Transcript for:
Luke 19:11,27 -Occupy Until He Comes- Guest Speaker Edward Amaya with Far Reaching Ministries 2023-11-05

Please welcome Pastor Edward Amaya. Well, good morning. I'm not supposed to be here today but I had a chance to connect with your pastor last week. Wes asked me to connect with him because he has been a man that's been in ministry for a long time and he's actually gone through the fires of life and he continues to be here. And for us as a ministry, that means a lot. I'm going to get into some crazy things today but we're not looking that life doesn't get hard in people's lives. We're looking at their commitment to Christ and that clinging to Christ is a little bit better. So we have an honor for your pastor just to let you know. I was supposed to actually be in another, in Atlanta to fly to Latin America but when we connected, I decided to unpark this weekend and come here and encourage you. And you'll be praying with your pastor as I've asked him to come to a couple of really important countries with us and when you start to hear about these, then you really will be praying for him. So there we go. How many of you have ever heard Wes Bentley or myself from Far Reaching Ministries speak before? Okay, a couple of you. Okay, good. So there's going to be some new people in here so I'm going to take a few minutes and kind of build up a little bit of the back story to this. You don't know Wes Bentley but I do. I met him in 1985 when I showed up at a little church in San Diego called Horizon. I had no idea that that moment when we met and he became my roommate would eventually change my life. And I want to encourage you with that too is don't downplay the relationships of people that God brings in your life because a lot of times they're intentional. Sometimes it's just for a moment and other times it's for a lifetime. But we should be aware that relationships are critical because they do open up doors. I am with a ministry called Far Reaching Ministries. The Lord has called us into some of the most extreme places on the planet. We're mostly known for our work in South Sudan. Actually, Wes started out as a missionary in Russia when the walls first came down. He loves the snow. He loves it cold. If you talk to Wes, he wants it 365 days a year minus 40. That makes Wes happy. Wes is also a Marine and Wes thinks a little bit differently and it's been an inspiration to me. He was always a guy, even when we were younger, that when an opportunity opened up and it was within his ability to do something, he would just say yes. And if the Holy Spirit didn't want him, he'd prompt it because he said he noticed too many times that Christians, including young people, we get motivated by a message. Something moves us and a couple hours later if we don't do anything, we let that cool off. And I want to encourage us today as we have a God who wants to use everybody. He wants to use our lives. He wants to use our pains. He wants to do all that. But the most important thing we have to do is show up. Again, we are mostly known for our work in South Sudan. When Wes was in Russia, and I'm going to shorten the story. A couple of you who've heard the story before know some more of the details, but for time's sake, Wes was serving in Russia and there was a civil war going on in a place in Africa called Sudan. And some pastors and missionary organizations had connected with Wes and asked him if he'd go into this war zone because he was kind of the only Marine that they kind of knew at the time. And again, Wes knows when he has an opportunity to do something, he says yes. Showed up in South Sudan, and again, the story is longer than this, but to summarize it, he was there for a season and he had a chance to go around and find out where all the enemies were. And he called into the American pastors and they were able to bring in a little bush plane and show up in that country where ultimately two million people were genocided for one reason. It was because of the North wanting to convert them to Islam. Wes got back to America after being in that place and what you need to understand about Wes in those early days coming from Russia, when he got into South Sudan, he walked through these fields where he couldn't help it, but with every step he could hear the crunching of bones because of the shallow graves. And that just still even haunts him today because that was the first time he ever had to deal with something like that. The other thing that was really difficult is that he walked through villages where the enemy had come in and they wiped out every man, woman, and child. And he had to walk through that and he could no longer act like there wasn't an enemy that wants to destroy people. And again, he got a home with the Lord to America after doing that. And he shares with us as a staff, he said, you know, I got alone with the Lord and I said, Father, that was the most incredible experience of my life. And I never want to go to South Sudan again. And today what he says is that if God calls us out of South Sudan, he's, we have learned to hear the voice of the Lord and we'll be obedient, but it'll break his heart. And that's what I want to encourage us with. A lot of the times the things that we pursue, the things that we think is the very answer to us, a lot of times it's not. And I want to encourage us with all the things that we're, the expectations that we're putting on God and on others. I pray that you'll just put those before the Lord today because he really does want to use every single life. Again, in South Sudan, well, we've been there since 1998. And in the time in which we're there, over 2 million people were genocide. It's an incredibly difficult thing. The only reason people in America know about South Sudan is if there's been missionaries going there because it doesn't affect our, our oil prices and our stock market. And, and again, over 2 million people being killed, just literally the purest evil that you can experience. We have to, we've had to deal with women who, um, the enemies would come into their villages and, and obviously violate them many times. And they would kill some of the women and then to send a, a message of fear across South Sudan. This is going to be hard, but they would take some of the women and they would cut off their breasts. They would cut off their lips, their nose, their ears, their fingers. And what I can tell you, when you, when you encounter a woman who has been traumatized like that, or a child who was forced to kill their own parents because, or to be killed themselves. Well, when you meet a child like that, you don't just give them a glass of water and give them a small little hug and say, Jesus loves you. You're going to be okay. You've got to be willing to walk with people long enough so that they can experience the love of God in a tangible way that they've never experienced before. And we found that out as a ministry. When you walk with the broken hearted and love them for the simple reason that Jesus loves them more, it changes lives. In 1998, when we, when we first showed up in Sudan, we were also written into the constitution at that time. We became the official training arm for the SPLA, for the rebel army, where Wes was brought in to train up their chaplains, their pastors, or really Calvary Chapel pastors. And, and since those early days, we've actually trained up and deployed over 400, almost 500 chaplains, and all of them serve in frontline combat units. What makes us a little unique as a ministry is the experience that with the hardship that we've had to endure because of where God's called us. In the first 16 years, 15 years of ministry, we had 16 of our team members die, mostly bombs and bullets. And just to drive this home, these are