Participants:
Series Code: LM
Program Code: LM000074
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00:02 Our spiritual journey is gonna continue.
00:04 In fact, at this point, 00:06 the programs are gonna take a really interesting twist. 00:09 We're gonna be talking about things like alcohol, 00:11 angels and even Willie Nelson. 00:14 In fact, I'd like to show you 00:15 how to cut lumber with a chainsaw. 00:16 But you know, more than that, 00:17 what I'm really hoping is we go through this series 00:19 of programs called Spiritual Journeys 00:21 is that you will catch your vision 00:23 of how God has a special journey 00:25 just for you and your family. 00:43 This is the second program in a series 00:44 entitled Spiritual Journeys. 00:46 Each program is an hour long, 00:47 so if you're watching this on TV, 00:49 unfortunately, you're only gonna get half of this program. 00:52 There are several programs in this whole series 00:53 entitled Spiritual Journeys. 00:55 So if you'd like to get 00:56 this whole program or the whole series, 00:58 please contact us at our address, 01:00 phone number, or website at the end of this presentation. 01:03 And one thing that we determined 01:04 in our hearts years ago 01:06 what we're gonna do as we start praying about this 01:08 and thinking about moving up into the country 01:11 was it would be really easy 01:13 to be so consumed in trying to um-- 01:17 spend all your time building 01:18 and spend all your time trying to get the house going 01:21 and stuff that you would neglect your dedication 01:23 and your spiritual commitment to God so, 01:25 we thought about the story of Daniel 01:27 and we decided that three times a day 01:29 that we were gonna give our hearts to the Lord. 01:32 In the morning, we would get up and have our devotions, 01:34 we would stop mid-afternoon and have a special prayer 01:36 and then in the evenings, 01:37 we would always have family worship 01:39 and we had one small child when we first moved up here. 01:41 We decided to keep that as a priority 01:43 as we started doing this. 01:44 You know when we were mixing up 01:46 the cement for the-- foundation, to me, 01:49 it was amazing and we started here 01:51 filling this wheelbarrow with cement and rocks 01:55 and sand and water and it was like-- 01:58 mixing this big, big batch of dough 02:04 but you are stirring it with this straw board, 02:06 barely able to move it. 02:08 It was-- I don't know, to me, 02:11 it was just amazing to watch cement 02:13 being made in a wheelbarrow. 02:16 This was our first experience, 02:17 I want to honestly say that I had no ability 02:20 of other than what Jerry and Linda Warnick shared with us 02:23 about the principles of how to do this. 02:25 We were what we call North Idaho greenhorns 02:28 you know and we ended up 02:29 digging this foundation by hand here 02:31 and put these rocks in and as you look at it, 02:34 we have a saying here at the Ministry, 02:36 this is the crooked house that Jeff built 02:38 and these rocks here are all placed in by hands, 02:41 we used ah-- slabs that were left over 02:43 from the chainsaw mill in cutting the lumber. 02:46 This particular siding on the outside the house 02:48 is some of the purchase siding that we bought. 02:51 And the rest of the structural material for this, 02:54 and a lot of the cedar siding on the outside 02:56 of this house was all cut with a chainsaw mill. 02:58 All the sub floor, all the inside of the house, 03:01 everything, in fact this main structure 03:03 when we-- just got the main structure up 03:07 and enclosed and we were living in it, we had you know, 03:09 if you're gonna have a hard time believing this, 03:11 we had about $3,200 into the whole house. 03:14 I know that seems unheard of but 03:16 you have to consider these windows here, 03:18 these windows here, we ended up getting out 03:20 and behind the glass shops, there were rejects, 03:24 there were defects, sometimes we got them for free. 03:27 Some of them were blemished, we paid, 03:28 you know, $5 a piece for, 03:30 the same with some of these other, 03:31 other windows we have here. 03:32 One of the other challenges we had to where we were building 03:34 this place was my wife started 03:37 telling about our makeshift kitchen in houses, 03:39 old wooden camper that we were living in, 03:43 was refrigeration, you have to realize 03:44 that we lived up here without electricity 03:46 and without running water 03:48 and we didn't have any of the luxuries of city living 03:52 and we needed a refrigerator. 