December 7, 2025 • 24 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
To Michael Barry Show. Now tonight I want you to
turn with me to the one hundred and second Psalm.
The one hundred and second Psalm and a very strange
verse in a way, the fifth through the sixth and
seventh verses, I am like a pelican in the wilderness.
I'm like an owl of the desert. I watch and
(00:22):
him as a sparaw alone upon the house top. This week,
President Reagan, in his news conference declared to the world,
you can look pessimistically on the world today, or you
can look optimistically. He said, I chose the optimistic look,
(00:43):
and tonight I want to speak on why I am
an optimist. And in this passage of Scripture, an interesting
little story surrounds it. In nineteen fifty four we went
England and we were holding a crusade that lasted three
months at the Harring Gay Arena in London, England. And
(01:03):
my wife is a bookworm, and she loves to go
to old bookstores and buy old books and just brows
through old books. And she has hundreds of them that
she's gotten over the years, some of the great classics.
And on this occasion she saw a little old man
in there. Well he wasn't an old man, about a
middle aged man, and he was very discouraged and very
(01:24):
despondent looking. And he came up to her and said,
are you missus Billy Graham? And she said, yes I am.
He said, well, you know, he said, I'm so discouraged.
He said my marriage is breaking up. And he said
everything is happening to me. I don't know what I'm
going to do. And she said, well, why don't you
come out to the Harring Gay Arena tonight and hear
(01:44):
the gospel. And she gave him some tickets that she
had in her bag. And she didn't see him again,
wondered what had happened to him, prayed for him. One
year later, we were back in that same city of London,
holding a crusade at Wembley Stadium, where incidentally it poured
rain every night in the open air like this, except
(02:06):
on the last night, and it was clear and ice cold.
So we had a delightful time in the rain and
in the cold, but an average of sixty thousand people
every night came and on that last day I remember
we had ninety thousand people in that cold air. But anyway,
she went to that same bookstore. She was browsing around
(02:26):
and this same man came and he was bright and chipper,
and Ruth said, I've never seen such happiness on the
face of anybody. And he said, you know, I took
the tickets. I went to the arena that night. I
accepted Christ as my savior. My wife accepted Christ. Said,
now we have a Christian family. And he said, you
(02:50):
know the verse of Scripture that your husband quoted that
night that won me to the Lord. He said it
was one hundred and second Salmon. He got a Bible
and he showed up. I'm like a pelican in the wilderness.
I'm like an owl of the desert. I'm watching him
a sparrow alone upon the house top. Now I never
thought of that as being an evangelistic verse, but it
(03:10):
was to him because he said that described my condition.
Because he said, I felt like a pelican in the wilderness.
A pelican doesn't belong in the wilderness. He belongs down
at Galveston in some place. I'm like an owl of
the desert. Well, owls don't go to the desert much.
And he said that's the way I felt that night,
(03:33):
And he said it changed my life. Now the whole
world tonight is like a pelican, an owl or sparaw.
Dickens wrote of the French Revolution in seventeen seventy five
that it was the best and the worst of times,
and that's what we're seeing today. Gadamocles in the fourth
century BC said something against the King of Syracuse, and
(03:54):
he was ordered to sit under an neaked sword suspended
by a single hair. Now there's a difference between an
optimist and a pessimist. And I heard about one of
our prisons. Two convicts were looking out of a cell
window one night, and the pessimist saw the bars, but
the optimists saw the stars. Yesterday we read of a
(04:17):
thirty one year old son of one of America's most
wealthy and influential families. You'd know his name if I
called it, who left America for India with this result.
Here's what he said, quoted in the press. I renounced capitalism,
I renounced communism. I come to India to settle here permanently,
to have the grace of the Supreme God. And with
(04:38):
this he assumed a brand new name forgetting his past,
becoming a new name, Hoping that they are somewhere at
the feet of a guru, he'll find the answer. One night,
we were leaving India about three years ago, and we
went to the new Delhi Airport. We had been up
in the northeastern part of India preaching up in the mountains,
(05:00):
and at the Delhi Airport it was jammed with American students.
