| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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God's Groundswell Preaching
00:02:27
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|
| You know, you've done a lot of traveling lately, and tell us some of the things that you've seen, some of the things that God is saying. | |
| You know, I think sometimes when you sit in one spot like I do, our ears are to the internets and to the networks and all. | |
| But there's a groundswell that God speaks to his people. | |
| Exactly. | |
| And I believe, and I don't even know what I'm asking. | |
| All I'm asking is, what is God saying out there? | |
| What are you seeing? | |
| Yeah, I mean, there's so much in terms of you saying, you know, the Lord's opened your eyes and given you so much revelation. | |
| Yes, the Lord's used me to put a lot of this information into a book. | |
| But for the past 15 years, so frequently have I got emails or met people that said, Joel, I read your book, you know, 20 years ago, 15 years ago. | |
| I had these dreams. | |
| Look at these dreams that I had. | |
| Or, you know, the Lord's been showing these things to me, exactly what you write, but, you know, you articulated it so well. | |
| And as I'm traveling today, I'm running into there's the good and the bad. | |
| There's so much of the church that is so turned off. | |
| It's as though the more brazen things become right in front of us, the more that they hide their head in the sand. | |
| But there is a strong remnant of believers throughout the nations. | |
| I just came back from Canada. | |
| I was in northern Iraq. | |
| No matter where you go, there is a remnant of believers that are waking up that the Lord is. | |
| It's scary that it's a remnant. | |
| It's scary to me. | |
| It's always a remnant. | |
| If you're preaching what you should be preaching. | |
| If you're preaching what you should be preaching, you'll have smaller audiences. | |
| You'll have smaller gatherings. | |
| I mean, that's actually the reality. | |
| That is the truth. | |
| There's people I know that love the Lord, but they have literally believed the lie of another gospel. | |
| Let me just say it this way. | |
| Turn off the shallow American gospel. | |
| Stop listening to the gospel that says that Jesus died on the cross for your sins so that you can live your happiest, best, most complete, fullest life now. | |
|
Preparing Hearts Against Deception
00:02:30
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|
| The pattern of the scriptures is very clear. | |
| Embrace the cross in this age. | |
| Now, he's going to bless us in this age far better than when we were living in the world. | |
| There's no question about that. | |
| But the pattern of the scriptures is take up your cross and follow Jesus. | |
| And then you receive glory. | |
| You inherit glory in the age to come. | |
| But that, like you say, doesn't really feel churches. | |
| Come and die. | |
| No. | |
| That's what you're saying. | |
| Yeah, I'm thinking about it. | |
| Take up your cross. | |
| I'm going to write a book that's going to be called Your Most Pitiful Life Now. | |
| And we'll see. | |
| Because Paul said, if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then we of all people are to be pitied, right? | |
| If we're actually Christians, then of all the people on the earth, we should be pitied. | |
| Why? | |
| Because we are embracing the cross. | |
| We're making sacrifices. | |
| We're doing the hard things in order to inherit the glory in the age to come. | |
| Not only is the danger deception. | |
| Deception is always the first. | |
| Whenever they talk about the, what's the first thing? | |
| Deception. | |
| But there's another big issue. | |
| The love of most will grow cold. | |
| Now, here's the thing. | |
| Let me say this about the Coptic Christians. | |
| I didn't watch the full beheading. | |
| I want to warn all of you, these videos are all over the place. | |
| This stuff will give you brain damage. | |
| I agree. | |
| These are things that you shouldn't see. | |
| I have seen some of them. | |
| When these 21 Coptic Christians were martyred, I watched that video, and I'm not a big crier. | |
| I sobbed like a baby as I looked, a series of them, the courage and the peace and the confidence that was on their face, and they knew exactly what was coming. | |
| Now, I posted an article, some commentary on my blog, and I said, we all need to be preparing ourselves for martyrdom. | |
| And a lot of the church that's awake, that are my regular readers, were furious. | |
| We're furious. | |
| And there is this, you know, righteous indignation. | |
| Kill ISIS. | |
| Look what they've done. | |
| And listen, I'm all for military intervention and I'm all for justice. | |
| But we need to be guarding our hearts, not only about deception, but in the days ahead, we need to be preparing our hearts not to grow cold in love. | |
| And it's going to get harder and harder. | |
| And we need to be storing up and preparing, but we need to be preparing our hearts to endure the days ahead. | |