March 8, 2025 • 38 mins
Today's episode of Sunday Service by Pray.com features Ben Peterson.
We are called to be soldiers for Christ. Warriors for the Gospel. Champions for Good. Tune into this week's message to hear about how you can become a true soldier for Christ. You will learn from the history of terrorist attacks from Iran, the holocaust, WWII warfare, and the teaching of Paul on how to have a destiny as a soldier!
Sunday Service is a weekly podcast featuring some of the nation’s most renowned faith leaders. Every Sunday, tune in for inspiration, encouragement, and Bible-based teachings.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let us pray hereby perceive we the love of God,
because He laid down his life for us, and we
ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. First
John three sixteen. Lord, help me comprehend the kind of
love that is willing to lay its life down for another.
(00:21):
I know your death on the cross paid the price
for my sins, but the reality of that sacrifice is unimaginable.
I feel like a selfish child when I get upset
things don't work out the way I want them to.
I am concerned more about being the center of attention
than honoring and making others a success in your kingdom.
(00:43):
Jealousy rises in my heart when others are exalted and
I see how limited my love is. Show me how
to lay down my life for others. Help me recognize
your kingdom rewards humility and loving kindness. Heymen, thank you
(01:03):
for listening to today's daily prayer. For more inspiration and
an incredible message from our feature pastor, stay tuned to
pray dot COM's Sunday service.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Welcome to pray dot Com.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I'm Ben Peterson, the CEO and founder of Engage Your Destiny.
Please follow this profile for more engaging content. That we
have crafted specifically for military veterans.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And the warriors at heart.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Also head to our website to see how you can
support ministry to our activeduty military. Now, I charge you
to take today's message and use it to engage your destiny.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I live, breathe, sweat, and bleed for soldiers because I
am one. And that's why cond to it.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Tonight, I'm gonna train you to become a soldier for Christ.
I'm gonna pull up the scripture. It's Isaiah sixty one,
verse one. Now to set the tone for this scripture,
Jesus as he is starting his ministry, he goes into
the synagogue and it's this first time that he is
(02:31):
going to read the scroll and he's going to begin
the first phase of entering into his ministry. And he
stands there and he reads this verse. He says, the
spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has
chosen me.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Say chosen.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
He has chosen me to bring good news to the poor,
say poor, to comfort the broken hearted, and to proclaim
the captives say captives will be released, and prisoners say
prisoners will be freed. Let me read that again, to
proclaim that the captives will be released, and prisoners will
(03:09):
be freed. Mike drops sets the scroll down, goes and
sits down. The most powerful man in the history of
the world, who started the greatest movement that has impacted
over two points sixty zero three seven eight one four
billion people, founded his ministry with these words, I am
(03:30):
here to set captives free.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That was his mission.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
In warfare. There is nothing more terrifying or horrifying than
becoming a captive to be taken prisoner when Hitler. When
Hitler began invading countries for the purpose of world domination,
it emboldened country after country to begin to do the same.
(04:00):
And on December seventh, nineteen forty one, a day that
will live in infamy, Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan.
The move to attack Pearl Harbor was really a power
move by Japan to take more land and to expand
their kingdom. They really didn't have the plan of entering
into a full scale war with the United States in
nineteen forty two. They then attacked the Philippines on the
(04:23):
island of Krigador, which was a two day battle where
the Japanese overwhelmed the American and Filipino soldiers.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
There and took seventy five thousand of them captive.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Now, none of them could have possibly imagined the horror
that they were about to experience. You see, the Japanese
wanted to take all of these soldiers and bring them
back to Japan so they could serve in prison camps
for slave labor. But they had to get them to
the other side of the island to load them onto
(04:56):
their ships. And so it was a sixty five mile
journey through the jungle which they decided to line the
men up and march them for fourteen straight days. Fourteen
straight days was a crucible that will forever be remembered
as the.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Baton Death March.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
For fourteen days, they march day and night, no rest,
no food, no water. If you stopped to rest, you
would be shot. If you tried to drink water, you
would be bayoneted. If you couldn't go on, you would
be killed or left for dead. Sixty five miles without stopping.
Some of the soldiers went mad with thirst, sprinting towards
(05:38):
nearby streams or local ponds and desperation to drink water,
only to be killed by the Japanese. The only way
that soldiers could survive is if they tried to, if
they could sneak water when the Japanese weren't looking by
nearby streams, or to drink water out of puddles of mud.
(05:59):
After the fourteen day journey, seventeen thousand captives were dead.
They were then loaded into the hulls of what were
known as hell ships, and these were large transport ships
that offered no reprieve from the march that they had
just endured. They were crammed tightly into hardly lit cargo
holds with little air ventilation, food, or water.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
For a journey that would last for weeks.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Many died due to asphixius, starvation or dysentery. Some POWs
became delirious and unresponsive in their environment of the heat, humidity,
lack of oxygen, food, and water. Once they reached the
island of Japan, they were sent to the prison camps,
where they worked sixteen hours.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
A day three hundred and sixty five days a year
as slaves for four years.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
The story is very personably personal to me because I
grew up in a family where the greatest thing that
you could do with your life is to service nation
in combat, and when I was thirteen years old, my
dad started working with a Baton Deathmarch survivor named Alf Larson,
and my dad spent two years going to Alf's house
once a week, spending hours with him as he was
(07:13):
processing and working through all of this horror to get
it all out. Alf told my dad that the greatest
day of his life was not his kids being born.
It wasn't getting married, It wasn't building a business, it
wasn't building a life. It was the day when he
(07:35):
was eighty five pounds after being in a prison camp
is a captive for four years, that he saw an
American soldier come and say, brother, let's go home. This
is a picture of where our world is today. Our
(07:56):
world today is.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Suffocating in hellships. They are being worked to death.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
In their minds, in their hearts, from the torture of
this world, from the constant barrage of social media, from
the drugs, from the alcohol, and from the lost messages
that is bombarding our generation. This world is captive. And
what kind of people go in and set captives free? Soldiers?
(08:28):
You see, it takes a soldier to set captives free.
If scripture makes that clear, Because my friends, we have
to realize tonight that we are.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Not in a physical world war. What we see on.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
The news, what we see among people, what we see happening,
is not the war. What's happening in with moths and
with Israel, and with Ukraine, and with our generation and
young people, that is not the war.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The war that we fight is unseen.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Reading from Ephesian six, it says, now, my loved ones,
I have saved these most important truths for last.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Do you think they're important?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Be supernaturally infused with strength, Say strength through your life
union with the Lord Jesus. Stand victorious, Say victorious, Say victorious.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Let's go church. With the force of his explosive power
flowing in and through you.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Put on God's complete set of armor provided for us,
so that you will be protected you as you fight
against the evil strategies of the accuser. Your hand to
hand combat, say hand to hand combat. Your hand to
hand combat is not with human beings, but with the
highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms.
