Participants: Alex Niculaescu
Series Code: 16GYC
Program Code: 16GYC000003A
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00:40 All is well, all is well,
00:49 angels and men rejoice; 00:59 for tonight darkness fell 01:08 into the dawn of love's light. 01:17 Sing alle, 01:21 sing alleluia. 01:31 All is well, all is well, 01:40 let there be peace on earth. 01:49 Christ is come; go and tell 01:58 that He is in the manger. 02:07 Sing alle, 02:11 sing alleluia. 02:21 All is well, all is well, 02:30 lift up your voice and sing. 02:39 Born is now Emmanuel, 02:49 born is our Lord and Savior. 02:57 Sing alleluia. 03:02 Sing alleluia. 03:11 All is well. 03:31 Hello, GYC. 03:34 I'd ask you all how you are, but you'd probably all 03:36 give me different answers. 03:39 It's good to be here. 03:40 I'm very, very honored. 03:42 A bit nervous. There's quite a lot of you here. 03:44 I've never spoken before so many people before. 03:47 There we go, that's a little bit better. 03:49 Now you're all one person, one large person. 03:51 Like the body of Christ should be. 03:54 Alright. 03:56 So today's topic, Human Trafficking. 04:01 I don't know how much you guys know about it, 04:03 but I was asked to speak to you about human trafficking, 04:08 about my testimony, about prayer, 04:11 and about the investigative judgment; 04:12 and I've got 49 minutes. 04:16 There were some things I was going to leave out, 04:18 and I was going to basically just focus on the testimony 04:20 just because the amount of time that we have, 04:23 but in all honesty I don't think that you'd be able to 04:26 truly understand the gravity and the enormity 04:31 of what we call human trafficking 04:33 without including some parts. 04:34 So I've written them down so that I can, for sake of brevity, 04:37 read through it real quick. 04:40 I want to warn you... 04:44 ...human trafficking is not a pretty subject. 04:46 So we are going to talk about some, I guess you could say, 04:48 more mature subject matter. 04:50 If you get uncomfortable about those kinds of things, 04:52 I won't feel offended. 04:53 I know it's not on the heart of everyone. 04:55 It's a bit difficult for some people to swallow. 04:58 But I would also like to ask for forgiveness. 05:02 If anybody in here knows who I am and I've offended 05:04 you in any way, then please forgive me. 05:08 Because I cannot bring my gift before the altar 05:10 until I've made it good. 05:12 And so I pray that you would do that. 05:14 I'd like to begin with the definition of human trafficking. 05:17 Human trafficking often times is associated 05:20 with just trafficking; moving of persons 05:23 from one place to another. 05:24 When I talk about it, people generally assume 05:27 that it's, "Oh, some people coming from Thailand or Europe 05:30 or Africa to America being prostituted and whatnot." 05:33 I'm not talking about that. 05:35 Human trafficking often times is used as an umbrella term, 05:39 but in reality what I'm talking about is modern day slavery. 05:43 And I want to give you a definition of what slavery is. 05:46 At its core, it is the exploitation of another 05:50 person's vulnerability for the sake of one's own profit. 05:55 If we think about what that means, ultimately you and I 05:59 can be traffickers, because we do that to each other. 06:03 There are vulnerabilities that we see in other people, 06:05 and sometimes we just want to take advantage of it 06:08 to get our own way. 06:10 We are all capable of being human traffickers. 06:15 We're all capable of peddling lies or peddling each other. 06:20 But what we're talking about today is that principle, 06:24 but at the higher level. 06:26 Slavery in the modern day world. 06:30 If you'd bow your heads with me, I'd like to open 06:32 with a word of prayer. 06:37 Father, Lord You are our Father. 06:42 And sometimes I wonder how it is that You see us, Your children, 06:47 and what it is that we do to each other. 06:50 How it must break Your heart, not only what we do 06:53 to each other, but often times those who are nearest to You 06:56 neglect to help those that are in need. 07:00 Lord, I pray that You would open up our hearts, 07:02 that You would open up our minds, to see 07:06 how it truly plays out in the great controversy, 07:08 this idea of slavery. 07:10 And how You, oh Lord, the God of the exodus, 07:14 Christ on the cross, all the examples that You've given us 07:18 of how You've come to set us free, 07:21 to deliver us, oh Lord, from slavery. 07:23 How You also want to make us abolitionists; 07:27 redeemer, oh Lord, of those who are lost. 07:31 I pray, Lord, that You would give us wisdom, that You would 07:33 give me, oh Lord, the words to say. 07:35 There's a lot I could say, but I pray, Lord, that You would 07:37 give me what I should say. 07:39 I thank You, Lord, for Your goodness, 07:40 for the answering of this prayer. 07:42 May Your Holy Spirit be upon us. 07:43 For we ask it in the name of Jesus, amen. 07:47 Well my last request before we start is, I want you guys 07:52 not to draw quick conclusions. 07:54 There's a tendency, when we talk about a subject 07:56 that is so great, that it's very difficult for me 07:59 to kind of reduce it. 08:01 So there's a lot of aspects that exists, but we're not 08:05 going to really discuss them. 08:06 I'm going to focus on a very, very, very small window. 08:09 I'm going to do the best that I can to give you a general view, 08:12 but most of it is going to be how I believe God has 08:15 called us to answer the problem. 08:18 If you have more questions about what the problem looks like, 08:21 find me and I'll tell you. 08:23 But I believe that the most important part is for us 08:26 to know how God answers this problem. 08:30 I'd like to begin with a quick story. 08:33 There were two Australians and they were in London. 08:37 And they were at a bar, at a pub, getting drunk. 08:40 And they came out late at night drunk, stammering, 08:42 falling all over themselves. 08:44 And they walked up to a gentleman and they said, 08:46 "Excuse me, sir, do you know where we are?" 08:49 And the man, he was a very decorated naval officer, 08:51 he felt offended that these drunk men came to him 08:54 and asked him for directions. 08:56 And he said, "Do you know who I am?" 09:00 In response, one of the drunk Australians turned to his friend 09:03 and said, "We're in trouble now. 09:04 We don't know where we are and he doesn't know who he is." 09:11 The main thing is identity. 09:14 We laugh at it, but we struggle with it. 09:17 We don't know who we are. 09:20 If we did, we'd fight in a very different way. 09:26 Because who we are is dependent, not on what we do, 09:29 but who we belong to. 09:31 Who we are is a hundred percent dependent on whose we are. 09:37 And we were His, we'd fight like Him. 09:44 I'd like to read some notes that I wrote real quickly, 09:51 just to kind of give an overview of the great controversy. 09:55 Terms that we've discussed of exploitation and vulnerability. 10:00 It all began in heaven with a glorious angel who had 10:02 turned his strength into his greatest weakness. 