They were lying all over the place, university students. And
I said, who are these people? They said, they're three
seven forty Seven's coming to pick them up. They've been
here studying at the feet of some guru and they're
going back disillusioned young people searching for something, anything, to
(05:24):
find peace and happiness in a world that seems to
have gone mad and insane. Nothing seems to make sense
to some of our young people anymore. And then they
read about some of their heroes. I can remember fifteen
years ago and twenty years ago, people went absolutely wild
(05:44):
over Elvis Presley. Now the trial has just finished and
we've read all in the press about how terribly he
had gotten in his latter days on drugs, and how
these drugs probably contributed to his early death. And many
(06:06):
of the people that are your heroes, and many of
the people that you think are at the top are
really in their hearts at the bottom searching. They don't
find it in all this popularity. They don't find it
in all the adulation. They don't find it in all
the popularity. They don't find it in money, they don't
(06:27):
find it in some other philosophy. But they can find
it in Jesus Christ, and so can you. There's a
telephone number there on your screen right now. If you
will pick up your phone and call that number, a
counsel is standing by to say a word to you.
You can find the answer in the person of Jesus Christ.
(06:47):
Many of you here tonight have an unfulfilled longing in
your soul. A New York taxi driver about, Oh, it's
been a year ago, now, I suppose ask me if
there was anything to cheer about where I came from.
And I said, certainly, there's many things to cheer about.
And I thought about at least four times. Jesus said,
be of good cheer. The first time Jesus said it
(07:12):
was to a paralytic. He said, son, be of good cheer.
Your sins have forgiven you. Now, this man was sick
of palsy. But Jesus knew that he had deeper knees.
Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone. Jesus said,
a man's life consisted not in the abundance of the
things which he possesses. There's something deeper in your life
(07:34):
that you need. That materialism cannot satisfy. Money cannot satisfy,
pleasure cannot satisfy. And one of the things that you
need is the forgiveness of sin, because all of us
have sinned against God und The word sin means law breaker.
You are a breaker of the laws of God, and
(07:54):
so am I. And the Bible says that if you
have broken in one point, you have broken all of
God's laws. So we are breakers of all of God's laws.
And there is a penalty for breaking the law of God,
and that penalty is death and destruction and judgment in hell.
That's the penalty. And we're all under sentence, will idemically
(08:17):
sitting under that naked sword. We're already under condemnation. We're
not going to be condemned when we die. We're condemned now.
We're already under condemnation. And Jesus came to save us
from that condemnation and from the penalty of that sin.
Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a
(08:39):
man soweth, that shall he also reap. You see, man
is trapped by sin. We're in a trap, very much
like a rat that's been captured in a trap. A
featured film in Houston this week is the first deadly sin.
And the first deadly sin was committed by Adam and
Eve in the Garden of Eden when they rebelled against
(09:00):
God and broke God's laws. And you and I inherited
the same tendenc of the sin. It went to canaan
Abel and Kane killed his brother. He became jealous, he
became filled with pride, and he killed his brother. Murder
took place writing just outside the Garden of Eden, and
(09:21):
it's still taking place all over the world. And then
not only that, but we suffer spiritual death and eternal death.
And that means that when your body dies, you're sould.
The spirit that lives in your body goes out into eternity,
away from God lost. And that's why it's so important
(09:41):
for you to repent of sin and turn to Christ
while you can. We're trapped in sin. We saw today
the account of a fifty four year old who beat
up his ninety one year old mother to get money.
He got twelve hundred dollars. Then, from the torture of
his guilt, he committed suicide. The Bible thank God assures
(10:03):
wonderful forgiveness for all sin. Blessed are they whose iniquities
are forgiven and whose sins are forgovered. God can forgive
you because of the cross, Because on the cross, Jesus
Christ died for our sins, and because he was willing
to die, God can now forgive you and remain just.
You see, God had a problem. How could God forgive
(10:25):
the sinner and remain just and holy and righteous? Because
if God had come along and patted us on the
back and said, you have forgiven, he would have been
a liar. And if God had been a liar, he
would have not been God. Somebody had to pay the penalty.
(10:48):
You and I are guilty. Who's going to pay the penalty?
Jesus paid it. That's the reason he came. We sing
that song. Jesus paid it all. He paid it all.