03:54 Do you remember? 03:55 Well, we cut a whole on the ground 03:57 and we filled the whole with sawdust 04:00 and then we lined the sawdust with wood 04:03 and because the ground stayed at certain temperature, 04:06 we were able to keep fruits and vegetables in it. 04:09 We had keep um, leftovers down bed, 04:13 as long as we didn't have any dairy products 04:15 or meat products in it, we were pretty safe. 04:17 And what we did is we had a piece of insulation board 04:20 that we would put over top of it 04:21 that was like about this thick. 04:23 And that would-- the ground temperature here 04:25 as clay soil like I mentioned about the mud ruts, 04:28 the clay soil is pretty cool. 04:30 Do you remember what happened one morning? 04:32 Yeah, one morning I was studying at my table in here 04:35 after we had the house established 04:39 after a couple years and I looked out there, 04:41 and there was a great big huge black bear 04:42 in our refrigerator hole 04:44 and we are living on about $35 a week at that time 04:47 and this bear had just got into all our groceries 04:51 that we were buying and I remember chasing, 04:53 I was I kind of just reacted and I ran towards the bear. 04:57 I know you're going to think I'm a little crazy 04:59 but I ran towards the bear and I started screaming at him, 05:01 making much noise and the bear ran off 05:03 into the forest and I was chasing him 05:05 and as I was chasing him, the bear just stopped. 05:08 And now, if you have studied the book of Daniel, 05:09 you know about the bear that's the bear of Medo-Persia. 05:12 You know he is the bear with the three ribs in his mouth 05:14 well the bear has lifted up on one side, 05:16 well bears do that, you know, I found out that this big bear 05:18 who I was only about 30 feet behind, 05:20 he lifted up on one side 05:21 and he turned around and he looked at me 05:23 and I could tell what he was thinking. 05:24 He was thinking why am I running from this little guy. 05:27 And I look at him and I thought 05:30 what on the world am I doing chasing this black bear, 05:32 this black bear's one of the bigger black bears 05:34 I've ever seen in my life and I ran back down to the house 05:37 and locked my bear proof door 05:38 which I will show you in just a second. 05:40 But just some of those adventures 05:42 that take place we you move to the country, you know. 05:43 It was funny to watch the bear because he is down in the hole 05:47 and he has got his nose 05:49 and he is rolling around this melon, 05:51 trying to get a bite on it, 05:53 but he's thrown corn out this way 05:55 and corn out that way. 05:57 These were precious commodities, 05:58 we were a little bit upset at the bear. 06:00 Yeah, we were-- really, really poor. 06:02 But let's go ahead over to the house here 06:05 'cause we're mentioning all this lumber 06:07 we have cut with a chainsaw mill on this house 06:09 except for some of the cedar siding right here. 06:11 But this is our bear proof door, 06:12 this is a door that we had actually 06:14 cut with chainsaw lumber and outside it's all cedar-- 06:18 we just recently upgraded 06:20 to this really nice modern door right here 06:23 just a couple years ago 06:24 'cause we needed to actually seal it off better for winter 06:26 but I just couldn't get rid of this door 06:27 and this is our bear proof door. 06:29 And I want to show it to, 06:31 this door is three inches thick, 06:33 the outside as one inch of cedar. 06:35 The inside is one inch of red fir 06:37 and the inside of the door is one inch of pine 06:41 and the silly thing is we built this to be a bear proof door 06:44 for our house but this is the latch. 06:46 If you can see this-- 06:48 this latch is a this little 06:49 tiny Mickey Mouse hard grill latch 06:51 and I think a bear could probably 06:53 lean against this door and pop this off 06:55 but you know we were only in our early 20s 06:57 so we really weren't experienced 06:59 at doing this kind of stuff. 07:00 Well, before we had this-- 07:02 we just leaned a piece of plywood 07:04 against the hall, it was okay. 07:06 As soon as we got a door, we had put a lock on it. 07:08 Yeah. Funny thinking. 07:09 Let's take everybody, let's take-- 07:11 let's go inside and take a look inside of the house. 