Participants:
Series Code: USP
Program Code: USP210003S
|
00:01 Have you ever found yourself in a messy situation
00:04 that you couldn't clean up no matter how hard you tried? 00:07 Well, stay tuned to learn about the ultimate cleaning solution. 00:15 They try to change us from the outside in, 00:17 and that's never going to work. 00:20 Because I know that no matter 00:22 how hard and cold the exterior may seem, 00:25 I know that inside we hurt. 00:29 So we just want to come and share some hope with you 00:31 and let you know that we love you, 00:33 and that Jesus loves you 00:36 beyond anybody in this world. 00:40 I'm not here today to judge you or condemn you, 00:42 we're today to tell you that we love you 00:44 and we understand the situation that you're in. 00:52 Hello, I'm Jason Bradley, 00:54 and I'm so glad that you joined us once again. 00:57 I'm here with Lemuel Vega, 00:59 founder of Christmas Behind Bars. 01:01 And, Lemuel, 01:03 I'm sure you've come in contact with a lot of people 01:06 that have been incarcerated 01:07 and you have a multitude of stories. 01:10 You know what, Brother? 01:12 Whether they're incarcerated or out there in the world, 01:14 sometimes our life is so hopeless. 01:16 I was out of prison for 12 years. 01:18 I was sick and ready to die. 01:20 I was more in a derelictic condition out there in society 01:23 than I was behind these bars. 01:25 But God is good, He meets us where we're at, 01:27 whether we're behind bars or in the free world 01:29 and God has plans for our lives. 01:31 I'd like to just read a scripture. 01:33 Jeremiah 29:11. 01:37 It says, "For I know the thoughts 01:38 that I think towards you, saith the Lord." 01:41 So He has a plan for our lives, 01:43 He has thoughts for us. 01:45 He says, "To give us peace and not of evil, 01:49 to give you an expected end." 01:51 So, "For I know the thoughts 01:52 that I think towards you saith the Lord, 01:54 thoughts of peace." 01:55 Amen? Amen. 01:56 "And not of evil." 01:58 So this great controversy that's going on 01:59 between good and evil is not God's design. 02:01 Yes. 02:03 But He has a remedy, He has a way to help us 02:04 through this time of trouble in which we live. 02:07 To give us an expected end and that end is eternal life. 02:10 He said, He went to prepare a home for us. 02:12 Now here it is in Jeremiah 29:12. 02:15 Messy situation in prison, out of prison, 02:18 no matter where there is. 02:20 "Then shall ye call upon Me." 02:24 So we call out to God, say, Lord, I need help, 02:26 I've tried everything else, doctors, lawyers, 02:28 whatever it is, family maybe let us down, 02:30 so we've tried everything else. 02:31 Jesus said, "Then shall ye call upon Me 02:34 and ye shall go and pray unto Me 02:35 and I will harken unto you." 02:37 He'll take your call. 02:39 Amen. 02:40 He'll listen, there is no busy signal. 02:41 Amen. 02:43 There is no bad connection, can you hear me now? 02:44 It says, "Then shall you call upon Me, 02:46 and you shall go and pray unto Me 02:47 and I will harken, I will listen, 02:48 I will pay attention." 02:50 And so that's the power of the gospel. 02:52 And, you know, I like to use analogies, like, 02:54 just something simple that we have around us. 02:56 Do you have any toilet paper in there? 02:58 No, sir. 02:59 You ain't got no toilet. You got any toilet paper? 03:01 Jason, this is just a simple roll of toilet paper. 03:04 Uh-huh. 03:05 And this is something that people normally, 03:09 probably use 99.9 percent 03:12 people probably use this on a daily basis. 03:14 Yes. 03:15 Why do we use toilet paper? 03:17 Clean up messy situations. 03:19 Clean up messy situations. 03:20 Amen. 03:21 Toilet paper cleans up messy situations. 03:23 Amen? 03:24 Amen. 03:26 It says in the Word of God, "Then shall ye call upon Me, 03:28 and ye shall go and pray unto me 03:29 and I will harken unto you." 03:31 He'll come, He'll listen. 03:32 He says that, "Ye shall seek me 03:34 and find me when you search for me with all your heart." 