Have you ever found
yourself in a messy situation
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that you couldn't clean up
no matter how hard you tried?
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Well, stay tuned to learn about
the ultimate cleaning solution.
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They try to change
us from the outside in,
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and that's never going to work.
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Because I know that no matter
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how hard and cold
the exterior may seem,
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I know that inside we hurt.
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So we just want to come
and share some hope with you
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and let you know
that we love you,
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and that Jesus loves you
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beyond anybody in this world.
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I'm not here today to
judge you or condemn you,
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we're today to tell
you that we love you
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and we understand the
situation that you're in.
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Hello, I'm Jason Bradley,
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and I'm so glad that
you joined us once again.
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I'm here with Lemuel Vega,
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founder of
Christmas Behind Bars.
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And, Lemuel,
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I'm sure you've come in
contact with a lot of people
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that have been incarcerated
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and you have a
multitude of stories.
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You know what, Brother?
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Whether they're incarcerated
or out there in the world,
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sometimes our
life is so hopeless.
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I was out of
prison for 12 years.
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I was sick and ready to die.
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I was more in a derelictic
condition out there in society
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than I was behind these bars.
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But God is good, He
meets us where we're at,
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whether we're behind
bars or in the free world
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and God has plans for our lives.
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I'd like to just
read a scripture.
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Jeremiah 29:11.
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It says, "For I
know the thoughts
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that I think towards
you, saith the Lord."
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So He has a plan for our lives,
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He has thoughts for us.
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He says, "To give us
peace and not of evil,
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to give you an expected end."
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So, "For I know the thoughts
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that I think
towards you saith the Lord,
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thoughts of peace."
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Amen? Amen.
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"And not of evil."
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So this great
controversy that's going on
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between good and
evil is not God's design.
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Yes.
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But He has a remedy,
He has a way to help us
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through this time of
trouble in which we live.
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To give us an expected end
and that end is eternal life.
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He said, He went to
prepare a home for us.
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Now here it is
in Jeremiah 29:12.
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Messy situation in
prison, out of prison,
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no matter where there is.
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"Then shall ye call upon Me."
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So we call out to God,
say, Lord, I need help,
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I've tried everything
else, doctors, lawyers,
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whatever it is,
family maybe let us down,
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so we've tried everything else.
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Jesus said, "Then
shall ye call upon Me
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and ye shall go and pray unto Me
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and I will harken unto you."
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He'll take your call.
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Amen.
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He'll listen,
there is no busy signal.
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Amen.
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There is no bad
connection, can you hear me now?
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It says, "Then
shall you call upon Me,
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and you shall
go and pray unto Me
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and I will
harken, I will listen,
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I will pay attention."
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And so that's the
power of the gospel.
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And, you know, I like
to use analogies, like,
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just something simple
that we have around us.
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Do you have any
toilet paper in there?
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No, sir.
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You ain't got no toilet.
You got any toilet paper?
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Jason, this is just a
simple roll of toilet paper.
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Uh-huh.
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And this is
something that people normally,
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probably use 99.9 percent
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people probably use
this on a daily basis.
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Yes.
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Why do we use toilet paper?
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Clean up messy situations.
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Clean up messy situations.
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Amen.
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Toilet paper cleans
up messy situations.
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Amen?
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Amen.
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It says in the Word of God,
"Then shall ye call upon Me,
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and ye shall go and pray unto me
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and I will harken unto you."
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He'll come, He'll listen.
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He says that, "Ye shall seek me
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and find me when you search
for me with all your heart."
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When we come to
God just as we are,
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He cleans up the internal.
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And when we come to Him,
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He wants to come into our heart.
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We make a
decision to call unto Him.
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He wants to come into our heart
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and as we invite God
into our heart, our mind,
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our intellect becomes clear,
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our heart becomes warm
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and then we begin to feel
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and sense His
blessings for our lives.
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And when the
internal begins to change,
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the external
comes into conformity
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with the internal.
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Amen.
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So that's the
power of the gospel.
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And so something as
simple as toilet paper
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to clean the
internal, the external,
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we use that to
clean the external,
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but God wants to
come into our heart
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and clean the internal.
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Amen? Amen.
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You know, I love that.
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I think about Daniel, you
know, Daniel in Daniel 1:8,
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and it says, "But
Daniel purposed in his heart
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that he would
not defile himself."
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You think about
a messy situation.
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A messy
situation can defile you.
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"But he said that he
would not defile himself
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with the portion of
the king's delicacies
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nor with the
wine which he drank.
