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  NOTHING MOVES ME
  by Don McClure
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Duration: 1:23:31

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Our Father and our God, we thank you for these days, as hard as they are
for us. And there is a hunger, Lord, in this city, and it can only be
met by you. And we thank you, Lord, for our brother.

We thank you for Don. We thank you for the words that you have brought
to him, for the heart that you have brought to him, and that you are
going to bring that to us. But Lord, over it all, we just seek you, and
we seek your touch on this city and on our hearts.

May the revival start in our hearts, each of our hearts, first. And then
may we watch you, Lord, do what you do. So bless our brother, we pray.

Be with him in all ways, and we ask it in Christ's name, with
thanksgiving. Amen. Is it working? There we go.

All right. First of all, I would like it duly noted that I'm wearing a
tie. Now, this is something for me.

Greg, there's something amazingly persuasive about him. I just met him
up here, although we've been communicating back and forth in little ways
over the years. But when he asked me to come, now I'm a Scotsman on both
sides of my family, whereas I'm a Scotsman.

Both of my parents' descendants were Scottish covenanters. Any of you
know what they were? A few of you, maybe. But that's our roots.

But to get a Scotsman, first of all, to buy a ticket and then to come
up, and then to get a hotel and then his food, I mean, that's a pretty
impressive thing to do. And he had no trouble doing that. But then to
say, I want you to wear a tie.

I said, oh, man, this is...Alan Redpath used to call a Christian a dead
man on furlough. And I thought, I'm ready to die, but I'll wear one. No,
I do wear them occasionally.

But it's wonderful to be here with you and to be able to share with you.
And yesterday and today, I spent the day with the pastor and his wife
for the most part, so I wasn't able to catch up on a lot that went on
today. But it's great to be here with you.

And most of all, also to be...I also came to hear Charles. I've known
him for so many years. We were in school together many years ago.

And I've been around him on a couple of occasions since, and then got
snippets of him in the ministry up here in Canada and other places. He's
done quite a bit of traveling in ministry through the years. And our
paths didn't cross that much, but I also wanted to come and hear him,
and boy, was it worth it.

And it was a real blessing for me. But tonight, what I would like you to
do for our time together, which to tell you the truth, I struggled a
lot. You're not supposed to...when you get into a pulpit, you're
supposed to be quite self-assured or something.

I'm not sure everything of it. But I do a lot of speaking, and
that's...I'm with a movement that I do a lot with. When I came with the
fellowship that I've been a part of, I've been with it for 40 years.

It was just one church. And through the years, we were born in a time of
revival, back as many of you were as well in various parts of the world.
We were also affected.

But one of the things that we felt very strongly needed to happen was
not just simply to ride out the revival, but in the sense of God teach
us how can we continue it. And at that point, my life had been
tremendously changed by Alan Redpath and taking me under his wing, and
then Capon Ray, where also Charles was. And I was convinced that the
only hope we had for the future was to train as many as we possibly
could.

And so, I convinced the leadership to buy a facility where we went and
started Bible College. And I don't know how many, literally thousands
have gone through it. But over the years, we've planted about a thousand
churches in the United States, and there's 500 outside.

And it's almost all my time because I've been with them since there's
just one has just been preoccupied with that. Once in a while, I'll get
out and do something like this. But I've never known exactly what to do.

Most of the people I'm with, I've been working with for 30 and 40 years.
And so now, when I walk into a thing and I look at you, and I see you're
looking at me like I look at you, and it's, who are you and what are you
doing here? And so, as we stare back and forth at each other, I'm
saying, Lord, what am I doing here? And to have a word that hopefully
would be something that would be a word from heaven. And that's all I
desire to have at the end of it, that I could, as Paul says, that which
the Lord gave to me, have I delivered unto you.

That's all I ever want, hopefully, to happen anytime. But this evening,
I'd like you to turn to Acts chapter 20, if you would. And I want to
share with you a little of what I feel is the Apostle Paul's life's
verse.

That's a rather bold statement, I say, to look at somebody else,
particularly somebody like Paul. And to say what I would say to me, I've
picked out a life verse for him. And I've shared his life verse with
other people now.

I may get to heaven, he may look at me and say, that was not my life's
verse. I never would have picked that and you're wrong. That'll be fine.

But at the same time, a lot of people will probably come up to him and
say, I love your life's verse. And they'll say, what was it? So Don told
me what it was, McClure. And well, they'll say, he never knew what he
was talking about.

But this, to me, one verse encapsulates, to me, the Apostle Paul, with
all of his ministry and all the things that he had to say and do over
his lifetime. The ministry that he had, the people he led to Christ, the
churches he had planted, his three great missionary journeys, and all of
these wonderful writings and epistles, and the things that he has left
for us. And to pick out one verse, in a sense, that I think really
grasped Paul to me.

It's in Acts chapter 20, and in verse 24, as he is speaking there to the
elders of Ephesus. But here he shares with them in this verse that I
want to spend this evening. And he says, but none of these things move
me.

Neither can I my life be unto myself, so that I may finish my course
with joy in the ministry that I have received of the Lord Jesus, to
testify in the gospel of the grace of God. Let's pray and we'll look at
that. Lord, we want to thank you tonight for your word.

And we ask that as we look at it, Lord, that you would open it up to us.
And Lord, is this step-by-step way that I think Paul reveals so much of
his heart and mind. Lord, that perhaps we gain an insight into him and
what made him tick.

We ask, Lord, you'd help us. In Jesus' name, amen. And as I said about
Paul to me, when I look at this, he's somebody that you look at him and
probably, I suppose, history would probably look at Paul as probably the
most famous Christian that ever lived.

And whether that's true or not, in heaven, who knows, that'll be God's
accounting. But it's just that when you look at Paul, you watch him, you
know, through his three missionary journeys that he had. You look there
at the epistles that he has written and left for the church.

And you look at his tremendous witness, the way he led people to Christ,
planted churches, and the tremendous effect that he had. I suppose that
if he isn't the most famous, I don't know who it would be. Probably at
least the most well-known if you were to try to take all of those
through history.

And in a sense of looking at this life, what a tremendous man of God,
obviously. What a way the Lord lived his life in and through Paul. The
way that has such power, such victory for decades.

And you look at this man, you wonder, how does a man go through the
things that Paul went through? And we'll look at some of those things
that he went through tonight a little bit. How does he, not just simply
survive them, but Paul even seems to be a man that just didn't survive,
he thrived through the hardest of times, the greatest of difficulties.
And yet he was a man there with it somehow or another.

It seemed like the more that he was pressed, the more victory and
strength seemed to flow into his life, and the greater his witness and
testimony. And as I said to me, when I look at this one verse, if I was
to pick one verse that for me causes me to say, I know what makes him
tick. And I understand it.

And it's here in Acts chapter 20, verse 24. As he begins it, he tells us
here, he says, but none of these things move me. Now wouldn't you love
to say that? Stop to think about your life for a little bit.

Wouldn't you love to be somebody that you could actually look at the
world and say, nothing moves me. And what an incredible thing to be able
to say, to be able to look at life, all the potential, all the battles,
all the struggles, all the trials, all the temptations, all of the
warfare that you can be involved in, and have been involved in, and
still yet will have ahead of you, but be able to look right back at it
and say, nothing moves me. To me, what an incredible statement to make.

And when you look at Paul and you realize him saying this, and you
wonder, well, how does a guy say that? You know, when somebody says
this, was Paul just some sort of a real tough guy that in a sense, you
look at him and he could just say, come on, give it your best shot.
Nothing moves me. Was he just sort of a, you know, a tough guy, like
some sort of a, you know, Western cowboy? Well, we know enough about
Paul to know that's not true.

He wasn't proud. He wasn't arrogant. When he's looking there and he's
saying, nothing moves me, it was because something had happened
spiritually within his life.

So there was some exchange, some process that the Lord Jesus had brought
him through, and some equipping, some maturing that had happened to
where Paul could actually look at life and all of its potential
disasters and say, nothing moves me. What an incredibly wonderful thing.
And, you know, to be able to say, when you would look at our lives and
our world and all the things around you, all the potential things,
things may be going on in your life right now, the things that could be
potentially going on, you know, in your life, your home, your health,
you know, your career, your wealth, your literal existence.

But to be able to look and say, nothing moves me. How does he say that?
What's the secret of it? Well, a little bit of the secret of it to me, I
think, is in another very famous verse of Paul's. In 1 Corinthians 10,
13, another one you probably know by heart, where Paul's speaking to the
church at Corinth.

He tells them, he says, there is now therefore no temptation. That's no
test, trial, temptation, anything like this that has overtaken you, but
they're all common to man. And he says, and God is faithful and will not
allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the test
of the temptation, make a way of escape that you're able to bear it.

Now, Paul, I think, gives a little insight into how he was able to say,
nothing moves me. You want to know why nothing moves me? I'll tell you
why. He says, I've learned some things about the test and the trials
that God allows in life.

