The Grip of God

Let's pray. Dear Father God, thank you that we have

the scriptures and that it's nothing here is dependent on

how good a speaker I am or not. It's the Bible.

We want to live in an eternal world. Lord. Worliness

is everywhere around us. A lot of the discouragement that

people have in their lives is because of seeping wiliness.

So Father, help us to come to Jesus today to

be found in Christ. No righteousness of her own based

on law, but law abiding and keeping because of the

faith of Jesus. Help us in Jesus' name. Amen, have

you ever had someone let go of you in life

to where your life went down the tubes and it

felt like you couldn't pull yourself up? Anybody like that? Okay?

She had two children, not one, and for her it

was the time to choose. When the tsunami hit the

ground of Holiday Inn in Thailand where she was staying,

Jillian Searle was at the side of the pool with

her two sons. Lacey was five and Blake was two,

and when the surge hit, she did all she could

to hang on to her two boys. She didn't want

to lose either of them, but when it was so bad,

she had to make a choice, which one would live,

which one would die, and so she let the older

son go, hoping someone would help him and she would

hang on to the younger son. When interviewed by Channel

nine on Australian TV, she said she heard the cry

of her older son, who couldn't swim. Don't let me go, Mommy,

don't let me go. She let him go. She could

only save one son, not two, so she let him

go because he was the oldest son. She shared that

it was the hardest thing she had ever done in

her life. It was a choice she never wanted to make.

She was forced to make the choice. As she let

her oldest son go, she screamed, someone take my son,

Save my son somebody. Julian feared the worst and no

one could save her son. But to a miracle she

could not express, someone did save her son. Someone took

her son. But she made the decision that when forever

we define the relationship of those two boys to their mother,

she let one go so that the other could live. Friends.

There are times in life when we feel that God

lets go and that he isn't there to care anymore.

Let's be frank with it. We have those times we

feel it, Where is God? Why isn't He helping me

right now in my challenges? There are times when the

storm is so fierce, the waves are brutal strong. It

feels like God has limited energy, limited concern, and he

doesn't reach out to us when we need him. There

are times when it's easy to believe that God chooses

to save someone else while he neglects us in our

prayer life and our needs for him. In times like these,

it feels like God lets go. His grip is weak,

he doesn't care. In the storm, there is no future, friend,

There's no future, and the waves overtake you if God's

grip is not strong enough to hold you, to carry you,

to lift you up. In the midst of the storm,

Jesus saved Peter from the storm by stretching out his

hand to save Peter. The scripture says that Jesus was

walking on the water and he called out to Peter

to come to him in the storm. Now a storm

is an opportunity in the story to come to Jesus.

He called Peter to come to him in the storm.

Have you been hit with a storm and you feel

like the Lord doesn't want you, friend, the Lord calls

you in the storm to come to him. Peter got

out of the boat. He started walking on the water

towards Jesus. Then he looked down instead of it Jesus.

And when he looked down, he immediately began to sink.

Perfect storm for Peter. Eyes off Jesus coming to Jesus,

eyes off Jesus, going down Matthew fourteen thirty. But when

Peter saw the wind, he was afraid and began to sink.

He cried out, Lord save me. Jesus immediately reached out

his hand and caught him. Now, the keyword in verse

thirty one is the word immediately. He didn't wait five minutes,

ten minutes. As soon as Peter said, what are the

words in his prayer? Are in verse thirty Lord what Lord?

Save me? Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.

Have you ever prayed that prayer in your life? Lord

save me? Immediately he reaches out his hand to save you.

But he said, oh man of little faith, why did

you doubt? When faith fails and doubt overcomes you in

your life, only the grip of God can save you

in the storm that is stronger than you Deuteronomy thirty three,

twenty seven. The eternal God is your dwelling place, and

underneath are the everlasting arms. We worship a god if

you has big arms, who has hands that reached down

to save us, to carry us so we don't sink

in the middle of the storm. Tewond Samuel twenty two sixteen.