That's the reason the word blood is used in scripture,
because the word blood stands for life. He gave his
life for us on the cross. The blood of Jesus Christ,
(11:11):
his son, cleanseth us from all sin. And it's wonderful
to know that all your sins are covered by the
blood of Christ. Yes, God can forgive sin because of
the Cross. And if you'd like forgiveness tonight and to
know that you're forgiven. You that are watching by television,
pick up that telephone now and call the number on
your screen, and be sure you know. The United States
(11:35):
Air Force I read recently, was trying to locate a
major who is lost in flight. And it costs ten
million dollars to search for that one man. But God
gave far more than that for each of us. The
Los Angeles writer Alice Ramrez wrote in her syndicated column
this week, in this Year of the Handicapped, she spent
(11:58):
a day in a wheelchair as an assumed paraplegic. It
gave her a whole new perspective of what it means
to be handicap. You know, one time I went several
hours with a blindfold around me, just to see what
it would be to be blind. It gives you a
whole new perspective on what it means to be handicap.
(12:18):
But you see God in Christ came down and became
a man, He became handicap in a man's body. The
mighty God of Heaven went into a man's body, as
it were, and just like us, only without sin, and
finally died on the cross. And when he died, he
(12:38):
became guilty of our sins. He'd never told to lie,
he'd never committed adultery, he'd never had lust, he'd never
been jealous, and yet he became guilty of all of
it because he had your sins on him. And when
they put the spikes in his hands and the spear
in his side, and the blood gushed forth, and he
suffered in the angels of heaven came were ready to
come to rescue him. He said, no, forgive them. They
(13:01):
know not what they do. And he's saying, tonight, I'll
forgive you if you'll come to me in repentance and
faith in one Peter. Peter says in the eighteenth verse
of the first chapter, for as much as you know
that you were not redeemed with corruptible things such as
(13:23):
silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ,
as a lamb without blemish and without spot we were
redeemed not with silver, and gold, and all the gold
in the world can't save your soul. You can give
all your money to charity. You can give all your
money to the church, but that won't save you. Can
work all you the rest of your life in good works,
(13:46):
but that won't save you. You can join every church
in town, but that won't save you. Must repent of
your sins and receive Christ by faith. For by grace
of Ye save through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God works lest anyone should boast.
You can't work your way. It's grace. And the word
grace means unmerited favor, something you don't deserve. God gives
(14:08):
it to you as a gift, something you can't buy,
you can't work for. It's a gift, and God offers
you the gift, but you have to reach out and
receive it. And the Bible teaches that this world's system
is dominated by evil. Satanic cosmic principles of force and
(14:28):
greed and selfishness and ambition and pleasure seem to be
in control most of the time, and the world's system
is very powerful. It is often outwardly religious and scientific
and cultured and elegant But underneath this seething with rivalries
and ambitions and lust and hate and greed and jealousies.
That's the world. And Jesus said that world will not
(14:53):
like you because you're following me. It hated me, it'll
hate you. And often this world of evil is upheld
in a time of crisis only by armed force. I
don't mean everybody in the world is evil. I'm talking
about the sins of the world, the evils of the world,
dominated by the devil. But Jesus met the world with
(15:15):
all of its evil. He met the devil, He met
the flesh, which means the evil principle within us, and
he conquered. He conquered death, which is the last great
enemy of mankind. And by the Cross, we are crucified
to the world. In other words, because Jesus died on
the Cross, the world's system, with all of its power,
(15:39):
has been crucified. As far as we are concerned, it
has no longer power over us. Sin shall no longer
dominate us, Sin no longer reigns over us. We may
fail in sin, but the moment we do, we'll be
convicted by the Holy Spirit, and we get up and
(16:00):
confess our sins, and he's faithful in justin for give
us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But
Christ has disarmed the principalities and powers and made a
public example of them, triumphing over them. The Bible says,
our authority over the world is the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. I have authority. I have power. So
(16:22):
do you, an ordinary believer, over the evils of the world,
And so let the temptations come. Let the devil try
to get you off track, and you have a power
there with you. That's the reason we try to get
you into the scriptures and get you studying the Word
of God and memorizing scripture. Because when Jesus met the devil,
(16:44):
he didn't argue with the devil. He didn't debate the devil.
He quoted scripture. He said it is written three times,
and three times. The devil was defeated. The tempter is
going to come. But you have a power in the
Word of God, and you have a power in the
Holy Spirit within to help you as you meet the
temptations and troubles and trials of this world. Yes, I'm
(17:07):
an optimist. I believe that I can overcome the world.
