The Message

I have a wonderful message for you today. The message I have for you is that God is in process this very moment of tearing down the walls that hold you back from being all that He wants you to be. God is doing something in your life to reunite and build bridges with family members, with associates, with your co-workers, with your fellow students, and with friends. God is in process of tearing down the walls that keep you from being all that He has called you to be. Today, we are going to look at these walls and we are going to see how God tears them down so that He can build us up.

Recently, I saw one of the great new sites there is to see in Southern California. I went to Simi Valley as the guest of Bill Chatfield, who is the Director of the Selective Service System. He invited me to an event at the Reagan Presidential Library where I had the opportunity to listen to Nancy Reagan speak and see the new building which houses Air Force One, the 707 airplane which was used by Ronald Reagan when he was President. While there, I was reminded of one the most interesting lunches I've ever had. The most interesting lunch I've ever had was with a man by the name of Armand Hammer. Armand Hammer was the chairman of Occidental Petroleum; he was connected between the East and the West like no other human being. When we had lunch with him there were probably 6 others sitting around the table and he turned to us and he said, "Lenin told me¡K¡K." How about that for an opening sentence to get your attention? I have never in my life met anyone who ever claimed to have talked to Lenin. I am talking about the Lenin that is in the tomb that is in Red Square. Armand Hammer said, "Lenin told me, communism will not work." Hammer continued, "I talked to Gorbechev and I told him what Lenin told me. I told Gorbechev that he needed to meet with our President, Ronald Reagan." Gorbechev told Armand Hammer, "I don¡¦t want to meet with him; after all he calls us an evil nation." Armand Hammer told Gorbechev, "the President needs to meet with you and you need to meet with the President. We need to tear down these walls, we need to bring freedom, and we need to get rid of these weapons and you two need to meet." Then Armand Hammer met with President Reagan and he told him the same thing. It wasn't long after that we saw President Reagan standing in front of the wall and telling Gorbechev, "Take down this wall that separates the East and the West." It wasn't long after that we saw on the news the wall started to come down with the hammers hitting against the wall and they pushed the walls down and the walls came down with a crash. I had some dear friends who went there right after that and they gave me a big chunk of that wall. I since took it apart and gave pieces of it away and I now have a little piece left of the Berlin wall to remind me that God is in the process of breaking down walls. God wants to break down the walls in your life. He wants to break down the walls that separate you from the people that you care about the most. He wants to break down the resentment, He wants to break down the fears, He wants to break down the doubts, He wants to break down all the negativity that holds you back from being the person that He has called and intends you to be.

God is in process of doing that and He has been doing it forever. If I go back and look in the bible, you can go all the way back to 1700 years before Jesus Christ and we see an account of God tearing down the walls. Joshua is entering the Promised Land, the land that God gave to him and the first thing he encounters is the walls of Jericho. God gives him instructions, saying, "You will take 7 priests and they will blow seven ram horns as they walk around the city and they will do that every day for 7 days and at the end of 7 days everybody will shout and the walls will come tumbling down." That sounds like a good fairy tale, doesn¡¦t it? Would you believe that something like that is going to tear down the walls? Well, the historical facts that we have in the bible and all the archeological evidence proves it exists. First there was the fore guard, followed by the priests blowing their horns, followed by the Ark of the Covenant, followed by the rear guard. Every day these men would walk around the city of Jericho, just once, and for seven days they did that for just once each day, no noise except the horns. On the 7^th day they walked around the city 7 times and after they walked around it 7 times everybody gave a loud shout and the walls came tumbling down. God has been tearing down walls for centuries and millenniums. He wants to tear down the walls that imprison you and keep you from being the person He has called you to be.

Today our ministry has walls that need to be torn down. We are facing severe financial problems right now; we've had tough Octobers before, we know that October is our toughest month, it always has been, probably always will be. However, this October has been worse than ever and the income that we expected to come in just has not been there. We believe and have concluded that the finances which normally come to this ministry have gone to Katrina aid, have gone to Tsunami aid are now going to Earthquake aid. As a result we do not have the money to pay the bills. We have barely been able to pay our payroll and our essential bills, such as the utilities. If there is anything that you can do to support this ministry; if you have ever considered supporting the Hour of Power and the Crystal Cathedral and you've wanted to know when is the time? Now is the time. Now is the time. Help us tear down this financial wall that has been built between us and being able to do everything that God has called us to do to carry this message to the corners of the globe. Today I know that God is in process of tearing down walls.