And he says, and there's two things essentially that he gives us here in
this verse, two great truths that if you get nothing else that I've got
to say tonight, I think they're very powerful myself. The first thing
that Paul's had to say about trials is first of all, I want you to
realize they're common to man. They're common to man.

Paul was somebody who's able to look and he had gone through enough
years, enough decades, enough trials, enough things that could happen to
him. And one day he realized there's only so many trials out there.
There's only so many things you can do to somebody.

And finally, one day you realize what happens to you, what happens to
me, it's common. Have you ever noticed on how the devil has this
tremendous capacity with us? When you go through a trial, he singles you
out and makes you feel like you're the only one that it's ever happened
to. You've got this great capacity.

You know, when you're going through something, he singles you out. It's
almost as if the devil spent the last hundred years working out a new
trial that he's never done before. And you're the test case.

You know, he's looking at you and I'm going to do it to you and see how
it works. And you're looking at this thing. And you know, we want to
sing, nobody knows the trouble I've seen.

You know, it's almost like the devil has this way of isolating us in a
trial to make us feel like nobody can understand it. It's uncommon. I'm
all alone in it.

Paul says nonsense to that. I've been around, I've been through enough
that I realized, first of all, let me tell you, there's only so many
trials and I've been through them. They're common to man.

And I think the apostle Paul tended to look at trials spiritually the
way we almost look at physical trials a little bit. Do you have any of
these? I haven't seen any. I imagine I've been around a lot of the
country.

I haven't seen any in your city. But like, you know, these health
exercise places here in town. I mean, any of you members of those, like
24-hour fitness things? One person.

Well, you might look into it. I don't know. That's up to you.

But I'm not pushing health and things tonight. But the point of it is,
if you've ever been in one of those, which evidently you haven't, but at
any rate, if you've ever been in one, you get in and after you've been
around a few, and I've been around a few, you begin to realize there's
only so many body parts. There's only so many muscles.

There's only so many things. And virtually, if you go into one of these
gyms, they've only got so many things. They've got the rowing machines,
the running machines.

They've got all the various weight machines, the leg lifting machines,
you know, the ski and the bag, all the different muscle groups there are
that we have in our body. There's only so many tests. After you've been
through, they get different variations of them, and one after another,
after another.

But one day, if you've ever been in, you realize they're common to man.
And the interesting thing, we seem to understand that on the physical
thing. You go in, you go to a gym.

In fact, we're very interesting to me, human beings, I think, in a
sense, because the way that we are, is that a lot of people, evidently
nobody here, but a lot of people, they join these things and they go in
and we're interesting people. We walk into this place. We look around.

The more machines they've got, the better, you know, and the newer and
the fancier, you know, things that they have. And we will actually give
them money. We will sign up.

How much is it? I'll give you the money. How much do you want every
month? Okay, here's my credit card. I want to join.

And then we turn to them and now I'm going, I want to pay you to hurt
me. Just hurt me. You know, and we actually go in and we pay people to
put us through pain.

Put us to the limit. All that we can do, because we know physically that
if we will subject ourself willingly to certain trials and tests, that
it will strengthen our body for the rest of the week. It gives us
capacity to have greater energy and greater maturity, greater strength
to achieve other things if we will willfully subject ourselves in the
physical world and even pay for it.

We'll do that. The interesting thing is we don't seem to understand that
spiritually, but Paul, I think, first of all, he looked at trials just
like somebody would look at physical trials and he says, they're common
to man. So don't think there's anything that's going to befall you that
hasn't been used for centuries on millions of Christians.

It's common. Common they are. Paul had been to one town after another
after another and he had quite a list of things that everybody could do
to him and attempted to do and succeeded in doing over the years.

And one day he realized, I think he was actually, I don't know if he was
cynical about it, but when he'd go through some new thing and some new
beating and maybe look down and say, is that your best shot? The guy in
the last town knew how to work that whip. Here, give it to me. Let me
show you something here.

You know, after you lay it in and then snap it back harder, you hardly
took any flesh with that at all. Come on young man, let me show you how
to do it. I don't know, but you just realize here's a man that had gone
through so much.

And one day he realized the trials that are out there, they're common. A
second thing that Paul also though tells us here in 1 Corinthians 10,
13, he says, not only are they common to man, and he says, but secondly,
he tells us there, he says that God is faithful and will not allow you
to be tempted above what you're able, but will with the test make a way
of escape that you're able to bear. Now here basically the second thing
Paul had learned about the trials that God allows us to go through in
life, not only they're common, but secondly, he looks at us and he says,
essentially, when you became a Christian, whether you know it or not,
you join God's gym.

Everyone joins it. You're a member of it. Your dues are all paid.

You did it for it. In fact, even Jesus promises. One of his wonderful
promises in John 16, I hardly ever, I've never seen it in a promise box.

I've never seen it in little promised Bibles that people have. I've
never seen it hung on anybody's, you know, refrigerator, but one of
God's promises, Jesus says, in the world you shall have tribulation.
That's a promise.

I've never heard a Christian claim it. I've never heard anybody put it
on a refrigerator. Lord, I haven't had a good trial in a month.

What's happened? I feel like you've lost, you don't love me. You're not
caring for me. I've never seen anyone claim that, but that is something
the Lord looks, he says, you will.

I will try you. Whom the Lord loves, he chastens, he disciplines. And he
says, this is part of your growth.

This is how you grow. It's how you've all grown. You've grown in every
other area of your life.

You'll grow that way spiritually. But here is, he looks at it, he says,
this is how it is. But here he says, though he says, so they're common
to man.

But secondly, he says, you'll never be tempted above what you're able.
But will with the temptation, you make a way of escape that you're able
to bear it. In other words, when you join the gym, he also, not only
they're common to man, the trials, but secondly, he says, every one of
you, you will have a personal trainer.

You'll have somebody there that goes through with you and will watch
everything that is going on with you while you're in the gym to make
sure that you do not have any more given to you than you're able. And
when we reach that limit, he'll give you a way of escape. Of course,
it's the Lord himself who's our trainer.

You see, you can go into one of those gyms and maybe you walk by and you
go in and you see somebody there. You'll see some muscle-bound guy who's
sitting there on the bench and he's got 300 pounds and he's ripping that
thing up and he lifts that thing. And you may say, well, you know,
they're common to man.

But I can assure you, that's not common to me. You put 300 pounds on my
chest, it is not going to go up. It's going down through my chest and to
the floor.

It'll cut me in two. But the Lord says, no, no, no, don't worry about
it. This guy didn't start with 300 himself.

He started with what he was able to bear. And then he built and I built
him and built him over time. And so also, you know, with each one of us,
he said, I'll take what you're able to bear.

You may look at, he looks at me and says, well, we'll start with 20
pounds with you, see where we go. But at any rate, whatever it is, the
Lord looks. And Paul knew.

Paul had this tremendous experience and knowledge in Christ and he
realized, I will never be given more than I'm able. And everything out
there, I realize now, it's common to man. And therefore, Paul, he had
this tremendous spiritual assurance in his heart and his life that now
he could actually look at anything out there.

And he said, I'm not afraid of anything. Nothing moves me. And it wasn't
because of anything internally within him.

It was because of the fact that he knew he loved him and gave himself
for it. He knew he was committed to him. He said, I'll never leave you,
forsake you, and I'll never give you more than you're able.

And but with that, that gave him freedom. It gave him clarity. It gave
him boldness.

It gave him authority. It gave him conviction. And he can almost look at
any trial, not in pride or in any self-sufficiency or arrogance, but he
can look at it and say, nothing moves me.

You know, I believe that if we understand this, as Paul understood, and
every one of us, maybe, I believe we can all predetermine right now
where you're sitting. And you can claim that in a sense, that verse in
your life to say, you know something, nothing moves me either. Nothing's
ever going to move me again because the same God that gave those truths
to Paul, he's no respecter of persons.

And he loves me as he loved him. And they're true for me. Therefore,
he'll never give me more than I'm able to bear.

Therefore, I never will go through anything. Therefore, even the things
that are out there that are yet unknown to me, that want to threaten me
or concern me or give me fears, I don't care about because I know enough
from him, I'll never have more than I'm able to bear. He promises.

And here, this is one of these wonderful things that Paul wants us to
have this sense of. I've got a plaque I've had in my office for almost
40 years. I don't know where it came from.

It's just a little plaque, you know, I had a little saying on it. I've
always loved it. It says, the will of God will never lead you where the
grace of God cannot keep you.

And that we, if we're living and walking in God's will within our, we
need never fear. We realize God, anywhere you lead me, you're ahead of
me, you're behind me, you're all around me. And you'll never lead me
where your grace cannot keep me.

And Paul knew this. So much so that he could look at anything in life
and just know whatever came, he was with it. Second Corinthians 6.3,
Paul says, you know, we give no offense in anything that our ministry
may not be blamed.