Because of Christ. I'm not afraid of all the sins
and the evils, and the lust and the temptations around me.
I can walk straight in the midst of this world.
It doesn't mean that I get out of the world.
I have to live every day in the world, and
those temptations are there. But I have a power to
(17:30):
say no. So do you have a power to say no?
The same power that's available to all of us in
Jesus Christ. And then lastly, the coming again of Christ.
He said, be of good cheer. Let not your heart
be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me.
In my father's house so many mansions. If it were
(17:52):
not so, I would have told you I go to
prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you under myself. Where I am there, ye may
be also. Yes, Jesus Christ is coming back again. He's
going to set up his kingdom, and he's going to
reign for ever and dev and Deva, and the Kingdom
(18:14):
of God is going to triumph. No ideology existing today
is going to last. None. Only Christ will last as
king of kings and Lord of lords, and he will
come back in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that
know not God and that obey not the gospel of
(18:34):
our Lord Jesus Christ. They're going to be punished with
everlasting destruction. But when he comes, he shall be glorified
in his saints and to be admired in all them
that believe. Because our testimony among you was believed in
that day. You'll find that little phrase used everywhere that day,
(18:55):
in that day, in that day, the last days of
the day, it's used all the way through. That is
the day of his return. I go to bed every
night with the hope that Christ is coming. No, this
world is not going to blow up in some great
atomic war. The human race is not going to be
(19:17):
totally destroyed. God has other plans. He has a plan
that Christ is going to be on the throne and
Christ is going to rule, and evil will be destroyed.
The devil will be casting to hell, and the demons
will be cast into hell. There is going to be
(19:37):
universal joy, there is going to be universal peace, there
is going to be universal justice. And the scripture says
that you and I have to make a choice. Joshua said,
choose you this day, whom you will serve? Elijah said,
(19:58):
why halt you between two opinions? Jesus said, no man
can serve two masters. Jesus said, enter in at the
narrow gate, for why it is the gate, and broad
is the way that lead it to destruction. And many
there be that go therein because straight is the gate,
and narrow is the way which leadeth under life, and
few there be that find it. He said in that
(20:19):
seventh chapter of Matthew, that they're two gates. He said,
they are two trees. He like in life to a tree,
one produces good fruit and want a bad fruit. You
are like a tree. He said. There are two foundations.
One is built upon the sand, and when the wind
comes it blows away, and the other's built upon the rock,
and it lasts. Which is yours? You must choose. You say, well, Billy,
(20:43):
what do I have to do? First? You have to
repent of your sin. The word repent means that you're
willing to change your way of living. You say, oh God,
i am a sinner. I'm sorry, I'm willing to change
my way of living. And then, by simple childlike faith,
like a little child trust his father, mother, You trust
(21:05):
in Jesus alone for your salvation, and then you're willing
to follow him and serve him whatever the cost. If
you have a doubt that you know Christ, tonight, I'm
going to ask you to do something we've seen hundreds
and several thousand people already do this week. I'm going
to ask you to get up out of your seat
right now, hundreds of you, and come down on this
(21:26):
field and say, tonight, I want to know that I
have eternal life. I want to know my sins of forgiven.
I want Christ to have all of me tonight, and
I'm ready to pay whatever price he calls upon. If
you're with friends or relatives, they'll wait on you. And
why do I ask you to come? Because every person
Jesus called him the New Testamony called publicly, and he said,
(21:47):
if you're not willing to acknowledge me publicly before men,
I'll not acknowledge you before my father, which is in heaven.
He died on the cross publicly for you. People sneering
and laughing at him, but he hunt, I'm there for
you now. He says, you come publicly and declare yourself
for me. The Bible warns that his spirit will not
(22:08):
always strive with us. You may never be this close
to the Kingdom of God again. This is your one moment.
You better take advantage of it. Quhen will we ever
see this in Houston again? Never? In this generation? Most likely.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
If you like the Michael Berry Show and Podcast, please
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(22:44):
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(23:08):
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(23:31):
we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the
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man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp
Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and
(23:56):
a combat veteran will answer the phone to vide free
counseling
To Michael Barry Show. Now tonight I want you to
turn with me to the one hundred and second Psalm.
The one hundred and second Psalm and a very strange
verse in a way, the fifth through the sixth and
seventh verses, I am like a pelican in the wilderness.