07:15 It's quite heavy, this doorway weighs a ton. 07:18 Let's go inside. 07:26 As you can tell by looking at this place, 07:29 all this lumber for this house was cut with a chainsaw. 07:32 In a little while, I'd like to take you out 07:33 and show you exactly 07:34 how we cut lumber with a chainsaw. 07:37 One thing that as you listen to the stories 07:39 of this spiritual journey in this part of our life, 07:42 I'd like you to understand that you know, 07:43 what we did was fairly radical. 07:45 This was back in 1981, '82 07:47 when we started building this place, 07:49 but if the Lord could take 07:50 a couple of young people like us 07:52 with hardly any money and move out 07:53 into the woods and do what happened here 07:56 certainly the Lord could get you out of an inner city area 07:58 with your kids and put you in an environment 08:00 that would be a lot better than living 08:02 in some of the inner city areas that we are in today. 08:05 This fireplace here, Jerry Warnick, 08:07 my good friend I was telling you about, 08:09 he lives up by Glacier National Park 08:11 showed us how to do stone work and this-- 08:13 this fireplace actually is an airtight wood stove. 08:16 In fact, if you look at the-- this metal plate on here 08:20 what we would do is we would load this thing up 08:22 with a lot of big chunks of wood 08:24 and then we would close this metal plate on here 08:25 and when it got down to below air outside, 08:28 this whole fireplace would heat up 08:30 into like a big riff of wood stove 08:34 and all the rocks will get nice and warm. 08:36 We had a gravity feed water system 08:37 that came down out of them, out of the top of the property 08:41 and fed down to the house 08:42 and we heated all our hot water with this wood stove. 08:45 This was also used to heat our house 08:47 but we have some heating coils here 08:48 that go up into all hot water tank 08:50 that we found behind a plumbing place 08:53 and this provided all the hot water for us. 08:55 Once we finally got a well in here, 08:56 of course you have to realize for me-- 08:58 quite a number years we didn't have these luxuries 09:00 but when we finally got 09:01 the gravity feed water system in, 09:02 we had some pressurized water here 09:04 and we could actually take hot showers, 09:06 which was a really nice feature. 09:08 And my wife had quite an interesting kitchen. 09:10 Do you remember what your kitchen 09:11 looked like back in the days we first moved here? 09:13 Oh, let's go look at it. It'll give you an idea. 09:16 And just it's important for you to understand 09:19 that when we first moved here, this was our main house, 09:21 we live in a different house now as the ministry is growing. 09:24 We've actually turned his house into an office 09:26 and I'll share with you later that you know, 09:28 the other parts of the office 09:30 and we have an administrative room here 09:31 and we have a lot of stuff stored in here so, 09:34 we have bookstore in here and things for publishing, 09:36 this is a break room for employees, 09:38 so things are considerably different 09:40 now than they were back in the early '80s 09:42 when we used to live here. 09:43 On the back side of the fire place 09:45 was my wood cook stove. 09:47 And what I did there is I heated the water for baths, 09:52 for washing clothes, and baking bread in it, 09:56 did everything from scratch, 09:58 and so we had our wood cook stove here 10:00 but over here where you see these beautiful oak cabinets, 10:03 now we had homemade cabinets made out of pine 10:07 and one time as Jeff was building those cabinets for me, 10:11 he had the countertop 10:12 made out of a very thick cedar board stand. 10:16 He had little this little tiny was is it a jig saw? 10:19 A saber saw-- Little saber saw. 10:20 --to a generator. 10:21 He was cutting a hole in that, 10:24 of course this was years later when we finally had a generator 10:27 and he was cutting a hole in that 10:29 to put a sink in for me 10:31 and he was just struggling and struggling 10:34 and it wasn't going anywhere 10:36 and now I'm thinking this isn't going to last. 10:38 And just like I thought he went out the door 10:40 and as I anticipated he came walking 10:42 right back in with his chain saw. 10:44 And he got up on the counter and ripped his chain saw 10:48 and just threw saw dust all over 10:51 but you know that's what I was used to, 10:54 I was used to following him around 10:55 and cleaning that mess as we-- as we built. 