← ArchiveSunday, June 22, 2014DateJune 22, 2014Speaker—Text2 Kings 19Passages in this sermon2 Kings 195:34TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00Thank you, Greg. It's always exciting. It's good to see that Bill Dill is back with us today. Today, he's sitting out there.0:29Where did Rick go? Did he? Oh, there he is. He's sitting with his daddy. Steve asked about where you were so he can find you. So you stand out kind of like Bill does over here. But anyway, I want to take a moment and introduce our speaker who really doesn't need any introduction. So it's foolish to try to introduce somebody that needs no introduction. Amen. But it does require a little bit of introduction. A few weeks ago, I called Steve.0:58Let me tell you, he's the kind of pastor you want to follow because he did a fantastic job. He laid a tremendous foundation. God used him in a very mighty way. And he's been precious for wisdom and encouragement in my life as your pastor since he's been gone. I've never felt like I couldn't call Dr. Steve Eccles about anything at any time.1:23And we've had opportunities to converse about various things throughout my 20 years here. And I appreciate that about him. And so when we talked about him coming back today, he has taken on a new task. He is now the president of Tennessee Temple University. Now, Tennessee Temple is going through it. He's going to share some of this with you in just a moment, but going through a time of transition.1:52And so he wants to share that so that you can understand that we now have another opportunity and another choice for our young people to go to receive a very strong biblical Christian education above and beyond high school. And I'm excited to know that this man is in charge of that project. And I thank God for him.2:21His sweet wife, Julie, is with him today. She wasn't with him, I don't think, the last time you came. Was she? Were you? Were you? Dog, you're just those pastor's wives that sits in the back kind of, of course, it's not hard to hide behind him. But Jeremy and Joy, their children are not with them, but many of you remember them and remember your time with them for the five years they were here. Some of you became members while he was here and remember the precious leadership that he bestowed on you.2:46And I'm excited to be able to introduce him to you. He was at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary as vice president in charge of a doctor of ministries program over the southeastern area for years. And if I've got that wrong, he had to do that or take away. But did a great job there as I've talked to many men who have received their doctor of ministry through Dr. Echols. And so that's a great accomplishment that he had.3:16But now God's called him to that exciting new field. And he needs you. And he needs you, and he needs your prayers, and he needs your support, he needs your encouragement. But he also needs you in multiple ways. He's going to share that with you in just a moment. So I want you to hear him, and as he preaches, I want you to listen to what God is saying through this great man of God as we welcome Dr. Steve Echols back to the pulpit of Bethel Baptist Church. Well, thank you, Chris.3:44You're so very gracious. Are we on? Can you hear me? Good. Okay, great. You're so very gracious and far too kind in the introduction, but we're so honored to be back here. You know, the scripture back to Bethel, well, it just has such meaning to us. Bethel meaning the house of God and the place where so many incredible things happened in the Bible.4:14And we thank God for our years here that we had. Talk about our children. I see Miss Jackie over there and some of the others who kept our children in those days. And the famous escapes of my son, Jeremy, from the preschool area are still legend. My daughter, Joy, the only child too shy in the history of Bethel Baptist kindergarten that was afraid to graduate. I mean, all these amazing stories about our children.4:43But they're just a blessing to us. Of course, they're grown adults now. Joy is married and a schoolteacher in the Atlanta area. My son, Jeremy, graduated from New Orleans Seminary with his master's degree in counseling. He's actually working in a counseling center there in New Orleans. He's not married. We're looking for prospects. Anybody got any, you know, he's a fine young man. Just hadn't met that right person yet. But, and of course, my wife. And I think today a lot of people kept saying, who's that old guy with that nice young lady there, you know?5:13But she hasn't changed. I have. Some of y'all were kind and said you haven't changed. And I said, well, I'm just trying not to go downhill too fast. But what a joy to be back with you. And thank you, Pastor Chris, for allowing us to share with you today. I want to just share a message from God's Word. If you'll turn with me to 2 Kings chapter 19. And, again, I just, while you're turning, it's just been an incredible joy even today to see you all here.5:38Brother Rick, we're