Kerry Anderson Family

[0:00] that we have undertaken the support of Carrie and Raquel Anderson in Brazil. And for a number of years, we supported Ken and Karen Anderson along with WEEC while they were in Brazil, and then they've moved to Honduras.

[0:21] Now Ken is retired, at least he calls himself retired. But about every time I talk to him, he's taking off for another radio station to minister or to provide furlough time for those who are manning the stations and staying by the stuff.

[0:36] And the Anderson family has been absolutely invaluable for the missionary enterprise. And I've always thought of them as a consummate missionary family.

[0:52] I've never known anybody that could do so much with so little in so short a time. And Ken, Carrie's father, has been a real whiz-bang at audio repair, technical, electric, electronic, whatever.

[1:10] I knew many, many years ago, if Ken Anderson couldn't fix it, throw it out. It's no good. It can't be salvaged. But he can wring more performance out of a piece of equipment than anybody would have thought imaginable.

[1:24] And Carrie has been a part of that in the mission field, as well as his wife Raquel. They are here this morning with their three children. We are delighted to have them. And I asked him in the morning in the 9 o'clock service to speak pointedly to his finances, but he didn't do that.

[1:41] He just talked about the general kind of economy. So, young man, I want you to speak pointedly. I want you to speak about where your support level is, where it needs to be, and what those specific needs are.

[1:56] And I want you to speak with great plainness of speech. Okay? So, come right on up here. Thank you for being here this morning. Appreciate your presence.

[2:10] Bon dia. Can I hear everybody say that? Bon dia. Bon dia. There you go. I feel like I'm back home. That's the words good day in Portuguese.

[2:21] And Portuguese is the language we speak down in Brazil. Brazil is actually the country I was born in and raised. Mom and dad went down there as missionaries in 1968, around there.

[2:35] And we're in Brazil for 24 years, working with a ministry that I am now involved with. But while they were down there, I was born. And I remember coming back to visit here at Grace as a little boy when they were doing furloughs.

[2:52] And like I mentioned this morning, there were lots of familiar faces and lots of people that we would often see here. Pastor Marv and family and Norma Wilson and people like that were very dear.

[3:08] And so we thank you. We thank you for participating in the lives of the Anderson family. As a little boy, I know that was a great part of who I became and who I am.

[3:21] And now as I continue in ministry with my family, I thank you for continuing with us in ministry through your prayers and through your giving. I want to share a little bit with you some of our life in Brazil and what we do through some pictures.

[3:37] And so I'll be flipping through some slides here. Is there a way to get these lights up here? There we go. Now, this always happens, right, with technical things.

[3:56] So we'll go ahead and try and make things work. Because while I was gone, this did something else. There we go. So this is our family.

[4:08] And in the front of our house, we have three girls. This is my wife, Raquel. Love, would you stand real quick so people can see you? This is my lovely wife, Raquel. And then we have three girls.

[4:21] Anna Laura is nine years old. She will be going into fourth grade. Larissa is six years old. And she'll be going into first grade.

[4:32] And then Glenda is our little girl who's one and a half. And she stays home with mom. You'll see the names here for our girls.

[4:43] We tried to plug into them some of the names from our family. So the oldest is Anna Laura. Laura is the name of Raquel's mother. And Larissa Karen.

[4:55] Karen is the name of my mother. And Rose is actually the name of Raquel's grandmother. So we tried to get some names in there that help with the family.

[5:09] In order for you to understand a little bit more about Raquel and I, I thought I'd put together a few informational tidbits that might help you to get to know us.

[5:19] We were both born in Brazil. Of course, I mentioned that as an MK. I was born down there as a missionary. But Raquel is actually Brazilian. Her whole family is down in Brazil.

[5:31] And praise the Lord, they are also Christians on both sides of the family. She even has an aunt who's a missionary down to the Indians in the south. That's her mother's sister.

[5:42] And so we're happy to be a part of a great Christian family. Both of us studied business in college. I graduated at Cedarville down here with a business degree.

[5:55] And Raquel did university down there in Brazil and also had a business degree. So we have quite a few things in common. See, I already mentioned that.

[6:05] And WEC radio has been a big part of the Anderson family. That's where Dad started before he went to Brazil. And when I came up to do Cedarville, it was a place where I plugged into to minister, to do some overnight graveyard shift announcing.

