Left for Dead

0:00 Brace yourself and buckle up. You are about to hear a life-changing, history-making, world-defining message from the New Birth Podcast. Tell everybody you know, things will never be the same. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Acts, the 28th chapter.

0:24 And I want to just read one verse for your hearing. Thank God for the pastors who have served us so well. Give it up for your staff, executive pastors. Thank you. Thank you for all that you guys have done to make this such an enjoyable moment. Amen. And Acts 28 verse 5. If you have it, shout, I got the bread. If you don't have it, shout, I'm hungry. All right. Lord, feed him, Jesus. Feed him. Acts 28 verse 5. And it reads,

1:01 And he shook off the beast into the fire and felt no harm. He shook off the beast into the fire. and felt no harm. If you can, gently hold your neighbor by the hand. You don't know what they walked in here with this morning and what they may be dealing with. But I need you just to gently squeeze their hand to let them know they're not alone. I want you to help me. I want to preach from this thought left for dead. Agree with me in prayer, Spirit of the living God.

2:03 We love you. We adore you. We magnify your name. There is no one like you. No one greater than you. No one stronger than you. No one mightier than you are the creator of the universe and the source of all life and strength is found in you. My peace is found in you. My joy is found in you. Everything that I am and everything that I hope to be is all found in you. And spirit of the living God, as we stand in this sacred space, we ask your Holy Spirit that you will move in this place. Let your glory arrest us. Let deliverance take place in our midst. Let yokes be destroyed, chains be broken in the name of Jesus. And we thank you that no weapon formed against our neighbor shall be able to prosper. We come against every diabolical plan of the enemy that comes to sabotage what you're doing in this service.

3:02 And we thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Now loose those hands and give God praise all over this place. you may be seated in the presence of our God. Please help me shout it left for dead. In the 1800s, there was a man by the name of George Muller. He was a German clergyman. One of the profound things about this gentleman was the fact that he took care of thousands upon thousands of orphans. one of the things that he really loved to do is to tell stories he loved storytelling telling about his encounters with these young orphans one of the stories that he would tell is about a young man who was badly beaten and thrown in the back alley of a market in brestel cold, unconscious, and barely breathing.

4:24 Authorities showed up, and when they should have been helping him, they looked over his body and began to debate about him. One said he won't even make it through the night. The other one saying that we should just pick up his dead body in the morning. They got in their cars, turned on their engine, and left him for dead.

4:55 Meanwhile, there was a little old poor lady that was not too far from this young man. And she walked up to the young man and kneeled down and put her ear to his chest and said out of her mouth, He's still here. she picked him up with all the strength that she had and took him back to her apartment and she spoon fed him and nursed him back to health long story short brothers and sisters he survived years later he would go on to testify to people that he did not survive because he was strong He survived because someone refused to agree with death. and he survived because there was still an assignment on his life for him to fulfill my brothers and sisters I want to inform you that everybody under the sound of my voice in this building you have an assignment on your life you have an assignment that God has called and ordained for you to fulfill.

6:17 And I want to help you to understand with this calling comes spiritual warfare. The enemy will send everything that he can to make sure you don't fulfill the assignment that's on your life. We understand the assignment of our enemy in John 10 and 10 that says, the thief cometh not. oh y'all a bible church but to steal kill and destroy but i'm thankful that that's not the end of the story because jesus says but i have come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly i need you just to gently touch your neighbor in the beginning of my dissertation and tell them the devil wanted you dead yeah but God said live no no no no no I need somebody who really have been under spiritual warfare you know what it is to have to pray for your children and pray for your loved ones I need you to really look at your neighbor and say neighbor you don't know all the hell i had to go through just to get here this morning but thanks be unto god who causes us to triumph over the enemy somebody shout god

7:45 Such is the pericope of our text. Paul is in a place where he's experiencing unusual spiritual warfare. He's experiencing a storm. He's experiencing a shipwreck. And he's experiencing a snake. um but my brothers and sisters in order to understand the context of acts 27 and 28 you got to understand the pretext of the foregoing chapters it is in acts 21 that paul is in jerusalem somebody shout jerusalem and he is accused my brothers and sisters he's accused of telling the people to forsake the mosaic law not only is he accused of this but he's also accused of bringing the gentiles into the inner chambers of the temple this my brothers and sisters is a capital crime you don't do that you don't bring the gentiles into the temple they got up so upset with Paul that a riot broke out and my brothers and sisters they started fighting against Paul they beat Paul halfway to death but then the Roman soldiers intervened and when they intervened they started to take Paul to the Jewish leaders to be executed but Paul opens up his mouth and say I am a Roman citizen.

9:28 What this means is is that Paul cannot be executed without a proper trial. Paul must be tried before they can execute him. So they send him to the administration. They send him to Caesarea. They send him to the governor and the successor of the governor, Fetus and Felix. and Herod and Paul stood before them testifying to them about his road to Damascus and how God turned his life around. It was Herod that said he's so good he almost persuaded me. I almost became a Christian and the Bible says that they found no fault in Paul but they could not send him back because the Jewish leaders would have been upset so they held him for two years but then he became a political inconvenience so it is the successor who says I got the great idea let's send him back to where we picked him up from let's send him back to Jerusalem Paul opens up his mouth and say, oh no, you ain't sending me back there.

10:56 He makes an appeal. He makes a request to stand before the emperor in Rome. And they granted him his request. Now I need you to look at your neighbor and say, neighbor, that's a big deal. That's a big deal. You won't understand how big of a deal this is. If you don't understand Roman culture, Roman culture would suggest that they bowed to the emperor. They worshipped the name of the emperor. And Paul says, I want to go be tried in front of the emperor. but Paul is saying I'm not coming to bow down to the emperor I'm not coming to give him all these fancy words about his great name but I'm coming in front of the emperor to tell him about a great name that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord.