10:05 Namely, his wisdom and beauty. 10:06 Ezekiel 28:17 says, "Thine heart was lifted up 10:10 because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom 10:13 by reason of thy brightness." 10:15 But listen well, for it says, 10:17 "Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom..." 10:19 This mystery of iniquity is that no one created his 10:22 vulnerability but he himself. 10:25 And no one set to exploit him but he himself. 10:28 He created his own vulnerability and exploited it. 10:31 It can be at times that our greatest blessings, 10:33 we can turn them into our greatest curses. 10:36 And that which was meant for our benefit, 10:38 wrongly received, causes our greatest fall. 10:41 As Lucifer began to fuel a false aggrandizement of himself, 10:46 he began to place his Creator on a lower plain 10:48 and himself on a higher one. 10:50 And thus began his belief in himself to be who he was not, 10:53 and his Maker to be who He was not. 10:56 The corruption of his wisdom grew ever greater 10:59 until a simple fracture in his thoughts became a fissure, 11:02 and a fissure became a great divide. 11:05 Because angels had never experienced anything other than 11:07 God's goodness, they had no concept of evil. 11:10 Because of their great trust in the covering cherub 11:13 who dwells in the presence of God, they were ripe 11:15 for the seeding of doubt; that something or someone 11:18 other than God can be righteous without obedience 11:21 to God's law. 11:23 Because of his position and proximity to God, 11:25 and the angels' ignorance to any other option than God's law, 11:28 he was able to sow doubt in the angels' mind 11:30 of God's true character; falsely representing Him 11:33 and sowing doubt into the need to heed God's law, 11:37 falsely representing it as restricting of freedom. 11:41 This vulnerability, Lucifer exploited to the fullest. 11:44 When the righteous angels attempted to plead with the 11:47 discontented ones to cease from their revolt, 11:49 placing before their eyes how God had only been 11:52 good and just with all creation, Lucifer once again exploited 11:55 his previously created vulnerability, 11:57 the doubt in God's justice, by claiming that God 12:00 was not the type to forgive rebellion once it had 12:03 already been entertained, and that they had already 12:05 gone to far to be forgiven by Him. 12:08 He solidified the demise of a third of the angels 12:10 by simply misrepresenting both parties in the controversy, 12:14 by misnaming, if you will, God as stern and unforgiving 12:17 of rebellion, and themselves as the righteous underdogs 12:20 that were already set on a path of no return. 12:23 So their fate they cemented according to their beliefs. 12:27 This pattern was repeated to our first parents, Adam and Eve, 12:30 whose vulnerability of ignorance of evil ended up being exploited 12:33 in much the same way as the angels. 12:35 And so began the earthly controversy 12:37 between the two seeds; those who believe God is 12:41 who He says He is and those who believe the devil 12:44 is who he says he is. 12:47 Satan wants nothing more than to destroy the image of God 12:50 in the eyes of all creation. 12:52 And by destroying the image of God, he is destroying 12:55 our identity in God. 12:59 When Satan can peddle you a lie about who God is, 13:02 he can peddle you a lie about who you are. 13:05 And once he manages to peddle you a lie about who God is 13:09 and who you are, he can peddle you. 13:15 Ezekiel 28, once again, says that by the multitude of his 13:20 merchandise, he has filled the earth with violence. 13:25 And by reason of his trafficking he will be devoured by fire. 13:30 Satan is a peddler. 13:33 He is a merchant of souls. 13:37 His job is to create a divide. 13:41 His job is to create fractures. 13:46 But he represents God in that way. 13:49 But God is actually the one who repairs the breach. 13:53 He's the restorer of paths to dwell in. 13:58 What Satan really wants is, he wants to destroy the family, 14:02 which is the image of God. 14:04 And that's why we have an early pagan religion: 14:08 ritual rape. 14:10 Pagan rites where tons of people will basically come together 14:13 with their faces covered and they have sex 14:17 so that the children being born to the women, they have 14:19 no idea who the fathers are. 14:21 That was one of his ways of destroying the family. 14:25 When you don't have a father, you have no identity. 14:28 When we don't have our father, we have no identity. 14:33 I want to read to you some statistics 14:35 before I start my story. 14:39 Here's some information to try to solidify my point. 14:43 Ninety-five percent of victims have a history 14:46 of family issues or abuse. 14:48 Actually, one of the pimps that I talked to, he said, 14:50 "I really have to hand it to the fathers, because 14:51 they just started her off in her training. 14:53 I picked up where he left off." 14:57 That's not saying that all of it is done by fathers, 14:59 but it's all done by a close figure. 15:02 Generally a family or family friend. 15:05 Ninety-five percent of victims of human trafficking 15:08 have a history of family issues or abuse. 15:10 Over 70%, and it's about 75% of blacks, 15:14 65% of Native Americans, 50% of Hispanics, 15:18 and 30% of white children are born to unmarried women 15:22 in the United States. 15:25 No fathers. 15:27 Over 700,000 children are abused annually. 15:31 80% due to neglect, 10% to violence, 10% to sexual issues. 15:36 I believe it's more than that, but. 15:39 40% of the abuse was perpetrated by a family member 15:41 or a caregiver, 25% of the abusers were other children. 15:45 One out of every three girls and one out of every five boys 15:50 will have been abused by the age of eighteen. 15:52 That's 33% of children in the United States 15:56 will have been abused by the age of eighteen. 16:00 Roughly 800,000 children go missing in the U.S. a year. 16:03 That's more than 2000 children a day. 16:08 And many of them are not even reported. 16:12 80% of those are vulnerable runaways who easily 16:14 fall victims to pimps and traffickers. 16:19 What's the conclusion? 16:21 Satan is preparing the world to be trafficked. 16:25 He's creating as many vulnerabilities in the lives 16:29 of children that he possibly can 16:32 by destroying their identity, by destroying the family structure. 16:39 Most people don't know who they are. 16:42 That's pretty sad. 16:45 I've been involved in counter human trafficking 16:47 for the past seven years. 16:48 And I've seen a lot, but it kind of came to a culmination in 2013 16:54 when I was in New Orleans during the Super Bowl. 16:56 I just felt darkness like I had never felt before. 16:58 I don't know if you guys have ever walked into a place 17:00 and you just feel like the air is so thick 17:03 you could just like cut through it with a knife. 17:05 It's just, I don't know, just oppressive atmosphere. 