Open—Sam Ludvicek
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Wise man once said be part of the solution, not the problem.
Robert could have entitled his message something like that.
Because the truth is, if you just talk about it.
You go on about it problems. There are all kinds of problems. You really are part of the problem because you're not offering a solution. I was talking with a young brother and his wife a few months ago and he was recounting lots of the problems in the little assembly where he's at. And I said brother.
It sounds like there are a lot of problems and we can find them everywhere. And he described what he thought was.
A good place, what a good assembly might be like. And I said, where is this magical place you described to me? It said. The only place I know that sounds like the one you're describing is in glory.
Well, turn with me to Psalm Chapter 11.
In Psalm Chapter 11.
Verse 3.
It says that the foundations be destroyed. What can the righteous do?
Then over to reverse or chapter 12 beginning with verse 6.
The words of the Lord are pure words that silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified 7 times.
Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, Thou shalt preserve them from this generation.
Forever.
If we are to be men and women of Issachar.
Who know the times and what's going on we had a brother yesterday talk to us about the kind of enemies we face and how difficult it is when there's more than one and he spoke of wrestling with his children and when one comes and another and another and he compared it to the spiritual battles that we face and I thought that was really good we had another brother remind us that no matter what questions people raise, whether it's.
School or at work or wherever. He reminded us that the Word of God is the Word of God and it is the truth.
But here's what the enemy is doing right now. The attack, the main attack that he's doing, the spearhead of his forces, It is to undermine the word of God.
And the effort to undermine the word of God and the confidence in it because if you have a sword and you don't think.
It will work or you think it's made out of rubber? How can you use it?
And dear young people, that's pretty much everybody less than 70, but especially you children, preteens, teens, early 20s, thirties. My heart breaks. I really love you guys. And I know and I hear about what you're facing, but there is a real questioning of whether the word of God can even be trusted.
There's a real questioning and undermining. Is it really? Do we really have it in our hands?
Brother Robert was talking about reading it and studying it. And if you believe that it is true and you believe that you do have it in your hands, well, then it's valuable and you can use it. You can use it as a sword as you face the enemies that you face. But what if you've had some doubt brought into your mind and heart that first lie that the enemy told?
To Eve, yeah, hath God said. Are you sure that's what he said? A brother reminded me yesterday.
That there is along with this is this effort to make everything in the Word of God subjective.
If you do that, you're lost, man, You're off. But there is an effort, the main effort to undermine the Word of God and our confidence in it. If that's taken away, you don't have a sword anymore. Well, there is a sword, you just don't know how to use it, and maybe you don't have confidence in using it.
Remember having a conversation with brother Bill about.
What protected us?
He's older than I am, but what protected us growing up and I think was maybe a lot older ones will say the same thing. I had learned from my father and those in the assembly where I was at a lot about prophecy and when people said things to me that I couldn't answer, didn't know or tried to say something that would undermine the word of God in my thoughts in mind were that wait a minute.
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There are prophecies in this book.
That have been fulfilled detailed ones.
And just minute detailed ones. And that those things prove to me that this was a divine book and justice because I didn't have an answer for whoever was questioning me.
It didn't shake me from believing that this still was a divine book. The world wants to tell you and there are well educated and smart people that want to tell you. This is just a bunch of of ignorant people, shepherds and sheep herders and fishermen that just made-up some stories so that they could explain why lightning and Thunder and all natural disasters happen. Well, we know better than that if we have studied anything about.
There was a man by the name of Stone. He was a mathematician.
And he had been introduced to the gospel by someone, and one of the things that he'd been told was that this has to be a divine book and can't just be written by human beings because no one can tell the future in those kinds of details. We know there are people who pretend to be psychics and we've heard of Nostradamus and people like that, but.
Their predictions are so general you can make them happen and it it appears that things can come to pass, but not like this book.
And as he became a Christian, he took his expertise as a mathematician and he began to apply it. And I thought this one was of great interest in young people.
I think you will too, and maybe you have heard it before, but he said if you just take 8 prophecies that are given in the Old Testament about the Lord, Jesus just ate, and there's many more than that. If you just ate of them and that they would, what are the mathematical probabilities that they would be fulfilled in any single human beings life? He wrote a number with A1 and a lot of zeros behind it.
Well, it doesn't mean much. Maybe if you're a mathematician. Well, I know a lot of zeros is a lot, but he put it in an illustration, he said if you were to cover the state of Texas 2 foot deep with silver dollars.
