0:00 You may not take an interest in spiritualism now, but spiritualism is taking an interest in you. Across the world, spiritualism wears many masks, and while it may look different depending on where you are, its influences know no borders. In an effort to better understand how spiritual deception is playing out globally and where the limits lie, I'll be talking to people who've seen it up close. Today I'm joined by two longtime missionary helpers, John and Natalie, from Jesus for Asia. For 20 years, they've been supporting and working alongside missionaries across the world. Their experiences are eye-opening, stories of answered prayers, spiritual warfare, and miraculous power of God that often gets overlooked in the West. This episode is just a glimpse into their journey, a journey of faith, sacrifice, and unwavering commitment to the call of Jesus Christ. Let's begin with their story now. How many missionaries have gone through a journey of faith, sacrifice, and unwavering commitment to the call of Jesus Christ? Right now we have about 20 families out there, a little over 50 people, but then that's just cross-cultural missionaries from America. We also provide a pipeline for people to sponsor Bible workers, national Bible workers, local Bible workers in different countries like India, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, places like that. Right now we have about 750 Bible workers in India.
1:34 And then overall, 800, 800 or 500? That's 600 in India. Sorry. Yeah, that's why I brought her. So about almost 800 Bible workers total in Asia. Plus we have television, five, one, two, three, four, five television studios. One in India, southern India, that broadcasts a half-hour daily show on a national channel in Tamil. So the southern, about 70 million people. And then we have a satellite that covers all of Indonesia, run by an Indonesian family in just south of Jakarta. That's been going on since 2011. And then we also have three studios in Thailand that is more local, focused on YouTube and things like that. So different locations of the country, they have different talents and different flavors. And so we do Thai, Hmong, Karen, Burmese. And we have one lady, young lady from the Shan tribe. And there is no pastor in that tribe. And so we're hoping that we can work with her to get the word into that tribe. Wow. And so how long have you been doing this? 20 years. This is our 20th anniversary this year. Wow. Very good. It's a treat to go through many different countries. My wife is Indonesian, so. As I told you. And so we've been to a few different ones. And I'm always amazed at how different it is and how you have to know the culture in order to really get the message out.
3:13 Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's not just language. It's the people and the way they think and the way they handle life and do life and their expectations and all that stuff. And I learned, we believe that if you're respectful and come in as a learner, they can give you a lot of grace, which I need. Me too. I think we all do. I think we all do. Yeah. Yeah. But we've also learned that in every culture, God has preserved elements of heavenly culture, but none of the cultures in this world are heavenly culture. So there are elements that God has kept there. And so we always say we want to try to live in God's culture, which crosses all the boundaries. What do you mean by that? So can you give us some examples of things that you've seen? Well, there are certain places where people are very kind, for example. Which is a culturally heaven, heavenly culture type of thing. And so it's like that kindness that we see. We know that comes from God's connection into that culture. But yeah, there's other places where it's very evil. Other parts of culture like television is often very evil and life is cheap and there's other things like that. So just recognizing that God has preserved his character in some of these cultures in different ways.
4:34 But it's not all there. Very good. Yeah. Have you yourself or have you heard any stories coming back from different countries that are more spiritual? They prove that there is definitely a spiritualism out there. And even because of that, they prove the Bible is true. Absolutely. Yeah. I think some of my first trips through India, for instance, I was in a village and we showed the Jesus film. And then after it was over, they invited me to somebody's home. And the mother said, can you pray for my son? He's not sleeping at night. I said, oh, sure. Yeah. What's the problem? She says, well, he wakes up at two or three o'clock in the morning. He's this high off the ground. Oh, I'm like, um, like, do you have something underneath him? Do you prop him up? Like, no, he's just levitating. Yeah. Spirits. They said the spirits are bothering him and they're making him levitate like that. Can you pray so that he doesn't get harassed by the demons, by evil spirits anymore? Like, sure, no problem. And what's interesting is that it's in the West where we're not sure that there's unseen beings. You go to these other countries, that's not even a question.
5:56 They know. They know. Because they see it and they get harassed by it. There was a pastor that I interviewed, in 2006, I believe, or five. His name is Sotia Nason. And he was a welder and he got, he got tired of his job. He wanted to do something a little more exciting, a little more, um, make more money. So he answered an advertisement in the newspaper to become a sorcerer. And so he answered the ad and the guru, guru means teacher, uh, you know, signed him up. They had 11 kids, 11 people sign up and, uh, went through a course. Taught him all this stuff. Two people survived, made it through the course. He was one of them. And one of the, one of the things that he did, one of the exercises, he took a thick metal steel rod about this long, and he did a puja, which is like a Hindu scriptures, spoke words over that steel bar and it turned into a shape of an S. And then he left him and says, you guys make that thing straight. And he walked away and they couldn't make one inch of that straight. He came back and he did another puja and straightened the bar out just by speaking. The words of the Hindi scriptures. Oh, wow. And so this guy, Suti Nason, continued to learn from, from him and they were making a lot of money because let's say I have a business and the guy across the street has the same business and he's doing better than me. So I hire Suti Nason to curse that business. And so he goes down and then I then get all the business that he would have gotten otherwise. And, uh, one time they were, they're invited to the house of a young lady who had been educated very well, but there's some jealous, um, uh, relatives that hired somebody like Suti Nason to put a curse on that girl. And she was mentally drained. She couldn't really function. And so they were hired to come and try to break that curse. And so they talked to the young lady and found out that the God or the evil spirit that was cursing her was one of the gods that they were worshiping. So they have, in the Hindu homes, they have the different, uh, pictures of the gods up on the wall. And, um, and so Suti Nason said, you know, it seems like all of the demon, all the spirits that we work with are hurting people. How can we, how can we do things to be good to people, to do good things for people? And the Hindu guru said, if you want to do good things for people, you have to pray to Jesus Christ.
8:32 Really? Yeah. And so Suti Nason says, great, let's pray to him. And the guru says, no, no, no. Cause if we do that, then we can't do any bad things. We don't make any money. And so the, so Suti Nason says, I'm going to worship Jesus Christ and only him I'm going to serve. So he goes and looks for a Christian in this village. And he says, and he goes up to the Christian, the Christian turns around and runs away because in the village, everybody knew this guy, Suti Nason was a bad guy. Cause, uh, a little earlier, somebody in the village had come up to Suti Nason and says, oh, you think you're tough. I don't think you're tough. He's like, you're nobody. He says, Suti Nason says, I'll show you. So he goes home, uh, does an incantation, reads a punja, the scriptures and, um, sends an evil spirit. And that guy, he's paralyzed from the waist down. Whole village knows this. So he goes and asks a Bible from a Christian and the Christian's like, ah, he runs away. But Suti Nason did a shortcut and, and, and, and, and cut him off. And it says, I really want to serve Jesus. Can I, have a Bible? So he's fine. Sure. Here you take my Bible. He goes home, opens up the Bible. All the, all the pages are blank. And so he closes the Bible, goes back to the Christian and says, your Bible doesn't work. And there's no words on the pages. And the Christian says, ah, you're Satan's blinding your eyes. And then he gives him a prayer and goes home, washes, prepares, prays that prayer, opens a Bible. All the words are there.
10:05 He starts reading it. How in the world is that even possible? I, I, my mind doesn't wrap around that. You know, we don't see that type of spiritualism here in the West. No, but you go over there. I've, I've often said, if you don't believe in spirits, let me take you to India. Wow. That's very real. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not the end of Suti Nason's story. There's more. Right. So he's, he's in his, in his house and the guru. He got rid of all the, he got rid of all the idols. He threw out all the idols. Yeah. The ocean. And then his guru says, ah, he's leaving us. I'm going to, I'm going to kill him. So he summoned a, a, a, a god, sent him to go and kill Suti Nason. So Suti Nason's in his house and he sees this evil spirit coming towards him. And I asked him, so what did he look like? He's like, oh, he's just a dark form. It's like, did he walk? No, he just like that. And so Suti Nason, he doesn't know anything about God. He's just decided to worship Jesus.