17:08 And I knew that the following year, 2014, there was 17:11 going to be a lot of trafficking going on 17:15 during the FIFA World Cup. 17:17 Because events like that, they just bring people 17:20 who want other types of entertainment as well. 17:22 So I did some research. 17:24 It's turned out that 500,000 kids were already being sold 17:27 into slavery in Brazil during that time, 17:29 and the government had believed that it would increase by 300% 17:33 during the FIFA World Cup. 17:36 I wasn't in the best spiritual place. 17:37 I was kind of depressed. 17:39 I was tired of being in the darkness. 17:40 I was tired of trying to fight the darkness. 17:42 And the thing is, when you spend so much time 17:44 in darkness, it just gets to you. 17:46 I said, but I know that I need to do something. 17:49 So I went to ASI, I went to GYC. 17:52 I tried to talk to a lot of Adventist organizations. 17:55 There's not a lot going on in the realm of human trafficking. 17:58 There was probably one; I think Asian Aid 18:00 that did some things in Nepal and India. 18:03 But nobody wanted to hear anything about it. 18:07 Nobody wanted to hear anything about it. 18:08 "Oh, that's nice." 18:09 "Yeah, okay." 18:11 "We don't know who you are. You're a nobody. 18:12 Do you have some organization or something? 18:14 You're a nobody. Okay, that's nice. 18:16 Go do your thing." 18:17 I said, "Well, you know what, if nobody wants 18:18 to help me, that's fine. I'll do it." 18:20 I felt that if I did nothing, knowing what was going on, 18:22 I would not be able to live with myself as a man. 18:25 Knowing that generally it's me who is the problem. 18:31 Men, we are the problem. 18:33 I mean, women, don't hate on us. 18:34 Because we're also part of the solution. 18:36 But help us. 18:40 And so I made connections with non-Adventist organizations, 18:42 and they seemed more willing. 18:44 I got to Brazil and all those connections 18:46 completely fell through. 18:48 No emails were answered, no phone calls were returned. 18:52 And I was like, "Man, I already committed. 18:55 I told everybody that I was going to 18:56 be here for at least six months. 18:58 What's going on? 18:59 So what do I do?" 19:03 I was tired of being depressed and feeling sorry for myself, 19:05 so I started to walk outside. 19:07 And literally, just a block away from where I was staying 19:11 I saw this woman who looked so much more 19:13 depressed than I was. 19:14 I was like, "Um, maybe I should say something to her." 19:19 I didn't speak Portuguese at the time so I said, 19:20 "Oh, you know what? I'll just pray for her." 19:22 So I ended up praying for her. 19:25 And so I prayed for her. That's not something that I do. 19:26 I'm not a praying person. Let me do something. 19:29 I want some action. I want to build something. 19:30 I want to rescue some kids. 19:31 I want to do something, you know. 19:33 But, you know, at this moment, praise God 19:35 I didn't speak the language, I couldn't talk to her. 19:37 I couldn't give her my wisdom on how to deal with her problems. 19:39 So I just prayed for her. 19:40 And after I'd prayed for her, I started walking again. 19:45 Saw another person. 19:46 Prayed for him. 19:48 Saw another person. Prayed for them. 19:49 I'm like, "What is wrong? 19:50 Is this like depressed day or something, 19:52 that everybody is walking around looking all gloomy?" 19:54 So I just started praying for people and walking. 19:56 And I walked through a place that I knew 19:58 seemed a little bit shady. 19:59 I mean, my experience in trafficking said that this is 20:00 probably a place where there's either drug or prostitution use. 20:04 And so I prayed for that place. 20:06 And before I knew it, five hours had passed. 20:09 And all I did was just pray. 20:12 And I got back to the house and I look at myself, 20:14 and I go, "This is what You wanted to tell me 20:17 the entire time, isn't it? 20:19 You wanted to basically root out my dependence on people, 20:23 on programs, on organizations. 20:25 And all You wanted to do was to show me that You're enough. 20:29 I get it. 20:30 I know I'm stubborn, but I get it. 20:33 But I'm going to need something from You. 20:34 If You want me to pray, I want to go to every single city 20:38 that is hosting the World Cup. 20:39 And You know I've only got $800 and I've got six months left. 20:45 You're going to have to take me to every single city 20:47 in Brazil, twelve capital cities of states in Brazil, 20:52 that are hosting the World Cup. 20:53 And I'm going to walk a thousand miles minimum." 20:55 And I ended up walking fifteen hundred. 20:57 I'm going to walk a thousand miles minimum, 20:59 and pray, and intercede for each one of those cities. 21:02 I'll walk around the stadium seven times. 21:04 But then I was later corrected that Joshua actually 21:06 done it thirteen times. 21:07 I had forgotten that he did six days one time and 21:10 then on Sabbath he did it seven times, and then it fell down. 21:12 But anyway, I walked around seven times around each stadium. 21:14 I had my friend that actually came with me, 21:16 my friend Levi, so that I wouldn't go alone. 21:17 I mean, it looks kind of shady if you walk by yourself 21:20 and say you're praying for prostitutes, right? 21:21 I mean, so. 21:23 So I needed somebody to keep me accountable 21:24 and be with me and make the ministry work. 21:27 And so my friend, Levi, just on short notice. 21:28 He came also with no money. 21:30 And we decided, "Okay, let's do this. 21:33 We've got 800 bucks." 21:35 By the way, at the end of the time period that we had, 21:38 we had received $8000 in donations without asking. 21:41 And we never had to stay in a hotel. 21:43 There were just people who'd wait for us at the airport 21:45 and at the bus stops we'd never met in our lives before 21:47 and let us stay in their homes. 21:49 Talk about like the book of Acts, you know. 21:51 It was kind of like that. 21:54 We gave ten percent, God gave the rest. 21:56 We tithed, and He gave us the rest. 22:01 But I wanted to do more than just pray for the stadiums. 22:04 I wanted to actually go into favelas. 22:05 And favelas are basically Brazil's type of slum. 22:09 Now the favela's are quite notorious because 22:12 not even cops go in. 22:13 If there's anything that they have to accomplish, 22:15 they'll go in, basically, as a swat team. 22:16 Twenty minutes, thirty minutes; they're in, they're out, 22:19 and they're on with their life. 22:20 Because they don't want to stay in there. 22:21 It is just a bad place. 22:23 Not all favela's are like that, but general, that's kind of... 22:27 So we were in a town called, Recife. 22:31 And we were staying there. 22:32 And the family said, "Listen, we really like 22:35 what you guys are doing; we appreciate it. 22:36 You guys can stay at our house. 22:38 But please do not walk into a favela. 22:39 You guys are ignorant Americans. 22:42 You don't know our culture or what goes on in there. 22:45 I know you think you can handle it. 22:46 But you will get shot, you will get robbed." 22:49 And I said, "You know what? 22:51 I really appreciate it, mom." 22:54 She was kind of like our Brazilian mom. 22:56 They adopted us. 22:57 But we have verses that we had the foundation of our mission. 