12:13 This, my brothers and sisters, is a big deal because this helps us to understand that Paul is not on a vacation. Paul is not on a trip. Paul is on an assignment. He's on an assignment to preach to Rome. And no wonder while he's on an assignment, the devil shows up with spiritual warfare trying to knock Paul off of his square. But my brothers and sisters, you have to understand that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they're mighty through God, through the pulling down of strongholds. This is not the first time that Paul has been on an assignment and has had warfare to show up.

13:11 If you look at Acts, the 16th chapter, it is Paul and Silas who are in Macedonia preaching the word of God, praying. And the damsel girl shows up fooled with the spirit of divination. She irritated Paul. She kept coming after Paul. Paul did not turn around and curse her out Paul did not turn around and give her a piece of his mind Paul turned around and said you come out of you you spirit of divination see some of you you're losing in spiritual warfare because you keep bringing physical weapons to a spiritual battle but the next time the devil come after you and your babies you better open up your mouth and say devil it means war you can't have my children you can't have my marriage you can't have my career the blood of Jesus oh Lord I need some intercessors who are not afraid that the devil know your name when I call to a I know, Jesus!

14:32 P we, to. to. to. to. to. to. to. is on assignment. And because he's on an assignment, Lord, I feel you now, he has spiritual warfare.

14:54 And so understand that Luke, who is the writer of this book called Acts, wants us to understand that they're getting ready to take this trip at the end of Yom Kippur, which is the time of atonement. It's the end of November. Settlers know that it is the worst time to be sailing across the Mediterranean Sea. It is the worst season possible. And they take Paul anyway. Paul tells them, we may not want to go. But they go anyway. But then Paul gets on the ship and said, I know we're doing against what I told, but we shall make it on the other side. It is, in fact, a prophetic declaration that we're going to make it on the other side.

15:57 But here it is. They're encouraged. They're looking to God. They're excited about what God just said. And after they receive the prophetic word, here comes a storm. Have you ever been there? Right when you got a word from the Lord, here comes a storm. Right when God told you that your children are going to be delivered and saved, here comes a storm. Right when God told you you were going to be financially free, here comes a storm. this storm my brothers and sisters is called Eurachlidon Eurachlidon is in fact a storm that has boisterous winds, they're evil winds, they are hard understand this my brothers and sisters, you can't win with a fight with this Eurachlidon storm, the only way to be able to survive a Eurachlidon storm is you have to yield and submit to the storm.

17:04 Alright, I gotta put this in your soup while I'm in your kitchen and ask you a question. Could it be that some of the storms you're still fighting is because you should have yielded by now to the storm, but you keep on trying to give them a piece of your mind. The truth of the matter is I don't have time in this next season to argue about gossiping and things that you heard about me. can I be honest first giving honor to God who is the head of my life to pastor and friends I thank the Lord for being here can I tell you some rumors they were true some stuff I did do but in all God I understand that he that has begun a new work in you shall perform it they're in the midst of a storm.

18:02 And the Bible says, if that's not bad enough, they're in a storm. And now they're hearing wood beginning to break. Because this is a cargo ship, meaning there is grain and cargo in this ship and while they're trying to survive in the ship they are throwing the cargo overboard but now you have grain in the ship and one of the things that grain does is it absorbs the pressure of the water and causes pressure to come on the ship causing the ship to start breaking into pieces my brothers and sisters you're sitting next to somebody who knows what it is to have so much pressure on you that your ship starts breaking and some of you you think God can use you until you got it all together but I just need a few of you to testify that even God can use your brokenness. Lord, I thought y'all would help me preach this thing.

19:21 God will use even your brokenness for his glory. Yeah, I've been through a divorce, but God still used me. Yes, I used to smoke and do all these things, but God is still using me because I don't care what nobody's saying. God has the power to use your brokenness.

19:45 He didn't wait until I got it together. Okay, I'm about to mess this church up. I'm about to jump all around here because I just had a flashback of times when God could have taken his hand off of me. Oh, you're going to look at me with that tone of voice. I said, I remember some times when I gave God every excuse to take his hand, But he kept on covering me He kept watching over me His blood It was... in brokenness.

20:31 I'm on my way out of here in New Bern. They told me, welcome home when I walked in. I hate to leave because y'all are some nice people. But I got to go now. He thought that the storm was bad. He thought that the shipwreck was bad. But they made it to Melita. They made it. Some on boards and some on broken pieces. oh God what am I trying to say baby you gotta give God a yes even in your brokenness I don't care what they say baby you better answer Lord and my answer will be Paul has made it to Melita.

21:37 But now that he's in Melita, the barbarians are very kind to them. They have even started a fire for them. They're being warmed and now the fire is going out. and Paul has to go and get some sticks to keep the fire going. He goes and picks up the sticks and he walks with the sticks and puts the sticks in the fire. And then when he puts the sticks in the fire, a snake. shows up.

22:22 I know you didn't hear me. So let me say it again. The fire is going out. Paul is trying to keep the fire from going out. He's trying to do a good thing for everybody. But he goes and gets the sticks. He picks them up. nothing happens he's walking with the sticks nothing happens it's not until he put the sticks in the fire that the snake showed up all right i want to encourage somebody because you started trying to pray the fire away but god says what i'm getting ready to do is use the fire to reveal to you what's been in your hand the whole time.

23:19 Lord, Lord, Lord, have mercy. Some of you, you're saying best friend, best friend, when they're really a snake. And God is saying in this next season, I'm going to reveal to you what snake is on you.