I'm like an owl of the desert. I watch and
(00:22):
him as a sparaw alone upon the house top. This week,
President Reagan, in his news conference declared to the world,
you can look pessimistically on the world today, or you
can look optimistically. He said, I chose the optimistic look,
(00:43):
and tonight I want to speak on why I am
an optimist. And in this passage of Scripture, an interesting
little story surrounds it. In nineteen fifty four we went
England and we were holding a crusade that lasted three
months at the Harring Gay Arena in London, England. And
(01:03):
my wife is a bookworm, and she loves to go
to old bookstores and buy old books and just brows
through old books. And she has hundreds of them that
she's gotten over the years, some of the great classics.
And on this occasion she saw a little old man
in there. Well he wasn't an old man, about a
middle aged man, and he was very discouraged and very
(01:24):
despondent looking. And he came up to her and said,
are you missus Billy Graham? And she said, yes I am.
He said, well, you know, he said, I'm so discouraged.
He said my marriage is breaking up. And he said
everything is happening to me. I don't know what I'm
going to do. And she said, well, why don't you
come out to the Harring Gay Arena tonight and hear
(01:44):
the gospel. And she gave him some tickets that she
had in her bag. And she didn't see him again,
wondered what had happened to him, prayed for him. One
year later, we were back in that same city of London,
holding a crusade at Wembley Stadium, where incidentally it poured
rain every night in the open air like this, except
(02:06):
on the last night, and it was clear and ice cold.
So we had a delightful time in the rain and
in the cold, but an average of sixty thousand people
every night came and on that last day I remember
we had ninety thousand people in that cold air. But anyway,
she went to that same bookstore. She was browsing around
(02:26):
and this same man came and he was bright and chipper,
and Ruth said, I've never seen such happiness on the
face of anybody. And he said, you know, I took
the tickets. I went to the arena that night. I
accepted Christ as my savior. My wife accepted Christ. Said,
now we have a Christian family. And he said, you
(02:50):
know the verse of Scripture that your husband quoted that
night that won me to the Lord. He said it
was one hundred and second Salmon. He got a Bible
and he showed up. I'm like a pelican in the wilderness.
I'm like an owl of the desert. I'm watching him
a sparrow alone upon the house top. Now I never
thought of that as being an evangelistic verse, but it
(03:10):
was to him because he said that described my condition.
Because he said, I felt like a pelican in the wilderness.
A pelican doesn't belong in the wilderness. He belongs down
at Galveston in some place. I'm like an owl of
the desert. Well, owls don't go to the desert much.
And he said that's the way I felt that night,
(03:33):
And he said it changed my life. Now the whole
world tonight is like a pelican, an owl or sparaw.
Dickens wrote of the French Revolution in seventeen seventy five
that it was the best and the worst of times,
and that's what we're seeing today. Gadamocles in the fourth
century BC said something against the King of Syracuse, and
(03:54):
he was ordered to sit under an neaked sword suspended
by a single hair. Now there's a difference between an
optimist and a pessimist. And I heard about one of
our prisons. Two convicts were looking out of a cell
window one night, and the pessimist saw the bars, but
the optimists saw the stars. Yesterday we read of a
(04:17):
thirty one year old son of one of America's most
wealthy and influential families. You'd know his name if I
called it, who left America for India with this result.
Here's what he said, quoted in the press. I renounced capitalism,
I renounced communism. I come to India to settle here permanently,
to have the grace of the Supreme God. And with
(04:38):
this he assumed a brand new name forgetting his past,
becoming a new name, Hoping that they are somewhere at
the feet of a guru, he'll find the answer. One night,
we were leaving India about three years ago, and we
went to the new Delhi Airport. We had been up
in the northeastern part of India preaching up in the mountains,
(05:00):
and at the Delhi Airport it was jammed with American students.