23:04 It was Proverbs 1. 23:05 Our ministry was called, Crying at the Gates. 23:08 But at this point there was another verse that was 23:09 coming to mind; and that was the one that Natasha read to you. 23:12 "Judgment is turned away backward, 23:14 and justice standeth afar off; 23:15 for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. 23:18 Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil 23:20 maketh himself a prey. 23:22 And the LORD saw it, and it displeased him 23:23 that there was no judgment. 23:26 And he saw that there was no man, 23:28 and he wondered that there was no intercessor." 23:32 You know, people said, "Well, you can intercede from outside." 23:37 Well sure, I suppose so. 23:39 But that doesn't make us very good soldiers in that regard. 23:41 I mean, when Satan came as a representative 23:44 of his territory, he basically said, "Look, I'm coming 23:47 from walking to and fro in my place." 23:49 And God says, "No, I've got My outpost right there 23:53 in the middle of your territory. 23:56 For his reason, have you even considered him?" 23:59 See, we've got to be in the midst of Satan's territory 24:02 if we're going to be representatives for God. 24:03 I mean, God, He allows, He respects choice and free will. 24:08 He's not going to enter a place where He's not been invited. 24:11 Satan doesn't follow those rules. 24:12 He'll force anything that he wants upon anyone. 24:17 But God has to be invited, He has to be asked. 24:19 He's not going to violate. 24:22 That's His rules of engagement in this spiritual war. 24:25 We have to go. 24:26 We have to cry from the midst of that place. 24:29 And we're going to believe what God said to Joshua, 24:33 "Everywhere you have placed the sole of your foot, 24:36 that have I given you." 24:37 So I said, "We're going to place the sole of our feet 24:40 in the midst of those places. 24:41 If it risks our life, then whatever." 24:44 So we did. 24:45 We went into those places, we walked in, 24:48 and a guy stopped us at the door, and he basically said... 24:51 At the door, at the entrance. 24:52 One of the roads leading into the favela. 24:54 And he said, "What are you guys doing here?' 24:56 We said, "Oh, you know..." 24:57 We had a friend with us who was Brazilian. 24:58 Because we still didn't speak Portuguese at this time. 25:00 He said, "Oh, these are Americans. 25:01 They're here to pray for you, and stuff like that. 25:03 Yeah, we just wondered if we could walk in." 25:08 "You're here to pray for us? 25:09 Oh yeah, come on in. Come on in. 25:11 We love..." 25:13 "You love what?" 25:14 "Anything. 25:16 You come pray for us." 25:18 "Ok, alright." 25:19 So we walked in, and the first person he takes us to: 25:22 the high priest of black magic. 25:24 Candomblé, it's called. 25:25 The high priest of black magic, voodoo religion, 25:27 in that place. 25:29 And we talked with him, and basically this is the situation. 25:32 The favela's are controlled by candomblé religion, in general. 25:36 This is a religion of black magic, 25:38 this is a religion where you cast curses. 25:40 And believe me, it works. 25:41 There are so many people who have lost their spouses 25:42 because other people cast spells on them. 25:45 One of the prostitutes that we talked to later on 25:47 said that she was working as a prostitute because 25:50 on her three children someone cast a black magic spell. 25:54 And she was so afraid that they were going to die 25:56 that she had to pay ten thousand dollars equivalent 26:00 to pay another high priest to cast a protective spell. 26:05 We're walking into the situation where darkness rules the place. 26:10 And he says, "You know what?" 26:12 He says, "No one comes in here and talks to us. 26:15 We know that spiritual warfare exists. 26:17 We know because we see the darkness of it. 26:20 We wish we had something else, that someone would 26:22 give us another option, but nobody comes in here. 26:24 They're scared. 26:27 You're the first person to come in and pray for us. 26:30 You think we want to do what we want to do? 26:32 You think we like doing what we do? 26:34 But we don't know anything else." 26:41 The man that let us in ended up crying as we were leaving. 26:46 The Lord answered that prayer, 26:49 whether we should enter or not into favela's. 26:51 We ended up entering into more than fifteen 26:53 while we were there. 26:55 Next was the prayer whether we should be praying for 26:58 prostitutes or not. 27:01 So we were with another friend. 27:02 Once again, we didn't speak Portuguese at the time. 27:05 In the same town. 27:06 And we were driving, and he said, "Oh hey, Alex, 27:09 look, there's a prostitute under that bridge. 27:11 Do you want to stop and talk to her?" 27:12 I said, "Yes absolutely, let's stop and talk to her." 27:15 And so he rolls down the window, she comes by. 27:18 She's looking in. 27:20 He says, " Oh listen, I've got two Americans here." 27:21 "Oh Americans, alright. Do they want a program?" 27:24 "Oh no, no, no, no, no. They're not here for that. 27:26 They're here to pray for you." 27:29 Her face changes. 27:30 As if she was a completely different person. 27:32 Because let me tell you; in prostitution, 27:34 prostitutes are two different people. 27:37 They put on a mask to make you think 27:39 that they're someone who they're not. 27:43 So she comes up and her demeanor just completely changes. 27:46 She says, "Oh, that's wonderful. 27:49 Thank you so much for coming to pray for me." 27:52 She says, "You know, I don't want to be doing what I'm doing. 27:54 But you know what, I've got two kids and my husband left me." 27:57 She says, "I don't have any skills whatsoever. 27:59 He used to pay the bills for everything. 28:00 And so I'm trying my very best to support my family. 28:03 And I don't know what else to do. 28:05 But every single day, I pray to God that He would send 28:08 someone to take me out of this. 28:11 And I've been studying the Bible and I want to get baptized, 28:14 but I'm afraid that if people know who I am 28:18 that they won't let me get baptized. 28:19 And I don't know if you've ever heard of the Adventist church, 28:21 but I believe everything they say and I want to get baptized." 28:27 What? 28:34 She's looking for us, and we're not looking for her. 28:42 "Listen, we know who you are, and we're Adventists, 28:44 and we don't care. 28:45 Because we know who you really are." 28:48 And you know what her name was? 28:50 Hosanna. 28:52 And we praise the Lord for that. 28:56 We ended up going to another city. 28:58 We said, "Ok, now we know we need to pray for prostitutes, 28:59 but now we need to train people in every single city 29:02 to go and pray." 29:04 And we had a project in mind. 29:05 Because in the three years that I worked with the ministry 29:07 in Atlanta, we did something called, princess night. 29:09 And what princess night is, we basically go out, 29:12 we hand out cards with little messages, a phone number, 29:15 and a rose, to prostitutes on the corner of streets. 