03:36 When we come to God just as we are, 03:38 He cleans up the internal. 03:41 And when we come to Him, 03:43 He wants to come into our heart. 03:44 We make a decision to call unto Him. 03:46 He wants to come into our heart 03:48 and as we invite God into our heart, our mind, 03:52 our intellect becomes clear, 03:54 our heart becomes warm 03:56 and then we begin to feel 03:57 and sense His blessings for our lives. 04:00 And when the internal begins to change, 04:03 the external comes into conformity 04:06 with the internal. 04:07 Amen. 04:08 So that's the power of the gospel. 04:10 And so something as simple as toilet paper 04:11 to clean the internal, the external, 04:14 we use that to clean the external, 04:16 but God wants to come into our heart 04:18 and clean the internal. 04:20 Amen? Amen. 04:21 You know, I love that. 04:23 I think about Daniel, you know, Daniel in Daniel 1:8, 04:27 and it says, "But Daniel purposed in his heart 04:30 that he would not defile himself." 04:32 You think about a messy situation. 04:34 A messy situation can defile you. 04:37 "But he said that he would not defile himself 04:40 with the portion of the king's delicacies 04:42 nor with the wine which he drank. 04:44 Therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs 04:47 that he might not defile himself." 04:49 I think about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, 04:52 so think about someone 04:53 who gives their heart to the Lord, 04:55 they're walking with the Lord, they're, 04:57 you know, they're serving the Lord wholeheartedly. 05:00 Amen. 05:01 And that doesn't mean 05:03 that we don't encounter trials, right? 05:05 Do you think Christians... 05:07 Brother, you are so absolutely right. 05:08 You know, with the Corona pandemic and the virus, 05:11 I just had a dear friend, 05:13 he just buried his wife of 49 years, 05:15 just buried yesterday. 05:17 And so, but she died victorious in Jesus. 05:21 She'll be resurrected in Jesus. 05:22 Amen. 05:23 And they'll be reunited in the kingdom of heaven. 05:25 So even though we as Christians experience 05:27 these troublous times, we need to hold on to Jesus. 05:30 Amen? Yes. 05:32 Amen. 05:33 And that's exactly what these three Hebrew boys did here. 05:35 When they were faced with the situation 05:37 where the king wanted them to bow down and worship 05:40 this statue anytime the music played 05:42 and they basically told the king, 05:44 you know, look, our God can deliver us 05:46 from this situation 05:47 and if He does or if He doesn't, 05:50 basically, we're still going to serve Him. 05:52 We're not going to worship you. 05:53 That's right. Amen. 05:55 We're not going to worship any other god. 05:57 So they got cast into the fiery furnace. 06:00 Three of them went in, 06:03 but there was a fourth one in there 06:06 with the appearance of the Son of man. 06:07 Powerful, powerful story. 06:09 And that's what God does, He stands with us 06:11 in the midst of our trials. 06:13 Amen. You know what I like about it? 06:14 The king says, "Who is this God 06:16 that's able to deliver you out of my hand? 06:17 Who is this God?" 06:18 But not very long later, 06:21 he said, "Looks like one like the Son of man." 06:22 That's right. 06:23 So he had some kind of knowledge of who that was. 06:26 That's right. 06:27 It was a great witnessing opportunity, you know? 06:29 And we always have these witnessing opportunities 06:31 and if we're going through a trial, 06:33 how do we respond in the midst of adversity? 06:35 Amen. 06:36 That makes a huge difference. 06:38 You know, we have the cross here, 06:41 we use toilet paper for the internal analogy 06:44 of how He comes into our heart. 06:46 You know on the cross of Calvary, 06:48 Jesus died, He shed His blood there for us. 06:51 And it's His righteousness that covers all iniquity, 06:56 all sin, it's His righteousness. 