[6:23] And so it was a great part to be a part of WEC. Of course, our parents love music. Raquel's father loves to play piano and to sing.

[6:36] And my family also, my parents love to sing. And my mother plays the piano. We come from families of threes. I have the three boys in our family, Kurt, Keith, and Carrie.

[6:50] Myself, I'm the youngest. And Raquel is the middle of three girls. She comes from a family of Adriana, who is her older sister. And then she's in the middle, and her younger sister is Noemi.

[7:04] So we have so many things in common. Our girls are bilingual because growing up in Brazil, they get to learn Portuguese at a young language and also the English.

[7:16] They're going to a Christian academy, a Christian school. And so at school, they get to learn in English and in Portuguese, which is part of a Brazilian curriculum, I guess you'd say.

[7:29] And to bring it all together, our names actually match. If you think of it this way, Anderson means son of Andrew. Raquel's father's name is Andrew.

[7:41] And my middle name is Glenn. You might understand from the Irish song, From Glenn to Glenn, which means from valley to valley. And Raquel's mother's maiden name is Valley.

[7:54] So the Lord just made it perfect and matched us together as a couple. VEA Ministries, the Brazilian Evangelistic Association, is the umbrella mission agency that we are under.

[8:10] It's the same group also that my parents are with. And there's other missionary families involved with it too. Now since mom and dad started toying with Honduras and some other countries, we no longer just say the Brazilian Evangelistic Association.

[8:26] We cut it short to VEA Ministries. And who knows where else the Lord will take us and the people involved as the years go by. This is our little town that we live in called Sao Paulo.

[8:43] Sao Paulo stands for St. Paul, actually. If you were to translate that. As you look through here, you'll see the concrete jungle. It is also spreading out wide, but it's also spreading up tall.

[8:58] There are so many tall buildings. 30 floors, 40 floors. It's common to see for commercial and residential apartments. And you can just see it's back-to-back.

[9:12] Privacy is not a big issue. To Brazilians. Although we use a lot of curtains and things. So as you can see, it's a big city. And urban ministries is something that's growing more and more.

[9:26] And it is a big need. Because in the third world cultures and countries, a lot of people, for economic reasons, wanting jobs, are moving to the cities. You have a lot of people moving to these cities who need to be ministered.

[9:40] They need to be taught the gospel. They need to grow. And so a lot of countries around the world are finding urban ministries to be something very important to reach people.

[9:53] This is a bus that I might take to work. Public transportation is important in a big city. I will take my girls to school in the morning.

[10:05] Their classes start about 8 o'clock in the morning. And then I'll leave the car at home with my wife. And I'll take the bus here to work. And it takes me about an hour to go to work, sometimes an hour and a half or two to get back.

[10:20] Traffic is a terrible thing in Sao Paulo. And it costs me three reais and 50 cents to ride the bus for a three-hour period. And that's about $1.50, $1.75.

[10:35] And the buses have a sticker on there saying, you know, the maximum permitted. They ignore that. So we'll have maybe the 30 regular persons sitting down on a bus like this and another 100 standing up like sardines.

[10:55] So that was our town, Sao Paulo. We happen to live in a residential area that's a little away from the center of town.

[11:06] So we live in a house. And it's a townhouse divided in half. And this left side is actually where we live. It's a home we were able to purchase from a missionary family about six years ago.

[11:20] And we praise the Lord for that. Our neighbors over here on the right side are also missionary families. He's a pastor to the Koreans. And their kids also go to the same school as ours.

[11:33] So it's neat to have Christians next to each other. We can share stories and share prayer requests, eggs and flour and other things. Here's a picture of Raquel's side of the family.

[11:46] Her mother, Dona Laura, is here. On the left side is her younger sister, Noemi. And on the right over here is Adeliana.

[11:58] If you receive our emails and updates and letters, Adeliana is the one who just lost her husband in Christmas of this past year. He died on the 26th of cancer.

[12:08] So you can be praying for her as she and their two little boys who are six and five are growing up and facing that.

[12:20] He was a wonderful Christian. Had a great testimony. And so we know where he is. And that's what gives us all hope and joy.