11:06 And so he's there. He says, Lord, I'm going to die in a few moments. Please take me to heaven. I want to serve you even, even if I die. And a bright light came out of the corner, chased the demon away. The demon runs off. Oh, it's burning me. It's burning me. It was, it turns the light off in the guru's house. Yeah. The demon ran all the way back to the guru's house and turned off all the lights. Oh, and the guru's like, ah, he's not dead. So he summoned the bigger God, the biggest God, and sent him to Suti Nason. And Suti Nason saw him coming. He says, Lord, I know you're very powerful. I want to serve you with my whole life. And the light came out of the corner, you know, chased the demon away. And then he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard the word say, lo, I'm with you always. And then he became a Christian. And then he learned about the Sabbaths and became a Seventh-day Adventist. And I have his testimony on tape. Wow. Pastor. Yes. So you know him personally then? He has since passed away, but I met him personally. I heard his story when I first, because I was taken out to this wilderness area in this place, and the pastor was just interpreting what he said to me. So I don't like just putting a camera on somebody, you know, just to talk to the head. So I was just like, oh, this is, I don't want to do this. But then like halfway through, I'm like, what?
12:37 That's incredible. So I've seen, I talked to him later, a few years later, and I really, really wanted to do a feature film on his life. Because number one, it proves to Western culture that there is a demon. There are evil spirits that we don't see, which means that there's also good spirits. And number two, it tells the people in India that there are other spirits that you can worship. Yeah. Besides the ones that you've been taught. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he passed away. Yeah. Man. So the culture over there and the religion over there kind of serves any and every god then. It's like Egyptian culture, right? It's basically the same religion that's come out of Babylon. Really? Okay. It's that religion. They say they serve about 300 million gods. Yeah. Somebody told me once, you know, a third of the angels fell from heaven. So there were 10,000 times 10,000 or something like that. So they're like, that's a third.
13:43 Yeah. So I don't know. We haven't counted them ourselves, you know? Yeah. Right. Right. But there's a god in everything. There's a god for tree, a god for this, a god for that. It's a god for everything. So they just, I've heard 30 million. I've heard 300 million. I've heard 3 million. It's like, it doesn't really matter. But there's a lot, a lot of gods. And so they choose their most favorite gods, the gods that they think will affect their life the most. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In their lives, trying to appease those gods. They do, you know, penances, they do, but yeah, it's... Like Catholicism. Yeah. Catholicism and Hinduism are extremely close. Really? They have the rosary. Really? Yes. They do the prayers, they do the rituals, they do, you know, the lighting of the candles. Yeah.
14:32 Huh. Yeah. So there's... In fact, a few years ago, someone told us that in, it was Andaman. In Nicobar Islands, they had a parade one day, and they had the statue of Mary and the statue of their god, Mahdi, and they were marching together. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yes. That's scary. I didn't realize how much it was integrated into Catholicism. That's really, well, not integrated, but how parallel. Similar. Yeah. You can see, you know, in, what is it, 83-something, 300-something, where Catholicism, where Constantine was converted. And he combined Christianity with paganism. And those of us that come out from the Christian side, it's like, we don't really understand paganism. We don't understand idol worship. I never grew up around idol worship. I never grew up around paganism. And then I go over to India, and I go up to their temples, and it's like, wow, they got music, they got prayer, they got all the stuff that we have. And yet, so what's the difference? You know, they got gods.
15:36 We have a god. We have gods. You know, one god, three in one. You know, so what's the difference? Well, it's, number one, it's the character. That's the number one thing that I absolutely know is the difference between the religions, is the character of our god. Yeah. Yeah. And that our god came and sought us out, while all the other ones tell us to go and search for them. Exactly. Big difference. Yeah. Big difference. But that's a, that paganism really is a worship of self. Mm-hmm. You know, those that are in power become gods, and you worship the power, and you worship those that are successful. And the concept of equality, all men created equal, uniquely Christian. Mm-hmm. There is no other religion that I, and there's no other culture that I've ever seen that puts all men as equals. That's just a purely Christian culture. Concept. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, the character of our god is really what we have to, that's different.
16:45 And obviously, out of his character then grows the path to salvation. Mm-hmm. Which is a totally different path in Christ than it is anywhere else. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Have you ever, while you've been over there, seen anything? Like, or it doesn't have to be you. Maybe some of your missionaries come back with stories. As far as, like... Personally witnessing demon possession and that kind of thing. We have. We've seen it. Really? The latest one was when I was in India last year. We were having a baptism because we'd had a week of reaping meetings as a result of all the Bible workers' pre-work. And they were baptizing a girl, and she started, you know, thrashing around. And they had to help her get out because she was, you know, in the baptismal tank. So the demon manifested while she was in the baptismal tank. And she was in the baptismal tank. And she was in the baptismal tank. And she was in the baptismal tank. And she was in the baptismal tank. And she was in the baptismal tank. And she was in the baptismal tank. And so they helped her out and immediately took her, and the pastor started praying for her. So, yeah. Have you ever encountered someone that was being baptized that would try to speak the sins of another, someone else in the crowd or anything like that? I've heard of this happening before. Yeah. I haven't seen it. No, personally. I know one of my friends was baptizing a lady, and an evil spirit was in her. She started manifesting, and so they commanded her to go out. It went into the fish. The fish went like this and then jumped in the...
18:06 In the pastor's hands, he grabbed it and gave it to somebody. What? Wow. There was another time in Thailand when a group of young ladies in a kind of a school situation, dormitory, they were having evil spirits manifesting. And they cast it out of one, and they'd go into the other one. And they couldn't get a handle on it. All of our Adventist people were there trying to cast it out, and they were not able to do it. Probably because we, as Adventists, are not taught that. We're not taught our authority in Christ, our position in Christ, who we are in Christ, the authority that we have in Christ over evil spirits, and how to claim a promise, how to stand on a promise and exercise the power that God's given us. And so they called in a friend of theirs. She came in and cast the evil spirits out. And she drove away, and she was two hours away, and she got a call from those people. The people were saying, the spirits have returned. Come back. And the lady says, you don't understand the authority of the Christian. I don't have to be there. So I can just command them from here, from two hours away, command it, and the evil spirits left. And then this is something that happened just a few years ago. One of our missionaries that had just moved into Thailand in the north central plain, they had 12 acres. They still do. And they're doing all kinds of demonic harassment, like lots of snakes showing up in their path. One time, one of their bunnies that was inside the cage, they came and opened the cage door and its head was eaten off. There were voices outside, fires that didn't have any source happening and stuff like that. Because every property, every business, every house in Thailand has a spirit house, and where they put offerings.
20:06 So like they'll put pop or food or something like that. And they know if they don't do that on a regular basis, then their family will be attacked and somebody will get hurt. This is common knowledge. It's like gang activity type stuff. You know, we'll come to your house, we'll protect you if you pay us. Right. Exactly. It's the mafia. It's the unseen mafia. And so, oh yeah. So we were in America. I heard about this, and I was just learning our authority in Christ, as Christians. And so we took, we prayed in our office in Collegedale. We took authority over the evil spirits that were harassing them, and we commanded them to leave. Never had any episode after that. No. And some other missionaries that had been there longer went and took apart the spirit houses and took them out. Yeah. Good. So what is the keys, I guess? Because I I think me, I personally believe that the West hasn't really seen a lot of outward external spiritual activity, but it is my personal belief and the belief of, I guess, people that are following me on this channel that we will see that someday.
21:21 And so what is, what is it, what are the keys to overcoming that, that, that you would say are the way to do it? I think the best thing for me is to learn who you are in Christ. In other words, how does Christ see you? What is your identity in Christ? Because like, um, a lot of people, you know, we think that we're children of God and if we overcome sin a little bit more and be a little better, then we'll be more accepted and then someday we'll be good enough to be led into heaven. Um, but we don't understand our place in God's, in God's kingdom, in his, in his operation. In his, in his, in his, I don't want to use the word business, but it's kind of like your authority, like if, like if you're the VP of marketing, you have a certain authority and power to spend money and to make some decisions.