They were lying all over the place, university students. And
I said, who are these people? They said, they're three
seven forty Seven's coming to pick them up. They've been
here studying at the feet of some guru and they're
going back disillusioned young people searching for something, anything, to
(05:24):
find peace and happiness in a world that seems to
have gone mad and insane. Nothing seems to make sense
to some of our young people anymore. And then they
read about some of their heroes. I can remember fifteen
years ago and twenty years ago, people went absolutely wild
(05:44):
over Elvis Presley. Now the trial has just finished and
we've read all in the press about how terribly he
had gotten in his latter days on drugs, and how
these drugs probably contributed to his early death. And many
(06:06):
of the people that are your heroes, and many of
the people that you think are at the top are
really in their hearts at the bottom searching. They don't
find it in all this popularity. They don't find it
in all the adulation. They don't find it in all
the popularity. They don't find it in money, they don't
(06:27):
find it in some other philosophy. But they can find
it in Jesus Christ, and so can you. There's a
telephone number there on your screen right now. If you
will pick up your phone and call that number, a
counsel is standing by to say a word to you.
You can find the answer in the person of Jesus Christ.
(06:47):
Many of you here tonight have an unfulfilled longing in
your soul. A New York taxi driver about, Oh, it's
been a year ago, now, I suppose ask me if
there was anything to cheer about where I came from.
And I said, certainly, there's many things to cheer about.
And I thought about at least four times. Jesus said,
be of good cheer. The first time Jesus said it
(07:12):
was to a paralytic. He said, son, be of good cheer.
Your sins have forgiven you. Now, this man was sick
of palsy. But Jesus knew that he had deeper knees.
Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone. Jesus said,
a man's life consisted not in the abundance of the
things which he possesses. There's something deeper in your life
(07:34):
that you need. That materialism cannot satisfy. Money cannot satisfy,
pleasure cannot satisfy. And one of the things that you
need is the forgiveness of sin, because all of us
have sinned against God und The word sin means law breaker.
You are a breaker of the laws of God, and
(07:54):
so am I. And the Bible says that if you
have broken in one point, you have broken all of
God's laws. So we are breakers of all of God's laws.
And there is a penalty for breaking the law of God,
and that penalty is death and destruction and judgment in hell.
That's the penalty. And we're all under sentence, will idemically
(08:17):
sitting under that naked sword. We're already under condemnation. We're
not going to be condemned when we die. We're condemned now.
We're already under condemnation. And Jesus came to save us
from that condemnation and from the penalty of that sin.
Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a
(08:39):
man soweth, that shall he also reap. You see, man
is trapped by sin. We're in a trap, very much
like a rat that's been captured in a trap. A
featured film in Houston this week is the first deadly sin.
And the first deadly sin was committed by Adam and
Eve in the Garden of Eden when they rebelled against
(09:00):
God and broke God's laws. And you and I inherited
the same tendenc of the sin. It went to canaan
Abel and Kane killed his brother. He became jealous, he
became filled with pride, and he killed his brother. Murder
took place writing just outside the Garden of Eden, and
(09:21):
it's still taking place all over the world. And then
not only that, but we suffer spiritual death and eternal death.
And that means that when your body dies, you're sould.
The spirit that lives in your body goes out into eternity,
away from God lost. And that's why it's so important
(09:41):
for you to repent of sin and turn to Christ
while you can. We're trapped in sin. We saw today
the account of a fifty four year old who beat
up his ninety one year old mother to get money.
He got twelve hundred dollars. Then, from the torture of
his guilt, he committed suicide. The Bible thank God assures
(10:03):
wonderful forgiveness for all sin. Blessed are they whose iniquities
are forgiven and whose sins are forgovered. God can forgive
you because of the cross, Because on the cross, Jesus
Christ died for our sins, and because he was willing
to die, God can now forgive you and remain just.
You see, God had a problem. How could God forgive
(10:25):
the sinner and remain just and holy and righteous? Because
if God had come along and patted us on the
back and said, you have forgiven, he would have been
a liar. And if God had been a liar, he
would have not been God. Somebody had to pay the penalty.
(10:48):
You and I are guilty. Who's going to pay the penalty?
Jesus paid it. That's the reason he came. We sing
that song. Jesus paid it all. He paid it all.