certainly praying for you. We'll catch you maybe a minute. Again, I didn't have much time earlier. And we're certainly praying for you and your family. And Greg, it was great seeing you up here. It just reminded us of all the wonderful times we had since we've been here. So thank you for that privilege. But we want to look today in 2 Kings chapter 19. Just have your Bibles open there or your iPhone or whatever you use to get to the Scripture.6:06In just a moment, we're going to start in verse 14. April 8th, 1998. Anybody remember that time? I was pastor at First Baptist Pleasant Grove. We left here as God had called us to go to Pleasant Grove. We ended up staying there eight years. And then I was at New Orleans Seminary. And you're right, I was over the doctorate program there for about 11 years. Eventually going to Atlanta to be dean of the campus up there. And then I've been at Tennessee Temple two and a half years.6:36So that's kind of our journey. But April 8th, 1998. I was pastor at First Baptist Church, Pleasant Grove. We had finished prayer meeting. We usually, we started early. So we usually wrap that up a little bit after seven. And it was my routine. A lot of times on Wednesday night, just to, frankly, Brother Chris, kind of handle the stress. I used to head to the gym after prayer meeting. That was kind of my little routine. I don't know, just something about getting a good workout in after, you know, midweek always made me feel good. So I'd gone off to the gym and just gotten in there and started working out when the lights went out.7:06Now, I hadn't really been listening to the news. And, you know, in this part of the world, you get these storm warnings all the time. And you really don't necessarily pay attention to them. If I'd heard anything, it didn't really register with me. Nor did it really register that much with our staff, although we were taking the normal precautions. But here I was in the Ironworks gym in Hueytown, Alabama. And the light's going out. So, obviously, that's the end of the workout. So I just jumped back in my car.7:35And I noticed an eerie kind of calmness. Just very, very unusual. The kind where you don't hear a cricket chirp or anything as I was driving back. And I noticed a lot of the power was out everywhere. When I got to the house, my wife said, I don't know, I must have had my cell phone off. That was back in the days. You know, we didn't have them 24-7, the conscious or something. I must have had it off. And she began to explain to me about what was going on. And we got into our basement area.8:03About that time, one of my associate pastors called. And he was telling me that on the very edge of Pleasant Grove, the tornado had come by and it just had missed their house. So here we are. We're just trying to get orientated and all of that. And as you know, this was that terrible cataclysmic tornado of April 8, 1998. It killed 33 people in the Oak Grove area, which was right next to Pleasant Grove. In fact, later we learned that the tornado, Julie, was probably within a mile of her house at the most.8:30It kind of went through the backside of the woods there. If it had plowed straight through Pleasant Grove, there's no telling how many people would have died. What we didn't know at the time was it kind of bounced around and came here. In the aftermath of the next day and all the confusion, we were trying to figure out things. It wasn't right away that we learned of that. And of course, our hearts were going out to all of you who were going through that as well as trying to minister to the Oak Grove.8:59I think back on that time and then tragically, many of you know, Pleasant Grove later had actually, what's that been now? Four years, I think, had another tornado that came through and actually took a swath out of Pleasant Grove. And if you travel to Pleasant Grove today, it's not the same. I mean, there's just virtually 25% of that entire town is just now empty lots, just haven't been built back.9:26So we know the enormous destructive power of such an event. It's just overwhelming. I remember the day after we were visiting in the Oak Grove community, they weren't letting a lot of people in because it was so bad. But we were bringing a relief truck in with water and sandwiches and all this kind of stuff. And Brother Chris, if I hadn't have seen it, I would have thought somebody made this up.9:52But when it hit over there, it was the F5. I think here was an F2, a strong F2, which is still very bad, but it was an F5. James Spann later said he thought the winds were probably close to 300 miles an hour when it was in the Oak Grove area. I would never have believed this, but I saw it with my own eyes. People had, there was one family had gone down in their basement, exactly what you're supposed to do. And when it got up in the corner, it was a woman and her two sons. And that tornado sucked out the basement, the blocks.10:24Would you have thought that was possible? To suck out, draw up cement blocks? There was nothing, not