You can attend church, you can look nice, you can do all that says, “I’m a Christian.” BUT are you?

<p>You can attend church, you can look nice, you can do all that says, “I’m a Christian.” BUT are you?</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Talking Donkey International

Country Wisdom Season 1

Jim Ayer

Janice Nelson

01 The Final Decision

Hey, welcome everybody to Talking Donkey International and our new television series, Country Wisdom.

Let's set the tone for this new series of ours.

Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you.

Ponder the path of your feet and then all your ways will be sure.

Every city in America is basically the same thing is happening.

You know, this is not the country I grew up in.

It's probably not the country you grew up in.

The court system, it didn't look like it once did.

The Constitution, not many people are following the Constitution anymore.

We talk about it, but Where's our rights to speech anymore?

You don't normally see these things happening everywhere and things going on like this, but let me tell you, things are changing.

Well, he sees the end from the beginning and he's told us time after time.

When you see these things come to pass, know that it's just about to happen.

And I could spend a day with you at least on a Bible study to show you, we are in the last moments of earth's history.

These things are gonna continue to happen.

These events are going to get worse and worse and worse.

So today I want to share with you an amazing story, it's a story of Lot.

Let me read for you, it's found in Luke chapter 17 verse 28, Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built.

But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

Even thus shall it be, listen to this now, Even thus shall it be in the days when the Son of Man come." It's gonna be just like in the days of Lot.

Well, you see, Lot, Abraham had said, Lot, we're getting too big.

Well, he looked down at the cities and he wanted the city.

He loved all the, everything happening in the city.

You know, the malls and, well, you know, they didn't have malls, but you know where I'm going with this.

Well, he went down in that city and pretty soon he was involved and his family were involved in kind of all the vices and the sin and the garbage.

Flood tried to stay away from it, but he really couldn't.

And God says, The same thing is going to happen to us all the cities the good things of the cities They'll begin trapping us and holding us tighter and tighter and when Jesus comes We have no opportunity to really look to him.

We have no opportunity to go with him The story we're about to show you today took place 4, 000 years ago, but it's happening today all over.

You see, events of the Bible, there's nothing new we know under the sun.

And my question to you is, what are you going to do here?

As you watch this story, put yourself in this story and think about it.

Choose what's going to happen in your life.

Candace, thank you so much for getting back to me.

I really, really want to be involved in this project of yours.

Oh, a new youth center is going to make such a difference in that whole neighborhood.

I'm sorry, I had to take that phone call.

I have 2 really cool guys for dinner tonight.

Yes, yes, they have something important to talk to us about.

Show them around, show them the work that we're doing in the East Garden.

Oh, and take the landscaper sketches with you.

Let them see how gorgeous it's going to be when it's all finished.

I need to go and warn Consuela that we have 2 extras for dinner.

I'm going to let it go to voicemail, the same way I did the last 3 times she called.

But could you turn that down or maybe even off?

I don't know how you can listen to the news all day long.

I discovered a long time ago that life is easier if you don't pay too close attention.

Although I suppose it's different when you can't understand most of it.

Shelby, honey, are you done with your meeting already?

02 Hiding in a Cave

Hey, welcome, everybody, to Talking Donkey International and our new television series, Country Wisdom.

As you can see, it's filled with rocks, a lot of dust, mesquite, junipers, but there's something else that this whole area is full of.

And you know, I can't help but think that as often as I've been down in some of these caves in this area, I have been in a cave of a different type way too often because periodically due to circumstances or whatever my own fears, I have found myself retreating into an emotional cave, a cave of depression, of fear, of anxiety, where I'm not really functioning like I usually do, like I'm supposed to.

And I've discovered though, that even when I have been deep and dark in a cave, the moment that I actually turned my thoughts back to God instead of just inward into my own headspace, which can be a dark place, when I determined to turn to God, he's right there.

I just wasn't seeing him because I was looking inside so much.

But I turned to him and every single time, no matter how deep a cave I've dug for myself, he's been right there.

This is what's so exciting, Janice, because he's the God of the mountaintops and he's also the God in the caves.

God is everywhere, God is always searching for us, and God always wants to help us.

I'm sure you're aware of Abraham Lincoln, this amazing man in the United States, but probably what you didn't realize is some of the things he said and the things he felt in life.

I've got a little quote I wanna share with you.

If what I feel were distributed to the whole human family, There would not be 1 cheerful soul on earth.

I must die to be better." Wow, what an unbelievable quote.

Then I have another 1 here I want to share with you.

Spurgeon, greatest preacher maybe who ever lived, he wrote a book, Lectures to My Students, and in those lectures he devoted an entire chapter to depression.