(09:47):
For they are a powerful class of demon gods and
evil spirits that take.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And hold this dark world in bondage.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Welcome to Church, Church, we are soldiers and our mission
in life is not health, wealth and happiness.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
It is to set captives free.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
So our duty as followers of Christ, not needing to
be the leader of a nonprofit, not needing to be
the pastor of a church, not leading to be on
the mission field as followers of Christ, period is to
be about the Father's business and to set captives free.
So the question is how do we wage war to
set captives free? As a soldier for God, we can
(10:33):
do this in four ways. One, we have to believe.
We have to believe that we are a soldier. You
have to believe that God has called you to be
a soldier. On July fourth, nineteen seventy six, a flight
(10:54):
was taking off from Tel Aviv to Paris, and a
group of Palestinian terrorists took that flight hostage, filled with
Jews and Israelis, and they re routed them to Entebbe
in Uganda under the covering of the dictator Edie Amin,
and they sent a message to the Israeli government and
(11:14):
they said, we have two hundred and twenty of your
people and we're going to begin executing them unless if
you set our brothers who.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
You've taken hostage free.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And these were all Palestinian terrorists that the Israeli government
had taken captive, and they wanted to set these men
free for the purpose of destruction and death. So here
are these men and women being held hostage. And Israel said, Nope,
not going to happen. And in seven days they trained
(11:50):
up and prepared a mission for one hundred soldiers and commandos,
and they went in to that situation, took down the enemy,
and set the captives free seven days. On November fourth,
nineteen seventy nine, a hostage crisis took place between the
(12:12):
United States and Iran. Fifty two American diplomats and citizens
were held hostage after a group of militarized Iranian college
students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took fifty
to Americans hostage. They made their demands, they wanted people released,
(12:34):
they wanted money. And the US government did not train
up soldiers, they did not activate the military. They negotiated,
they used diplomacy, They were a lot on politics, and
for four hundred and forty four days, those people were
(12:54):
held in bondage captive, four hundred and forty four days.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Because they didn't send in soldiers.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Diplomacy didn't work, politics didn't work, negotiations didn't work, all
because they didn't send in soldiers.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
That's why to.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Be a soldier, we have to believe that we are
a soldier, and we have to believe that the works
of a soldier are going to set people free.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
The Bible says, anything not done in faith is sin.
Say sin, Anything not done in faith is sin. This
doesn't mean just looking at porn. This doesn't mean lying, cheating, stealing,
this doesn't mean idolatry. I'm not talking about any of
those sins. I'm talking about anything not done where you're
not using your belief, y'all, tracking Anything not done in
(13:43):
faith is sin. And God is calling us into a
place of believing who we are in Christ, who he's
anointed us to be the man that's living inside of us,
realizing what He can do through us. Amen, We've got
to believe. We've got to believe that if we call
on heaven, Heaven will answer. Number two, we have to train.
(14:06):
We have to train as a soldier. If I were
to send any of you all into combat, would you
go without a gun? No, you wouldn't. I wouldn't either.
Would you go without protective body armor, would you go
without a helmet? Would you go without combat boots go
on your stocking feet?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And that's why Paul is using this language, because he's
calling to the average Christian and he's calling him to
be a warrior for God. He's saying in Ephesian six thirteen,
because of this, you must wear all, say all. You
must wear all the armor that God provides, so you're
protected as you confront the slanderer. For you are destined
for all things and will rise victorious.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Say victorious, Come on you, I'll say it.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Put on truth as a belt to strengthen you as
you stand in triumph. Put on holiness is your protective armor,
that that covers your heart. Stand on your feet alert,
and you'll always be ready to share the blessings in
the Gospel of Peace in every battle.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Take faith as you wrap around.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Shield, for it is able to extinguish the blazing arrows
coming at you from the evil one. Embrace the power
of Salvation's full deliverance like a helmet to protect your
thoughts from lies. And take the mighty razor sharp sword
of the spirit, the spoken word of God, these are
the tools that we have to train with every single
day because our war is not a deployment to Iraq.
(15:32):
Our war is not on some foreign battlefield. It is
right here in Williamson County.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
And we have to gear up every single day putting
on the armor. So what does this mean? Putting on truth?
The Roman soldier needed to wear a belt because their
pants could not be held up without belts. It was
essential it held everything together. The belt also had armor
on it that protected the family jewels.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Can I get some amen from the men? Amen? All right?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Protecting valuable things, that's what truth does. He's saying, put
on holiness as a protective armor that covers your heart.
The Bible says that out of your heart flows the
well spring of life, and to above all else, what
guard your heart? Above all else, guard the affections of
your heart. What Paul is saying here is that we
(16:23):
have to take on the holiness of Christ. Everything that
he died, resurrected and gave himself for makes us righteous.
And then we have to live in that righteous life
and it will guard and protect our hearts where we
will be the most powerful.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Mong girl, Yeah, we got to stand to our feet alert,
knowing that when we share the Gospel, it is going
to bring peace into people in every battle. Take faith
is your wrap around shield. The Roman shield was not
a tool of defense, but a tool of advancement.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
With lock shields together for the purpose.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Of advancing on the enemy. Faith is an advancement weapon.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
It's also so that it could extinguish the fiery arrows
of the wicked one. Let me tell you about flaming
areas with arrows that would be used in that time.
Those arrows were not accurate, they couldn't hit people. They
were used for one purpose, to burn things down.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Faith keeps us.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
From the fiery darts and the lies of the wicked one,
so that we can extinguish it with faith so that
he cannot burn our lives down.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Amen. Uh, I'm having fun.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Embrace the power of Salvation's full deliverance. Salvation means wholeness,
bringing our minds completely into wholeness. Some of you need
to know tonight that you have the mind of Christ,
the mind of Christ. I've battled with suicidal thoughts in
my life. I've battled with depression, so many different things,
and what I keep coming back to in my life
that keeps me whole is that I have the mind
(18:03):
of Christ. And in this day and age of mental
health and so many things going on with people, we
got to come back to the biblical truth that we
are in Christ and our mind is His amen, and
that we have the mind of Christ. And lastly, the
sword of the Spirit, the spoken word of God. Jesus
said that man cannot live by bread alone, but by
(18:24):
every word that proceeds from the Father, the word of God.