our brothers and even our sister. These are people that we spent time in the word. We laid hands on them. We, we prayed over the American church through the night. I mean, these are people that we love and when they go home, it is a loss. We know we're going to see them in heaven, but in those first 15 years of ministry, the Lord was almost being kind to us with those 16 that were killed. In the last eight in South Sudan alone, we've had 54 of our team members killed and the numbers continue to increase as things heat up all over the planet. We fully expect that somebody on our senior staff is going to show up in a place and at some point they're going to breathe their last and enter eternity. And that doesn't make us brave. What I want to encourage you, it doesn't make us brave at all, makes us obedient. And that's what I want to encourage you. As you see these things that come out of me, it's not because I have some special skills or because God has big favor on me. The only thing I know is that when God opens up a door and you show up, you have no idea what he can do with your life. Obviously my personality fits what we do here. God has the insights to that, but I want to encourage you, your stories, your life, maybe it's not called to South Sudan, but your lives have an importance to Christ because Jesus said, and greater things than these will you do. And right now, what I want to encourage you is that Christ wants to use the love of God to bring to the world and including our enemies today. And we're going to spend some time there because we want our enemies to come to Jesus. Since we first started in Russia, then South Sudan, we have expanded tremendously. We're in almost 40 countries. We're in five active war zones. We're actually in seven undeclared war zones, but we're in five declared war zones actively today. And we're working in nine of the 10 most dangerous Islamic countries. Again, it's not because we're brave, it's because we're obedient. And what we know about scripture is that we have been told to start local and that we are called to go into all the world, not just the places we like or the people we agree with their ideology, but we were told to love our enemies. And how do we know that? Because I was Christ's enemy. If you would have met me when I was 17, my brother can tell you, I promise you that if you had a daughter at that time, you would have done everything you can to keep her away from me. And yet today, what God is able to do at 19, he so transformed my life that today I get to go into the world and to protect women and children. God can do that. And we want to pray that our enemies just like us, their eyes are open and then they serve Jesus. That's the greatest thing that we could want for our enemies. I lead a division of our ministry. It's kind of unique for a Calvary pastor, but I have a unique title. I'm called the director of ghost operations. And again, you won't hear that too often, but that's a military term. And it's really meant for the church. I actually represent you. I represent the invisible arm of the church, the invisible arm of love to the most dangerous places. I'm responsible for hundreds of underground pastors. And if you think of a very dangerous country, we're probably there. I'm also responsible for underground doctors that are working in these same countries to bring relief to people. And where we are only working, our countries that are considered persecuted are incredibly dangerous. I see my brother here with Israel. There's enough going on in the news today for us to be concerned with what's going on in Israel, right? But I can tell you that there's a lot more going on in the world that should be shaking us at least into more and more prayers. And I'll spend a little bit of time probably with Israel and Hamas. I wish I could spend some time with Iran. What we get to see on the news when we see pictures of Iran are thousands of people burning American flags and saying death to America. What I got to see from our underground team that we got to sneak into another country are people that love the American church so much. When they pray for you, they get down on their knees. When they sing worship, because of the freedom they get to have in this other country, they're on their knees with their arms just stretched out. I wish you could see that picture of what God can do to our enemies when he touches them with the Holy Spirit. I don't hate my enemies. Yes, I hate what they do. I hate what they do. And I will stand between them and hurting somebody else. But I want them to be woken up to the glorious transformation of Jesus and body of Christ. You know where that has to start with? I want so desperately for my life to reflect Christ that I don't even have to speak too much. And I speak for a living. But I want my life that when you catch me, whether it's in the airport in New York, or if I'm somewhere in Sudan, and I don't even see you, I want you to catch me walking out my faith. Because I realize that the most important thing today that I'm considered is first and foremost, an ambassador. I am so thankful that I'm an American. I don't know why God decided to give me the freedom to be American. I know we're losing a lot of those freedoms. I know the world is changing radically. But I still have the freedom to get up before you today and be as bold as I am. And I'm not too worried about somebody coming in those back doors. But what I do know is that there's a couple billion people today just to confess the name of Jesus will cost them everything. And I am thankful that I'm an American. I'm thankful that I get to come out of Calvary Chapel. And I want to represent America really well around the globe. And I want to represent Calvary Chapel. But again, I represent Christ. I don't just represent America when I go to Russia or the Middle East, I am representing Jesus, I am bringing the essence of Christ wherever I go, and body of Christ, everybody who confesses Jesus, you are called an ambassador, you're not an ambassador to the United Nations, you're ambassadors of heaven. And that is our identity. But when we walk before the world, hopefully I'll remember to come back then and spend a few more moments. We expanded way beyond where we're working into the Middle East, many countries there, we're still doing our work in Russia and in Ukraine. I'm going to spend a couple seconds there. We're working in Burma. I don't have any time to talk about that. But just last year alone, one of our teams, we smuggled in a, well, we're trying to smuggle in a truck worth of supplies and medical equipment for the front lines where the enemy is just killing entire villages of Christians and they were intercepted and all five of them were shot, four of them were killed, one was shot in the head and he survived. But just to bring relief to people, it costs our team even their own lives. I'm going to spend some time in Latin America. We actually had enough work going on and there was no, we had no energy, no time and no focus on what's going on in Latin America until we got a call from Joe Foch. And again, Wes just knows that if we're given an opportunity and we have the ability to do it, we're going to say yes until we hear the Lord saying no, not because we're trying to insert ourself. It's because we know that God has given us work to do. And I can tell you this, I am desperate to see men of God growing up in Christ because the world needs Christ and less and less people are rising up to go out. It's really true in scripture when it talks about pray because the need is so big, but the workers are so few. I can promise you if I had another thousand people on my team, we still wouldn't have enough people. That is what's going on across this globe. I'm