Hello and welcome back to the PHSA podcast.
My name is David Bigford.
I'm the pastor here at SalmonArm.
This is a very special podcast series where I'm going to be sharing with you messages
from our most recent conference in Prescott, Arizona, the Beyond Limits Conference with
a theme of to preach the gospel in the regions beyond from 2 Corinthians 10-16.
I'm going to share all of the sermons from this conference series to include Greg Mitchell,
our head pastor, Joe Campbell, Richard Ruby, Tom Payne, and many, many others during this
series.
So I'll be sharing these with you over the next couple of weeks.
And I hope you really enjoy these messages.
If you'd like to see these messages in a video format, you can go to PrescottPottersHouse.com
where all of these will be available for you to view in a video format.
So without further ado, I'm going to pass, I'm going to go ahead and move on to the messages
and I hope you enjoy them.
God bless.
Amen.
What a great message that was.
Tremendous privilege for me, tremendous honor to preach.
Thank you, Pastor Greg.
If you have your Bibles with you, please go to Genesis 45.
I'd like to read 23 until 28.
I never really liked Poland at least.
For a long time I didn't like it.
One of my first references that I had with Poland is with going with a team on our way
to Brno in Czech Republic.
And we went through Poland and there was this crossroads in Poznan.
We were there with three or four cars and all of a sudden eight young men come out of
the bushes and they, not out of the bushes, but they were there and they were throwing
a lot of foam on our car, washing our car in a way that I could not see nothing through
my windshield anymore.
And I wanted to say, stop, stop, stop.
It's clean already.
Don't do that.
I don't need this.
But you know what they want?
They want to clean the car and then they want the money.
So I put down the windshield and got my wallet and all of a sudden this hand goes in, grabs
the wallet.
Money flying everywhere on the street.
Eight guys, they scatter in eight different directions and I see my wallet go.
I did not know which guy had it, but I made a choice.
I went after one of the guys and with the grace of God, it was the guy with the wallet.
I was screaming.
I was using all sorts of words that I could still remember from the past before I got
saved and with God's help, it was the right guy.
All of a sudden he turned around, put up his hands, put the wallet back down and ran off
into the woods.
So I was so happy.
I was so thankful, but I was still shaking and I thought this nation, there's something
the matter with this nation.
I do not like this nation at all.
It was not my first reference as a disciple.
I remember that we had a big city bus in the Church of Swolle and we went to the border
of Russia and Lithuania and we would pick up Russian disciples and drive them through
Lithuania, Czech, Poland, Germany and bring them into Holland.
And so that was a great adventure.
We would do that a few times, but I remember in one of those trips, I was driving the bus.
We were stopped in the middle of the night, this policeman starts yelling at us and he
goes on and on and on and we think what is the problem?
What did we do wrong?
And then we find out the only thing that he wants, he wants to check our papers.
So KGB like assault on our car and that was our meeting with Poland at that moment.
So these were my references.
When later on people would speak to me about Poland and you know pastor, perhaps a church
in Poland, I would say something in the like of perhaps other nations.
There's money-money nations in Europe.
Let's not talk about Poland.
But last year we went into Czech Republic again and we were driving through Poland and
it was a whole other situation.
The sun was shining and we were driving on these highways and these highways, they were
beautiful.
They were brand new.
They were long.
They were wide.
They looked even better than the German Autobahn.
I was excited.
We could go fast.
I saw a lot of new industrial development.
I saw shopping malls, brand new, very nice looking.
We went to a gasoline station and people were very friendly.
Actually they were very nice.
They served good coffee.
We were treated very nicely.
And so my whole view about Poland changed.
And I'm thinking perhaps if somebody wants to come now and speak about starting a church
in Poland, I have a whole other opinion.
So this is something that struck me.
I was thinking for many, many years I have this idea and I have this idea because my
last reference was not a good reference and I stay with that reference for many, many
years until I find out the truth which is totally different.
So let's read in Genesis 45 starting at verse 23.
This is the story of Jacob and then he hears that his son Joseph is alive.
The Bible says that Joseph sent to his father these things, ten donkeys loaded with the
good things of Egypt and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and food for his
father for the journey.
So he sent his brothers away and they departed and he said to them, see that you do not become
troubled along the way.
Then he went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to Jacob, their father, and
they told him saying, Joseph is still alive and he is governor over all the land of Egypt
and Jacob's heart stood still because he did not believe them.
But when they told him all the words which Joseph had said to them and when he saw the
cards which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob, their father, revived.
Then Israel said, it is enough.
Joseph my son is still alive.
I will go and see him before I die.
I'd like to speak for a moment on reviving the spirit.
First I want to look at a formed opinion.
