Proof That Jesus Changes Lives // Roberto Stevenson

Pastor Roberto Stevenson shares how an encounter with Jesus transforms lives and shows the church overcomes darkness.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Hungry Gen podcast, and I just want to
thank you for joining us today here at HG. Our
vision is to see thousands saved locally and millions globally.
We hope you enjoyed this week's message.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
It's a pleasure to be here. The first service was
the first time I preached in English in six months.
That wasn't an excuse, so now there's no excuses. In
the second service, bring your greetings from my family.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
A couple of pictures here. That's me.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
We have services outside once a month and we have
a lot of revival services in open air. That's why
I have the hat and the sunglasses.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Family. There we go. My son is with me.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
He's back in the booth behind me on this side,
even though she looks too young to be my wife.
That's my wife over on this side in the middle
with the.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
Glasses as my daughter Rebecca, my daughter in law e
Len Flores.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
That's my granddaughter her up at the top with the
smiley face. She's ten, almost eleven and six months ago
he wasn't available for the picture as our latest grandson.

Speaker 4 (01:10):
Listen to this Elias Elijah Roberto Stevenson, Floris HMM, made
in Mexico, and we say ho and Mixico be Nho
made in Mexico.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Good. That's the family that bring you greetings.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Also greetings from the church that by the grace of
God I passed her, or the churches. It's called Promised
Land Church in Mexico City. Your pastors were there last year.
They left an impact, They left a blessing, lives were touched.
When I told him I was coming here, they were,
you know, basically the whole church was like, Yeah, bring

(01:51):
our greetings in Mexico is a big thing to bring
our greetings. And this morning I'm gonna give more testimony.
I have some photos of the church. But let's go
to Matthew sixteen. The title of my message is Hell
will not win.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Hell will not win. Eileen Fierro no no, I said.
I wasn't going to say anything else in Spanish, but
it's got some power in Spanish. Hell will not win.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's talking about the church. This text I'm in Matthew
sixteen thirteen. When we say hell will not prevail, Hell
will not win, we're talking about the church. I was
born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, nineteen fifty four.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
I didn't say that in the first service.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
I was a little embarrassed to that, and I was
born again in nineteen eighty one. I'll share about that.
But I was raised in Washington, d C. And today,
as you know, because of the world news, all the
media outlets, so many eyes are on Washington, d C.
But what I sense is the eyes of the Lord

(03:05):
are on the Tri Cities area in Washington State. And
the authority and the power that are flowing and will
flow out of Washington State through this network of churches,
because you are a network of churches now and you're
preparing and sending out, and the nations will come.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
They already have.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
This is a prophetic word that's now and not yet,
but it will be Pastor Vlad.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
The nations will come.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
And they will glorify the name of the Lord, and
they will worship here in this place, and many will
be sent out to the nations. So the authority and
the power and the wisdom and the keeling for the
nations will come more out of Washington State than out
of Washington, d C. Man, how people are when there's

(03:56):
times turbulent, turbulent times and troubled times.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Which are Prophet's side.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
In the last days Paul said, dangerous, violent times will come,
and people look to the government. People look to politicians.
They looked to the White House. I learned years ago
to look to God's House, the Church of the Living God.
That's where the answers are, That's where the power is,

(04:23):
that's where the healing is. Matthew sixteen. When Jesus verse thirteen,
When Jesus came into the region is cesarei Cesarea, Philippo Philippi.
He asked his disciples, saying, who do men say that
I am?

Speaker 3 (04:43):
So?

Speaker 2 (04:43):
They said, some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and
others Jeremiah, one of the prophets.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
I'll just say this here.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
They were wrong then about who Jesus was, and I
I can't bet I was gonna say I bet if
I was a betting man, I would bet that most
of your neighbors and people you work with, if you
ask them who is Jesus, they would be just like
in the text, they'd be wrong. They wouldn't get it right.

(05:14):
But here comes the important one. He turns to him
and he says, but who do you say that I am?
That's an important question. Simon Peter answered and said, you
are the Christ, Messiah, the son of the Living God.
Jesus answered and said, then, blessed are you Simon bar Jonah,
for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.

