Highlight: Facing Hardship as a Christian

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Yeah, that's a good question. I mean as far as like Waiting and you know walking through adversity

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God has given you quite a bit to walk through with the death of your wife, of course

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Early on when God gave you the burden for the unborn in the church coming after you that was in the early 80s

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Walking all through that with people turning their backs on you Of course your big speaking Engagements got shut down as soon as you had really

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God had given the revelation to step into the fight for the unborn You weighed all through that for decades. You lose your wife and then you lose your son

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And then you lose your daughter and it just continues to go on So I guess a good question is how do we as younger men look at a man like you and how do we learn how?

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to go through adversity How did God take you through that and what did you learn through that? Well That's all right, that's all right.

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Um, I Learned early on in this battle brother not to ask why?

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Because why was a black hole? There's enough blame to go around brother

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You know, I'm I'm a sinful man saved by grace, you know

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We live in a fallen world You know, there's such a thing as darkness in the demonic realm, you know, there's things that were up against as men

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But I learned very very early on that the love of God so captured my heart and You know, the scripture says he who has been forgiven much loves much and brothers.

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I have been been forgiven You Wouldn't want to have known me before Christ, I will just tell you that because I was an animal

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And I was full of a lot of anger and a lot of rage And if I wasn't beating up on flesh and blood was smashing my head against brick walls with blood screaming down I was like the mad damn madman of good dare literally

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I was demonized and so when the Lord saved me and He freed me

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You know from that deep pit and put his you know Put my feet on a rock and gave me this new song to sing this redemptive song

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There was no power on earth no demon in hell no situation that would ever ever

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Take me away from him Now I am human You know,

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I am I was you know husband to my first wife father obviously to my children

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Feel the pain, you know, I feel the sorrow of it I feel the hurt of it like any human being would but there's certain things

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Brothers that have to be non -negotiable. You know, it's sort of like the William Wallace, you know deal you can take everything

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But the Christian Christian men You can take anything from us, but you are you will never get our faith

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There are certain things that are non -negotiable. They're not for sale and the things that I've learned through that brothers is

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Man is gonna suffer for two basic reasons You know, we're gonna suffer as a consequence of our sin

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Okay, but we're also gonna suffer when we do right When we do good and that's called redemptive suffering and the

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Bible says when we suffer in that way The spirit of the Lord and God's glory rests upon us so one of the things that the

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Lord has used through our trials as A family is to teach the body of Christ.

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How do you negotiate through tragedy? How do you negotiate through suffering and and and mourning and grief in a redemptive way

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In such a way that God uses that to lead others to himself

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That brings the prodigal back home that heals and restore marriages and births more good soldiers of Jesus Christ Into the battle so so when it comes down to again what the enemy means for harm

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God can redeem and and see Good come from it.

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And if there's Hopefully prayerfully anything that comes out of our life and our family.

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It is that truth brothers and And so, you know

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God has kept us and I do believe that Our Christian education is not complete brothers

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Until we like Job say though you slay me. Yeah They're gonna serve you

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I'm still gonna obey and I'm still gonna praise you. Yeah, I mean I got I got a just a

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I know you don't like this rusty, but I'm gonna heap some more praise on you here You know he rusty someone that's modeled to me, you know, not feigning the day of adversity and and you know when they lost their daughter we went and Just to encourage him and pray with them and and I go there

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That was my intent again to go and encourage him and I left of course encouraged by this guy, you know

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And I'm like, how is he not? Just in the corner just sucking his thumb the hot mess like I didn't like how is that not happening right now?

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You know and so yeah, so brother I was I was blessed by that and and that's you know You've done such a fantastic job of modeling that not not just to me, but to so many so many men and I appreciate that That's actually a really good point because I know

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I mean losing your children to and a wife is some of the most The worst pain that you can go through as a human being is a loss of your child, especially at a young age

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I think Jeremiah was 17 or 16 or 17 16 and I'm sure the temptation was to Shake your fist and I'm not acting as if I understand to relate to that didn't take the temptation is there

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But you decided not to do that Why? Zack it's really important to know that Heavenly Father I went through that with heavy

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Heavenly Father early on in my life He had saved me but I was

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Like I said, I was like the madman of Gadara And I had my fights with the

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Lord I mean there were times when I was saved that literally I was shouting to the heavens, you know, let's fight

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Come on, bring it, you know, send me to hell. I mean I would do stupid Irrational foolish things like that where I basically

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I was a Christian but I was sinning and I was bearing all the consequences of my sin and I would you know,

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Raise my fist to heaven and rage so brother God brought me through that as a young man and I can literally see his hand upon me

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Even to my times of sin and rebellion and and rage as a young man

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He was preparing me brother. He was preparing me for things that were coming In fact,

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I just shared this with my children today We were in Proverbs chapter 3 and that scripture

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Trust in the Lord with all your heart Lean not unto your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him.

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He's gonna direct your path. So January 1st 2018

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I go to bed that night and in my dream that passage of scripture is put on repeat

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The entire evening when I went to bed till I woke up trusting the

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Lord over and over and over again So I wake up I go to my bride Kendra.

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I said sweetie I don't know what this year's holds But I know we better put our seat belt because we're gonna have to trust

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God in ways We never dream possible. And so the next day after that dream

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Pastor Matt and I are working With this magistrate in Kentucky abolition bill

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The next day he commits suicide The enemy just totally takes him out, right?

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Okay, so I'm thinking oh, that's why we got to trust God. Well, that was just the down payment brother

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Because that was the year Jeremiah Became sick and that was the year he died

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But I want you to see the goodness of the Lord here I want you to see the guidance of God because in that dream using the scripture

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He was preparing me because he knew exactly where he was going But obviously this was gonna devastate us.

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Yeah, this was gonna devastate our family. This was gonna devastate our ministry But in his goodness

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He was preparing us and he was basically saying son You're gonna have to trust me in ways.

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You have never had to trust me before But to understand at the end of the day, it's gonna work redemption in the world

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And so again, that's it. That's just the goodness of the Lord. That's his he prepares us

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He leads us by his spirit and he doesn't forsake us or leave us