Loma Linda Broadcasting Network (LLBN)

The team was behind. There was 1 second to play. The kid is only 5'9". He ran around, he almost got caught--but somehow he threw the ball all the way down the field--and 1 guy jumped an inch higher than 3 other guys--and won the game! They call it a Hail Mary. It happened tonight (Arizona). Impossible. There's no way. But it happened! A pay phone rings, pastor picks it up, 2000 miles away from home, a lady going to commit suicide punches random numbers--gets the pas...tor she was looking for. Impossible. It happened. Man can't fly. Can't go to the moon. They want me to build a mission hospital boat for the Philippines--$65,000. It's impossible. A new hospital would be like 1.5 billion dollars in Loma Linda. Impossible. It's up. I met a couple last week who got married at 15 and 16. Hopeless. Been married over 60 years! And God says to Mary: "'Nothing is impossible with God'" (Luke 1:38). Jesus says the twin verse--"With God--everything is possible!" (Matt. 19:20). Memorize it--NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE--EVERYTHING POSSIBLE. 100 times I've gone home and told Hilda--"We're stuck. It's unsolvable. There's no way." And the next day--it's done. For COURAGE #7 I point you to "THE GOD OF THE IMPOSSIBLE". The angels said it. And they know Him. Courtesy of Pastor Dan Smith

COURAGE #6: "You first, God" That's what you and I would have said! Joshua told the priests carrying the Ark out in front: "'As soon as your feet touch the water, the river will stand up like a wall!'" (Josh. 3:13). God said He would be with Joshua, the same as He was with Moses. He said everybody would know that God was with him. How would they know? Because the water opened up. How will the water open up? When they stepped in. "God, you go first." "No, YOU go fi...rst. Show Me you believe Me!" What do we say? "Give me more time, God, and I'll read the Bible more! Give me more money, then I'll give more. Get me nicer people to work with, and I'll be a better Christian around them. Make my kids better, I'll quit yelling at them. You first, God!" It's that first step that takes all the COURAGE. Easy when path is clear. But when you can't see how God's going to work it out--but you step in anyway--that's Courage. So--Start. Do something. God wouldn't tell Abraham where they were going--until he started. "Pick up your mat--and walk." Cleaning out the garage starts with putting some boxes out. Jogging starts with putting your shoes on. Dating starts with a first date. Miracles start--when somebody steps into a flooded river--and just trusts God to open it up. What flooded river do you need to cross today? Step in--and watch God unlock and unfreeze and clear the fog and open the way to the Promised Land on the Other Side! Courtesy of Pastor Dan Smith

What are you afraid of? Me? Snakes. 42 so far in our backyard. Golf shots over a lake. Parachute jumping. Double-black ski runs. Shots. When the truck died in the middle of a night safari with lions around. When someone says, "Can you say a few words" to a big crowd, with no chance to prepare. When the elders ask to have a meeting with you and don't tell you what's about! When my name might come up in the Judgment! BUT--COURAGE #5 says: "Perfect love casts out A...LL FEAR!" (1 John 4:18) Don't think it's talking about parachute jumping! But the angels said, "Be not afraid!" to the Shepherds when Jesus was born. No more fear, especially no fear to get close to God. When God shouted the Ten Commandments from the top of a mountain, they ran with fear, "Don't let Him talk to us like that again--He can talk to you, and you talk to us, but if He talks to us, we will die!" The angel told Zecharias Jesus would come so we could live without fear. 2 Tim. 1:7 "we are not given to fear and timidity but to power and love!" So I had to go through all my beliefs, and take out all fear--fear of being lost, fear of the Last Days, fear of the Judgment. I'm still trying to learn not to be afraid, when somebody asks me to build a $65,000 mission hospital boat. To trust that He helped me build the last one, He can do it again. That He gave me the words to speak for the last crowd, He can do it again. We're told it's the reason Jesus came--to get rid of living in fear. So sweep away all fear, and live in crazy, bold confidence today! Courtesy of Pastor Dan Smith

COURAGE #4: One part of getting older is, you have more mistakes to remember! Times I have retreated, under pressure. Instead of being like the original Daniel, when I heard the lions roaring, I gave in to the critics. When people said building a new church was too big--I gave in. When I felt inspired to hold a big series of meetings in Chicago, with the Heritage Singers and everything, when I was accused by one person of doing it just i could look good, I gave in. I s...hudder to think of all the difficult issues avoided. Challenges not embraced. Vacations and trips not taken. Too often I took the "Road Well-Traveled". Chances to preach something new but non-traditional--thrown away. Stayed in the box when should have gotten out. But the writer of Hebrews says, someday we will be like the Giants of Faith in Hebrews 11. "For we do not belong to those who SHRINK BACK and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved" (Heb. 10:39). It says those people shut the mouths of lions and routed foreign armies. They were whipped, in chains, sawed in two, and lived in the holes in the ground. But they didn't quit. They didn't shrink back. And so I have vowed--no more shrinking back! Only faith. If God says to preach it, I'm going to preach it. Build that church, I'm going to build it. Challenges? Go straight towards them. I refuse to be part of "those who shrink back and are destroyed" any more. You? Courtesy of Pastor Dan Smith

Morning, everybody! COURAGE #3: One of my favorites, Jeremiah 1. God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet, and Jeremiah says, "I don't know how to speak, and I'm too young." Ever said anything like that? I'm not good enough. I don't have enough money. I don't have enough time. There are other people better than me. They ask me to be on TV, "I'm too bald!" Too old. And God just sort of erupts: 'Don't you ever say, I'm too young!"' Or too anything. If God calls us, we ca...n do it. Because: 'I will put MY Words in your mouth..... Say whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them. I will make you a fortified city, a wall. They will fight you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you.' thus declares the LORD." Even after 46 years of preaching, the demons still come--"You're not good enough. Nobody's going to listen." The demons came after Jesus in the Garden and on the Cross--"You'll never see the Father again." "Nobody cares, you're going to be buried in a grave and that's it." But Jesus stayed with it. Whatever you have in front of you--a tough project, a personnel issue, a remodel project, a credit card debt, anything--hear God say to you today--"If I called you to do it, don't say you can't! I will put My words in your mouth. I will make you a wall. They can fight you, but they will never overcome you! For I am with you!" Amen? Amen! Courtesy of Pastor Dan Smith

Courage #2: My father and I went down to hear Gardner C. Taylor, widely considered the greatest black preacher of maybe all time, who preached in an Adventist black church downtown LA. Unbelievable, fantastic. "'I will never leave you,'" (Hebrews 13:5). He talked about a large, old black lady in his church, who followed her husband down the hall of the hospital, on the gurney, until he got to the door into the OR--when she had to stop. He didn't make it. At the funeral,... just before they closed the casket for the last time, sobbing, chest heaving, she cried out, "I done gone as far as I can go with you, Fred!". Then Taylor said, "But Jesus says, 'I will NEVER leave you.'" My grandfather used to come onto the plane with us when we left for Thailand, to be gone 4 or 5 years. But then they would tell him to leave, all of us crying. But God says, "I will never leave you." And then it came to the end, with the crowd of black preachers shouting back at him--when he threw back his head, and shouted, as only black preachers can do, "And Jesus says to you today, 'I WILL NEVER, NEVER, NEVER leave you!'" Standing ovation. I'll never forget it. One of the last things I got to do with my father. Then he left too. But the verse says--"I will NEVER leave you." Hear the Word of the Lord today! May God bless you all today. Courtesy of Pastor Dan Smith