And take one of them and put a black X on it and then mix it all up. The chance of you walking into that pile and picking that out first time.
He said that's the odds.
And when I first read that, I said, wow, there are more than that. There are more than eight that are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. And if you have that kind of confidence because of the prophecies that were written in the word of God, no matter what somebody says to you, and they may say things, as our brother reminded us, that shake you and you you can't answer and you may come up against people.
That are smarter and and better educated than you are. But if you have this.
This confidence that this book is a divine book, that God wrote it.
And you have it in your hands that won't shake you from it, and you still have a sword that you can use. And what you do know of this book often is enough when you're faced with a challenge and faced with the enemy. And God will draw it up out of the well of your heart to use it in that moment.
Brother Robert was talking about who knows what assembly you might be in, a small one, and you've been studying the Word of God and coming along. If you believe in it, then you speak it and you quote it and you act on it and you stand on it. It's living and powerful and it will do what God says it will do.
Turn with me to mark Chapter 13.
Mark's Gospel chapter 13 and I'll just begin at verse 32. But of that day, in that hour, N no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son but the Father. Take heed, watch and pray, for he know not when the time is.
For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the Porter to watch.
Now I want to reread that in the middle. Who left his house and gave authority to his servants? When did the Lord Jesus leave?
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The disciples watched him go up.
So who are his servants?
From that day forward, it's every single child of God, every blood bought child of God.
And what does he say? We have those that pretend charismatic power in the world today, those who pretend to be reconstituting apostles and so on and so forth, those who pretend to be performing miracles and they put on sideshows to cover the the deceit with which they are producing those things.
But at the simplest child of God, a little boy, a little girl of five years old, three years old that's truly saved as authority.
We have authority to speak in his name. We have authority to preach in His name. We have authority to stand in his name.
And we certainly have authority to meet in his name.
There's power there. Real power.
If you'll permit, there was a lady that showed up at a Bible study we had years ago going on about 48 years ago.
And someone had told her that there were people in this Bible study that understood the word of God. She was a Methodist lady, and her family went to a Methodist Church and they knew the Lord. But they had a little boy, and that little boy was seeing something appear in his room at night.
And he came to his mother and said, mommy, there's, there's a, there's a thing.
It's appearing in my room.
And they became concerned. They took him to his psychiatrist and the psychiatrist responded by saying.
Well, I don't believe there's anything wrong mentally with your young boy. He believes he's seeing something.
Well, that's a strange way. You're not mentally challenged. But he believes he's seeing something. But they wouldn't go so far as to say that he was seeing something. The Sunday school teacher at the Methodist Church said, oh, it's your guardian Angel just hovering around. That's all it is. And someone else, because it looked like an old man with a hat that looked like Abraham Lincoln.
And he described it and another person said, oh, it's just a ghost of some old man that's haunting the house.
All these foolish things. So she came to the Bible study and at the end.
She wanted to talk and we went out to the parking area and she told me this story and I asked her, is your husband the Lords? And she said yes. And she believed her two little boys, both were the Lords too, that had trusted the Lord Jesus in Sunday school.
And so I told her, I said, well, when you go home tonight.
Walk down in the basement. It always happened in the basement.
And I said just pray out loud.
And I said just say simply.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of shed blood.
If there's an evil spirit here, leave.
And she did, and a voice came out of the dark, just said no.
Well, the next Bible study she was very agitated and she told me the story and how frightened she was. So she invited me for supper.
And I went for supper and I met her husband and talked with him, and I talked with them at that supper table.
And I told the little boy, I said, you know, I want to tell you. I believe you.
But it's not a harmless guardian Angel. It's not the ghost of some man.
It's not a poltergeist or playful spirit of some ghost. It's none of those things. I said. I believe that for some reason in this house, and I found out later, several years later that there had been a woman who practiced witchcraft that lived in the preview. It was a previous owner, one of the previous owners, something left over from what she did. And I told the father, I said.
You are the head of this house. This is your home. You have authority here.
And mother, you have authority too, under your husband.
And I shared this this thought here in this in Mark's gospel.
And I told that little boy, I probed a little bit. You have trust. Your mother says you've trusted the Lord Jesus as your Savior. And he said, yes, I have. And I said, you don't need to be continue to be afraid of this thing.
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So I told the dad, I said, and I went with him. We prayed, we prayed in the basement together. There was number confrontation of any kind. But I told him, I said when you pray in this house, you pray that As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. This place belongs to the Lord Jesus and so does my family.
