There are many mountains to conquer

I was thinking this morning about the life of Caleb, one of my great heroes in Scripture, and maybe at some point in the future I'll have the opportunity to talk a little bit about Caleb's life, by the way, I love the idea of that one of our grandsons is named Caleb because it reflects our appreciation of that New Testament character.

What I see in Caleb is, number one, a great fidelity to the Lord, a confidence that does not allow itself to be intimidated by the magnitude of the obstacles or the challenges that are before the people of God. When Joshua and Caleb spied out the land and saw that there would be great giants who would oppose the entry of God's people into the Promised Land and the other ten spies were terrified and filled with fear, and they did not see the blessing that would be in the land. Promised Land, Joshua and Caleb said: if God is with us, we are going to eat them like bread.

And that has taught me that at this time in history in which the Church finds itself in this country, in other parts of the world, we do not have to fear the magnitude of the obstacles and the giants that are ahead of us, but we have to to be sure that God is with us and we are with God.

But you know what impresses me the most about Caleb? It's in chapter 14 and we don't have time to read it, and there, 45 years after Joshua and Caleb gave that prophetic Word, they were young and the people had not yet entered the Promised Land, but 45 years after that momentous moment , 45 years later they find themselves before the Promised Land, the land that God had promised them, and they still have not fully possessed it because they are just beginning the task.

Now Caleb is 85 years old, say 85 years old, wow, there is hope for me, I am only 70. And you know that Caleb tells Joshua that he is now the head of all the tribes of Israel and the one who controls the distribution of the lands, but Caleb speaks with an authority that comes from the person who has lived in the Will of the Lord and whose vitality comes from his relationship and his intimacy with the Spirit of God.

Caleb tells Joshua: "Behold, today I am 85 years old, I am still as strong as the day Moses sent me", that means: now Caleb is 85 years old and he says: look, I feel as strong as when I was forty when God sent me to spy out the land. "What was my strength then, such is my strength now for war and for entering; Give me now this mountain of which Jehovah spoke that day, because you heard on that day that the Anakim" a race of giants "are there, and that there are large and fortified cities, perhaps the Lord will be with me and I will drive them out as the Lord has said."

Brothers: I am not only talking about myself, I am not boasting of any personal vitality and I am not talking only about myself, but I am talking about this Congregation and the Church of Jesus Christ at this moment in history, that is what matters most to me. And I believe that also for the Church of Jesus Christ throughout the nation and in the entire Western world where it seems that the Church is weak and facing great obstacles, I feel brothers that we are at a moment in history in which God He is calling us to conquer the Earth.

It is not a time to be thinking about old age or to be thinking that we do not have strength, it is a time, it is the time to think that God is with us and that we have to take those mountains in the Name of Jesus.

Brothers, I feel like we are on the edge of a great abyss of possibilities. Rather, what keeps me awake at night is this idea that there is something waiting ahead of us, great possibilities, great conquests that God has for His people at this time. I believe that we have to fill our minds with that idea of great possibilities, of great conquests that God has for His Church, even though two thousand years have passed, but I still believe that God has great mountains to conquer and great lands to conquer for His Name and His glory.

Our Church has just finished and I hope so, it has just finished, three projects during twenty-odd years of construction, and we are prepared in a sense with a physical plant that is, I would say, very adequate to undertake great things in this city and in this nation.

As Gregory said a while ago, these years God has been in charge of preparing us as a Congregation through these processes that we have experienced, which are reflected in that audiovisual presentation that we saw a moment ago. While I was looking at those projections, I realized again all the things that we have had to experience during these thirty years; in fact it is thirty-three years since Lion of Judah started here in the South End, first Central Baptist Church and then Lion of Judah Congregation.

But he has not only worked in the Congregation, he has worked through the life of Meche, my person, he has broken us, especially because Meche is better prepared than me spiritually, but he has crushed me, he has broken me, I He has ground many times and I feel that he has been working in my life to prepare me to serve him better.

And now I believe that God has, and that is what I want us to think, that an era possibly ends and another era opens that none of us can predict but that I know is a time of great achievements and great possibilities. I want you to think about that, brothers, like that song that said about the God of this city: "God still has great things for us."

The last thing I'm going to tell you, I'll leave you with an image: Meche and I have just returned from a two-week trip to five countries in Europe and we traveled a lot by train, all the trips we made were by train within Europe, we only got to Sweden and from there, well, all the trips we made in those five European countries were by train, and that allowed us to see the cities and the fields of Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and breathe a little bit of the air of that ancient continent.

We thought it was like an almost religious trip because in every city we went, we were able to visit churches and cathedrals, and see the little towers of those churches from all those parts of Europe as remains of a continent that was once tremendously spiritual and very concerned about the things of God Yes, it was a Christianity of terrible errors, terrible religious wars and great controversies, but a people that is indifferent to God does not fight for religious things. Precisely the wars and the great controversies were a manifestation that God and Christianity were taken seriously, although there were terrible mistakes.

However, we were moved by the fact that in those big cities and in those fields where you could see so many ancient and beautiful church towers and churches there were almost no people, many of them completely closed and dead due to the exclusive lack of people in those lands, today the churches are more like archaeological remains, museums more than anything, there is no life in them.

All of this is a manifestation of what has happened in the Western world, in the "developed" world where God has still been left out of the churches, certainly from culture, politics and morality, and what remains they are simply churches that are like dry bones.

God spoke to me about dry bones because I have read that passage so much and seeing those abandoned and empty churches, it's like God's question to Ezekiel came to my mind, "can these bones live again?" and I wondered: Lord, can these churches live again? Will these churches be able to live in the Czech Republic, in Austria, in Germany?

In Germany where the great reformer, Luther, gave the first cries of Protestantism that changed the history of the Church. In Switzerland where the great Calvino preached with a terrible passion about God, about His Word. In the Czech Republic where John Hoss also suffered martyrdom for his insistence that God's Word should be preached in native languages and that God's people had the right to celebrate the Lord's Supper and not just priests. And in Vienna where there is a great monument in the very center of the central square of the city dedicated so eloquently to the Trinity and a declaration of worship to the living God. Or in Rome where in the Basilica of Saint Peter where we had the privilege of being, there is a great monument inside the Basilica where supposedly below are the remains of the Apostle Peter.

And will the bones of the churches here in New England also be able to revive in the small towns of Vermont and New Hampshire, and Connecticut, and Rhode Island, will they also be able to revive in places where there is so much unhealthy and damaged preaching, will those bones be able to revive? again?

I say yes brothers, we say yes in the Name of Jesus, there are many mountains to conquer. The enemy tribes have not been defeated yet but our strength is like that of 45 years ago, we are still prepared to make war for the Lord and even if the others abandoned the Lord, by His grace, me and my house will serve the Lord.

Brothers: the best times are ahead of us, the best times are ahead of us. God knows not of age and youth; What's more, God likes to use the old, let me tell you. I feel prepared for war and I know my church is prepared for war.

Brothers, let's prepare ourselves in the Name of the Lord, amen? because great things have to happen in these times. The Lord wants to give us the earth, before Christ comes the second time, there is a great visitation on society and God is preparing His Church and His prophets in many parts of the world right now, preparing it for that great visitation of His Spirit, so that we celebrate what God has in front of us. A time passes but another time opens before us, glory to the Name of the Lord, amen. Stand up, give a big round of applause to the Lord, glory and honor are for Him.