See things we go through, experience we go through, they form our opinions.
What I experienced in Poland, I know it is long ago, but it was my last experience.
They were my last impressions and that stayed with me.
I remember that I was just happy to leave that nation and drive into Germany and then
later into Holland.
Your last experiences, your last thoughts about the situation, they stay with you and
they form your opinion.
Also what forms your opinion are words which are spoken to you.
My wife is from Aruba, the Caribbean and many young people from the Caribbean, from Aruba
at least, they come to Holland to study.
But before she came to Holland she had a conversation with a lady and that lady had some experience
in Holland and she shared her opinion about Holland.
She would say in Holland in the winter time it gets dark very early.
In the winter time and in autumn there is a lot of rain that falls in Holland.
After the rain you get snow and it gets very cold.
It is very grey in Holland and all the leaves fall from the trees.
People in Holland she said, they become very depressed.
Especially in December there is a lot of suicides in Holland because it is a very depressing
moment and a depressing time of the year because of the winter.
She made it sound like the grim reaper has made his home in Holland.
But in reality my wife she came to Holland and you find out, I can advise it to you,
that the winters in Holland are very present.
They are very cosy, they are pleasant.
You have hot chocolate, you have coffee, you have your wood stove and you have your heater
or whatever it is and you have a nice and cosy home.
You eat green pea soup and flapjacks.
So it is a fantastic time to be in the winter in Holland.
My wife is totally convinced about that.
But in the first years she said when winter time would come I remember the words that
were spoken to me.
Now in our story we have Jacob and Jacob had heard Joseph is dead, torn apart by a wild
animal.
And those words they had stuck with him.
That was the last impression that had stayed with him.
All the other sons had told him this and this was fixed in his mind.
See it is possible to hear things about nations, about cities, about situations, about people.
Sometimes people speak a derogative remark about a certain person or about a certain
couple.
And if you are not careful it sticks with you.
These are the last words that you heard about somebody until you meet this couple, until
you meet this person and you spend some time with them and you find out it was totally
untrue what you heard about them.
It was a wrong impression that was given to me.
These are nice people.
This is a nice couple.
And the problem is my memory or my thoughts were formed by some words and those stuck
with me, they influenced me for many years.
And this is exactly what happened also in the life of Jacob.
He heard the words from his other sons and the Bible says this, his heart stood still.
Another translation said his heart was stunned.
It means to almost stop.
The Dutch translation says his heart remained cold or you could say his heart was frozen.
He had a hard time of believing something else.
His heart was frozen in the last impression that was given to him.
If you look at the Hebrew word it's the word po-oke and that means slow.
It means faint.
It means weak.
His heart was weak.
His heart was stopping.
He could not believe.
He was not able, his heart was not able to believe good things.
His heart was not able to receive good things.
So impressions or words have the ability to form our hearts and to do something with our
hearts.
We have the story of Naomi in the Bible.
We know that she came back to the city of Bethlehem and the Bible says that when she
returned all the city was excited.
Apparently she was a known personality.
But she is not happy.
The Bible says that she comes with this remark in Ruth 1.21, I went out full and the Lord
has brought me home again empty.
And the Almighty has afflicted me.
She says I came back empty.
But if you look at the next verse the Bible says that she came together with Ruth from
Moabite the daughter-in-law she came with her and it was at the beginning of the barley
harvest.
So here is Naomi and she says I am empty but right next to her there is Ruth.
The Bible says that the moment that she came back it was the beginning of the barley harvest.
So I am wondering about Ruth what is she thinking here is her mother-in-law and her mother-in-law
makes this remark I came alone empty.
What did Ruth think?
Who am I?
Am I also part of empty?
And that is not really a nice compliment.
But Ruth or sorry Naomi was not capable of seeing another reality.
She was not able to see what God had given to her.
She was not able to see that Ruth was next to her.
She was not able to see that God brought her at the beginning of a barley harvest.
There was a new future.
There was a new season for her life.
She sees life through sorrowful glasses because these were the last impressions that were
made in her life and she says I am empty.
Her heart was stuck with the last experiences that she had had in life.
See looking at Jacob what I also find remarkable that his sons only tell once that his son
Joseph is torn apart by a wild animal and he believes it.
Now his sons come and they say it is not true what we have said a number of years ago.
Your son Joseph is alive.
Now he has great difficulty believing that.
How is it possible that a sad story was brought to him and he takes that he believes that
but now there is a good story and this is the truth he has a hard time believing that.
See the Bible says in Jeremiah 17 verse 9 that the heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked who can know it.
Deceitful in literal translation this means a heart that trips us up.
A deceitful heart is a heart that trips us up.
I was thinking about the birth of my brother.