a twig left. And I remember James Spann said, when an F5 hits your house directly, there's really no hope. Unless you've got one of those super kind of bomb shelter type things that you've designed, you know, ahead of time. And I thought about that.10:54And I thought about the destructive power of that storm and how circumstances of life come to us that way. It can come in the form of an illness or a family crisis. I mean, it's typified so strongly the storms of life. And what do you do? What do you do in a moment like that when an F5 is coming? All you have is God. It's all you have.11:24And I want to talk to you today in this passage, 2 Kings chapter 19, about a storm that was coming, not a weather storm. But an international storm that was coming upon the kingdom of Judah. And it was called the Sennacherib crisis. And in a word, Assyria, the superpower of its day, had swooped down and had destroyed the northern kingdom in 721 B.C.11:45And now in 701 B.C., that storm was moving south. I want you to put yourself in Hezekiah's place. He's the king. What's he going to do? What are any of us going to do when it's more than we can handle?12:10Pick up with me, verse 14, chapter 19. Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Now let me explain about the letter. This is a letter from Rapsheka, the Assyrian king, that basically just derides the Lord Jehovah God. And says, don't even bother praying to him because no one else has been able to stop us.12:36They've prayed to their gods. It hasn't worked. Why do you think your God is different? It was a demand for unconditional surrender. And that's the letter that Hezekiah has. He said he spread it out. He went up, rather, excuse me, in the hand of the messenger and read it. And he went up to the house of the Lord and he spread it out before the Lord. That's all he could do was to take it and to spread it out before the Lord.13:02He's king, but he cannot meet this force. He has no answer. He spreads it out before the Lord in verse 15. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, O Lord, the God of Israel, who are a throne above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made the heaven and the earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear, open your eyes, O Lord, and see, and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God.13:32Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were not gods, but works of men's hands, wood and stone. So they've destroyed them. Now, O Lord, our God, I pray, delivers from His hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.13:58Would you pray with me? Father, I thank you. You alone are God. You're all that we need. Lead us now in the message of this, your word, in Jesus' name. Amen. What do you do when all you have is God? Well, first of all, you need to realize something.14:31That's all you ever had anyway. You see, sometimes we can get caught up in our own power and everything that we have, and we begin to feel a sense of security. Now, go back a little in time and remember where Israel was at one time. Go back to the time of David. David, the warrior who'd conquered vast areas, and then Solomon, and the treasury that was accumulated,14:59so much gold and silver that it hardly seemed even possible to count the golden shields that were in the temple. At one time, the scripture says a million men could be summoned in a moment's notice to go to war. Such was the strength of Israel under David and Solomon. And now where had they come to? And yet, it's so easy to depend upon our own strength.15:27What precipitated all of this was Hezekiah revolted against the subjection of Assyria. They really had become a vassal state, sending taxes. And he had put his trust in the Egyptian alliance and some other political support that he thought would help him. But you see, he found out that all he ever really had was God.15:53No one likes crises, but they teach us so much. While I was at seminary, my area of teaching was leadership. And to kind of facilitate that, I wrote a little book called, along with my colleague, Alan England, who helped some of the case studies, called Catastrophic Crisis. And I'm so glad to tell you that your pastor and Randy Gunter were so very helpful16:19to bring a chapter to fruition here called An Opportunity and a Whirlwind. Would anybody guess what that story is about? Yeah, Bethel Baptist Church. And the book really goes through, and it was a matter of taking some case studies of things that happened to churches. We dealt with the Katrina incident at New Orleans Seminary, which I was part of.16:47Time doesn't have time to tell about that. That was an unbelievable deliverance by God. You remember a few years ago when the crazy man went into the Maryland church and gunned down the pastor. You may have remembered when the churches here in Alabama were burned to the ground by the arsonists that were from Birmingham Southern, you know, that terrible tragedy. And, you know, we just had a lot of different things.17:17There was