22:19 And that's what, that's how God sees us. He sees us. So in other words, all, all, he sees us as Christ's brethren. Okay. It's kind of like Jesus, when Jesus was on earth, he did things. That we don't think we can do. Okay. But he did things to show us what we could do. So even Jesus himself says in John 14, 12, he that believeth on me, the things I do, shall he do also. And greater things than these, because I go into my father. So it's like everything that we see Jesus doing, we have that same authority and we have that same ability. He calmed the storm. We can calm the storm. Okay.
23:08 He healed the sick. We can heal the sick. He raised the dead. We can raise the dead. Because he showed us what it's like to live as a man in right relation with the father. The time that he spent in prayer, he, he spent in prayer to gain the faith, to gain the power that we can also gain. Think about it. When they spend that time with God. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus. When Jesus took the disciples. He goes up to the Mount of Transfiguration, right? He said, let's pray. So the disciples started praying and Jesus started praying. Now the disciples, they were thinking that in prayer, we have, we can, we can, you know, what's possible in prayer, what, what's possible for God to answer in prayer is like this much. Okay. So they started praying prayers according to what they thought God could do through them. So they would say, Lord, you know, maybe they would say, Father, please help me. Help us to have a good day tomorrow. Help the Pharisees to like Jesus better, you know, help us help, help me not to be, get so angry with Peter, you know, stuff like that.
24:14 Jesus started praying, Lord, show me or manifest through me the glory, show my disciples the glory that I had when I was with you in heaven. So to Jesus, what was possible in prayer was like a tremendous manifestation of the, the reality and the glory and the physical presence of God to convince the disciples that their faith was not in vain, just that. And so the disciples had no clue you could ask for something like that in prayer. But what if we can ask for something like that in prayer? And there's a lady that did it. Josephine Cunnington Edwards tells a story of when her, her brother, his whole life was never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never accepted Christ. And their parents died thinking that the brother would not be in heaven. And so she got her church together and they started praying for her brother and they prayed and prayed and prayed. And one day he was sitting in his, in his living room, getting ready to read a paper and Jesus walked in the door.
25:22 He told this to his wife and his wife told Josephine Cunnington Edwards, walked in the door, sat in front of him and said, I have, I have a really cool idea. I need your help on this. When your parents died, they thought that they wouldn't see you again in the first resurrection. I'd like to surprise him. Will you help me out? And the guy just lost it. And he started crying. He says, yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. And he gave his heart to the Lord right there. And it's like, this is what's possible in prayer. Wow. And we, this is what's possible for you and I in prayer. So we, we can step into the supernatural ourselves. Jesus says in Luke 10, 9. 19, behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions. And why would we want to tread on serpents and scorpions? And he says, and over all the power of the enemy. So evidently serpents and scorpions is a symbol for the power of the enemy.
26:18 Serpent, of course, you know, is Satan. Scorpions are then the evil spirits. Okay. And over all the power of the enemy, he's given us that authority over all the power of the enemy. And nothing by that, by any means shall hurt you. Okay. So we can step, step into that realm as being believers, as being connected with God and surrender to God and, and, and connected with him and standing on his word, confessing our sins. So that's it. Cause our sins is what gives Satan access to our lives, you know, and it could be sins of the flesh. It could be sins of the thoughts. You know, if I dwell on something that I really want. If I harbor unforgiveness in my heart or anger towards somebody, that's an open door for the devil to come in and start doing stuff.
27:12 And, uh, it happens here in America too. You know, um, sometimes it may not be as clear or we may not identify it as workings of the evil spirits, but why do we have so much divorce? What's the source of that? Where's that coming from? Yeah. You know, why do we have all this, um, all this confusion about. Things that we used to take as just obvious. Well, where does that come in from? You know, what's the manifestation of that? Yeah. And you listen to a lot of the rock and roll or the rap or, you know, that kind of music, you listen to the words. It's like, that's pretty demonic stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, especially the way a song will get into your brain and hook there and just live there for years and years and years. It's like, well, that's, you know, where's that coming from? Right. Right. Yeah. Even the dramas on television.
28:03 So we call them soap operas over here. My wife from Indonesia, she says, um, the K dramas, she says, those K dramas, they, they'll, they'll make you think you're going to get Prince Charming coming in here. So we got to be careful what we put into our heads because you never know. Yeah. So recognize what we, who we are and we're, we, we are children of God and that he's given us authority. And so this is, this is a, an incredible thing, but it also brings to mind. The visions of Benny Hinn. So can you talk a little bit about that? How do we, how do we balance that? Well, that's the, that's the journey. That's the journey, honestly, that I'm on is to figure out what's real and what's not. I think it's easy to see something supernatural and say that's of the devil.
28:54 And, um, but the Bible says, prove the spirits, test the spirits, whether they be of God. In other words, you can't just know right off the bat. And it's very dangerous in my mind. It's very dangerous to start automatically assuming that anything supernatural is of the devil, because that's what the, that's what the Pharisees did with Jesus. And Jesus says, you know, that's, that's basically, you know, assigning, assigning the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan is the unpardonable sin. See? So that's, that's a very dangerous thing. I mean, if we see Benny Hinn, the obvious thing is like, oh, that's of the devil, you know? And I'm not saying it is or isn't. I don't know. I haven't tested it. I haven't been with somebody. Now, some people may say, well, you know, it's not the truth because he's got errors and stuff.
29:50 Well, yeah, that's true. That's that, that may be. But. I mean, was everybody that did miracles in the Bible? Were they? Always perfect? Or did they have error also? Yeah. You know, so you can't really judge that. I just, I'm just being very careful about judging. Yeah. Now, I think there are some manifestations that I would say that are not of, of, of the Holy Spirit, the not of Christ, not of truth. And, you know, but we have that right to judge. But just to say all healing is of the devil and all miracles are of the devil. I think that's really. It's really a scary place to be because you, you start limiting the Holy Spirit and what he wants to do. And I mean, the Bible says, he that believeth on me, the works that I do, he shall do.
30:41 And greater works. And greater works. John 12, 14. No, John 14, 12. So it's like, if Jesus says that, you know, where else are we going to look for truth? If Jesus. And what did Jesus do? Yeah. He healed people. He changed hearts. You know. Yeah. He changed lives. He raised the dead. Yeah. And so there's. Cast out demons. There's a story that just, I just love. I absolutely love. And actually my Bible workers have challenged me to start moving on this faith journey to way beyond what I, what I. Because Jesus says, he that believeth on me. No, these signs shall follow them that believe. They shall cast out demons, heal the sick, raise the dead. It's like, and preach the word. So like, wait. According to this test, do I really believe in Jesus?
31:35 I know. That's what I was thinking just now. I was like, well, that's doesn't happen to me. That hasn't happened to me. Do I really believe? Oh, man. Exactly. Oh, wow. And Mrs. White makes a statement. She makes a statement that every failure on the part of God's people is due to their lack of faith. So that's an issue. We think it's all about sin and getting over sin. Well, that's part of it. But it's like my grandpa is. He's not sinned in 30 years. He's been dead. So it's like, we want more than just not sinning. We want the life of Christ. You know, so you can overcome sin, but you got to replace that life, that self-life with the Christ life. Okay. So there's more than just overcoming sin. There's Christ living in you, living his life through you.
32:25 It's like, how is the world really going to be reached unless the Holy Spirit is living through you, doing the works? Of Christ doing the works of the Holy Spirit, which is very baseline caring that there's people out there that don't know Christ and wanting to make a difference. So, yeah. There's also the Colossians where it talks about seated in heavenly places. Yeah. Ephesians 2, 2, 6, where it says that you've been raised with Christ and seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And the end of the previous chapter, it talks about Jesus being above all powers, all principalities, all names given in heaven and earth in the age now and in the age to come. And that the church is his body in which he is the head.