David described the strong grip of God, the grip of

God that was able to hold onto him when he

couldn't hold on to himself verse sixteen. Then the channels

of the sea were seen, the foundations of the world

were laid bare at the rebuke of the Lord, at

the blast of the breath of his nostrils, he reached

from on high. He took me. He drew me out

of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy,

from those who hated me, for they were too mighty

for me. Friend, when you can't fight the enemies of

your life, the Lord is there to fight for you.

You be surprised when I preach on a Saturday morning sometimes,

and I'm here to give the word of God to you.

There are times when things happen just before the sermon.

That's meant to rattle me up, so I cannot give

you the word of God. You know that, and it

happened today. Now I'm gonna tell you I have learned

over the years what matters most is just stay in

the course and letting God hold your hand. We're not

made of steel, but our God is made of steel.

When you're sinking into a stormy sea without God in

your life, friend, only the grip of God can save

you for life. Only his hand can pull you out

and give you life when you should die in the storm.

In an issue of the Scientific American Mind, there was

an article dedicated to phantom sensory feeling. The experiment recorded

in the article with something like this. You sit at

a table with your hand on the table. Beside your hand,

you place a flat piece of cardboard, obscuring the view

of your hand from your eye. In full view, beside

the cardboard, you place a cheap rubber hand from a

dollar store. The hand doesn't have to look all that

life like, It just has to basically look like a hand.

On the other side of the table. You ask the

assistant to rub, tap, and stroke the two hands in

perfect synchrony. Takes about twenty or thirty seconds to focus

on the phony hand, and then you will feel like

you're actually being stroked on the fake hand, removed from

your removed from your body. It's phantom feeling. Even though

you're not being stroked, you feel the hand because you

have associated with the phantom hand, and they call that

phantom pain. There are many people who spend their entire

religious life basing their experience with God on a phantom

feeling that they have God in their life when they're

not really feeling the Holy Spirit. The question arises, how

can you really know that God is reaching out to you?

How can you really know that He's touching you in life?

How can when you really know your leed of the

Holy Spirit and not? There are four ways you can

know that God touches you in life. Wagh number one.

Write these down. God reaches out to touch you through

his word. I mean, see, it's one thing to get

up here and said, well, I'm gonna give you a

bunch of advice. I have great life experiences. Let me

tell you a hundred stories and this, or I could

share with you the word of God. But when the

Word of God comes into your life, God touches you

when he wrote the Ten Commandments, he wrote them with

his finger. He touched the tables of the blue sapphire

stone law slab that was taken from his throne. He

touched it to give the word of God. When God

puts his word in you, he touches you with the

word of God. So i'ms. One hundred and seven nineteen

and twenty. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress. Now notice this,

they cried to the Lord in their trouble. That's the storm.

And what does God do? He delivered them from their

trouble their distress. We worship of God who delivers us.

We worship a God who is not satisfied with letting

us be dragged down by our life circumstances. He is

in the saving business for you. If you want to

be touched by God and you don't have time for

God's word, you won't get touched by God. God has

chosen his word the Bible as the means of taking

hold of your life, your heart, your mind to touch

you when you're struggling with sin. The promises of God

are the very things you need in life to overcome.

God has chosen to reach out to you in Jesus,

the Living Word, to touch you through the scriptures. And

when you feel God in your devotional life you read

the spirit of prophecy. It brings you to a knowledge

of the Bible. You are touched by God. Way number two,

God reaches out to touch you through the lives of

other believers. You know, no man is an island to themselves.

We don't live here to where we suddenly are in

control of our lives. We must receive help from others,

and we must give it too in the great plan

of God. So the keyword in this phrase God reaches

out to touch you through the lives of other believers

is the word believers. I mean, there are plenty of

people when to reach out and touch you in life.

There are people who want to affect you, but they

don't necessarily want to help you, and they aren't necessarily

people who can help you. People who are walking with God,

who are servient to God's Word, who have a relationship

with Christ can actually help you in life. Hebrews ten

twenty three. Let us hold fast the confession of our

hope without wavering, For he who promised is faithful verse

twenty four. And let us consider how to stir up

one another the love and good works verse twenty five.