(05:36):
But my father is in heaven. And I also say
to you that you are Peter. You are Petro's large stone.
Jesus changed his name, you remember, from a wimp Simon
to a stone. But then he says, on this rock,
which is Petra, Petra's like those rocks when we drove
yesterday morning from Portland, Oregon, from the airport, those rocks

(05:58):
that are by the river.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Beautiful, beautiful drive. Let me tell you you've never been to
this part of the world. That's Jesus. He's the Petra.
On this rock.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
I will build my church and the gates of Hell
will not prevail against it. That's where I get Hell
will not win against the Church of Jesus Christ. But
before we talk about the church, and I have testimony
to give, who do you say I am?

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Who do you say Jesus? Is that question?

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Your answer to that question will determine how you live
the rest of your life here on earth. That's important.
That would be important in and of itself. I've come
to give you life and life more abundantly. But it
also will determine your legacy, your family. You should rejoice.

(06:54):
This morning I met Lad's parents, his uncle, his aunts,
this morning, his grandparents.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Their parents received Jesus in a time.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
And in a place it was difficult to walk with
Jesus with much persecution, but they made a decision to say, Jesus.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
You are our lord.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Pase, look at Pasa, Benga, look at Benga. Whatever comes,
it doesn't matter. You gonna be our lord. We're gonna
follow you. And that decision is one of the reasons
that hungry jen is right here in this beautiful new
building today because of the decision your grandparents made. So

(07:38):
who Jesus is determines the life you'll live the rest
of your life here. It determines your children and your
children's children the life that they'll live, and it definitely
determines where you will spend all of eternity. Who Jesus is,
Peter could have said, he said, Messiah, you're the he went,

(07:58):
he took it all. He knew you're the prophesied one.
You are the one that's coming to crush the serpent's head,
to kill him. You're the lion of the tribe of Judah.
You're the passover lamb.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
You're the one that changed my name and the day
you met.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Me, you're the only one that has words of eternal life. Jesus,
if they asked me forty five years ago, now, Jesus,
I say, you're the one that came to seek and
save that which was lost me.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
I started.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Using drugs in high school in Washington, d C. Northern Virginia.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
Thought I was cool, thought I'd never get addicted.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Started selling marijuana in Oregon, marijuana is recreationally legal. I
went by three stores coming from the airport when I
could walk in and buy marijuana with.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
The driver's license. I got arrested.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
For growing and selling marijuana. They sent me to do
community service for six months. Came out and continued doing it.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Had I thought I was cool.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
I got other connections. I started selling pills. I started
selling harder drugs. I had connections in the inner city,
and I'd sell the drugs in the universities in the suburbs.
Got arrested again and I was in prison three months,
and they sent me to a rehab which was like
a country club for a month and a half for
a year and a half, got out and made some

(09:35):
more connections, still selling drugs, quit going to school, got
busted for the third time, went before a federal judge
because it was interstate and I said, oh man, I
was in prison without couldn't make the bond.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
And I said, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
I'm gonna go to rehab or you know, I'll be
out of here in no time. And the judge said
nine to twenty one years. He wanted to make an
example of this young white boy twenty three years old.
I went to prison. This is why I would say, Jesus,

(10:12):
who are you? You're the one that comes to seek
and save that which was lost during this time.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
I missed this.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
In the first service, my mom, who was a nominal Methodist,
she gave her life to Jesus and got baptized in
the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
That's a difference. That's a big difference.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
When I got over being fearful in prison. After a
few months, you go in, you're scared, your life has ended.
You got nine years. You're gonna have to do minimum
before you can get paroled. I started doing the same
things in prison that I was doing outside of prison,
ripping and hustling and doing drugs, and I got arrested

(10:50):
more than once in the prison. It was a medium
to easy federal prison. And when I got arrested and
put in the hole in the prison that I was in,
I got word they never let me out of the hole.
I was almost thirty days administration, administrative segregation. If you
didn't know what the hole is, not like, you put
you in a hole, you put you in a cell

(11:12):
by yourself.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
And I got word of a disciplinary transfer.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Had been in prison about three years in something, and
I was going to a harder prison, a more maximum
security prison as a disciplinary action. On the way to
that prison, we were in the state of Kentucky. Never
been there before, never been there after, but I remember
it Faed County Jail in Kentucky, and as federal prisoners,

(11:38):
we were put in a segregated area and I got
put in a cell twenty three and a half hours
a day. You got out for half an hour, take
a shower, walk. There was a new Testament, and it
was a new Testament. Never forget it. I still have it,
good news for modern man, with little drawings in it.