a church in Shreveport that had sent their youth on a trip, and the bus wrecked, and there was some tragedy there. So tough times, some other things that occurred. But what we were doing in this book was to show that crises bring us to the point to understand what's really important about leadership. And we were coming from the angle of spiritual leadership and faith leadership, and we wanted the book to be, and that's what it's been used for,17:46in classrooms to help teach preachers certain things. And I want to tell you that your church was a model example in many ways, and we know it wasn't easy. It wasn't always, you know, everything worked out just perfectly, never does. But you were a wonderful lesson on how to recover and to work through that. But we're reminded when these catastrophic crises come, and the word catastrophic means in the Greek to turn upside down.18:13You know, we have battles every day. We have problems. But there are these things that just come, and it turns our world upside down. Maybe you're dealing with an upside down turning kind of event right now. But it's a time when you learn that everything else you always thought you had was really an illusion. Wealth is an illusion. I have people on my board who, in this downturn, have come from one time being very wealthy to now wondering how they're going to pay their bills.18:43If you'd asked them a few years ago, I mean, they're wonderful Christian people. I don't mean they had any pride at all in this, but if you'd asked them if they were financially secure, they would have said, yeah, right, we are. It's an illusion. Good health is an illusion. Good circumstances. None of these things are things that we can count on. The only person we can count on is God.19:11And we have to learn that the hard way. And sometimes we can actually be led to begin to trust in ourselves. And unfortunately, Hezekiah had done that. He had trusted in false alliances rather than truly in God. When all you have is God, you learn that he really all was that you ever had anyway. I saw one guy that I thought gave an illustration about life.19:42He said, you know, life is kind of like a Monopoly board. You play the game, you buy a park place and all this. But when the game's over, you rake it all back in the box and somebody else gets it. What do you have that you're going to keep? What do we have in life that is secure? Judah had to learn that lesson. God is all we really ever have had. And then Hezekiah is reminded that in that moment of crisis,20:10God is all that you need. Now you look at the odds here. You had Assyria, which was a superpower. You had a fractured Israel. The northern kingdom had already been conquered. You had Judah, just a shadow of what the kingdom was when Israel was at its peak. This mighty army rolling up hundreds of thousands of available troops for Assyria. A fraction could be mobilized for Israel.20:39What were they going to do? They had this threat. If they didn't capitulate, they would be destroyed. Have you ever heard of foxhole religion? What does that mean? What we're talking about there when we say foxhole religion is the person who just lives their life merrily along, and then the crisis happens, and suddenly they get real religious. I remember being in this church, 1991, Desert Storm.21:08Anybody remember that? There are a few of you around. Do you remember how packed the church was? When our bombers, first of all, it was Desert Shield, then it was Desert Storm. They flew out that Wednesday night. Man, our church was packed on Sunday. Funny how after things turned good, it just kind of went back to normal.21:36Now, I say that because I want you to understand, really tune in here. People have derided foxhole religion, and they say that's not genuine. But let me tell you something. The devil attaches a little lie here that you need to, because he loves to come in and attach something. And you need to get this. The devil will whisper in people's ears something like,22:02well, you think you can just turn to God now in a crisis when you hadn't been following him? He's not going to listen to you. Wrong. He'll listen to you anytime. Don't buy that devil's lie. And you're out ministering to someone who's never called, been self-centered, but now they call on him, then call on him! That just compounds the other hypocrisy.22:30Yet, having said that, he's not a God that is our genie that we rub the lamp and call on him when we want to. He's our Lord. But he's just what we need in those times when we're overwhelmed. But we need to understand, we need him all the time. Even when we think we've got it all, we need him.23:01We need him in our lives. Look at what Hezekiah acknowledged. He acknowledged that God is the only true God. He acknowledged that he was the enthroned God. He's sovereign. And he petitioned him as a caring God. As secular as we are, most Americans, it depends on how you ask the questions. It's in the 80%. Sometimes it gets almost to 90%. Do you believe in God? You know, the