But in all things, we commend ourselves as ministers of God in much
patience and tribulations and needs and distresses and stripes and
imprisonments and tumults and labors and sleeplessness and fastings by
purity, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy
Spirit, by sincere love. Paul was able to look there in his life and he
says, you know something, not only is he with me, not only nothing moves
me, but he looks there and he says, in my life, and not of anything that
in and of his own self-sufficiency and arrogance or pride, Paul had none
of that or nothing that we ever saw. But he was a man that he was able
to say, you know, I've never offended in anything, my ministry.

I've been able to look back over decades of ministry and all these
things, and he says, but in everything I'm in, I've learned how to
commend myself, to offer myself over to the Lord as a minister of God,
and it has happened in much tribulations, in patience, in needs, in
distresses. I've been in a lot of times where the only thing I could do
is just commend myself to God and say, Lord, keep me. Lord, put your
hand on me.

Lord, get me through this. Without you, I'm over. It's done.

And that's the place most people hate to get, but it's the place where
Paul lived commonly. He lived right in the clutches of all of disaster,
but it never bothered him because he had this tremendous efficiency and
assurance in Christ. I think we don't live in him like Paul lived in him
constantly.

I mean, he was in stripes, and imprisonments, and tumults, and labors,
and sleeplessness, fastings, long suffering, many times, you know,
through much of his life, and yet he was somebody, this is my life. This
is what it's all about. I don't mind it at all because he's with me, and
he lives in me powerfully.

And one of Paul's best illustrations, I think, of this truth is the very
thing that's going on here in Acts 19 and 20. We haven't got time to
look at it. Paul had actually come earlier to Ephesus and been
ministering there, and what a tremendous ministry had happened there.

Of course, in Paul's travels, when you follow him through the decades
and the years of ministry and the churches that he's planted, Paul was
very used to, of course, winning many people to Christ, discipling them,
raising up leaders, equipping them for ministry, building churches. Then
he would turn the church over to him and go start again. And one of the
reasons he had to turn it over to him is Paul was a man that had to
almost operate under the radar, so to speak.

All through his life in ministry, the Jews had been hunting him. They'd
been after him. And wherever he would kind of appear and become of note,
and then they realized he's there and he's succeeding again.

He's built this church. All of a sudden, he's on their radar, and they'd
be after him. And the next thing you know, he would look there, all
right, we got this church together.

We got the leaders. We got the body. We're all together.

Guys, take it. I'm going under the radar again. I'm off.

I'm out. He'd disappear. One of the things, I think, that kept him going
was the fact that he was on the front all the time, like a wanted man.

And so he'd kind of disappear under the radar, reappear there somewhere
else, just sharing, preaching, ministering until a new church was built
up and done. And Paul had been through these cycles a number of times.
Well, he'd come to Ephesus.

And now as he'd come to Ephesus, starts his preaching there, and the
ministry in Ephesus goes so phenomenally well, incredibly well. Here, of
course, Ephesus, one of the most wicked, sensual, you know, cities in
the world with the worship of Diana and the temple prostitutes that went
on. I mean, there's a corrupt of a city, equivalent to anything like a
Las Vegas or a city that could have just given itself over to sensuous
living.

That's what Ephesus was in its day. And here, Paul had come and preached
in that city of all places. And as they had planted the church, the
church was so incredibly effective that people that made, there was a
huge business of, you know, people with the silversmiths that made all
these little gods and goddesses, these little pornographic images that
people bought there, you know, in their worship of sensuality and
perversions of it, that literally these people are going out of
business.

You imagine something happening in your town where the gospel became so
effective, so powerful, that the bars, the pornography, you know,
merchants were going out of business. Well, they're so upset about this.
What's going on here? They get a rally going.

They get downtown. Literally, we've got to turn this around. We need a
revival of Diana.

And so they begin, they get downtown, get a rally going downtown. They
grab a hold of a couple of Paul's, you know, traveling companions, you
know, going along with him, Gaius and Aristarchus. And he gets them, and
Paul's outside.

They keep him out. But Paul, they grab them, and they're at downtown.
And they're all upset about this.

And for two hours, they're chanting. They're getting the crowd, you
know, great is Diana of the Ephesians, great is Diana of the Ephesians,
great is Diana of the Ephesians. And they're chanting it.

In fact, join me with it. Great, no, I'm just kidding. But they got a
rally going.

And they're all shouting this. We've got to get back to Diana. She loves
you.

Diana cares for you. Come home to Diana and buy her stuff. Well, here as
they're doing this, could you imagine how wonderful it would be if
that's what occurred in our cities and towns now.

But during these years, Paul had become so hated. And once again, the
radar's on him. Once again, they're down.

And now Paul realizes, he calls the elders of Ephesus together. And here
he is to say goodbye to them, turn things over to them. He tells them in
Acts 20, verse 19, he talks about serving the Lord with all humility.

Been here with many tears and trials, which happened to me by the
plotting of the Jews. In verse 20, he says, how I kept back nothing that
was helpful, but I proclaimed it to you. I taught you publicly from
house to house.

Testifying to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God
and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, see, now I go
bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will
happen to me, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city saying
that change and tribulations await me. Here, Paul, what was happening is
he's coming towards the end of his ministry.

The interesting thing, Paul says, you know, I don't for sure know what's
happening. He says, however, the Holy Spirit seems to be testifying in
every city telling people the change and tribulations await me. Paul had
had a cycle of people being aware, the church is aware of Paul's
departure soon.

Paul is about to die. He's coming to the end of his life. And Paul, who
had been through so much in life, so many trials, so many tribulations,
he says, you know, all I know right now about myself is I go bound in
the Spirit to Jerusalem.

I'm determined to go to Jerusalem. It's just been in me for a long time.
I've got to go to Jerusalem.

Well, they're thinking, you're crazy. You want to go to Jerusalem? The
very people that have been hiding you for the last 40 years, now you're
going to walk in downtown Jerusalem, headquarters of Judaism. The moment
you show your face, you're dead.

You go there. And they've been trying, they're trying to talk you about
it. He can't do this.

Paul says, look, all I know is it's in my heart to do it. But then at
that point, and everybody, and they came with chains, they came with all
sorts of things the church did, you know, as they're trying to talk him
out of it. Paul, you're insane.

You've got a death wish. And then here at this point, Paul turns and he
gives this wonderful statement. He looks there as if to say, you don't
get it, do you? You don't know what makes me tick yet, do you? He looks
there and he says, I'm aware of all this.

I'm no fool. I'm no idiot. But I'll tell you something, nothing moves
me.

Nothing moves me at all. And you know, this verse, I'm sure you've all
heard it before. It's such a dynamic and powerful verse.

But it's a verse that literally to me, I mean, it changed my life. In
the 60s, one by one, my parents, first my parents came to Christ, and
they were basically a worldly couple. And my dad was a USC Trojan, if
you know, University of Southern California, and he's an athlete and an
engineer.

He had a career going, worldly man essentially though. And my mother, a
very beautiful woman. She was homecoming queen at USC.

My parents were very attractive, obviously. You can figure that out. But
at any rate, I mean, here they had the world going for them.

But now they had four children, one after another, all a year apart. The
pressures of marriage and the stresses of life, they found themselves
unable really to handle it at a time when the gospel was really doing a
wonderful thing and the timing was just right. They came to Christ.

Got a brother a year older, a brother a year younger, a sister a year
younger than him. And one by one, my older brother, then my younger
sister, then my brother came to Christ, but I didn't. And I would go to
church with them now and then, but I was adventurous.

I wanted to be out. Not that I didn't believe, I always believed. I
thought I'm a Christian.

They said, Don, you're not. That's how we'd argue, but I am too a
Christian. You know, what do you think, I got a dot in my forehead here?
I'm some sort of, you know, other religion or something? No, I'm a
Christian.

I was born in America. I got a mother. I eat apple pie.

I believe in God. I'm a Christian. Now leave me alone.

And I was essentially kind of that variety of which there was a lot of
at the time in the States. But then finally, those times going on and
their witnesses more powerful within my family, I did make a decision. I
received Christ in the middle of the grand crusade, but sadly at the
same time, I lived in one home until I actually got married basically.

And so here, all of my friends through grammar school, high school and
college, I didn't have a Christian friend. And we partied and we did
things, and here I was as a Christian, but at the same time, I'm going
back and forth. I go to church on Sunday periodically with the family,
but yet at the same time, I'm back and forth.

And they're watching my life and they say, Don, you've got to decide
whether you're going to follow the Lord or not. You can't play this
game. I'm not playing a game.

I'm coming. I believe. And they would try to get me to respond and grow.

And I was just struggling. And they're praying for me and sharing with
me all of them all the time. And one night, I'm driving my little sports
car that I had down the road.