29:18 And we tell them, "Hey listen, you've got value. 29:19 You're beautiful, you're special. 29:21 God does not want you to be here. 29:24 I know that you've only seen bad things, and people have 29:26 said that they love you and they care for you, 29:27 and have only treated you like dirt. 29:29 So there's very little reason for you to believe us, 29:31 but I'm asking you that you believe me." 29:33 And they did this for years. 29:34 And the organization that I worked with, the first year 29:37 that we ran a twenty-four hour call center 29:39 forty-five women came off the street. 29:41 The second year, a hundred and fifteen. 29:42 And the third year, two hundred and forty-five. 29:45 And it was all because there were people praying 29:48 twenty-four hours a day every day for the ministry. 29:54 So I said, "Lord, You've got to give us somebody. 29:56 You've got to send people to us to pray. 29:57 Because we're not going to just walk in here. 30:00 You know, we can pray for the stadiums, 30:02 we can pray for favelas, but we need somebody 30:03 to constantly be here to pray for those in trafficking. 30:08 So You've got to bring us somebody." 30:10 So we went to the next city and we arrived at the same time 30:12 that Carnaval was going on in Brazil. 30:14 Now during Carnaval, most Adventists leave the cities 30:16 because they don't want to observe what's going on. 30:19 And they actually go into little camps. 30:20 So we went to this little camp. 30:22 And, you know, something happened and some people were 30:25 speaking English, and they were trying to show off 30:27 how good their English was. 30:28 And then I spoke up in English, and they go, 30:30 "Oh, your English is really good." 30:31 I said, "Oh, well I'm from America." 30:32 "Oh you're from America. That's fantastic. 30:34 Do you want to tell us what you're here for?" 30:35 I said, "Oh, well I'm here doing a project in anti-trafficking." 30:38 "Oh, do you want to come up and present?" 30:42 And so they give me a little spot. 30:43 And basically, you know, it was voluntary. 30:45 You didn't have to come and actually listen to me. 30:47 But forty people actually came. 30:49 It was a group of maybe eighty there, so about half the people 30:52 came and listened to me for three hours. 30:54 Now you're not going to have to go through that. 30:56 Don't worry about it, alright? 30:57 I've only got about another twenty minutes left. 31:00 But they listened to me for three hours. 31:01 And afterwards, afterwards, a group of like ten, 31:04 or I don't remember if it was ten or twelve, 31:06 young people came up to me and said, "Listen, three weeks ago, 31:09 three weeks ago the Lord put it upon our hearts 31:11 that we should start singing songs or doing something 31:12 for prostitutes in the streets. 31:14 And we don't even know why, because we don't like them. 31:17 But here you come three weeks later saying how you're looking 31:19 for people to go into the streets and minister to them. 31:21 And we're thinking, you're an answer to our prayer." 31:23 And I'm thinking, you're an answer to mine. 31:26 So we trained them. 31:28 We write the cards, we get the flowers. 31:30 In America, you know, you usually go with twenty roses 31:32 and you come back with five after three or four hours. 31:34 I mean, very low acceptance rate. 31:37 We take them to the streets and in forty-five minutes 31:39 all the flowers and cards are gone. 31:41 People are crying, five people want Bibles, 31:43 and two want Bible studies. 31:46 These kids come back and they're like, 31:49 "How could I have been so wrong? 31:53 I thought they wanted to be there. 31:55 I thought that was their life. 31:56 I thought that they enjoyed that kind of thing." 32:02 They began to see their own faults, 32:07 their own misconceptions. 32:11 And God was taking the blinders from their eyes. 32:14 They stood for, I don't know, two and a half hours 32:16 talking to one o'clock at night with their parents 32:19 just crying and telling them, "I had no idea. 32:23 I feel so bad. 32:26 And one of them gave us his real name." 32:28 One of them was a man. 32:29 Sometimes it's safer to be a man in the streets 32:32 dressed as a woman than it is to be a woman. 32:36 We won't go into that. 32:38 But they said, "He gave us his real name. 32:42 He felt that we had treated him with enough dignity 32:46 that we deserved to know who he really was, 32:49 not who people thought he was." 32:53 His name was Alexandre. 32:55 Alexandre. 32:59 And they thought that was the greatest thing ever. 33:03 There's a lot of power in a name. 33:05 There's a lot of power in identity. 33:08 Do we know who we are? 33:13 The next city, I don't want to leave it out. 33:15 I may not even get to a conclusion. 33:18 If you ever want to hear part two, come talk to me. 33:23 But I have to tell you about the last city. 33:25 It's not the last city, but the last city on our list. 33:27 We ended up going to eight more after this. 33:30 But the name of it is Fortaleza. 33:34 And Fortaleza is the second biggest destination 33:39 for child sex tourism in the world; 33:41 after Bangkok, Thailand. 33:44 And so I knew that we needed to do something. 33:46 We get there, and the pastor doesn't want us 33:51 to talk about our ministry. 33:52 He said, "Listen, it's nice. We do enough projects here. 33:55 Listen, you know, we're doing evangelism, 33:57 we're doing outreach, we're doing all this stuff. 33:58 We really don't want our people going and talking 34:02 to prostitutes, honestly." 34:04 I said, "That's fine, I understand that it's a bit of 34:07 a difficult subject, situation. 34:10 Don't worry about it. It's okay." 34:12 But that same week a man came in asking for help 34:18 to the church while the pastor was there. 34:20 And he said, "Listen, I'm from Sao Paulo 34:22 and I need to get back. 34:24 Will you give me money to get back to Sao Paulo?" 34:27 And Sao Paulo is very far away from Fortaleza. 34:29 And so it cost a good bit of money, and the pastor said, 34:32 "No, we don't give money away. 34:33 But if you're willing to work, we'll buy your ticket." 34:37 He says, "Okay, that's fair enough." 34:39 "So what do you do?" 34:41 He said, "Well, I paint." 34:43 "Good, our church is due for a nice fresh coat of paint." 34:45 So he started painting the inside. 34:47 The pastor had mentioned that two Americans were staying 34:49 at his house, and the guy says, "I want to meet them. 34:52 Can you have them come paint with me on Thursday?" 34:55 He's like, "Okay, I don't know why, but sure." 34:58 And this was on Monday or Tuesday, I don't remember. 35:02 So a few days had passed and he had been listening 35:05 for about three days to the pastor and the Bible worker 35:08 going through a Revelation seminar. 35:12 And he just quietly listened because they were basically 35:14 preparing, so he had basically heard the entire 35:16 27 days or 28 days worth of Bible studies in three days 35:21 while he was painting. 35:22 He said, "I really, really need to meet these Americans." 35:25 "Okay, we'll be here tomorrow, Thursday." 