So I do want you always, always, always remember that, that we are as the church and you as an individual, you live under an open heaven and you know, you don't. You don't live according to the economy of this world. But Jesus told us to pray. On earth as it is in heaven, your will be done, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. And Jesus really was a living, walking portal where he was the dispenser of heavenly favorite.

Where can you get a Big Mac? Does anybody know where you get a Big Mac? Where?

You know what? The only place you can get heavenly favor is a believer. You got to run into somebody. You are a dispenser of heavenly favor. You are the location where heaven meets earth, and you are a dispenser of favor.

And the church, the corporate gathering of the church, that is the place where heaven and earth intersect and people walk in and they experience the power and the blessing of God. So that is not what we're trying to do. God didn't come to try to get people into heaven. He really did come to restore his reign and his rule in the cosmos. Not just in the earth, but in the cosmos.

And he has chosen that. He's exclusively going to do that through the church. The church is the eternal purpose of God before the foundation of the world, before Adam and Eve, the fall, or any of that stuff. The church has always been the eternal purpose of God. And the church isn't something that's over once Jesus comes.

The church is forever. The church is something that is. Has no beginning and has no end. It is the eternal purpose, purpose of God. It's the church.

It's that family of God that called a group of people that will forever and ever reign and rule with him and manifest his glory. But the thing is, we don't got to wait until Jesus comes to do it. We get to do it now. We get to do it now.

Settle down. I want to keep preaching here, please. You know, don't shout me down. All right, so let's. Let's start to read.

You ready to read? Let's read Acts, chapter nine. Going to go to the end. Say end. I'm going to go to the end of the verse and I'm going to come back to the front.

All right. I just want to bring two verses to your attention because the first part's about Paul and how he was brought into the kingdom. And the second part was just about Peter and the ministry that he started. So Peter, it says in Acts, chapter 9, 33 and 35 there. He found a man named Anais.

Say Anais. He found him, and he's out ministering and he walks into a place and he sees a guy. You know, there's Fred, there's Bob, there's, you know, he sees a guy named Anas who was paralyzed, who had been bedridden for eight years. Say eight years. So he walks in and there's a guy bedridden for eight years right there.

Paralyzed. He's paralyzed. So here's what he did. He said, aeneas, Peter said to him, jesus Christ heals you. Get up and roll up your mat.

I mean, how complicated is that, huh? I mean, there. There's a healing seminar right there. In one verse, you see somebody's life was broken. You say, fred, Jesus Christ heals you.

Get up. Get up and roll up your mat immediately. Aeneas got up. Don't you love? Immediately.

Hey, I don't like to pray for people and then they leave here the same way they came. I want people to get prayed for and leave completely transformed and touched. In Jesus name, amen. In the name of Jesus, Aeneas, Freda, Susie, Ralph, George, whoever you are right now, if there's something afflicting you that is not of God, Jesus Christ heals you. I command you to get up.

I command you to pick up your mat. I command you and I want you to immediately experience now the power of God touching your life.

That was it. I mean, there wasn't any more than just, boom. Jesus Christ heals you immediately. Aeneas got up. Then the whole.

Look at, look at, look at in red letters, the whole population. One guy, he walks in, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. He picks up his mat immediately, is healed. And what happened? The whole town, two whole towns, Lyda and Sharon, two whole towns.

They saw Aeneas walking around the two whole towns, turned to the Lord, the whole population.

What are we waiting for? What are we waiting for? The world out there needs to see something real. Needs. They don't need history lessons.

They don't need to hear about, come to Jesus and hopefully you'll get to heaven. They don't need to hear that. They need to hear that heaven has come. I got good news for you. Jesus has done everything for your sins to be forgiven, your body healed, and you to walk in freedom and blessing Jesus.

That's good news. It's time for us to release that, you know, when we start to manifest that and the immediately as God show up, there's no problem reaching the city of London. It was a part of the Commission. Remember the Great Commission. Go ye into all the world.

Preach the gospel. Heal the sick. Cast out devils, raise the dead. Hello. That's you.

It's you, it's me. It's just. Come on, let's do the stuff. The whole city. I love the whole population.

Then you got verse 40 in the end of chapter nine, it says Peter sent them all out of the room. So there's a group of people in a town down in Joppa. They heard about what happened with Aeneas. They heard about what happened in this whole region. So they had a friend named Dorcas.

