Telling The TRUTH
073011 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." A lot of his people had been captured. Abram went into action. Listen to Genesis 14-14, New King James Version. Now, when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his 318 trained servants who were born in his own house and went in pursuit as far as Dan. Yes, action. When something happens, it's time to gather the troops and move forward. What about you? If somebody that you love, someone that you know is taken captive by sin and Satan, are you ready to go and try to rescue that individual? God wants you to have compassion for people. He wants you to have a group who also love the Lord and who will pray with you and go with you to take the gospel to those who don't know Jesus. God wants us to rescue the perishing. He wants us to pray, to read his word, and then to move forward with the gospel of Jesus Christ, to tell people how they too can become members of God's forever family. How? By admitting that they have sinned, by believing on the Lord Jesus, by being willing to stand up and be counted for Him, to tell others about Him. Will you go with the gospel? There is a strategy that you and your Christian compatriots can use after reading God's word to go after the enemy. The enemy, of course, is Satan, and there are people in his clutches. So we need to go and help them to hear, to believe on the Lord Jesus. Will you gather your troops together, your prayer partners? This is what Abram did. Listen to Genesis 14-15, New King James. He divided his forces against them by night, and he and his servants attacked them and pursued them as far as Hoba, which is north of Damascus. Yes, determine where to go and when to go and who to go with you. Praying together is a wonderful way to determine how to find God's will. After reading his word, then don't just sit on the premises, nor just stand on the promises, but go with the gospel. God wants to make you usable, and He wants to use you. You can impact someone, or several someones, even a community for Christ. I hope you will. I hope you will do it this very day. Where do you start? Prayer, God's word, and then share. Abram was successful. Listen to Genesis 14-16, New King James Version. So he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his brother-lot and his goods, as well as the women and the people. Success. His brother's son-lot was in trouble. But the Bible is letting us know that we too should care about others, that we should determine to move into action when others are hurting and having difficulties. There are people out there, whom you could rescue, with whom you could share the gospel, and help them come to know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. Do you have a group of folk with whom you are praying? We recommend what we call prayer triplets. You and two other believers will pray together for each other, and for those folk for whom you are concerned. Pray diligently, pray daily, and then determine how to go to those folk who need to hear God's glorious gospel. Read God's word, heat God's word, pray, and then move into action. God can use you in a very, very special way if you will allow him to do that. Will you? Every story in the Old Testament is true, but God can use these stories to help us understand how we can be His servants faithfully. He knows us, and we know that if we will look into His word, we can learn from it, and we can face our enemies, because they will be coming toward us to try to trick us and to ultimately devour us. Listen to Genesis 14-17, New King James Version. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the valley of Shiva, that is the king's valley, after his return from the defeat of Keter Leomer and the kings who were with him. Yes, the enemy had been defeated, and now he is coming back, and he is saying things that are going to be intriguing, but we need to put on the whole armor of God to stand against the wiles of the devil, and having done all to stand. How do we do that? We read Ephesians chapter 6, and we pray, and pray, and pray. Will you? Have you put on God's full armor? Are you ready to face the enemy? The wiles of the devil are headed your direction, but greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. When troubles come and difficulties surround you, God cares. Jesus will put his arms around you and draw you to himself if you have really trusted him personally. Listen to Genesis 14-18, New King James Version, in this saga between the king of Sodom and Abram. Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and drink. He was the priest of God most high. Yes, God will supply all of your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. So when we are in the midst of the battle, and when things are happening and difficulties are surrounding us, God cares. Turn to him. Read his word. Fellowship with other believers. Arm yourself for battle. Trust the Lord completely, totally, absolutely, and know he cares. God wants each of us to draw nigh to him, and he will draw nigh to us. Have you done this today? If you haven't, now is the time. God is waiting. All you have to do is turn to him. Pray, seek his will, and then move forward, serving him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and body. Abram's heart was right. He was in tune with God, and God was taking care. Listen to Genesis 14-19, New King James Version. And he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram of God most high, possessor of heaven and earth." Can God say that about you? Are you really in tune with him? If you aren't, you can be. How? First of all, by humbling yourself and saying, "God, here I am, make me usable and use me for your glory." Read the Word of God. Understand that God is saying something to you in a very personal way from the Scriptures. Read them and heed them. Then, of course, pray diligently and pray with other believers. Fellowship together. Work out ways that you can best serve the Lord. One of the ways that you can is by praying for people who don't know him, who to know right is life eternal. Work out the best way to reach out to those people who need Jesus and tell them one-on-one about him. Will you? There are opportunities, and with opportunities come responsibilities. God is entrusted to you, His Word, and the plan of salvation. Share it today. Abram was facing a strong enemy, and then God did something special. He sent Melchizedek. Listen to Genesis 14-20, New King James Version. "And blessed be God most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand, and He gave them a tithe of all." Yes, God will protect, and He will provide if you are willing to totally present your body a living sacrifice. Holy, acceptable unto God, which is the most reasonable thing in the whole wide world you could possibly do. You can do it now. And then you can continue to pray and read God's Word. Have fellowship with other believers, especially those who have a burden and a concern for those who don't know Jesus. Together, by praying, by opening the Word of God, and by determining to go, you can do something for those people, because after all, God has kept you in the palm of His hand at this very moment. He has a purpose and a plan for you to pursue for His glory. It's up to you. What will you do with Jesus, which is called the Christ? Will you not only receive Him as your Savior, open your heart to Him, but would you tell others about Him? 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 in Harmony Road, midway between I-64 and Evansville Regional Airport. Every first Saturday, a good news club for those in first through fifth grades is available in a separate area. For more information, call 812-867-2418 or visit www.tripletchristianyouth.org. We have had an exciting time this summer during summer surge, and we've had a team here from Teen Missions International. Actually, they've come from all over America, and their leader is Steve Peterson, and he's brought his wife Gay along and their two children, and wanted a light that's been to work with them with the whole team, and especially with Steve and Gay and with Timothy and Faith. Well, today we have Steve in the studio, and I've asked him to tell us the Steve Peterson story. In fact, the Peterson story, because it involves the whole family. So Steve, how did you first learn about and get involved with Teen Missions? Well, first of all, Georgie, we just want to say it's a real privilege to be here with you at Triple T, and we've really enjoyed our stay. I got involved with Teen Missions as a teenager when I was 15, and really had a heart for wanting to serve the Lord and give the Lord my summer, and I heard that there was an organization that actually took Teenagers and gave them a chance to be involved in missions while they were still in school before they had even graduated, and I just couldn't believe there was a chance like that, so I signed up as soon as I could and went to the Virgin Islands, and that was back in 1979. Virgin Islands in '79, and then I think you went home and got excited about it and told your father, who was at that time, I believe the headmaster of a Christian school, is that correct? Yeah, my dad was a high school principal in Denver, Colorado, and also a high school math and chemistry teacher. So I came home really excited, and I told my dad, I said you love Teenagers, you work with Teenagers, you've been talking about missions for a long time, I think you'd make a good leader, and Mom and Dad led their first team two years later. They went to the Philippines and also to New Guinea in '81 and '83 leading teams, as well as my sister, Sarah, got involved at that time. Okay, so the whole family then became a part of this outreach called Teen Missions International. That's right. What is your particular other than leading a team to Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky when you're back home, back at the base, what do you do, and where all have you gone with Teen Missions? That's kind of a hard one to put into a small sound bite. As you know, missionaries kind of sometimes are a jack-of-all-trades master of none. We do what needs to be done. Primarily, my job right now is working in the technical aspect of our website and our computer networking, but going back to the beginning, I worked quite a lot in our video department, and Teen Missions was involved with Ken Anderson Films, and we produced a lot of evangelistic films. That was still during my Bachelor to the Rapture days. As a single, I traveled quite extensively. We ran overseas boot camps with national teenagers, and