[12:33] Mom and Dad, of course, were able to come down when Glenda was born. They actually came for all three of our girls' births. So that was really nice to have them down in Brazil.

[12:43] And just this last week, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. The actual date of that is September 7th. But because we're up here from our furlough, we all gathered at my brother's house in North Carolina to celebrate the 50th.

[12:59] So that was a wonderful time. And I'm sure next time they're through here, they'll tell you more about that. And this is Raquel's father, Sir Andre, Mr. Andrew, who loves to play with his grandchildren and play music.

[13:15] A great Christian man who loves the Lord. This is our church that we're involved in. It's called Calvary International Church.

[13:27] And it's a church that was established to help reach those who speak English as a first language. When you're in the city of Sao Paulo, which has only maybe about 20 million people, there are a lot of people who have English as a first language, whether they're involved in government or business, teaching.

[13:47] We have lots of other missionaries who come to our church. And so it's a place where we gather to worship the Lord through song, study the Bible, and grow in our knowledge of Jesus Christ. Raquel's involved there in the worship and the singing and also decorating and different things like that.

[14:04] She really enjoys participating in the Moms group. She's in the leadership of that. And it's a group that gathers to encourage and to grow as mothers with young children.

[14:16] And so you can be praying for her and her ministry that way. I also sing and participate. This is a picture of us decorating the church for Christmas. And we get our girls to come and to help be involved.

[14:31] The Moody Corral came and was doing a tour in Brazil. And they came and sang at our church one Sunday. So that was fun. And it's a great place to take our children and to grow.

[14:46] It's the same church I grew up in as a little boy. Things have changed a lot. The nursery is now the kitchen, you know, and things like that. But it's great to be a part of this ministry down there.

[14:57] It's a growing church. We might have around 500 combining our services on a day. And it's expanding. The Lord is really bringing people in, whether they be from Nigeria or Canada, the United States.

[15:13] And maybe half of the persons who come and attend our church are Brazilians who speak English. Some of them might come because they're interested in the language. But it's a great way to encourage them to come and then teach them out of the Bible.

[15:26] And then they come and they stay. And so we're really thrilled to be a part of Calvary. The main purpose, the main ministry that I'm involved in in Brazil is volunteering with a group called Comunicações Evangelicas, which translated means Evangelical Communications.

[15:46] So the Comunicações we've cut and Evangelicas cut down and we just call the place Comev. Makes it a little quicker and easier. There are three different ministries that we're involved in at Comev.

[16:04] One is the studios that we offer people to use for them to record their music or their radio programs. different ministries have films and things they want to produce and so we help them with the sound of that.

[16:23] We also have now a radio station that broadcasts on the internet. And so we have different programming on there like messages from pastors, music in both English and Portuguese.

[16:35] And it might be interesting, Pastor Marv, for us to think about your teaching that you're talking about to put into Portuguese. And then, of course, the Christian films.

[16:47] This is something that's been going on at Comev for many, many years. How many of you remember the old reel-to-reel films? Those have been used in Brazil for many years as Comev would provide projectors and films for pastors or evangelists to carry around the country to project in open markets and churches and fairs to bring people together.

[17:11] and the Christian films that would be shown there together with the local church to evangelize. And today, as media is changing, we work with DVD and Blu-ray and we're now starting to look into ways of bringing it through the internet.

[17:27] But it's the same gospel message and the same way of reaching people through a visual story. Brazilians are a culture that are very visually oriented. The literacy rate is not as popular or common as up here in the States.

[17:44] And so film and video is something that really reaches Brazilians and touches the emotions. So those are the three areas that the ministry is involved in.

[17:56] When we talk about Christian film, there are four main categories that we divide things into. One are true life dramas, Christian history. Stories of people like John Huss, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther.

[18:12] These are real people with real stories and the new generation has to know about them. And they bring a wonderful way to encourage us to know about how we got to where we are, how the Bible got to English, maybe.

[18:27] So those are good stories. Youth-oriented films such as The Fireproof, Courageous, films that reach the youth.

[18:38] Sometimes they're only 60 minutes to fit into a Sunday school session or small groups. So that's the second category. We also carry some children's material.