My younger brother is six years younger than I am and so when this baby is born and after
a few months after a year starts to walk and you have this little boy and he makes his
first paces in life and I am the older brother I am six years older and so there is nothing
more interesting than just to put your leg like this and to see what is happening and
I thought it was great fun.
My mother had another opinion about that but we are not speaking about that this morning
but this is how our heart is.
Our heart trips us up.
It causes us to stumble and it causes us not to go on it causes us that we are limited.
The Bible says that the heart is wicked.
Another translation says the heart is sick.
A literal translation says the heart is incurable.
Another translation says the heart is inclined to melancholy just like songs which are in
minor like I thought so.
This is going to stay like that.
This is the problem with that person.
This is never going to change.
This is the situation in our city.
Other situations other cities other pastors other churches it goes better there but here
we are stuck with this situation this city and it is hard in this place.
See the default faith of the natural man is negative and this was the lie that Jacob believed.
See the devil is a liar.
He did not believe something that was true.
He believed something that was totally untrue but the default faith of a human being is
easily inclined to believe in the negative.
I read about the civilian people in Japan during the second world war and they were
told they were lied to about the American soldiers.
They were lied to about them.
They were told these young men they are extremely cruel.
They will come.
They will horribly abuse you and this was the lie that was brought upon them only to
find out that they were lied to that it was totally untrue that MacArthur and his army
came with grace and compassion and a lot of help and after a few years of the influence
of General MacArthur the Japanese people wept when MacArthur went back to the United States
and they found out they have all been believing in a lie.
So Jacob said I have a hard time believing the good news.
He was stuck for a long time in a lie and that limited his life.
So secondly I'd like to speak about the pool the sudden pool or the yank towards reality
because this is what God is doing in his life and he does that through the words of Joseph.
The Bible says in first 27 when they told him all the words with Joseph had said to
them.
So the brothers brought the words of Joseph to Jacob.
We need words to bring us to other thoughts.
We need words to bring us to another idea.
Here is an image here is a type of Jesus Christ.
He speaks words in the life of his father just like before we got saved somebody needed
to speak to us somebody needed to testify to us to yank us in another direction to hear
about all the possibilities of God for our lives.
Somebody to speak to us and say there's an answer for you there's grace of God to deliver
there's grace of God to change there's a new life for you there's a new start in life for
you.
We needed good words.
That is the reason also that we come to conference.
We need to hear words words that will pull us towards the reality that is in Jesus Christ.
The solutions that he has for us the grace that he has for us the answer that he has
for our situation.
The devil is a liar.
He says situations in your city will always stay like that that person or that pastor
or this problematic situation it's going to stay it's going to remain like this.
It will never change.
We have problems that other people do not have.
That is a lie and we need the words of God to speak in our lives.
That's why we have conference that we hear what God will do and he is willing and he
is dedicated to yank at our hearts to bring a sudden pull to our hearts and to reveal
to us his truth and his answers what he can do and what he wants to do in our city.
So the women in Bethlehem they start to speak to Naomi and they say to Naomi blessed be
the Lord who has not left you this day without a close relative and may he be to you as a
restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age your daughter-in-law who loves you and
she is better than seven sons.
So they speak words and this brings restoration to the life of Naomi.
They tell Naomi what the reality really really is that there is a blessing in her life through
Ruth not only there is a blessing in her life with her daughter-in-law but also there is
a new future there is a new destiny a child is born there is a new season for your life.
So God is dedicated in pulling us towards him just like Jesus Christ he speaks to Thomas
and he says I want you to come here reach your finger here look at my hands reach your
hand here and put it into my side.
So he is dedicated he says I want you to be pulled in reality I want you to know what
the truth really is you did believe the wrong thing you believe that there is no solution
you believe there is no way out you allowed your life to be limited but I am dedicated
to you that I will show you that there is something beyond the limits that you have
now in your life.
Isaiah was a young man he grew up under the reign of King Isaiah and this was a great
king.
The Bible says after 52 years of reign this man died and without doubt Isaiah was affected
heavily because of that.
The Bible says in Isaiah 6 verse 1 that in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord
sitting on a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple.
So the king here lives and dies and Isaiah he must have been struck with grief and now
God reveals himself to him he speaks to him and he says Isaiah don't be discouraged don't
be dismayed I am still sitting on the throne I have power for you I have answers for you
I have a season for you this is the heart of God he is dedicated at pulling at our hearts
and showing us the reality and he wants to take away the last impressions sometimes not
the best impressions.
So let me close with speaking about reviving the spirit the Bible says that the spirit
of Jacob their father revived this is like a sudden wind this is like a gust of fresh
air another translation says he lived a new and fresh life it's like blowing in a smoldering
fire and bring it to a new ignition to bring it to a new fire.