my responsibilities included running those camps. During those years, I served in Brazil, Tanzania, Philippines, Jordan in the Middle East, and also Lebanon. I also had the privilege of running one of the first boot camps, overseas boot camps that Teen Missions did in Indonesia. It was a real joy to be able to do a lot of globetrotting. It's easier to do that as a single man. Now, with a family, I spend most of my time at our headquarters with a computer and video work. The Bachelor to the Rapture thing changed because of a young lady named Gay. Is that correct? Actually, while I was traveling to these overseas boot camps, we had a summit in Zambia. Unbeknownst to me, during that time, I got bit by a mosquito and came down with malaria after I returned to the States. I was in the hospital for about a week. Sometimes the Lord has to slow us down to get our attention. The Lord got my attention while I was down. The Lord gave me a piece that it was time for a different course as I continued in ministry in that He gave me His peace and blessing that it was time to pursue family and marriage. Gay is a wonderful gal that was already serving on staff, already had a heart for missions, was already very involved in ministry work. We've just been blessed about 10 years now, I guess, going on 11. We have a nine-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter, Timothy and Faith. It's a privilege to serve the Lord as a family. How about the switching from being overseas and coming stateside to the hot summer sun of southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and western Kentucky? Well, when you're in the Lord's will, those things, although they may be difficult, are totally eclipsed by the excitement of seeing the kids grow. As you said, we've been in three states serving at the fairs and our first tentative steps on the first day as the kids looked at all these masses of people walking past at the fairs and you're kind of nudging them from behind saying it's okay. It's all right to approach them, start some conversations, and they did that. As they saw the Lord working, people came to know Christ. People were asking questions about the gospel, and each time the teens had a conversation, their boldness increased. I think we're getting close to a thousand conversations now that we've had in just over a week, and it's just been exciting to see God move. We started the whole thing on the 9th of July, and then you all came the following Wednesday and hit one of the fairs, and we've been off and running ever since, and now we're seeing God do some very, very special things, and it's hard to believe it's been three weeks now since fair share began, with just one more week to go. It seems also impossible to believe that July has ended, or will end tomorrow, and then we hit August, and that will be a whole new ball game as we go into the last week, and we're doing something very special on August 1st. Traditionally, when we have groups in from Teen Missions International, we take a day and we go to Holiday World in this fashion safari, so August 1 will be that happening, and if any of you are going to be around, you can just come and see us, and we'd say hi to you, as we splash and ride the roller coasters and do the rest. It's not all work and no play, we do relax a little bit, and we like going to Holiday World because it is a very Christian-oriented place. It's the most unusual place that I've seen where we go in, and we always have a prayer time around the manger scene before we go to the rest of the park, and what of the light it is to work with some of the world's greatest teenagers, not only from the Tri-State, but from across America and beyond. Steve, it's been wonderful to have you with us. Just another couple of very quick questions. Number one, did fair share turn out to be what you imagined it would before you got here, or was everything totally different? Well, it's never possible to totally accurately imagine something you haven't done before, and I think probably as a leader as well as the kids, there's a question in your mind, "Am I going to be ready? Am I going to be bold?" But God promises in His Word that when we go out, His Spirit is with us, and His Spirit will give us the words to say, and there's nothing more exciting than to see the Lord speaking through you, reminding you of verses, using you to show love to people who need it, and it's been amazing how much people really do want to talk about eternity and about their souls. That's not a conversation they have often in their school or workplace, and so it's been much more than I expected, and the kids have just totally embraced it. They look forward to getting out and sharing with folks, and I think that there's teenagers like a challenge, and they like doing something that matters with their summer, and I see that the kids on our team have grown greatly by fair share, and I think that if there's young people in this area that are wishing for something to do, they would like their summer to matter for eternity. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it for any young people that might think that they'd like to do something like that with their summer. Thank you, and also tell us about the need for teenagers to be involved in team missions worldwide. There are all kinds of opportunities everywhere. I know this summer the teams went to all the populated continents and a whole bunch of countries. What's the basic need for team missions international for people being involved? We've got about a minute left, and so just share with us your heart for having people involved. I know this is part of your mission and ministry with team missions, is to get people involved, so tell us how to be involved. Well, there are about 30 teams around the world right now serving the Lord. This is the one that's in the states. Our 2012 mission trips are already online at www.teenmissions.org. You can go online, you can look at all the trips that are available, you can register online, and all the instructions and answers to your questions are right there for any young people that would like to spend a summer serving the Lord in Africa, South America, Asia, Australia, anywhere else around the world. Very good, thank you. And also all of you that are listening, you can come tonight to Triple T. It's the last Saturday of July, and then next Saturday is Big Splat, where we have fun with watermelon. Watermelon for everybody, and you're invited to join us and meet these kids and leaders from Team Missions International. ♪♪ You are invited to be an encourager, or an enlarger, or an expander with Triple T. Christian Youth Ministries. Here's how it works. The first $20 that you invest makes it possible to provide a scholarship for one more 10 to 19-year-old to be trained in pyrovangelism. We're excited about what God has already done, but we need to reach out to many, many more. And for a $20 investment, you make it possible for that person to be trained and then to have a Bible and to give a Bible to somebody that we call a target teen, somebody that that person knows who needs to know Jesus Christ personally. And then you can keep on giving and being enlarger. Enlargers are those that give at least $20 a month. Everybody could do that. That's affordable. It's also needed very much to keep the ministry moving. And so if you will do that, God can use your gift and help this ministry really, really reach out and to be enlarged. Within 100 miles, there are 400,000 10 to 19-year-olds. And every $10 gives us the privilege of reaching out to one more. Just in the first two weeks of fair share, going to just five Indian, Illinois, and Kentucky counties, we were able to share one-on-one with 980 different individuals, now well over a thousand, one-on-one. And we offer a Bible, a New King James special covered Bible with God's plan of salvation inside, the front cover, inside the back cover, God's top 10, the 10 commandments. And so when you do this as an enlarger, you help us put the key action plan into effect through a Bible-believing local church, working with youth workers, pastors who love the Lord, to partner in youth evangelism with Triple T. Opportunities to pray and partner together, and we have partners now that are following up and endeavoring to disciple those youth that have already come to Christ. 150 just in the first two weeks with more fairs to come, more opportunities to share Christ with, but we need your help, we need your support, we need your prayers, and we certainly need your investment of time and talent and treasure. And then if you want to really help, be an expander. When we have $100 a month coming in, we can reach out to the students on one more campus by training three as Tiger Team Task Force people, and then one adult as a coach, and together those four form a nucleus. And we continue the training. It's an ongoing situation on the third Saturday of every month. They can come or they can receive information online. And the continued training, continuous training, is really beneficial because they are going on campus with the Gospel. They're putting together what we call a Tiger Team Impact Evangelistic Youth Effort, right where they are. So we need expanders, investing $100 a month to target a specific school and the students on that campus to get the Gospel through teenagers to teenagers. It is a workable plan and God has used it and is using it now, but we need to expand, and the only way that can happen is for someone like you to catch the vision. Why don't you write to us? Our address is TTT Christian Youth Ministries, 13,000, that's 1-3-0, U.S. Highway 41 North, and say, "I need to need more information or I'm ready now to be and encourage her, are, and enlarge her, are an expander." Would you prayerfully consider this? Please do. We need you to pray and to give as God leads you. There are teenagers out there by the hundreds who can be reached and who are being reached because people like you can. So when you give time, or talent, or treasure, it's a wonderful thing to know. Christ through you can change the world. [Music] Every Saturday at 7.27 p.m. you are invited to attend a live youth event at Triple T, 13,000 U.S. 41 North at Booneville and Harmony Road, midway between I-64 and Evansville Regional Airport. Every first Saturday, a good news club for those in first through fifth grades is available in a separate area. 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 U.S. 41 North, Evansville, Indiana, 477-25. Tune in to Telling the Truth next week at this same time on this same station. [Music]