[18:50] The Torchlighters is a new series we're working on. It's an animated version for children that talk about Christian history, talk about people like William Booth who started the Salvation Army or Jim Elliott who is the missionary with the five there and the Alka Indians.

[19:08] Our new area that we're probing into more and more is the area of teaching resources or documentaries. One of the large projects we just finished was a teaching on the Song of Solomon by Tommy Nelson.

[19:25] He's a pastor in Texas here. and he has a wonderful study on Song of Solomon to help encourage couples in their relationships before or after marriage.

[19:38] And as you know, divorce is something that's growing increasingly here in the States. It's the same thing in Brazil. And so this session, this study group, we pray the Lord will use to help strengthen families in Brazil, strengthen relationships between husband and wife and give us resources and teaching out of the Bible to know how to live in that type of relationship.

[20:03] Another project we're currently working on is the Truth Project by Focus on the Family. Have any of you heard about that? It is a study that uses Christian principles to know how it affects our worldview and everything that we're involved in, in society, in politics.

[20:22] It just really gives you tools to know what the Bible says about every aspect of our lives. And so we're putting this into Portuguese so that pastors and groups in Brazil will be able to use it.

[20:41] In a ministry at Comev, we have these three main areas, the radio, the studios, and the film. And we have different staff members who are involved in different areas of those.

[20:55] But what I do is a lot of the choosing of the resources that are available up here in the States or in Europe. And because of the English, I'm able to communicate with those who produce the materials.

[21:08] And then I keep up relationships. I do reports, negotiate licenses to take that material down to Brazil. Another area that I'm involved in is working in the studios.

[21:20] I help with the creation of the material, the dubbing. I watch the translation to make sure that it's correct. For example, the other day we had a translator bring back material and he said, the coming of the second Christ instead of the second coming of Christ.

[21:39] So those are things that we had to review and correct, obviously. Also, technically, the parts in the computer of putting together a video, putting together artwork that goes on DVDs or the menus, those are things that I've personally been involved in there at Comev.

[22:00] And as a volunteer, it's important that I can do those things because then Comev doesn't have to pay for a salaried worker to be able to do those things. So the different things that God is doing through the ministry at Comev.

[22:18] We've had the radio station that's on the internet and last time I checked we had 11 countries even listening to our radio station. These are probably pockets of Brazilians who are living in different countries.

[22:34] But Portuguese is also spoken in countries like Mozambique and Angola, the country of Portugal. And so we praise the Lord that we're able to reach out not just in Brazil but in other areas of the globe with this radio station.

[22:50] The DVDs that we put together, we've had over 10,000 go out this last year. That's a number that's really low in comparison to previous years.

[23:03] In previous years we used to be up to 60,000, 50,000 DVDs. going out. And our president, Colin Rast, who's a missionary, calls each one a missionary because it carries the truth of the gospel, it carries a message, and each DVD that's going out is being watched by different persons whether at home or in a church library or in a bookstore.

[23:26] And so we pray that every single message that goes out this way will be used, that the Lord will be transforming people's lives. of course, I talked about these different projects, the Song of Solomon and the Torchlighters and the Truth Project.

[23:46] In the country of Brazil, sometimes it's difficult to have feedback from people knowing about how the films and how our ministry is being effective to people.

[23:57] or in the city of Sao Paulo, which is down in this area and Rio de Janeiro is up farther north and people asked about Recife.

[24:10] Recife, I think, is up in this area up here in Brazil. The Amazon and the equator go through the top and the Tropic of Capricorn runs right through our city of Sao Paulo.

[24:24] But one thing, a testimony of what somebody wrote speaking of what God has been doing through our films. This is in Portuguese if you'd like to try and follow along or see how similar it is to Spanish.

[24:40] It says, My name is Bianca Rodriguez and yesterday I rented a film from our church library and I loved it. I want to congratulate you for the decision to bring it into our language and I believe this film will really help many people to come to know the existence of the living God.

[25:03] So praise the Lord for that. This other person wrote the following. These films are helping me know how to behave like a Christian. I would like to receive more material that will help me to grow.

[25:18] It will be a great resource. Imaez Padakio of Inhumis 3 and even help me to be able to instruct others and to disciple.

[25:30] Congratulations because I know you have not given up on the dream God has planted in your heart. Thank you for what you're doing for the gospel. So we praise the Lord for different testimonies like that of knowing that God is using our ministry and God is using the resources that we're providing to help people to grow in Christ.