Say, Dorcas, we have a Dorcas here in the church. It's pretty awesome. I have a friend in Toronto whose name is Dorcas, also Tabitha. But. But he said, listen, here's what he says.

They. She was a. Did knitting. She knit stuff. And there's a whole bunch of widows, people who were broken.

Sadly, in that culture, if you don't have families going to take care of you, if you're a widow, nobody can take care of you. So there was people who need Dorcas. They could not listen, they could not live without Dorcas. So they sent and said that Peter guy who's healing everybody in that other place, bring them here. Because Dorcas died.

Dorcas died. And you had a whole group of people that said, I cannot live without Dorcas. And so then when they heard about what Peter could do, they said maybe he could come down here and bring Dorcas back. Because we need Dorcas. Amen.

That's what it was. We need Dorcas. So they brought him down. And Peter sent them all out of the room. He got down on his knees and he prayed.

Then turning towards the dead woman, say dead woman. Turning was a dead woman. He said, tabitha, get up. And she opened her eyes and seeing Peter, she sat up and immediately he restored her to all the people. And they were all incredibly happy.

This is the gospel. This is the good news. This is. This is weird. Dispensers of restoring lives and restoring situations and breaking all the damage that the enemy has done to the cosmos.

We are here to bring restoration to every single physical thing.

So true story. True story. All right, we're going to go back to the top now. We're going to go back to the top. Actually, let's go back to chapter eight, just for a second.

As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. Therefore, those who were scattered Went everywhere preaching the word. Now, we talked about that last week. They were all stuck in Jerusalem. But persecution came, havoc came.

Can you imagine a group of soldiers coming down the street, truckloads of soldiers on your street, and going door to door and tearing people out of their homes? That's what. What Paul was doing. He had authority to go door to door. Can you imagine here in London, door to door, people coming down.

You think about the Holocaust, and people came door to door, and people were tossed out of their homes. Well, this was an absolute wreck and a mess. Paul was creating havoc, and he just disturbed every single person in Jerusalem. And many Christians just left town. They got out of town because boom.

But, you know, that was the purpose of God. God said, you guys got to get out of here. Don't you remember? I said Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. But these guys made it like a little local revival.

And here we are. Bless us for no more. But, boy, he booted them out the door, got them down the street, and Philip went to Samaria. We saw all kinds of things. So they went everywhere preaching the word of God.

All right, we're going to turn a hard corner. Say hard corner. Boom. Here you go. All right, give me this slide right here.

Boom. All right, Pastor, what. What's going on? What's Jeffrey Dahmer got to do with all of this? Jeffrey Dahmer?

How many people know? Jeffrey Dahmer was. He was a serial killer of mass murder. When they finally did arrest him, he had 19 different people's body parts in his home, in his freezer, skulls, all kinds of nonsense. The guy was a bit twisted.

He was actually a cannibal. So Jeffrey Dahmer was a twisted individual. And Jeffrey Dahmer went to jail. Now, this is from Max Lucado. Say Ma.

Otto. All right. He's a pastor down in Texas, but he writes great books. And one of his books was in the Grip of Grace. And whenever I see grace, I like that.

So I read those books because grace is Jesus. Jesus is grace. But in his book, the Grip of Grace, he writes this. He says, you know what disturbs me most about Jeffrey Dahmer? What disturbs me most are not his acts, although they were disgusting.

It's his conversion. It's that he was sin washed. It's that his soul was cleansed. It's that his past was forgiven. And that troubles me.

It shouldn't, but it does. Grace for a cannibal. My trouble in accepting Dahmer's conversion is inexcusable he had a friend who was a chaplain in this prison where Dahmer was and he called him and he said, you won't believe this, but Max, I am working with Jeffrey Dahmer and he has accepted Jesus and I've baptized him in water and he's a part of the kingdom. And Max was repulsed by that. He just went, that is disgusting.

He said, I can't even imagine that I'm going to spend eternity and that now this, this mad person is going to be one of my brothers and sisters forever. But you know what? It's the absolute truth.

Isn't it amazing how penetrating the grace of God is? Isn't it amazing? Well, today we're talking about the apostle Paul and he was a terrorist, straight up terrorist. He created terror in the people of God. He was killing Christians and he was doing it all in the of God.

