Heaven's Point of View

It's Your Call

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Frank Fournier

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Series Code: HPOV

Program Code: HPOV000018A


00:01 Hello, my name is Frank Fournier
00:02 and I'm here to welcome you to Heaven's Point of View.
00:06 As you know, we've been studying
00:08 the Parable of the Prodigal Son together.
00:10 And I hope that you'll get your Bible right now,
00:13 come and join us for Heaven's Point of View.
00:46 Welcome again.
00:47 Like to invite you to turn your Bibles to Luke Chapter 15.
00:50 We're studying the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
00:55 Now in the meantime,
00:56 the Prodigal Son is in the pig pen
00:58 and we might equate that to the pig pen of sin.
01:02 He finally takes different steps to get himself back
01:06 to where he should be.
01:08 Steps to salvation if you please.
01:09 Now if I was to ask you, how many steps are there
01:12 to salvation, would you know?
01:13 But when I ask this question,
01:15 most people will say there are one step to salvation.
01:19 Well, do you know what, that's true.
01:22 Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be what?
01:25 Saved. How many steps is that?
01:27 Well, we know that's just one step.
01:29 However, should you read the little book
01:30 called Steps to Christ.
01:31 Don't you know that there are 13 chapters there?
01:34 And for sure, there are more than one steps
01:36 if you have to take in all that could be taken in.
01:39 Some people will say there are seven steps,
01:42 but if you study the Parable of the Prodigal Son,
01:46 I want to challenge you, go through the Parable,
01:49 find out what the young man did
01:51 in order to find salvation for himself.
01:54 And you'll notice that he took three steps.
01:57 In verse 17, it says that he came to his senses.
02:04 Now what does that mean?
02:06 Actually, that's not what it says, there it says,
02:08 he came to himself which means he came to his senses.
02:13 Well, can a man be saved if he never comes to his senses
02:16 about his relationship with his Heavenly Father,
02:20 about his spiritual condition?
02:22 Well, I don't think so, God says,
02:24 I, if I be lifted up will draw all men on to me
02:27 and so we're born cornel and Jesus Christ is reaching out
02:31 through His Holy Spirit to every single individual
02:33 in the world drawing, drawing, drawing,
02:35 at a certain point in time, that individual comes to Himself.
02:39 He comes to his senses about his Christian experience,
02:42 about his relationship to God.
02:44 You understand.
02:46 The second step is found in verse 20,
02:48 it says that he comes to his Father.
02:51 Can an individual be saved if he never comes to God?
02:53 Why, no.
02:55 The Bible says in John 6:37, it says,
02:58 "If any man will come to me I will in no wise cast him out."
03:02 Come to me he says. And I will give you rest.
03:06 And there is none that can find salvation, Jesus says,
03:09 "I am the way no man comes to the Father but by me."
03:14 We need come to Jesus Christ.
03:16 Then the third step starts with the letter C,
03:18 also the three C's of salvation come, come and confess.
03:23 We're going to be studying confession in the next study.
03:27 Okay, but those are the three C's to salvation,
03:30 these are the steps that the young man took.
03:32 Now I want to study something with you that is,
03:34 that may well be the most important thing that we hear
03:39 during the time that we study
03:41 this Parable together, altogether.
03:44 I would have you turn with me to Luke Chapter 15,
03:48 we're looking at verse 18.
03:51 Notice there, the first three words in verse 18
03:54 and it says there, "I will arise."
03:58 I want you to notice the first three words
04:00 in verse 20 and it says there, "And he arose."
04:06 Did you know?
04:07 Are you old enough to know
04:09 that somethings are easier said than done?
04:12 Have you had that experience in life?
04:15 How hard must it have been for the young man to decide,
04:18 I will arise and finally, actually make the move to go.
04:22 Do you know the insult that he had given his father,
04:25 the humiliation that he had caused the family,
04:28 the embarrassment that he was.
04:30 He knew what he had done and now the idea of going back,
04:33 he wanted to go back.
04:36 I will arise.
04:38 But to actually do it, this is very, very difficult.
04:42 You can understand why because maybe
04:45 you have been in a similar situation in the past.