force or something. You get down to more specific questions, it gets less.23:30But the majority of Americans who believe in God, believe that God loves them. That's good. They need to also understand that God is a holy God, but that's another message. The question is, in your time of need, do you know that God cares? And you see, Hezekiah, he was coming to God with the assumption to believe that God would care.23:50And when you're facing disaster, that is a hard thing sometimes to hold on to. I was looking at a poll and talking about Americans after disasters, and this was interesting. You would think that it would tend to make people bitter, but actually the opposite was the case. In fact, there was only a small minority, only about, oh, it was just 5% who said that the crisis made them bitter toward God,24:20or 3% said resentful, so a total of 8%. Some said it made them confused, but most people said it drew them closer to God. Even people who aren't religious, much less know anything about a relationship. You see, it's in our needs that we realize how much we truly must have Him.24:45And so it was with Hezekiah. And we are able, and notice what Hezekiah's prayer was. It was, God, this is for your honor. It's not ours. It's for your glory, not ours. And what do you do when you're at your end? Well, let me just share a little bit briefly about the Tennessee Temple story.25:12I don't know how many of you know about our school. I was just as happy and content at New Orleans Seminary as anyone could ever be, but when you're in the ministry, you do what God tells you to do. And this opportunity came along, and God said, I want you to go. Well, Tennessee Temple reached its peak in 1980 with 4,000 students. It was one of the largest Christian colleges, universities in America. Over the next 12 years, a storm came upon Tennessee Temple,25:40first with the retirement of legendary Lee Robertson, who was one of the most prominent Baptists of the 20th century. His personal magnetism drew thousands of literature to come to Tennessee Temple. And then factors I don't even have time to go into, all kinds of just... It was one of those things that... Actually, I've really sat down and analyzed it because I've had to26:09in talking with trustees and the public. There were about 12 factors. It was just the perfect storm. And so by 1992, the enrollment had declined to about 650, and the school was basically ready to go under. But it didn't go under. And God has preserved the school. And by the time we got there, the enrollment had dropped even more. Basically, the first semester that we were there,26:36and the finances and all, they'd had a lot of issues. And so they told me one figure about what the debt was. And when I got there, I found out it was about four times that. Oops. But anyway, in terms of what we were going to have to see raised. But we had all of these issues that we were facing. And you're talking about being in a situation. What do you do? Because you sense that God's called you there, and I'll talk more in a moment.27:03But we feel like we have a purpose. I'm telling you, we're losing our young people today in college. That's right. The overwhelming majority. Some say as many as 70% or more. I mean, they walk away from the faith. And the reason that I'm willing to invest, because God's called me, my time, whatever I have, and there's Frank and Glenda doing it at Sanford.27:33Man, we're for everybody here. We're not competing against anybody, because this is the ball game. And let me tell you what's different about Tennessee Temple. Tennessee Temple, our mission is to see lives transformed both academically and spiritually for the glory of God. In fact, what our selling point is, we don't offer a huge amount of majors. We only have about eight basic programs, and we have all kinds of specializations under those. Business and education and psychology and, you know, English and all the kinds you usually expect of a liberal arts school.28:03But what we say is, you send your young person, your child, to our school, and here's what we are doing. We're going to seek to disciple them and help them become disciple makers. Every student that comes in, I know this sounds a little scary, but we literally chart their spiritual progress. I don't mean in like an invasive way, but we sit down with every one of them, where are they at spiritually?28:28And our development team, we have, the major reason we can do this is because we have a lot of interns that, frankly, do it cheap. But we have a very low ratio between students' development and their students, so that we can literally work with these students. And we have the chapel services and all the things that they must attend, but we have voluntary discipleship groups beyond all that, means early or late at night, and we have half of our students in those voluntary groups beyond what they already have to do.28:55Because we want to develop them as disciples. So I believe that's a purpose worth giving your heart and life for. And