(11:59):
And I begin to read that New Testament, we were
there probably for a month. I can't remember all the days.
And after reading Matthew and Mark and looking at the
little pictures in the New Testament, now I know it
had a lot to do with the grace of God
and Jesus who came to seek and save that which
was lost, and Jesus who came to set the captives free,

(12:20):
and Jesus and the Lord God who doesn't want any
to perish, but all to come to repentance. That's who
he is to me today. He's my glory. He's my
shield around about me everywhere I go. He's the one
that lifts up my head. But he the cell. I
it had a lot to do with my mom's prayers,

(12:41):
the legacy, and and and it's sometime in the late
at night.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
I was already on the floor.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
I didn't have to fall on the floor because there's
a light bulb in the hallway where the cells were,
and I'm reading that Bible. I'm already on my knees.
And I gave my life to Jesus. And everything changed.
I don't remember if it was Matthew or Mark or Luke,
but everything changed. I got moved. I got moved to

(13:10):
a more maximum security prison. And this is where the
importance of the church. I got to that prison. I
was in quarantine forty days. When you get to a
federal prison, even though I'd been in prison for three
and a half years. Yeah, I got put in quarantine.
I'm reading the Bible. There's some guys. I got hold
of some Christian books and testimonies while I was in quarantine.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
It was actually a very good time. Forty days quarantine.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
I could get some time in the wreck yard, but
I was mostly locked down. I got out. I get
my tray in the cafeteria. This is Danbury Federal Correctional
Institute in.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
Kentucky, Connecticut.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
I'd never been to Connecticut before after that, and I
walk out with my tray of food. In a federal prison,
you do not just sit anywhere like a high in
high school.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
You don't sit where you want, probably anymore.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
So I walk out and I see a black brother
and a white brother with their hands like this, with
their food and their praying.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
So I walk up and.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
I wait till they finished praying. I said, are you
guys Christians? Can I sit here? And they looked at
me and they says, you're a Christian, And for the
first time ever, I confessed with my mouth and I said,
I'm a born again Christian.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
I told him.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
They said, I haven't see these guys discipled me. They said,
you need to be in the church, my idea of
his church. But you know, look at the church. Here's
the steeple opening up, see all the people, that kind
of stuff. There's a church behind the walls in a prison.
Eleven months I was discipled. These men discipled me. Leonard Fields,

(14:46):
black brother, took me under his wing, taught me how
to read the Bible, taught me how to memorize verses.
I'm eleven months in. I'm not anymore conniving and thinking, oh,
how am I going to get out? How am I
going to get out? On Sunday night's service, we had
people come in from the streets prison ministry. That's what

(15:09):
we said. No, they're coming in from the streets. And
this particular night, I would always go up when they called.
You know, if it was probably here, the pastor wor'd say,
you were here the last three weeks.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
You can go back to your seat. So I went up.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
A guy hugs me, shaken, he begins to speak into
my life. And he says, I see you at Christmas.
You'll be worshiping with your mother and your mother's church.
He said, before you're thirty years old, you'll preach this gospel.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
In a language that you know.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Not that's twenty seven years old, been saved for eleven months.
And then they said roll call, so everybody has to
go back to the cells of the dorms. And when
they're going back, the guy that prophesied had to let
me go because the people from the street have to
move off to the side to let all the prisoners out.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
And you know, I can't make this up.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
And he said, and if you want this to be true,
no food, He said, you won't drink no water, no
food for three days and three nights, just like Esther
and just like Paul. And I'm like, whoa, but we
have to hurry out. So Leonard, he's my pastor in prison, says, oh,
brother Robert. He said, that's a prophetic word. There were
some other things he said to that I can't really

(16:23):
share with you. He said, write it in your Bible.
And I did, and I still have that Bible's all
worn out, so I wrote these things down. You'll be
home at Christmas, you'll worship with your mom. Before you're thirty,
you'll preach the gospel another language. And then he says,
and we get to our cell doors and he says,
he says, brother Robert, the Lord's been speaking to me

(16:43):
about fast and he was a backslidden pasture son in
prison also for selling drugs in New York City.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
And he says, let's do this, and we made it.
He may. He prayed, and he made a.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Pact with the Lord that we're gonna fast three days
and three nights. I'd never I didn't even know really
what that was. And then he says, and be careful
when you brush your teeth, you don't swallow any water.
So man, I'm careful. I'm brushing my teeth. And because
this is how we fasted. On the third day, we
were meeting during the meal times off to the side

