Telling The TRUTH
033013 Telling The Truth 28 Minute Program
[music] You're listening to "Telling the Truth" from Triple T. Christian Youth Ministries, "Telling the Truth to and Through Teenagers." Here is Triple T. founder and president George Dumes. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were given promises by God that they and their descendants would multiply as the stars in the heavens. Listen to Genesis 28.12, New King James Version. Then he dreamed and behold a ladder was set up on the earth and its top reached to heaven. And there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. As God gave this dream to Jacob, he let him understand that wonderful things were going to happen in the future; and behold, the Lord of Abraham, your Father, and the God of Jacob, and you, I will give you and your descendants. You shall spread to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south, and in you, and in your seed all the families of earth shall be blessed. Watching for the stars was what was happening as Jacob laid dreaming. God heard and answered in a very special way the petitions that were being presented, and because of what happened then, you and I today have the opportunity to know Jesus Christ, God the Son, the Son of God, and to share our faith in Him with a world in me. When we determine to communicate Christianity to as many people as we possibly can, as quickly as we can, as effectively as we can, we can reach for the stars. It's where God is. Listen to Psalm 36-5, New King James. Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens, and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. We need to reach up to God by praying and believing and putting our faith into effect sharing God's glorious, wonderful, great good news with as many people as we possibly can. We need to pray with other believers in a fellowship time. We need to determine to whom we are going to go with the gospel. We need to read God's Word and to do what God's Word says to do. And we need to pray without ceasing. We need to always be an attitude of prayer. Never go any place you can't pray. Never do anything you can't pray about while doing it. And pray for God to make you usable and to use you to make an impact on your world, to glorify Him. I know that you and I can, if we will, and if we believe, God will make us usable and use us to reach people for Him. Before you do anything else, pray. Ask God for guidance and direction. Pray His name, thank Him for what He has done for you and others, and for what He wants to do. Give Him honor and glory. And then listen carefully to Psalm 57, 9, and 10, New King James Version. "I will praise you, O Lord, among the peoples. I will sing to you among the nations, for your mercy reaches into the heavens, and your truth, into the clouds. God is there, God is high above us, but He also is in us, if we have trusted Jesus. God's Holy Spirit indwells the believer, you and me and others, and He wants us to do what He would have us to do to tell other people about Him." Ask people to read God's Word, to listen to what the Lord says, and then to believe, putting their faith in Him. Get a prayer partner, another believer or other believers, and pray together and then go together with the gospel or go separately. God will give you the guidance that you need to do what you can to reach the most possible people as you reach for the stars. Remember, you and God make a majority, so determine that you can and will do His will. David was aware of the greatness of God, how awesome he is, and we should be also. Listen to Psalm 108, verses 2 through 4, New King James Version. "Awake, luten harp, I will awaken the dawn, I will praise you, O Lord, among the peoples, and I will sing praises to you among the nations, for your mercy is great above the heavens, and your truth reaches to the clouds." That's why we should shoot for the stars. Let's aim higher than we can even fathom the very presence of God and endeavor to put into effect every effort and energy that we can to really reach the most possible people in the shortest possible time as effectively as we can, praying together and working together with other people who also believe that God is who He says He is, and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God the Son. Christ is very, very special knowledge of the Lord, intact in our hearts and in our minds. We can then go with the gospel deliberately. We can go by prayer and we can reach all the way above the heavens. We can if we will. So the question is, will you, will I, only you and I can answer that question. My answer is yes. What's yours? All made it his lot in life to take the gospel to the regions beyond to go where no one had heard the good news of the saving power of the Lord Jesus. He was endeavoring to reach the unreached. Listen to Romans 1520, New King James Version. And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation. What are you aiming for? Aim at nothing and you'll hit it every time, but reach for the stars and you will accomplish far more than you can possibly do without setting goals and determining to reach the seemingly unreachable. There is someone in your world who needs to know who Jesus is, someone who needs to know that God loves Him or Her so much that He said His Son to live perfectly, to die, to