10:58 We have to understand that all of this lumber that we cut, 11:01 all the-- you know you guys 11:02 that are contractors that are watching 11:04 this are gonna have a hard time with this 11:05 but all the finished work on this house 11:08 was done with a chainsaw. 11:10 I'm talking the miter cuts for around the windows. 11:13 I'm talking about the window moldings, 11:14 I'm talking about all the fine 'delicate stuff' that-- 11:19 we didn't have a handsaw, we only had chainsaws 11:21 and so all the fine delicate stuff 11:23 that you would do with a chainsaw, 11:24 I mean, with a handsaw, we were doing with the chainsaw, 11:26 so all this finished carpentry, 11:28 edges and everything were either hand planed 11:30 with a hand plane or they were cut with a chainsaw. 11:32 So, it was only natural for me 11:35 to jump up on the counter with a chainsaw 11:37 and cut the hole for the sink. 11:38 We had this idea when we came up here, 11:39 we're going to do all these great things 11:42 and when the first year went by, 11:43 all of a sudden, we realized that things were happening 11:45 exactly the way that we thought that they should. 11:48 We had this idea we're gonna build a clinic up here, 11:50 we're gonna build houses, 11:51 we're gonna have a health food store and restaurant in town. 11:54 We were going to do all these great things for God, 11:56 revelation seminars and by the time 11:57 the first summer came to its end, 11:59 my brother and sister-in-law 12:01 decided the weather here was too cold, 12:02 they didn't like it and they left. 12:03 And we're up here and we had a house 12:06 that was just barely built 12:07 and this whole idea of 'the great work' 12:10 started to change focus 12:12 and we started to realize what the great work was, 12:14 not going out and doing some great things for God, 12:16 but it was about character development. 12:18 Learning to trust Him, learning Him to be-- 12:20 to be faithful in the little things, 12:22 learning to be frugal with what resources 12:24 and money that He-- Learning to surrender. 12:26 Learning to surrender, 12:28 learning how to get along as a husband and wife 12:30 and we found out that was really 12:31 what country living was about, 12:32 it wasn't about doing some great work for God. 12:34 It was about doing some great work in our hearts. 12:36 Our hearts. Yeah. 12:38 We would like to take you outside 12:39 and show you the generator 12:40 that we later bought to start powering this house 12:43 'cause as the ministry started growing, 12:45 as a ministry started growing, that's a whole another story 12:48 that will develop into this spiritual journey series 12:50 that we're on right now. 12:56 When we finally decided 12:57 that we needed to get electricity here 12:59 'cause the ministry was starting to grow, 13:00 we started out first with a little teeny Honda generator 13:03 and then we ended up moving to-- 13:06 this one here and a gentleman 13:08 who is a real kind individual gave this generator to us. 13:12 This is an old military generator, 13:14 it's not really, it doesn't really put out 13:16 all that much wattage but it was enough to charge 13:18 some graphique telephone batteries 13:20 and run an inverter system 13:22 so that we could have washing machine 13:24 and 12 volt power 'cause as the ministry started growing, 13:28 we started having computers 13:29 and such here but we were still running 13:30 this ministry off this generator 13:32 and this is like a 1945 old military generator 13:37 with a flathead four cylinder 13:38 and this provided electricity for us probably for almost, 13:41 I would think about almost five years 13:43 and then we finally got power in. 13:46 The whole story about how the power came 13:48 to the property is just definitely providential 13:52 and how the Lord lead and I'll never forget-- 13:57 our neighbor that has property right next to us here 14:00 and wanted to have power brought into our property. 14:02 And you see, when we first moved here 14:03 we had this idea we'd like to bring power to the property. 14:06 We checked- on it and we found 14:07 that it was going to cost $12,698. 14:12 Well, that was way out of the budget 14:14 that we could ever even consider affording 14:16 and so year after year went by we just knew 14:18 we'll probably not get power into this place ever 14:20 but the ministry started growing in 14:22 and I knew the Lord knew 14:23 that we needed to have electricity 14:25 to do everything we're doing. 