That's the reason the word blood is used in scripture,
because the word blood stands for life. He gave his
life for us on the cross. The blood of Jesus Christ,
(11:11):
his son, cleanseth us from all sin. And it's wonderful
to know that all your sins are covered by the
blood of Christ. Yes, God can forgive sin because of
the Cross. And if you'd like forgiveness tonight and to
know that you're forgiven. You that are watching by television,
pick up that telephone now and call the number on
your screen, and be sure you know. The United States
(11:35):
Air Force I read recently, was trying to locate a
major who is lost in flight. And it costs ten
million dollars to search for that one man. But God
gave far more than that for each of us. The
Los Angeles writer Alice Ramrez wrote in her syndicated column
this week, in this Year of the Handicapped, she spent
(11:58):
a day in a wheelchair as an assumed paraplegic. It
gave her a whole new perspective of what it means
to be handicap. You know, one time I went several
hours with a blindfold around me, just to see what
it would be to be blind. It gives you a
whole new perspective on what it means to be handicap.
(12:18):
But you see God in Christ came down and became
a man, He became handicap in a man's body. The
mighty God of Heaven went into a man's body, as
it were, and just like us, only without sin, and
finally died on the cross. And when he died, he
(12:38):
became guilty of our sins. He'd never told to lie,
he'd never committed adultery, he'd never had lust, he'd never
been jealous, and yet he became guilty of all of
it because he had your sins on him. And when
they put the spikes in his hands and the spear
in his side, and the blood gushed forth, and he
suffered in the angels of heaven came were ready to
come to rescue him. He said, no, forgive them. They
(13:01):
know not what they do. And he's saying, tonight, I'll
forgive you if you'll come to me in repentance and
faith in one Peter. Peter says in the eighteenth verse
of the first chapter, for as much as you know
that you were not redeemed with corruptible things such as
(13:23):
silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ,
as a lamb without blemish and without spot we were
redeemed not with silver, and gold, and all the gold
in the world can't save your soul. You can give
all your money to charity. You can give all your
money to the church, but that won't save you. Can
work all you the rest of your life in good works,
(13:46):
but that won't save you. You can join every church
in town, but that won't save you. Must repent of
your sins and receive Christ by faith. For by grace
of Ye save through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God works lest anyone should boast.
You can't work your way. It's grace. And the word
grace means unmerited favor, something you don't deserve. God gives
(14:08):
it to you as a gift, something you can't buy,
you can't work for. It's a gift, and God offers
you the gift, but you have to reach out and
receive it. And the Bible teaches that this world's system
is dominated by evil. Satanic cosmic principles of force and
(14:28):
greed and selfishness and ambition and pleasure seem to be
in control most of the time, and the world's system
is very powerful. It is often outwardly religious and scientific
and cultured and elegant But underneath this seething with rivalries
and ambitions and lust and hate and greed and jealousies.
That's the world. And Jesus said that world will not
(14:53):
like you because you're following me. It hated me, it'll
hate you. And often this world of evil is upheld
in a time of crisis only by armed force. I
don't mean everybody in the world is evil. I'm talking
about the sins of the world, the evils of the world,
dominated by the devil. But Jesus met the world with
(15:15):
all of its evil. He met the devil, He met
the flesh, which means the evil principle within us, and
he conquered. He conquered death, which is the last great
enemy of mankind. And by the Cross, we are crucified
to the world. In other words, because Jesus died on
the Cross, the world's system, with all of its power,
(15:39):
has been crucified. As far as we are concerned, it
has no longer power over us. Sin shall no longer
dominate us, Sin no longer reigns over us. We may
fail in sin, but the moment we do, we'll be
convicted by the Holy Spirit, and we get up and
(16:00):
confess our sins, and he's faithful in justin for give
us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But
Christ has disarmed the principalities and powers and made a
public example of them, triumphing over them. The Bible says,
our authority over the world is the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. I have authority. I have power. So
(16:22):
do you, an ordinary believer, over the evils of the world,
And so let the temptations come. Let the devil try
to get you off track, and you have a power
there with you. That's the reason we try to get
you into the scriptures and get you studying the Word
of God and memorizing scripture. Because when Jesus met the devil,
(16:44):
he didn't argue with the devil. He didn't debate the devil.
He quoted scripture. He said it is written three times,
and three times. The devil was defeated. The tempter is
going to come. But you have a power in the
Word of God, and you have a power in the
Holy Spirit within to help you as you meet the
temptations and troubles and trials of this world. Yes, I'm
(17:07):
an optimist. I believe that I can overcome the world.
Because of Christ. I'm not afraid of all the sins
and the evils, and the lust and the temptations around me.
I can walk straight in the midst of this world.
It doesn't mean that I get out of the world.