Here's the key phrase, not neglecting to do what Now

I can think of prayer meeting. There I can think

of small groups. Now, everybody can't be at everything. But

when we get an opportunity to get into a prayer

fellowship setting, or we get in an opportunity to fellowship

in service for the Lord, do we avoid Sabba school?

Do we avoid this? You see? Not neglecting to meet together.

We need to stick to other believers who love God

like velcrow, as is the habit of some. See, some

people get into the habit of that, and then it

becomes what they do. All kinds of excuses. Well, I

don't want to get up early, I don't want to

be exposed to the stress of having to study my

sabuscal lesson I really prayer meeting. Well, you know, now

we have it easy here at Reaching Hearts. You can

go online and get into prayer meeting. I was not

feeling good Wednesday, and I went online and I could

I heard Elder Tim Wade give a wonderful presentation on Jesus.

It just strengthened me, and it would strengthen you too.

Have reaching hearts. I don't do all of these. We

allow different people gifted in the church to share Christ

in the middle of the week so we can grow,

but encouraging one another. All the more, as you see

what does the text say? You see the day drawing,

hear the Second Coming of Christ is happening. We are

we observe in the church a slide of worldliness. We

see arrogance, narcissism, We see people focusing on themselves rather

than the needs of others. And what do we need?

All the more as we see the Second Coming of

Christ drawing here, we need to stick together, have unity, obedience, faith,

worship together Hebrews ten twenty five. God has chosen to

touch you through the lives of other Christians who love Him.

If you're too busy for church, prayer, meeding, or small groups,

you're too busy to be touched by God. Way number three.

God reaches out to touch you through the presence of

Jesus Christ that is mediated by the Holy Spirit. Now

why the Holy Spirit here? Way number three is a

little more difficult than ways number one and two. Many

people today are so enamored with the Holy Spirit that

they have forgotten that the Holy Spirit's purpose is to

reveal Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit humbly does not draw

attention to himself in scripture, his role is to personate

the person of Jesus Christ. As we are told in

the Spirit of Prophecy, he is in person to personate

Jesus so that we have Christ with us through the

Holy Spirit, the Hope of glory. Many people today are

so enamored with the Holy Spirit. We live in an

era where we talk about Holy Spirit movements, it's usually

about I, me and mind, not about Christ or the Spirit.

And enamor with these false Holy Spirit movements, they have

forgotten that the Holy Spirit's purpose is to bring Jesus

Christ into our lives. Our core need as sinners is

to have Christ formed in us. The Hope of Glory

is to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ, something

that we of ourselves have no right to. The gift

of God in Jesus. It takes the Holy Spirit to

disconnect us from our crazy way of thinking, from our

selfish patterns, and to put Jesus into our life. We

need the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit never contradicts the

word of God. Isn't that neat When you read your Bible,

you can bank on it. The Holy Spirit is gonna

agree with the Bible. And John sixteen thirteen Jesus says

that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth.

And John seventeen seventeen Jesus says the truth is found

in God's word. Thy word is truth. And John fifteen

twenty six Jesus promised that the spirit of truth bears

witness to Jesus Christ himself. He personates, not impersonates. He personates.

He brings the personal presence of Christ to us. And

John sixteen thirteen Jesus said that the spirit never bears

witness of himself or his own authority. Now he's a

person because Jesus calls him himself his and he. Now,

if you divest the Holy Spirit of personality, you divest

yourself of the gift of the Holy Spirit that God

has given you, the third person of the Godhead. The

authority comes through Jesus Christ and his word in the

spirit gift of God. Now, if you don't think you

are a spirit filled believer, actually me back up on that.

If you think you are a spirit filled believer and

the Word of God does not matter in your life

because your feelings are all there. You say, I have

the Spirit, I don't need the Bible and all that.

You are not a Holy Spirit believer. If that's the case,

you're living on a phantom feel in your life. That

is not real. It's not from God. There's no real

touch of God in your life without Jesus and his

Word coming into your life through the power of the

Holy Spirit. Jesus said, the Spirit will not speak about himself.