I know that God is in the process of tearing down walls in your life. God is in the process of tearing down that which holds you from being the person He's called you to be. He's in that process right now. There is a friend of mine, a doctor, by the name of Edward Taub. Years ago he wrote a smoking cessation program which has several steps to it. What is interesting about these steps is how people break down the wall that destroys their health. But at the same time you can use every single one of these steps, with the exception of one, to break down your walls in your own life. Let me go through the steps you can use.

To begin, set a date seven days from now where you are going to break through the wall, you're going to stop your addiction, you're going to build a bridge between you and your employer, you're going to build a bridge between you and your employee, you're going to build a bridge between you and your parents, a bridge between you and your children, a bridge between you and whomever that other person may be. You're going to set that date seven days from today. What date would that be? It¡¦s going to be Sunday. It¡¦s going to be Sunday morning. That is the day you¡¦re going to start, seven days from today. So set a date seven days from today.

The next thing you're going to do is spend time in prayer. Several times a day you are going to go outside and just feel the natural breezes, feel the coolness of the night, feel the warmth of the day, feel the wind, feel the rain. Go outside and pray, at night you can look up and see the stars. You¡¦re going to do that for seven days.

Next, you're going to eat raw food with every meal. That means you're going to eat raw nuts, not cooked nuts, you know that roasted nuts don't count, they have to be raw, you're going to eat raw vegetables, that means carrots and broccoli or whatever kind of vegetables you like, and raw fruits, that means not canned. You can have frozen foods but not canned foods, so you're going to eat something raw with every meal because most people do not get enough enzymes and that¡¦s where all the enzymes live in the raw foods. Then you¡¦re going to take a brisk walk, walk fast enough and hard enough to get your heart beating a little bit, so take a brisk walk and do that every day.

Next, you¡¦re going to do something special for someone every day. So today would be a great day to start. You can do something like letting somebody who is behind you in the grocery line go ahead. My son was telling me on Valentine¡¦s Day he bought a bunch of paper hearts and wrote little love notes on the hearts and scattered them on the bed for his wife. Isn't that romantic? Well who says that you¡¦re only allowed to do that on Valentine¡¦s Day? You could wash your husband¡¦s or wife¡¦s car. How about that? There are hundreds of things we can do that would be nice for someone, something special. Go out of your way to do something unusual for someone every day. Lastly, here¡¦s the tough one, this is the one that gets people stuck. If you can do this you will break through all of the walls that are before you today. Make a promise to God that you¡¦re going to break through the walls, and you¡¦re going to do what you know you need to do and you¡¦re going to make a permanent change in your life.

You have to make that promise and when you can do that, it changes. On the 7^th day as the Israelites walked around Jericho seven times, Joshua gave the command and everyone shouted at the top of their lungs and the walls came tumbling down. I can¡¦t tell you how badly I want to shout right now! Do you want to shout and bring those walls tumbling down? Well guess what, we're not ready to do that yet. Seven days they walked around before they shouted, that means in seven days from today we can shout and we can bring down our walls. Then, we can carry on with the life and the walk that God has called us to walk.

Yesterday, when I was at the Reagan Presidential Library I noticed one of Ronald Reagan¡¦s quotes. It is one that I would love for my own life and this is what it said, ¡§I hope history will record that I appealed to your best hopes not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts.¡¨

Today I want us to leave here knowing that we are going to spend 7 days facing, believing, praying, knowing that God is in process of tearing down the walls and next week when we come here we are going to give a shout and the walls are going to come down. Will you pray with me?

Dear Heavenly Father you are a God of miracles. You are a God who is in the process of building bridges, mending fences and helping people to understand that they are your children, so bring healing and hope and goodness and grace into our lives. Open our eyes that we might see Your glory at work, today, tomorrow and always. Amen.