But God ...

When we are caught in storms and we can't find a way out.... But God. Call on Him. He wants to help us. He wants us to lean on Him. He is the One and only true problem solver.

email: RuggedTruthGodsWord@gmail.com

God has a super huge plan. We all have to do our part as He assigns to us. 

Transcript

0:00

Hello, brothers and sisters in the Lord. This is Brother Rick, and I hope you are you all are doing well. I'm getting fumble-tongued here, and I hope there are some people that are listening that don't know the Lord. Come on and join the eternal family. It's the only eternal family, is with God through Christ Jesus, and with Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a sacrifice for everybody in the world. Everybody. Like what it says in John 3.16, He came into the world to save the world. And before we get started, I'd just like to wish everybody a nice spring, and I hope they're doing well. I hope their health is holding up. I've just been fighting some ter terrible sinus infection, and the old devil just doesn't want something coming out, some good word coming out. And uh it's not me doing it, it's the good words the Lord puts in my mouth. There's nothing good about me, that's for sure. I've been around me long enough to know that. But God. He is the exception to every rule that we can come up with, says, but God. But God. And with those words we need to say, let God. Let Him help us, let Him straighten things out in our lives. We try so hard to do things ourselves, and we end up in a much bigger mess than when we started. When the storms of life come, and many storms come throughout a lifetime. Um we see our boat getting swamped and starting to sink. But God, He is the Savior, He is the one that can pick your boat up, pick you up, your boat up, pour the water out, set you back in your boat, and let you keep cruising along. And God does want to help us out. Yeah, there are a lot of bad things that happen in life, and it's hard to understand why they happen like that. But we're in a fallen world, and the first thing we want to do is blame God rather than ask for his help. We really ought to look at it another way. Why he would even want to have anything to do with us? We're a fallen and uh terrible looking people if you look at it like that. Sinful? Whoo! But you know what? He does, and he loves us. Don't ask me why, because we always fuss and taking his name in vain, uh hurting each other, stealing from each other, stealing from him. But God, he loves us, and he wants us to all have it good with him. That doesn't mean having a fat pocket full of money. Like uh John Rockefeller years ago, probably more than a hundred years now, he was asked by a reporter. The reporter says, You've got all this wealth, all this. How how much is enough, sir? He says, just a little more. There is no satisfaction in money. None. You look at this pile and you grin. I've got this pile of money, my bank bank accounts are fat, my I have all this land, all this stuff. There's no satisfaction, no true peace there. The only peace you can have is when you fill that God-shaped hole in your heart, which everybody has. Everybody. From every actor you see on TV that look like they've got it all together, telling people they've got to do this or do that, they have a God-shaped hole. I have a God-shaped hole. You have a God-shaped hole. And if you fill it with God, with Christ, with his Holy Spirit, let his Holy Spirit dwell within you, actually in you, with your spirit. You will have peace through every storm. He will help carry you through every every day of life. And like with the footprints in the sand saying, when there were two sets of footprints walking on the beach on the on the sand, and then there was one set. And the fellow looked back at his life and says, Lord, he says, uh, that right there looks like when it was the hardest time of my life. There was only one set of steps. What why did you leave me? And the Lord says, This tears me up. I can't uh He says, Oh son, he says, or daughter, I didn't leave you. That one that one set is when you couldn't do it. I had to pause this because that just tears me up. When He will carry us through. We just lean on Him. He will absolutely carry us through every storm of life. Up to the very last situation where we have the final sleep and close our eyes one more time, and we're with Him. Those that love Christ are with Him. Those that love the world, that's when their trouble begins. And this small amount of time we call a life, this one granule of life compared to a beach of eternity and time. I gladly trade in, and I hope everybody does. I wish everybody would. Give their life over to Christ and follow him. Take up your cross daily and follow him. That just means be obedient to Christ and be Christ-like. And as we motivate through life, we're going to realize that life isn't easy. And a lot of folks think when you become a Christian, oh, it's going to be so easy. No, no, no. Well, there are a lot of spiritual forces that don't like Christianity. And they hate God, they're fearful of God, and uh the spirit in us gives us uh the ability to chase them off and to help other people. But we're going to be attacked sometimes. And the more you're trying to do for Christ, the harder the attack's going to be. Just like in a war. Uh uh like you can look at World War II, they have a lot of uh shows on those, and uh they show where the the biggest battles were, where the the biggest part of the enemy was, that's where you have to put up your big forces. Well, that's what Satan is doing. When we come on hard for God, that just means being obedient to God, letting him work through us. We can't do it. But if we're we're just letting ourselves be used, we're gonna have the attack. You know what? It is an exciting life. It really is. A lot of folks on the outside say, oh, it's such a boring life. Not if you're doing it right. God has made us priests and warriors. We're warriors for Christ. And we'll be put in charge later when the millennium's set up, but right now we're warriors, we're on the front lines, and we've got to stand firm. We've got to help this poor world. America has fallen. It's virtually just a den