33:16 He fills all in all as all they. Some of the words he fills the church and the church fills him. No, I don't understand that specific phrase. I think that he fills the church. So if you are in the body. If you are in the body of Christ, okay, if you're in the church, your lowest member in the church, and you're in down in the feet, you are above all names in heaven and earth, all principalities and powers, which shall be named in the age to come and now. So basically, that's who we are. We just don't know it, so we don't act it. We kind of like ask. I've heard this recently. Mr. Devil, can you please leave? Yes. It's not going to work, you know. You have to realize your power. So here's the first story that I heard from one of our body workers in India that started challenging me, saying, you know, I need to grow my faith. And that's the thing. It's like we can grow our faith. Faith is not static.
34:20 We're not, what's the word? Stuck with what we had before. Exactly. Yeah. So that gives me hope. So this Bible worker was pastoring a church and makes 90 bucks a month, you know. And then a lady comes in, and she sits in the back. She's very embarrassed. And so she's crying back there. He's not seen her before. So he finishes a sermon, and he says, come and talk to me. And she said, no, I don't want to. I don't want to. I'm so embarrassed. But finally, he has his wife to come and talk to her. And so she comes up. Her leg's like this big. So she finds out she has elephantiasis. And there's a hole in her leg, and maggots are coming out of the leg. And it smells like rotting flesh. And so my Bible worker says, I will pray for you.
35:14 And next Sabbath, you will stand here and tell people how Jesus has healed you. I mean, like, I would say, I will pray for you. Yeah. But he said the rest. It's like, what kind of faith? Is that, you know, that this lady with the leg this big. Now, elephantiasis, I spent the first five years of my life in New Guinea, and I know that disease is not curable. And even today, you can manage it, but it's not curable. And so the next day, he went to her house, and he's going around the house. And he came to the middle of the floor, the dirt floor, and he felt heat, like there was a fire there. And so he said, dig here. And so they dug. And there was a coconut wrapped in hair and different things from her. And so he says, take it outside and burn it.
36:05 So they took it outside and burned it. And it smelled like burning flesh. And then he came back in, prayed around the house, prayed for her, and he left. That night, she was visited by shining beings. One of them was Jesus. And when she woke up, she was completely healed. Her leg was back to normal size. The wound was healed. No more wound. And she came to the church. There was a scar there. So, you know, she had proof that, yeah. And she came to the church that Sabbath and gave her testimony about how God healed her. How do we have faith like that? The only thing I can think of is having the experience to have faith like that. And how do you get the experience without faith like that? So it's like a catch-22 almost. The key. You don't start out with faith like that. You have faith in smaller things, and it grows.
36:56 Yeah. Yeah. The key for me. The key for me is that was the key for me that is like this kernel of truth that is so powerful. It's changed my life. And that key, that kernel of truth, that key for me is understanding the nature of the Word of God. So we think, you know, where God gave his Word. Okay. It's very good words. We really like his words. Very informative. Very, you know, we should follow and obey his Word. That's not the full nature. That's not the full nature of the Word of God. The nature of the Word of God is that God has put his life and his creative power into his Word. So that when we take his Word and stand upon his Word, then it activates and does what it says.
37:46 So one really good definition of faith is faith is depending, is expecting the Word of God to do what it says. And the depending on the Word of God to do what it says. So you think about it. What is the tool? What is the tool that God used to create the world? His voice. Yeah. Words. Exactly. So he spoke. He said, let there be light and there was light. Let there be grass and there was grass. Okay. How do we know that God's Word still has that power? Grass is still growing. So the Word spoken 6,000 years ago is still in full effect today. Wow. So once you see that the Word, the life of God. So like. When that paralytic was let down through the roof by his friends.
38:41 And Jesus looked at him and says, thy sins be forgiven thee. And then people are like, hey, who can forgive sins? And then the Son of Man, Jesus said, so that you will know that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins. He turns to him and says, arise, take up your bed and walk. And through his Word, he was healed instantly in the same power that. Healed his physical body, also forgave his sins. So there's the same creative power in forgiveness of sins as there is in healing or even creation. Wow. You know, Jesus said in John 6, 63, my words, they are spirit and they are life. So the life of God is in his Word. So when we take his Word and we know that the Word of God cannot lie.
39:35 God cannot lie. It's impossible for him to lie. You know, it's like if I said there's a. There's a lion. There's a tiger sitting here. It's like you would. You're laughing because, you know, that's not true. And I'm lying. Right. Unless I go and get a tiger and put it here. Then we'll all run. But if God said it, he wouldn't lie. Number one, because he he's too good to lie. And number two, when he spoke it, it would. It wouldn't be here. It would be there. Yeah. That's why Jesus. This could come to the Lazarus and say, Lazarus, come forth. His Word made that happen. Now, that's the thing. That's the big leap for us is that we have that same option. Wow. And I'll tell you a story to prove it. So back in 2021, I believe, or 2020, 2021, we're talking about Pablito and Mar.
40:34 So Pablito is our Bible worker in Mindoro, Philippines. And he got word that a man in a nearby village was dying of tuberculosis. So he went over there, sat with the man, sat with the wife, said, do you believe in Jesus? The wife's like, no, I don't believe in Jesus. If you believe in Jesus, then Jesus will heal your husband. I don't believe in Jesus. And so the husband coughed and coughed. And then he. And he bit his tongue and he passed out and he stopped breathing. Oh. His body got stiff, got cold. And they took his clothes off to bury him because in those hot climates, they bury him within a few hours. And Bible worker Pablito stayed there and says, you know, don't bury him yet.
41:27 Don't you want to see your husband come back to life? Don't you believe that God can raise your husband from the dead? Like, who would say that? I would never say that. But he said that. And two hours, two hours, they sat next to the man's dead body. Finally, the wife says, I believe in your Jesus. And if you can raise him from the dead, I will go to your church. So Pablito prayed. He sensed the Holy Spirit. And then he prayed, Lord, please, if this will bring glory to your name. And so that they will know that you are a true God. Please raise Marz's name from the dead. And Marz sat up and he's like, this is strange. I'm not sick anymore. So he raised him from the dead and healed his tuberculosis, which killed him.
42:19 I have this on video. And then he's like, I'm cold. Where are my clothes? I have this on video where Pablito is telling the story. The guy that was dead was telling the story. And the guy that was dead, his wife, telling the story. I have all three talking about it on video. But that's... That's not the most amazing story. Just last year. I think it was last year. Yeah. Or end of the year before. Yeah. Pablito was... His father went out to the garden early in the morning. And on the way back, about six o'clock in the morning, he just fell down dead. Pablito. Pablito's father. Father. Sorry. Yeah, his father. The line worker's father. And so... Who wasn't a Christian. Right. And so they took him home. And then the mom told the brother to go get Pablito so he could hire a tractor to, you know, backhoe to dig a grave for the father.
43:17 So he went and got Pablito. This is about noon. So instead of going to hire a tractor, he went into the church and he prays like, Lord, what is, you know, do you want my father to continue living? Do you have more use for him? Would you like him to know you? And stuff like that. And he felt that God was saying yes. And so he walked to his father's house. This thing. He got there about five or six, just before sundown. So the father had been dead for over 11 hours. And as he walked up to the house, he called out, Father, wake up. And he rose from the dead. Oh, wow. Yeah. You hear about this stuff in the Bible, but I can tell how much I don't believe now that you tell me this stuff because, and it really bothers me that, you know, these thoughts are like, wow.
44:11 This happens in our day? Absolutely. Absolutely. Wow. And this is, and I have that. I have the father and the mother and Pablito telling the story, that story of his father being dead for that long. And his father has since started serving Christ. Yes. And Mar, in the one with Mar and his wife, they say, I'm so glad that I'm alive now. So like Mar says, I'm alive. And with Christ. Uh-huh. He's so thankful that he knows God now. Yeah. So. Yeah. It's a second chance this time. Yeah. This time with Christ. Praise God. Yeah. I, this is a lot to chew on. Yeah. That's something. Right. And then, and it gets more practical. We can bring this into our own lives.