Filling yourself up, Bonhaffer said, I start my day and
the Lord.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Has the first word, and he has the last word
of the day.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
The word of God has got to be the living,
the life breath for our souls, so that we can
be fueled up to wage war against the enemy. Now,
some of you might be saying, then, I've never been
in the military, I've never served in combat. I've never
been through training. I don't know if I can relate
to all of this. And I'm here to tell you, yes,
(18:56):
I've been through combat. Yes I've been through all this
military training. But I have been through something much more difficult.
I have a toddler. Does anyone else have one or
have one? Does that not push you to the limit.
Does that not take everything that your soul has to
get through in moments?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Do you remember sitting there.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
And he's screaming and won't stop screaming, and you're trying
to figure out do I hit him or do I.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Just sit there? What do you do?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
That's just like bullets flying at you. It's the same thing.
Your circumstances do not define who you are. Christ does,
and he is saying you're a soldier. When we would
go into combat, we would have pre combat briefs, and
in combat you have to know everything that the enemy
(19:47):
is doing, and we would be briefed on his tactics
and what he is about. The enemy of our soul
is the liar, he's the accuser, he's the slanderer, and
we need to get into our hearts and understand that
every lie that he's going to try and.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Put it us is based in two falsities.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
One I am not good enough, say I'm not good enough,
and I'm not lovable. Those two lies is what is
a part of your pre combat brief to know what
he is trying to ambush and attack you in I
am not good enough and I am not lovable. Number three,
(20:23):
we have to fight as a soldier. The language to
Timothy here is very specific. He says in one Timothy
six twelve, fight the good fight of faith. Take hold
of the eternal life with what you were called and
which you made the good confession, and the presence of
many witnesses.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
You see, fighting for faith for freedom works in two ways.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
When you are advancing and you are fighting for freedom,
the people that you're fighting for get free, and what
happens as a byproduct, the soldier gets free as well.
In seventeen seventy six, when we said no more to
the oppression of the British government and we went to war,
those soldiers were fighting for the freedom of their people,
(21:05):
and when they won, they.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Receive freedom too.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
And that's why when we advance the Kingdom of Heaven
for people, when we.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Love people, when we pray for people, when we are.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
About the Father's business and what he wants to do,
we're going to be breed freedom to them. But we're
going to get free as well, because we're on the offense.
Say offense. Now, Paul is writing these words to Timothy,
who is not a soldier. Timothy never served in the military,
but he's using all of this military like language.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
And in ninety seven.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
AD, as a sold out soldier in God's army, the
eighty year old evangelist Timothy tried to halt a procession
in honor of the goddess Diana by preaching the Gospel.
The angry pagans beat him, dragged him through the streets,
and stoned him to death. Sold out for the cause
(21:54):
of Christ. When we would go on convoy, your lead
gunner is your best, most visually acute soldier, because they
are looking for one thing, bombs, And you put them
(22:17):
in the lead truck because they are going to have
the first sight of everything. And those guys would literally
memorize every piece of garbage and they could tell you
if a piece of garbage had moved or if there
was a new piece of garbage there.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And some convoys would be.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Three four eight hours, that's how detailed they were about
what the enemy was up to and about people about
doing combat. We live in a time where we have
never been more mentally taxed and mentally exhausted in the
history of the world. Americans, the world technology, the science
(22:56):
has come out that we taken more information in one
day than someone did a one hundred years ago in.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Their entire lifetime.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
The details you look at the phone, all of the details,
the marketing, all those little pieces. It's more information than
anybody ever has taken in. And what it's doing is
it's pulling us, and it's taking us out of the
awareness we need to have for combat and people around
us that are dying?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Do you get what I'm saying? And Guys, I get
so repped. I'm so bad at this.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I get so focused on my family and my wife
and my son and my business and my work, and
I just need a break and I get out. And
it's like, man, so many times I miss it standing
in the line at the grocery store and just looking
at that transgender gal that's working at the counter and
judging her right.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Instead of looking at going, hey.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
How you doing? How can I pray for you? How
many times do we miss these key moments where we
can love lost people?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Amen?
Speaker 3 (23:52):
And you don't have to be an extrovert to do it. Introverts, Mama,
can you say to someone can I pray for you?
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Bam?
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Can you say to someone, Hey, I just want you
to know I'm gonna pray for you.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
In my car.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Absolutely, because because as Christians we judge them.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
We do. I know I do.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
If you're not a man and you're not living like
a man, I judge you straight up absolutely. And you
know what God's working on me to see people because
they have.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
A soul and they are dying. Amen.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Amen, do you guys handle a little vulnerability? Number four
suffer like a soldier. I love this two Timothy two, three,
and four share in suffering as a good soldier of
Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since
his aim is to please.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
The one who enlisted him, say, enlisted.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
The aim of the soldier is to please the one
who enlisted him.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
This is for I'm the Bible.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
As a social experiment by the Germans, five thousand Czechoslovakian
Jews when they arrived at Auschwitz were put in a
special compound. They were given nice clothes, good food, clean
living conditions, but they were still held as prisoners. They
could see every day thousands of Jews come on railcars
and get led off to the gas chambers, never to
(25:26):
be seen again. They could see the Nazis with guns
guarding them. They could see the prisoners as skinny as
skeletons from starvation.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
They could see it all.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
It even got to the point where prisoners were coming
up to the gates and they were saying.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
What are you doing.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
You have to try and overwhelm them and get away.
They're going to kill you. But denial was easier than
believing that they had to fight. Denial was easier than
accepting fate. One day they were led willingly to the
gas chambers. They had been it's spent five months smelling
(26:02):
the smoke of burned Jews, seeing the ash and their
beloved people disappear. But how could these kind ss men
who know their names, how could they have ill intentions?
It was only when they went into the gas chambers
that they realized what was going to happen.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
That they put up a fight.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
They were gunned down machine guns, the doors were sealed,
and they were gassed. Denial was more comfortable than reality.
Nine million Jews walked the earth in nineteen thirty three.
Six million Jews were murdered. During the Holocaust. Two of
every three Jews in this world were wiped out, and
(26:40):
the only thing that stopped an entire generation of Jews
being murdered with soldiers fighting the axis of evil. It
takes a soldier to set captives free. And so that's
where the question is that I'm posing to you today
is are you going to live your life like the
Czechoslav in June, who wants to live in comfort, who
(27:03):
wants to live for yourself, who wants to deny the
death that's happening all around you, Or are you going
to live with a purpose in your heart knowing that
there's destiny on the other side of the souls of
those that you come in contact.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
With, and be about your father's business. Amen.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Jesus started his ministry with Isaiah sixty one.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
To set captives free.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
And the Bible says that it is no longer I
who live, but it's Christ who lives in me. It's
no longer me that's alive, but it's Christ who.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Lives in me.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
In this life that I live in the flesh, I
live through faith in the Son.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Of God who died and gave his life for me.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Because we have died to ourselves and we are alive
in Christ and He lives inside of us. There is
a warrior, a soldier, a fighter living inside every single one.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Of you if you call yourself a Christian, and.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
That warrior is ready at all times and willing to
fight with you, through you, beside you, because the world
is dying.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
They're captive. Is say at forty two thirteen says.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
The Lord goes out like a mighty man, like a
man of war. He stirs up his zeal, he cries out,
he shouts aloud. He shows himself mighty against his foes.