going to spend a couple moments and talk about a little country in the Middle East that nobody even talks about. And the reason I'm going to is because I still have a team there and it's this little country called Syria. And we don't even hear about Syria too much anymore. We heard about it when there was that terrible earthquake in Turkey a few months ago and like 40,000 people died up there and in northern Syria, a bunch of people died. But we've had 12 underground pastors serving in Syria for years, even before this latest war that broke out. And Danny, who is my team lead there, he told me a story and it just sticks with me and I want to share it with you because it gives me such confidence. In the early days of the war, Danny called our team together himself plus 11 other underground pastors and said, men, war is coming. And this is not just going to be where the Muslims are trying to kill Christians. This is going to be Muslims killing Muslims. And this might be an opportunity where our very enemies are going to be the ones that are going to be feeling as victimized as we are. And we may be able to bring Jesus to them at the right time because of their suffering. But we better pray about it because there's really biblical precedence if we should leave with our families to get them to safety and literally regroup and find out another day to come back into Syria. And we just need to find that out. So they all agreed that they would pray and fast and they got away for a week. And Danny shared with me, he said, you know, Edward, I really would have been okay if only a couple guys would have shown up. I knew that they had families. I knew what they were wrestling through. But what happened so blew his mind. When they got back together at an undisclosed location, not only did the original 11 show up plus Danny, so we had the original 12, 13 other underground pastors heard about it and showed up. And we ended up with 25 people plus their families. Thousands of miraculous stories going on in Syria. But I'll tell you one that happened early. When we were sending in food, because we have to be practical for our team, right? We can't have them starved to death. We've got to make sure they have medical supplies, the things that they need. And so practically, we're just trying to get in some food in the early days of the war. We couldn't send in a truck, we couldn't send in airplanes because the enemy would have attacked it. And so we were smuggling in those early days across the Israeli border, small parcels of food, and they had to be given to these families and they had to last. And one of our guys realized that in the war, not only was his family going to be suffering, but so were Muslims. And he took some of his food and he divided it up. And he took part of that package in a war zone to one of the local imams house, one of the most powerful imams in that area. And he gave him the food. It's a long story and I'm shortening it up, but he gives him the food. And in that moment, this man realizes that he's been given food in a war zone. This is precious. No man had to walk up to him and offer him this. And because he understood that, he said, my brother, what is this for? And our team lead says, it's a gift from Jesus. And the man in that moment says, Jesus, the great prophet. He says, yes, invites him into his home. And that night his entire family gives their life to Jesus. And today he is running an underground seminary in Syria. And this is what I want to remind us. If we look at our enemy with hatred and I can't help to hate the sin. I hate the sin, especially when I'm telling you what they're going to do to children, but I want them to know Jesus and be brought from the dead and be made alive. And then they can take their lives and be used to go out and protect the very people that they used to harm. That's my prayer. Not only do we have a lot going on in Syria, but Afghanistan. I wish I could spend all day on that because it's still going on. And as you, as you would imagine with Israel happening and with Ukraine happening, nobody talks really about Afghanistan anymore, but I can tell you it is still a worst case scenario for Christians. When Afghanistan fell after America had been there for 20 years, it fell in 10 days. We had, we had 22 team members serving there. And with their family members, we had over 200 people. These are all indigenous people to Afghanistan. And they have been on the Taliban's blacklist for years because the Taliban in Afghanistan, they've been playing the long game for years. They realized that Russia only stayed X amount of time. And they knew that America wouldn't have the stomach to stay indefinitely. Whether it took a hundred years or 50 years or 20 years, they knew we were going to leave. And they made these lists and interpreted in English is called blacklists. And it was every Christian that they had identified as well as every everybody that had helped America in the 20 years, the Afghanistan's, and they sent out letters to kill them all. And we knew in that moment that our team was in really bad shape. In fact, we had people on the ground. I have video on my phone as well as pictures. If you remember in the early days when all the Afghans were trying to get to the airport and they were clinging to those transport planes and falling to their death. And then there was another incident that most of you probably won't remember, but there was two suicide bombs one day outside that airport when there were hundreds of thousands of people trying to get into that airport. It was just, it was pathetically bad. We had most of our team members trying to get into that airport too. And those Marines that were killed were actually several of them were looking for our team members because they were in the throng of hundreds of thousands of people and they all were covered in their Islamic gear. And it was really difficult. And then there was an explosion and it was just an incredibly difficult time. I can tell you that it's probably been one of the hardest things that we've had to deal with, especially when the news kind of walked away. But we knew we had to do something. And so we pulled together people from around Calvary that are Calvary pastors. They are former special forces. They come from the intelligence community and we brought in some Navy SEALs and we had a meeting at our office with Don McClure and some other people and we went into wartime planning. And that night when we were doing some planning, we knew that this was going to be difficult because we had, again, connections on the ground and our military guys on the ground saying, man, you are not landing here. It was a difficult thing. And we went home that night and for those of you who know Wes, he's not a really charismatic person. He doesn't say words like this. We went home that night and none of us were sleeping well. We were carrying the weight of our team and we just don't leave team behind. And Wes that night, he told us the next morning in the office that he felt like the Holy Spirit came to him about three o'clock in the morning and said, Wes, I'm going to give you a very difficult 2,000 piece puzzle and I'm only going to give you one piece at a time and I need you to trust me. That's all he felt like the Holy Spirit said. We get in the office, he shared that with the team and a couple hours later we got a call from one of our longest donors, longest serving donors, and he said, I felt like the Lord put on my heart that I'm supposed to send you $400,000 for Afghanistan. That was the first piece and it just gave us such courage. Well, that day too, our phones started ringing off the hook. We were thinking about just our team and we ended up with over 3,000 Christians that were being