(17:16):
of the weight room in the prison. And I got there.
Three days of fasting, I thought I was gonna die.
And Leonard didn't show up, and I'm praying, and I
had the most vivid vision. I didn't see his face,
I didn't see above the shoulders and the hands outstretched
to me. Heard the voice of the Lord telling me

(17:37):
you will give testimony to me and many nations. You'll
travel in many nations, you'll learn languages. And I've called you,
and I am with you, and can just think. And
he said, I'm your bride. You're my bride. A guy
in prison doesn't want to hear that he's somebody's bride.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
This is real.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
For a week for days, Leonard explained it to me
in the Book of Revelation and Ephesians, that the Church
is the bride of Christ. But you know, it was weird.
Leonard comes in with a couple other guys, and I
heard one of them say, look, brother rabbits speaking Chinese

(18:19):
because God had give me gifted tongues baptism the Holy Spirit.
I didn't know I wasn't speaking Chinese. They just that
was their perception. And and and a few days later
I got caught up to the administrative offices. When I
did this in the first service, that moved me. I'm
filled with the Holy Spirit. I got the my I'm
in my first love. And to go to the administrative office,

(18:43):
they called me.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
I don't call you. Don't call them.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
They put a chain around you and shackle your hands
with handcuffs and you're walking like this, and I'm full
of the Holy Spirit, and for the first time in
my life, I'm free.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
If the who the Son makes free is free indeed.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
And I do the long walk down the hallway. They
sent me down in front of the table. The assistant
warden says with curse words. He said, I don't know
how you did this, Stevenson, because I had a bad
record in my first few years. He said, But your
sentence has been reduced from nine to twenty one to
three to nine. He says, you're going home in fifteen days.

(19:20):
December second, nineteen eighty two, I was on a bus
December twenty fourth. I was worshiping with my mom in
this large Baptist church in Washington, d c. And then
she gets me an appointment with the pastor. That's why

(19:41):
I said, Senora to said, that's why I said, Lord,
not unto us, but unto your name be the glory.
When I began the preaching this morning, and I lived
the church in prison for eleven months, I missed the
guys at first. But because the church in prison and
there's a total segregation between races, I mean, it just

(20:05):
is Hispanics are with Hispanics, and even then Mexicans are
with Mexican, Puerto Ricans are with Puerto Ricans, and Afro
Americans are with African Americans, and whites are with whites,
and there's a separation. But in the church in prison,
we worshiped the.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
Lord to each other. We loved each other, we prayed
for one another.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
I had a taste of what the church is supposed
to be, because the church that Jesus Christ is building
number one, it's his.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
It doesn't belong to the one who's been here the.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Longest, or the one who gives the most money, or
the rich businessman. The church belongs to Jesus Christ. And
the church doesn't know. The only color the Church of
Jesus knows is the blood red that was shed on
the cross. It doesn't know black, yellow, red, and white.
And I lived that in prison. I got to my

(20:54):
mom's church. It wasn't exactly the same, but I told
the pastor because she got me an appointment. There's a
church of over one thousand members back in nineteen eighty two,
eighty three, and.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
I told him my whole story.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
And he's a Baptist, and he's like, listen, he didn't
pick up the phone and call for other.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Pastors to come in his office.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
And I thought they were going to send me out
on the mission field the next week, preach the gospel
in another language, go to the nations. And he sent
me to the children's ministry to be the assistant in
the kindergarten class.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
And at first but I loved it.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
I preached two times when the sixteen year old girl
that was in charge of that class, and she was
strict on me. She said, now, I'm going on vacation
with my parents a month of August, and you're in
charge of the class.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
And here's the lesson plan. My mom made cookies and milk,
and the head of them kids sitting there. I'm preaching
the gospel too.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
After a year, the pastor called me and said, you
still feel like you're called to the nations. We started
a coffee house ministry in the north of Mexico. We're
sending a married couple and we have a young man
who's already there who speaks Spanish, one Antonio Massa Diegos,
and we would like he's asking for another young man
to walk with him, to evangelize with him.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
That's how I got to Mexico two weeks before I
turned thirty. I gotta go quick.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
I'd been preaching, giving testimony in the streets. I could
give a fair testimony in Spanish in one on one evangelism.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
And he said, you're gonna.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Preach Friday night at the coffee house. And he said,
but Raquel's not going to translate for you. That was
on Monday or Tuesday. So I had three days, two
weeks before I turned thirty, with little index cards with
everything written down, I preached the Gospel in Spanish and
people got saved.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
I said, WHOA.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
So I was there. This is I'll go quickly, I'll
build my church. I was there over a year, learned Spanish.
Nineteen eighty four, some guys came from an Assembly of
God Bible college and they were saying all these big
words like hermeneutics and soteriology and eschatology and if you