He was on a, on a holy war because he really felt that these people are mocking my God. These people are not of God. And I will defend God by destroying this way, this sect of people who are making a mockery of Judaism. I'm going to destroy them all. And he was literally terrorizing the people of God.

But isn't it amazing that God can take a terrorist? God can, can turn a cannibal around. I mean, God can find a terrorist and turn their life around and make that terrorist. Somebody wrote most of the new testamen who really went into third heaven experiences and talked to Jesus and brought deep revelation to us. That guy began by trying to destroy the work of Jesus and yet Jesus turned his life around and made him just an incredible apostle and captain of the faith.

Settle down. Karl Barth said, grace is the divine invasion into human hostility. Grace is the divine invasion into human hostility. Grace comes into all the brokenness, all the things that have, have fallen. And Adam, what happened in Adam was unbelievable.

But you know what? Whatever we lost in Adam, Jesus uncomparably got us back way more. Way more. Way more. No matter what happened in Adam, no matter what, Jesus has taken us to an all new wonderful level because of the wonderful grace of God.

Grace is a divine invasion in the human hostility. If you don't know who Carl Barth is, Carl Barth, it was probably, he's passed away now, but he's probably considered one of the, one of the greatest theologians who's ever existed. And just all of his writings in his systematic theology have been an incredible, incredible blessing to the church. All right, let's go to Acts, chapter nine. Six, chapter nine.

Who's tracking with me. All right, then, Saul. Still breathing. Here it is, Saul. He's still breathing out threats and murder against the disciples.

Lord. So when the church scattered into other areas, Paul decided, I'm going to go after them. It's not enough that I've kicked them out of Jerusalem, but I'm going to go after them in all the other places where they've gone. So he got letters from all the legal authorities and he. He got letters that he could go into other towns and other places and he could pull them out and kick them out and destroy things.

He could bring them back bound and throw them into prison. So still breathing out murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord. Went to the high priest, asked for letters. He go to synagogues in Damascus. So if he found anyone, anyone, the Way, that's what they call it, the Way.

The Way was the church was called the Way. Anybody who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he journeyed, he came near Damascus and suddenly say. Suddenly, say suddenly. Say it loud enough to wake up your neighbor.

Suddenly. Very good. Very good. All right. Boom, there he is.

He's riding along feeling self righteous and justified in his holy cause. And he's riding along as a poof. I mean, a massive light, boom, shines out of heaven, knocks him off his horse. And he has an incredible. Suddenly, I mean, he has an encounter.

He wasn't looking for Jesus. He was trying to destroy the people who were following Jesus. He wasn't looking for this, but he had a suddenly where God said, it's enough. Boom, he showed up and he knocked him off his horse. He fell to the ground and he heard a voice saying, saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

I think that's great because, you know, there was persecution. But he's persecuting Jesus. He's persecuting the Lord. The Lord is saying, when you persecute my people, you're persecuting me. When you touch them, you touch me.

That's why I tell people, careful touch. Not mine. Anointed. You're anointed. People gotta be careful.

They're messing with God's stuff. Jesus is going to get involved. Jesus came, they fell to the ground. Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, comma, Lord.

Lord. See, it says you've been kicking against the pricks. That means that when he saw Stephen, when he heard the gospel and other people, he saw different things. The message had been trying to penetrate his heart. But he Kicked against.

He wouldn't listen. He'd hardened his heart towards those things. And finally Jesus came and knocked him flying off his horse. Now, there was a certain disciple, say, disciple, in Damascus, we are about seven to nine years after the death, burial and resurrection Christ. We're about seven years after Pentecost.

All right, so it's not a long, long time. But there's a disciple in Damascus, and his name is Ananias. Now, we'd never heard Ananias before. We will never hear of Ananias again. But he's a disciple just hanging out at home, doing his devotion, spending some time with the Lord, hanging around, singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God.

And I'll. Poof. He gets caught up in a vision, and the Lord visits him. And he said, ananias, Ananias. And he said to him, ananias, he said, here I am.

Here I am, Lord. So the Lord said to him, arise and go to the street called Straight and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he is praying. You bet he's praying. I mean, this.