hunted on our list. We were getting calls from Samaritan's Purse and Crew and all of these and the Lord used that for what comes next and we'll get there in a moment. So we jumped in and we sent in teams and I can tell you the beautiful thing, we have been able to get 1,900, almost 2,000, well it's actually 2,002 people now successfully out of Afghanistan. And I want to tell you something else too, this is what God does. Because God gave us favor with people who come from the intelligence community because of our work in Sudan and they love Jesus. We found out things, we know things about getting people out of bad countries. If you go into Afghanistan and you're trying to help people and you take thousands of people across the borders without a passport, eventually they're going to be captured up by those countries, whether it's Pakistan or Iran or China, and they're going to be given back to the Taliban. And if you've been watching the news and it's on the news but it's hidden because of what's going on with Israel, Pakistan just brought together 1 million people that came out of Afghanistan. The vast majority of those are going to be people that are going to be on the Taliban hit list and they're about to give them back. In the very early days of the war, God put us in connection with a guy who stole the last passport machine. And so a guy on our team, on our board, is a Calvary Chapel pastor and he's a former FBI, very high. He was a legal attaché over the Middle East. He was over counter-terrorism for all of California and he retired two weeks before Afghanistan happened. And for the last couple years, he, as a brother in the Lord, because of his experience with the FBI, he's been flying from country to country meeting with presidents and prime ministers. And we have been able to successfully get everybody we've gotten out, passports, visas, and legal entry into another country so that they can start another life. And that's what I want to share with you is when God does these important things, he expects us to be excellent. Let's read scripture. I have another two hours, right? Okay. Let's open our scripture to our Bibles to Luke chapter 19 and we're going to start in verse 11. Luke 19 verse 11. I'm going to give you a little bit of background as we open. I am going through really bad mid-age crisis. Nobody's laughing because I know I did, but I just I just turned 58 and I'm about to turn 60. And I know it sounds a little bit corny. I'm doing a little bit of whining, but play with me a little bit, okay? I remember it was like yesterday when my little baby girl, Courtney, was born. I remember as a young dad, I put my legs up on the coffee table and I remember I had my little angel sitting there and I just had these big eyes and my brother can attest to it. We weren't raised functionally. We were raised pretty dysfunctionally. And I remember in that moment just going, God, I don't want my children to go through what my brother and I had to go through. And I was just praying. I had these big eyes and I just thank God for the graciousness because I have a great relationship with my daughter. The difference though is she no longer fits in my little lap. She just turned 36 and it literally feels like it was just a couple years ago, two, three years ago. It literally feels like that when she was just my little baby. I'm still completely wrapped around her finger, but now I have a 10-year-old granddaughter. And why I'm aware of this, why this mid-age crisis is this next part. This is going to be a little dramatic, but I want it to be dramatic because it means something to me. I'm going to use this. If God gives me a hundred years of life, just a hundred years of life, I'm almost 60. That means that there's less time in front of me than has already gone underneath my bridge. And yes, it's going to take some time, right? But it's also going to go by that quickly. And I am aware that I only have that much time left with my entire being. I only have that much time to glorify Jesus. And what I do right here, what I do right here and what I don't do right here, somehow that's going to impact all of my eternity. What happens right here is going to go beyond my life and it's going to go out that wall. It's going to go around the earth and it's going to keep going and it's not going to end. In the body of Christ, this is all the time we get the dash between the year we were born and when I breathe my last, that is all we get to glorify Jesus. And that's why I'm here today to bring this message because I see the condition of a church in America. And we are getting our teeth knocked out. But what I want to encourage us is that we are we are victors in Christ, even if it's going to be hard. And God expects us to do something until the very end. And that's where this scripture comes up. This is Jesus. He's on his way to Jerusalem. He's about to say this to the disciples and the disciples just within a few days are going the very ones that betray him and said they never knew him. His own countrymen are going to turn him over to an invading army called the Romans and they're going to crucify him and kill him. And he has the clarity of mind to say this. I'm worried about my little dash and Jesus has the clarity of mind to say this. And that's why I follow Jesus and not me. Let's let's see what he says to the disciples. Luke chapter 19, starting in verse 11. And as they heard these things, who? The disciples, he, Jesus, proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. He said, therefore, a noble man went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return, calling ten of his servants. He gave them ten minas. So just to give you a little bit of history here, he calls ten of his servants, he gives them about a pound of silver each, is what most people say that is. That's a lot of money at the time and poverty rate was much higher. He gives them a pound of silver and what does he do? He tells them to engage in business or what your translations probably say, occupy until I come. But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him saying we do not want this man to reign over us. When he returned, having received the kingdom, even though they didn't want him to reign over, Jesus is still going to do what he's going to do. Having received the kingdom, he ordered those servants to whom he had been given the money to be called to him that he might know what they had, listen to this, gained by doing business. The first came before him saying, Lord, your mina has made ten minas more. And he said to him, I love these words, well done, good servant, because, cause and effect, pay attention to cause effect, because you have been faithful. Body of Christ, that's the biggest message I want to bring here today. The most important thing that we can do is to learn to be faithful right where we are. Because faithfulness right here, what I know from my life experience, that faithfulness right here prepares you for what's next. But if we try to whine and complain and do everything we can to get out of this season, we're not going to learn the lessons that we need for over here. And I'll give you an analogy. This is a bad analogy, but it kind of works. Because of what I do, I have a lot of young men when I travel that want to come up and talk to me. And they say the story a little differently, but it's something like this. Listen, I want to go to Sudan. My life is a mess right now. I want to go to Sudan. And I just know that if I can go to Sudan, my life is going to make sense. I'm going to walk with Jesus and I'm going to be victorious. And what they're saying is, I can't figure this out. My life is a mess. I don't know what to do. I'm strained in relationships. I'm not sure about my education. This