And while I'm driving it down the road, coming in the opposite
direction, unbeknownst to me, but there was a 1959 Oldsmobile 98. I
don't know if you ever, but it's about one of the biggest cars ever
made, heaviest cars ever made. I think they're in Iraq in tanks now or
something, but I mean, a huge thing.

And I got this little sports car and there's a drunk driving. He crosses
over the double line. We have a head-on collision.

And here, when this happens, my car is just demolished. Poor little
thing didn't stand, excuse me, didn't have a chance. And here, though
amazingly, here the engine is shoved back in.

Car actually catches on fire. Doors were jammed shut. There was just a
little crack.

Somehow or another, I got out of there and without a scratch. Soon the
fire department comes. The police are come there and an ambulance is
called.

And I didn't have a scratch. The fellow driving the other car, drunk, he
hit his face on a steering wheel and just split his face wide. He was
bleeding rather profusely, but he was well sedated.

So he was okay in that sense. But by the time the police arrived,
they're actually already getting him into the ambulance. The policeman,
he came over, excuse me, I walked up to the policeman and at the car,
he's looking at the car and he's looking over there.

And he turns to me, he says, do you know anything about this? And the
driver here, and he's assuming that that's the guy. And I said, I'm
fine. He said, no, the driver of this car.

Do you know anything about him? Because he looked at me and here the
car, but the fire was out by then. But you could tell there was a fire.
And here I didn't have a scratch.

And I said, I was in that car. You were in that car? Yes, I was. He
says, sit down.

Takes me over and sits down. Soon my family arrives. This wasn't far
from where we grew up.

Well, that night we went home and my family, they just had a great
opportunity to close the deal kind of. Don, you know, the Lord has, oh,
thank you very much. What you got to do to get a free bottle of water
around this place, you know.

But, you know, they're just closing the deal. Don, do you realize you
could have died tonight? Do you realize that the Lord saved you? This
was miraculous. Well, I thought about it.

I mean, I wasn't, I wondered about it. And to tell you the truth, I
mean, I didn't hear any voices. There was no spiritual experience at
all, particularly.

But after they had shared, I thought, well, I don't know what's going on
here. Maybe there's something to this. But I decided that night, when I
go to bed, I had a Bible.

They'd given me a Bible. And so I start reading. I didn't know where to
read.

Now, I don't know how I got in the book of Acts. I have no memory of
that. I'm just kind of going through, waiting for God to speak to me.

I'd hear people say, God speaks to me in the Bible. So really, you know,
I didn't know how this happened. So I'm kind of reading through my
Bible, kind of like wanting to tune in, like, okay, how's this work? You
know, waiting for God to say something.

And I'm just reading, turning pages, waiting for something, nothing. And
here, somehow or another, I end up in Acts 20. And as I read along, this
fellow, he turns and he says to a bunch of guys, none of these things
move me.

Neither count on my life here nor myself. And somehow or another, I
froze on that. I found myself, I read, I had to go back and forth.

Who is this guy? What's, you know, who's Paul? What's an apostle? What's
the, you know, I didn't know any of these terms. I've been that ignorant
about so many things. But as I'm looking, what in the world is all, by
the time I get it in context.

And I realized, here is a man that's looking at, walking right into
death, right into his own apparent suicide, almost. And now he turns,
nothing moves me. Well, frankly, when I read that, it so shocked me.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to think about it. Because
as I looked at my own life, one of the things that was ringing through
is I thought, anything moves me.

Anything moves me. I was somebody, I was as unstable as water. I could
go to church.

I could go to church with my family. I could sit there. I could listen
to a preacher give a sermon.

And I could cry. I could sit there in that, and I was, in real, I was
moved. That's true.

There was conviction. There was, oh God, I believe that. It could be
powerful.

I'd get my sports car. I'd head off back to the fraternity house, back
to school. And by the time I got back there and walked back into the
house, I was whatever it was that was going on in the fraternity when I
walked in.

I was it. I just became whatever it was. I was as unstable as water.

I just became air temperature. And I thought of somebody actually say,
nothing moves me. It was like Paul would say, listen, fellas, you
understand.

What I am, I always am. I am Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Whether I'm at home, I'm at church.

Whether I'm at the office, whether I'm at business, whether I'm with
friends or whatever it is that's going on, I'm the same. I don't change.
What I am, I am covered to core.

Nothing moves me. And as I thought about that, I found myself that night
so impacted by it. I literally, I memorized it that night before I went
to bed.

I went over and over. I had no budget about this guy. And I don't know
what all this means, but all I know is I want to someday be able to say
that verse.

I want to be able to say that. And there I found myself, you know, from
that day, literally, I determined if this is going to work because I'd
been so wishy-washy. It's got to start tomorrow.

I literally went, I quit the fraternity. You see, you don't quit the
fraternity. Why quit? I do.

I realized I didn't have the maturity or the stability to go be a
witness. I'm not saying somebody should or shouldn't do things. I just
knew I couldn't.

And so off, I had to walk away from it. And I found myself basically
looking at virtually every area of my life that I was in and having to
reorganize it. And Lord, what do I do with this? I would, in college, I
would literally on my papers, I would sign my name, whatever the class
was, whatever the course and whatever the paper I'm turning in.

And then underneath it, I would write Acts 20-24. And here, you know,
and any letter, anything I wrote my name on, I put Acts 20-24. I worked
at a part-time job for the Bank of America.

And on my name tag out in the front, you know, I mean, that little thing
on your, you know, your plaque with your name on it under my desk.
Behind it, though, I had in big letters taped on the back, Acts 20-24.
And it wasn't so much I was trying to be a witness.

One of my professors, I remember, he'd come in asking me, what is this
Acts 20, colon, 24? And I said, well, it's a Bible verse. And I would
explain it to people somewhat, but it wasn't there I was trying to be a
witness. I wasn't trying to be a testimony.

I wanted a constant memory. Wherever I was used to failing, I wouldn't
drive a stake in the ground that says, no, I, this was for me. I wasn't
thinking of anybody else whatsoever.

And wherever I would go, I just determined I have to, if I really mean,
nothing's going to move me, I better start now. And here the wonderful
thing is, I mean, this is a, when I looked at this and saw, you know,
this was Paul. This is what made him tick.

And it was a verse there that initially there, it changed my life in a
radical way in a very short period of time. At that point, once this had
occurred, you know, a lot of people have a disaster, they've got an
accident or they got something and they'll have a certain amount of
trauma and they make this big conversion for a week or two or three.
With me, it actually stuck.

It was actually one of those people that the accident with me kind of
continued on. But this verse continued with me. And it was one of those
verses that it was really, I would sign every letter.

I would put it around anything and everything because it was just so
determined. But it's a verse that has only grown through my life. It was
one of those things that a few years ago, a number of years ago now,
about in the mid-90s, I was on a treadmill just exercising.

Well, I'm going, you know, huffing, puffing, trying to push myself. And
all of a sudden, I felt something snap in my head or something. I didn't
know what it was.

And I got lightheaded. I thought I was going to faint, sweating heavily.
I thought, what is that? And I can remember actually thinking to myself
because I thought I should stop.

And I was like myself, I said, you fat slob, you can't, you keep up with
this. Look how bad shape you are. And so I kept on with it.

A little while later, I walked down, my wife saw me, looked at me, I
said, what happened to you? I said, what do you mean? Well, look at your
eye. I went and looked at my eye, it was blood red. And what it is, one
thing led to another in this process.

The time we ended up, you know, going through it, and I'd had a stroke,
lost the vision, most all of it in my right eye. And I see a little
light to it, but that's basically it, it's pretty non-functional. But I
found myself, whatever it was, whether it was this or so many times, the
Lord bringing things back to me.

Is this going to move you? The first real test of it I ever had was
actually when I was at Capon Ray, back there, you know, many years ago.
And I was one of these guys, when I got things right in my life, and
growing, I'd actually met Alan Redpath, and he'd asked us to come to
England, and he said if I would come, that he would disciple me, and
take me under his wing. And I was so blessed by the man, that I just
knew that was what I was to do, and off we went.

And we're over there in Bible College, but I can remember while I was
there, thinking so much, I'd watched my life, I couldn't believe how it
had changed. This guy that grew up in this world, and this partier, and
this just non-spiritual guy completely, getting kind of converted,
messing around for a while, then God taking me, and in a very brief
time, I'd met Jean, fall in love with her, convinced her to marry me. I
lied a little, but it worked.

But at any rate, convinced her to marry me. And here, God had taken our
lives, calling us into service, and so many dramatic things happened.
Here I am over school, now I'm growing in the Lord, growing in the Word.

And as this has happened, I can just remember thinking, all this in
heaven too, I can't believe it. But there was one thing that I wanted
terribly. Can I get another one? This one's old.

No, I'm just kidding. But another thing that I had really wanted, and
that was usually what the woman wants, but I wanted children. You know,
usually it's a woman who said, honey, can't we have children? He said,
no, I need a new shotgun, you know, or four by four.

I want to go hunting. I can't, we can't. We'll have children later.