(23:15):
cannot believe this, I'm a seminary professor by zoom In
Wesley Biblical seminary. Now. But then these words were like
I was impressed, and I was saying. I was saying,
I don't know any of this, man, I'm out here.
What am I doing out here as a missionary. I
don't even know these words or I don't know anything
about it. So they gave me. They told me the school.
I applied, I got accepted. I went to Bible College,

(23:35):
Praise the Lord, wonderful time. Met my wife, Bonnie, and
then we said we're going back even we're going back
to Mexico. Nineteen eighty eight. Came to Mexico. We were
in a very rough area. My son who's back there now,
he was born there, rough neighborhood.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
El Barrio.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
My son likes to says made born and bred, and
he's stop a lava and the upper class of Mexicans.
When he shares that in his testimony, they're like, really,
I don't even want to when.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
I go to that.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
I drive past that neighborhood when I go there, and we,
by the grace of God, we were there three years
and a little bit over, and I had a goal
and I prayed and I wrote it down. My plan
was one hundred and twenty people. Because of the Book
of Acts, there was one hundred and twenty in the
upper room. And Lord, after three and a half years,

(24:29):
we had one.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
Hundred and twenty people in the church. Sh That's what
I said.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
But I said that now that I'm trying to plant
churches in a technical you know, and I'm reading books
on it, and I'm teaching on it, and I'm saying, man,
one hundred and twenty people in three years, and my
wife didn't even speak Spanish, that was, you know, the
Lord blessed us.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
I understand that now.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
And then we went to go plant a church in
another place and I was preaching on the streets. That's
what we do with like two speakers and a walkman.
Anybody remember a walkman. Put a cassette in there. You
just dated yourself. Keep that hand down. These young people,
they don't even know what You don't even know what walkman.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Is, do you?

Speaker 2 (25:07):
You put a cassette in it and you closed it
and you plugged it into speakers. So I'm preaching on
the streets and a Catholic priest shows up to the preaching.
I'm a little nervous because we had had an oranges
thrown at us and other things when we did this
preaching in the street markets. And as I'm preaching, he
begins to applaud. So I left a microphone. I went

(25:29):
and met this Catholic preach. He had been radically saved,
born again for four years. He's still a Catholic priest.
He's still saying Mass doesn't know anything else, but he
knows Jesus, and he's preaching the Bible. And we became friends.
And in nineteen ninety seven he was pressured and he
renounced not only the priesthood, but he also renounced the

(25:54):
Roman religion, as he says.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
And he laid low for a little while.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
And in nineteen ninety nine he came to me and
he says, I want to plan some evangelistic services. He
wanted to do forty nights, and that even as a Christian,
I mean, we have missionaries and the Pentecostal preachers stuff.
We'll do three nights, you know, We'll do Saturday, Sunday
and Monday. This ex Catholic priest says, I want to
do forty nights. The forty nights turned into four hundred

(26:23):
Monday through Monday. After one hundred and twenty three straight nights,
we were invited to give testimony in Pensacola where they
were having a revival.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
He preached, I gave testimony. It was good.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
This was like nineteen ninety nine or something. I mean,
the presence of God was there in Pensacola, Strong in Florida,
and he saw that they only had revival services like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
and Saturday. So he comes back and says, we're gonna rest.
This is our revival services that we had. There's one
brother here that's been in this church for a long
time and he's here in the service right now. And

(26:58):
we went four hundred nights. The lowest crowd we ever
had was three. We had to do it outside. There
was no we couldn't fit inside. We had crowds in
the parking lot on Saturday and Sundays. After a night
forty we had like twenty thousand people. People got healed,
obviously got delivered. This is the camp that during that