thank you, Brother Chris, for your kind words. Allow me to come today, because you may know someone that's looking for something different. There's a lot of great schools. Again, we're not competing against anybody, but we feel like we have a place, and particularly for ministry training. So we felt it was a purpose worth investing, and yet we've had so many difficult times and things that we've had to overcome.29:25But the thing is that every point we get to, and we're just, we're at this point, we say, Lord, we can't go any further without you. And I think about what happened. It was literally the spring of 2013. We have a very busy faculty. I love our faculty. They're super academically qualified from the best universities.29:53They teach for far less pay than they could if they went to secular universities. They all love the Lord. And we have regular times with our faculty. We meet every morning, and we have time before chapel. Now, get this. The faculty came to me and said, Steve, you know, we know we're facing some great challenges. How would you feel if we carved out an extra hour every week to meet together for prayer in addition to what we're already doing? Wow, thank you. What a group.30:22So busy. Anyway, we started meeting. And I remember one particular prayer meeting, because we were just where Hezekiah was with some things that we're trying to do. And I'll share more about that. Trying to not take too much time today, brother. But I want to share this story because here we are in this prayer meeting, and if I can just give you the essence of the prayer, I mean, it's just a moving time, all the faculty praying out loud and each in turn. It's something like this. Lord, we know that if we're going to have a future, it's only by you.30:51Lord, we've done all we can do. Lord, this is your university. And we can't make it happen. Only you can. And Lord, we know we don't have anything to bargain with you about because it's all by grace. We don't have anything we can trade you. We don't have anything we bargain with you. But God, we want to make a covenant with you. For our part, if you should see to save our university and allow us to reinvent the way that we feel that we're being led to do, here's what we want to do, Lord.31:18Lord, we want to tell this story from Bug Tussle, Tennessee to Shanghai, China, that you were the one. Not long after that, we were bringing in a guy to kind of help us raise money, and the guy's an expert.31:43In fact, he's raised over a billion dollars for various ministry organizations the last 20 years. So we're sitting down with him, and he's just going to tell you like it is, you know. And he said, you know, you've got a very weak giving alumni base, and you've got some big challenges. And he said, can I just be honest with you? I said, please do. That's why we're having you in here. He said, you know what part of the problem is? I said, well, I know what a lot of the problem is. Tell me. He said, nobody's ever heard of you. You're not a famous star in Baptist life or anything.32:15You know, I mean, there are a few people who know you here and there, but you're not a star. And, you know, star power is what helps raise money. I said, yeah. I said, I've argued a lot with God about that a lot. You know, I've told God that many times. I'm kind of like Moses, you know, let somebody else, you know. I mean, I'll just stay over here. But God told me, that's exactly why I've got you there. And I have a kind of a dark sense of humor a little bit.32:45Sometimes it gets me through. And I said, well, I was chuckling when I was sharing this with some of the cabinet. I said, I think this year when I go to the convention, I'm going to say, I'm going to have Tennessee Temple president. And then I'm going to put, you've never heard of me. Just put my name. And so, see, this is good. Because when God does something, this is what I want the narrative to be. Did you hear that Tennessee Temple's turned around? Wow, that's amazing, isn't it?33:14Well, who's the president? Never heard of him. Must be God. Amen. I'll wear that badge. I don't want any glory. Because there is no glory that should come to man. And that's where Hezekiah was. He couldn't say, well, I have this brilliant military strategy. We're going to do a wheel flank around here. There was nothing he could do. You see, when all you have is God, that's all you ever really had.33:45And He's all that you need and ever will need. Now, the wonderful thing of this story, and I'm sure your pastor has preached on it and you've heard it many times, is that in verse 20, it says, then Isaiah came. He says, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, because you have prayed to me about Sennacherib, king of Assyria, I have heard you. Isn't that great? Hezekiah had blown it.34:15He'd been full of himself. But God says, I've heard you. Remember that foxhole error earlier? Devil says, you're not good enough for God to hear you. You just turn into him because you need him. He ain't going to