Spirit filled believers are led by the Holy Spirit to

get their eyes on Jesus. On Jesus with these conditions

met the church. The touch of faith of the Holy

Spirit is not a phantom force in your life. He not.

It is the real thing that points to Jesus Romans

eight fourteen to seventeen. For all who are led by

the Spirit of God or what so, you want to

be led by the spirit, you want to be a

child of God. Raise your hand if you're in that group. Okay,

I mean I raise both hands. Just let the Holy

Spirit lead you. Let the Holy Spirit work in your life.

Don't resist him. Let the Word of God, the Holy

Spirit impress and you lead you. Then let's turn to

Romans eight fifteen. For you did not receive the spirit

of slavery to fall back into fear. But you ever

see the spirit of sonship when we cry Abba Father.

Now that is the exact linguistic center of the Book

of Romans, the phrase Abba Father. The Holy Spirit pointing

to Jesus connects us with God as our father, verse sixteen.

For it is the Spirit himself. Now, how many of

you see the Word himself in your Bible? Can you

raise your hand if you see the Word himself? If

you are a himself? Are you an impersonal force like

George Lucas is the force? Or are you a person?

This is why we have been told clearly in the

spirit of prophecy that there are three persons in the Godhead,

and the third person of the Godhead is the Holy Spirit,

that agrees with scripture, is the Spirit himself, bearing witness

that our spirit, with our spirit, that we are the

children of God. So the Holy Spirit speaks in us.

He helps the community, He takes our groans our Christ,

He makes them effectual as he intercedes with Jesus together

to lift them and elevate them to God for our sake,

not God's sake. Way number four. God touches us through suffering.

How many have you had a hard day this week?

How many you had a hard day last month? How

may you had a hard year? I'm doing that. I

had a hard year. How many have you lost someone

that was precious to you and they died this year? Okay?

How many of you been keep your hands down on

this one? Have you been suffering financially? Keep your hands down?

You know who you are. How many of you feel

like your life's a failure? You know, what you wanted

didn't happen for you the way you wanted it. It

can happen. I felt that way before in my life.

There have been times in my life when I've had

to make decisions that I do would cost me that

if I made the wrong decision, I would be liked,

but it would be the wrong decision and God would

not be with me. I would rather have God with

me and make the right decision and not look blessed

for a long time than to make the wrong decision

and for God to leave me. Is that fair? See?

We have decisions to make like that in life, and

when that happens we enter suffering in our life. Everything

isn't fancy and nice. Sammy Rutherford once gave this admonition

concerning suffering. Let not the Lord's dealings harsh, rough, or unfatherly,

because it is unpleasant when the Lord's blessed will bloweth

across your desires. It is best in humility to strike

sail to him, and to be willing to be led

any way. Our Lord pleaseth he continues. Suffering for Christ

is the very element wherein Christ's love liveth and Exerciseth

itself in casting out flames of fire and sparks of

heat to warm such a frozen heart as I have

now this wise Scot's been figured out correctly. That is

through suffering we come to Christ. That's why Peter, in

the midst of the storm, Jesus said, come to me.

The storm in your life is an opportunity to come

to Jesus in your life. And the Desire of Ages,

my favorite Christian writer framed it beautifully. My father, before

he died, shared this statement with me. It's one of

the prize statements I have in the writings there in

the book The Desire of Ages, of all the gifts

that Heaven can bestow upon men, and that means men

and women. Fellowship with Christ in his sufferings is the

most weighty trust in the highest honor. So when you're

handling your pain levels well, when you're handling stress well

in your life, when suffering for you works in the

right way, God is entrusting you with something because you're

coming close to Jesus. You come to God. You come

to Jesus in the storm through pain. Last week, a

little over a week ago, I conducted Larry Burr's funeral.

How many of you Marrior with Larry Burr's one of

our key deacons here at Reaching Hearts for many years.