be buried, and to rise again, and the risen Christ needs to be shared with people. Will you be the catalyst? Will you pray with another Christian? Will you then go with the gospel, reading God's Word, heeding God's Word, praying diligently, and expecting results? That expectation is the faith factor that can cause marvelous things to happen. In his second letter to the Church at Corinth, 2 Corinthians 5, 9, New King James, Paul says, "Therefore we make it our aim whether present or absent to be well pleasing to Him." That will please the Lord if you do it also. Are you endeavoring to please Him? Are you endeavoring to reach people for Him? Are you praying for those who don't yet know Him? Are you praying with those who do know Him? Are you working out the strategies to get the gospel to the people that you could reach if you would endeavor to reach those who are reachable in your world? Christ in you the hope of glory, bask in God's fullness, in His faithfulness, and endeavor to please Him. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come through repentance. So pray, please, pray with other believers, read the Word of God, do what the Word of God says to do, go into your world and take the gospel to people who need Jesus. Know this, when you do, when you pray, when you read God's Word, when you fellowship with other believers, when you present God's glorious truth, things happen magnificently. Do you join me in adhering to Paul's personal promise to the Philippians? Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, Philippians 3, 13 and 14, New King James Version. Here again you have it, the goal-setting opportunity to reach for the stars, to press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. God wants you and me to understand that He will help us accomplish the impossible when we trust Him. He is a miracle-working God, and even though you have people in your world who look unreachable and look immovable, God can use you to reach them with the gospel if you will lovingly painstakingly go prayerfully and share God's good news. The Lord loves you, and He loves them, but He gives you the privilege to follow Him with excitement, with effectiveness, with efficiency. Three ways to move, one pray, two re-God's word, three fellowship with other believers, and then determine with whom you are going to share God's great news. Don't keep it to yourself, don't say, "What will they think of me? What will they think of you if they burn in hell and you didn't tell them how to escape?" Every Saturday at 7.27 p.m., you are invited to attend a live youth event at Triple T, 13,000 US-41 North at Booneville and Harmony Road, midway between I-64 and Evansville Regional Airport. Every first Saturday, a good news club for ages 6 to 9 is available in a separate room. For more information call 812-867-2418 or visit www.tripletchristianyouth.org. Let's reach for the stars. Leading youth can be a way of life. It can be everything that motivates you to do what you do if you do it correctly. If you do it with the right motivation, if you do it putting God in the center of everything and then moving from where you are to where you ought to be. The concept is first pray. In every area of your life, seek God's will. That's foremost, that's imperative. Seek God's will, then set your goals, determine where you're going to go, how you're going to get there, all of these things, goals in every area of your life and your ministry and the impact of your outreach. Then of course you start where you are, then use what you have. Do all you can and reach for the stars. As you look up at night at the canopy of heavenly bodies that are overhead that you see out there shining brightly, know that God in heaven created that whole thing. He put it there. He did it very purposefully. And so as we look out from our little sphere, let's don't limit ourselves, but let's expand our horizon to the greatest degree we possibly can. Let's think about expanding that sphere on and on and on. Let's think about how many people we can really impact with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's diligently pray and personally pursue every area of opportunity. Every avenue that we have to reach people for the Lord Jesus, they are out there. They need to be one, they need to be reached, they need to be influenced, they need to be impacted with God's glorious gospel. And if you don't do it, and if I don't do it, who's going to do it? Reach for the stars. I remember so well hearing the statement that made America great. America was going to enter the space race, and the goal had been set to put a man on the moon. Most people thought that was too fantastic to ever become reality, because enough people caught the vision, because enough people pursued the goal, because they did just start where they were and used what they had and did all they could, it did happen. And a spacecraft did land on the moon, and people did walk around on lunar soil. Why? Because somebody said, "Let's shoot for the stars." Suffice it to say that out there where you live, there are people who will tell you that it can't be done. Don't even try it. Tuck your tail between your legs and go back to wherever. But don't listen to those disparaging words. Listen rather to God's clarion call when Jesus said, "Go. Go into your world and preach