35:28 So we came in and we started painting with him. 35:32 His name was Williams, and he said, 35:35 "I know why you're here." 35:38 "Okay." 35:39 He said, "I know why you're here." 35:41 He said, "There's a lot of things that I can't 35:43 tell you right now, but I've listened to absolutely 35:46 everything that this pastor and the Bible worker have said, 35:49 and I assure you that I've never heard anything like that 35:53 from a Christian religion in my life. 35:54 And being a Satanist... 35:57 ...and I've been in Satanism for a long time. 35:59 And every single one of my family members is part of 36:01 either the Church of Satan or the Masonic Lodge in Sao Paulo. 36:06 And I tried, you know, I was thinking that I'd get away 36:09 by coming here, but nothing worked out. 36:10 So I was going to go back. 36:11 But I came into this church and I've heard a part of the gospel 36:14 that I've never heard before, no other church is preaching. 36:16 And I know you guys have the truth. 36:17 But I still know that even though you talk about 36:19 the controversy, they don't know. 36:22 The pastor and the Bible worker don't know, but I know." 36:25 He said, "I know what you're doing. 36:27 But I have to get baptized first before I can tell you." 36:31 He said, "That's why I've decided 36:32 to get baptized this Sabbath." 36:33 In three days he was ready to get baptized. 36:36 So he came, he got baptized. 36:38 After he got baptized, he comes to me and he says, 36:40 "Alex, Levi, what you're trying to do is take 36:46 Satan's property from him. 36:49 Those are his girls. 36:51 You don't understand that. They're his. 36:52 He doesn't play nice. 36:54 Other people talk and they evangelize, and they do things, 36:57 but you are literally taking, plucking his property 37:00 from his hand. 37:02 You can't do that without fear of repercussions. 37:08 Everyone talks about the great controversy, 37:09 everybody talks about spiritual warfare, 37:11 but nobody engages in it. 37:13 You're on the front lines. You're doing something. 37:15 And I don't know if you understand how much 37:16 in danger you are." 37:19 I'll be honest with you. I didn't. 37:22 He says, "I'm telling you because Satan wants your life. 37:25 You've been marked because of what you're doing. 37:28 And I feel sorry for you. 37:30 I'm glad for you and I'm glad you're doing this, 37:32 but I feel so sorry for you. 37:35 Because Satan is going to do everything to either cause you 37:37 to fall into sin or to completely end your life. 37:42 Will you listen to me and take some certain precautions? 37:44 All the people who just want to be part of this ministry 37:47 because it sounds cool and looks cool, 37:49 get some t-shirts, stay away from them. 37:53 Their very presence with you while you enter into 37:55 these places where your life is in danger 37:57 will endanger you more. 37:59 The very presence of someone who doesn't 38:01 think in a manner of prayer, in a manner of intercession, 38:04 is risking your life. 38:07 You can't walk into the devil's territory 38:09 thinking about soccer." 38:20 We got the warning. We got the warning. 38:24 Afterwards, I came and I apologized to my friend, Levi, 38:28 and our translator at that time, Andréa. 38:30 I said, "There's something I need to tell you. 38:33 I didn't tell you before because I didn't think 38:35 we'd confront it." 38:38 But in the previous years that I've been involved in 38:40 human trafficking, in reality 38:43 there's a lot of religion involved. 38:47 There's a tendency for us to think that it's organized crime, 38:50 that it's just some small time pimp, that whatever. 38:52 But in reality, you know, the pimps, they use William Lynch's 38:57 manual for how to train slaves. 38:59 That's how they basically beat into them 39:02 the whole slave/master relationship. 39:04 If you think that slavery is over, it's not. 39:06 The same manual that was used in colonial times 39:09 is still being used now to make prostitutes. 39:17 We've had girls that we've rescued, and at times 39:20 on specific days of the year they disappeared. 39:23 And they showed up a few days later, 39:25 usually two to three days later, gang raped and dead 39:29 on the side of the street. 39:31 It was always after pagan feast days. 39:37 We had girls that had tremendous amounts of dissociative 39:40 identity disorder. 39:43 They had gone under certain types of programming, 39:46 monarch programming. 39:47 You guys probably don't know about that. 39:50 Mind control programming. 39:51 You think it's a joke. It's not. 39:52 I see it. I've seen it. 39:56 I'm not some conspiracy theorist. 39:58 I've dealt with people caught in it. 40:03 There are churches in America that are working actively 40:07 to destroy Christianity. 40:11 "Everywhere I go, I've tried to disassociate it sometimes 40:15 and just think that all I'm dealing with is just, 40:17 oh it's just we're dealing with some pimps 40:18 and some organized crime. 40:20 And I'm sorry I didn't tell you beforehand that we are 40:22 really in spiritual warfare. 40:24 And only until this man came and really told us that 40:26 Satan is trying to kill us am I finally getting it. 40:32 We need to pray." 40:35 So the three of us started to pray. 40:36 I prayed, Levi prayed, Andréa prayed. 40:39 While Andréa was praying, I began to see a tree. 40:44 And I saw a tree, and its branches reached to 40:46 the ends of the earth, and I couldn't see the horizon at all. 40:51 The tree was just vast. 40:53 It covered the sky completely. 40:55 And it was kind of dark, you know. 40:56 Very little light was filtering through the branches, 40:58 through the leaves. 40:59 And all of a sudden I hear this like clanging sound. 41:01 And I look up in the branches and there's these dolls 41:05 and these mannequins without a face, tied about the neck 41:08 with chains, dangling from these branches. 41:11 A very eerie and unsettling scene. 41:13 And I'm wondering, "Why in the world is this coming to my mind 41:15 while we're praying?" 41:19 And I open my eyes and it's still there. 41:21 It's not going away. I'm shaking my head. 41:23 I'm looking, "Lord, take this away, this is ridiculous. 41:25 I have no idea why I'm thinking about this." 41:29 And after time I just lose my patience. 41:31 So I start grabbing the chains, these dolls and these mannequins 41:35 without faces, and I'm pulling them from the branches. 41:36 And it's not helping at all. 41:41 And all of a sudden I get desperate and I just say, 41:43 "God, help me. 41:45 Please help me." 41:47 The moment that I cried out for help, I noticed 41:49 the base of the tree, the trunk. 41:51 And there was a man standing there with an ax. 41:54 And I was getting the idea that he was about to do something. 41:56 And I said, "Yes. Lord, give him strength." 42:00 And the man picked up the ax and he began to 42:01 chop at the base of the tree. 42:03 And the tree was shuttering. 42:04 And all the branches were shaking. 42:05 And these dolls and mannequins were 42:07 raging violently from side to side. 42:09 And I said, "I don't care how unsettling it is. 42:11 Cut down the tree." 42:17 He kept on chopping, and chopping, and chopping. 