have children or grandchildren you’d like to pray for, but you don’t mean business, you better ask somebody else to pray for them. It won’t be you. Sorry fellas. I’m not selling anything today but the truth. God’s putting together a remnant right now because there’s some stuff about to hit the fan. It is. I know people still, I still know people and we all kind of know that, don’t we? This is different. People go, it’s been like this. No, not like this. Something is afoot. The game’s afoot and I have been sent out calling men. Get ready, go Airborne. What are you talking about? One of my first talks here I gave was about the 101st Airborne, screaming eagles. You remember those guys?

William Ambrose’s masterpiece, “Band of Brothers”. Let’s read a couple of excerpts and see what this has to do with us.

The men from Easy Company 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne. They came from different backgrounds, different parts of the country. They were farmers, coal miners, mountain men, sons of the deep South. Some were desperately poor. Others in the middle class. One came from Harvard, one from the old National Guard, but they were just citizen soldiers. When these guys were assembled for training, they were just guys. There was nothing special about them yet they came together in the summer of 1942, by which time the Europeans had been at war for three years late in the spring of 1944, they had become an elite rifle company. Elite, not rank and file, elite, of Airborne light infantry. Early on the morning of D-Day, in its first combat action, Easy Company put out of action a German battery of four 105-millimeter cannons that were looking right down on Utah Beach.

This has to do with me. June 6th, 1944. My father was at Utah Beach. Out of a landing craft. These guys took out the guns that would’ve killed him and I wouldn’t be here today.

You know, valiant deeds are generational. I was the first person in my family to really sincerely get it. Get what? Christ. I got hit hard out at the Young Life camp in Colorado and that’s when I fell in love with Colorado. I took a couple of years; I started witnessing to my mother. I was from a divorced family. My mother was raising boys and she thought, well, Jerry’s going through his religious phase, but she saw a change in my life. Finally, my father accepted Christ. I preached at his funeral, 21-gun salute, flagged draped coffin, the whole deal. He was an Airborne ranger. They led the counter offensive in the Battle of the Bulge, fought in the Rhineland campaign and they took Hitler’s Eagles Nest at the end of the war, at the peak of its effectiveness in Holland in October, 1944, it was as good a rifle company as there was in the world. Just average guys.

Well, what made them tick? What does it have to do with us? Listen up. They were special in their values. They put a premium on physical well-being, hierarchical of authority, and being part of an elite unit. When these guys joined the army, they wanted to be elite. They just didn’t want to get through. They wanted to be elite. They were eager to merge themselves into a group fighting for a cause. Any cause better than Jesus Christ? Anyone? They were eager to merge themselves into a group fighting for a cause, actively seeking an outfit where they could identify, join, be part of as a family. They volunteered for the paratroopers, they said, for the thrill and the extra 50 bucks. But that wasn’t it. The desire to be better than the other guy took hold of them. Each man in his own way had gone through what Richard Winters experienced. A realization that doing your best, doing your best was a better way of getting through the Army than hanging around with the sad excuses and the draftees they met in the recruiting depots.

Now, an Airborne ranger, they go get the bad guys. They’re surrounded by the enemy. Draftee has only one goal; just to cover his butt till it’s over. Every guy in this room, you either have a heart, you either are Airborne. In the reading of this, you go, I want to be Airborne and by God, I don’t want to be a draftee. Well, why don’t all men sign up for the Rangers, you know. They didn’t draft you into the Rangers. It was all volunteered and if you wanted out, what’d you do? All you had to do is… what? Quit. They didn’t want you.

I love these guys. I love the spirit they have. So many men are just chickens, cowards, lazy, and they don’t want to pay the price. No guts, no glory. That’s the way it’s always been. No suffering, no glory. That’s the way it’s always been. I love the spirit of these guys. I was out jogging, training for the Marine marathon, and I’m not a runner, at all. I’m a football player. I was built for five yards and a collision. That’s it. Then you got to stand around 60 seconds before the next five yards and a collision. And if the play wasn’t coming my way, I’d just find somebody else with another, and just hit him. They didn’t have a lot of rules when we played, did they Pete? Matter of fact, the targeting thing, that’s how they taught you to tackle. Put the bonnet on him. That’s Pete Moore. He was not crazy. And you can see it. Glad you’re here, Pete. Am I going too fast for you?