I have to live every day in the world, and
those temptations are there. But I have a power to
(17:30):
say no. So do you have a power to say no?
The same power that's available to all of us in
Jesus Christ. And then lastly, the coming again of Christ.
He said, be of good cheer. Let not your heart
be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me.
In my father's house so many mansions. If it were
(17:52):
not so, I would have told you I go to
prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you under myself. Where I am there, ye may
be also. Yes, Jesus Christ is coming back again. He's
going to set up his kingdom, and he's going to
reign for ever and dev and Deva, and the Kingdom
(18:14):
of God is going to triumph. No ideology existing today
is going to last. None. Only Christ will last as
king of kings and Lord of lords, and he will
come back in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that
know not God and that obey not the gospel of
(18:34):
our Lord Jesus Christ. They're going to be punished with
everlasting destruction. But when he comes, he shall be glorified
in his saints and to be admired in all them
that believe. Because our testimony among you was believed in
that day. You'll find that little phrase used everywhere that day,
(18:55):
in that day, in that day, the last days of
the day, it's used all the way through. That is
the day of his return. I go to bed every
night with the hope that Christ is coming. No, this
world is not going to blow up in some great
atomic war. The human race is not going to be
(19:17):
totally destroyed. God has other plans. He has a plan
that Christ is going to be on the throne and
Christ is going to rule, and evil will be destroyed.
The devil will be casting to hell, and the demons
will be cast into hell. There is going to be
(19:37):
universal joy, there is going to be universal peace, there
is going to be universal justice. And the scripture says
that you and I have to make a choice. Joshua said,
choose you this day, whom you will serve? Elijah said,
(19:58):
why halt you between two opinions? Jesus said, no man
can serve two masters. Jesus said, enter in at the
narrow gate, for why it is the gate, and broad
is the way that lead it to destruction. And many
there be that go therein because straight is the gate,
and narrow is the way which leadeth under life, and
few there be that find it. He said in that
(20:19):
seventh chapter of Matthew, that they're two gates. He said,
they are two trees. He like in life to a tree,
one produces good fruit and want a bad fruit. You
are like a tree. He said. There are two foundations.
One is built upon the sand, and when the wind
comes it blows away, and the other's built upon the rock,
and it lasts. Which is yours? You must choose. You say, well, Billy,
(20:43):
what do I have to do? First? You have to
repent of your sin. The word repent means that you're
willing to change your way of living. You say, oh God,
i am a sinner. I'm sorry, I'm willing to change
my way of living. And then, by simple childlike faith,
like a little child trust his father, mother, You trust
(21:05):
in Jesus alone for your salvation, and then you're willing
to follow him and serve him whatever the cost. If
you have a doubt that you know Christ, tonight, I'm
going to ask you to do something we've seen hundreds
and several thousand people already do this week. I'm going
to ask you to get up out of your seat
right now, hundreds of you, and come down on this
(21:26):
field and say, tonight, I want to know that I
have eternal life. I want to know my sins of forgiven.
I want Christ to have all of me tonight, and
I'm ready to pay whatever price he calls upon. If
you're with friends or relatives, they'll wait on you. And
why do I ask you to come? Because every person
Jesus called him the New Testamony called publicly, and he said,
(21:47):
if you're not willing to acknowledge me publicly before men,
I'll not acknowledge you before my father, which is in heaven.
He died on the cross publicly for you. People sneering
and laughing at him, but he hunt, I'm there for
you now. He says, you come publicly and declare yourself
for me. The Bible warns that his spirit will not
(22:08):
always strive with us. You may never be this close
to the Kingdom of God again. This is your one moment.
You better take advantage of it. Quhen will we ever
see this in Houston again? Never? In this generation? Most likely.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
If you like the Michael Berry Show and Podcast, please
tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a
nice review of our podcast. Comments, suggestions, questions, and interest
in being a corporate sponsor and partner can be communicated
directly to the show at our email address, Michael at
(22:44):
Michael Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on our website,
Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and Podcast
is produced by Ramon Roeblis, the King of Ding. Executive
producer is Chad Knakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.
(23:08):
Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLean.
Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our
assistant listener and super fan. Contributions are appreciated and often
incorporated into our production. Where possible, we give credit, Where not,
(23:31):
we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the
memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple
man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp
Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and
(23:56):
a combat veteran will answer the phone to vide free
counseling
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