He said, listen, fits of depression come over the most of us.

Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down.

You see, I believe God uses those times to lift us up, to remind us He's God.

He continues, The strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always courageous, and the joyous are not always happy.

You see, being a Christian doesn't mean you're always going to be happy, you're always going to be joyous.

There was a man of God in the Bible and it's so interesting to me because God doesn't sugarcoat his people of the Bible.

He lays it right out there and 1 of those men that had real troubles, a real, what would I say, a real cave experience was Elijah.

During his time, Ahab, the king of Israel, was a nasty, evil, ornery, vindictive man.

And he was leading, quote, the children of Israel.

God told Elijah, I want you to go tell that man I'm withholding, I'm closing up heaven, I'm shutting off the rain so he knows who God really is, because they were worshiping Baal and all these other gods.

He puts his finger right in his face and said, look, There is a real God of heaven.

God is shutting off the rains and He turned and He left Now God continued to feed this man as the rain stopped in the country that there was no more rain for 3 and a half years God continued to feed this man during that period.

And let me tell you, things got really bad.

Why, the moss that was once green and beautiful, there was nothing anymore.

Ahab began sending out scouts and people to little creeks and things that there were still anything left to find grass for the horses and the donkeys and and the various animals.

As we get toward the end of this this time frame, God sent him to a person outside of Israel.

This woman who was a sweet, sweet, kind woman, just her and her son, lost her husband some time ago.

She'd been gathering sticks and he says, please bring me some water.

She goes, she comes back, she brings him a cup of water and then he said, bring me a little something to eat, a little biscuit.

Please sir, I only have enough meal and just a little oil in the flask.

We were going to eat that ourselves and then die.

He says, no, he says, you go ahead get that for me first.

My son, do I trust this guy who I've never met but he seems different.

Well she does and an amazing thing is this went on for month after month after month and the oil Continued to stay in the flask and the meal continued to stay it it never ran out for for such a long long time And then 1 day Her son dies She goes to this man of God and she said, did you just do all this?

She said, just to bring me to this point that my son is dead?

He takes the son, he goes up into this upper chamber, He lays the son out.

Healing does this time after time after time.

And finally, all of a sudden the child coughs, gasps, and he's fine, takes the child back to the mother.

You see, Ahab had searched for a long, long time.

Matter of fact, it was a situation that every time someone spotted him this man of the king would run back to the king and say, King, I found him, I found him.

You see, God always told him what was going to happen, and he would leave.

And Ahab would be so mad he'd kill that man.

Well, finally, God says, make yourself known.

So 1 day he placed himself exactly where he knows that this man of Ahab is going to show up.

And this fellow was a believer in the true God.

But he comes up to Elijah and Elijah says, hey, I want you to go tell Ahab where I am.

Oh sir, I can't do that because as soon as I go off and tell you leave you you'll go someplace else and when the army gets here you'll be gone and I'll be dead.

Well Elijah tells him no no I will be here I will be here And so he runs off to go and tell the king.

For 3 and a half years this vengeful king had looked for this man of God and now he had him right there in front of you said you you are the troubler of Israel of course Elijah said no no king you have this all wrong you were the 1 you and your people have gone down the wrong pathway You want to know who God is?

I'll meet you on top of that mountain later today and we will discover and find out who the real God of heaven is.

On that fateful day, the people came from everywhere.

The word had gone out that the man of God was going to meet up on the mountaintop here.

Well, people came out just to know, and they wanted to know, was there ever going to be any rain again?

03 The Little Caboose

♪♪ Janice, this is exciting because we're here in Ray Road Park in Dunsmuir and this was your caboose at 1 time.

I'll try to cut it down for you, but my father loved trains.

He worked for the railroad for Southern Pacific right here in Dunsmuir when he and my mother were first married.

And in fact, he was a fireman on the Southern Pacific Division running the Shasta line.

Now, only a little after a year, I think, the war hit.

My dad was gone for the next 3 years, but he never lost his love of trains.

Every year when I was a kid, we would vacation up here in Dunsmuir, and we would walk the railroad tracks and search for trains and I just loved this area.

Now he died when I was only in high school, but he would get such a kick out of the fact that I live nearby now, that I'm up in this area.

And a little while ago, my brother called me.

Now my brother doesn't call very often, but he had a reason and it had to do with this caboose.

You see, when I was about 3 or 4 years old, I got probably the best playhouse in the history of little girls and playhouses because my dad bought that caboose.

Man, I'm glad to get in on the rain here.

This brings back memories, good memories.

You have no idea how many hours I spent in this caboose as a child.

In fact, Railroad Park uses this as a rental now.

People can come and spend the night in a genuine caboose.