06:58 So whether people find themselves 07:00 in a suicidal situation, 07:02 a hopeless situation, incarceration, 07:06 maybe they can't make their house payment, 07:08 whatever it is, they need to continue 07:10 to look at the cross and realize 07:12 what our heavenly Father did 07:13 through the gift of His Son Jesus. 07:15 Jason, you know, when I got locked up 07:18 as a young man in a jail like this, 07:21 I remember that we set the jail on fire. 07:25 How can you set a jail on fire? 07:27 'Cause after all it's all steel. 07:29 But we stuffed, there was a hole up there 07:30 and we almost all died that night 07:33 because the smoke filled the jail 07:35 and there we were in a bad situation. 07:38 People do things, 07:40 not to really hurt other people, 07:42 sometimes it's just misguided energy. 07:45 You know the people in Florida, the young people in Florida 07:47 that took a stop sign down, 07:49 all they wanted to do was see a car crash. 07:51 They didn't think somebody would get killed. 07:53 And so, you know, as a young boy, 07:55 we used to put boulders on the railroad track, 07:57 boulders in... 07:58 What I wanted to do 07:59 is I wanted to see the train come by 08:01 and fall off the track. 08:02 Wow. 08:04 I didn't do it to hurt anybody. 08:05 And so without Jesus, without purpose in our lives, 08:08 there is no purpose in video games, 08:11 there is no purpose in secular music, 08:12 there is no purpose in secular TV, 08:14 there is no purpose working all of our life 08:16 for some big retirement, 08:18 there is no purpose in this life outside of Christ. 08:20 Amen? Amen. 08:22 How is it that you gave your life to Christ? 08:24 Your life was full of all kinds of, 08:26 you were going and moving and doing fancy things, 08:28 but at some point you were empty inside. 08:30 How did you give your life to Christ, Brother? 08:32 Well, I found myself in a very messy situation. 08:35 My appendix had ruptured, I was misdiagnosed. 08:37 I remember lying in the hospital bed 08:39 thinking that I was going to die, 08:41 not knowing whether or not 08:42 I was going to live or die. 08:44 And if I would have died right then, 08:45 I would have died in my sin. 08:47 So I had my mother 08:48 who was there helping me do things 08:49 that I couldn't even do for myself, 08:51 such as brush my teeth and walk over there. 08:53 So she was walking me to the sink 08:55 to go brush my teeth and I remember her crying 08:58 because I had become flesh and bones, 09:01 I was so skinny. 09:02 And this was at a time 09:04 where I had made a promise to God. 09:05 I didn't even serve God at the time, 09:07 I didn't want anything to do with God. 09:09 But as we often do, 09:11 when we find ourselves getting into these horrible situations, 09:15 self inflicted trials, we say to God, 09:18 "God, if You get me out of this, 09:20 if You get me out of this, I'll change, 09:21 I'll do something different." 09:22 And I believe you really meant that, 09:24 but on our own we can't. 09:26 That's right. 09:27 My stomach was left open. 09:28 Opened, closed, they didn't stitch me up 09:30 or anything like that. 09:32 I had gauze pads covering my stomach. 09:34 Couple of weeks into recovery, 09:36 I ended up going back to a known drug area 09:38 to purchase some drugs to sell. 09:41 Ended up getting arrested that day 09:43 and I just spent the night in jail, 09:45 but I was looking at a potential 09:47 maximum prison sentence of 15 years. 09:50 In a place like this? 09:51 In a place like this. 09:52 But God saw fit to give me a second chance. 09:55 And so I didn't accept Him right then, 09:57 but I made behavioral modifications 09:59 and then eventually He grabbed a hold of my life. 10:02 My mother never stopped praying for me, 10:04 and those prayers really helped to transform my life. 10:09 God heard her prayers. 