See this is the nature of our God he is dedicated in reviving and changing and reanimating our
hearts.
Isaiah 57 he speaks about his nature and his character he says I am the high and the lofty
one I am the one who inhabits eternity whose name is holy I dwell in the high and the holy
place and with him who has a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the
humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
The Spanish Bible says here I am dedicated but I reanimate the spirit to bring new life
to resuscitate your heart to make the heart live again he says this is my nature I am
the high and the lofty one he says I live in eternity I am all powerful and I use my
power I put it to use in reanimating in reviving spirit of my people.
So we see how God is working here in the heart of Jacob he is reviving his heart and Jacob
says okay I will see Joseph and I will die it's enough I will see Joseph it's good news
and I will die.
See but God is reviving his heart God is speaking to him not only to give him an emotional fix
he's not speaking to him just to give him a happy moment we are not here in this conference
just to be emotionally touched God has a lot more for us if we look at Jacob the Bible
says at the moment that he hears the word of Joseph he is already 130 years in age.
See for God it was not enough he wanted to do a whole lot more listen what the Bible
says in Genesis 47 verse 27 so Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt in the country of Goshen
and they had possessions there and grew and multiplied exceedingly and Jacob lived in
the land of Egypt 17 years so the length of Jacob's life was 147 years.
So God is saying I did not bring you here and I'm not going to bring you to Egypt just
to give you a happy moment not only to let you know that your son Joseph is alive and
then you can die and then it's over God gave him another 17 years he gave him a whole new
future here is Jacob he sees the prosperity of his people he sees a growth in prosperity
there's a whole part of the land Goshen that has been given to them he sees fruitfulness
he sees his grandchildren he sees his family changing and becoming a nation God says this
is what I do for you I own I'm not only dedicated to change your heart I'm not only dedicated
to give you another view but I'm dedicated to give you another destiny there's something
else beyond the limits that you have thought for yourself there's a whole new season there's
a whole new destiny for you and I want you to enjoy that and I want you to see that.
Jacob said I will just go and I will see but God had a whole lot more the Bible speaks
about Naomi that she came from the land of Moab but she came also in Bethlehem at the
beginning of the barley harvest it was not only that she saw God's kingdom that she saw
the city of Bethlehem but she saw also a whole new harvest a whole new destiny developing
before her eyes so here we have Jacob Jacob allowed God to speak to his heart Jacob allowed
God to revive his spirit and then he said I will go and see we're gonna have a great
week we already had a great start with Pastor Greg with Pastor Lamb and we're gonna have
a great week it's my prayer that God will speak to our hearts that we will be revived
that we will look at the situations in our churches that we will look at the situations
in our cities and some of these situations seems to be stuck and seem to be like well
it will stay like that will it will there be an answer will there be a solution for
that but God wants to change us and he wants to look farther and says to us hey there's
there's something beyond this there is an answer with God there is no impossibilities
I was thinking of a young couple in our church they went out three years ago class and rose
they went to a city near to us with the name of Almalo well Almalo for many many years
we stayed clear or we steered clear of that city somewhere in the past somebody tried
it did not go well and most of the door directors from our church steered clear of Almalo in
it is a city not too big there's not a lot of students there's a lot of unemployment
economic activity doesn't seem to be very strong but class after all these years he
is now a young door director ready to be sent out and he says I want to go to Almalo because
it's near to Zwolle and I want to go to that city and we sent him out in the midst of covid
and that was a bit of a concern to us but they went full of faith they went full of
desire full of the prospects of what God could do in that city and lo and behold he started
he got immediate favor from the city council he got a nice building and because of covid
he had a small group of people in a bigger building that's no problem so he started and
from the beginning it started to take off perhaps not many students in that city but
a lot of young people in that city now he has a lot of couple in his churches it's a
thriving church and he told me a few months ago we have our first marriage retreat or
first marriage weekend so many couples there are so many people and this is in a place
where people thought this is difficult this is not the right place the circumstances all
our impressions all our ideas all the words that were spoken about this city they don't
seem well but he listened to what God spoke in his heart and he believed something else
he believed what God could do in that city the bible says that Jacob listened and then
he went so at the end of this week we all will go back to our cities and I believe this
conference will change us I believe this conference will speak to our hearts I believe this conference
will do something in our hearts I believe it's gonna reanimate our hearts it's gonna
revive our hearts it's gonna do something that we will believe for more perhaps situations
which are difficult and which seems to be stuck we have building problems we have all
sorts of problems situations that seems to be yeah it's it's it's hard but God will
speak to us and on the moment that we will go back I believe God will do something new
he will not only speak.
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