04:48 There is another saying that we have here in America,
04:52 as matter of fact, this saying goes well anywhere
04:56 that I use it in the whole world.
04:58 It says this, "The road to hell is paved with what?
05:02 With good intentions." What does that mean?
05:07 Well, it means that there are lot of people
05:10 who are going to find themselves in hell, figuratively,
05:13 a lot of people are going to find themselves there
05:16 all the time having good intentions
05:19 to change course, but they never get to change course.
05:23 Why not?
05:24 And so here is the question that I need to ask.
05:27 What does it take with our good intentions
05:29 that we can get to the place where we will change course?
05:33 What's missing with our good intentions?
05:36 What is it that little faculty that God has created in us
05:39 that we can use so that we can put
05:41 our good intentions into gear, so that we can put
05:44 our good intentions into action.
05:46 Do you know what it is?
05:48 Well, it's a little thing called willpower.
05:52 Do you have willpower? Well, everybody has willpower.
05:56 And all that that means is that's the decision power in us.
06:00 We can't be decisive of, but there is a problem here,
06:03 some people are not decisive,
06:06 some people will let everybody else
06:08 make their decisions for them, some people actually have
06:11 their willpower atrophied because they never use it.
06:17 You know, the desire to do right and good
06:20 is good as far as it goes.
06:23 But if we stop there, it's not good enough,
06:26 it will amount to nothing.
06:28 The Prodigal Son had a desire to get up and go,
06:31 but he had to do something more than wish and desire,
06:35 he had to put his will on the side of action,
06:38 he had to put his will on the side of faith,
06:40 he had to put his will on the side of getting up
06:43 and going back to his father and he may will have been lost
06:48 while hoping and desiring to be saved.
06:53 Have you turned with me to 1 Kings Chapter 18.
06:57 We're looking at 1 Kings Chapter 18.
07:03 This is the story of Elijah,
07:04 you've heard of Elijah in the Bible.
07:07 1 Kings Chapter 18.
07:10 Now I suppose we don't know a lot about Elijah,
07:14 he is called Elijah the tishbite,
07:16 he comes out of the mountains somewhere
07:18 and he is very close to God.
07:20 But Elijah lives at a time
07:22 when the children of Israel are in apostasy.
07:26 As a matter of fact, the king over Israel
07:28 is a man named Ahab, I think,
07:30 yeah Ahab and his wife is named Jezebel.
07:33 Ahab is a Jew, he's an Israelite
07:36 and Jezebel whoever she is in any case,
07:39 she is a Baal worshipper but she is not an Israelite.
07:42 She is one powerful woman.
07:44 As a matter of fact, how many of you have ever named
07:47 one of your daughters Jezebel, is there anybody like that?
07:50 I don't suppose there are,
07:52 because she has such a reputation.
07:54 She was powerful, so powerful in fact
07:57 that she could influence her husband
07:59 to do as she wanted and he being the king of course
08:02 influenced all of Israel to become Baal worshippers.
08:05 So practically, all of Israel except for 7, 000 people
08:09 were told in the Bible were Baal worshippers.
08:13 Well, this was a problem to God
08:15 and this was a problem to our friend Elijah as well.
08:18 God and Elijah got together one time
08:20 and they said what are we going to do to get through to Israel.
08:24 And I don't know who came up with the idea,
08:26 but I suppose it was God and He said to Elijah,
08:29 supposing now, it doesn't rain for three and half years.
08:32 Do you suppose we could get their attention?
08:35 Well, I assume that Elijah said yes
08:38 and so God says to Elijah, "Go to King Ahab,
08:40 tell him no dew, no rain for three and half years."
08:44 And so that's what happens.
08:45 Elijah makes his way to the palace,
08:47 he gets past security, gets right into Ahab's face
08:50 and he says no dew, no rain for three and half years,
08:54 turns around walks out of the palace.
08:56 And by the time, Ahab gets his senses together,
08:59 Elijah is gone and he can't find him,
09:02 he organizes people to go look for him,
09:04 but he is not found for three and half years.
09:08 For three and half years, there has been no rain,
09:11 not even any dew, the ground has parched,
09:14 animals are dying, people are dying
09:16 and at the end of three and half years,
09:18 God says to Elijah, "What do you think?