Well, we were the reverse of it. I was the one that wanted a child, and
Jean was hesitant. Took me years, some time to find out before she
finally was open on it.

Said, look, I'm just getting used to you. I'm a little slow wanting to
reproduce more of you, frankly. You know, but that's kind of how it came
out.

But at any rate, fortunately, I had a Bible on my side. I had a lot of
Scripture. Hey, we're to be fruitful, multiply.

You know, we've got a biblical responsibility to replenish the earth,
woman. But at any rate, so I talked it into her, talked her into it. And
next thing I know, she got pregnant, and you could not have a more
wonderful thing.

It was the high, I mean, I just, I, day by day, God, look what you're
doing. And then during this time, Jean lost the baby. And somehow or
another, that hit me like I'd never been hit.

I'd never had a trial. I'd had plenty of trials, but basically all my
trials, you could, I could understand them. I deserved them.

I had a coming. But this was the first trial that I think I'd ever had
in my life, where somehow or another, God was responsible. This happened
on His watch.

And I, you know, how does this happen? You're the one, you're the giver
and the taker of life. And I was, you know, now on one hand, don't get
me wrong, I, I know that this is common to man now. I'm sure that
there's a number of you.

You've been through things, you're saying. But it wasn't common to me.
And here I found myself going through this.

And it was something, I was so shaken by it. I didn't want to study. I
didn't want to, you know, be in the Word.

I didn't want to pray. I didn't want to go to class. I'm, my head is
spinning.

I'm just thinking, how can I do this? I had a degree in business. My
family had a business and wanted me in the business. I'm thinking, look,
I, I don't know if this is how I could spend my life or not.

And I'm in a tailspin over this whole thing. Because as far as I was
concerned, God, He let me down. And one day, I'm out taking a walk.

And I'll never forget this walk, because there was one there where I'm
about to go buy a ticket to come home. I, I, my wife had said, look,
let's pray about this. Take some time.

And I'd spent about a week. Okay, but nothing was happening. And so the
next day, I'm about to go get the ticket and return home.

She talked me into waiting for a while. Okay, I've waited. Nothing
changed.

As I'm going through this, I decided to go take a walk. And as I'm
taking the walk, I was kind of waiting. I was going to give God a little
opportunity.

I'll give Him, I should give Him a chance. He is God. Deserves a chance.

So here, I just, I take this walk, and I'm kind of waiting for God to
come and apologize. I'm kind of waiting, you know, for something to
break through and for the Lord to come and say, Don, I don't know what
to tell you. I'm sorry.

I just flat blew it, but I promise you, if you'll forgive me, I'll never
let it happen again. Or say, I don't know what I was thinking, but I was
just that stupid. I was just that carnal.

And I'm kind of waiting for something to happen that can kind of maybe
get me back on course. And out of nowhere, as clear as if it was autumn,
although it wasn't, but the Lord spoke to my heart, Don, is this going
to move you? And my first reaction was, I was angry, furious. And as I
analyzed that, I realized the reason I was angry is, first of all, to
me, that's my verse.

That is my verse. You got a whole book of verses. You want to come at
me, pick another one, but leave mine alone.

That's my testimony verse. That's my good verse. That's my friend verse.

You're turning it against me. I was upset about it. And then as my heart
calmed, I realized, okay, there's something going on here.

It was as if the Lord said, you know, sat down with me and said, Don, I
want you to understand something. If you're going to follow me and
you're going to walk with me, and we're going to last for 5, 10, 15, 20,
25, 30, 35, 40, 50 years, I can guarantee you right now, there'll be a
lot of times things in your life will happen you won't understand. And
if every time one of those things happen, you're out taking a walk,
trying to decide if you can go on with me, we're going to have a very
tough time.

Is this going to move you? Yes or no? In only 5 minutes, the Lord
completely turned the table on me after a week of struggle. This is your
decision. I'm not on trial here, you are.

It's your decision. Either it is or it isn't. And somehow or another, by
God's grace, as soon as that was clear to me, I realized that's it,
isn't it? I have a decision.

And I determined, okay, Lord, it isn't going to move me. And you know,
through the years, there's been a number of other things, no use going
through them, that have continued to happen in life. But many times, God
continuously brings it back.

It's not just a verse for a moment in time, it's alive. To be able to
look there all the way through it, and Paul was able to say, nothing
moves me. But secondly, Paul doesn't stop there.

He goes on and he says, nothing moves me. And then he, secondly, he
backs it up. He says, neither count I my life dear unto myself.

As if Paul says, you want to know why nothing moves me? I'll tell you
why. I'm a little different than you. Paul can say, none of these things
move me, because very frankly, my life isn't dear to me.

Paul was somebody who could say, oh, once it was. It was all about I,
me, my, myself. Saul of Tarsus, who he was, what he wanted, what he was
doing, what he was about, drove me every day.

But one day, I met somebody on the road to Damascus that became so dear
to me, that he absolutely replaced all the dearness I've ever had for
myself. He looked there and he said, there's this great secret there of,
you know, of looking there into where his life was never dear to him. It
isn't about me anymore.

Who I met on the road, more dearer than I ever dreamed of being. So
powerful, so wonderful, so glorious of a being to think he could replace
me. And I, I found a way I could be crucified with him.

And nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ lives in me. See him,
found him. First Corinthians, Second Corinthians 11, 23, Paul writes
about others and he says, are they ministers? Are they servants of
Christ? He's talking about some others.

He says, I speak as a fool. I am more. In labors more abundant, with
stripes of a major, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often.

From the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes, minus one. Three times
I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned.

Three times I was shipwrecked. In a night, in a day, I've been in the
deep. In journeys often, perils of waters, perils of robbers, perils of
my own countrymen, perils of the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in
the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brethren, and
weariness, and toil, and sleeplessness, often in hunger, and thirst, and
fastings, often in cold and in nakedness.

Besides the other things that come upon me daily. Look at this. Paul
looked there and he says, have they got it? They're a follower of
Christ.

And yet the slightest trial and they're gone. They split. He said, I may
speak as a fool, but he says, I know what it is.

He says, you know, let me tell you, anybody, you know, it's interesting,
a lot of people, I suppose at a distance, the average Christian in a
heartbeat would trade places with the Apostle Paul. Say, who would you
like to be if you could be Paul? Until you look at the small print.
Okay, you want to be Paul, you can be Paul.

By the way, you might be, this guy, he was in more prisons than he knew.
He didn't even keep a record. I would imagine most of you, maybe not all
of you, but most of you remember how many prisons you've been in.

You know, roughly. I mean, you got to guess at it. Paul didn't even
know.

Paul, when he traveled, all he kind of knew, I imagine he took out his
BlackBerry or whatever it was, however he had texted or emailed ahead of
the next city, probably simply asked, what's the prison like in town?
You know, we, when we travel, we want to get out, where's the Howard
Johnson's? What do the kids do? Where are we going to stop and eat? Paul
just simply said, tell me about the prison system. You know, is it, are
they into rods, stripes, bring your own food, will I be naked? Is it
cold down there, you know, or whatever? So I said, I'm going to be
there. But he was somebody there, let me tell you, a man whose life is
dear to him would never sign up for this.

A man that what his journey, what his existence was all about, he
wouldn't be there. He'd have quit a long time ago. But Paul continuously
persisted all the way through his life to live this life, knowing full
well all of these things that would constantly become, and there would
be no end to them.

That's the climate of the world and the culture in which he lived. But
Paul could look there and say, my life isn't dear. You know, the
interesting thing about it, you know, with it is, you know, God had this
wonderful way with us of testing.

A lot of people look there and say, my life isn't dear to me. My life
isn't dear. You know, I'm a good Christian.

I've given up my life. You know, the interesting thing, I'll tell you,
I've had a stroke, I lost an eye. I had another thing, you know,
emergency surgery a few years ago.

They thought I had a malignant tumor and it ruptured. I was literally in
a restaurant. I won't give you the gory details, but started spitting up
pure blood.

They rushed me in. I'm ingesting it. I'm losing consciousness.

I thought I was dying the first time, only time, really, I thought this
is it. But as I'm going through all of this, they ended up, the
diagnosis was a malignant tumor in my lung. And they ended up, they get
a doctor in there and things, a lung surgeon.

But here, you know, they ended up taking out a lung through the thing.
And by the way, I survived. I don't want to pass on any rumors here, but
I made it through.

But then I've had a hip replacement. They want to do the other one. And
I mean, it's interesting.

I mean, one of the things I've noticed about the Lord is that, you know,
we look and say, Lord, my whole life is yours. I would imagine tonight,
if I asked, I'd like a show of hands, how many of you have given your
whole life to the Lord? I would imagine most of us would say I've done
that. And I don't question that.

It's not my business to do that. But the interesting thing I've come to
find out about the Lord, I remember an equation. I don't know where I
learned it in school.