is what they're saying to me. And they're saying, but if I can go to a war zone, then it all makes sense. I can tell you this. No, it won't. If you can't do it when it's safe and there's body armor all around you to protect you, you will not be able to take yourself and put yourself into the middle of a war zone. What you will do, because we've seen it happen, is your tail goes between your legs and you run. Do not run ahead of what God wants. If you're called to raise children, if you're still called to be a business person, whatever that is, be faithful with that, because those are the things that God is going to do to prepare you for what comes next. Because you have been faithful, and I love this, and very little. I don't know about you, but I heard money kind of makes the world go round. He who has money makes the rules. What is it? What's the old saying that there's a lot of sayings about that. But we also know that money creates wars, right? And rips families. Money in our world is more important than almost human beings, if you haven't noticed. Not for us, but the world has made it so big. And what does Jesus say? Hey, when you're faithful, and that little thing that you guys call money, that you make such a big thing, when you're faithful in that little thing, when you're faithful in that little thing, what does he say? You shall have authority over 10 cities. I'm not telling you that God's going to give you 10 cities. We go for money, and now we have government, and family, and education. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is faithfulness, where you are, is the most important thing to end up where he wants to take you next. And if any of you have made a mistake, I want to encourage you. Because that's the great thing I love about God. Your pastor and I, we have scars in our life. We have scars that are self-imposed, and we have scars that were imposed on us by other people. They're still scars. But what it does is it gives us a heart of compassion for the suffering. And when God takes you through the fires of life, and you can learn to suffer, it gives you street credibility when you're actually dealing with other people that are hurting. God will take your stories and use them if you will just embrace the goodness. And that means that even the ugliness that happens to you. And I've seen that over and over. But be faithful. And a second came saying, Lord, your mina has made five minas. And he said to him, and you are to be over five cities. Then another came saying, Lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid awake in a handkerchief, for I was afraid of you. Because you're a severe man, you take what you did not deposit, and you reap what you did not sow. And he said to him, I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant. You knew. Pastor Rick has been teaching you that I am a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not put the money in the bank? Why then, if I gave you something, if you were too afraid, why then didn't you give it to somebody else that wasn't afraid and they could do something with it? And at my coming, I might have collected it with interest. And he said to those who stood by, take the mina from him and give it to the one who has ten minas. And they said to him, Lord, he has ten minas. I tell you that to everyone who has promise, more will be given. That is not a prosperity message. But from the one who has not, listen to this body of Christ, even what he has or she has will be taken away. Again, Jesus on his own way to his own death, he has the clarity of mind to tell the disciples before their world's about to splat upside down, he tells them that they are called to glorify him with their life until their last breath, occupy until he comes. And I want to bring that message to us today because that's what Christ is telling me. When I want to get tired and throw the blankets over my head and say, God, no more war zones, no more suffering, I'm reminded what Christ has said. He has called us to reflect his goodness to the world. And I get back up and I pray it's going to be the same thing in your life. Whatever those things are, whatever that call is, and if you don't know what it is, I'm going to tell you something. The most important thing in your life is to get alone with the Lord and not move on to your next decision until you understand where he wants to take you now and even next. It's changed my life. God has called us to go into all the world and bear fruit. And I want to remind us of something. When I hold on to scripture, I've got to hold on to scripture. I'm a dead man. And I know the scripture that if we resist the devil, he will flee from me. I have to do that a lot. But one of the things that I hold on to, and I'm here to challenge the church with, it's a promise from God. And it says that the gates of hell will not prevail against what? Collectively. And if we are not walking in unity, the Bible says that the world will know that we're his disciples by our love for one another. Yet there have been over 4,500 evangelical denominations since our country was found 250 years ago. And I know some of those denominations came out of corruption, but at some point we have to admit the fact that we are not living for Christ the way that we would. And if this church would quit, I'm not saying it's happening in this church, I'm talking the church and collectively. And if we'd quit destroying ourselves and take that love and look out to the world, we, God has a lot of work for us to do. I want to show a video here just to kind of let you see the gates of hell. We ended up in Latin America. We're going to stream this video in a minute. I want to bring some kids home to you. We're not going to, we're, excuse me, try that again. I'm going to show you the video, but we're not going to stream it. Wes didn't want me to block the children's faces because you guys, he wants you to have a heart for the children that God has brought us into the world. And we want to take a trip at some point. Pastor Rick is praying about it. Maybe take a trip of you down to Latin America and love on these kids or over to Ukraine where we have another hundred children that we just rescued. We're going to watch this video in a minute, but while they get that cued up, I want to talk about Ukraine. We are involved in Ukraine. I've been going to Russia for like 15 years. Every January, Wes and I go to Russia. They have Russian Christmas, Orthodox Christmas in January. So we get our Christmas here, then we go there, and we go to all the Calvary chapels. And the last time I was there was two years ago, was January. And we were there for almost a month. It was an amazing time. We went to all the Calvary chapels. We were encouraging the pastors. And then I got to take a small group to St. Petersburg with about 175 kids from the different Calvary chapels. And what I got to experience was amazing. It was a three-day conference we did for the kids. And on the last night, it was the Holy Spirit was moving, and almost all 175 of those kids were on their knees asking the Lord to use them in their country to bring the Lord of Christ to their region. Little did I know that the next month, February, the world would break out, and I would never be able to go back to Russia again. When we got involved in Ukraine, because our Calvary chapels in Russia are going, let's go take care of the people. I took a couple punches in the solar plexus, and so did Wes when we first got involved in Ukraine. I wasn't ready for it. And now I understand, and so I'm kind of addressing it. But I had very well-meaning people come up to me and say, what are you guys doing in Ukraine? They're a very corrupt government. And the answer is, yeah, they are a corrupt