What a lovely Christian man. He died at the age

of ninety ninety. A few years back I visited the

hospital to annoy his wife, Pat Burrs. Before she died.

Pat was in the ICU recovering from stomach surgery. She

was a very sick woman. She requested to be anointed,

and so she called out her CD Brooks and me

to her side to anoint her. Before we anointed her,

to ask for God's healing, we bowed our heads and

confessed our sins to God. Why because we're no superstar saints.

We need Jesus like everybody else needs Jesus. And to

see CD Brooks, who's been called the Dean of Abentist preachers,

one of the greatest preachers we've ever had, humbly confessed

his sins to receive the Holy Spirit. I loved this man.

I'm grateful for the friendship God allowed me to have

with him. And before we anointed her, after we confessed

our sins, but just then, before the prayer for healing,

she took the oxygen mask off her face, and she

gave this test on my behalf of the power of

Christ in her life. And I wrote it down. She said,

when I come into this place, when I came into

this place, when I came into this place, the pain

was too hard for me to bear. I had no

one I could turn to but Jesus, she said. I

felt him with me in the emergency room, and when

the pain got so bad I couldn't take it away anymore,

I fell into the arms of Jesus. She said, I'm

not afraid. I'm safe in the arms of Jesus. She

was talking to two preachers here as we were there

to anoint her. She said, I don't have to be

healed right now. As long as I am in his arms,

I'm okay. I will trust him. She had learned that

fellowship with Christ occurs in suffering, and she had put

her faith in Jesus. Sister pat Burrs was saying, I

am safe in the grip of God. That's what she

was saying. Romans eight eighteen. I consider the sufferings of

this present time are not worth comparing with the glory

that is to be revealed to us Verse thirty five.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall

tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine or nakedness or peril,

or sword or no ira or a failed bank account

or bad hell? For this or that? The questions obvious.

The answer here is given verse thirty six, as it

is written, for thy sake, we are being killed all

day long. We regard as sheep to be slaughtered. Look

when you stand up for Christ and you're doing the

right thing in your life and someone goes after you,

someone tries to take you down, and your commitment to

faithfulness considered it an evidence that God is with you.

Don't allow it to discourage you, allow it to encourage you.

And then he says, I am sure in verse thirty eight,

actually look at verse thirty seven. No, and all these

things we are more than conquers through Him who loved us.

God loves you, God loves me, Christ loves you, Christ

loves me. The Holy Spirit loves you. The Holy Spirit

loves me. He goes on to say, for I am sure,

he said, I'm not waving on this. I am sure

that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, beings present,

or things to come, or powers. You can take all

the hosts of hell, Paul says, and they will not

move me away from the grip of God. Nor height,

nor death, that circumstances, nor anything else in all creation

will be able to separate us from the love of

God in Christ, Jesus, our Lord. I am glued to

a God that loves me. Paul is saying, his grip

is firm on in my life. I have been through so much,

Paul could say, I've been beaten, put to the point

of death. He later be beheaded. It didn't matter because

he was in the grip of God. He lived for

God's presence in his life and God's love. God allows

the storm to come into your life so you can

see and feel and know that you need the grip

of God in your life. So the storm is a

call to come to Jesus. The ultimate sickness that can

be felt in the person's life is the sickness of

a heart that does not have God. That's where the

deepest pain is at. Friend, the grip of God can

hold the hurting heart that needs God. When God touches

you with his hand, he heals you. Jake Copeland was

head of the cardiovascular surgery at the University of Arizona,

a heart center. He was installing the first FDA approved

artificial heart in this country a number of years ago.

The artificial heart serves as a bridge to a full

heart transplant. It keeps a patient alive for a while

so he or she can eventually receive a biological heart

from a donor. When he started, seventy nine percent of

patience who received an artificial heart lived long enough to

get a donor transplant. Only forty six percent live long

enough if they didn't have the artificial heart. So there's

an intrinsic value in him putting that artificial mechanical heart

into that person's chest. Friend, it made a difference to

receive him in a mechanical heart, even though it was mechanical.