14:27 The neighbor said why don't we check with the-- 14:28 this huge corporation on property right behind us 14:31 and see if we can get power in and he checked with them, 14:35 they were having a board meeting 14:37 and they called me up on a Friday morning 14:41 and they said we've decided 14:42 you could put power in through our property 14:44 but because you're going through our property 14:45 you have to go underground. 14:47 And I said well, how much would that cost? 14:48 And they said around $12,000 14:50 and I was thinking oh, nine years down the road 14:53 and it's still the same price which we can't afford. 14:57 And I was a little discouraged 14:58 but you know the Lord has an interesting way 14:59 of having things happen because that next morning 15:02 which was Sabbath morning we went to church 15:04 I was feeling a little bit depressed 15:06 and I was thinking, Lord, you know why is this happening 15:08 because we really need to have electricity here 15:10 and what ended up happening was 15:12 after we came home from church. 15:14 We heard a knock at the door and I opened the door up 15:16 and it was the gentleman on the-- 15:18 almost a mile section of property 15:19 right behind our house and he said, 15:21 "Jeff I was just wondering, 15:23 have you ever thought about getting power in your place" 15:26 And I kind of grinned and said 15:27 "Well, you know, 15:28 I thought about that actually quite a bit lately 15:29 and I didn't tell him you know about 15:31 what was happening just the last week 15:34 and he said you know what let's go take a look at the property 15:36 and I got thinking should I be doing this on Sabbath? 15:38 Well, I think the Lord brought this gentleman to me 15:42 to our family and so I went out for a walk with him 15:44 and he went talk with his other family members 15:46 and that individual gave us permission 15:49 to be able to put power in 15:51 right next to this corporation's property 15:53 just over thirty feet cut down to swath the trees 15:55 for free all the way in from the highway. 15:58 And you know how much it cost us? 15:59 It cost us $1260-- 16:04 $1268 or something like that was almost exactly 16:07 a tide of what it was going to cost us, 16:09 you know, nine years before that to get power in 16:12 and what this other company wanted to charger us. 16:14 And that was just again another sign you know, 16:16 of how the Lord was leading to be able 16:18 to help this ministry to continue to grow 16:21 and to provide the needs that we had here 16:23 to really make this ministry 16:25 be the blessing that it is today around the world. 16:32 One of our greatest needs that we had up here 16:34 after several years a running the ministry 16:36 was getting a telephone in 16:38 and before we even got power into this place. 16:41 You have to consider this extremely remote area 16:43 and try to get telephone in here 16:45 was going to cost a lot of money. 16:46 And we were making it a real serious matter of prayer 16:50 and I had used a one of the neighbors phones 16:53 and I called and asked about having an engineer 16:56 from the telephone company come out 16:58 to our place in just give us an estimation 17:00 on how much it was going to cost 17:01 to have the telephone brought in. 17:03 And I remember one morning we were about our daily business 17:05 at the house doing home schooling 17:07 and I was studying and there was a knock on the door 17:09 and there was a gentleman 17:10 there with one of these little wheels a meter wheel 17:12 that measures distance. 17:14 And he started telling us that, 17:15 well, we can get telephone in here, 17:16 it's going to cost around $700 I think it was at that time. 17:20 And he looked up on the wall and he saw a picture of Jesus 17:24 and he looked down at my desk there was right by the door 17:26 and he saw a Bible and he look at us 17:28 said are you folks Christians? 