10:10 As you're willing, He's able. 10:12 Amen. 10:13 As you're willing, He's able. 10:15 Amen. 10:16 The Bible says, "For I know the thoughts 10:19 that I think toward you, saith the Lord." 10:21 He was with you, He abide with you, 10:23 He walked with you, 10:24 He encouraged you, He called you. 10:25 As you was willing to surrender, 10:27 He was there for you. 10:28 "For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, 10:30 saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, 10:32 to give us an expected end." 10:33 There was an incarceration, it wasn't death, 10:36 that's not His design for humanity, 10:38 but it's eternal life. 10:39 "Then shall you call upon Me," you called upon Him, 10:42 you prayed unto Him, He heard you, 10:44 He harkened with you. 10:46 "And you shall seek Me and find Me 10:47 when you shall search for Me with all your heart." 10:52 So every day in our culture as we use toilet paper, 10:55 paper towel, napkins to clean up 10:57 external messy situations. 11:00 Would you encourage our world today 11:02 to ultimately think of Christ? 11:04 Oh, absolutely, 100%. 11:07 If you accept Christ in your life, 11:10 you won't regret it. 11:11 You have somebody who you can take your burdens to, 11:14 who you can pray to, who wants to hear from you, 11:17 who loves you so much, 11:19 even more than your parents love you. 11:21 Jesus loves you so much. 11:23 You can't say that anybody else died for you, 11:26 but Jesus did that for your life and for mine. 11:29 Jason, I believe there's somebody at home right now, 11:31 perhaps incarcerated. 11:33 Would you have a prayer, Brother, 11:35 for the appeal you just made? 11:36 Absolutely. 11:38 Dear heavenly Father, we just want to lift up 11:40 that individual that may be incarcerated 11:42 or that is living in the free world, 11:44 but a slave to sin and bondage to sin. 11:48 And, Father, we just ask 11:49 that You would please break that bondage 11:52 that the devil has on his or her life, 11:55 and that You would grab a hold of them 11:56 and that You would draw them to you 11:59 as time is short and save their soul. 12:03 In Jesus' name we pray. 12:04 Amen. 12:06 I've been here in this, 12:08 I think in this jail eight times. 12:10 Been battling addiction most of my life. 12:13 I lost my mom before when I was 13, 12:15 so that kind of did the spiral for me. 12:18 It was just my dad raising nine kids. 12:20 He wasn't always there 12:21 'cause he was always at work or whatever. 12:24 It's been a struggle, 12:26 I've tried to quit and tried to quit it 12:30 and some leads me back to those streets 12:32 and unfortunately that's why I'm in here now. 12:36 I relapsed again and now, 12:42 I'm going to probably do the next 20 years in prison. 12:45 I just met with my lawyer yesterday, 12:46 so, yeah, I just got this bad news yesterday. 12:51 That reconnection with God, it came to me a year ago, 12:54 when the chaplain of the jail could come in here 12:57 and he came in here and we did classes 12:59 like every Wednesday or every Thursday 13:00 or it depend on what day he came in here. 13:03 I hate to say this, 13:04 but in jail is where I seem to get close to God. 13:07 And when I'm on the street, 13:09 I'm there, but I'm not all there, 13:12 you know, I've done a 360 around, so. 13:17 And I don't want to live in that lifestyle anymore, 13:21 I want to live for the Lord. 13:25 It's going to be a new beginning wherever I go, 13:28 whether it's on the street or whether it's in prison. 13:31 I mean, I don't have to live this way anymore 13:34 and I refuse to live this way anymore. 13:37 I can't believe, Lemuel, that our time is almost up. 13:41 What's the final thought that you have? 13:43 Final thought is there's hope in this troublous time 13:46 that we live in Jesus. 13:48 Amen? Amen. 13:49 Amen. Praise the Lord. 13:51 I want to thank you, Lemuel, 13:52 for the job that you are doing with the men and women 13:54 that are incarcerated, and what you're doing 13:56 with Christmas Behind Bars, 13:57 and ultimately winning souls for the kingdom. 14:02 We invite you to tune in next time. 14:04 Till then, God bless. |
Revised 2021-10-28