42:19 And finally the tree gave way and it fell. 42:21 And all the branches, for some reason, 42:22 it didn't make sense to me, they all were spread out 42:25 around me on the floor. 42:26 And the first thing that I did was look up. 42:28 I could see the sun, and I said, "God, thank You." 42:31 And then I began to pull the chains 42:32 once again from the branches. 42:34 And this time the chains disappeared. 42:38 By the time it finished, Andréa had finished her praying. 42:43 And I told Levi and Andréa what I had seen. 42:45 And we all agreed. 42:47 Just like it was for Nebuchadnezzar. 42:50 The tree was a system, a kingdom, whose influence 42:54 spreads to the ends of the earth. 42:58 There's not one thing that is not under its influence. 43:02 And the dolls and the mannequins, 43:03 the mannequins were adults and the dolls were children, 43:06 with no face, no identity, 43:08 that were being held by this system of oppression. 43:13 And if we try in our own strength like I did 43:15 to pull them free, to rescue them, 43:19 it does absolutely nothing. 43:22 Only when I cried out to the only One who is able, 43:25 Christ the Intercessor, to cut down the tree, 43:30 once He separates that tree of slavery, that system 43:33 of corruption from the roots of sin, 43:36 once we've interceded on behalf of those who are caught in it, 43:40 and He's covered them in His righteousness 43:41 so that they're not held by the bonds of sin, 43:44 so that His Spirit can reach into their lives. 43:46 Just like He did into that prostitute 43:47 who said she was studying to be an Adventist. 43:56 It is only by intercession that this system can be brought down. 44:02 And once intercession has been made, then you can rescue. 44:07 Then you can pull free. 44:11 But until that point, our efforts are useless. 44:14 Evangelism is useless. 44:17 Debate is useless. 44:20 We read in Isaiah 59 that truth is fallen in the streets. 44:24 "Yeah well, all we stand for truth." 44:25 No, truth is fallen. It's not standing. 44:29 Judgment has turned away backward. 44:31 Justice is far away. And equity, where is it? 44:34 Oh, it can't even enter the gates. 44:37 We stand for truth, and social justice, 44:39 and judgment, and equity. 44:41 Oh great! 44:42 But it's dead. Because what? 44:44 Something's missing. 44:46 Intercession. 44:50 What power do we have without God? 44:54 When will we get it, that in this great controversy 44:56 our efforts are nothing? 45:01 If we knew who God was, the great Intercessor, 45:04 we would be intercessors. Why? 45:06 Because we'd realized that the battle that we fight 45:08 is a spiritual one, and only He can fight it. 45:12 I mean, don't we know the verses? 45:13 "We war not against flesh and blood, but against 45:15 principalities, against powers that rule the darkness 45:17 in high places." 45:22 And yet, what do we do? 45:23 Programs. 45:26 "Let's do more programs. Let's get together. 45:28 Let's think how we can solve these issues." 45:29 No, God has the solution. 45:33 I'm not belittling organization. It's great. 45:37 I'm not belittling evangelization. 45:39 It's great. 45:42 I'm just saying, we can't do it without the power of God. 45:47 And too often we do. 45:52 I want to tell you a little story about vengeance. 45:54 You guys like vengeance? 45:56 I'm going to see if you have the wrong idea about it or not. 46:00 Suffice it to say, that in that town where we received 46:03 very little welcome, Fortaleza, at 11:00 o'clock the day 46:07 before we were suppose to leave, two people said, 46:11 "We'll do your project." 46:13 Talk about the eleventh hour, right, you know? 46:16 They said, "We'll do it. 46:18 But we don't have enough time to train." 46:20 So the people from the previous city who we had trained 46:22 who were so willing came and trained them. 46:26 "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We'd love to do that. 46:28 Let me show you how to do the cards 46:29 and the roses and everything." 46:30 They were so excited. 46:32 That's what we wanted. 46:34 I get a call a month later after I'd left Fortaleza. 46:38 And they said the girl, Hadassah, who agreed 46:42 to do the project, she said, "I got this phone call. 46:46 Because two weeks ago we did the princess night. 46:49 We reached out to the prostitutes. 46:51 And two weeks after we had done it, I get this phone call. 46:56 And I thought you should know about it. 46:57 You know, we give the cards with our phone number. 46:59 I put my phone number on there. 47:01 And this woman calls me and says, 'I don't know if 47:03 you remember me, but two weeks ago you were out 47:05 handing cards and roses to the prostitutes. 47:09 And I was one of them.' 47:11 She says, 'And I want to let you know that my husband 47:13 had left me and I've got kids that I have to take care of.'" 47:16 The same thing, fatherlessness. 47:18 If you think it's not an issue. 47:20 "And I didn't know what to do. 47:22 And so I decided that I was going to 47:23 sell myself into prostitution. 47:26 But I want to let you know, that was the first night 47:28 that I was going to do it. 47:30 And before I got to my first client, 47:32 you stopped me midway. 47:36 You stopped me midway. 47:37 And you prayed for me. 47:39 And you gave me a card and you told me that I have value. 47:42 And I realized that God values me so much 47:44 that I can't do this to myself." 47:47 You know, the church had asked us a question that 47:49 even the pastor and his wife and a lot of 47:51 well meaning people said. 47:54 "Listen, we like this idea, but you don't have 47:56 a recovery program. 47:58 Once they come off the street, what are they going to do? 48:01 I mean, you need institutions and all this kind of stuff." 48:02 I said, "Listen, if you don't even have the need 48:07 on your radar, there's not going to be 48:09 organizations to receive them. 48:12 You've got to realize that there's a need first, 48:14 and then the organizations will come." 48:16 Anyway, this woman said, "So, um, I didn't believe you. 48:23 It took me two weeks to get up the courage to actually 48:25 call the phone number on the card. 48:27 But I'm desperate. Will you help me?" 48:30 And she said, "Yeah, come clean my house." 48:34 And members from the church heard what happened 48:36 and they started hiring her to clean their house. 48:40 To me, that's vengeance. 48:43 Not the way that you think it is. 48:44 "Oh yeah, we revenged on the pastor." 48:46 No, no. He was a wonderful man. 48:48 He helped us so much. We stayed in his home. 48:50 What I'm talking about is true religion vengeance. 48:55 Do you know what true religion is? 48:57 What does James 1:27 say? Does anybody know? 49:00 "True religion before God and the Father is this..." 49:02 What? 49:03 "To visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, 49:05 and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." 49:08 That's true religion. 49:09 Isaiah mentions the fatherless and the widows so many times. 49:11 Why? 49:14 Because to the Hebrew, identity, name, was everything. 