(27:20):
time of revival. The Lord gave us a property outside
of the city and we did six six weekends a
year when the weather wasn't rainy, we went out there.
There's probably thirty thousand people that fit there. So also, oh,
also the prophecy I got in prison is and one
day you will preach before multitudes.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
You know, when I had one hundred and twenty people,
that was like for me. That was a multitude.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Lad it was a multitude, and I almost forgot about
that part of the prophecy, but I wrote it down.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
And out of that we have the baptisms.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Towards the end of the Revival, Pastor Aurelio, the ex
Catholic priest, was still alive. I've been the head pastor
for twenty one years since he was in heaven, and
we built a pool and we've baptized it. His man
almost too, that's Pastor Aludelio. That's one month before he died,
and he made me the head pastor of the church

(28:21):
as a like the missionary evangelists.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
Go back to the pool. That was pretty cool, Roberto,
look at that. Look at that. Look at it.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
We have baptism Saturday. I got a hurry back to Mexico.
We have during the revival. As a result of the Revival.
One week we went we baptized nine hundred and ninety nine.
Two weeks two months later we went back when we
baptized like a thosy two hundred and something.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
This is in one day.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Because you put like thirty men in thirty You were
baptized there, weren't you. Yeah, yeah, he was baptized. There
hit a big guy man. So we just stand there
and we go in the name of the Father, the Son,
the Holy Spirit, hallelujah, be baptizing. And then the people
that are in the pool, women on one side, men
on another. They baptize them like that and bring them
out and they walk out, and then we sing some worship,

(29:09):
and then more people walk in, you could, and we start.
Sometimes we don't even start baptizing untill like ten or
ten thirty, and by three o'clock we baptized a thousand people.
We still do this twice a year. But now also
what came out of that and the reason we can
even fit in the place we are, and this is
definitely of God. For the last twenty one years since

(29:32):
I've been the head pastor, by the grace of God,
we started planning churches.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
We bought two tents. It's like a little circus tent.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
And we had one for about ten years, and then
we went and bought a second one and we go
out to the villages and.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
That's probably a youth night there. That's why we have
the balloons.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
And we've set these tents up for two weeks or
for when we set a tent up to help a
church that's already planned.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
We'll have it like for a week.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
When we start to plan a church where there's no church,
we leave it for twenty one to thirty days. Every night, evangelize,
follow up, visit people. People come in the tent in
the day after you've been there a week. People sometimes
have thrown rocks at the tent. So it's not all
like easy going, and there's sometimes there's threats. We've been
called in, you know, to the minnicip the government offices, Hey,

(30:24):
what do you because they think we're politicians.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
And they see that we have five hundred people and
they're like scared.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Then when we find out we're not politicians in competition
with them, they're like, oh okay, you know, pray for us.
So most of the persecution in the tent is because
people think that we're like another party.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Or something that we want to we want to take over.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
But there's more power coming out of Washington State in
the Tri Cities hungry gen Church than's coming out.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
Of Washington d C.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Don't forget that. So and I'll build my church. That's
all the photos, isn't it. Roberto, Yeah, we did a
little better. In the first I was mixing up the
photos and mixing up the testimony.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
So Jesus said, He'll build his church and the gates
of Hell will not prevail against it.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Real quick, I have time the place he took them
to Verse thirteen. Cesaraiah Philippi, my son gave blessed Us
with a trip, and him and his wife and daughter came.
We went to Israel first time three years three years ago.
Never thought too much abouttle I always thought they'd say,
holy go to the Holy Land. I said, I'm in

(31:39):
the Holy Land. I'm here in the ghetto of Mexico City.
I'm in the maximum security prison preaching. I'm in the
Holy Land right here. I mean, I really said that
to people that wanted to sell me tickets to go
to Israel.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
But I loved it. We went to Cesare Philippi. Somebody
told me, you gotta go.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
It's from the Galilean Sea and Mare de Galile. Yeah,
it's three hours drive in a rental car. It would
have been a two or three day walk for Jesus
with his disciples. When you get up on that hill
right now, it's in a sort of a demilitarized zone.
Between Syria, Lebanon and Israel. You have to go some