Was the hand, the hand of the skilled physician and

the knowledge that put it in there to keep the

person alive until the final cure came along. Doctor Copeland

took his skilled hand removed the bad heart. With the

same hand he put the new heart inside. Now, friend,

God has given us the Holy Spirit as the bridge

to a future that is alive. One day your heart

will be totally right. But in the meantime, the Holy

Spirit is working in your heart and life with the

full acceptance of God. If you have faith in Jesus

so you can overcome, you are not saved because you overcome.

You are saved so you can overcome. Did you catch

the difference. You are not accepted at the end of

life's journey through faith in Christ. You are accepted in

the road as you struggle with faith, as if you

had never sinned. If you honestly are connected to Jesus, Friend,

God has given us the Holy Spirit to be our friend.

God is a firm Holy Spirit hand on your problems.

In the Bible, the hand of God and the finger

of God represent the Holy Spirit of God. They're only Christians.

As they were trying to understand the concept of the

triune Godhead, got that from the Bible that God's hand,

God's finger is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit alone

on the island of Patma, suffering for the testimony of

Jesus Christ, the apostle John heard the voice of the

Holy Spirit speaking for God. Look at Revelation one, verse eight.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God,

who is and who was, and who is to come

the Almighty. Now it says, I was in the spirit

of the Lord's day in that same passage, and he

heard the voice of Christ speaking. He heard the voice

of the Father. The Holy Spirit brings the Father and

the Son into our lives. Jesus claimed that in the

Gospel of John. So here he is on that awful island,

a penal colony, and where is God? Now he's an

old man, his ministry has been wrecked. It looks like

he has no fear. Where is God? And God comes

to him through the Holy Spirit. Now, the word all

Mighty in the Greek is the word pantacrator. You want

to practice it with me a little Greek here panta crator.

Now it means literally panta means all, Krator means to

the hold, the one who to hold all things. So

the one who holds everything is the almighty. What makes

God mighty because he can hold you in life. Pat

most comes from a word that means to walk or

to tread. It means trampled. He was in a penal Collie,

and he felt trampled in life. He was run down

in life. John was safe from the trampling of others

because John found himself in the middle of his sufferings

and the grip of God, the pantacrator, the Almighty. John

felt God's hand and it was not a phantom feeling.

He felt the Holy Spirit came to him where he

was at. Before my mother died, I visited her in

a nursing home in Jacksonville, Florida, near my brother Tim's

old house. For most of her life, my mother had

struggled with schizophrenia. I grew up with a mother who

was schizophrenic but who loved me. On that visit, she

was so weak and she could barely get out of bed.

You couldn't. In fact, she was just kind of there

and that's a picture of her. I took the picture beside.

It is the picture of her when she was young.

Inside the face that is struggling to live is that

little girl you see to the right. The future is

alive in Jesus and her old age. Her mental disease

has subsided somewhat, and she was able to communicate a

lot better than she used to. She stopped hallucinating, kind

of like John Nash in the book A Beautiful Mind.

And as I said, at her bedside, I asked her

simple questions. You know, I didn't get theological with my mom,

and never could. I asked her if she loved Jesus.

I smile grew on her warm old face. She said,

oh yes, I love Jesus. I said, mother, have you

accepted Jesus as your savior? She said, oh yes, I

love Jesus. Then I said, Mom, everything is okay. She

smiled the grip of God, my Father, God held my mom.

I can remember my mom and her mental illness, praying

when she was overtaken with fear that you and I

cannot measure because we do not know. It is like

the struggle with schizophrenia. Dear heart, it doesn't matter where

you've come from. It doesn't matter what your biological failings are.

It doesn't matter how much people have trampled you in life.