We are in a war. Heaven is the good, Hell
is the evil, and Earth is the battlefield. And the
(28:40):
battle is for the souls of men. We believe this
lie in our country, that there are those who serve
and volunteer, and there's those who don't. And we'll shake
their hands and be grateful for what they've done.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
But they serve. We don't.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
But in Israel, in God's land, everyone serves, everyone serves.
And that's what God is saying to us tonight. Everyone
needs to serve. I'm calling us into.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
A place.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Not out of guilt or condemnation, but out of a conviction. Amen,
a conviction because I don't care about your feelings. No
military person does. I care about lost people. And I
believe there's three kinds of people in this room. The
first is you're here and you're comfortable, and you're living
(29:44):
for yourself, and this message is convicting you.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Good. It's time to diete ourselves and live for Christ. Amen.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
The second is you're sold out for Christ. Introvert Mama. Here,
you're who I'm talking to. You're living this message out
and you need to be encouraged. Keep going, Put more
gasoline on that fire. Pray bigger and bolder prayers. Pray
prayers so impossible only God could do them. Amen, Continue
to advance and do the work of the Gospel. And
(30:19):
the third person is you're here and you're barely hanging
on and you're listening to this and you're saying, Ben,
I hear what you're saying. It hits my heart. You
don't know what I'm going through. A month ago, I
was at the doctor because I had come down with shingles.
(30:43):
I was sitting there talking to the doctor and I.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Was like, shingles. I said, doesn't that happen in older people?
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Sorry, you're seeing the commercials, you know, And she said, well, yes,
but it happens in people your age that are under
extreme stress. I was in chronic pain my spine, all
my nerves. It was awful, I said, stress to give
(31:14):
you a picture. My wife and I met three and
a half years ago, and three years and two months
ago we were married short engagement. Five months later we
were pregnant. Didn't plan that one the condo that we
were staying in, the lease was up, and we felt
God calling us to Tennessee, so we packed.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Up all of our stuff and put it in storage.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
I took my pregnant wife and our new puppy because
we're gluttons for punishment, and we drove to Middle Tennessee
to move in with our friends and while my wife
is very pregnant and look for a home, and by
God's grace, we found a home. At the time, my
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organization was hosting a very large event down at the
Daytona Speedway to reach veterans. It was extremely powerful and
we did an amazing work there. But after it, God
called me in a new direction to really rebuild my organization,
to go on to military bases, and so here I
found myself in an organizational rebuild, completely starting over, a
(32:23):
new dad, a new husband, and in a new town
with no support, no family, and frankly no energy. To
build community. Our son had to have three different tongue
tie procedures because of his sleep issues and didn't sleep
through the night for twenty months. The ministry began growing,
(32:47):
and I was speaking ten times a week, which y'all
a lot of times. Speaking to soldiers is like trying.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
To raise the dead.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
And so I looked at the doctor when she asked
if I was stressed out, and I said, yeah, I
sure am. And that's where I'm here to say to
you tonight that I'm not bulletproof. I'm not superman, and
I'm not calling you to be either. But I'm coming
at you with a conviction for the loss because we
have the light inside of us that can penetrate the darkness.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
And if we don't answer the call, who will?
Speaker 3 (33:22):
So why not us? And why not now? I won't
invite you to stand to your feet as I close here.
About two months ago, I was in the Word and
(33:42):
I was reading from Psalms, and there's this beautiful truth
that says I will surround him with favor as a shield.
And I read that and I texted it to my
wife and I was like, man, this is powerful. I
feel like we need to like pray this or get
grab a hold of this truth. And she said, well,
(34:02):
I think we need to send it to our soldiers.
Because we have all of our soldiers are on a
text platform. We can message them all over the world.
And we texted out to all of them, and the
next morning we got a text back and it was
from a young man that we led to Christ back
in February. We led him to Christ and three days
later he was on a plane to Syria. He could
(34:23):
not get away for twenty minutes for us to baptize him.
And he said, I don't know how to tell you this,
but yesterday I was room clearing and I was the
last one out of the room and an ied went
off and I got blown up and.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Thrown across the street. And when I came to.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I heard the audible voice of God say to me, son,
I'm not done with you yet. And and he said, man,
that shield thing worked. I'm not telling you that to
talk about my ministry or what I've done. I'm telling
(35:07):
you that because it's the most incredible thing that I've
seen in a long time.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
To remind me that.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
God is still alive and he's working. And this is
where I want to encourage you today whatever you need
to do. If you want to close your eyes, Oh so,
I don't want to have a moment with God as
I pray us out that God has a calling on
your life. Let us come back to the first love,
when we had that first moment where we fell in
love with Jesus and we burned with passion for him
(35:34):
and for those that were lost. And I believe that
God sent me here tonight for someone because you've gotten apathetic.
You've allowed situations in your life to make you bitter,
and it's caused you just to focus on yourself because
of the pain that you've gone through of rejection or
betrayal or just being beaten down from life. And I'm
(35:55):
speaking to your heart right now, come alive, and the
stone of flesh, the heart of flesh that's in you,
that has become stone, let it become flesh again. And
God is softening the pain and the bitterness in your life,
and He is resurrecting you from death to life. I
also want to pray for marriages in this room, for
(36:17):
anyone whose marriage is suffering. And I want to say this,
if you're having a really hard time and strife in
your marriage. Then one of you does not want to
die and become more like Christ. One of you does
not want to submit to Jesus and become more like him.
Because at the root of all strife and marriage is selfishness.
(36:39):
Been there again and again, and that's where I want
to call you someone in here. Your marriage is in
strife because you are being selfish and you need to
lay down your life like Christ does for the church.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
There's also someone to here.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Your marriage is struggling because your partner has hurt you
beyond what yon what you could anyone could imagine. And
you know what God is saying to you right now,
Me too, Your partner has hurt me too. But I'm
going to give you unconditional grace because I've given it
(37:15):
to them. I'm going to put that unconditional grace in
you so that you can find a way to forgive them.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
In Jesus' name, you will be like God human unity.