09:20 Have we got their attention yet?"
09:22 Well, Elijah says, "I suppose so."
09:24 God says "Okay, go see Ahab, tell him it's showdown time."
09:28 And Elijah goes back to Ahab and he says,
09:31 "I want you meet me, bring all of Israel."
09:34 The 850 priests and prophets of Baal bring them all up there
09:38 to the top of Mount Carmel and we're going to have a showdown.
09:42 Well, here we are, we're in 1 Kings Chapter 18,
09:45 we're looking at verse 21 now.
09:47 It's showdown time.
09:49 Okay, look at verse 21
09:51 because Elijah put his finger right on the problem.
09:55 Verse 21 "And Elijah came unto all the people,
09:58 and said how long halt you between two opinions?
10:02 If the Lord is God follow him, but if Baal, then follow him.
10:06 And the people answered him not a word."
10:09 Now, why do you suppose
10:10 the people did not answer him a word?
10:12 Well, it says right here in the text.
10:14 It says that they were halt between two opinions.
10:19 In other words, they were undecided,
10:22 they were sitting on the fence,
10:23 they didn't know on which side to get off.
10:28 Now God has something to say to these people
10:31 and He wanted to say it through Elijah.
10:35 Did you know that there are three Elijah's in the Bible?
10:39 Now this is the original Elijah that we're looking at.
10:42 One time, Jesus was with His disciples
10:45 and He said to them, "Do you see that man over there?"
10:48 He was pointing to John the Baptist.
10:50 He said, "This is the Elijah that is to come."
10:54 The first Elijah came
10:56 when Israel was at a low ebb spiritually.
11:00 And God sent Elijah to bring revival among the Israelites
11:03 and a reformation that was His work.
11:06 Well, John the Baptist was sent very similarly,
11:09 he came at a time when the Israelites
11:12 were at a low ebb spiritually and God sent John the Baptist
11:16 to prepare the way for the coming Messiah.
11:19 But do you know that there is a third Elijah in the Bible.
11:24 You could find him in the book of Malachi
11:26 in Chapter 4, it says there,
11:27 "That he will turn the hearts of the children to their fathers
11:30 and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children."
11:34 Now I wonder who this Elijah is.
11:37 Because he is supposed to come in the last days.
11:40 Well, if you turn with me to the book of Revelation,
11:42 we're going to go back to the book of Revelation Chapter 3
11:46 and we're going to look
11:47 at the seven churches of Revelation.
11:50 We're gonna go to the last church
11:52 just like we did in another study.
11:54 We're in Revelation Chapter 3,
11:56 we're looking at verses 15 and on.
12:00 And we've seen this before,
12:01 look at 15, Revelation Chapters 3,
12:04 "I know thy works."
12:06 Jesus said He is called here the true witness.
12:08 "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot",
12:13 I wish you were cold or hot.
12:14 So then because "thou art Lukewarm,
12:18 neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth."
12:22 Here we find the people who have one foot in the world,
12:25 one foot in the church.
12:26 They're not on fire for God and they are not cold either,
12:29 they don't want to leave the church
12:30 because if they leave the church, they might be lost,
12:32 they don't want to leave the world
12:33 because they don't want to miss out on anything.
12:36 As a matter of fact they're neither hot nor cold,
12:39 they are lukewarm, they are on the fence
12:42 not knowing on which side to get off,
12:44 they're halted between two opinions.
12:47 And so God sent this message just like He sent a message
12:50 through Elijah to tell these people
12:53 that they are undecided, indecisive.
12:58 Ah, I wonder are you decisive
13:03 or do you have other people making your decisions for you?
13:07 You know there was a time when I had to make a--
13:13 how should I say, a life and death decision.
13:16 I was 25 years old, it was the first time
13:19 that I had ever opened a Bible,
13:20 I'd never had my hand on a Bible before then.
13:23 I got hold of the Bible and I began to read.
13:26 My intentions were to read the Bible from cover to cover
13:29 and then to make a decision as to whether
13:32 the Bible was what it claimed to be.
13:35 Well, it didn't take very long,
13:37 within a couple of weeks I knew that this was God's word,
13:41 but then I had to come to the point of making a decision.