45:04 Yeah. In that, if God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, then when he walked up to the house, he said, I'm alive. When he walked on the, on this earth, he'd go through entire villages and heal people. So has that changed? Has his attitude towards people changed? No, no, no. He still wants everyone healed. Yeah. Mrs. White makes a statement that when she said to the leper, be thou cleansed, or to the. When Jesus said. Yeah. When Jesus said. Then he took in everybody throughout all of, into the future that would ever come to him with the same need and similar faith. And same request. So when he said, be clean or be healed, he wasn't just talking to that one person. He was talking to everybody throughout all of time, throughout all of history that had the same need and would come to him with the same faith. So his word in the Bible isn't just for those people, it's for us.
46:08 And so in Isaiah 53, five, it says by his stripes, we are healed. Okay. What tense is that? We are healed. That means we present tense. Exactly. And that was that, that healing is given to us by his stripes, which happened 2000 years ago. That healing is already, is already given to us. Now by faith, you know, Jesus said in Mark 11, 24, um, whatsoever you ask for believing you shall have. Believing that you have it. Then you will. Then you will have it. Believe that you have it and then you will have it. So here's the, here's the key to unlocking the power of God's word is to the only evidence you need to know that you've received what the word says is in the word itself.
47:07 So like for instance, um, my whole life I grew up as an Adventist. I never really experienced forgiveness of sins because I would say, Lord, please forgive me. That's like, I don't feel forgiven. I don't see any change in my behavior or attitude. So, you know, okay, Lord, I gotta, I gotta be more sorry for my sin. So I'd like try to be sorry for my sin, but how can a sinner really be sorry for sinning? You know, it's like, how can a fish be sorry for swimming in water? And so it's like, I would look everywhere else for the evidence of my forgiveness. But then when I learned these principles that the word of God is the only evidence we need to know that the word of God is true. If God has happened or that we have received it, I would look at for Sean one night, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us.
48:01 That word is the only evidence I need to know that that has been done. So I can step forward knowing that that word, God cannot lie. That word is true. And I can put my whole life on that word, knowing that that's all the evidence I need to know that I'm forgiven. And so then I can move forward in life. I can step forward in life as if I'm forgiven. That's faith. Because you are. That's faith. Yeah. Yeah. And that's faith. And that's the, that's the strongest place you can, that's the strongest evidence you can have in the world. Because what's more powerful, the physical or the spiritual? What's more powerful, the physical or the word? You know, what came first? What created what? You know, if I'm building Legos, what's superior, me or the Legos? You know?
48:54 And so the word is superior to the physical. And if there's a conflict, which one should win? The word. So this is how it works out practically. One time I was in, going to Thailand, we're going to buy a studio. And we'd gotten indication that we're getting the money to buy a studio. And I had to go through quarantine because it was COVID time. So 10 days in a hotel. So, and if I got. Tested with COVID, that'd be straight to the hospital for at least three weeks. And so I'm in there, it's like the fourth or fifth day. And I feel a little scratch in my nose. Oh no. A little scratch in my throat. Oh no. You know that, you know, the feeling and a little bit of headache there. And I says, Lord, I don't have time to get sick. I'm on your mission. I'm here for you. I'm doing what, I don't have time for this. And so I went through Mark 11, 22 to 24, which to me is like the most intense faith growth.
49:51 Uh, chapter, I mean, a verse, that one and John 11 and John 14, 12 to 14. I actually spoke those into my recorder and I listened to them over and over the John 14, 12 to 14. I listened to six hours driving and the six hours driving back. I just over and I, cause I need to hear that enough to make that sound normal rather than the rest of my life. Tell me again, which is, what is it? John 14, 12 to 14. John 14, which is he that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also and greater works than these because I go into my father and whatsoever you shall ask in my name, I will do it for you. Again, ask anything that you will, and I will do it for you. I call that a blank check. Ask anything you want and I'll do it for you. And then Mark 11, I'm sorry, Mark. Yeah. Mark 11, 22 to 24. It says, let the face of God be in you. Now see, that's the nature of the word of God.
50:50 And let the faith that this is the passion translation, which is a new translation, but it says, let the faith of God be in you. That captured my attention because it used to say in King James, have faith in God. It sounds like something I have to generate. See, but let the faith of God be in you. That sounds like a creation statement. And if the nature of the word of God is creative, then when I receive that word, it creates faith of God in me. And then it goes on to say, if anyone speaks to this mountain with great faith and having no doubt, be lifted up and cast into the middle of the sea and shall believe that what he says will happen, it will be done. What? It's like, Jesus? I mean, if it wasn't him speaking, I'd be pretty suspect, you know, but it's Jesus speaking and he defines reality. And I feel like in that verse, Jesus is opening up the hood to the universe and saying, this is how the universe runs.
51:54 Wow. The universe runs on the word of God. And then he's saying, you can be part of this. And that's why I think it's Peter that says life and death is in the tongue. In the word. What if everything that you said came true? Which is kind of true. That's what God has to live with. Everything that he says comes true. So how do we balance this with the idea that you can be as God, as Satan says? Because that sounds like, you know, if you can speak it as God speaks it. But wouldn't that make us like Mormons? We are little gods, right? That's the challenge. And Jesus actually addresses that when the disciples said, you know, Lord, increase our faith. And Jesus says, if you have faith, this is a grain of mustard seed. Then you can say to this mountain, be lifted up and it will be done. But after you do all these things, you know, if a servant comes back after working all day and the master says, do this and do this and feed me.
52:54 And then, you know, and you say, you say. You just sit down there and say, we are just servants. So there's a pride thing that grows. And this is a big deal. You got to deal with that pride. Because when you start seeing who you are in Christ, I mean, you, you are going to be part of a ruler in heaven. You know, the believers that go to heaven, what's God going to do to us? He's going to sit us at his right hand. So the pride naturally wants to come up. And that's the challenge. Doing these things. Well, one of them. One of the safeguards is that if you're not in Christ, it's not going to happen. So if you're not in that surrendered mode that Christ was in, you go up and say, you know, be healed. It's like, whatever. Or like the sons of Sceva, the seven sons of Sceva, they commanded the evil spirits to come out of that, those guys. And then they jumped on them and beat them up.
53:49 Stripped them naked. They run away. So the only way that this works is to maintain. I mean, Jesus was. He was so humble with his father. So my father's greater than I am. And we got to say the same thing. It's like, it's like somebody gives you a check and say, can you give this to Natalie? You give her the check. It's not you with the money. You didn't give her the money. You just carried the check. And that's, that's what Christ sees us as. You know, you carry, you carry him into people's lives. You know, the Jesus prayer, you know, they will be done on earth. As it is in heaven. That's our, that's our, that's our commission. That's the great commission there is take what we find in heaven and bring it to the darkest places of the earth. Oh, that's beautiful. And it's amazing to see everything that has happened and what you have seen so far, just doing what you're doing.
54:46 And all the people that have benefited from this. I mean, not benefited as in a materialistic way, but as in a spiritual way that they learn about Christ even more. Through this. Well, I'm learning and I'm starting to see it happen. And it's, it's beautiful. It really is beautiful because, you know, we don't have to, we feel I've, I don't know about others, but I feel like we feel like we were like victims of life. And Christ is offering us to be victors. He's offering us to be more than conquerors. That like. Like if a sickness starts coming on me, I don't have to receive it. You didn't finish that story. Which story? You were in the, and you started feeling.