God was severed and through it all God's promise remain true.
(37:47):
Follow me, apron and I will make you great.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
This is the Chosen People. Listen to the Chosen People
at the Chosen.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
People dot Com. That's the Chosen People.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Dot com
Let us pray hereby perceive we the love of God,
because He laid down his life for us, and we
ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. First
John three sixteen. Lord, help me comprehend the kind of
love that is willing to lay its life down for another.
(00:21):
I know your death on the cross paid the price
for my sins, but the reality of that sacrifice is unimaginable.
I feel like a selfish child when I get upset
things don't work out the way I want them to.
I am concerned more about being the center of attention
than honoring and making others a success in your kingdom.
(00:43):
Jealousy rises in my heart when others are exalted and
I see how limited my love is. Show me how
to lay down my life for others. Help me recognize
your kingdom rewards humility and loving kindness. Heymen, thank you
(01:03):
for listening to today's daily prayer. For more inspiration and
an incredible message from our feature pastor, stay tuned to
pray dot COM's Sunday service.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Welcome to pray dot Com.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I'm Ben Peterson, the CEO and founder of Engage Your Destiny.
Please follow this profile for more engaging content. That we
have crafted specifically for military veterans.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And the warriors at heart.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Also head to our website to see how you can
support ministry to our activeduty military. Now, I charge you
to take today's message and use it to engage your destiny.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I live, breathe, sweat, and bleed for soldiers because I
am one. And that's why cond to it.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Tonight, I'm gonna train you to become a soldier for Christ.
I'm gonna pull up the scripture. It's Isaiah sixty one,
verse one. Now to set the tone for this scripture,
Jesus as he is starting his ministry, he goes into
the synagogue and it's this first time that he is
(02:31):
going to read the scroll and he's going to begin
the first phase of entering into his ministry. And he
stands there and he reads this verse. He says, the
spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has
chosen me.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Say chosen.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
He has chosen me to bring good news to the poor,
say poor, to comfort the broken hearted, and to proclaim
the captives say captives will be released, and prisoners say
prisoners will be freed. Let me read that again, to
proclaim that the captives will be released, and prisoners will
(03:09):
be freed. Mike drops sets the scroll down, goes and
sits down. The most powerful man in the history of
the world, who started the greatest movement that has impacted
over two points sixty zero three seven eight one four
billion people, founded his ministry with these words, I am
(03:30):
here to set captives free.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That was his mission.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
In warfare. There is nothing more terrifying or horrifying than
becoming a captive to be taken prisoner when Hitler. When
Hitler began invading countries for the purpose of world domination,
it emboldened country after country to begin to do the same.
(04:00):
And on December seventh, nineteen forty one, a day that
will live in infamy, Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan.
The move to attack Pearl Harbor was really a power
move by Japan to take more land and to expand
their kingdom. They really didn't have the plan of entering
into a full scale war with the United States in
nineteen forty two. They then attacked the Philippines on the
(04:23):
island of Krigador, which was a two day battle where
the Japanese overwhelmed the American and Filipino soldiers.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
There and took seventy five thousand of them captive.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Now, none of them could have possibly imagined the horror
that they were about to experience. You see, the Japanese
wanted to take all of these soldiers and bring them
back to Japan so they could serve in prison camps
for slave labor. But they had to get them to
the other side of the island to load them onto
(04:56):
their ships. And so it was a sixty five mile
journey through the jungle which they decided to line the
men up and march them for fourteen straight days. Fourteen
straight days was a crucible that will forever be remembered
as the.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Baton Death March.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
For fourteen days, they march day and night, no rest,
no food, no water. If you stopped to rest, you
would be shot. If you tried to drink water, you
would be bayoneted. If you couldn't go on, you would
be killed or left for dead. Sixty five miles without stopping.
Some of the soldiers went mad with thirst, sprinting towards
(05:38):
nearby streams or local ponds and desperation to drink water,
only to be killed by the Japanese. The only way
that soldiers could survive is if they tried to, if
they could sneak water when the Japanese weren't looking by
nearby streams, or to drink water out of puddles of mud.
(05:59):
After the fourteen day journey, seventeen thousand captives were dead.
They were then loaded into the hulls of what were
known as hell ships, and these were large transport ships
that offered no reprieve from the march that they had
just endured. They were crammed tightly into hardly lit cargo
holds with little air ventilation, food, or water.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
For a journey that would last for weeks.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Many died due to asphixius, starvation or dysentery. Some POWs
became delirious and unresponsive in their environment of the heat, humidity,
lack of oxygen, food, and water. Once they reached the
island of Japan, they were sent to the prison camps,
where they worked sixteen hours.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
A day three hundred and sixty five days a year
as slaves for four years.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
The story is very personably personal to me because I
grew up in a family where the greatest thing that
you could do with your life is to service nation
in combat, and when I was thirteen years old, my
dad started working with a Baton Deathmarch survivor named Alf Larson,
and my dad spent two years going to Alf's house
once a week, spending hours with him as he was
(07:13):
processing and working through all of this horror to get
it all out. Alf told my dad that the greatest
day of his life was not his kids being born.
It wasn't getting married, It wasn't building a business, it
wasn't building a life. It was the day when he
(07:35):
was eighty five pounds after being in a prison camp
is a captive for four years, that he saw an
American soldier come and say, brother, let's go home. This
is a picture of where our world is today. Our
(07:56):
world today is.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Suffocating in hellships. They are being worked to death.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
In their minds, in their hearts, from the torture of
this world, from the constant barrage of social media, from
the drugs, from the alcohol, and from the lost messages
that is bombarding our generation. This world is captive. And
what kind of people go in and set captives free? Soldiers?
(08:28):
You see, it takes a soldier to set captives free.
If scripture makes that clear, Because my friends, we have
to realize tonight that we are.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Not in a physical world war. What we see on.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
The news, what we see among people, what we see happening,
is not the war. What's happening in with moths and
with Israel, and with Ukraine, and with our generation and
young people, that is not the war.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The war that we fight is unseen.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Reading from Ephesian six, it says, now, my loved ones,
I have saved these most important truths for last.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Do you think they're important?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Be supernaturally infused with strength, Say strength through your life
union with the Lord Jesus. Stand victorious, Say victorious, Say victorious.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Let's go church. With the force of his explosive power
flowing in and through you.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Put on God's complete set of armor provided for us,
so that you will be protected you as you fight
against the evil strategies of the accuser. Your hand to
hand combat, say hand to hand combat. Your hand to
hand combat is not with human beings, but with the
highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms.
(09:47):
For they are a powerful class of demon gods and
evil spirits that take.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And hold this dark world in bondage.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Welcome to Church, Church, we are soldiers and our mission
in life is not health, wealth and happiness.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
It is to set captives free.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
So our duty as followers of Christ, not needing to
be the leader of a nonprofit, not needing to be
the pastor of a church, not leading to be on
the mission field as followers of Christ, period is to
be about the Father's business and to set captives free.
So the question is how do we wage war to
set captives free? As a soldier for God, we can
(10:33):
do this in four ways. One, we have to believe.
We have to believe that we are a soldier. You
have to believe that God has called you to be
a soldier. On July fourth, nineteen seventy six, a flight
(10:54):
was taking off from Tel Aviv to Paris, and a
group of Palestinian terrorists took that flight hostage, filled with
Jews and Israelis, and they re routed them to Entebbe
in Uganda under the covering of the dictator Edie Amin,
and they sent a message to the Israeli government and
(11:14):
they said, we have two hundred and twenty of your
people and we're going to begin executing them unless if
you set our brothers who.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
You've taken hostage free.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And these were all Palestinian terrorists that the Israeli government
had taken captive, and they wanted to set these men
free for the purpose of destruction and death. So here
are these men and women being held hostage. And Israel said, Nope,
not going to happen. And in seven days they trained
(11:50):
up and prepared a mission for one hundred soldiers and commandos,
and they went in to that situation, took down the enemy,
and set the captives free seven days. On November fourth,
nineteen seventy nine, a hostage crisis took place between the
(12:12):
United States and Iran. Fifty two American diplomats and citizens
were held hostage after a group of militarized Iranian college
students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took fifty
to Americans hostage. They made their demands, they wanted people released,
(12:34):
they wanted money. And the US government did not train
up soldiers, they did not activate the military. They negotiated,
they used diplomacy, They were a lot on politics, and
for four hundred and forty four days, those people were
(12:54):
held in bondage captive, four hundred and forty four days.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Because they didn't send in soldiers.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Diplomacy didn't work, politics didn't work, negotiations didn't work, all
because they didn't send in soldiers.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
That's why to.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Be a soldier, we have to believe that we are
a soldier, and we have to believe that the works
of a soldier are going to set people free.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
The Bible says, anything not done in faith is sin.
Say sin, Anything not done in faith is sin. This
doesn't mean just looking at porn. This doesn't mean lying, cheating, stealing,
this doesn't mean idolatry. I'm not talking about any of
those sins. I'm talking about anything not done where you're
not using your belief, y'all, tracking Anything not done in
(13:43):
faith is sin. And God is calling us into a
place of believing who we are in Christ, who he's
anointed us to be the man that's living inside of us,
realizing what He can do through us. Amen, We've got
to believe. We've got to believe that if we call
on heaven, Heaven will answer. Number two, we have to train.
(14:06):
We have to train as a soldier. If I were
to send any of you all into combat, would you
go without a gun? No, you wouldn't. I wouldn't either.
Would you go without protective body armor, would you go
without a helmet? Would you go without combat boots go
on your stocking feet?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And that's why Paul is using this language, because he's
calling to the average Christian and he's calling him to
be a warrior for God. He's saying in Ephesian six thirteen,
because of this, you must wear all, say all. You
must wear all the armor that God provides, so you're
protected as you confront the slanderer. For you are destined
for all things and will rise victorious.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Say victorious, Come on you, I'll say it.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Put on truth as a belt to strengthen you as
you stand in triumph. Put on holiness is your protective armor,
that that covers your heart. Stand on your feet alert,
and you'll always be ready to share the blessings in
the Gospel of Peace in every battle.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Take faith as you wrap around.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Shield, for it is able to extinguish the blazing arrows
coming at you from the evil one. Embrace the power
of Salvation's full deliverance like a helmet to protect your
thoughts from lies. And take the mighty razor sharp sword
of the spirit, the spoken word of God, these are
the tools that we have to train with every single
day because our war is not a deployment to Iraq.
(15:32):
Our war is not on some foreign battlefield. It is
right here in Williamson County.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
And we have to gear up every single day putting
on the armor. So what does this mean? Putting on truth?
The Roman soldier needed to wear a belt because their
pants could not be held up without belts. It was
essential it held everything together. The belt also had armor
on it that protected the family jewels.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Can I get some amen from the men? Amen? All right?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Protecting valuable things, that's what truth does. He's saying, put
on holiness as a protective armor that covers your heart.
The Bible says that out of your heart flows the
well spring of life, and to above all else, what
guard your heart? Above all else, guard the affections of
your heart. What Paul is saying here is that we
(16:23):
have to take on the holiness of Christ. Everything that
he died, resurrected and gave himself for makes us righteous.
And then we have to live in that righteous life
and it will guard and protect our hearts where we
will be the most powerful.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Mong girl, Yeah, we got to stand to our feet alert,
knowing that when we share the Gospel, it is going
to bring peace into people in every battle. Take faith
is your wrap around shield. The Roman shield was not
a tool of defense, but a tool of advancement.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
With lock shields together for the purpose.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Of advancing on the enemy. Faith is an advancement weapon.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
It's also so that it could extinguish the fiery arrows
of the wicked one. Let me tell you about flaming
areas with arrows that would be used in that time.
Those arrows were not accurate, they couldn't hit people. They
were used for one purpose, to burn things down.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Faith keeps us.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
From the fiery darts and the lies of the wicked one,
so that we can extinguish it with faith so that
he cannot burn our lives down.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Amen. Uh, I'm having fun.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Embrace the power of Salvation's full deliverance. Salvation means wholeness,
bringing our minds completely into wholeness. Some of you need
to know tonight that you have the mind of Christ,
the mind of Christ. I've battled with suicidal thoughts in
my life. I've battled with depression, so many different things,
and what I keep coming back to in my life
that keeps me whole is that I have the mind
(18:03):
of Christ. And in this day and age of mental
health and so many things going on with people, we
got to come back to the biblical truth that we
are in Christ and our mind is His amen, and
that we have the mind of Christ. And lastly, the
sword of the Spirit, the spoken word of God. Jesus
said that man cannot live by bread alone, but by
(18:24):
every word that proceeds from the Father, the word of God.
Filling yourself up, Bonhaffer said, I start my day and
the Lord.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Has the first word, and he has the last word
of the day.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
The word of God has got to be the living,
the life breath for our souls, so that we can
be fueled up to wage war against the enemy. Now,
some of you might be saying, then, I've never been
in the military, I've never served in combat. I've never
been through training. I don't know if I can relate
to all of this. And I'm here to tell you, yes,
(18:56):
I've been through combat. Yes I've been through all this
military training. But I have been through something much more difficult.