This God that I was persecuting, this Lord that I said didn't exist. He just gave me a headbutt. Now I can't see, and I'm stuck in this dark room by myself. So, yeah, he's praying. What's going to happen next?

I mean, my next visitation couldn't be. Could be messy. So Ananias, just a guy, he gets called. Isn't that great? And I love that.

It's Judas. A guy named Judas lives on Straight Street. So he would go down Straight street and he'd say, excuse me, there's a guy named Judas lives on the street. Yeah, Judas is right over there. That's his place over there.

Thank you. Then he goes down, he taps on the door and he says, is there a guy named Saul here? There is a guy named Saul here. He says, my name's Ananias. Wow.

He's been waiting for a guy named Adonias. So, Ananias, behold, he's praying. I gave him a vision, and he's seen a man named Ananias. So God told Paul Saul, he's still Saul at this point. He told Saul that there's a guy named Ananias.

He's going to come to you. He's going to put his hands on you so that you might receive sight. I think that's pretty gracious, don't you? You might be blind for a little bit right now, but I'm going to turn this around for you. But isn't it great that God used Ananias like I've.

There's no other place in the Bible where people have this kind of encounter. But. But I love that God still, in the process, he's going to use somebody just like you or just like me to manifest his purpose in the life of Saul. Like, why didn't God just do it himself? Because that breaks the rules.

God. God said, I'm going to do this through mankind. Mankind's going to do it. So Ananias went his way. He entered the house and laying his hands.

Say la hands. Laying his hands. You got hands? Who's got hands? Your hands.

Honest to goodness, your hands are living conduits for releasing heaven. Your hands, your hands should always be used to bless, never to slap or do crazy things. You should always use your hands to bless because your hands are a place. When your hands approach people, heaven is ready to invade their situation. Laying his hands on him, he said, brother Saul, isn't that good, too.

That's good right there. I mean, here's a guy who's been persecuting these people and attacking these people. And the first thing that happens is a guy touches him. He touched me. Oh, he touched me.

There's something about just the touch, but then not just that, but the very first word is, you stinking, rotten terrorist. No, but, brother, like, how incredible is that, brother? So the first word he hears is, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road to Damascus, came and has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately laid his hands on him. And he said, brother Saul, the Lord has sent me here that you might receive your sight.

I'm telling your hands loose the kingdom wherever you go. He laid his hands on him. He said, receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately. Say immediately.

Don't you love that word? We need lots more immediately, don't we? Tired of praying for people. Well, let's hope you get better. Let's see how it goes.

I want to say, boom. Heaven just invade that situation. Amen. Say immediately. Say immediately.

Lord, we want immediately Is all over this place. We want to immediately transformation lives immediately. Something like scales fell from his eyes, and he received his sight at once. I love that. And he arose and he was baptized.

Oh, then we wanted to check and see if this terrorist has really made a decision for God. Because, I mean, he's been an evil, evil dude. So I don't know I don't know about this guy. We better take some time and make sure he's really accepted Jesus. We better watch his life for a while and see if there's any evidence of Jesus in his life.

No, it says, immediately he was baptized immediately. It's like, I get people. You need to get baptized. Oh, I'm not ready yet. Did you accept Jesus?

Well, yeah, but I'm not ready for him. You accepted Jesus. Get baptized. There's a powerful dynamic in baptism that you need to experience. It's not just getting wet.

It's absolute separation, deliverance from anything that can entangle you everywhere. In the. In the Book of Acts, immediately people were baptized. It's not something you gotta earn your way into. It's something you just do in obedience and get it done.

Because you gotta get baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ, baptized by the body, Christ in water, and baptized by Jesus in the. The Holy Ghost. There's three things, and you don't need to wait for them. You should get them done right away.

Let me try that one more time. You should get it done right away. Clap like your neighbor, even if you don't understand something. Like, scales fell off his eyes. He received a sight.

He was baptized. He then received some food, was strengthened. And then Saul spent some days with the disciples in Damascus. Here's another immediately, immediately. The guy that was wrecking our homes back in Jerusalem, and the guy who came here threatening to murder and kill people.

This guy is the guest speaker at my church tomorrow. Like, how many would say, pastor, are you nuts? Like, you should vet these people out. Who knows if this guy's the real deal? Why would you let some guy who just accepted Jesus preach on Sunday?