government. I've spent a lot of time in Russia, and I can promise you the Russian government is incredibly corrupt. I've been 58 years in America, and I just want to let you guys know I heard that the politics here might be a little bit corrupt too. What I want to remind us is, yes, politics matter, but it's not about the governments. It's about the people. And if I were Chinese, and there was something happening in the church in America, I don't care if I didn't like the Americans. I am going to come and bring Jesus to the people, because one day, this is what's really neat, Calvary Chapel isn't going to be the only church in heaven. And it's not just going to be white people from just that place too. It's going to be people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. And we are called to go into all the world, every single part of it, not just the 1040 window, not just Tijuana. We're called to go into all the world. And that's what I want to encourage you is, where is that world for you? We're going to watch this video coming up, but let me tell you two little stories that happened, what's going on in Ukraine, and another reason why we're very involved. We sent a team over there of some special forces, a Calvary Chapel pastor, former force recon guy. He took a bunch of tours into Afghanistan and Iran. He led teams. And so we needed him to go into Ukraine and get some pictures so we could bring him back here, because we were seeing some things that we weren't seeing on our news. And we have video, we have too many hours of video, where literally we went through Maripol, and I have video after video, where literally hundreds of adults, grandmothers, mothers, children were saran wrapped behind their back and executed at point blank. We saw 50, 60 other in just one city. These are elderly people, literally riding their bike from point A to point B as the bombs are going on, and snipers are just taking them out. We got to see that. And we just said, no, people are dying apart from Christ, I don't care what color your skin is, we need to bring Jesus to them. But our team, when they were there taking these pictures, God had a different plan too. We ran into this lady, and I have a video of her, she's definitely a little old lady, she doesn't even look like she's going to be able to make it. She's late 60s, maybe early 70s, I don't know. But when Brent and the team ran into her, she told them that she was going to commit suicide. Her house had been hit, her entire family had been eviscerated in the explosion. She didn't have a person left in the world, and she also didn't have a country that could help her out. She had no skills, she's old, her home is destroyed. And when we found her, she was living in a chicken coop with three sides of chicken wire, and the front door with wood was partly broken from the explosion. And she said, I have nothing left, I'll never be able to rebuild my home, I'll never have a job, I'll never have anything, there's no reason for me to live. And we said, what do we do? Lord, what do we have? And through a couple of neat things that happened, we started getting old shipping containers, and stripping them, and putting insulation in them, and in a bed, in a bathroom, and we dropped it on her land, and we call it a temporary home. But that's where she's going to live until her end, until her last days. I wish I could tell you there was only one. You know how many we put in so far? 220. 220 widows, that their entire families were eviscerated in a war. And then we had a chaplain, because God connected us with the chaplains of the Ukraine army. The guy who is the commander of this, he's a Calvary pastor, he's not a Calvary pastor, but you guys would love this man. He has the same attitude that Calvary does. The Bible says, undefiled religion exists to care for widows and orphans in their time of need. As he's going around this country and seeing the war, he's seeing more and more unaccompanied children. And as he looks into it, he realizes that their entire families have been killed. And he found about a hundred kids and he got in an airplane in the middle of the war to come to our office and sit down with Wes and I and said, we've got to take care of these kids. And so now we have two homes that we just put in in that country and we're taking care of kids because we have a biblical mandate to love on those that nobody has taken care of. We don't get the luxury to say no, because this is what God has called us to. So please be praying. Let's watch this video in a second, but I want to introduce you to our newest team member. It's not new anymore. We're going to call him Gabriel. We have to change everybody's name. Gabriel is a fourth degree black belt in jujitsu. And in Latin America, he works with the police. That's his ministry. He teaches the police how to do confrontation or protection. And the reason he does that is because they deal with some really bad people in that country. Half the police that he's dealing with are actually on the, on the cartel payroll, but because he has loved them so much that even though he's corrupt police, they have a respect for him. The other thing that Gabriel does is that he goes into a, he goes into really poor villages and he does soccer camps, brings American teams. And on one time he had an American team there and they're doing a soccer camp. He's also a FIFA coach. And, and he's the coach for a, for a South American team. This guy's just an overachiever, but he's there. And a grandfather came up to him, an indigenous grandfather. And he has two little granddaughters and he comes up to Gabriel and he's trying to sell his granddaughters to Gabriel. Gabriel, he's been in this country for a while, but he never heard that. And he just thought the guy was out of his mind trying to do a soccer camp. I got ministry. Go away. You're crazy. And somebody in the neighborhood came to Gabriel and said, no, that's legit. He's actually a drug dealer and he's in trouble with the cartel and he's selling his granddaughters so he can get some money and get out of trouble with the cartel. Gabriel went to try to rescue those children. And unfortunately through a long series, he ended up selling the kids in the middle of the night. Gabriel went to the chief of police who he'd been working with. This is an evangelical. I've met him many times. This is an amazing man. He's a good man. And Gabriel tells him what he saw. And this is one of the number one destinations for Americans to go on vacation. And he says, Gabriel, it's worse than you think about. It's something we don't talk about. And he said, I want to take you on a raid. We have a raid in a couple days. Gabriel comes back. They take them on a raid. And because of the traffic, they were about 30 minutes late. When they got there, the SWAT team goes inside. Sorry about this. I don't know why I have dry mouth. I'm not too nervous. The SWAT team goes inside and they come out just a couple seconds later. Very somber. And they say, Gabriel, we want you to come in and see this, but you better be ready for it. And Gabriel's thinking, okay, I can do this. And Gabriel's a tough guy. He really is. And they put him on some gloves and take him on the inside. And this is going to be hard. And on the table, there were three little bodies. And the reason they had gloves on is because he had them touch him. They were still warm to the touch, but they had been opened up and their organs had been taken out. And they explained to him in that situation that there is a large group of wealthy people with superstitions that are willing to come to this country. And for $5,000, they're willing to eat the heart of a child in the belief that if they eat that, it will give them long life. And when we heard about, what