55:36 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm in the quarantine. Okay. So I started to feel this thing and I'm like, oh man, I can't, I can't get sick. I don't have time to get sick. I got to go buy the studio. I got the money. It's like, I just don't have time, Lord. So I went through Mark 11, 22 to 24 several times. And I said, I, I believe. I believe that I am healed. I claim the promise. Isaiah 53, five by his stripes, I am healed. And I went through and I found other promises that I am healed. The Lord healed me. Lord, please heal me. I believe, believe. And then I'm check my body, check my head, my throat. Oh, I still have it. It's like, I got to pray harder, try harder, believe harder. And I did that for 45 minutes. And, and I'm like, well, I guess this, I guess I don't have enough faith right now. So I started walking around my, my hotel.
56:25 Hotel room and, and I started saying, wait a minute, I'm doing this wrong. I'm taking the word of God and I'm believing it. And then I'm checking with my body to see if the word of God has worked. So I'm believing my body above the word of God. I'm believing the symptoms are truer than the word of God. That's wrong. If there's a collision, if there's a conflict between the word of God and, and what my experience is, the word of God. The word of God always, always should win because it's first and foremost, it's most powerful. And so I go, I went back and I started praying and says, and I, and I started looking at if, you know, what, what evidence do I have to know that I'm well or that I'm sick? Is it, is it the things that I feel or the things that the word says?
57:19 Okay. So obviously, I mean, intellectually we say, well, it's what the word says because the word is stronger. But experientially. It's a whole nother story where you have to say, okay, I believe that I am healed because the word says it because the word says it doesn't matter what my symptoms say. And did that for about five minutes, fell asleep, half hour later, woke up, no symptoms whatsoever, completely healed, never went to the hospital. And this is working in other people's lives also. So we were prayer walking in Japan just recently. And one of the young guys, his back went out. He says, oh man, my back's hurting really bad. I got to go back and lay down. And he says, no, I don't think you have to do that. You mind if I, you know, lay a hand on you?
58:11 It's like, yeah, sure. So James, or it says, no, it's not James. It's Luke. I'm still learning this one. Or, you know, they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. They will be healed. So I claim that. I put my hand on his back. I said, Lord, thank you for healing this guy's back. He's like, whoa, it's fine. We can keep walking. Huh. I mean, that's what happened in the Bible. Yeah. Strange normal. Yeah, it is. Yeah, right. That's exactly what it is. I was preaching this about the nature of the word of God in Cuba. And afterwards, a lady came up to me and she says, well, you were preaching.
59:00 My, my, uh, my tailbone is healed. I was in a lot of pain. Tailbone was broken a long time ago. I've been dealing with pain for years. And during the middle of your preaching, it got healed. While we were in, in Japan just recently, a friend of mine who had chronic headaches, um, longstop and, uh, is, is genetic because her dad had a, a, a, a disease that, um, that gave him headaches every day. And so she was a carrier of that. And then when she was hearing about this, she's like, wait, does that mean I don't have to have a headache? Does that mean you think that God can heal? Cause it's in every, it's in my genetics, every cell. I says, yeah, he can heal. It's got stronger than genetics. Yeah. It can heal every single, he can rearrange every single DNA and every single cell in your entire body all at the same time. And she received it. She says, I don't have to receive, I don't have to accept this headache anymore. She hasn't had. She hasn't had a headache since. And that's been what?
1:00:02 Three months? Chronic headaches. Chronic headaches. Not a headache since. And every time there is a low pressure zone coming in, she'd get a headache. She'd come in like, oh, it's going to rain. It's going to rain. Oh no. Doesn't have that anymore. So has there ever been a time that, uh, and what, I guess this is the main question. What would cause this not to, not to function correctly? Yeah. Um, a lot of things. Uh, yeah. You know, my, like if I get pride going that gets in the way, if I have unbelief, uh, or what's the word, um, unforgiveness, anything like that, that can get in the way. Um, if the person you're praying for also, you know, if there's, if there's things in their life that are going to open the door for the devil to come in, then, you know, sometimes God uses our faith to overcome their doubt, but sometimes he doesn't.
1:00:58 Yeah. And so like Mrs. White said, there are conditions. To every promise there are conditions, but if the, if the conditions are fulfilled, there's no, nothing to stop the promise. I can't remember the exact words. Right. For that quote. No, she says the promise is unequivocal. That's right. That's what she says. What's unequivocal mean? There's nothing. Absolutely guaranteed. A hundred percent guaranteed. No. Wow. See, so we don't really believe the word. I mean, we read the word, we know what it says, but have we entered in to it, to the word to see what it really, really says? Jesus says, if my word is unquestionable, I will not believe it. If my words abide in you and you abide in me, but so ever you ask will be done. If we took that seriously, what if we really believed that? What kind of prayers? We surrender to God and we ask God for guidance and to do what he wants to do and to give us inspiration to pray for what he wants to have happen.
1:01:54 That's a huge. Then what's going to happen? Yeah. A lot of times we pray our own will. Yeah. We pray. One speaker says you have to pray. You have to have your laundry list, you know, and you're going to go through and ask for all your requests, whatever, but it's not like, Lord, what do you want to do? Right. And that's one thing we've learned with the prayer walking, like he was talking about in Japan. We're like, Lord, we don't know what to do in this place. So we're asking for whatever you want to have happen to happen here, you know, and we're asking for your spirit to be poured out and your holy angels to surround these people and stuff, because it's like, we don't know specifically God wants this thing to happen in this building or whatever. Yeah. But we know that he wants the people to know him. Yes. So by the word, we can have confidence knowing that he wants something done there. Yeah. And as we pray, he can guide our prayers and show us crazy stuff to pray for. And, you know, and if it's not crazy, it's not God.
1:02:47 I think Cabo Goya says that. It's not crazy, it's not God. The most effective. Interesting that you said that. The most effective method we've had for entering new cities is just praying like what she's saying. Really? Lord, what do you want? What do you want me to do in this place? We please do what you want to do in this place. And we claim Joshua one, three, wherever you place the soul of your foot that have I already given unto you. We claim this place as our inheritance. We claim the people here as our inheritance, according to Psalms two, eight, ask of me, and I will give you the heathen for there are inheritance. They belong to us. Lord, we want them do whatever you, and we don't know what to do here. We don't know if a language school would work, a clinic would, we don't know what, and we don't have the money or whatever. Lord, you move and you do what you want to do here. We've entered fought for on previously ever unentered cities in the last five years with that prayer, just by prayer.
1:03:42 And right now, I believe God's answering our prayers for Japan in a massive, beautiful, beautiful way. There is one time I'll tell you the story. Um, this just happened last week. I think maybe it was a week before very well-known speaker was up front speaking live television, and he had been. Having problems with his throat or he had surgery and his throat was going out and he's like, yeah, please pray for me. So during the middle of his sermon, he started coughing and he's like, his throat was really struggling. And I'm like, Lord, what do you want to do here? It's like, Lord, what do you want to do? It's like, is this cause there's been times when I've wanted to pray for a leader and the Lord says, no, don't pray for him and find out he's got sin in his life. The Lord is like, man, if the Lord had answered that prayer, it would have. Just amplified the sin even more. So I said, Lord, what do you want to do with this guy?
1:04:35 He says, yeah, no, I want to only heal him. So I said, okay, Lord, heal him in the name of Jesus, by his stripe, by Christ stripes, he is healed and immediately his coughing stopped and he preached strong through the rest of his sermon. And I'm like, really, wow. Did I get to be a part of that? Wow. You know, it's kind of like, you know, Jesus was sleeping in the boat and the disciples were freaking out and they asked him, Lord. You know, don't you care that we die? And they asked the savior of the world and the Jesus got, you know, he's kind of like you have little faith. He was, he operated them, you know, it's like, so why did he operate them? Cause they were in a tough spot. They appeal to divinity. Divinity came through and he saved them. Why was he upset with them? It's because he knew that they could have calmed the storm. Because they went from shivering in a boat to coming up to a guy that had been crippled all his life.