And neither didn't see the family for quite some time. And I ran across the mother and I asked her how her little boy was doing and if anything more had happened. And she said one time.
And she's I said, well, what happened? And she said my little boy stood there and pointed his finger and said.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of His shed blood, you leave me alone.
And that was that little boy.
A little boy, he could use and speak the name of Christ.
Because an enemy had come against him and was trying to harm him, destroy him, or do whatever he was going to do. Every child of God can stand in that name.
Recently I've had a wonderful several wonderful conversations been meditating on David when he comes with all of those people lined up two armies. Brother Robert was talking about how many or an overwhelming army was facing that the people of God were facing. Well, think about this. There's an array of the Philistines there. There's a giant in the front.
And behind.
Over here with Saul, as are the children of Israel, and they're trembling in their boots.
And they're afraid. And here comes this young boy out of the mountains.
That takes care of sheep, because his father sent him with some victuals to his brothers.
And they mock him. Brother Robert was telling us how that the Lord may want to use you for something. And maybe there will be a moment in time where it's you because God has prepared you from your birth, from before the foundation of the world for a moment in time to be a help to your brethren, to be helped to someone to help them to be delivered, to come alongside in the right moment.
Or for such a time as this, you've been prepared to be part of the solution.
And to deliver and not be part of the problem. And then here you are.
God has prepared you for that moment.
Why David is confounded by all of this?
He doesn't understand why everybody is so frightened. Well, what had happened? Brother Robert said that maybe in quietness and privacy, you've been prepared. God is preparing you. You've been reading, you've been studying, you've been coming along, and there have been victories maybe nobody knows about. Well, what do we find out about David?
He had killed the lion and the bear. The Lord had delivered him into his hands. Why should he be afraid of these people?
Because he knew that they were coming against the people of God, and they were really coming in the face of God.
Well, his charge had been to take care of the sheep in the mountains. He had a job to do and he had faith. He trusted that the Lord would help him. Young person, at 17 years old he sees a lion grab a little lamb and it's in its mouth. He walks up to it and grabs it by the beard and Thrones a knife into it and kills it.
Any 17 year olds here that can imagine doing that? He did.
This lion has one of the sheep I'm protecting. He's been prepared for that. He certainly has learned how to do that.
And then it's almost as by the way, he says, And I killed a bear.
OK.
Young young lad up in the mountains killed a bear, so he never calls the giant in front of him. In scripture, when he speaks of him, he calls him an uncircumcised Philistine. He doesn't call him a giant.
Everybody else is afraid of this guy, trembling in their boots, the army arrayed behind him. They're laughing and mocking along with him and outcomes. This 17 year old boy picks up the stones. It's astonishing to me that what is he? What does he do next?
He runs at the enemy.
I think most of us would want to stay as far back and swing that, swing that sling.
But he didn't. His faith was in the God that he had proved in the mountains. Because when you prove God, he's proven you. Do you trust Him? If you trust his word and it hasn't been on your mind. You have a sword. You have a real sword that you can fight with and you can use. And when you, the enemy comes and he's standing there and it seems to be overwhelming, you take your sword. You've already got the authority. You're not alone.
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I will never leave thee, nor forsake these right there.
And you go forward and you run at the enemy, and God's Word works, and it will always do what it sent forth to do. And when you go in that kind of holy boldness forward because you have confidence in this book and what God has said, what God has told you, what he's proved himself to you to be, and you have proved him by trusting Him in those moments, in those times.
Why then, maybe in quietness, you've been prepared for a moment where now maybe a little more publicly.
God uses you to restore somebody to the Lord. Would that a lot more people amongst us would take to heart. Galatians 6-1 really take it to heart and prayerfully seek the restoration of those who have been turned aside and have been maybe overcome. That little lamb in the mouth of the lion was sure glad when David came along and grabbed him by the beard.
Maybe there's someone here?
That has an opportunity to be able to do that. You see one of the lambs of the Lord being attacked, the lion, the enemy has the lamb in his mouth and you get the chance. But the power of the Spirit of God in you, He that's in you is stronger than he that's in the world. And with the confidence you have because you've proven God in the past, you go and you grab him by the beard and you thrust in the sword.
Deliver a dear child of God, a blood bought child of God.
Well, brethren, the hour we live in, do whatever you can to help any believer not lose their confidence in the sword that we hold in our hands.
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