do you hear about that stuff? What if I were there? What if that were my children? This is the way I look at this. What if it were mine? By the grace of God, my children have never had to do this. What would I do? I'd be praying to the God of heaven to rescue my children. And by the grace of God, we want to be the one organization that is the answer to somebody's prayer. I want you to watch this video now, and then I'll be able to get up here and close within a couple minutes. So I'd like you to meet some of our newest children. Those were the first 13 children we got to rescue, and those are my little angels. I get to go see them, plus our new brothers and sisters. We have a home with almost 100 kids now, just in that. And I wish that I would be glad to tell you that, but we're being called by almost every country in South America. I was just in Peru and other countries, and it's coming out that this is actually going on everywhere. And so as much as God has us doing in the Middle East, Wes said, Edward, you got to win Latin America for Christ. You got to touch them. And I've got wars in the Middle East. I've got to worry about my team in Afghanistan and all over the world, and I am just focusing down there. And I would ask that you guys to be really praying for that, because it affects here. I don't have the video for you, but I have a video on my phone, and you've heard about it on the news, of about the 5,000 to 7,000 people now in South Mexico. They just came through this one particular country where our team is, and in the midst of that, there are over a hundred children that are being trafficked, sent to America right now. The cartels are sticking them in there, and we have a chance to disrupt that coming all the way up. There's just so much work to do. It's just bigger than us, and we're here to have your pastor pray about bringing a small team down with me next year, and for a couple things, you know, look around at all these issues, but also have a team of you come in and just love on those kids. And men, I'm sorry it can't be you, because it's men from America that go down there to do most of this terrible stuff to them. And I'll tell you a couple things. This could be the worst part of my message, and I'm cleaning this up compared to what I've had to see, what I have to experience I can never unsee and unexperience, and I'm trying to make it a little bit better for you. But I want to let you know those little angels, just of those angels, a couple of the kids. One little girl in there, five years old that you saw, she needs reconstructive surgery still in both the front and the back because she was repeatedly raped by too many adult men. Little angel in there you saw, seven years old, she was violated so forcefully that now she has liver and kidney damage, and she has to wear a catheter for the rest of her life. And when we got her, one of her rapists had given her syphilis. One of our oldest girls, 11 years old, she now lives with HIV for the rest of her life. And I didn't show you any boys at the time because we had rescued one little boy at that time, but it would have been obvious who he was. We have since rescued another 14 boys, but when we went to get them, the team that was doing the rescue, not us, the police, they were a day late, and when we got there, we only got 14 children because one of the boys was killed by the cartel before we got there. Just two weeks ago, and this is hard, we were supposed to get three boys that were being sold into sexual slavery, and again, it was a little bit late getting to them, and one of the boys was killed, and we only got two. And the nine-year-old, when he got to the house, we have beautiful rooms for him with bunk beds. These kids have never slept in bunk beds. They've slept on the ground. They've slept in trees. It's really that bad. And this little boy went into his room after he was shown what it was. He was so nervous, and he actually tried to commit suicide. He tried to hang himself with his own sheet. Our team heard it. They went in there and were able to rescue him, and as we looked at it, the boy was shaking in fear because the cartel had told him that if he ever escapes, they're going to find him. They're going to lock him in a box, expose him in his little rear end, and they're going to let a hundred men rape him, and then they're going to kill him. And this little nine-year-old, the name of our home is called The Little Starfish. We have one there. We have three in another Latin American country, and we have a few more about to be opened. This is just all since we've been involved in Afghanistan. But the name of our home is The Little Starfish. It's not the real name. Each one has it, but we're calling it The Little Starfish. In fact, we're putting our first Calvary, we're putting our first Little Starfish Calvary Chapel in one of the homes because we want the children, when they walk in, first thing they do is they walk through a chapel where God can be, they can meet Christ. It's a really neat little story, but it's called The Little Starfish, and it goes after the story that many of you have heard. There's a bunch of different ways to tell it, but I'm going to tell my favorite story. There was a horrible big storm in Southern California. It was a storm of about 500 years, and the waves were breaking at 15 and 20 feet all week. I mean, it was really intense, and as the storm started to dissipate, because storms do, they don't last forever, on the beach, there were tens of thousands of starfish that had washed up in the big storm, and the sun's coming out, and starfish need to be in water because they're mammals. I mean, they're marine life, and when they're outside, we've smelt them at the beach. They start to die. It's really bad. Imagine just so many, you can't even count them. In the middle of it was a little boy, and he's getting up to a little starfish, and he's so jubbly picking it up, and taking it to put it in the water, and he comes back, and he grabs another one, and he does it, and this time he grabs two, and he puts it in, and there's an older man walking down the beach, and he's watching, and he's seeing the starfish everywhere, and he's seeing the little boy with such ginger care that he's not going too fast, and he walks up to the little boy. He goes, son, what are you doing? What difference can you make? Look at them everywhere, and the little boy, without missing a beat, picks up another starfish, and he puts it in the water, and he says, it mattered about. And that's what I want to remind us something, and I have to be reminded of it too, is God has never called us to carry the burdens of the entire world. It will kill us. Only Christ can carry the burdens of all the world, but he has told us as his children, empowered with his Holy Spirit, he expects us to carry somebody's burden, and I want to encourage you is that God has given you the strength. Some of you can carry burden for more people, some of you can carry one, but a lot of times when you're suffering, the stories of your suffering, and where Christ has given you peace, God takes you through that a lot of times, so that you can speak it into somebody else's life that they've never experienced the goodness of God. Our sufferings can be used by God. I just pray that you guys will cling on to those, and then I am going to finish with this, because we really are past time, and I've got to get to an airport to fly out of here, but I want to deal with something that I didn't even talk to your pastor about. He's such a good man, and I know if I would have talked to him about it, he would have just said, don't worry about it, and you'll understand what it is, but this has to do with money, and I know as Calvary Chapel pastors, we don't talk about money, and I'm just going to tell you, I don't know how I became a Calvary Chapel pastor. I still can't figure that out. I didn't go through seminary. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing as a Calvary Chapel pastor 15 years later. What I do know is that I got called to the business world as a Christian, and in the early years, I had a family, and I was going to work, and I had to pay for my mortgage, and school, and all that stuff. I knew that, but as a new Christian, just to let you know, I'm standing up here, but not because I'm the brightest guy. When I first started going to Horizon when I was 19 years old, I didn't get near Mike McIntosh for two years. I was so sure that Mike was so perfect, just like your pastor, that if I got close to him, he'd be able to read my mind, and I was too embarrassed about my past, and what I found out about Mike McIntosh is he's just as crazy as me. If you guys know the story, he might be crazier, but he's just a man of God like your pastor and I. God doesn't make us some way more special, but I had to learn that, right? God just gives us different jobs, and the other thing, this is a little embarrassing, and it deals with money. I was never raised in an environment where money made sense. I didn't understand it. We were poor, and I never thought about it, but I remember as a young business person, I knew I needed to take care of my family, and I worked really hard, and I remember our family being at church one day, and this is back when Hungary and all those things with orphanages, it was really tough during the seasons of the 80s and 90s, and I remember one of the Calvary Chapel missionary came from there, and he's talking about the home they had for kids, and it just moved my heart. I just care about kids, and he says the heater is broken, and they're about to go into winter, and they needed $500 worth of parts. Back then, it was like $1,500 worth of parts, but I remember pulling out a checkbook. Remember those things, checkbooks? I had to get Corporal Tunnel write $500. I don't even think I could spell $500 anymore, but I wrote $500, and I remember giving it to him, and that sounds really good, but this is what your pastor will never tell you, and I didn't get this until a few years ago. All I did was I took what I could have done to help my church right here, and I just shifted it over to him. Did it make sense? Yeah, but in my church here, I've got my children. I've got pastors. We have counselors. It takes money to do this, and that's what I want to encourage you, is that my stories are pretty motivating, and God does expect us to get involved, but I want to bring it home with this. For God so loved the world that he loves this city so much that he brought you here, and your first ministry is here. As hard as it is, this is your ministry, and God knew that no matter how long it would take for you to break into that hard ground, God knew that your life stories were important enough for this community because he wanted them to know that he loves them, even if they reject him, and we are called to go into all the world. There is no and or. It's both. It's the local church to transform lives, and once they're transformed, we're called to go into all the world to bring the good news so that people can know Jesus, and I just want to encourage you today. Your number one job is to, if you're not tithing, I'm just talking to you as a pastor. I didn't get permission from your pastor, but you'll be okay with this. If you're not tithing to your church, wrestle with that. I'm being serious because when we're faithful in those little things that the world says is so important, when you're faithful with a little thing called your money, you glorify God. God can trust you with bigger things because this world says money is the most important thing for you, and God's saying no, it's not, and I want to encourage you to be really faithful, and if you want to get involved in our ministry, your pastor just took something away from me because he has a big heart, and I'll wrestle with your pastor all day long if you could be the biggest giver, but I came today so that I could bring stories from the front line to encourage the church in America because we have been getting our teeth knocked out. We're the light of the world. We got to remember that. We're not supposed to come into our little bubble. We're supposed to be living our faith out in the world and loving people, even when they want to spit in our face. That's what we're called to do, and I want to encourage you, and I don't want to take away anything from this church, and when I came, I didn't want your pastor to pay for my ticket, for my hotel, and he still gave me an honorary, and he's such the kind of man we want to do ministry with, but I want to let you know I came without that because I wanted to be able to stand before you with integrity. If you want to get involved in our ministry, do not help me and do not help Wes. Don't even help our Chaplains Day. If you want to get involved, the only thing we're concerned about are the kids, and if you want to get involved in it, a hundred percent of what you will give will go to the kids, but I got really good news. All the children in Latin America, we have more coming in, so if I'm here next week, it'll be different, but all of them have been supported. We want to know something that's breaking my heart. Those children in Ukraine, we only have five children out of the hundred we have because people aren't interested, and I don't know what to do about it. If you are interested, would you just stand with me and take one of the kids and just put them on a refrigerator and take care of them? It only costs us in that country about $200 a month to take care of a child. Children in Latin America, because we have to have clinical psychiatrists and all that, costs us about $550 a month, and we don't want that to be a burden on anybody. Some of you business guys could do $10, but the rest of us, some can do $5, some could do $10, and if this is what I want to encourage around this church and everything, if everybody just lifts the amount that God has given the ability, it's not a burden on anybody, and that's around this church too, and I want to leave with that, is that your love for the kids that come in here, your love for the people that are coming in here, everybody in here has a job due in this church, and it's loving on the people that are coming through the door because you don't know what storm is walking through that, and you might be the one person that makes their life make sense, but if I can leave today with one thing, no matter what, God has a call on your life, and even if you've missed it for the last 40 years, what I can tell you about my life is what God can do in the next four years of a committed life, a dedicated life, a surrendered life, what God can do in the next four years of your life is greater than what you did to mess up the first but you've got to rise up and you have to be obedient, and that was the whole message, what is your obedience, what opportunity has God given you before you today, and I'm going to tell you God's not going to have you go to sodomy right away, but what is that opportunity, and I'm going to ask you to take a step by faith and start showing God that he is more important than anything else in this world. A lot of message there, right? A lot for you to think about, but I am your brother, and I'm walking away encouraged because of you, the way they loved on me. This man hasn't quit hugging me. I've come to this church and I'm being filled to go back into war zones. I pray that I can give you a little bit of my heart so that you're encouraged to go back into your war zones. Thank you.