I mean, this is an immediate transformation. Immediately, he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that he is the son of God. Can I get an amen? Amen. Glory to God.

So I want to give you quick some observations from Ananias. Say Ananias, he's just a disciple. Let me put it this way. He's a believer. Any believers here, it is the believer's anointing to do this.

Listen, you can hear from God. You can. It's innate. You were built in to hear God. You can hear God speak to you.

Whether you think you can or not is a big problem. Because if you don't think you can, that's a problem. But you can say this with me. I can hear the voice of God. He absolutely can.

And he speaks your language. He doesn't speak to you like he Speaks to Pastor Carl doesn't speak to you like he speaks to Aunt Susie. He speaks to you and he speaks your language. He's going to talk to you and you're going to know. And you got to trust yourself.

You got to say that just could be God. And you got to believe that he speaks to you. So here's Ananias. God speaks to him. So listen.

Observations from Ananias. God uses believers. Any believers here today? Well, there's more than enough power to transform the city right here. I'm telling you, if we really understood who we were and what our identity is, we would wreck the kingdom of darkness in the city once and for all.

But you know what? Some little observation. Ready? Number one. God uses believers.

Believers hear his voice. Believers honor his word. At that word, Ananias went. God gave him direction. He did what he was told.

Honor his word. Believers embrace challenges. Amen. How many think that'd be a little bit of a challenge? I want you to go lay hands and prophesy over that terrorist who just came to town.

Hey, are you kidding me? No, I'm dead serious. I know where he is. He's over at Judas House on Straight Street. And I want you to go and minister to him.

I want you to prophesy over him. I want you to heal him. I want you to bring him into the kingdom. I want you to get him baptized and whacked in the Holy Ghost. Who did that?

Ananias did that? It's a believer who did that. And believe me, that's a challenge. You might have God tell you, you know, I want you to go make an appointment with the mayor. Why?

I want you to speak into his life. I don't know if I want to do that. You know, you got to be obedient when the Lord tells you to do something.

And sometimes it could be challenging, it could be awkward. It could be a person or a circumstance or a situation that you might like to avoid. Will, God often leads you into things that you usually avoid. God's good at doing that. God, embrace the challenges.

And look. Believers heal people. Believers. Believers. Believers.

Believers. Raise your hands. Believers. You ready?

Did you feel that? I mean, your hands. Literally your hands. It's like. It's like when they drop those paddles on somebody who's having a heart attack.

You literally are loosing the power of God in people's lives. Isn't that awesome? In Jesus name. And you just loose it right there. There.

It's good stuff. Believers. So that's Ananias. Just A believer. And you look at everything that Paul did for the kingdom, all he wrote, all he accomplished.

But you know what? None of that would have taken place if Ananias didn't respond to the voice of God and the word of God. There could be some assignment that God has for you right now that is going to change and shift things in the world. And we got to be willing to be obedient. Can I get an Amen?

Can I get an Amen? Can I get an Amen from the back row? Thank you very much. All right, observations from Paul. Now, Paul, he changed his name from Saul to Paul.

He got hit so hard, the. Yes. Got knocked off his name and he got a p. Amen. So God calls whoever he wants. God calls whoever he wants.

And I tell you, I know that because he called me. And if you knew what I could do with my life left to myself, it was not pretty. But it's amazing what God can do. If you finally say, enough, I surrender. God can use anybody.

Turn to your neighbor, say, God can use anybody. That includes you. And I mean for incredible things, deep things, powerful things. Right now, simply because you're a believer, you don't have to go take 20 courses, run over here, learn all of this or learn all of that. Trust me, you got the Holy Ghost, you got a teacher living inside you.

You got everything you need to be God on the scene. Wherever you go. You are fully equipped to manifest him. Listen, God accepts you. God accepts you.

I love. He laid hands on him and said, brother Saul, God accepts you. God heals you. You Right now, just like Peter said, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. We get observation from Paul.

Paul, he got healed. God empowers you. Suddenly, here's a guy who did not believe that Jesus was the son of God. Immediately, like in a matter of days, he is preaching. Jesus is the Christ.

He is the Son of God. Isn't that amazing? God will empower you. God will fill you. God has a purpose for you.