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Therefore he requested
of the chief of the eunuchs
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that he might
not defile himself."
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I think about
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
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so think about someone
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who gives their
heart to the Lord,
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they're walking
with the Lord, they're,
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you know, they're
serving the Lord wholeheartedly.
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Amen.
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And that doesn't mean
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that we don't
encounter trials, right?
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Do you think Christians...
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Brother, you are
so absolutely right.
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You know, with the
Corona pandemic and the virus,
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I just had a dear friend,
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he just buried
his wife of 49 years,
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just buried yesterday.
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And so, but she
died victorious in Jesus.
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She'll be resurrected in Jesus.
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Amen.
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And they'll be reunited
in the kingdom of heaven.
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So even though we as
Christians experience
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these troublous times,
we need to hold on to Jesus.
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Amen? Yes.
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Amen.
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And that's exactly what these
three Hebrew boys did here.
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When they were
faced with the situation
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where the king wanted
them to bow down and worship
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this statue
anytime the music played
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and they
basically told the king,
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you know, look,
our God can deliver us
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from this situation
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and if He does or if He doesn't,
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basically, we're
still going to serve Him.
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We're not going to worship you.
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That's right. Amen.
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We're not going to
worship any other god.
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So they got cast
into the fiery furnace.
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Three of them went in,
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but there was a
fourth one in there
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with the
appearance of the Son of man.
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Powerful, powerful story.
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And that's what God
does, He stands with us
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in the midst of our trials.
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Amen. You know
what I like about it?
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The king says, "Who is this God
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that's able to
deliver you out of my hand?
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Who is this God?"
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But not very long later,
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he said, "Looks like
one like the Son of man."
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That's right.
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So he had some kind of
knowledge of who that was.
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That's right.
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It was a great witnessing
opportunity, you know?
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And we always have
these witnessing opportunities
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and if we're
going through a trial,
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how do we respond in
the midst of adversity?
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Amen.
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That makes a huge difference.
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You know, we
have the cross here,
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we use toilet paper
for the internal analogy
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of how He comes into our heart.
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You know on the
cross of Calvary,
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Jesus died, He shed
His blood there for us.
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And it's His righteousness
that covers all iniquity,
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all sin, it's His righteousness.
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So whether
people find themselves
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in a suicidal situation,
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a hopeless
situation, incarceration,
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maybe they can't
make their house payment,
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whatever it is,
they need to continue
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to look at the cross and realize
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what our heavenly Father did
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through the gift
of His Son Jesus.
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Jason, you know,
when I got locked up
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as a young man
in a jail like this,
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I remember that we
set the jail on fire.
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How can you set a jail on fire?
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'Cause after all it's all steel.
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But we stuffed,
there was a hole up there
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and we almost
all died that night
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because the
smoke filled the jail
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and there we were
in a bad situation.
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People do things,
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not to really hurt other people,
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sometimes it's
just misguided energy.
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You know the people in Florida,
the young people in Florida
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that took a stop sign down,
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all they wanted to
do was see a car crash.
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They didn't think
somebody would get killed.
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And so, you
know, as a young boy,
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we used to put
boulders on the railroad track,
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boulders in...
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What I wanted to do
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is I wanted to
see the train come by
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and fall off the track.
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Wow.
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I didn't do it to hurt anybody.
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And so without Jesus,
without purpose in our lives,
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there is no
purpose in video games,
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there is no
purpose in secular music,
00:08:11.12\00:08:12.95
there is no
purpose in secular TV,
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there is no purpose
working all of our life
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for some big retirement,
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there is no purpose in
this life outside of Christ.
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Amen? Amen.
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How is it that you
gave your life to Christ?
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Your life was
full of all kinds of,
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you were going and
moving and doing fancy things,
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but at some point
you were empty inside.
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How did you give your
life to Christ, Brother?
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Well, I found myself
in a very messy situation.
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My appendix had
ruptured, I was misdiagnosed.
00:08:35.11\00:08:37.55
I remember lying
in the hospital bed
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thinking that I
was going to die,
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not knowing whether or not
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I was going to live or die.
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And if I would
have died right then,
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I would have died in my sin.
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So I had my mother
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who was there
helping me do things
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that I couldn't
even do for myself,
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such as brush my
teeth and walk over there.
00:08:51.53\00:08:53.80
So she was
walking me to the sink
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to go brush my teeth
and I remember her crying
00:08:55.90\00:08:58.73
because I had
become flesh and bones,
00:08:58.77\00:09:01.17
I was so skinny.
00:09:01.20\00:09:02.74
And this was at a time
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where I had made
a promise to God.