49:19 If you don't have a name, you don't have an inheritance. 49:21 If you don't have an inheritance, 49:23 you suffer the second death. 49:24 You're forgotten. 49:27 A widow and an orphan has nothing. 49:30 No name, no man to give them an identity. 49:35 That's why true religion is to intercede on behalf of 49:38 those who are most vulnerable. 49:40 Namely those who don't have a name. 49:44 The widow and the orphan. 49:46 But every single time it mentions, 49:48 almost every single time it mentions the widow 49:50 and the orphan in Isaiah, it always couples it with vengeance 49:54 or judgment. 49:55 And even this verse that we read in Isaiah 59 49:57 where it's talking about how all this stuff is going wrong 50:00 and judgment is backwards, and all that kind of stuff, 50:03 and how intercession was needed, if you read later 50:08 in verse 17, "He put on righteousness as a breastplate, 50:14 the helmet of salvation upon his head, 50:15 he put on the garments of vengeance..." 50:17 He clothed himself with vengeance when he saw that 50:20 nothing was going right and that there was no intercessor. 50:24 Why? 50:25 Why is the widow and the orphan always associated with 50:28 judgment or vengeance? 50:30 You know what's interesting? 50:31 We always think that vengeance is, 50:32 "Oh, God's going to judge the wicked. 50:34 He's going to lay down the smack down. 50:36 You know, we're going to pummel these guys. 50:38 I'm going to take my Bible and smack some people on their head, 50:39 show them that they don't have the truth." 50:42 That's not vengeance. 50:44 That's not vengeance. 50:46 If you have ten against ten, alright, 50:48 ten people against ten people, and you manage to kill five, 50:53 is that great? 50:55 No, because Satan doesn't care if his own people die. 50:57 Why? Because that's a person who's died lost. 51:01 Satan has no loyalties to the people who follow him. 51:05 He wants you to die while serving him. 51:07 Because that means God can't have them. 51:11 God's vengeance is redemption. 51:14 So say that we've got ten against ten, 51:16 and five have been converted, we're now three times 51:18 the number of them. 51:22 That's why He says, "'Avenge not yourselves, but rather 51:24 give place unto wrath; for vengeance is Mine,' 51:26 says the Lord." 51:29 "Therefore, if your enemy hungers, feed him. 51:31 If he thirsts, give him drink. 51:32 For in so doing, you shall heap coals of fire upon his head." 51:35 "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." 51:40 Every single time somebody learns of their true identity, 51:44 God is avenged. 51:47 Every single time you get on your knees and you intercede 51:49 for somebody who is lost, God is avenged. 51:57 The war that we fight is one over identity. 52:00 God has been misrepresented. 52:03 If we knew who He was, we'd know who we are. 52:08 If we knew who we are, we'd intercede because 52:11 Christ is an intercessor. 52:12 Was it not the greatest intercession on the cross? 52:16 Do we not follow in our Savior's footsteps? 52:20 Do we not say that we're a part of the great controversy? 52:27 "God beheld that there was no man, there was no intercessor." 52:33 I pray that will not be the case with us. 52:35 Will there be a man? 52:37 Will there be an intercessor? 52:39 I've come to the end of my time, I probably... 52:42 They said, oh they said I can go two to three minutes over. 52:44 That's good. 52:48 There's still a lot I wanted to say, but. 52:54 Let me make an appeal to you. 52:58 Let me make an appeal to you. 53:00 First of all, I want to make an appeal to the abused. 53:05 There are some people here no doubt... 53:06 The church is not foreign to the existence of abuse, 53:11 of exploitations, of vulnerabilities 53:13 in our own church. 53:15 It's just as bad as the rest of the world. 53:17 We can't ignore that. 53:20 If you have suffered from abuse, I would first and foremost 53:22 like to apologize myself. 53:26 I'd like to apologize that I was not always aware 53:29 of your existence, of your plight, 53:32 of the things that you go through. 53:35 And that even after I became aware, I did not always 53:37 intercede on your behalf. 53:41 I feel very responsible for that. 53:43 I'm sorry. 53:46 But if you have been, I ask that you avenge not yourselves. 53:52 But rather give place unto wrath. 53:54 "Vengeance is Mine," says the Lord. 53:57 God will avenge you, God will give you a name, 54:00 better than sons and daughters. 54:04 Please accept that. 54:06 And by that, I don't mean saying that if you're already 54:08 caught in it, that you just accept what's happening to you. 54:10 By no means. 54:11 If you are caught in it and you can hear me right now, 54:13 I encourage you, I want to give you the courage 54:16 to get out. 54:18 I know you've been scared, you've been shamed, 54:21 you've been told lies into thinking that it's your fault. 54:26 That's not true. 54:28 The devil always misrepresents himself. 54:31 And he always misrepresents God. 54:33 God wants to give you freedom. 54:35 So please accept it. 54:37 To those who want to do well. 54:41 I know there's a lot of people who want to do well. 54:43 I know I wanted to do well. 54:44 But sometimes you get so bogged down by sin, by lust. 54:49 You know, I personally don't believe that lust or 54:52 problem relationships or serial relationships 54:55 is a problem of perverseness. 54:59 It may be. 55:01 But I honestly think that most people who are struggling 55:02 with lust, who are struggling with always having 55:05 to be in a relationship, with always seeking attention, 55:08 do it because they have never fully accepted 55:10 God's adoption of them. 55:13 You don't know fully who you are because maybe 55:16 you don't know fully who God is. 55:20 Please accept God's call to adoption. 55:24 And let that be your key to freedom 55:26 from what it is you struggle with. 55:29 And last of all is a call for everyone. 55:31 Especially the righteous in here. 55:34 The leaders in here. 55:35 The, "I'm doing pretty well spiritually right now." 55:38 My question first and foremost is, 55:40 why haven't you interceded? 55:41 Because God says there's no man. 55:43 And He wondered that there was no intercessor. 55:45 Is the world a mess? Yes. 55:46 The same as it was in Israel during that time. 55:49 Our intercession is either rather sporadic or weak. 55:56 You don't have to stand up, you don't have to come up, 55:57 unless you really want to. 55:59 But I really want you to think about it. 56:04 Will you become an intercessor? 56:08 Can God look and say that judgment was facing forward, 56:14 that justice was coming close, 56:17 that truth was standing and that equity was nearby, 56:22 it was entering at the gates, 56:23 because there was a man and a woman, there was an intercessor? 56:28 And by their intercession, they brought vengeance. 56:33 Do you want to be that person? 56:35 Do you want to be the avenger, the intercessor? 56:41 That's my brother here; I guess stand if you do 56:45 so that I can pray for you. |
Revised 2017-03-23