(32:16):
checkpoints to get there. There's not a lot of tourist
buses that go there or none. And you get there
and there's a cave and a hole, and that's where
a lot of sacrifices were done. It's to the god
of called Pan, which is all gods, and it was
a very heathen and pagan place, even though.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
It's beautiful with waterfalls and stuff. Next to that. I
actually took a stone.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
And dropped it in the mouth of that cave, and
I never heard it hit the bottom. It does have
a bottom, but people thought it didn't have a bottom.
They called that area the gates of Hell. That's they
sacrificed animals, children. They called it the gates of Hell.
Next to it, from here to where the screen is,

(33:04):
there's ruins. You can even see the tile floor with
some of the color.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
In it and the ruins.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
It's a temple to Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
Imagine. Then a little bit further down there's another one
that it still has the.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Niches carved out of the wall, and it was a
temple to Aphroditis, the goddess of like sex and free love.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
And then if you go up on the hill, which
we did and walked up there with my.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Granddaughter, there's another temple that the ruins are pretty well conserved,
and it's to Nimrod, the god of destruction. And then
there's a few other ruins that were temples to the
Roman empires. Jesus took his disciples to Hell on Earth
in the first century. And then you're all worried about

(33:51):
these ABCD ideologies and k Donald jumping.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
Democrats. This was I mean, this was hell on Earth.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
They're sacrificing people's lives, throwing them into that cave, and
Jesus takes them there. I'm sure as good young Jewish men.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
They're like, wow, why are we going to this pagan place?

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Because he took them there and he said, who do
you say I am? And he took them there, and
he prophesied first time in the Bible, Ecclesia, the Church,
his church, first time in the Bible. He says in
that pagan, demonic place, he says, I will build my

(34:40):
church and not the gates of aphroditis or vengeance or
depression or anxiety, her witchcraft, nothing will prevail.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
Nothing will win. My church will be here.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
When I studied in elementary school, we studied at the country.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
A big country was the Soviet Union.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
There was two Germany's when I went to school. You
remember that two Germany's, one Korea. Whoa, Now there's two Koreas,
one Germany, and the Soviet Union is about fourteen countries.
Doesn't exist nations that seem so strong. Politicians, athletes, stars

(35:27):
in Hollywood, they seem like whoa, They're gone, they crumble,
they fade to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Will be here till the trumpet sounds. It'll be here
when the trumpet sounds. Vosdemando. I'm not saying some things

(35:48):
because they'd come to me in Spanish, the voice of
the archangel and the trumpet.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
The Church of Jesus Christ will be here, but.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
The Church of the Living God, family of God, like
I experienced in prison, without racism, without discrimination, one body,
one family. But still Christians sometimes read this verse and say, oh,
that's good. The gates of Hell won't prevail against us.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
We're here.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
You know, the Devil's not gonna come through those doors
and get me because I'm in the church.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
That's not it. It's exactly the opposite.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
It's the doors of hell, where people are in depression,
where people are confused, where people are addicted, where people
have little or no hope, and they're behind those doors.
And when we go as the church and we those
doors will not keep us from rescuing the ones that
are held captive behind those doors. We plant churches I

(36:55):
went to I was recently saved. I was actually in
the my mom's back this church and all the girls
look pretty to me? Can I say this Revetto? Now
I'm in prison five years. Man, all them girls in
church on Sunday morning looked good.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
I can do this here, right, lad? This is like real.
I'm not one of those guys that just makes things,
you know. I mean they look good.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
But you know, I can also say from the time
I got out of prison to the time six years
later I married my wife, I didn't have sex with
any girls before the Lord, that's the grace of God.
But I mean, they look good. So a girl comes
up to me and I says, oh, yeah, you want.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
To go out? She says, oh yeah, there's the movies playing.
I knew before. I'm not that dumb. I mean, I
knew you go to movies, popcorn and stuff.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
So we go to the movies, a James Bond movie,
and there were some girls out there that just had
little bikinis on. I'm out of prison, I'm saved, I'm
filled with the Holy Ghost. I walked out to where
they sell popcorn. I said, man, I can't be watching stuff.
This is the Holy Spirit. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit.
You've been sealed. So the day of God, probably today

(38:01):
this seems old fashioned with him, but this is not
what I did.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
You know and love not the world. I knew the verse,
and the girl comes out.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
She's on. Why do you leave me out in there?
I said, man, this girl is not gonna be my wife.
I know that she's man, why do you leave me
in there alone? I said, man, I couldn't really watch that.
You know that bothered me, And so we went. I
don't think I ever dated her again. And I went
back to my house and I said, Lord, I want

(38:28):
to love the things you love, and right away that
still small voice Ephesians five twenty five. It says husbands
love your wives. I wasn't married, so I knew it
had nothing to do with the first part. Of the
verse says, love your wives, as Christ loved his church
and gave himself for it.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
And since then.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
Preparing and being in school and getting married, I know
that I love the church.