13:45 So one day, I got on my knees and I told God,
13:48 I says, you know, I believe the Word of God,
13:50 I believe that the Bible is what it claims to be
13:53 and I want salvation, I want to be saved,
13:55 I want to do all of that, but I am only 25 years old.
13:59 After all, there's lots of life to live yet,
14:02 so call on me some other day.
14:06 Do you know, you know, I'd hate to make it sound
14:09 like God speaks to me like He doesn't speak to other people
14:12 but do you know that God speaks to me,
14:14 I can probably count on 40 years of being a Christian,
14:17 I can probably count on one hand when God
14:19 specifically had to speak to me as an individual
14:22 and that I could hear his voice.
14:24 He spoke to me that one more time,
14:26 and He said to me, you will not have another chance.
14:31 Now, wait a minute, how can that be,
14:33 I'm only 25 years old,
14:34 surely, I can live till 60 or 70 or 80
14:37 or whatever it might be.
14:39 I've got lots of time Lord, let me live life a little more,
14:43 then I'll come back.
14:44 And God said, no, you will not have another chance.
14:49 And I just couldn't grasp why He was saying that.
14:52 But I could grasp that He was saying it,
14:55 and I knew it was God's voice.
14:57 I didn't originate those words. Where did they come from?
14:59 I knew that God was telling me
15:01 "I would not have another chance."
15:04 And so here I was, having to make a decision.
15:09 Would I follow the Lord,
15:10 would I give Him my heart or would I not.
15:12 It was obvious that this was my one opportunity
15:16 and so if it was going to be my only opportunity
15:19 then I better make the right decision.
15:20 And I chose to follow Jesus Christ.
15:23 I gave my heart to Him, to follow Him
15:25 and do you know that I have never turned back.
15:30 I have followed Him for the rest of my life up until this point.
15:33 I have given my heart fully to Jesus Christ.
15:37 Now, I need to tell you what happened.
15:40 As you know or maybe you don't know,
15:42 but I worked in the nickel and copper mines
15:45 for nine and half years.
15:48 This was probably at year 7 something like this.
15:52 And my partner and I were drilling a tunnel,
15:55 we called that a drift in those days.
15:58 Well, he and I were drilling this drift,
16:00 it was 9 feet by 9 feet in hard rock granite
16:05 and we were taking this tunnel to an ore body.
16:08 When we got to the ore body, we would cross the ore body,
16:11 the full width of it, which this one happened to be,
16:13 this vein happened to be 40 feet wide,
16:17 so we went 40 feet across and then we went 14 1/2 feet high,
16:21 then we would follow the vein as far as we could,
16:23 thousands of feet probably and it would be 14 1/2 feet high,
16:28 40 feet wide all the way through.
16:31 Then whoever would can be in with long hole machines
16:34 and they would drill 2 1/2 250 feet up, 250 feet down,
16:39 blast the whole thing and mine it from underneath.
16:43 This is how we were doing it in those days
16:45 but it just so happened in this
16:48 what they called the silstop now,
16:50 it just so happened that the ground was very, very dangerous
16:53 because there was soapstone mixed in with the ore.
16:57 Now you may not know but soapstone doesn't come in
16:59 like a granite does, like a whole.
17:02 You know, just everything is granite,
17:05 soapstone always comes in as a boulder
17:08 and it's always covered with a layer of mud,
17:10 one, two, two and half inches of mud all around.
17:13 So that if you would happen to drill more then
17:15 or past a half way mark in a boulder and blast
17:20 then there is nothing holding
17:21 the rest of the boulder up because it's mud
17:23 and that makes it very dangerous you understand.
17:26 So here we were putting extra long bolts,
17:29 we were putting expanded metal in the back,
17:32 we were trying to keep this place from caving in
17:34 on our heads and so where it was meant to be 40 feet,
17:37 it could be 50 and 55 and 60 and where it was meant to be
17:41 14 1/2 feet, it could be 16 and 20 and 25 feet
17:45 and it was all like this everywhere,
17:47 there is nothing as it should have been.
17:49 Very, very dangerous.
17:51 Well, finally we came, my partner and I remember
17:55 drilling the last cut and we went from the ore body
17:59 back into the granite, that would be the last of it all.
18:03 And so we blasted and went home,
18:05 the cross shift came in, they saw the mess
18:08 that was there and they decided that they were not going to work
18:11 under such dangerous conditions.
18:14 So when we came in the next day,
18:15 we saw this situation and oh my!
18:20 How dangerous it was.
18:23 We walked up on the muck pile,
18:24 we looked the situation over and we said to ourselves,
18:28 what in the world are we going to do?
18:30 How are we going to fix it? This is so dangerous.
18:34 At this time, my partner said, "Do you know what,
18:38 I think they cheated us last month."
18:39 We had a computer print of--
18:43 boy, can you imagine there were computers 40 years ago.
18:46 Well anyways there were computers 40 years ago
18:48 and they gave us a computer printout of all the work
18:52 we had done the month before and my partner felt like
18:54 they had cheated us last-- the month before,
18:58 they hadn't paid us for enough bolts that we had put in.
19:00 So we went down off the muck pile,
19:02 we counted all the bolts that we had put in,
19:05 we ended up on the far side of the slope
19:07 and there we stood talking about
19:10 the second coming of Jesus Christ.
19:13 You see, I'd become a brand new Christian
19:15 and I was excited about what I was learning
19:18 so here we were standing and I was telling him about Jesus,
19:21 about the second coming and as we are standing there,
19:24 a huge rock, the size of a Volkswagen
19:27 came down right where we had been standing on the muck pile
19:31 and we just looked at each other and kind of shrugged like
19:34 well, this happens, I'm glad we weren't there.
19:37 We certainly were glad that we weren't there
19:39 and so my partner who had presence of mind said to me,
19:44 "Listen, if it begins to rain rocks in here, we'd got to go."
19:50 And he no sooner said that, that a little rock fell
19:53 right beside him and another one there
19:54 and another one there and another one there
19:56 and he began to run and because he was running,
19:59 I was running and we were both running
20:01 trying to get in to that little tunnel
20:03 that we had come in with and we--
20:05 I remember turning back and looking
20:07 and I could remember seeing the whole thing
20:10 was beginning to come down like a ribbon, you understand.
20:13 And it was starting at the front, at the face,
20:16 what we would call the face back then
20:17 and we were running and I remember all the dust
20:20 and everything was flying past me
20:22 and I thought, I'll never make it.
20:25 Well, guess what, I did, and you can tell, right?
20:29 Got into that little 9 by 9 tunnel
20:31 and when we got there, the whole thing folded in
20:34 and here is the question.
20:38 Where would I be today had I forfeited God's protection
20:43 just a few months earlier?
20:44 Where do you think I would be?
20:45 Well friends, I can't prove it because I am here,
20:49 there is no way to prove it.
20:50 But I can tell you that God said,
20:52 you will not have another chance
20:56 and if I had told God to go jump in the lake,
20:59 If I had told God, I am not ready now,
21:01 I am gonna come back some other time and He said to me,
21:03 "No you won't, because you will not have another chance",
21:07 then there is a great possibility
21:10 that my wife would have been a widow at 25 years old.
21:16 Ah, the whole thing, can you see it,
21:18 the whole thing was based on a decision.
21:22 Is it important the decisions you make,
21:24 ah friends, don't set that aside,
21:26 don't think you can flow through life
21:28 and never make a decision.
21:29 God doesn't take decisions away from you,
21:32 He allows you to make decision
21:34 and if you make no decision, let me tell you something,
21:37 that's the wrong decision.
21:39 Read the scriptures for yourself,
21:41 understand what God is trying to say to you
21:43 and make a decision based on what God is telling you
21:46 and not what the whole world around you is telling you,
21:49 otherwise, you might well end up like the Israelites
21:51 of all in the days of Elijah worshipping Baal
21:54 and not probably even realizing it.
21:58 In Philippians 4:13, it says there,
22:02 "I can do all things to Christ that strengthens me."
22:06 Is that what it says?
22:08 "Well, do you know that that's not a question,
22:09 that's a statement."
22:11 He doesn't, all that it says is, is you can.