It's a very simple equation. Simply says the whole is equal to the sum
of its parts. Simple enough equation.

Whatever constitutes the thing that we call the whole, it's merely made
up of the sum of its parts. And I think so often we say, Lord, my whole
life is yours. But I've come to find that the Lord doesn't come and take
our whole life.

He comes for parts. Do you notice that? You know, at times, I mean, with
me, you know, the Lord comes and He says, great, your whole life is
mine. Yes, it is.

It's all yours. Comes and says, I want the eye. Who do you want the eye
for? What do you mean you don't have enough eyes? You know, whatever.

I'm taking the hip this time. I'm back in. I need a lung.

You know what I mean? I mean, God just, at least with me, the Lord just
keeps on coming for parts. You know, I want to say, Lord, I want to just
take the whole thing. No, we'll get to it eventually.

But only where God comes and He's got this amazing way to test if I've
really given the whole. How do I act when He comes for a part? My wife
literally wants to put on my tomb. May he rest in pieces.

I mean, she looks here, you know, wherever they are, you know, on the
thing. But the point is in life. What God does, I mean, I see enough
gray hairs here.

God's coming for parts, isn't He? So I need the glasses. Some of you are
looking over at me, squinting. I've been watching you squint.

Some of you are leaning over the earrings going, Thelma, what did he
say? I can't hear the guy. You know, or whatever. Your parts are going.

They go. How do we act when they go? Can we look there and say, nothing
moves me because my life isn't dear. You see, I mean, one of the great
journeys, our life never was intended to be dear.

That was the fall. That was the flash. That was the nature of a fallen
being.

But somebody that's met Christ has got a replacement, wonderful,
glorious replacement for himself. Far more glorious than he could ever
have been anyway. And when I look there and Paul could look and say,
nothing moves me.

Well, I've been dear. It didn't bother me. It didn't no more.

It's Him. And then Paul goes on to say, not only nothing has moved me,
neither count on my life dear to myself. He said, but that I may finish
my course.

Paul was also somebody that, I mean, this is just so filled with nuggets
to me of wonderful truth. Because Paul looked at his life. He says, my
course.

He said, I'm going to finish my course. As he's looking here at all of
these elders of Ephesus and saying, Paul, you can't do this. Paul looked
there and he said, I beg your pardon.

Nothing moves me. My life isn't dear. I have a course.

I'm going to finish my course. And here Paul looked at this, you know,
Paul looked at his life as a God ordained, God planned, God path, God
laid out process of life that he was looking there. Paul didn't look at
his life as a series of tragedies, a series of coincidence, a series of
shipwrecks, a series of attacks, perils of the land, perils of the sea,
perils of the Jews, perils of the Gentiles, perils among false brethren,
perils among robbers.

You know, this is my course. God has subjected me to every one of these
things. This was His plan.

This is what He ordained. This is my life. This is my work.

This is mine. Don't touch it. Don't take away from it.

It's my glory. It's what's made me live. It's what given me identity.

It's where I've discovered Him, where I've grown in Him. Everybody looks
at me and thinks I'm spiritual. No, I'm just a man that little by little
has found the depths of His presence in dungeons, in my back ripped
open, and through things that have healed, and there's maybe some scars,
but in it there's a light that was, it flowed in in those prisons.

There was a depth, there was a presence, there was a sense of reality I
found there that could have only come through this trials. You know,
Paul says about us as Christians, even so we glory in tribulation. All
of us.

We think Paul, you know, he wrote these wonderful epistles, like he's
sitting on the beach at Waikiki, you know, or something. What did I
write today? I mean, they're so beautiful. Like, you know, he's got this
little drink with a, you know, umbrella sticking in it or something
there, white sands.

What did I write today? Let's see here. No, he wrote him in dungeons. He
wrote him there where his life was, you know, threatened, where his back
is bleeding, and there he discovered a life that few even know exists.

I'm going to take this from me. Every one of us, when we can look at our
life, I remember when the thing happened with my eye. It's funny, my
wife, her father is a surgeon.

He's in heaven now, but from Mayo Clinic back east, and she loved
medicine and talking about it and him and things. But when I lost my
eye, my wife and I go to the doctor, and he, the ophthalmologist follows
up, and I'm in and out for every, like he wanted to see me every couple
weeks to watch the progress or whatever's going on with it. And I'd go
in, and I'd come back, and my wife said, what did he say? About what?
Well, what about this? Well, I don't know.

I didn't ask him either. If he had something to say, I figured he'd say
it. He looked in, checked it out, wrote some stuff down, asked me stuff,
what could I see, you know, and said, well, did you have? No, I didn't
answer.

He's got something to say, he'll tell me. And she did, so finally I
said, look, if you want to go with me the next time, you want to go, you
can go. So she said, I'm going.

So she goes with me. Next trip to the ophthalmologist, it was the
funniest thing, because I'm sitting there. And this guy, you know, he's
going through his thing, and my wife is sitting there.

She said, now tell me, doc, you know, we can fix this thing. You know,
we're going to put him on vitamins. There's so many great vitamins out
there.

And it was funny, because the doctor would say, well, vitamins are good,
but the eye's not getting any better. The retina's destroyed. And she
went on, you know, I mean, he's losing some weight.

You know, he's getting some weight, and we're watching his diet too.
Well, good diet, that's always good. But the eye isn't going to get any
better.

Now, and she starts going down there, now there's some herbs that I was
reading about, you know, stuff that you can take that help regenerate
stuff. And he said, well, go for it, that's fine. But the eye isn't
going to get any better.

You know, and so she's just sitting there trying to convince this
ophthalmologist he'd overlooked something in his education that she had
discovered. And it was just kind of, I'm just sitting there kind of
humored by it, frankly. But as I was sitting there, I've had a few times
in my life where the Lord just broke through.

And all of a sudden I'm sitting there. I get this incredible picture
where the Lord, it's like, you know, this doctor kept on saying, never
going to get better, never getting better. And I'm just sitting there
watching my wife, and it's kind of hilarious to me as she's going
through this, and he's trying to talk, explain to her, and she wasn't
going for it.

Well, anyway, so I'm sitting there. And to me, it was just like the Lord
just came to me, and we're walking down this hallway. And as we go down
the door, there's all on these doors, all the things you see in life.

Lord, I want to go through here. No, detour, not now, later. Each door,
it's kind of each door had later, not now, detour, maybe, pray about it.

All these different things written on doors. And I want to, can we go
through here? No, can we go through? And finally, we came to a door. And
on the door, it says, never get better.

And the Lord opened the door, never get better. And says, here, would
you go down this, through this door with me? And you know how it is when
you're kind of dreaming or something. You don't have anything to do with
it.

You're just doing it. Because I sat there like he'd asked me to go to
Disneyland. Really? You and me? Never get better.

Let's go. You know, and so, but the Lord spoke to me. He says, Don, this
is your course.

This is your course. Will you take it? Whatever it is that comes along
through it. And whether, you know, this whole thing, whatever it
happens.

When I had that bleeding in my lung, it ended up, I didn't have a tumor.
I mean, a malignant tumor. I'd had the acute chronic bronchitis that
rested on the main artery.

Ruptured it so much so that the main artery and it just flooded my body
with blood. And they had to go in and take out the, they thought it was
malignant. So they took out this lobe and did other things and closed me
up.

But the interesting thing is this doctor he comes, I'll never forget.
He's taking me into surgery. I'd never met him.

He's a pulmonary surgeon that had worked with the other ones in
emergency. That we got to get this guy in. He's drowning in his own
blood.

They brought me in and out of consciousness a couple of times. And I'm
thinking, boy, this is it. And meantime, this doctor comes along and
we're going down the hallway into surgery.

And the surgeon there, he introduces himself to me. He says, Oh, my name
is Dr. Fee. That was the name, Dr. Fee, F-E-E.

Let me guess, your first name's Big, you know, or something. But at any
rate, my name is Dr. Fee. And I said, and he said, look, I've been
working with the other doctors.

We realize what we got to do. We're going to take you in there. We're
going to, we think we're going to be fine.

And to me, I just found myself looking at him. I said, let me tell you
something. May I tell you? So I said, could you stop for a moment? He
said, okay.

I said, I'd like to share something with you. I said, I didn't know this
day might be coming, but I think I've been getting ready for this day
for a long time. He said, what do you mean? I said, I'm a Christian.

And we live as Christ dies gay. Absent of the body, present with the
Lord, I'm his. So doc, you give it everything you got.

But if it doesn't go, I'm fine. I'll never forget this guy looked at me.
Hold that thought.

You know, like, you know, good, positive mental attitude. And I grabbed
him. I said, no, this is true.

He was quite happy because I could see he wished all his patients felt
this way. But at any rate, the, but, but I, but I looked and I said,
yeah. And I said, no, doc, I'm saying this because it's true.

Do you believe this? And he says, well, obviously you do. And that's
what's important right now. We had some great talks later.