listen to you. He's mad at you. He's always there ready. You can't seek so low. You can't move so far away that he won't hear you.34:45Isn't he a great God? Now, does that mean we're always faithful? No. It's not about our faithfulness. It's about his. And see, I've been trying to figure this out because I've said, Lord, I, you know, we've seen so many answers to prayer. I wish I had time to tell you about the things that have come through and how our enrollment is climbing again.35:11And in fact, it's up by over a third in the last year and a half. And I want to just brief, kind of just real briefly, can we just throw some things up? Let me just tell you what God's doing. This will work. We were in an old campus in downtown Chattanooga, and all the buildings were basically just falling in. That's about the heart of it right there. It was going to take $20 million to renovate the campus.35:38And we figured out that after we spent $20 million, we'd have a nice 1970s campus. Woo-hoo. No green space, nothing. But listen, if we can go back to that other one first, if that's all right. Anyway, the long and short of it is a church called Woodland Park Baptist Church has 163 acres out, if you know anything about Chattanooga, out by the mall side. It's one exit down from the mall on the east side. And we are partnering with them. They had moved out there, bought the land. Their pastor left sort of in the middle of that, left them in kind of a tough spot.36:08They built an almost 300,000-square-foot building, can only finish a third of it. They averaged 1,200 tenants on Sunday morning, but didn't have the resources to finish it. So we are buying the land around them, which they could never develop. They're going to use that to finish their educational space. Guess what? They don't use it Monday through Friday. We can. Do I hear a partnership here? God worked this all out, leaving us funds to develop our university center, our dorms, and all of this.36:34And we're supposed to be in this by this time next year. And now we can roll real quick on the others. That's just a picture of what the dorms are going to look like next. That's what a picture of the university center is going to look like. And thanks. God has made this possible. He's just brought something out of nothing. And we realize now as we step forward in faith, and I appreciate so much this opportunity today,37:01that we need to make connections out in the churches, let them know what's going on, so that you might consider us as a choice. You have a lot of great choices in Baptist schools. But this is a unique place. We're not going to be very large. Right now we have about 450 students on the campus. We have about another 800 online. But we think we can double that in the next few years with this new location. But our focus is on seeing lives transformed for the glory of God.37:30Academic excellence, we just got the guy that became the dean of our business department, is internationally known. Could never have afforded this guy, but he said, you know what, my latter, last quarter, he said, I want to come and serve at Christian University. Amazing what God's doing. When all you have is God, well, that's all you ever really had to begin with. You might have to live a long time sometimes to figure that out.38:00May take a catastrophe, but we need to come to understand that. He's all we ever really had. He's all that we'll need now or ever we'll need. I have to tell you about one particular day. Remember I told you about all these old buildings. This was before that God allowed us to have this vision and all the barriers we've gone through with zoning and everything, all these things God has done to allow all this to come about.38:29But this was way before then. And I used to dread to see my vice president of operations because she never had good news. It was always like, Roof and Herman's falling in, you know. You know, sump pump in, work in LRC, it's flooded again. I mean, it was always like, I told her, I said, you're just Debbie Downer all the time. She said, I know, I know, it's my job. Don't shoot the messenger. I said, okay. But anyway, it just had been like one roof leak, one HVA system,38:59at one right after another. And I just got to the point, you know, you just get to the point where you just don't want to hear any more bad news. So I was up doing my devotion one morning and I said, Lord, I just, I really don't know. This is just getting to be more than I can handle. Good place to be. Now you're getting somewhere, Steve. Good. All right. And I don't know what we're going to do. This is just overwhelming us.39:28And all of a sudden, and you get these things, you know how scripture speaks to you? The passage in Ephesians. Now he's able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond that which we ask or think. You know the passage. And all of a sudden, God spoke to me. You know, this is what I felt him saying. Steve, there are only so many roofs that can leak. We had 20 buildings, so I guess there