00:09:04.24\00:09:05.84
I didn't even
serve God at the time,
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I didn't want
anything to do with God.
00:09:07.61\00:09:09.38
But as we often do,
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when we find ourselves getting
into these horrible situations,
00:09:11.48\00:09:15.58
self inflicted
trials, we say to God,
00:09:15.62\00:09:18.55
"God, if You get me out of this,
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if You get me out
of this, I'll change,
00:09:20.09\00:09:21.56
I'll do something different."
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And I believe you
really meant that,
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but on our own we can't.
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That's right.
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My stomach was left open.
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Opened, closed,
they didn't stitch me up
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or anything like that.
00:09:30.80\00:09:32.13
I had gauze pads
covering my stomach.
00:09:32.17\00:09:34.50
Couple of weeks into recovery,
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I ended up going
back to a known drug area
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to purchase some drugs to sell.
00:09:38.81\00:09:41.48
Ended up getting
arrested that day
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and I just spent
the night in jail,
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but I was looking at a potential
00:09:45.51\00:09:47.05
maximum prison
sentence of 15 years.
00:09:47.08\00:09:50.12
In a place like this?
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In a place like this.
00:09:51.52\00:09:52.85
But God saw fit to
give me a second chance.
00:09:52.89\00:09:55.96
And so I didn't
accept Him right then,
00:09:55.99\00:09:57.83
but I made
behavioral modifications
00:09:57.86\00:09:59.93
and then eventually He
grabbed a hold of my life.
00:09:59.96\00:10:02.50
My mother never
stopped praying for me,
00:10:02.53\00:10:04.83
and those prayers really
helped to transform my life.
00:10:04.87\00:10:09.47
God heard her prayers.
00:10:09.50\00:10:10.84
As you're willing, He's able.
00:10:10.87\00:10:12.21
Amen.
00:10:12.24\00:10:13.58
As you're willing, He's able.
00:10:13.61\00:10:15.04
Amen.
00:10:15.08\00:10:16.41
The Bible says,
"For I know the thoughts
00:10:16.44\00:10:19.11
that I think toward
you, saith the Lord."
00:10:19.15\00:10:21.48
He was with you,
He abide with you,
00:10:21.52\00:10:23.02
He walked with you,
00:10:23.05\00:10:24.39
He encouraged
you, He called you.
00:10:24.42\00:10:25.89
As you was willing to surrender,
00:10:25.92\00:10:27.26
He was there for you.
00:10:27.29\00:10:28.62
"For I know the thoughts
that I think towards you,
00:10:28.66\00:10:29.99
saith the Lord, thoughts
of peace and not of evil,
00:10:30.03\00:10:32.29
to give us an expected end."
00:10:32.33\00:10:33.66
There was an
incarceration, it wasn't death,
00:10:33.70\00:10:36.30
that's not His
design for humanity,
00:10:36.33\00:10:38.23
but it's eternal life.
00:10:38.27\00:10:39.60
"Then shall you call
upon Me," you called upon Him,
00:10:39.63\00:10:42.50
you prayed unto
Him, He heard you,
00:10:42.54\00:10:44.74
He harkened with you.
00:10:44.77\00:10:46.11
"And you shall
seek Me and find Me
00:10:46.14\00:10:47.68
when you shall search
for Me with all your heart."
00:10:47.71\00:10:52.15
So every day in our
culture as we use toilet paper,
00:10:52.18\00:10:55.88
paper towel, napkins to clean up
00:10:55.92\00:10:57.89
external messy situations.
00:10:57.92\00:11:00.26
Would you
encourage our world today
00:11:00.29\00:11:02.09
to ultimately think of Christ?
00:11:02.12\00:11:04.63
Oh, absolutely, 100%.
00:11:04.66\00:11:07.70
If you accept
Christ in your life,
00:11:07.73\00:11:09.96
you won't regret it.
00:11:10.00\00:11:11.50
You have somebody who
you can take your burdens to,
00:11:11.53\00:11:14.54
who you can pray to,
who wants to hear from you,
00:11:14.57\00:11:17.61
who loves you so much,
00:11:17.64\00:11:19.71
even more than
your parents love you.
00:11:19.74\00:11:21.68
Jesus loves you so much.
00:11:21.71\00:11:23.58
You can't say that
anybody else died for you,
00:11:23.61\00:11:26.68
but Jesus did that for
your life and for mine.
00:11:26.72\00:11:29.42
Jason, I believe there's
somebody at home right now,
00:11:29.45\00:11:31.59
perhaps incarcerated.