17:29 Then we said yeah, and he said 17:30 oh, I'm Christian too and we visited with him some 17:33 and it was really nice and-- and then he said do you know 17:36 we can get telephone in here and there would be no problem 17:38 I'm the head engineer and I looked at him 17:41 and I said I don't have the money 17:43 to have this system installed and he said 17:46 "Oh, we can work out a payment plan for you, 17:47 don't worry about that." 17:49 And so they drag actually a wire 17:50 that was just laying on top in the snow 17:52 and across the creeks and everything, 17:54 all the way up from the county road 17:56 over a mile away, all the way down into our property here 17:59 and hocked up the telephoning and we had telephone up here 18:02 and so I started making monthly payments 18:04 but the only odd thing was as every time 18:06 I made a monthly payment 18:07 it was just being credited to our phone bill 18:09 and so our phone bill was like 18:11 increasing rather than being charged. 18:14 And so I started calling the company up, 18:15 then I called this place and I called that place 18:17 and they didn't know what to do about it, 18:19 they didn't tell me where to put the money. 18:21 I finally called the engineer up 18:22 that had originally come up here 18:25 and he said to me he said "Jeff I'll check into this." 18:27 Now this is after I've done everything 18:29 I possibly could do to try to make payments 18:31 on the installation of this telephone line 18:33 he said "Jeff I'll see what I can do 18:35 until you hear from me 18:36 don't you worry about anything from this point on." 18:39 And till this day I've never heard back from him. 18:42 And so the Lord provided free telephone for us here, 18:45 I'd done everything on my part 18:46 to clear my conscience to try to be responsible 18:49 and we've never heard back 18:51 from the telephone company and to this day, 18:53 now we have multi line system up here for the whole mystery. 19:25 The first thing you do when you cut lumber 19:27 with a chainsaw mill as you have this apparatus here. 19:29 Oh, man this thing weighs a ton. 19:31 This is the chainsaw mill, last time four chainsaw mill 19:34 with husk of chain saw and this is your log 19:37 and now we're going to prepare the log 19:38 and we're going to get ready to cut-- 19:40 cut it up into boards. 20:05 Good. 20:38 That's the carriage return. 20:42 Well, this finishes are here. That is so nice. 20:46 It's cut a little bit rough because it's a brand new chain. 21:12 Now you put this, just drop it. 21:38 What we've done now is we've taken this log 21:41 and we've cut off two sides of it 21:43 and we've got an exactly a 4-inch wide piece here. 21:45 Now we're going to do the top cut. 21:47 We're just going to basically shim off the bark 21:49 as much as possible and then we get a nice top cut, 21:52 then we are going to really start making lumber. 21:55 Okay, we want to set it at three 21:58 and you love this three and a quarter. 22:20 Right now we could cut a beam. 22:22 Out of this we can make a four by four beam, 22:25 we could make a one by out of it. 22:28 Whatever dimension now we set this at, 22:30 we can go ahead and cut the dip width of the board. 22:40 Basically, that's how you do it 22:42 and you think that all the lumber 22:43 in that house was cut with a chainsaw 22:46 just like this whether it was two by fours 22:48 two by six cedar paneling, 22:50 everything pretty much was cut this way. 22:52 It's a slow process but we're on a tight income 22:55 it produces some pretty nice lumber. 22:59 I just want to say, you know, 23:00 as we went through these early times of the ministry here. 23:03 We learned some valuable lessons 23:05 and those lessons were learning 23:07 to keep God first in our life, 23:10 learning how to work together as a husband and wife. 23:12 If it wasn't for the fact that Christ was in our relationship. 23:15 I think an experience like what we've gone through here 23:18 probably could have very easily 23:20 caused a young couple to go to a divorce 23:22 because it's not easy doing what we did but that, 23:24 it actually drew us together a lot of ways 23:26 and the other thing that I learned 23:29 was learn to trust in God in every circumstance 23:33 that He would provide our need step by step as we needed that, 23:36 as each door needed to be opened 23:37 we stepped through it God would provide. 