the gospel and get the message of the Christian way of life to people who need to know the Lord." People need the Lord. They need the Lord where you live, where I live, where other people live. What are we going to do about it? Look at those people. And as we see a new glimpse of what has happened and what can happen, it behooves us as individuals to say, "God helped me not to limit my horizons." Some time ago, an English Bible scholar by the name of J.B. Phillips wrote a little book. A friend of mine, Warren W. Wiersby, gave me that book and said, "George, I think this will help if you get this guy's perspective." The title of Phillips' book was, "Your God is too small." The question is not how big is God, but how big is He in your mind, in your heart, in your circumstance. How big is God? How big and vast and wide? How big is He? Do you limit God? Do you think, "Oh, this would be nice, but I could never do that." You couldn't, but God could. And if you and God work together, perhaps just perhaps that dream, that vision can become a reality. When we take away those moments of limitations, those handicaps that we give to ourselves, let's look up and say, "Okay, I might not make it this time, but next time I'm going to try harder. I'm going to do more. I'm going to realize my potential. I'm going to utilize more tools. More people are going to work with me. I'm going to reach more people for Jesus, and together we can. If we continue to do it, we're going to watch God work in wonderful, outstanding, stupendous ways. Again, there is nothing like prayer to accomplish the impossible. God wants us to get on our knees and bow our heads, and in humility say, "God, I know that you can do anything because I know that you can. Would you, God, show me ways that I can be reusable of you, places that I need to change, things I need to rearrange? God speak to me. Show me what I'm supposed to do. And then, God, help me get other people to work with me. Help me to bring others into the picture, into the sphere, into a key group to keep evangelizing youth. God, show me, moment by moment, hour by hour, step by step, what to do, what to say, where to go, what to endeavor to accomplish, the seemingly impossible for your glory. Let's set up a scenario. Let's look at a given set of circumstances. Let's start where we are, and let's determine that we're going to watch God do fantastic things in and through us and the others that are going to be on the team that can come together to participate, to reach people, to inform them about God's wonderful love so much that He sent His Son to Lord Jesus Christ. To be born of a virgin, promised that He would come, and He did, and then to live perfectly, to be tempted and never ever to give in, but to then put into effect a series of miraculous moments where people were touched by Him. He taught, He preached, He prayed, He gave of Himself. And the Bible says very, very specially, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried, and He rose again according to the Scriptures. That's the gospel, the death, the resurrection of the perfect Lord Jesus Christ, the virgin-born Savior who never, ever messed up. Let's believe God will make us usable, and let Him use us to pull out all the stops. An organ has stops, and if you pull out those stops, the volume increases. And so let's not just pull out one stop, or two stops, but every one of the stops that's available to us. Let's make our goal reality. Let's reach the most possible people we can. I will remember in the early years of our ministry, we were still striving for that first time to hit a hundred. A hundred on a Saturday night, a hundred at one time. We didn't even have a building. All we had was a house, an abasement, a three-car garage, and it hadn't happened, but I gave a challenge. I said and I thought it was a wild challenge. I want to do something. I'm going to give something special. I'm going to take somebody out to dinner if they will personally get fifty here at the rally. And when Guy responded, I'm going to do it. Not only did he decide that he was going to do it, he did it, and he brought fifty-five to that particular meeting. Since that time, I've seen others do similar things, and I know the teenagers turned on and tuned in to the Lord can really do things, can really accomplish things. So challenge those people that you know. Pray together for a goal until it becomes a reality. Reach for the stars, and then watch it happen. Let's understand that unless we act, it's going to just sit there. But if we reach out to this one, and to that one, and to the other one, something great is going to happen. There's a little chorus that goes, "You win the one next to you, and I'll win the one next to me." No time at all will win them all, win them, win them one by one. We can have group communication. We can have mass communication of the gospel, but people come to Jesus one at a time. So let's pray for them diligently, one at a time. Let's pursue them effectively, one at a time, and let's allow the Lord to just increase our vision and stretch our dreams until they encompass more people than perhaps we ever thought we could reach. And if we'll do this, we're really going to see some neat things, some great things transpire. The problem is the gospel is hidden. It's veiled. We've got to take the veil