00:11:31.62\00:11:33.39
Would you have
a prayer, Brother,
00:11:33.42\00:11:35.09
for the appeal you just made?
00:11:35.12\00:11:36.86
Absolutely.
00:11:36.89\00:11:38.23
Dear heavenly Father,
we just want to lift up
00:11:38.26\00:11:40.50
that individual
that may be incarcerated
00:11:40.53\00:11:42.83
or that is living
in the free world,
00:11:42.86\00:11:44.87
but a slave to sin
and bondage to sin.
00:11:44.90\00:11:48.30
And, Father, we just ask
00:11:48.34\00:11:49.67
that You would
please break that bondage
00:11:49.70\00:11:52.34
that the devil has
on his or her life,
00:11:52.37\00:11:55.18
and that You would
grab a hold of them
00:11:55.21\00:11:56.91
and that You
would draw them to you
00:11:56.95\00:11:59.18
as time is short
and save their soul.
00:11:59.21\00:12:03.02
In Jesus' name we pray.
00:12:03.05\00:12:04.42
Amen.
00:12:04.45\00:12:06.09
I've been here in this,
00:12:06.12\00:12:07.99
I think in this
jail eight times.
00:12:08.02\00:12:10.49
Been battling
addiction most of my life.
00:12:10.53\00:12:13.23
I lost my mom
before when I was 13,
00:12:13.26\00:12:15.36
so that kind of
did the spiral for me.
00:12:15.40\00:12:18.13
It was just my
dad raising nine kids.
00:12:18.17\00:12:20.17
He wasn't always there
00:12:20.20\00:12:21.54
'cause he was
always at work or whatever.
00:12:21.57\00:12:24.67
It's been a struggle,
00:12:24.71\00:12:26.84
I've tried to quit
and tried to quit it
00:12:26.88\00:12:30.65
and some leads me
back to those streets
00:12:30.68\00:12:32.91
and unfortunately
that's why I'm in here now.
00:12:32.95\00:12:36.95
I relapsed again and now,
00:12:36.99\00:12:42.92
I'm going to probably do
the next 20 years in prison.
00:12:42.96\00:12:45.06
I just met with
my lawyer yesterday,
00:12:45.09\00:12:46.83
so, yeah, I just got
this bad news yesterday.
00:12:46.86\00:12:51.03
That reconnection with
God, it came to me a year ago,
00:12:51.07\00:12:54.24
when the chaplain of
the jail could come in here
00:12:54.27\00:12:57.01
and he came in
here and we did classes
00:12:57.04\00:12:58.97
like every
Wednesday or every Thursday
00:12:59.01\00:13:00.88
or it depend on
what day he came in here.
00:13:00.91\00:13:03.21
I hate to say this,
00:13:03.24\00:13:04.58
but in jail is where I
seem to get close to God.
00:13:04.61\00:13:07.72
And when I'm on the street,
00:13:07.75\00:13:09.28
I'm there, but
I'm not all there,
00:13:09.32\00:13:12.45
you know, I've
done a 360 around, so.
00:13:12.49\00:13:17.96
And I don't want to live
in that lifestyle anymore,
00:13:17.99\00:13:21.43
I want to live for the Lord.
00:13:21.46\00:13:25.87
It's going to be a new
beginning wherever I go,
00:13:25.90\00:13:28.04
whether it's on the street
or whether it's in prison.
00:13:28.07\00:13:31.07
I mean, I don't have
to live this way anymore
00:13:31.11\00:13:34.01
and I refuse to
live this way anymore.
00:13:34.04\00:13:37.65
I can't believe, Lemuel,
that our time is almost up.
00:13:37.68\00:13:41.92
What's the final
thought that you have?
00:13:41.95\00:13:43.92
Final thought is there's
hope in this troublous time
00:13:43.95\00:13:46.69
that we live in Jesus.
00:13:46.72\00:13:48.42
Amen? Amen.
00:13:48.46\00:13:49.79
Amen. Praise the Lord.
00:13:49.82\00:13:51.16
I want to thank you, Lemuel,
00:13:51.19\00:13:52.53
for the job that you are
doing with the men and women
00:13:52.56\00:13:54.43
that are incarcerated,
and what you're doing
00:13:54.46\00:13:56.03
with Christmas Behind Bars,
00:13:56.06\00:13:57.70
and ultimately
winning souls for the kingdom.
00:13:57.73\00:14:02.07
We invite you to
tune in next time.
00:14:02.10\00:14:04.34
Till then, God bless.
00:14:04.37\00:14:05.77