were a lot that could leak, but there are only so many. There's only so many HVA systems that can go down. There's only so many buildings that can have mold.39:58You see, Steve, problems are finite. But I am infinite. Nothing ever surprises me. I always know what to do. Nothing overwhelms me. Trust me. I had a better day after that. Well, within 24 hours, we had a major matching grant. And when I went to this presentation, I didn't know what we were going to get,40:27if anything. And when they announced it, the reporters were there, they were wondering, what was the present of TTU blubbering about over there? I lost it. What can I say? I'm sure many of you could relate similar times in your life. When all you have is God. Good place to be, actually. Because He's all we ever had anyway. And He's all that we'll ever need.40:56He's strong. He's wise. He's good. Sometimes we don't understand. I think about years ago, my good friend Frank Cox in the ministry lost his wife to cancer. And we walked through with him there. And he wrote about it. And he talked about a thing from C.H. Spurgeon, I'll leave this with you, that ministered to him. God is too good to be unkind. He is too wise to make a mistake. And when you can't trace His hand,41:26trust His heart. One of the things that I love about this book, every one of these stories, and some of it's just brutally tough, Frank's is actually one of the stories in there. But isn't it interesting? Isn't it amazing? Isn't it wonderful that when we think that we've reached our end, and in the book, we actually had some pictures. We came as soon as we could, and Julie was snapping some pictures. We had some pictures. And by the way, I'm not hawking this book today.41:55It was an academic edition. There aren't many. I'll send the chapter if some people want to read it. I'm not hawking a book. But anyway, so it has the pictures of that terrible destruction. And then, and this is what we did with every one. Then it was the end, the beautiful new building that we're in now. Now, there was a lot of trial to get there. But my point is, God always gets us there, doesn't he? Would you pray with us42:24that we will be able to get there as a university, Tennessee Temple? Maybe you know some people you could recommend. We got some literature in the back. Maybe you'll even want to be a partner with us. We have some opportunities for giving, things like that. I was in a church not long ago and we don't push this hard, but somebody said, I want to help, Steve. And they sent a nice generous check. I don't know what God may tell you to do. That's between you and the Lord. Above all, pray. And then, tell folks about us. Because we want to be, and this is, this is where it comes to all,42:53for all of us. I've said, Lord, why? There are plenty of good schools all around. Why do you want us? And this is the answer I keep coming back. Because I want to glorify myself. In the students that you send out. And in the story that nobody could have done this, but God. So as you walk through your valleys and your crisis, remember God is seeking to glorify himself in your life43:22and to show you and everyone what a great God he is. Oh, and by the way, you know the end of the story with Snacker, don't you? That night, an angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 Assyrians. To this day, the secular historians say, wonder what happened. We know what happened, didn't we? Let's pray.43:52Let's pray. Father, with heads bowed today, I just ask that we'd let you be God. Because you're all that we have. You're all we've ever had. Help us to see that. And Lord, as sinners, we need you. If there's someone here today who's never received you as Savior, I thank you that you are loving, that you sent your son to die on a cross, that we might have life. And in that salvation,44:22we find all that we need now and forever, and that is our glory. Ma'am, sir, young person, you saw the baptism today. What a beautiful expression of what God does in our lives. Buried, our old sinful nature, risen to the newness of Christ. Ma'am, sir, young person, have you done that today? You see, whether you realize it or not, all you really have that you can count on in this world that you can call on his God. Have you called on him today?44:52Would you do that, that you would receive him as your Savior and Lord, the pastor, others will be here, be glad to pray with you. Or perhaps you say, yes, I have, but Steve, I've drifted away, or I need to just come and acknowledge like Hezekiah today at the altar and just lay it out before the Lord and say, Lord, here it is. I just lay it out to you. You're all I have. I'm telling you, you'll never have to apologize for trusting in God. Or perhaps God's leading you45:21to serve and become a part of Bethel Baptist Church. What a great place to serve that you could honor and glorify in here. Would you come today? Father, we just give this invitation now to you for your honor and glory in Jesus' name. Amen.45:51youMore sermons on 2 Kings →