22:14 Ah-ha, it's not asking you if you can,
22:17 the Bible says you can, the question is, will you?
22:21 That's the question.
22:22 Oh, I can quit smoking any time I want to,
22:26 well, no problem, lot of people have quit smoking before.
22:30 It's not a question of whether you can quit smoking,
22:32 I suppose you can, the question is, will you?
22:38 And for us who are Christians,
22:41 have you ever heard someone say,
22:43 I've always wanted to be a missionary.
22:46 Really?
22:47 Well, isn't every Christian a missionary?
22:52 The question is not, can you be a missionary?
22:55 The question is will you ever make the decision
22:58 to go ahead and work like a missionary?
23:02 That's the question.
23:03 If you sin, did the devil make you do it?
23:07 No.
23:08 The devil's work is to tempt you
23:10 and he is very good at it but he can't make you do it,
23:13 if you sin, it's because
23:15 you finally make a decision to do it.
23:19 If you do well, is it because
23:21 God has forced you to do well?
23:23 Oh, no.
23:24 God will give you grace, God will give you encouragement,
23:26 God will give you whatever it takes,
23:28 He wants you to do well, but if you do well,
23:31 it's because you've made the decision to do it.
23:35 Turn with me to the book of Joel.
23:38 I want to read some quotations,
23:41 we're gonna start with the book of Joel,
23:43 I wish I had just a little more time,
23:44 this is getting exciting
23:46 and I have lot of things to share with you.
23:49 Book of Joel, we're going to Chapter 3.
23:51 Do you know that the book of Joel
23:52 is a book of prophecy?
23:54 And it's about the Holy Spirit
23:56 being poured out in the last days,
23:57 every chapter mentions the last days,
23:59 this is aimed at our time and notice what it says
24:03 in Chapter 3, we're looking at verse 14,
24:06 "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision,
24:09 for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of" What?
24:12 "the valley of decisions."
24:14 Looking to the end of time, I suppose if we went
24:17 to the book of Revelation Chapter 13
24:18 and we saw the beast and the mark of the beast
24:20 and the image of the beast and the number of his name
24:24 and six, six, six.
24:26 Well, don't you know that at that time,
24:28 the whole world will be brought to me,
24:30 will be brought to make a decision.
24:32 You'll be asked, you have to make a decision,
24:35 the only problem is some people don't make decisions,
24:38 they'll allow other people to make decisions for them,
24:40 how dangerous that is.
24:42 Well you can understand.
24:45 Supposing something goes wrong in your church,
24:48 there is a crisis, so you go to the Pastor and you say,
24:52 Pastor, what are you gonna do?
24:54 If he says, I am going left. What do you gonna do?
24:56 I'll go left too if you don't know how to make a decision.
25:00 But friends, the Pastor could be wrong.
25:04 Ah, friends, read the Bible, read the Bible.
25:09 Know what God says to you personally
25:12 and then make your decisions based on what God says.
25:17 Let me read three quotations for you.
25:19 This is volume 4 of the testimonies 454,
25:22 "Without decision, an individual is fickle,
25:25 unstable as water and can never be truly successful."
25:30 Would you like to be successful?
25:33 Ah, somebody will say but I don't want to make a mistake,
25:36 I really don't want to make a mistake.
25:38 Well friends, if you don't make a decision,
25:40 you are making a mistake.
25:44 The second quotation I'd like to share with you says,
25:46 this is volume 4, 344 paragraph 0,
25:50 "Indecision soon becomes decision
25:53 in the wrong direction."
25:55 What is it?
25:56 Indecision soon becomes decision
26:00 in the wrong direction.
26:03 Finally, last quotation 3 testimonies 497
26:07 paragraph 3 says, "Long delays tire the angels."
26:13 It is even more excusable to make a wrong decision sometimes
26:17 than to be continually in a wrong position.
26:20 God is not afraid of you making a mistake.
26:23 As a matter of fact, everybody makes mistakes.
26:25 Do you know we probably learned more from the mistakes we make
26:30 than from doing everything just right
26:32 all the time it seems like.
26:33 Oh, yes.
26:34 God is not afraid of the mistakes you make.


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Revised 2014-12-17