Speaker 3 (38:56):
And that's why we plant churches.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
It's the greatest way to make disciples, it's the greatest
way to win souls. But we plant churches because Jesus
loved his church and he bought his church with his
blood Acts twenty twenty eight. He bought his church. That's
been your blood bought. You're of great value.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
So thank the Lord.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
As a result of that revival and some other moves
of God, now we have about eighty church plants.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
We have two in.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Spain, one in Italy, one in Colombia, two in the
United States, and the rest in Mexico. Some of them,
some of our churches five six seven, are the only
church in that town, the only Christian church.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
They're the good ones.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
They're the ones that get stones thrown at them when
we're out there freaching some about being the first Christian
church in an area where you get death threats and
stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
But you know, they're the ones that grow. So that's
my story.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
But this is the word of God, who's Jesus, Who
do you say he is? Let's stand up, Let's stand up.
I guess the message of a testimony like mine is,
if God can use him, God can use me too.

(40:19):
Sh My mom's still alive. She's ninety seven. She told
me the other week. She said, Oh I did. I
was just praying day and night that you had quit
using drugs and.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
You'd be a normal person. She said, I never dreamed
you'd be traveling to the nations. So Mom's be encouraged.
Dad's be encouraged. Father.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Thank you, Thank you Lord for your word. Thank you
for this church. Thank you, Lord God for this message.
Thank you Lord for giving me a large place here
in hungry Gin.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
Thank you Lord Jesus.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
As we're up, if anybody listening there, or if anybody
is here, and you, if I ask you who Jesus is,
you could not say, well, he's my savior, he's my Lord.
If you can't say that with a surety. And you

(41:23):
want and you desire a new life, and you desire
to be saved, the son of God, a manual God
with us in his humanity. He received the rejection. He
was despised. He received not only the physical pain of

(41:44):
death on a cross, death and death on a cross.
But he received my sins. You know how bad you
feel when you've been in sin, how hopeless you feel.
Jesus received all that.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
Eloyal Loiaani, my God, my.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
God, why have you forsaken me? He cried. If anybody
wants to receive the free gift of God, recognize Jesus
as Savior and as Lord, come right up front here
we'll pray for you.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
One person come from another state, maybe you've never been
here before.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
First service we had three people never two people have
never been in a Christian church in their entire life,
and they came up front receive Jesus from another state.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
I love it. I love it. What's your name is Stephen? Stephen.
I'm Stephen's son, so we might be related. This is good,
This is good. We'll come down and pray for you,
Steven in just a minute. Is there anyone else? Steven?

Speaker 2 (42:55):
Stay up here, because when I get rid of this microphone,
Pastor of Lad's gonna come up. I'm gonna come down
and pray with you.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
Can we do that?

Speaker 2 (43:05):
And anyone else who you have known the Lord? You've
been part maybe of a Christian Church. You might have
been heard in the church. You might have been offended
in the church. That's what I sense, and you've been
away from God. You want to come up here with
Stephen two, we want to pray for you. Come on
up right now. Men are women, young or old. Sometimes

(43:38):
church people can hurt us. Come on up, man, you're
good there. Okay, my son can pray for you right there.
You don't have to come up.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
Although this is not a place of condemnation like what
did these three do?

Speaker 2 (43:52):
This is a place of grace. This is a place
of grace. You want prayer that right you don't have
to come up.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Okay, you don't have to come out. My son can
pray for you in a minute. So lowis thank you.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
I thank you Lord, that you don't want any to perish,
that you don't want any be lost, but that all
would come to know the truth, that all would come
to know your love, Lord God. So I bless these
that have come, and I bless any more.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
That need to come. Come, Come, come, come with Toyamas.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
What's your name, Verro, call you Verro Anita, lady, mister vlad.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
I'm anna.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
I thank you for allowing me this time, I really
want to come pray, especially for Steve.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Thanks for listening to today's podcast. If you are blessed
by this message, be sure to subscribe and send it
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and other resources, go to hungrygen dot com.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
Remember better is not good enough.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
The best is yet to come.