I was jogging down the bike trail, the running trail in Washington. It was cold, damp. I was just babying myself, it’s, you know, like that.  just got out of the car. I hadn’t warmed up yet. Then I saw these two jugheads heading my way. You can just spot them. I mean, I had on a down Orvis vest and all that. They had on a brown t-shirt and brown shorts, no hat, no hair. And my manliness kicked in. I got more wreck and I sped up to pass them and then I lowered my voice. That’s so phony. But because my hair is short and silver, I got saluted in Washington all the time. They just assumed I might be an officer and I let them do it. I loved it. As you were, men, you know, it’s great. These guys are coming along and they, one of them says, good morning, sir. I said, how about this weather, men? Where else would you rather be, sir? Gosh, I love these guys. They just had a spirit about them. The captain Winters was the captain of Easy Company. They parachuted behind enemy lines one time, and they were hiding their chutes. You know, all that stuff they do. This disheveled American soldier was running down a mud road. He said, where are you going, captain said, we’re going down that road. He said, don’t go down that road. You’ll be surrounded by the enemy. I love this line. Captain Winter said, son, we’re Airborne. We’re supposed to be surrounded by the enemy. My dad was a Ranger. I’m gonna call every one of you here today to get your butt off the sideline and become part of God’s remnant and get on the field, put the jersey on and get on the field. Now you may get the crap knocked out of you or you may put a lick on something else, but you’re in the game. My dad was in the 82nd Airborne. The first Airborne assault in the history of the United States Army was over North Africa against Rommel. My dad went out the plane that day. He was from New Merkel, Alabama. Anybody know what that’s called today? Cahaba Heights. Yeah. Used to be called New Merkel. Just a country boy.

He and my uncle Charles got a three day pass to London and when my father was on his deathbed, I was in praying for him. He’d asked me to preach at his funeral. He knew he was going, he was going. I kissed him on the forehead, said I love you. Then the medical staff said, you gotta get out of here. We gotta do some kind of something on him. I said, okay. We were out in the waiting room. Uncle Charles said, you knew your dad was Airborne, right? I said, no, he won’t talk about it, Uncle Charles, what do you know about it? He started telling us these stories. We had everybody, we didn’t even know was in the huddle listening to us, do I know, go ahead, you can listen. So, and it’s just the spirit.

They had this three-day pass to London, so they started hitting pubs, and he said, uncle Charles said about the third pub, we’d had far too much of that ale or whatever they serve in England. And we were pretty loose and about that time, four British regulars walked in. Your dad decided he didn’t like British regulars. And it was that point in the drinking night where guys start getting loud, you know, and he started cutting down British regulars and to their defense, they had quite enough of that. So, he said four of these British regulars started walking slowly towards them, and we were all, what happened, uncle Charles? He said, he took his belt off and did like that and the buckle ended up right there on the outside, like he’d done it before. And he said, he looked, he looked at me, Uncle Charles, and he said, he looked at me, he said, I can take three, can you take one? That’s so ridiculous. But he thought he could. I said, what happened? He said, well the melee started. Your dad was tearing into them. I said, what were you doing Uncle Charles? I was right behind him doing like that. I said, what happened? He said, what do you think happened? We got the crap beat out of us and they threw us out the front door. Well, I’m not saying that was right what they did, but you gotta love that attitude. He was Airborne.