[25:53] Since I've taken this picture which was back in January we've had the front row which happened to be all the ladies move on to different things. But right now Cullen Rast is my president.

[26:05] He's the man over here on the far right who's the president of Comev Missionary for over 50 years. And then I work with these other men in the studios or the Brazilian administrator different areas.

[26:20] We also have our own cafeteria. We always have lunches together here in our building. The different areas in which you can pray for are the studio that does the dubbing.

[26:40] We bring in professional artists to use their voices and lip sync dubbing is what we do. When you watch somebody on TV moving his mouth and you're hearing it in Portuguese in English we want to do the same thing for Portuguese.

[26:55] We want to make sure that every movement of the voice fits together with the lips. And so we will bring in different artists. And sometimes these persons are not Christian themselves but we're required to use them because of union laws.

[27:10] And so this is a way that we can minister to evangelize. Our large studio can keep maybe about 80 people in it.

[27:23] And so there are churches who come and their Sunday schools or their groups will record a CD a music CD or something that they're doing. And so this was a recording of one of those groups that came.

[27:37] We have soloists that come and record. When we do recording of an album instead of all the instruments being in there at the same time sometimes we'll record one at a time.

[27:53] Just the violin just the piano just the guitar and then it all comes together later and that's called the mix. And so this is a recording of a drum set. Here's a recording of an orchestra.

[28:08] And these are all Christians who have been called and have a purpose and we're helping them to fulfill that. So we're really excited about that. This is the story of Jim Elliott the Christian cartoon version called The Torchlighters and it's a great opportunity for VBS.

[28:28] I encourage churches up here in the states to use these resources for Vacation Bible School. Another story we recently did is called Final Solution.

[28:39] It's the true story of Garrett Wolfhardt who was living during the apartheid years in South Africa and he was one who grew up hearing that the white race was something that God had planned and he grew up thinking that it was important and then to get rid of other people such as the Jews or the blacks and he was involved with political parties even to assassinate people during the apartheid time.

[29:12] But God got a hold of his heart and he is now a pastor and an attorney preaching redemption and reconciliation and this is a true story and so it's wonderful to be able to share that with people in Portuguese.

[29:27] One of the projects I'll be working on as soon as I get back to Brazil is the story of Perpetua. Perpetua was one of the noble Romans who accepted Christ back in the days of Nero and this is a true story of how she stood up to the emperor, stood up to her family, would not bow down to the emperor as they were thinking he was God at that time but she stood up for Christ and because of that she was thrown to the lions together with Christians at that time in the Colosseum and this is a special story to us and our family because this is one that our daughter Larissa was watching and she came to us and asked about receiving Christ in her heart after watching this because she didn't want to be eaten up by the animals, she wanted to fly and go to heaven just like Perpetua did and of course children always have a way of thinking but it was one of the tools that

[30:33] God used to touch your heart and so we're thankful for that. Another project that we'll be working on when I get back is called More Than Dreams. This is the true story of five persons in the Muslim world who have accepted Christ because of dreams they're having of Jesus and if you talk to different missionaries and different groups in the 1040 window the Lord is reaching more and more Muslims in these closed countries through visions and dreams and it might not be something that is common but they have a true story of how they've come to know Christ that way and so this is one of the projects we're working on.

[31:20] As a missionary living in a violent type of city living in city life common things will happen to us that might happen to you having to change a tire keeping vehicles working protection of our home so those are things that you can add to your prayer requests not just the ministry that we're involved in but our day to day lives that the Lord will provide for our needs that will stay healthy and strong.

[31:47] you can be praying for Raquel as she ministers to mothers as she ministers to our children this is actually a picture taken at the school where our kids attend and there are other mothers that have young children in fact I think our church we had 16 new babies born this last year and so it's neat to see how the Lord is working and Raquel has lots of great opportunities then to share what God has done in our lives to encourage the other mothers and what they're going through.

[32:25] You can pray for our Larissa who is going through first grade that she'll grow up and grow in her knowledge of Jesus Christ but also in her ABCs and 123s.