I love that. He told him, you're going to go to the Gentiles, you're going to go to the nations and tell them how much he's going to suffer for me. Amen. I pass on that part, but the rest of it is all. And God unites you to himself because you're baptized.

You're baptized in water and in the Holy Spirit. You're brought into absolute union with the purpose of God for your life. Amen. Wow. That all happened in chapter 9, 1st Timothy 1:15.

Paul said this. He said this Is a trust twist. It's a trust. What we saying? You should have it.

It's a trustworthy saying and everyone should accept it. Is everyone here? Is everyone here? This is a trustworthy saying and you should accept it. Are you ready?

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

It's a trustworthy saying and you should accept it. Everybody should. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And here's Paul. Paul said, and I am the worst of them all.

And I am the worst of them all. Paul. Paul thought he was somebody abnormally born, like the way God reached him. He cannot believe how God condescended and came to him and brought him into the kingdom. And he says, I tell you, I was the worst.

When I think about it, lo, I was the worst. But you know what God? That's the purpose of God. God has come into the world that he could save sinners. Amen.

He came in the world to save sinners. He didn't come into the world to identify sinners and circle a group of people that you should avoid and stay away with. Jesus was the friend of sinners, so we need to embrace that. Tim Keller. Tim Keller said, God's grace doesn't just pardon you, it reboots your entire life life.

It doesn't just pardon you. You're not just set free and now you can stand at the bus stop and go to heaven. I mean it reboots your whole existence. God now is taking up residence in your life so they can loose the kingdom in and through you, everywhere you go.

Wow, that was awesome. My love language is claps of approval, so I appreciate that. So.

Easy, easy. I don't want to get proud.

That's okay. Hey, look at this grace. Grace goes after the worst. Grace interrupts the violent. Grace transforms the hostile.

Grace rebuilds the broken. Grace sends the redeemed into mission. Jesus can rewrite any story, redeem any heart, revive any prodigal and restore any future.

That's what this chapter tells us, that God can turn anybody's life around. God can take the worst of the worst, bring them into the kingdom and make them the most excellent tool in their hand to bring about God's purpose in his day. So I mean, every single person you run into is a candidate for the glory of God, for your love, for your affection, and for your understanding. Even if you think that's the worst of the worst, what a great opportunity to loose the goodness of God in the kingdom. So come on God, give us the hard cases because we know that you are someone.

And grace, Jesus's grace, goes after the worst of the worst. I want. I want to give you one more picture here. It's of a fella. This guy's name is Chaplain Henry F. Garrick, and he served as Hitler's gang.

He served Hitler's gang at Nuremberg. 14 of the 16 people that were assigned to him accepted Jesus. Nuremberg, Nuremberg was a place where they held a trial for all the leaders of Nazi Germany, and they all got taken there. There was 21 of them that were put on. I think they're doing a movie about it right now.

I think. I haven't seen it. I hope they talk about this guy. I don't know if they will, but. This was Chaplain Henry F. Garricky.

He was a Lutheran fella. He'd been a chaplain for two and a half years throughout the war. He'd been serving in the whole advance. When they landed in Normandy and when they had the invasion, he was there with the soldiers taking care of them. And he was a Lutheran.

So they asked him, instead of going home, would you stay? We got a job for you. Would you come and would you stay with us and would you go to Nuremberg and would you. Would you be a chaplain for all these guys who are going to be on trial now? They're all going to be convicted, and probably every one of them is going to be executed for crimes against humanity.

But you know what? These people all need a chaplain. These people need somebody. And this fellow said, are you out of your minds? The Nazis killed two of my children.

Said, I lost two of my children to this horrible regime. And they said, don't give us an answer today. Pray about it, you know? So he did. He prayed about it.

And when he prayed about it, he felt the Lord told him, you need to do this. And so he went along with another Roman Catholic priest. But 16 of these people became his personal responsibility to take care of and to serve them spiritually in this time. So he. What he did was when he got there, he had the first chapel.

And in the first chapel, he was just like, listen, I'm not having communion because I don't know where you people are at at all, but I don't know. Somewhere we're going to have communion, but not today. That's what he said. Was that funny? He did.