Now God’s assembling a remnant and I fear for any of you that walk out of here today satisfied with being a draftee because you’re gonna get rolled like dice. Call me and tell me if I’m right or wrong on this. Or you could re-up in your heart and go Airborne. What does that mean? At the end of Jesus’ life, if a great man said, gather around, I’m almost gone. I want to tell you a few things. You gonna get the good stuff or just nonsense? You’re gonna get the good stuff. He said, I call you my friends. Get this. The creator of the universe, the Book of John said was nothing was made without Jesus Christ. Did you know that? He was the co-creator. He’s part of the Trinity. He’s equal with God. Philippians chapter two. I call you my friends. Now, what kind of friendship do you think he was talking about? An acquaintance, a social friend, a team member? No, he said greater love, no greater love is he than he who would lay down his life for his friends. That’s Airborne. When you’re ready to pay the price, when you’d lay your life down for your brothers.

I’ve surrounded myself with Rangers in my inner circle deliberately. I could be over in the Middle East and if I got in trouble, I could hit them on speed dial and they’d find me. They would, they would come and find me. I would do the same for them. Our ancestors, in the first three centuries of Christianity, it should have, should have, should have died. It had no chance. It was illegal in Rome. They didn’t have media; they didn’t have buildings. There was no network where they could take your transfer of letter to join their church. To them the word church meant God’s people. It had no association with a building. How did they do it? You know, it’s what we call fixed bayonets, hand-to-hand combat. They all shared their faith with people that they had made friendships with.

One, Roman Caesar said at one point, the Christians take better care of our people than we do. Here’s a little piece written in the second century by Dionysus, and it’s just entitled, “Those Christians”. This was written in the second century. His observation about our ancestors, the remnant.

Christians are not differentiated from other people by county, country, language or customs. They don’t live in cities on their own or speak some strange dialect or have some peculiar lifestyle. The teaching of theirs has not been contrived. It’s not an invention or speculation, nor are they propagating here human teaching as some people do. They live in both Greek and barbarian cities. Wherever chance has put them. They follow local customs. They’re good citizens, with food and other aspects of life. But at the same time they display their wonderful and certainly unusual style of citizenship. They live in their own countries, but as aliens. As citizens, they participate in everything with the rest, but they endure anything as if they are aliens. Every foreign country to them as their native country and every homeland as a foreign country. They weren’t of this world and people knew it. They had a clear understanding that they were just passing through. They were pilgrims. They loved everyone and yet they were persecuted by all. They’re unknown and condemned, but they put death and gain and then they gained life. They’re poor but they make many rich. They shared everything they had. They lacked everything and yet they had plenty of things. They are dishonored and yet they gained glory. Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and they bless in return. They are treated outrageously. They behave respectfully to each other, to others. When they do good, they’re punished as evil doers. When punished, they rejoice as if being given a new life. They are attacked by barbarians and are persecuted by Greeks. Yet those who hate them can give no reason for their hatred. To put it simply, the soul is to the body as Christians are to our world. The soul is dispersed throughout all parts of the body and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul lives in the body, but not of the body. Christians are in the world, but they’re not of the world.

Those are our ancestors and people could see their lives. They were drawn to these people.

There’s one account of a very famous saint named Perpetua. She was from a notable family in Rome and became a Christian right after she’d given birth to a little baby.

While we were under arrest, my father, in his love for me tried to persuade me to shake my resolve. Father…

He was asking his daughter to deny Christ because she’d been arrested for being a Christian in Rome.

     She said, do you see that water pot? Yes. Can it be called anything other than a water pot? No. Well, in the same way, I can’t be called anything but a Christian. That’s what I am.

You know, if we could only learn Christianity is not something you do, it’s someone you become. And the early Christians, if you professed Christ, they expected to see a change in the lifestyle. They expected for you to have Christ jerseys on. Be on the field, share your faith by loving people, caring for people. When the plagues broke out in the Rome, guess who, guess who the only group that didn’t leave town was? The Christians. They’re the ones that ministered to the sick.

This gal was taken to court. She said, during those days, I was put in prison, taken to court, I was baptized and inspired by the Holy Spirit not to ask for any other favor except my physical perseverance. She never actually prayed for God to get her out of there. She just prayed whatever’s ahead of me, let me be faithful and persevere to the end.