[32:38] Anna Laura is our girl going into fourth very inquisitive mind she loves to read and has lots of questions about things loves to study and then Glenda Glenda is our one and a half year old and she's just learning to walk while we're up here in the States so that's a special time in her life you can continue to pray for her but most importantly for the people of Brazil that they will come to know Jesus Christ.

[33:11] I mentioned in the Sunday school period that there are a lot of different religions in Brazil. Right now the Pope is doing his tour through Brazil and Roman Catholicism is about 70% of our population so there is a big need there for people to know truth that there is only salvation through the name of Jesus that Jesus came to this world for a purpose of dying on the cross and he is our only savior and not Mary or good deeds other religions that are growing in Brazil are Mormonism and Jehovah's Witness and we also have spiritism and here you'll see a lot of idols and things that have come from basically the African cultures that came over during times of slavery but they remain and are very common and big today and so please pray for the hearts of Brazilians that as we come in contact with them that Christ would be working and tugging at their hearts to transform them

[34:13] I wanted to share with you something that God's been tugging at my heart so if you want to grab your Bibles we'll look into the word of God today I want you to turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 28 the Lord has a lot of things for us to learn and to grow and we're never finished we're never completed until the Lord takes us to live with him again one of my favorite verses is Philippians 1 6 that explains that God has a purpose and a plan for us and he's going to be completing it until the day of Christ

[35:22] Jesus but no matter what age we're in no matter what part of life we're in we always have something that we can grow in in our Christian walk we don't reach perfection until until Christ is taking us home but we need to strive to be holy we need to strive to become as perfect as we can here and that's why the Holy Spirit is with us so that we can do that but here in the Old Testament we are reading about the kings of Israel and in verse 1 of chapter 28 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem he did not do right in the sight of the Lord as David his father had done but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel he also made molten images for the Baals moreover he burned incense in the valley of Ben Hinnom and burned his sons in fire according to the abomissions of the nations whom the

[36:28] Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places on the hills and under every green tree here you have a king who has obviously known the past and known what God has done but he has chosen to be influenced by the culture and the kings around him he has chosen to let that be a part of his life so he has allowed the burning of incense the worship of idols even to the point of sacrificing his own family and sometimes we wonder how could that happen why would he abandon the worship of the true God and do this the influences of the culture around him were pretty strong he might have wanted to become wealthy and strong like the big empires around him he had a son though and his son when came to power

[37:36] Hezekiah he decided to do what was right and let's look into that in the first verses of chapter 29 here we have Hezekiah became king when he was 25 years old and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem and his mother's name was Abijah the daughter of Zechariah he did right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done so here we have a young man who decided to change here we have a young man who decided that he is going to stand for what is right no matter what came from his past he was going to change things he was going to do what the Lord had commanded people to do and we as people of God need to do the same we need to stand up and say this is what the

[38:36] Bible says and this is what is first year of his reign in the first month he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them he brought in the priests and the Levites gathered them into the square on the east then he said to them listen to me oh Levites consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the house of the Lord the God of your fathers and carry the uncleanness out from the holy place cultures when we let the world around us influence us things start to creep in that are not holy or things start to come in that might not be what God wants they start to mar our image they start to change who we are and so here we have Hezekiah saying we need to get rid of this we need to cleanse the temple and today we are the temple the

[39:45] Holy Spirit lives in us and so we need to start evaluating maybe there's some things in our lives that we need to change if you'll go to 2nd Kings we'll get another focus of the same story 2nd Kings chapter 18 as a good missionary I'm walking without a watch are we doing okay am I going to have a bell I still have 45 minutes oh okay here we have the same story now it came about in the third year of Hoshia the son of Elah king of Israel that

[40:45] Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah became king this is chapter 18 verse 1 verse 2 he was 25 years old when he became king and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem and his mother's name was Abba the daughter of Zechariah and he did right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done he removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah he also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made for until these days those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it and it was called Nehushtan the bronze serpent was something that God had told Moses to make if you remember back in the time of the exodus God was not happy with the way the Israelites were living and so he let serpents go out and start biting the Israelites but as they were feeling ill and dying