There used to be a couple of bunks that folded up against the wall right there that would come down.

And back in the days when this really ran on the Shasta Division, crew members would take their breaks.

They could sleep during when they weren't on shift.

And there was a little pot-bellied stove.

I mean, a beautiful little iron pot-bellied stove that was over in that corner and up those steps, they're really narrow, there was storage and you can see how it goes up.

I used to love getting up, sitting on the benches up there, looking out the windows.

Because when you're 3 or 4, or 6 or 7 or 8, being up there felt like I was in my own world.

I could read, I could look out the window and just daydream.

It was a wonderful spot to just look out at life.

Now this thing is as big as somebody's apartments today.

You know, a three-year-old girl, you had it all to yourself.

Well, I had to share with my brother and sister.

You see, I liked having tea parties, playing with my stuffed animals, and then my brother John would come and say, All right Janice, back in the house.

They would play games where they were sometimes soldiers, sometimes they were cavalry.

This caboose has had more lives inside, more imagination.

It was just a wonderful place to grow up.

Now I may put you on the spot, but what was a caboose for in the first place?

Actually, it served a really good function.

You know that when you talk about somebody being a caboose, they're the rear end.

And that cupola, that area up above, crewmen would sit up there because from that vantage point, they could look down either side of the train.

They were watching for things like sparks from the wheels.

Any issues going on, they could keep watch from there.

A lot of trains used to start fires on the tracks.

In fact, I told you my dad was a fireman.

I honestly don't know if they still have that position on a train.

And he spent a lot of time in this caboose because this caboose ran on the Shasta Division the same years that my dad worked there.

And number 777 that's pretty interesting.

Now you might have noticed when we go back outside I'll refresh your memory Right now it's bright yellow and it says Erie Lackawanna, but in her heart she is still Southern Pacific.

Here at the Dunsmuir Railroad Park, they had several Southern Pacific cabooses already.

So they spiffed her up and turned her into something else because they didn't have an Erie Lackawanna caboose.

How does it make you feel being, how many, oh no, I can't ask that, little lady, I guess, how many years has it been?

Forget I asked that, but How does it make you feel being back in your...

Oh, no, I can't ask that, love of a lady.

But how does it make you feel being back in your...

Because, as I said, it brings so many memories back.

I can remember running up and down those stairs, climbing up into the benches.

Out that door in the front was my house and out this door in the back was my grandmother's house.

But on the other hand, it makes me realize that we've both gotten a little older.

He bought it for, well as I said, I had to share with my brother and sister, but I felt like it was mine.

So you had a father that really, really loved you.

04 How Big is Your God

♪♪ Hey, welcome everybody to Talking Donkey International and our new television series, Country Wisdom.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Look at that view, Jim.

I don't know about you but when I come up to a place like this out in the mountains all these trees rocks that view I can't help it but I just feel so much closer to God.

You look out at the expanse of his creation.

And what's amazing to me is that there are people who don't even believe he exists.

And you know the exciting thing is, the same God of the Bible is the same God today.

And folks, I'd like to tell you, stay tuned, because I'm gonna share with you things that God is doing today.

You'll discover He's alive and He's well.

But there are some people who, Even though they believe in God, they think that maybe He created everything and then He put it on autopilot.

It's just running, it's just doing His thing, and He's not involved in humanity at all.

And a matter of fact, the Bible talks about something else.

Listen to what it says in Hebrews chapter 8, or excuse me, chapter 13 in verse 8.

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

In Malachi chapter 3, verse 6, I am the Lord and I do not change.

So as we read things in the Bible, for instance, there's a story in Luke and chapter 7, Jesus with his disciples is walking along the street and he sees a funeral.

He approaches the funeral and he sees a young boy that's dead.

The mother is weeping and it says he has compassion on the mother.

He goes up, he touches the boy, the touch of God.

The Creator God reaches down and he lifts that boy up.

See, every funeral that's recorded in the Bible that Jesus came across a dead person, he raised them from the dead.

And I submit to you, he's the same God today.

Here's an example, we were traveling in Ethiopia and we were looking for a specific story.

A fellow that I heard, he'd been a fortune teller for almost 40 years, but his life had changed.

You see, a fortune teller, they control the village, they control the people, they control everything.

And this man would tell a fortune, and you better pay attention to it, you better listen, because if you didn't, you could die.

For someone who died in the village, he said, that's because they didn't listen to me.

Everybody's scared of the fortune-teller, And a matter of fact, he's rich because he charges a lot to tell your fortune.

A cow, a pig, a sheep, a goat, something like that.

And when he became a Christian, he wanted nothing to do with that anymore.

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