down and expose it through our lips and through our legs and through our limbs to the world. We pray for a gospel that's veiled or hidden that is veiled to those who are perishing. Why is this happening? Well, it's going on simply because the God of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. So we've got to turn on our searchlights. We've got to light our lamps. We've got to hold our candles high. We've got to illuminate the darkness with God's gospel. And if we will, some tremendous things are going to happen. If we don't, we're going to regret later on that we did not take advantage of the opportunities that were right here at our disposal. May I share with you the mission and the vision that every youth should hear the gospel with an invitation to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ before turning 20. Stay tuned and we'll tell you how you and I can make that happen. First you have a vision and then you have a mission. Trigletees' mission is to communicate Christianity to and through teenagers. To win them to Christ and train them for Christ, teaching them how to share their faith through their local churches, on their campuses, throughout their communities and into their world wherever God leads them in their future. God wants you and me to understand that if we will put into effect what He has entrusted to us, we can do far more than we could if we didn't reach for the stars. And so we are projecting ways to reach more people, especially in the days ahead. Tonight at Triple T, God willing, will be the second presentation of Hosanna Highway, the Crimson Trail. And we start with creation and in a very creative way, some teens and pre-teens have put together the six days of creation and then again creatively on the seventh day God rested. And then we find that even though God created man in his own image, that man messed up, Satan came in and man bit literally. Eight of the forbidden fruit and sin came into the world and man fell from God's gracious goodness into a very, very unbelievable series of terrible circumstances. And God was disgusted with what He had created because of sin being rampant everywhere. And so God entrusted to a man named Noah, the privilege of building an ark, putting on that ark, animals of every species, two by two, male and female, to procreate his original creation. And God allowed Noah and his wife and their three sons and their wives to enter the ark with them. That ark of safety made it possible for mankind to continue after the flood. And yes it was a real flood and yes there was a real man named Noah and yes there was a real vessel called an ark and yes everybody was killed, everybody was drowned except Noah and his family and the animals on the ark. But later man continued to mess up even Noah himself did after being saved by the waters receding and God taking care of him and his family. Then God entrusted some people with some truths. He took a man named Moses and he gave him his laws. We call him the Ten Commandments and he took Moses up on Mount Sinai and we've built Mount Sinai right inside Triple T, we've got a little model of the ark and we have there on Mount Sinai the Ten Commandments being shared and then also on Mount Sinai God gave Moses the plans for the tabernacle. And we have on stage a scale model of the Old Testament tabernacle. Some day soon we're going to have a real live size replica of the tabernacle right here at Triple T but today we have the model and then after that we have the prophecies of the coming of Jesus Christ, his birth, his being given the word from God, behold my beloved son and whom I am well pleased and the miracles that he did and then we have the wonderful trip into Jerusalem that we call Palm Sendai, Hosanna and then there is the betrayal. There is the crucifixion, there is the burial and the resurrection of the living Lord Jesus and those who come through Hosanna Highway actually go through the empty tomb into another place where they can hear more about God's love and they hear the plan of salvation, God loves you, Jesus died for you. If you will believe in the Lord Jesus you can have life that lasts forever turning to him from your sins and then Jesus gave us what we called the Great Commission. He said go, go into all the world and preach the gospel to everybody everywhere and we unfurl Christian flags and we walk across from one place to the other with those flags of faith unfurled singing Christ through you can change the world go tell it on the mountain Jesus Christ is alive and you are invited to come tonight or next Saturday to see first hand Hosanna and you can also have the highway in your memory if you will come Christ through you can change the world. Every Saturday at 7.27pm you are invited to attend a live youth event at Triple T, 13,000 US 41 North at Booneville and Harmony Road midway between I-64 and Evansville Regional Airport. Every first Saturday a good news club for ages 6 to 9 is available in a separate room. For more information call 812-867-2418 or visit www.tripletchristianyouth.org. For your free copy of the telling the truth newsletter call 812-867-2418 812-867-2418 or write Triple T, 13,000 US 41 North Evansville, Indiana 477-25. Tune in to telling the truth next week at the same time on this same station. [Music] (upbeat music) (dramatic music)