1:05:32 Saying in the name of Jesus, stand up and they didn't even pray for the guy. They just spoke it. This world works a lot different than I think that many people think. And I think, I think you're onto something here and I, I I'm blown away. I'm speechless. Cause I actually think that it's very difficult to believe. I think, I mean, I'm not talking about just believe what you say just to believe in general. And, um, and then again, it's not that hard. So at the same time, it's just, we have to get over this idea of, um, the way we think things are. I think there's two types of faith and, uh, there's sense, knowledge, faith, and word, knowledge, faith, sense, knowledge, faith is that we have faith in the things we see, touch, taste, feel, smell.
1:06:29 That's real. We've trained our life, ourselves, all our lives to believe that, you know, this is here because I can feel it. Word, knowledge, faith is it, we believe that it's true because the word says it. And so we have to train ourselves. This is the renewing of the mind. This is rewiring your brain to think according to what God says. And that's why, like I take, I have on my phone, you know, I have got, um, John 14, 12 to 14, and I play that over and over and over again. Cause I want that to start feeling less strange and more normal. I want that to be your reality. Right. I want that to be the reality and how I approach everything that comes at us in our lives. And, you know, we, with Jesus for Asia, Asia has 57% of the world's population.
1:07:21 So over 4 billion people that we're trying to reach is absolutely impossible. The only way we can even look at that, at that, that possibility in the face is just by miraculous faith. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I've been in, in countries in, in, um, in, in Asia where, you know, we always say, Lord, please finish the work so we can go home. It's like, there's places where the work is not going forward. It's going backwards. How can God finish the work when it's going backwards? The only way that I can believe that God will finish the work is by Matthew 24, 14, this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world. It's like, I'll hang my whole life, career, faith, everything. on that because if i look around it's like yeah this isn't happening bro what do you know and there's many places where the work really hasn't started yet right there's so many places where even if if somebody in the country knows jesus even if there's a small group of believers that know jesus there's other massive areas of the country that don't yeah take for instance a simple country like greece you know 10 million people we got maybe 400 believers for 10 million people well is that country reached nope nope and india india 400 000 towns and villages that haven't heard the gospel in any format from any including catholics yes there's definitely more people to reach yeah i miracles must happen in order to reach everybody and i think at the very end we'll all be one belief or another belief and in fact we kind of already are even even as atheists we are a belief system absolutely you have to believe that nothing created everything but yes yes and that's a bigger leap of faith than um yeah believing yeah absolutely absolutely so i guess in closing i guess what i what i'm seeing because we go on these prayer walking trips and and people catch it catch the concept and and and god does starts doing miracles for them immediately and so i i think the beautiful part about this is that god is no respecter of persons um this is open to anybody there's no like superhero faith hero and only he can have that kind of faith and see those kind of miracles he can do that with anybody anybody anybody that wants to um brand new believer old time believer i think the old time believers are have a harder time uh we're not going to be able to do that we're not going to be able to do that we're not going to walking in in this new way of this different way of thinking these this spiritual way of thinking of of living life than the old kind of like a different language yeah you know and we're we're used to thinking of faith as like a group of beliefs or set of beliefs and we're not used to thinking of faith as a way of life or a way of of connecting with god or an outgrowth of connecting with god so yeah it's like we i grew up um and i know that the family i come from and the environment that i come from religion tends to be quite intellectual you know we believe this way we it's like an ascent to the to the truth but it doesn't really invade us and become part of us you know but the lord says the spirit will dwell within you right christ in you the hope of glory know you not that you're the temple of the holy spirit that type of thing and say like you have the holy spirit living in you what does that
1:11:05 mean what does that actually mean who is this holy spirit how much power does he have he's he took god and put him in the womb of a woman who can do that you know he can do anything raise jesus from the dead so we have resurrection power living in us and to dwell in that you know and christ god is a happy god this is why it says that on desire of ages page 331 that heaven begins here now so we're always trying to get into heaven christ god is trying to get heaven into us so heaven begins now and she defines heaven as a ceaseless approaching to god through christ so that experience is a heavenly experience and she says all that all and the and the and the closer throughout all of eternity the more we know of god's character the more we know of him the more intense will become our happiness so if he if throughout all of eternity we can become more happy by drawing more closely more closer to him what does that say about his happiness infinitely happy we serve a happy god and his love she says i forgot that he's 641 or something where she says in desire of ages that all the love that's ever flowed through the hearts of man from beginning of time until now is but a trickle compared to the ocean of the love the father has for us so if we dwell on that if we dwell on his character on who he is and we can go into his presence christ has lifted us up and put us in no father's put us in help me out ephesians 2 6 he's he's raised us from the dead yeah and he's put us in christ in heavenly places that's and jesus yeah okay even jesus okay john 3 13 where he says no one has ascended to the father but he that came from the father and is in the father and is in heaven right now so jesus was sitting on a rock talking to nicodemus saying that he is in heaven so it's like that's the same thing with us we're here physically but i mean if you died right now god would have a backup copy updated to the millisecond of you he'd be able to recreate you exactly the way you are right now so that's So somehow, I don't understand this, and it's not some weird metaphysical thing.
1:13:46 It's a spiritual thing. Spiritually, we are, I don't know how, but we are in heaven as we are here. And Christ had that concept. He lived his whole life from the perspective of heaven to earth. We're always living from earth to heaven. So I used to pray, Lord, please send what we need to take care of these children. Okay, so I would picture myself on earth. God's in heaven. Jesus is at the right hand, and I'm trying to twist his arm to get him to come to earth and do something, right? But when I read Ephesians 2.6, I realized I'm not on earth trying to get him to invade my situation. I'm sitting next to him. So when I'm praying, is there anything that gets in the way of our conversation? Nothing at all. Nothing at all. And so then, therefore, it's more like a collaborate.
1:14:42 In John 17, Jesus says, I will that we be one, as you are one in me, and I am one in you, that they be one in us. What? Jesus is inviting us into the inner sanctum of the Trinity? I mean, these are thoughts that are way too big for my little brain. And I just have to receive it by faith and say, okay, Lord, you made this. You arranged this. You designed this. I had no input on this whatsoever, but I praise you. I praise you, and I want that to become a reality in my daily life. When I wake up in the morning, how do I treat my wife? What do I say to my wife? She's a child of God. She's dwelling in—the Holy Spirit is dwelling in her. The God is dwelling in her. I mean, she's not God. But, you know, the Holy Spirit's dwelling in her, and she's an heir to the kingdom, and she is in the presence of God.
1:15:41 And what I say to her, God hears. And so how am I going to talk to her? I'm going to lift her up. Are you kidding? I'm going to lift her up and treat her like royalty, because that's how God sees her. And so it comes in—you know, it's all cerebral, ethereal concepts, but it comes right down to incredibly practical. Practical, how do you live your life? How do you walk forward? You know, more than conquerors. What is that me? To be more than a conqueror. Because that's how God sees you. That's how God sees me. More than a conqueror. And Mrs. White says this amazing statement. She says that Christ can look on all the suffering of the world without a shade of sorrow for having created man. Why?
1:16:34 Because he sees what man can become in relation, when Christ comes in. And so this is available to anybody. Anybody. No, Christ is no respecter of persons. Anybody receives this and starts pursuing it, it's all open to them. Wow. Wow. Praise God. And I—and praise God for what you guys are doing for 20, 30 years? 30 years. 20 years. 20 years, yeah. It's been—you've been doing this. And if someone needed to get a hold of you, or if they wanted to help you guys out, how do they do that? You've got it memorized. Do you want address, phone number, email? Website. Website, yeah. Modern. Yeah. So they can contact us at jesusforasia.org. So, Jesus, the number four, Asia, A-S-I-A dot O-R-G.
1:17:31 Very good. jesusforasia.org. And that's all your contact information, everything you need right there. Very good. Absolutely. Yeah. So, we—you know, I'd like to invite you. And whoever is watching to go on a prayer walk. We're doing several this year, and we're going to be prayer walking different cities, some a little more dangerous than others, some a little more enchanting than others. But we're going to go out and prayer walk, and we do the training, the face training. And it's really cool because we talk about it, and then we go and apply it. And prayer walking is unique because you don't see with your eyes what God is doing, but you believe by faith that he's doing what we're asking him to do. And then later we see amazing things that he's doing. Amen. And so, prayer walks is really good.