     A few days later, we were lodged in the prison. I was terrified. I’d never been in such a dark hole. What a terrible time it was.

These are her words.

     With the overcrowding, the heat was stifling, there was extortion of the soldiers, and I was tormented and worried about my baby. When I went to court…

She went to court. Her father burst into the trial with the baby and said, just go ahead and put some incense in the fire. That was your tribute to Caesar as God. She said, I won’t do it. They sentenced them to death the next day. Here’s the last paragraph.

     The governor said, have pity on your father’s gray head. Have pity on your son. Offer sacrifice to the emperor. I will not, I replied. Are you a Christian? I am, I confessed. He passed the death sentence on all of us. We were condemned to the beast. We returned to prison that day in high spirits.

That’s Airborne. That’s not of this world.

Do you know this is actually the biblical calling we have? I mean, we’ve turned it into nothing much. But I’m telling you the truth. You know in your heart, I’m right.

There is a verse in second Corinthians nine 15 (II Corinthians 9:15) and it refers to Jesus Christ as God’s indescribable gift to us. You can’t describe it. What did it cost God the Father, to give Jesus to us? I don’t know. I don’t even have a brain that could compute that big. Indescribable gift. Jesus, a gift. And I see men kind of trample on it. Religious men, who feign Christianity, but they’re not gonna do anything. They’re not gonna pay a price. They’d never suffer for Christ. They’ll be the first ones to bail when it gets tough. Indescribable gift. God parted the Red Sea. Amazing, but not indescribable. He raised Lazarus from the dead. Amazing, but not indescribable.

You want to hear indescribable? I’ve told you this before, the Hubble telescope. My faith has been so built up by what that thing has been discovering. One of my favorites is the Sombrero Galaxy. It’s beautiful artwork. Now try to get your head around this. It’s 38 million light years away from earth. Light goes at 186,000 miles per second. 1,186,000 miles. It takes it 30 million years to get here. The size of the Sombrero Galaxy. It’s 25,000 light years across from one end to the other. And now everybody that’s patched up to the Hubble, they all agree, there are 2 trillion galaxies that we know of. And you know in your heart it’s infinite, right? Can you understand that? I described it to you, I gave you solid numbers. But can your brain get around that? No. It’s way above anybody in here. And we sit around and doubt God and whine and complain. Shut up. Really, just shut up. I love you guys, but I’m not afraid of you. I want your blessing. I want you to talk me up. How wonderful. If you don’t, I don’t care. I’m free. I fear God. I follow Christ. What, are you boasting? This ain’t no boastimony. It’s a testimony. I know who I am. I’m an Airborne Ranger. I’m boasting in the things of God. I don’t want be anything else. I wanna live a life of danger. I want to be an Airborne Ranger. And people ask me, well what are your fears? I died and came back. What do you got? You know. Nothing. Is that achievable? Yes. If you fear God, you will lose your fear of men. You don’t have to people please. Trying to get everybody to like you. You don’t have to do any of that anymore. You’re just free to love people with no agenda. I don’t want anything you guys have, except your friendship and your love in Christ.

The Voyager left the earth’s atmosphere in the seventies, targeted for all the planets to do a loop around them and get some close up shots. About four years ago, it left the solar system’s gravitational pull. It’s in outer space now and it is targeted to just the nearest star to earth. It’s not 300 million light years. It’s only seven light years from us.

The voyager’s going 38,000 miles an hour. It’ll do a flyby, a one light-year away flyby of the S nearest star. Do you know when it’s scheduled to arrive? In 20,000 years? I’m trying to tell you men, God is enormous. He’s indescribable. Completely indescribable. If you feel some kind of tug in your heart to say, I want to go to the next level. I don’t want it means, I don’t know what it means, and I don’t care, you need to pray that this morning and you need to be a part of the remnant, because in closing, you know there are a lot of people that thought they were Christians in Matthew seven and when they thought they were going to heaven, the Lord said, I don’t know who you guys are. I don’t even know you. Well, didn’t we do all this religious stuff? Well, I don’t know, but I don’t know you.