He said that. He said, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk to you about Jesus. And he said, I simply taught the death, the burial and the resurrection of Christ. I simply taught that Jesus came and he became sin for you that you might become the righteousness of God. And then at first little chapel with a very simple gospel, a guy came FL of a seat, fell on the floor, began to scream and said, God have mercy on me.

God have mercy. Wow. And he began to spend time with each of the guys. And then the next chapel, he said, you know, I'm going to serve communion. And began to minister Communion.

He talked about communion. He talked about what this represented. The death, the burial and the resurrection of Christ. And as he ministered, three guys fell right out of their chairs laying on the floor. God have mercy on me.

Me. And as he ministered to these guys and served these guys and they're going through the trial, they're going through all these things, but behind the scenes, this guy is ministering to their spiritual lives. And he saw these guys become transformed and just really, really trust. It says, it says that 14 of the 16 accepted forgiveness. They did so in a spirit that convinced me this is his words.

They did so in a spirit that convinced me that their repentance was genuine. I have had many years of experience as a prison chaplain and I do not believe that I am easily deluded by phony reformat at the 11th hour. These were sincere transformations that took place in these guys lives. Can I get an amen? Real stuff, Real stuff.

All right, so let me, let me show you a letter now. This is a letter. I'm going to start here. This is a letter from the 21. The 21 wrote a letter to his wife and it was getting close to Christmas and they heard rumblings throughout, you know, the folks that were caring for them, that, that, you know, the chaplain is going to be sent home.

He's been a long time and his wife has asked if he could come home. So these 21 guys, he didn't know that, but these 21 guys wrote a letter. And here's the letter. I'm going to read it for you. So put it up.

You ready? Your husband has been taking religious care of the undersigned. All 21 signed it. Rudolph Hess signed it. Herman Goering signed it.

All 21, they signed it. They said your husband has been taking religious care of the undersigned for more than a half of a year. We have now heard that your wish is to see him come back home after his absence for several years. Because we also have wives and children. We understand this and wish yours very well.

Nevertheless, we are asking you to put off your wish, to gather your family around you. Please consider that we cannot miss your husband right now. It is impossible for any others of us to break through the walls that have been built up around us in a spiritual sense even stronger than a material one. We shall be deeply indebted to you. We should be bet.

We send our best wishes to you and your family. God be with you. Then she wrote a letter back to her husband. She simply said, don't you worry about coming home. You stay and minister to the spiritual needs of these men.

These are horrible people. These were people deluded. But he said, even when I ministered to them and I was talking with him, I realized how deceived and how corrupted their minds had become because of following a nasty ideology and a demonic stronghold in their lives. He says, but once you spent time with them and shared the gospel, each of these men were real men who, when they were touched by Christ, he saw transformation take place in their lives. Total transformation.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Listen. Does the kingdom operate by merit or by mercy? Sorry?

Does the kingdom operate by merit or by mercy? The kingdom. The kingdom. Does the kingdom operate by merit or by mercy? Did you know that God delights in showing mercy?

Do you know that he loves to show mercy? See, mercy is not getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you don't deserve. See, I don't get what I deserve, but then grace comes and gives me what I have no right possessing at all. But God delights in people getting set free.

God delights in people being set free from their sin. God delights in people not getting what they deserve. Would you love to get pulled over by the policeman? And he says, you're going really fast. But you know what?

Today it's mercy day. Whoa. But it's also grace day. I'm going to give you free of charge. I'm going to send you to a course to teach you to drive properly.

So that's grace. You don't deserve that. But he's going to go beyond just letting you go. He's going to give you some instruction to quit being an idiot. Amen.

Thank you, Jesus. You know, God is in the mercy. I don't want to read the whole parable, but the parable says, for the kingdom of heaven is like. Say the kingdom of heaven is like. What's the kingdom of heaven like?

It's like a landowner who hired people to work on his farm, and he hires a guy early in the day and they all come and work. Then a few hours later, he hires some more. Then a few hours later, he hires some more. Then right at the end of the day, he hires a few just before the whistle blows. And all of a sudden, boom.

They come, do a bit of work, and then he brings them all in to pay them. He brings the guys who were last first, and he gives them a day's wages. Then the guys who've been there for a couple hours, he brings them and he gives them day's wages. And then the guys are going, we've been here all day. I mean, we've been working hard.