of perversion, is all we've become. There are groups now that are fighting to get pedophiles' uh rights and set up pedophile groups, and they're trying to lower the age of consent for children to have sex. Talk about a world of weird drag queens and elementary schools, uh, whatever else you can come up with. And I say, but God, the Almighty, the creator of all, he's going to have enough of this mess pretty soon. I hope it's real soon, seriously, because so many people are getting hurt. He's hanging on to get the very last soul that he can. He wants everybody to be saved. He truly does. He wants everybody to be saved, but most won't. Very few, in fact. In Matthew 7, 13 and 14. He talks about that it's a narrow way, a narrow door that we have to go through. And few find it. And uh Luke words it in 13 and 24. He talks about make every effort to enter through the narrow door. It's not a one-time thing. Say a few words, oh, I'm good to go, I got the stamp of approval. No. You or we believe and we confess with our mouth and we repent of what we've been doing, of our sinful ways. We take up our cross daily. It just means following Him and being Christ-like, following Christ, being Christ-like and standing firm to the end. These are things we have to do. So many folks in uh, especially Southern churches, they say, Oh, you just have to speak a few words, and uh, they take some verses out of context. In Isaiah 64, 6 it talks about our works are as filthy rags, and that's used by a lot of folks as an excuse to do nothing for Christ. When in fact Christ talks about in Matthew 25, 14 to 30, the parable of the talents. He's talking about uh we've got to be busy using what he's given us, which is the Holy Spirit in us, to help others find the way. The verse that a lot of folks are trying to use saying about filthy rags is like uh one group called primitive Baptists. They believe that you don't even have to say anything or do anything, you're uh sealed as soon as you're born. I said, What? A new world they're talking about uh predestination. I said, oh my goodness, the only thing anything's predestined because God knows everything. But in the verses in Matthew 25 and 14 or 30, Christ talks about that uh the servants uh will get in trouble for not using what they've been given. And so many people think they're gonna get to heaven, aren't going to get there. Being obedient to Christ and following him, being Christ-like is the only way we're gonna get to heaven. We trust him and we follow him. We do the best we can following him. He'll help us stay in line and get back up and brush us off, bandage us up. We're gonna have troubles, we're gonna have problems. But he wants us to keep marching forward. As long as we're praying, reading in his word, and following him, talking to him constantly. In 1 Thessalonians 5.17, it says, pray without ceasing. That just means keep an open communication, an open line to God all the time. Because the world is getting more and more corrupt, and each person has to make sure that they are saved. They are following Christ. So many folks think that being saved is a one-time deal, just get your stamp of approval. We are his. But it's not because of just the one thing we do, it's what God has done, what he wants us to do. We be obedient to Christ and we follow him. That's how you get saved. It's a constant life, a constant living with Christ. We give it to him, and yeah, we can't do it ourselves. We have to do it through God. But we have to do it. We have to be willing. And there are so many that aren't willing, and they just think that, oh, uh, I can't do it, so God's got this. It says it, you know, I can't, I'm, I'm not supposed to be trying. Yes, we are supposed to be trying. We are supposed to be living with Christ and following him all the time, every day, every moment. When we stumble and fall, we ask for help. We ask him to help us get back up. That's where but God comes in because we would be lost to anything and everything if we try to do it ourselves. And again, I'm going back. So many folks are hollering and yelling about people drinking on Saturdays and all this and coming into church on Sundays. Yeah. Well, you can't get cleaned up yourself and come in. We have to, that's like coming into a shower. Uh, you don't get cleaned up before you get in the shower, you just jump in. That's the way you come to Christ. You just jump in. He'll straighten it out. We can't be shaking our fingers at other people. We just we set up the introduction with Christ. That's the way we got saved, right? We got our stamp of approval by following Christ and letting him make the changes to us. We can't uh by yelling at people and shaking your finger at somebody, that's not going to do it. We just we tell them what Christ has done for us and how we were lost and in a terrible mess. And I was. I was in such dark places and the Lord brought me out of them. And now I'm in the eternal light. I asked the Lord what he wanted me to talk about, and this is what he laid on my heart. It's going to ruffle some feathers, but you know what? I would rather have people mad at me than God Almighty. And that's what I was doing. I was holding back. And he showed me, he said, Boy, you don't want to be doing that. So I said, Yes, sir. I'm following him. I'm following Christ. I'm not following the world into hell. The world is born, every person is born on the highway to hell. Everyone, from the least baby on up, everybody is on the highway to hell. From birth to death, unless we take the exit. You have to take the exit off the highway to hell because of sin. The only exit is through Christ. There's a blinking light saying, danger ahead, exit now, exit now. Get off and follow Christ. Follow God. That's the only way to get to heaven, to have longtime happiness, longtime joy. Forever. Forever. You could be with your loved ones if they know the Lord. And they've passed on, they're just sitting there waiting with open arms. And the only way any of us are going to make it is but God. Through Christ. So, brothers and sisters, I'm going to get off of here and uh I pray the good Lord's face shine down upon you and He save your souls. And I love you. In the name of Jesus Christ.