But to me, the issue in life is that when we can sit there, what God
wants to bring us to a place where we can say none of these things move
me, neither can I my life through my fear of self. And I have a course.
I've got a God ordained, laid out plan.

Every one of us do. Now the most interesting thing, most of us don't
like our course. Most of us look over and wish we had somebody else's.

And, you know, we're like Peter after Jesus, you know, rose from the
dead, comes back, calls Peter to himself. And then he tells Peter what
manner of death he's going to die. And Peter looks over and he says,
what about John? I'll take door number two.

You know, they give that one to him and I'll take the option. What's the
next option? I'll, you know, and Jesus, John, what do you care what I do
with John? This is your course. Will you take it or not? And, you know,
when we can look there and read and God, every one of us, you may not,
you know, the tragic thing is that many Christians don't believe there
is a course or they're on it.

Because I'll tell you, if you're in God's will and on his course, you're
probably right in the midst of all sorts of perils. Perils of the land,
perils of the sea, perils of the bank, perils of the home. You got
teenagers, peril with teenagers.

You got, you know, whatever it is. You got parents, perils, they're all
perils. One time or another.

Perils at the office. Perils, you know, with balance in the checkbook.
Perils with this.

This is where God looks at Paul, you know, he looked at his life, he's
listening to perils. But Paul looked at his life, no, it's my course.
And I think one of the most tragic things, I look at a lot of
Christians, not only they can't say nothing can move me, they can't say
my life isn't dear, and they can't look there and say, I've got a
course.

I'm going to finish my course and take your course. Well, you can look
there, maybe tonight you go home to an unbelieving husband or wife, you
get struggles with the office, you have struggles. And instead of
running from it, you say, okay, Lord, this is my course.

Let's take it. Let's live it. Whatever it is, you love me, you gave
yourself for me.

If you spare not your own son, will you not give me all things? I'm
yours. And here, you know, when we realize that we have a course, each
one of us, whatever it is, that is God. You know, and then when he wants
to take it, let him have it.

You know, it's interesting to me, one time with my eye, I was realizing,
you know, I lost my right eye, I lost, by the way. And Jesus in the
Sermon on the Mount, he says, if your right eye offended, pluck it out.
Better for thee than one of thy members should perish, and thy whole
body should be cast into hell.

I was thinking, must have been a naughty little fellow, whatever he was
doing. But anyway, whatever it is, God, you want it. You can have it.

Anything in my life, whatever it is, it's yours. And here, Paul, he
could look there and he says, and not only that, he says, nothing moves
me. I don't count my life given to myself.

And I'm going to finish my course. And then he said, I'm going to finish
it with joy. Paul could look at them, he says, I'm going to ring every
drop of magnificent joy you ever dreamed about.

I'm going to finish my, you know, with, you know, to me, this verse 40
years ago, and over that now, when it came to me, I mean, you know, I
loved it the day I got it, the day God spoke to me. It's only grown and
magnificent. Tell you the truth, when I first got it, there was
something about me, I was young, I was college, kind of an athlete,
wannabe athlete, never much one.

But anyway, you know, when I read it, one of my first things, I just
liked this guy's grit. It was almost like this guy said, you know, like
John Wayne, none of these things move me, neither count on my life given
to myself. And I may finish, you know, or something just, it was like,
it was like a tough guy.

I've come to realize this is one of the most magnificent men ever lived.
This is one of the most dear, godly, precious saints ever walked on the
planet. When you look there, and it only grows, and it's wonder, and how
beautiful, I only love it more, and more, and more.

It's kind of like a spiritual employment contract. Paul had with the
Lord, none of these moves me, I don't count my life given to myself. And
he says, and not only that, but I'm going to finish my course with joy.

You know, I'll tell you, for the last 40 years, you know, when I first
became a Christian, I didn't like the church. I came to Christ outside
the church. In fact, it was a very critical church out there.

The church is a mess. You take its organs away, its building programs
away, its thermostats away, all it wants to do is get your money, build
your building, do your little monuments to themselves. And at the time,
people need to be saved, and everything was happening outside the
church.

I was probably one of the most critical human beings you'll ever meet on
the planet about the church. They got their heads stuck in the ground, a
bunch of idiots. And one time I'm talking to somebody, and I'm just
venting all of this.

And all of a sudden, Lord spoke to my heart, it's clear again as if it
was audible. Something I'd read that morning, didn't even notice I'd
read it, passed right by it. All of a sudden, the words came back where
Jesus said, I love the church, and I gave myself for it.

And in the space of five seconds, all of a sudden I found myself
repenting and saying, Jesus, that's the rest of my life, a churchman. I
don't know what that means, and I don't like it, and I don't know how to
fit in, and I don't know where I'm going with it. But there's something
there where I look there, and Paul, he looked there, and I get around
the church, and frankly, I didn't like a lot of church people.

Sorry, no offense. But you know, when I was, I grew up in groups,
fraternities, athletics. You know, you got a team, you're all like each
other.

You get in a fraternity, you're all like each other. You all look
around, and you have all this common stuff. I look in church, and
frankly, I look at all these people.

I can remember literally one time telling the Lord, Lord, I want you to
know, I love you, but I do not like your friends. You know, I mean, just
thinking they are odd. I mean, look around.

Sorry, but I mean, it's, we're an odd, we're a peculiar people. But I
look there and say, the Lord says, these are your people. It's your
family.

Go feed them. And here, and Paul looks, he says, not only are you going
to do it, I'm going to love it. I'm going to do it with joy.

I got this course, and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it. To me,
tragically through the years, I don't know how many Christians I met,
they're going to heaven, but they're bitter. They're angry.

They're frustrated. They're in confusion. They got a whole list.

I don't know. I've actually met Christians, maybe you have too, that
actually have told me, you know, one guy even told me he had some, I
don't know if he was able to tell the truth, he said, I have some three-
by-five cards that I write down. I've got some questions for God.

I'm telling you, like, he's going to take them to heaven and take his
little three-by-five card to God. Now, I wonder, where were you, you
know, on September 7th, 1979 or whatever, and the Lord said, well, let
me go look it up. I'll have to see.

You know where, I mean, with these crazy, you know, you let me down.
What happened here? I don't know about you. I have no questions.

I'm appalled I even get to go there, to be a fly on the wall, let alone
to wake up in His likeness. And the thing is, I see a lot of people that
their trials, their frustrations, their perils have got them so
spiritually disjointed, all their joy is gone. They're bitter and
they're angry.

In fact, I've even got a suggestion. I've suggested I don't know if the
Lord's ever taken any of my suggestions yet, so I don't expect this to
happen, but another one of my suggestions was, I suggested right outside
of heaven, Lord, what I'd do instead of all these people going to
heaven, millions of them, hundreds of them, you have a line that'll go
on forever of people saying, Lord, I got to, I got to know, I got an
answer, I got to have this before I can go on. You know, instead of
doing that, why don't right outside of heaven just build this gigantic
arena? And outside on the arena, put a big sign that says, if you've got
a question or problem with God, come in here.

I would imagine it'd pack out. I imagine a lot of people just on their
way to heaven, they'd look at it, see questions, problems, bitter,
angry, upset. I'd be right there.

I'm going. You know, probably a lot of us maybe would do that, you know,
and things, but then I suggested, Lord, what you've got to do is you've
got to solve all these at once. You don't need just to have a long line,
one by one, talking to everybody.

Just have this huge arena. And then what I'd do is I'd take the arena
and I'd take some of your best friends who loved you to the end and gave
their life for you. People like Peter, who they say was crucified upside
down because he didn't consider himself to be crucified as his Lord.

Or like Isaiah, the one that is assumed by most expositors to be the one
who was cut in two for his faith. Or maybe take Stephen, who got to
preach his first sermon and they stoned him dead. Or I'd take John the
Baptist, who had his head cut off.

Maybe take Hannah, maybe take Naomi. I mean, you get quite a lot. I'd
get a little committee of people.

I'd wait till the whole place is packed out, let everybody sit there and
say, what are you doing here? Well, I'm upset with God, but let them
compare notes. They'll have a nice time for a while. You know, well, oh
man, my trials were worse than yours.

Let's look at what I got, you know, and then everybody have a great
fellowship of anger, bitterness and frustration for a while. And then
I'd wait till everybody's in there and packed out. I'd have this.

I'd have everybody on stage with a curtain and then I'd open up the
curtain. And then maybe what I'd do is maybe have John the Baptist be
the spokesman. That'd be great.

I mean, it'll all be easy to pick out, obviously. John will be the guy
holding his head. You know, I'll bet that's John.

You know, Peter will be the guy hanging upside down. Stephen will be the
guy that's obviously been stoned. Isaiah will be the guy who's beside
himself.

I mean, you'll be able to have, I mean, you look there and you'll be
able to pick him out quick. And then I'd have John say, folks, we
understand a lot of you had some trials in life and you're angry and
you're bitter and you haven't heard about all this. And it's just kind
of demoralized you and you're just struggling.