We've been giving it all day in the hot sun. And all of a sudden, boom. They get the same thing that the guys at the last minute got. And they were like, what's going on? This ain't fair.

Say it ain't fair. You know what? Grace ain't fair. And thank God it's not fair. And thank God it comes to each and every one of us liberally from the throne of God.

Because you don't earn grace the minute you think you do do the minute you think you merit it. You've stepped into pride and some kind of creepy arrogance. That is not God. Because the kingdom doesn't work on merit. The kingdom works on mercy.

The kingdom works on asking. The kingdom never works on earning. Settle down. And Jesus said, this guy said, what? What's wrong with you?

Why are you so upset? Or is your eye evil Because I am good. That's interesting. Is your eye evil because I am good? You know what?

God is good. He's really good, and he can never stop being good. And God is always about good, good, good. When Moses said, I want to see you, I want to see you, he said, I will show you my goodness. God is good.

And thank God he's good because he's good to you and he's good to everybody. I said, so the last will be first and the first will be last. Doesn't that drive you nuts about God? You know, sometimes you think, well, that's not fair. Who gives a rip?

God is God. It's his choice. He can do what he wants. And if he wants to be gracious to Jeffrey Dahmer, so be it. Max Lucado can have a fit and say, I don't like it.

Tough luck, he said. But what really troubled me was my heart towards Jeffrey Dahmer. What really troubles me sometimes is a religious church and it's heart towards the lost. What bothers me is a religious church is defining who we are and who we aren't, who we like and who we don't, and what we need. To become and all the nonsense that we pack into what it is being us.

You know, we need to be. We need to be loving, we need to be full of mercy. And we need to give grace buckets full to every other person. Because Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. All right.

Praise God. Is that all right, Stephen? Is that okay? That's okay. And you know what?

That's the kingdom. That's how the kingdom works. The kingdom works on mercy. The kingdom works on mercy. Thank God it does.

And you need to thank God it does. Here's one of my favorite old hymns. You ready? One of my favorite old hymns. You know what that means?

Means? That means that the buzzer just went off and we're wrapping it up. How many grew up with a hymn, though? You sang some hymns. You did some stuff, man.

I tell you, I used to always sing a hymn. Always had my thumb in the hymnal, saying something. Great theology in those old hymns. But this is one I used to love. And it was by William R. Newell back in 1895.

One of the goldies from 1895. Remember 1895, man, those were the hits. That was. Those were the days, man. That was good stuff.

But listen to that. This mercy there was great and grace was free. Pardon there was multiplied to me there. My burden soul found liberty at Calvary.

There's three more verses, but that's just the course. Let me sing it again for you. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Pardon there was multiplied to me there. My burden soul found liberty at Calvary.

You can drive a truck through that vibrato. You could drive a truck through it.

Come on, stand up with me. Come on.

Hallelujah. You God is the master of taking messed up, screwed up lives. He turned a terrorist into an apostle. Thank God he did. Thank God he touched my life, broken mess that I was.

And you have no idea. But I thank God that he loved me. And that was the biggest revelation I got. I was in the worst spot in my life. And I read Lamentations.

When I read lamentations. Chapter three, it said, says, but God is rich in mercy, in loving kindness, he said, he does not treat us as our sins deserve. But great is his faithfulness. And I needed mercy right there. I pretty much need mercy every day.

Does anybody else need mercy? Thank God. As he delights God. What are you so happy about? Another day of mercy.

Another day of my unfailing love, Touching and blessing lives. Amen. Bow your heads. Everybody praying. Everybody praying.

This Lord found a way to touch these guys. I'll tell you a little end of the story.

Ness ended up hanging himself. He. He was going to be hung the next day and he. He hung himself. He couldn't take it.

He never accepted Christ. He said no. And guring his daughter see him at the end. And his daughter begged him, actually was his granddaughter. His granddaughter came and begged him to accept Christ.

And they say he literally pushed her away and said I want nothing to do with it. And he took cyanide and killed himself the day before he was to be executed. But that beautiful chaplain walked every single one of those guys to the gallows. He walked with them, he prayed with them, and he saw each and every one of them enter eternity. And he cared for them and deeply ministered to them.

And their lives were touched and turned around. You know, God can reach anybody, can touch anybody. And thank God. Thank God for people who understand the power and the depth of forgiveness and grace.