I have a toddler. Does anyone else have one or
have one? Does that not push you to the limit.
Does that not take everything that your soul has to
get through in moments?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Do you remember sitting there.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
And he's screaming and won't stop screaming, and you're trying
to figure out do I hit him or do I.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Just sit there? What do you do?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
That's just like bullets flying at you. It's the same thing.
Your circumstances do not define who you are. Christ does,
and he is saying you're a soldier. When we would
go into combat, we would have pre combat briefs, and
in combat you have to know everything that the enemy
(19:47):
is doing, and we would be briefed on his tactics
and what he is about. The enemy of our soul
is the liar, he's the accuser, he's the slanderer, and
we need to get into our hearts and understand that
every lie that he's going to try and.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Put it us is based in two falsities.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
One I am not good enough, say I'm not good enough,
and I'm not lovable. Those two lies is what is
a part of your pre combat brief to know what
he is trying to ambush and attack you in I
am not good enough and I am not lovable. Number three,
(20:23):
we have to fight as a soldier. The language to
Timothy here is very specific. He says in one Timothy
six twelve, fight the good fight of faith. Take hold
of the eternal life with what you were called and
which you made the good confession, and the presence of
many witnesses.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
You see, fighting for faith for freedom works in two ways.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
When you are advancing and you are fighting for freedom,
the people that you're fighting for get free, and what
happens as a byproduct, the soldier gets free as well.
In seventeen seventy six, when we said no more to
the oppression of the British government and we went to war,
those soldiers were fighting for the freedom of their people,
(21:05):
and when they won, they.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Receive freedom too.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
And that's why when we advance the Kingdom of Heaven
for people, when we.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Love people, when we pray for people, when we are.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
About the Father's business and what he wants to do,
we're going to be breed freedom to them. But we're
going to get free as well, because we're on the offense.
Say offense. Now, Paul is writing these words to Timothy,
who is not a soldier. Timothy never served in the military,
but he's using all of this military like language.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
And in ninety seven.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
AD, as a sold out soldier in God's army, the
eighty year old evangelist Timothy tried to halt a procession
in honor of the goddess Diana by preaching the Gospel.
The angry pagans beat him, dragged him through the streets,
and stoned him to death. Sold out for the cause
(21:54):
of Christ. When we would go on convoy, your lead
gunner is your best, most visually acute soldier, because they
are looking for one thing, bombs, And you put them
(22:17):
in the lead truck because they are going to have
the first sight of everything. And those guys would literally
memorize every piece of garbage and they could tell you
if a piece of garbage had moved or if there
was a new piece of garbage there.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And some convoys would be.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Three four eight hours, that's how detailed they were about
what the enemy was up to and about people about
doing combat. We live in a time where we have
never been more mentally taxed and mentally exhausted in the
history of the world. Americans, the world technology, the science
(22:56):
has come out that we taken more information in one
day than someone did a one hundred years ago in.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Their entire lifetime.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
The details you look at the phone, all of the details,
the marketing, all those little pieces. It's more information than
anybody ever has taken in. And what it's doing is
it's pulling us, and it's taking us out of the
awareness we need to have for combat and people around
us that are dying?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Do you get what I'm saying? And Guys, I get
so repped. I'm so bad at this.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I get so focused on my family and my wife
and my son and my business and my work, and
I just need a break and I get out. And
it's like, man, so many times I miss it standing
in the line at the grocery store and just looking
at that transgender gal that's working at the counter and
judging her right.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Instead of looking at going, hey.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
How you doing? How can I pray for you? How
many times do we miss these key moments where we
can love lost people?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Amen?
Speaker 3 (23:52):
And you don't have to be an extrovert to do it. Introverts, Mama,
can you say to someone can I pray for you?
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Bam?
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Can you say to someone, Hey, I just want you
to know I'm gonna pray for you.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
In my car.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Absolutely, because because as Christians we judge them.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
We do. I know I do.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
If you're not a man and you're not living like
a man, I judge you straight up absolutely. And you
know what God's working on me to see people because
they have.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
A soul and they are dying. Amen.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Amen, do you guys handle a little vulnerability? Number four
suffer like a soldier. I love this two Timothy two, three,
and four share in suffering as a good soldier of
Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since
his aim is to please.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
The one who enlisted him, say, enlisted.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
The aim of the soldier is to please the one
who enlisted him.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
This is for I'm the Bible.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
As a social experiment by the Germans, five thousand Czechoslovakian
Jews when they arrived at Auschwitz were put in a
special compound. They were given nice clothes, good food, clean
living conditions, but they were still held as prisoners. They
could see every day thousands of Jews come on railcars
and get led off to the gas chambers, never to
(25:26):
be seen again. They could see the Nazis with guns
guarding them. They could see the prisoners as skinny as
skeletons from starvation.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
They could see it all.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
It even got to the point where prisoners were coming
up to the gates and they were saying.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
What are you doing.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
You have to try and overwhelm them and get away.
They're going to kill you. But denial was easier than
believing that they had to fight. Denial was easier than
accepting fate. One day they were led willingly to the
gas chambers. They had been it's spent five months smelling
(26:02):
the smoke of burned Jews, seeing the ash and their
beloved people disappear. But how could these kind ss men
who know their names, how could they have ill intentions?
It was only when they went into the gas chambers
that they realized what was going to happen.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
That they put up a fight.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
They were gunned down machine guns, the doors were sealed,
and they were gassed. Denial was more comfortable than reality.
Nine million Jews walked the earth in nineteen thirty three.
Six million Jews were murdered. During the Holocaust. Two of
every three Jews in this world were wiped out, and
(26:40):
the only thing that stopped an entire generation of Jews
being murdered with soldiers fighting the axis of evil. It
takes a soldier to set captives free. And so that's
where the question is that I'm posing to you today
is are you going to live your life like the
Czechoslav in June, who wants to live in comfort, who
(27:03):
wants to live for yourself, who wants to deny the
death that's happening all around you, Or are you going
to live with a purpose in your heart knowing that
there's destiny on the other side of the souls of
those that you come in contact.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
With, and be about your father's business. Amen.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Jesus started his ministry with Isaiah sixty one.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
To set captives free.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
And the Bible says that it is no longer I
who live, but it's Christ who lives in me. It's
no longer me that's alive, but it's Christ who.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Lives in me.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
In this life that I live in the flesh, I
live through faith in the Son.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Of God who died and gave his life for me.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Because we have died to ourselves and we are alive
in Christ and He lives inside of us. There is
a warrior, a soldier, a fighter living inside every single one.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Of you if you call yourself a Christian, and.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
That warrior is ready at all times and willing to
fight with you, through you, beside you, because the world
is dying.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
They're captive. Is say at forty two thirteen says.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
The Lord goes out like a mighty man, like a
man of war. He stirs up his zeal, he cries out,
he shouts aloud. He shows himself mighty against his foes.