[41:51] God gave a remedy and the remedy was to make this bronze serpent and put it up on a stick and it was to be a foreshadowing of Jesus and what he was going to do on the cross so as people looked up to that bronze snake the Bible says that people were healed and they were cleansed from the snake bites it was a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ but here we have people now starting to worship that same image that God had told them to make it was a good thing initially it was something that God had asked them to do but because people started to worship it now it's become something that needs to be put away and so Hezekiah broke it and put it into pieces and it started to make me think and I was challenged by this from another pastor who spoke at a church what are some things maybe in our lives that are not bad in and of themselves what are some things in our lives that are keeping us from growing in Jesus

[43:00] Christ what are some things that might keep us from reading the Bible more often or maybe keep us from coming to church I can think of maybe spending too much time in front of the television too many hours in front of the computer Facebook Facebook takes a lot of time away from people these are things that can challenge each and every one of us in our calling to be Christians and to stand firm maybe we're spending too much time with a friend who's not a Christian and his influence or her influence in our lives are keeping us from growing only you know and God knows each one of your hearts but I wanted to encourage you today to be a Hezekiah to look around and see the cultures that influence us and to stand firm for what is true and stand firm for the truth that God has put into his word his father

[44:11] Ahaz was a bad king and when he died they didn't even bury him with the kings they buried him in another place because of all the bad things that he had done but God blessed Hezekiah and his reign is full of blessings maybe not perfect obviously but because Hezekiah stood firm and decided to follow God's law to change and to put away some of the things that were unclean God blessed him for that and I really believe that God can do the same thing for us it says when nations will bow their knees and when the church returns to loving and focusing on him that he can bless and he can bring that nation back and maybe that's what needs to happen to Brazil maybe that's what needs to happen in the United States are for his people to come back to the Lord to be strong and following him and just as he spared during the time of

[45:21] Abraham God said if there were ten people in the city would he spare it I think maybe God can spare the countries and these cities if we his church will focus and follow his commands so that's just a little bit of what I wanted to share with you today out of the word in Isaiah chapter 40 I'll leave you with this this is a very famous passage Isaiah was the prophet God used during the time of Hezekiah and one of the one of the verses that's well known is found in verse 30 of chapter 40 though youth grow weary and tired and vigorous young men stumble badly yet those who wait for the

[46:27] Lord will gain new strength they will mount up with wings like eagles they will run and not get tired they will walk and not become weary here we have Isaiah giving us a word of encouragement that even though things are bad God is with us even though we might stumble and fall he will help us to stand up this also says that we have a responsibility we need to be walking we need to be doing our part we need to be in the word daily and growing but the Lord is there to give us strength he's there to lift us up he's there to make us fly like eagles to run and not become weary or tired so I want to encourage you in your Christian walk as you grow that you'll let the Bible influence you and not the cultures around you we want to thank you for your prayers for us in our ministry in Brazil and we ask that you would be praying for the people of

[47:39] Brazil that we'll be able to touch their lives through the ministries we're involved in and that God will bring them to a strong relationship with Jesus Christ we thank you for your prayers and your giving and you asked me to be blunt about that God knows the needs of our ministry and what we need and we appreciate your part in that we do have a prayer newsletter that we send out and if you'd like to be a part of that please come to me and we'll write you down on our list and while we're up here we're going to have a new prayer card also made to update the last one that we had that didn't have Glenda in it so we'll be preparing that and sending that to you soon let's close in a word of prayer Lord Jesus you've allowed lots of things to happen in the past to become history and these things are there so that we will learn and grow from them and be changed and it's your story that we want to proclaim we want to tell people about you Lord whether we're at work or at home working abroad in different countries we all have the same calling Lord to follow you and to obey so I ask that as we go forth today that we will take these insights from your word and not let the cultures around us influence us give us wisdom

[49:22] Lord if there are things that we need to change in our daily lives that we will know exactly what they are that we'll be able to change them and devote more time to what you have called us to be and to do thank you so much for this church Lord I ask that you would bless it and provide for its needs we thank you for this day we can gather and encourage each other in our Christian walk in Jesus name we pray Amen Amen thank you thank you for being here you still did not at all speak specifically to the financial needs so we will discuss that over lunch okay and I did not prepare you last week in advance for receiving an offering today for the Andersons but we will see to it that there is an honorarium for them today so thank you all for coming have a great rest of the afternoon you are dismissed you are the $1 stock for $5