1:18:23 You don't have to join us to go on a prayer walk. You can just go to Walmart, and instead of coming in and saying, I've got to buy this, this, and this, you can come in and say, Lord, like Elisha, you know, his servant says, Master, we're surrounded by the enemy. And Elisha said, Lord— And the Lord opened his eyes, and he saw the angel host. What if we walked into Walmart with the angel hosts surrounding us? What would that do in the unseen world? How would, you know, let's say somebody's in there battling depression, and a dark spirit's pushing that depression on them. Then you walk in with the angel hosts, pushes that spirit back. That person doesn't know what happened to them, but they're suddenly lighter. There's a story of a man that would go into a health food restaurant, and every time he went in, he would— He would stay outside and pray until he had a conscious presence of the Holy Spirit.
1:19:16 Then he'd go in, up and down the aisles, buy a sandwich, and leave. And after a year, the owner said, hey, come here. Seems like every time you come in here, somehow the atmosphere changes. Oh, wow. And then there's stories about Roger Marneau praying for people. And all these things. So start pursuing. Start entering in and see what God does in your life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what God has been teaching us that, like before we go to Walmart, we say, Lord, you know, yeah, we have these errands to run, but I know that everybody around us needs prayer all the time for something. You know, we don't know what it is, but they need prayer for something. So, Lord, help me to be sensitive to your spirit. So if you tell me something, that person needs prayer for something, that I will pray for them, that I will hear you, and that I will pray for them. And then you can work in their life.
1:20:12 You know, so we don't advocate going up and saying, can I pray for you? Can I pray for you? Unless God impresses you to do that. We don't advocate that. But it's like to realize and to recognize that everybody needs prayer. You know, so as we go prayer walking, we ask the Lord to show us something to pray for each house, for example. And we'll see children's play equipment out in the yard. Well, we know then they're either parents or grandparents or, you know, something. And so we can pray for those children. To grow in the knowledge and understanding of God, to become the young people and the men and women that God wants them to be, you know. And we see driving by on the road one time, I saw a handicapped man. And it was just like, pray for them, whoever's handicapped in that family, their caregivers and family, that they'll know that you're with them through this hard thing that they're having to go through. And, you know, just different things like that.
1:21:03 So we pray and ask God to help us to be sensitive so he can show what we need to pray for. Yes. In many of our prayer walking trips, we go overseas. But those both of those instances happen near here. So it's like we can pray anywhere. Yeah. And that's the awesome part is to recognize that when we go with God somewhere, then he is really with us. Yeah. And his angels are really with us. And there's an Ellen White quote that she says that angels are waiting by the throne, waiting to come to earth, to be sent to earth to answer our prayers. Yes. So one of our missionaries. One of our missionaries was like, he found that quote and he's like, it totally changed my prayer walks because he was prayer jogging and prayer walking through a park. You know, we use the term prayer walking. Some people have like alarm bells that go off because there's some weird beliefs about prayer walking out there, but it's just simply walking and praying. And so he was jogging and praying. Mainly praying. So it's not like walking a labyrinth or anything. Oh, no.
1:22:02 No, no, no. And we don't have to put a step on every single place. The only reason we go there is so that we think about them more. Yeah. And focus on, you know, praying for their specific needs. So if we go to a certain country, we'll pray for that country's certain needs. If we know something about the culture. Like, for instance, if I ask you to pray for Panganderon, you're like, what? You know, and how long would you be able to pray for them? But if you go there and we took a group there, prayed six days in that place. Now we know, okay, I know the streets. I've seen the people. I've met some people. They're heavier on my heart. I'm able to intercede. I'm able to intercede for them much more clearly and focusedly. That's the reason we go to these places. Yes. But anyway, he was prayer jogging in a park in Thailand one time. And he was like, and he was thinking about this quote.
1:22:52 And he's like, Lord, send an angel to that person. And Lord, send an angel to that person. You know, because he's like, I'm passing these people as I'm jogging. I don't know anything about them. All I can see is whatever they're doing in the park. But it's like, Lord, whatever you need to do in their life. Mm-hmm. Send your spirit. Send your angels so that you can work in their life. Yeah, yeah. And block what the devil's been doing for centuries in these places with, you know, evil spirits and having free reign there. Yeah. You know, for so many years. And this is what, this attitude, you know, like going to Walmart, it turns it into a beautiful experience. Mm-hmm. Because praying, we often think, you know, praying, a lot of people think praying is like, I have this laundry list of things I'm going to talk to God about. Mm-hmm. But praying really is connecting with the supernatural. Mm-hmm. The good side. Yeah. The really good side.
1:23:44 The loving, wonderful, gracious, merciful God. Yeah. And so to have that presence with you as you go into these places, it's pleasurable. It is. Yeah. It's pleasurable. And finding promises to claim. You know, we go through, many times before prayer walking, we'll go through and look for promises. One time in Pangandran, the city he was talking about, we spent an hour or an hour and a half. Looking for promises. Then we came together and shared the different promises. And everybody's like, hey, you stole my promise. You know, you got my, you got to say it before I did, you know, promise stealer. But it was like to recognize how much of the word of God is available to claim for the heathen, for the lost, for the Gentiles. You know, all these different terms that are used in the scripture that show that these are for salvation. Yeah. For saving people. Yeah. And in doing this, we're really stepping up. We're stepping into our true identity because Christ sees us as priests and kings in the revelation.
1:24:44 In Exodus 19, he says, I want you to be priests and kings in revelation, priests and kings unto God. And so priests intercede. Yeah. Priests intercede. You carry the names of the 12 tribes on their chest. So we go and we intercede for the people that are lost. That's one of the things Roger Morneau did at the end of his life. Yes. He became prayer ministry. And I thought, this guy really, he got it. Because that's what he started doing. He knew the closest you could be to God is in prayer to him and helping other people. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And it takes a focus off of ourselves. You know, it helps us to see other people with similar issues sometimes or other people that have bigger issues than we do. And it makes our problems smaller. And also as we focus on claiming the promises and we focus on, you know, because when you're prayer walking, it's a faith journey.
1:25:37 Because you're not going to see results most of the time. But you can see divine appointments. Like you'll go down a certain street and this happened in Japan. God introduced us to a lovely older couple. Because the Lord directed you down that street. We're going to go down that street. Yep. And so it, and we met them and we got to enjoy their garden and we got to pray with them. And then at the end, the lady comes up to the, to the half Japanese lady we had with us, grabs her by the arm and says, where is your church? Oh. You know, so it's like. God can direct you when you're focusing on him. And, and we've seen that over and over again, that when you look to God, your problems get smaller and God gets larger. When you spend time praising him, especially looking at his character, looking at how big he is and thanking him and, and stuff. It just, it makes God bigger, which he is.
1:26:29 He is bigger. That's one of the t-shirts I, we made for a couple of friends and I want to make more of them. It says God is bigger. And that's from greater is he. That is in you than he, that is in the world because he is bigger. And anyway, he can dispel every darkness and every pain and every sickness and everything that we, that we encounter in this world. Absolute. Yeah. Absolute. Well, thank you so much for coming. This has been a very, very interesting, this conversation would, would either you like to close us in prayer? Sure. Would you like to? Sure. Okay. Dear father in heaven. I just want to thank you. Thank you for this time where we could talk about the great things that you have taught us of your word. And we know that we don't know the half of it yet. We don't really know you, but we love learning about you and we love seeing what you're doing. I just want to thank you for how you're working in every single person's life in this whole world and how you have enough to go around enough love, enough mercy and enough grace for everybody in this world.
1:27:34 And I ask that you'll be with the viewers and help them to give their lives into your hands. So they can see you do amazing things for them. Thank you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen.