SPEAKER_00 0:04

That is good. I'm glad because I'm here with my family this time. Uh and uh I'm glad because they make it to come with me. Uh and um every time when I come in US I never skip uh Bible Center Cathedral because uh for me it's very important. I know uh Bible Center from 94 when I was a teenager, and um you know the story when Brother Van invited me to be in a ministry in when he was in Romania. And uh for me it's very important because uh to be faithful it's it's God's character. And um I just teached to the pastor Rick uh class in this morning about Noah. Noah was a man of uh faithfulness, he actually preached more than a hundred years, and only eight people get saved with the same message, but you know what? Uh God considered him uh a successful preacher because he put him in the New Testament, and uh in 1 Peter we see he was a successful preacher, and uh we value in different ways, we uh the world, the human, we we see people in different ways, but actually God's value in different ways, he valued the the faithfulness of Noah. Uh we we just count numbers and said, okay, only eight people, what preacher will be considered successful in this day if only eight people uh receive his message. But it's very important to to understand God's calling upon your life and to be faithful because we live the last days. And I believe, like I said in the first service, we need to go to prayer life. If you started to pray like never prayed before, you're gonna see the revival. You're gonna see also people coming to the church. Uh, the youth generation, the prayer is not only for uh all people, it's for all generation. We need to go back to the prayer life. I mean, not just a few minutes, I mean to pray, to pray and to to uh to start it to search the face of God in prayer uh because we we are gonna have all kinds of deceiving spirits in these last days. And just listen to me because uh if God's will are gonna be next year also, but this year in the fall, you're gonna see starting to express the deceiving spirits very strong. And we need to stand up for uh our value. We need to stand up in faith and to be faithful and to understand the scripture is the truth, not other people say or governments of the world. What the people say is true, this is the truth. So we need to continue to work diligently the work of God. We are involved in many, many uh ministry, uh, starting from the uh helping the poor people to uh uh to uh help the churches, uh our network of churches, but not only our network of churches. I preach the gospel all over. I'm called and imprisoned, outside in the church, uh and on the street. But the secret is to be faithful to the Lord and to the call of the Lord of your life, because God values the faithfulness, and also to uh to emphasize the life of prayer, because the life of prayer it's your spiritual um it's it's your spiritual value. It's like uh when uh spiritual world look to you, they look how your spiritual life, how your uh prayer life it is. If you are strong in faith and you are strong in your call and uh you're strong in the Lord, is because you spend time with the Lord. How much time you spend with the Lord, it's actually uh a remark for the spiritual world. And the spiritual world they see who you are in the spiritual realm by the relationship that you have with God, not about your religion, it's about your relationship with God. You know, I just want to close with one of my thoughts, what I have in my books, because I have several books written in English, it's proper English than I speak, so uh that you can understand. I have um my books there, I have a flash drive with my father's testimony in communist time and other stuff there. Um and um I couldn't wait in the lab in the end of the service, but uh one of the revelations what God gave me in the uh in one of the my books, uh, because lately I I wrote about the rapture, about the preparing for the uh for meeting the Lord, because I believe we live the last days. I have two books about that. And uh in one of the books I wrote this because I believe this when you have the full armor of God, the enemy, the evil spirits, he don't know it's about you or it's about Jesus. You're with full cover with the armor of God. Uh you you're gonna have a victory 100%. So, Ephesians 6 is not only for leaders, it's for every Christian. I encourage you to be prepared for these last days. Don't take it lightly, because it will be tough times for people who are weak in Christ. But the people who are strong in Christ and they develop a prayer life and a stronger relationship with Jesus, they will stand in these last days, and God is going to use them mightily. And I believe this church can be one of them, to be used by God in these last days. So I just pray for you to be bold and to be strong in the Lord and to have a to go back to the prayer life. I don't mean like just greet the Lord. Thank you, Lord. A few words, and that's it. No, this is not prayer, this is a little bit of prayer. Prayer, it's mean uh I close with this uh because I I I teach to the class about uh what Jesus told to the measure of prayer in the uh Garden of Gethsemane when before his crucifixion. He asked the disciple to pray, and he said one thing he couldn't pray only one hour, so this is the standard. So this is they said, Oh, only in one hour? So it's just this is the first level, you know, every day you need to have at least one hour of prayer, but this is just the beginning. So uh I want I don't want to be tough, I want just to encourage you. So uh I love you very much because you are a church of my heart and um uh you're a family church for us. And uh uh you had my father in uh years of 98, 99, and 20. I think in the 2000 he he come the last time. I come here from 2006, uh almost every year, and um and I believe uh uh we live the last days, and I believe you need to be focused on your relationship with God than ever before, because it will be very tough times, and to work diligent for God, and to be not only uh for you and to be a blessing for others, to invest in the kingdom, to invest in your spiritual life, uh, because I believe uh God is gonna use us mightly. So God bless you and uh be ready for the great works of God. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Takes a little bit for me to get up here now. Hey, uh, we are so privileged to have Pastor Sammy with us today and his lovely wife Ramona. I mean, I remember when Sammy first introduced me to Ramona, I thought, hey, you're doing all right. He's one of our sons. When I first met him, he was a teenager. He was in street gangs, he was pretty rough, but he wanted to be a stock car driver, and he demonstrated that to me one day in the streets of Auradia. I was not happy because we darted in and out of traffic around streetcars through stop signs at high rates of speed. But if you want to support Sammy, you can see him after service in the foyer. I encourage you to get some of his stuff. It's good. I really encourage you to get that flash drive about his dad, Pastor John Caba, the things that he went through, going through communism. Uh, he's told us so many stories, and I've got trouble with my earpiece today, so forgive me. All the stories that he's told us about. I remember one of our trips when we were over there. The government had sent a man to follow him. He followed him where he went, he followed him where we were preaching, he listened to what Pastor John Kaaba was saying, and he was assigned to take Pastor John Kaba out. And we were there. But he saw so much grace in Pastor Kaaba that he gave his heart to Christ and wouldn't fulfill his obligation to the government and take Pastor Kaaba out. Now, that's amazing. But what was more amazing, Pastor Kaaba could have said, hey, I'm glad, glad this is over. Pastor Kaaba, in his grace, invited him back to his house, shared meals with him, and sat and talked to him. I don't know if Clint's out to kill me. I don't know if I'm gonna sit down and eat with him. But I'm glad you're here today. You can follow Sammy on Facebook. We're gonna turn him loose tonight. After we you eat and fill your body, you're gonna eat and fill your spirit. Uh he's gonna be ministering in word and and in prayer tonight after I mean after the uh cookout. Well, it's been a while since I've been up here. Most of you know me, some of you don't. I was assistant here for almost 40 years. I have gotten old. Hey, if you're joining us by on Facebook right now or YouTube channel, hey, give us a shout out. Let us know who you are and where where you where you're watching us from. I better hear from my daughter-in-law in Lakeland. She said she would watch me this morning. James has been after me to speak. Uh, and he's done it publicly, he's done it privately. And I told him last time, I said, if you don't stop doing it, I am going to find a new church to go to. But I guess it's true. You know, you become a legend after you retire. So just remember, y'all voted for this. I was wondering what I should speak about this morning. Of what was going on, because I remember Brother Ben used to say, if it's in the news, that I'd be in the pulpit. So I thought about the storms that we've been having here lately, uh, the earthquakes that have happened around the world. I thought of the people that's been with our electricity uh power lines down, damage to structure, damage to done to crops. I looked up this morning. As of this morning, Indiana has had 75 tornadoes this year. It has already set a new record for the state of Indiana. You know, I I was one of those frugal guys that said, well, if I'm gonna be out of electricity, I should get me a generator. So I got me a generator. Electricity went out, my generator wouldn't start. I worked and worked, and then the electricity came back on. Why do we do this and why why is this happening? You know, strong storms leave messes to clean up. There's even a TV show. How many seen the advertised? In the Eye of the Storm. It's on Discovery Channel. It shows people that got caught in storms and what they've gone through and the problems they've had. I mean, we all have been in a storm. Have you been caught in a storm lately? I'm not talking about the wind and the rain. I'm talking about storms of your life leaving you lost or overwhelmed. There are storms of sickness. We're trying to pray and believe God for healing. But it's a storm. There are storms of financial pressures, of difficulties, trying to get out of debt. If you're like me, you're just trying to make ends meet. Groceries at Walmart go up faster than Social Security. Then there's the storms of addiction. And I'm not just talking about drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, things like that that we say are addictions. I'm talking about uh addictions where you're trying to break free from bondage that you've had in your life for years, and there's storms of relationship with family members. You know, people that are married want to be single, people that are single want to be married, they can't make up their mind. Or maybe it's a storm of divorce. And let me tell you, from experience, I am well acquainted with the storm of divorce. There's storms of family issues with your child children, wayward, giving you trouble. Maybe they like Sammy when they was a teenager in the street gangs. I was walking with Sammy down the street over Roddy one time. He was in street gangs. And people feared him, kid. And he it was it was after he was saved. And he said, just a minute, I gotta go speak to this man. I said, Okay. And he went over and he apologized for pulling a knife on him and threatening his life. That's how good God saved this man. There's storms that you have with your parents as they're getting older. What are you gonna do with them? I put all the pills that I take in my hand. I took a photo of it and I sent it to my kids. I said, This is how you can tell your dad's getting old. Amber texts back and she goes, How am I ever going to keep up with all that when you're down here? I said, Well, we'll just see what we can do. There are storms of doubt, depression, and hopelessness. How do we survive such storms? As I wrote my message this week, I thought about my own personal little storm I had this week. I came to work here about almost 40 years ago. And uh Pastor Rick and Brother Van at the time would leave either on vacation or have an appointment, go to some meetings, and leave, leave me in charge of the church. I became a nervous wreck. I didn't know how I was gonna survive. How was I gonna preach Sunday morning, Sunday night, teach Sunday school, teach, teach Wednesday night? How was I gonna do it? So I then my nerves would get so bad that I would even throw up. That's how I had to deal with them. And I never really conquered them, but I did was able to manage them. I knew what I when it was coming, what I should do. So I learned how to manage my nerves. But this week it didn't happen. My little storm raised its ugly head, and just about every other day I was punching in Clint's number, saying, Yeah, it's yours. I'm not gonna do this. So I I've had uh this problem, but hopefully we'll get through it today. But I've said all that to say this. In the Bible, storms, valleys, and darkness usually symbolize trouble or difficult times of your life. It's the inner turmoil of humanity. Bible has much to say about the storms in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament. The writings about storms in scriptures always is connected with problems. I think the most famous, I mean, many of you are already thinking about the Old Testament, what storms was in there. I think the most famous, of course, is Noah's Ark. Sammy talked about it just a while ago. I I think the other one is Jonah and the well. How many knows that the book of Jonah has too many chapters? I mean, Jonah, God called Jonah to go preach to Nineveh. That should have been it. The same thing would have happened, but he spent all this time on the sea, on the sea, in the whale's belly, spit out, went and preached, city of Nineveh was saved. If he would have gone the first time God called him, the same thing would have happened. Nineveh would still have been saved. We wouldn't have had all that other stuff. So the book of Jonah is too many chapters. In the New Testament, probably the most famous story of a storm is Apostle Peter walking on the water in Matthew 14. But that same story of that storm is recorded in Mark the sixth chapter. But in Mark the 6th chapter, you don't see or you don't read where Apostle Peter walks on the water. You read about the storm, but you don't read about Apostle Peter walking on the water. I tell you, I don't know why. I'm not sure why, but if I had walked on the water, everybody's gonna know it. I'm gonna proclaim it. But yet. Mark doesn't tell about it. But we know that Mark gets most of the most of what he writes, he gets from Apostle Peter. That he tells him about what happened and the things that's gone on. So what Mark is writing is what Apostle Peter is saying. And I just wondered, since he didn't talk about walking on the water, what was it he didn't want people to know, or was it that he didn't want them talking about the blunder he had by sinking while he was out there? It's very easy to make a blunder when you're in the midst of a storm. We have these stories of the people that went through the storms. And every one of the stories that you read, Jonah, Jonah and the well, Noah and the flood, everyone, Apostle Paul, every one of them, the people survive. So I've come to tell you this morning. If you've got a storm in your life, you can survive. If it's brewing and you know it's coming, you will get through it. Just because you find yourself in one of these storms doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. Sometimes we're victims of our own making. I can testify to that. Other times it's just life. Life happens. Wrote in a poem The Rainy Day, he said this. Be still, sad heart, and cease repining. Behind the clouds is the sun still shining. Thy fate is coming, fate of all, into each life. Some rain must fall. That's interesting. But did you know the Bible has some of the same views as that poem? Matthew, 5th chapter, 45th verse. It says, That you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and rain on the unrighteous. So no matter who you are or where you are, you're going to get both sunshine and rain. You're going to get good times and bad. You're going to have days of clear skies. You're going to have days of cloudy skies. It's life. I read this in studying for my message. It has been said that for us Christians, at any given time, either a storm is threatening us, we are in the middle of a storm, or we are just coming out of a storm. I know storms are not fun. They leave us with damaged emotions, they leave us hurting, and we got to deal with the leftovers of what the storm did. But what is important to realize is that through the storms of this life come more valuable lessons than you will ever receive apart from the storm. I know we don't want to go through storms. We don't want the heartache. We don't want the problems. We don't want the pressure, the stress of it all. But the absence of trouble does not mean the absence of God. We want to be blessed. But listen, some troubles that you go through is just God redirecting your walk with Him. You can read in the book of Exodus where the children of Israel comes out of Egypt and they're all excited. And it would have been easy just to go up the coast. Matter of a couple days, and they're in the promised land. And they can shout, we're free, we're free, we're free. I'm blessed, I'm blessed, I'm blessed. But as they came out, God did not allow them to go up the coast. He instead redirected them to go by the way of the Red Sea and out into the desert. They would have to be after for some time. But we look and say, hey, God, you should just let them go. But God is saying, no, there's something I want to do. And he redirected them because it was going to be at the Red Sea, is where he's going to destroy their enemies. It's going to be at the Red Sea when he's just going to destroy the things of the past. Because the scripture goes on and tells them, talking about them going up the coast. It said, the scripture says, because when they see war, not if they see war, but when they see war, they would see it and be discouraged and go back to Egypt. And God did not want them to see that. So he redirected their path to Cana by moving them past the Red Sea. It was more trouble. There was a little more difficulty in it. But it saved them from their enemies because Pharaoh would have pursued them forever. Because he wanted them back. But at the Red Sea, God says, No, I'll destroy this. How many would like to have things of your past destroyed? That you didn't have to deal with it anymore. So that's what God did for them. And he said in the next scripture, it says that they come out, King James word, harnessed. I thought, what in the world is that? They came out prepared. They weren't going to have to fight, but they were prepared to fight. I think too many times we as Christians, we we come out of sin, we come out of our problems, we come out of our addictions, we come out of our sickness, and we're not prepared to fight to stay in our victory. But they came out prepared. I like this, and this is just as FYI. I just like this that I found. He said that they came out, and most of the time of that time, uh the military, they marched five abreast and a yard in between. And coming out of Egypt, there were 600,000 Israelites, plus the women, plus the kids, plus donkeys, plus goats, plus sheep. 600,000 men, five wide a yard in between. That would have been 68 miles long. Wow. How'd you like been Moses leading 68 miles of marching men? Yeah, it's not that's beyond my pay grade. But they they came out prepared to fight, to stay out of bondage, out of their storm. So if you come out, be prepared to fight to stay out. Don't go back in it. The Bible lets us know that storms will come into our lives, but they don't have to overcome us. Listen, sometimes God will calm the storm. And that's great. We all want that. But sometimes he just calms the person. In the seventh chapter of Acts, verse 22 through 25. Clint knows what I'm talking about. We find the story of Apostle Paul sailing to Italy to stand trial, and there arose a storm, and the storm went on for several days. And you read the story. They did everything they could to save the boat and not to die. Listen, they tied the boats together with ropes, they emptied the cargo, then they emptied the gear, but it was to no avail. The ship would be lost. That just makes me think of Gilligan's Island. The ship will be lost. God doesn't always calm the storm, but in this case, he sent an angel and calmed Paul. An angel spoke to Paul and told him that he would be spared, and all the people with him would be spared. God didn't calm the storm. He didn't stop it. He let it go on. But he calmed Paul. Paul in the writing of Acts, Paul speaking to the people of the ship says this. This is Acts 7, 22 NIV. But now I urge you to keep up your courage because not one of you will be lost. Only the ship will be destroyed. Last night, an angel of God. Now this is very important. An angel of God, to whom I belong. See, it's good, and you better know if you're going through a storm of life, whether it be spiritual, whether it be something else, you better know who you belong to. Says, to whom I belong, whom I serve, stood beside me and said, Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar. And God was graciously giving you the lives of all who sail with you. So keep up the courage, man, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as He told me. The word Paul got from the angel was don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, Paul. You see, uh, I Sammy was talking about it, you know, the scripture. You've got to be in love with the scripture. You've got to be in love with God. If you're in love with God, you'll be in love with the scripture. If you're in love with the scripture, you'll be in love with God. See, you if you're in a storm, there's one thing that you need is you need to get a word from God and hang on to it. He told Paul, don't be afraid. Because if you can get a word from God, though the storm does not stop, the storm didn't stop, the boat finally broke up, and they're hanging on pieces of it floating to the shore. But if you can get a word from God, it will bring peace to your troubled life. And you will understand and know that you can make it through the storm. But there are also times that God will calm the storm. In the book of Mark, fourth chapter, verse 35, it says, and that same day, this is King James, and that same day, when when the even was come, he said unto them, Let us pass over to the other side. That's no biggie. I mean, most of the disciples were fishermen. I would say all of them at one time or not had been in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. Many of you that went to Israel with us have been on that boat. And they always they always uh stopped. Sorry, that's a different story. Uh they understood what it was to be on the Sea of Galilee, fishing the physical part of it. It was no biggie. But when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship, and there were also with him other ships. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full, meaning full of water. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow, speaking about Jesus. And they awake him and said unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish. Carest not that we perish. Carest not that we perish. You see, the storm that night was not in the sky. There was a storm, but it the real storm was not in the sky. The real storm was not in the sea. The real storm was in the minds of the disciples. I'm reminded of David of the Old Testament, where he is going through difficult times of fighting enemies and all the problems that he was having. And then he writes in the scripture in the book of Psalms, he goes, How long must I wrestle with these thoughts? He's all right fighting the enemy. He understood the physical side of everything. But where he was having trouble was in his thinking. I know storms, when they hit us, we can endure the first punch that we get, whether it's a breakup, whether it's financial difficulty. We understand that sometimes it's heaven and we can endure that. But as it continues on, it's not that that gets the best of us. It is what we're thinking, it's our thoughts. Does God really care? I'm trying to pray for healing. I'm trying to pray for my family. I'm trying to get better at what I do. I'm trying to break this addiction. But yet I don't think God's hearing me. Does he not care? These thoughts can send you spiraling down. So the so it's in the mind so many times that the storm really takes its toll. Does he not care? Verse 39. And he arose and rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, peace be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He is the great storm chaser. When problems hit us, we don't know how to handle it. He understands. And when he needs to, he can chase the storm away. He can bring peace to your mind, but he can also chase the storm. He is the great storm chaser. Then in verse 40. And he said unto them, Why are you so fearful? How is it? See, they ask him a question first. Don't you care about us? Don't you understand what I'm going through? But then Jesus turns and asks them a question. Why are you so fearful? Fearful? How is it that you have no faith? Listen, Jesus was in the boat with them, but they still went through the storm. The disciples crying, waking him up, saying, Oh, you don't care about us, we're going to perish. They're fighting it in their minds, they're fighting it in the waves. But sometimes storms will cause us to lose focus on God's love. The Bible is full of scriptures about his love. I mean, from John 3.16 to go back in the Old Testament to what David writes. He writes a chapter and there's 26 verses there, but it ends every stanza with, God's love endureth forever. How did Jesus respond to their question? He questioned them himself. He said, How is it that you have no faith? It's easy to say we have faith. It's easy to say we trust God. But listen, faith is not faith until it's tested, until it's put to the to the test. I have faith, God's going to heal me. I have faith God's going to meet every need. But until we don't have money to pay a bill, until the doctor says there's no hope. Then we find out, do we have the faith? Because faith is not faith until it's tested. Trust is not trust until it's challenged. You can say, I trust you, God, to do the best with my children. I trust you, God, to give me the best job. But until it's challenged, we have no job, and our kids are wayward. We don't know. Do we trust Him or do we want to take it back? Say, I can solve this, I'll take care of my kids. But if you pray and say, God, they're in your hands. You have to leave them. Because that's where trust comes in. Do I trust God to do with my kids? What needs to be done? Oh, where am I at? Storms that you go through will teach you things about yourself you didn't know. Do you panic? Do you doubt? Do you question God? Or do you just give up? See, storms will reveal do you have real gratitude? It's easy to praise Him when everything's good. We've all done it. Wake up. My knees don't hurt. I got food on my table. I'm in air conditioned, not out in the 105-degree heat that we're going to have today. It's easy to say, I'm blessed. It's easy to have gratitude in. But go through difficult times. You'll see if you have the gratitude or not. Storms don't make you feel make you feel blessed. But if you can learn to give him gratitude during the storm, in the midst of the storm, after the storm, praising him at other times will be so much easier. If you can praise him in the hard times, it's easy to praise him in the good. Storms will teach us where we get real strength. We can usually handle a mile of annoyances, problems that surface every day. But hard trials will bring us to an end of ourselves. It is during those times that we realize that we need to be completely dependent upon God. It's in the storms that you get a better revelation of who God is. Things you will learn about Him that you would never learn if you never faced storms. The disciples did not know. We read it, they did not know that even the wind and the waves had to obey Jesus. They didn't understand that. They got a revelation right there as he got up and spoke to it. Look at verse 41. And he says this, and this is where I'll bring my message to a close. And they feared exceedingly and said one to another, What manner of man is this? That even the wind and the sea sea obey him. This showed him something about Jesus that they never would have learned without the storm. That he is the great storm chaser. That there is none like him. That he can chase the storm, he can settle the soul, that he can make tomorrow better than today. Until you go through your personal storms, you will never truly understand how awesome God is. I told you at the beginning of the message, they say that Christians is either in a storm, going into a storm, or coming out of a storm. I think that qualifies just about everybody in here. So I open up this altar this morning as they begin to play and sing. If you're facing a storm, if you've gone through a storm, if you're in the middle of a storm, come to this altar. Let's have a closing prayer together. Let's ask God to help us to either chase the storm or to settle our troubled minds, but to be God to us. I sense as I was speaking that the storm chaser is in the house. That he wants to touch you, that he wants to help you, that he wants to reassure you, that he cares for you, that he's not forgot about you. It may feel like it. But he has not forgotten. He knows what you're facing. Maybe you need redirection for your life. You thought it was going to be simple, God was going to be easy. Maybe God just wants to redirect you a little bit. Come to this altar. If you need personal ministry, I can pray with you. Sammy will pray with you. He's a praying man. He will lay hands on you and anoint you. This altar is open for you this morning. God to touch you.