When I was dead, when I knew I was about to cross the line, I lost my eyesight, but I could hear one of the doctors going, doctor, he’s down to 30. Well, I knew that was my pulse. When you’re in the twenties, I know you’re dead. I know that much. And so, I thought, here we go. I’ve been talking to guys all my life about this and now I’m up to bat. I couldn’t believe it, but I had no fear. I had no anxiety because I heard one of the doctors say, they hook you up to everything there is, and said, doctor, this man has no anxiety, no fear. Well, that’s the Holy Spirit. Because I’m very frail, very frail. After my heart attacks, I’m no longer one of the strongest guys in the room. I had to turn my badass card in a while back. It’s kind of a relief. It’s over. I don’t have to be that anymore. I’m weak and I am.

But when I got there, I kept hearing this voice from the Lord. Tell the men, you can’t get this part wrong. You cannot get this part wrong. You gotta get this one right. Don’t play around with it guys. Go back to your home. Get on the floor in the shape of a cross and humble yourself in a new way to God and say, God equip me for the rest of the run. I want to be like Captain Winters. I’m willing to be surrounded by the enemy. I don’t care. Stop putting your faith in things that can and will be taken away from you. Did you just, did you hear that? Just stop it.

I’m gonna close in a prayer.

I want to live a life of danger. I want to be an Air Force ranger. I want to, I’m not looking to get martyred, but I don’t care. And it’s really freeing. Can you guys tell I’m kind of freed up today? I hope some of you would envy that in a positive way. Just stop putting yourself, your faith in stuff that can be taken away from you, and ultimately it will be taken away from you. Don’t be a fool. Take a hard inventory of your life. Are you the real thing? Are you gonna be one of those guys God’s gonna go, I didn’t really know you? You don’t want to do that. I’m begging you. I’m not angry. I’m not talking down to you. Brothers, friends, I’m just begging you. Get this part right. Amen.

Now I want three men to stand up, one at a time, and you say a prayer, and I’ll be the fourth. I don’t want to hear what Fox News has to say in your prayer. I was a chaplain of Fox 12 years and I’m telling you, they can’t save you. Have you ever known anybody that watched an hour of Fox News and turned the TV off and said, well that was the most refreshing, delightful experience? That was wonderful. Never. Not one person in the world. No, I only say that because Christians binge on all the conservative stuff. I’m talking about something way beyond that. The Lord’s calling you today, boys. He’s calling you. We all know it, don’t we? Now, I want three guys to pray to Jesus and I’ll be the fourth. Short, loud, bold prayers. Let’s bow our heads.

Number one, if God’s tugging your heart, stand up and pray. I love hearing you brothers pray. It feels like I’m in my unit.

Lord, I can tell these men right now how they can grow 100% before they walk out this door. Just stop being ashamed of Jesus. Stop it. Be proud of Jesus. If you pray on a golf tee with guys before or a dinner anywhere, pray in Jesus name. Say the name, say it. Jesus said, if My name be lifted up, I’ll draw all people to myself. Get Him on the scoreboard. Put Jesus on the scoreboard. Stop being ashamed.

Lord, if this message has frightened anyone, give them courage. Everybody, somebody’s fool. We want to be fools for Christ. What about you? Holy Spirit, just permeate this room now. Infiltrate every man, every man here. You made them for a purpose. They were all your idea. You brought them into the world. Just fill their heart with the Spirit of Jesus. And thank you for our dear friend, Richard Simmons, who makes all these things possible for us. Bless him and protect him. We take him for granted like he’s always completely self-contained. I’m sure he has struggles like everybody else. So we ask a blessing on our, kind of our lead pastor Richard, and I’m praying all this and in the indescribable name, Jesus. Amen. Amen. The Lord be with you.

Audience: And also with you.

Go in peace.