You can't go on. Your joy has been gone. And we want you to go into
heaven, wake in His likeness, be in His image and put all this stuff
behind you.

So we're just kind of a committee here to answer your questions. And
then any of you that are angry and bitter, you know, we want to field
your questions now. We'll do the best we can and then love to answer
them.

Can you imagine the silence that would come over the audience? Uh-oh.
Just my luck. Just my luck for the first time in my life I get front row
center.

John would look at me and say, you, well, you will start with you.
What's your problem? I don't have any problem. What are you talking
about? I'm fine.

No, no, no. You're here. You know, I mean, it said outside bitter,
angry, upset, you know, with God.

What are you doing here? Oh, I thought it was fellowship. I just came
for the fellowship. No, liars can't inherit the kingdom of heaven.

What is it? Well, I lost my eye. I could just see the whole audience.
For some reason, I think I shouldn't be in ministry.

I should be doing something else. But anyway, I could just see. I
visualized so much, but I could just see John.

They're like, for a moment, taking this in, turning to Peter. Peter, did
you? Isaiah. I mean, excuse me, Isaiah.

The poor fellow lost his eye. Would you like to help him? You know, Paul
says, I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be
compared to the glory. Paul could look there that no matter what he'd
gone through, he had this magnificent way of realizing, I'm going to
finish my course and I will finish it with joy.

It is going to take over my life. And, you know, to me, I think one of
the greatest, not close with this, I'm sure I'm way over time. But to
me, the one of the greatest observations I've had of revival is that
most people to me, that most deeply long for revival, truly long for it.

They're already living in a state of revival. They're just maybe praying
for others to know what they know, see who they see, love who they love,
driven by what they're driven with. If it's real passion and it's really
spirit guided, anointed called revival that's coming by Him, it'll be in
a vessel of somebody that they're a personal revelation of where they
wish the whole rest of the country came.

That you could look in them and they became the envy of the world. I
know what happened to me and transformed my life. I was a Christian.

I found myself out preaching and doing all sorts of things very
zealously. But when I met Alan Redpath, and he's in heaven, he died in
February of 89, but he was the first man to teach that I'd ever met and
I'd ever sat and I'd ever watched him. I never studied him.

I never read the things that he had to say that I found myself coveting
his life. Now I'd been around ministry and I got somehow that I was very
zealous and I was on campuses and I was doing all sorts of things. I was
around a lot of preachers and I had a lot of people I'd look at.

I wish they had their training. I wish I had that guy's skill. I wish I
had that guy's knowledge of Greek and Hebrew.

I wish I had that person's oratory, but most of them I didn't sit there
and think, I wish I had Christ like they do. The first one I really kind
of met. So I listened and in my heart, Jesus, I want to know you like he
does.

I want that life. I want that dynamic. And I followed him anywhere and
everywhere.

I got everything I could. I hounded him like a dog. Wherever he showed
up, he was nine months in the West Coast and he was all up and down.

Wherever I heard he was, boom, there I was. One of the things that was
so funny, years later, he took me. They became like family to him.

His grandson were planning missions with him now in Africa and in Tebbe,
Uganda. He was born and raised there. But he was on my staff for years
and now he's planting churches and Bible schools in Africa.

But Alan had taken me. Years later, when I realized what he had done to
my life, I remember one time I asked him, I said, Alan, I was so aware.
Why did you take me? Why did you disciple me like this? Cheating me, you
know, and things.

And he looked and he said, well, I'll tell you. The very time that this
happened, I was in the West Coast and I was asking, Lord, am I ever
supposed to have a Timothy? And there I realized I'd never had a
Timothy. Well, am I supposed to have one? And he said, so I thought,
Lord, if I am.

And he says, basically, everywhere I went, they're all gray hair, teeth.
And you were the only young guy that showed up everywhere. There you
were.

I go somewhere, there you were. I began to wonder, is he going to be,
there he is again. You kept appearing, you were everywhere.

And then what happened is at one time, I am over, he actually came to
the church that I was at, where my father-in-law was the chairman of the
board. We'd been there all week listening to him. The last night, we'd
gone home, my wife and I. The phone rang, we got home.

It was my father-in-law, and he said, I was asked to take Alan out for
dinner. Would you like to join us? I said, are you kidding? Boom. You
know, we're jumping in the car, getting back to the restaurant as quick
as we can.

They go have dinner with him. Meantime, unbeknownst to me, my father-in-
law and my mother-in-law are sitting there telling Alan about their son-
in-law. He's wonderful.

This guy, he loves the Lord. He's passionate. He's leading people to
Christ.

He's going to seminary. He wants to spend his life in Christian. They're
just building up this whole thing.

And we'd never really had much of an in-depth thing, but they're telling
him this stuff. I didn't know any about it. Well, so we end up coming
and sat down.

And he looks at me. And when I sit down, he says, young man, how are you
doing? I looked at him. I says, do you really want to know? He said, I
do.

I said, I'm ready to quit. And he says, I thought so. And it was the
most reassuring thing I'd ever seen.

It was just like that now we're ready to go somewhere. And one thing led
to another and invited me to come and be with him in England. And years
later when I asked him why he had allowed me to come, he said, well,
basically, you were the only guy that showed up at all of these things I
was praying about.

I'm supposed to have a Timothy. There you were. And I'll never forget, I
looked at him one time.

I said, so you mean to tell me if there'd been another one? And before I
could say any more, he says, we'll never know. But the thing is, is that
there was something about him. There was a love.

There was a radiance. Well, there was a depth in Christ and there was a
walk and there was things that you just long to, but most of there was a
radiant, something that just flowed. There was a grace, a life.

And I found myself saying, that's what I must have. I, Lord, show me how
it is. And when we look there and realize, God, give that to me.

I want to finish my course and I want to enjoy it all, all of it. And
then he closes by saying that I may finish my course with joy and the
ministry that I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of
the grace of God. Everywhere I go, I get to tell everybody else in the
rest of the world they can have this life too.

It's available to all of them. Anybody wants it. Not exclusive to me.

They can know this life. They can know this joy. They can know this
victory.

They can know this power. They can have it any time they want. And you
know, maybe tonight, some of you, the Lord may be touching you and
saying, I want to give this verse to you.

As far as I'm concerned, you have it. It's not mine. I stole it from
Paul.

But maybe tonight, some of you are realizing, Lord, write that on the
tablet of my heart. I want to be able to say nothing of it. Neither
count on my life, dear unto myself, but that I may finish my course with
joy and the ministry that I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify
of the gospel of the grace of God.

I had a taxi bring me over here tonight. And another thing, a Scotsman,
getting a Scotsman to take a taxi. You're good.

You're good. But anyway, I gave him. But I'm sitting there with this
fella.

I said, tell me about yourself. You grew up here? And one thing later,
he said, what do you do? I said, I'm a pastor. He says, really? He says,
are you Christian? I said, yes, I am.

Born again? I said, I am. He says, so am I. I said, are you really?
Well, I was. I said, what do you mean, was? He said, well, you would
probably call me Baxter.

And he said, now I'm just kind of doing rock and roll and I've been
away. I said, you know, you belong. Yeah.

You know, you're away. Yeah. You remember that life? Yeah.

So when are you going back? I said, I'm praying for you. In fact, you
can pray for him. His name is David Scott Davis.

But here as we talked and shared, he said, David, you got to come home.
You're away from home. I look in your eye right now and you know where
you belong.

He says, I do. But when we look there in our life, God, just give me
this joy, the opportunity to share it wherever I go. Amen.

Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, we thank you for Paul, this
incredible man. And Lord, as we look at his life and just wonder, what's
the secret? How was he able to live above it all? How was he able to
live a life for decades in between the frying pan and the fire and just
to go back and forth? And all he did, he didn't just survive, he
thrived.

Lord, I pray that as he shares his heart, he says, it's no secret.
Here's how I did it. Lord, forgive us.

Maybe some of us were moved so easily. We come here and we're one thing.
We go home and we're another.

We go to work tomorrow and we're another. We're moved all over. Lord, I
pray that we would look and say, I want to be the same everywhere.

And Lord, if it's because my life is dear and I'm just protecting myself
and I get hurt and all of a sudden I scream. But Lord, I want to be able
to say nothing moves me. If my life isn't dear, I found you.

And Lord, I want to finish. I'll take my course. I'm not running away
from it.

I'm saying, God, give me another with somebody else's. But tonight we
can say, Lord, I want to finish my course. I want to live in revival
right now and enjoy that overflows.

And I want to do it with joy. I want to do it in victory. And Lord, and
be able to have the ministry and share that I've received from you to
share with the world the grace of God.

So, Lord, may you take your word and feed us and teach us. We ask it in
Jesus name. Amen.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/bh9yOsIPY0I.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/don-mcclure/nothing-moves-me/
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