23:40 They taught us how to be frugal with money 23:42 because we often times lived on thirty dollars a week 23:45 just to survive up here. 23:47 And it also-- and this may be kind of odd, 23:51 it helped us to prepare us for international ministry 23:55 because as we started going to various different countries 23:59 and in the third world countries, 24:01 to tell you the truth we felt rather comfortable 24:03 because we've been there and we've lived 24:06 without all those luxuries of everyday life 24:09 that so many people enjoy in the city. 24:12 You know, one of the lessons 24:13 I learned in those times of living 24:16 so poorly is that you don't worry about tomorrow 24:21 and I really like this scripture 24:23 that says to "To cast your bread upon the waters" 24:25 because after many days it shall return. 24:28 And I saw that proven so many times we would have-- 24:32 be at the end of some sort of supplies 24:34 and I'm looking at it and I'm thinking 24:37 you know what, how am I going to replace this 24:39 and I'd go ahead and use whatever supplies it was, 24:43 whether it be raisins or fruit 24:47 or whatever it was there for the meal 24:49 and throw the last of it in. 24:51 And within a day or two someone would be showing up 24:54 and they would be trading with us some-- 24:57 for some sort of services or something like that 25:00 and they would be trading date pieces 25:02 or they would be trading prunes 25:03 or they would be trading more raisins and-- 25:06 My faith was just so strengthened 25:09 by those little experiences in life 25:11 when Jesus provided for us. 25:13 And what that did for us 25:15 is rather than having this big picture 25:18 of some kind a big ministry 25:20 it started to help us to realize 25:21 that what ministry really was-- was way a way of life. 25:24 It was who you are in Christ it was, 25:27 you know, getting to know your neighbors 25:29 and to share what little you had 25:34 with other people and that ministry was-- 25:36 is more about giving and taking with people in your community 25:39 and the people you come in contact with everyday life 25:41 and as we started to understand that God started, 25:45 the old saying is that we worked on the plan of addition 25:47 and God start working on the plan of multiplication. 25:49 I remember we're almost out of firewood one winter. 25:52 And one friend came up to my place here 25:55 and he said he needed firewood really bad 25:58 and I said go ahead and take half of what I have 26:00 and I knew that we were going to run out anyhow. 26:02 And soon as I did that within two days 26:04 the Lord opened up a place for us 26:05 where we had unlimited supply of firewood. 26:08 We filled our woodshed for two years 26:10 and then we ended up having enough wood 26:12 to give to couple of other poor families in the community 26:14 and different people that needed some firewood 26:16 like at the one of the church schools here 26:20 in town was burning firewood back in those days 26:22 and we gave firewood to them 26:23 and so by us being willing to sacrifice 26:26 what little we had and sharing it 26:27 with somebody else to help them. 26:28 God ended up pouring more blessings on us 26:31 and you know, that's the Divine Principle 26:33 of how God works with us as Christians. 26:36 As we've been talking about some of experiences 26:39 that we've gone through the years. 26:41 It take me back to a quote 26:44 that was always encouraging to us, 26:45 and it goes kind of like this. 26:48 "It would be well for you to lay by your perplexing cares 26:51 and find a retreat in the country, 26:53 where there's not so strong an influence 26:55 to corrupt the morals of the young. 26:58 True, you would not be entirely free from annoyances 27:01 and perplexing care is in the country, 27:03 but you would there avoid many evils 27:06 and close the door against the flood of temptation 27:09 which threaten to overpower the minds for your children." 27:13 And we just felt that being out here 27:16 in the country was a safe haven for our children. 27:20 It was worth the sacrifice 27:22 and I would encourage any of you to consider 27:25 if you are in the inner city area 27:27 that this is the time to consider 27:29 moving into more rural area. 27:31 We are all out of time right now 27:32 in the spiritual journey is going to continue 27:34 and I know that you're going to gain many blessings 27:36 with the stories that are yet to come. 27:38 So until next time may God bless you 27:39 and may God bless you 27:41 as you continue your spiritual journey. 27:43 If you would like to see this complete presentation 27:45 please write or call Laymen Ministries, 27:48 414 Zapada road, St. Maries, Idaho, 83861 27:53 or call 1-800-245-1844. 27:58 You can contact us on the web at www.lmn.org. |
Revised 2014-12-17