We are in a war. Heaven is the good, Hell
is the evil, and Earth is the battlefield. And the
(28:40):
battle is for the souls of men. We believe this
lie in our country, that there are those who serve
and volunteer, and there's those who don't. And we'll shake
their hands and be grateful for what they've done.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
But they serve. We don't.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
But in Israel, in God's land, everyone serves, everyone serves.
And that's what God is saying to us tonight. Everyone
needs to serve. I'm calling us into.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
A place.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Not out of guilt or condemnation, but out of a conviction. Amen,
a conviction because I don't care about your feelings. No
military person does. I care about lost people. And I
believe there's three kinds of people in this room. The
first is you're here and you're comfortable, and you're living
(29:44):
for yourself, and this message is convicting you.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Good. It's time to diete ourselves and live for Christ. Amen.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
The second is you're sold out for Christ. Introvert Mama. Here,
you're who I'm talking to. You're living this message out
and you need to be encouraged. Keep going, Put more
gasoline on that fire. Pray bigger and bolder prayers. Pray
prayers so impossible only God could do them. Amen, Continue
to advance and do the work of the Gospel. And
(30:19):
the third person is you're here and you're barely hanging
on and you're listening to this and you're saying, Ben,
I hear what you're saying. It hits my heart. You
don't know what I'm going through. A month ago, I
was at the doctor because I had come down with shingles.
(30:43):
I was sitting there talking to the doctor and I.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Was like, shingles. I said, doesn't that happen in older people?
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Sorry, you're seeing the commercials, you know, And she said, well, yes,
but it happens in people your age that are under
extreme stress. I was in chronic pain my spine, all
my nerves. It was awful, I said, stress to give
(31:14):
you a picture. My wife and I met three and
a half years ago, and three years and two months
ago we were married short engagement. Five months later we
were pregnant. Didn't plan that one the condo that we
were staying in, the lease was up, and we felt
God calling us to Tennessee, so we packed.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Up all of our stuff and put it in storage.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
I took my pregnant wife and our new puppy because
we're gluttons for punishment, and we drove to Middle Tennessee
to move in with our friends and while my wife
is very pregnant and look for a home, and by
God's grace, we found a home. At the time, my
(32:01):
organization was hosting a very large event down at the
Daytona Speedway to reach veterans. It was extremely powerful and
we did an amazing work there. But after it, God
called me in a new direction to really rebuild my organization,
to go on to military bases, and so here I
found myself in an organizational rebuild, completely starting over, a
(32:23):
new dad, a new husband, and in a new town
with no support, no family, and frankly no energy. To
build community. Our son had to have three different tongue
tie procedures because of his sleep issues and didn't sleep
through the night for twenty months. The ministry began growing,
(32:47):
and I was speaking ten times a week, which y'all
a lot of times. Speaking to soldiers is like trying.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
To raise the dead.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
And so I looked at the doctor when she asked
if I was stressed out, and I said, yeah, I
sure am. And that's where I'm here to say to
you tonight that I'm not bulletproof. I'm not superman, and
I'm not calling you to be either. But I'm coming
at you with a conviction for the loss because we
have the light inside of us that can penetrate the darkness.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
And if we don't answer the call, who will?
Speaker 3 (33:22):
So why not us? And why not now? I won't
invite you to stand to your feet as I close here.
About two months ago, I was in the Word and
(33:42):
I was reading from Psalms, and there's this beautiful truth
that says I will surround him with favor as a shield.
And I read that and I texted it to my
wife and I was like, man, this is powerful. I
feel like we need to like pray this or get
grab a hold of this truth. And she said, well,
(34:02):
I think we need to send it to our soldiers.
Because we have all of our soldiers are on a
text platform. We can message them all over the world.
And we texted out to all of them, and the
next morning we got a text back and it was
from a young man that we led to Christ back
in February. We led him to Christ and three days
later he was on a plane to Syria. He could
(34:23):
not get away for twenty minutes for us to baptize him.
And he said, I don't know how to tell you this,
but yesterday I was room clearing and I was the
last one out of the room and an ied went
off and I got blown up and.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Thrown across the street. And when I came to.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I heard the audible voice of God say to me, son,
I'm not done with you yet. And and he said, man,
that shield thing worked. I'm not telling you that to
talk about my ministry or what I've done. I'm telling
(35:07):
you that because it's the most incredible thing that I've
seen in a long time.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
To remind me that.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
God is still alive and he's working. And this is
where I want to encourage you today whatever you need
to do. If you want to close your eyes, Oh so,
I don't want to have a moment with God as
I pray us out that God has a calling on
your life. Let us come back to the first love,
when we had that first moment where we fell in
love with Jesus and we burned with passion for him
(35:34):
and for those that were lost. And I believe that
God sent me here tonight for someone because you've gotten apathetic.
You've allowed situations in your life to make you bitter,
and it's caused you just to focus on yourself because
of the pain that you've gone through of rejection or
betrayal or just being beaten down from life. And I'm
(35:55):
speaking to your heart right now, come alive, and the
stone of flesh, the heart of flesh that's in you,
that has become stone, let it become flesh again. And
God is softening the pain and the bitterness in your life,
and He is resurrecting you from death to life. I
also want to pray for marriages in this room, for
(36:17):
anyone whose marriage is suffering. And I want to say this,
if you're having a really hard time and strife in
your marriage. Then one of you does not want to
die and become more like Christ. One of you does
not want to submit to Jesus and become more like him.
Because at the root of all strife and marriage is selfishness.
(36:39):
Been there again and again, and that's where I want
to call you someone in here. Your marriage is in
strife because you are being selfish and you need to
lay down your life like Christ does for the church.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
There's also someone to here.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Your marriage is struggling because your partner has hurt you
beyond what yon what you could anyone could imagine. And
you know what God is saying to you right now,
Me too, Your partner has hurt me too. But I'm
going to give you unconditional grace because I've given it
(37:15):
to them. I'm going to put that unconditional grace in
you so that you can find a way to forgive them.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
In Jesus' name, you will be like God human unity.
God was severed and through it all God's promise remain true.
(37:47):
Follow me, apron and I will make you great.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
This is the Chosen People. Listen to the Chosen People
at the Chosen.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
People dot Com. That's the Chosen People.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Dot com
Host
Matthew Potter
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