It doesn't matter how big your struggle is to survive

and to thrive and to feel important. Jesus died for

you to save you from the save you with the

grip of God, the Holy Spirit hand that will not

let His children go. Eternity will be populated by people failed,

people who held on to God because God holds onto

them through the Holy Spirit. I leave with you three

promises to ponder from God's Holy Spirit word that brings

Jesus into your life and the Holy Spirit hand of

God into your life. Write them down Psalms one hundred

and nine, verse thirty one. For he stands at the

right hand of the needy to save him from those

who can dim him to death. We have a saving

God Isaiah fifty nine to one. Behold, the Lord's hand

is not shortened that it cannot save, or is ear

dull than it cannot hear. The Holy Spirit hand of

God reaches down to you to save you. John ten

twenty seven. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them,

and they follow me and I give them eternal life,

and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch

them out of my hand. Christ's hand is the Holy

Spirit hands. My Father, who has given them to me,

is greater than all, and no one was able to

snatch them out of the Father's hand. The Father's hand

is the Holy Spirit hand. I am the Father, a

one one Spirit, one hand, one God, three persons. It

was December twenty sixth, the day after Christmas, and it

was Stephen Bolton's birthday. The Scotsman chose to spend it

with his wife and three children on the island. On

an island the Maldives, they were sunning themselves on a

jetty when the water began to rise. Suddenly they ran

to the hotel fast as they could go. Then the

tide shot out as far as you could see. At first,

Ray was relieved, but something inside him said that it

was all wrong, Something wasn't right about what he was observing.

Not knowing exactly why, he made his family climb a

palm tree that was twenty feet high. Now I've tried

to climb palm trees. I've been in the Marshall Islands

for a year and i have climbed palm trees. I

get dizzy after fifteen feet and exactly why he did it.

He made them climb that palm tree twenty feet high.

He took the beach towels and tied his family to

the tree. Then he saw the second wave coming as

a mountain of water at him and his family. He

saw people dying to the right and left swept away

by the storm. It looked like the whole sea was

coming straight at them. People were swept off the roofs

of nearby houses, crying in the storm, sinking under the water.

Mountains of debris roared by with power. The water rose

almost to the top of the tree. I said, almost

not quite there. Steve and his family are alive today

because they tied themselves to the tree. They tied themself

of the tree. Friend. One day, a storm is coming

on this world. It's the last storm. The Bible says,

the islands will sink, a great earthquake. The powers of

the heavens will be shaken. In Hebrews twelve, the earth

will be shaken. People will be in fear and in relation.

One seven says, behold, He's coming with clouds, and every

eye will see him. Christ is in coming in some

secret rapture. He's coming visibly. It will be the greatest

day in the history of the world since the Cross,

and the last day of the Old Age. And the

world will be in a storm that you cannot extract

yourself from by your own power. And how can a

person survive? Friends, Jesus was hung on the cross of Calvary.

The next lie, Jesus was hung on the cross of Calvary.

He was tied to the cross, nailed there. And friend,

if you tie you and your family to the tree

to the cross, you're going to survive the storm. Because

in the storm at Calvary, Jesus died for your sins.

Jesus suffered your pain. Jesus relived your life. Jesus looked

to the future that was a good future for you,

and Jesus said, it is finished. And he claim the

promises of God for us and for time and eternity.

I am grateful for Jesus. So what is my admonition

to you, Well, it's the spirit's admonition through the Bible.

Come unto Him, all you who are weak and heavy laden,

And Jesus says, I will give you rest. God bless

you in Jesus and with the mighty hand of the

Holy Spirit that will hold you in Jesus. Let's pray

Lord as we bow our heads here today. We need Jesus,

every one of us here. And it could be someone

here needs Jesus for the first time. If that's you,

you raise your hand to Heaven right now as my

eyes are closed. You let God know that. And there

may be some who need Jesus because they've left him,

they become worldly, they have sinned against God and against

the Church. Let them raise their hand with no one

seeing it but you, Father God. And maybe people just

drifted away, their life is in a struggle zone and

they say I need Jesus. Raise your hand now. Father.

Probably all of us are in those three things I've

just said. Forgive us our sins. Thank you that Jesus

is proof you have, and help us to live right.

And Lord, keep evil out of here. May it be

far from reaching hearts international. And Lord, may you be

with us in the peace of God. In Jesus's name. Amen.