Here's Paul.
How did Paul describe himself?
I've got an ailment.
That's why I ended up preaching to you
Galatians.
Paul's got some kind of disease or something.
He says to the Corinthians, you count my
bodily presence as really not very intimidating.
They basically said, his presence is weak.
He claimed weakness, fear, trembling.
He talks about his outer self wasting away.
Speech being of no account.
He said that whatever his condition was, he
said his condition was a trial for the
Galatians.
Here's this guy whose bodily presence is weak.
Can you see him?
I mean, imagine this guy walking into Thessalonica.
I want to take you there because I
know that just before that, not too long
before that, he was at Philippi.
They beat him.
They beat him with rods.
You remember them singing in the jail cell.
This man has fresh wounds on his back.
This man is not waltzing into Thessalonica like
a well-armed Roman centurion.
He's coming in in his weakness.
Just weak.
Can you imagine the devil himself?
The devil sends his demonic hordes to withstand
Paul at Thessalonica to keep those people worshiping
their idols.
You remember how the first Thessalonian letter was?
They turned from their idols to serve the
living God.
Here they are in array.
Resist.
After all this foolishness, this Jew, this carpenter
died on this cross, and look what's happened.
This man who represents Him is coming in
here.
Look at Him.
He's pathetic.
He's weak.
And they are digging in to resist Him
with every ounce of energy that they have.
And what happens?
The idols begin to fall.
They cannot stand against this.
The most powerful, wicked forces on the face
of this earth are arrayed against Paul and
they cannot withstand Him.
In all of His weakness, He comes in
and He begins to tell people from His
mouth, from these weak vocal cords, pushing air
up out of here.
He's so manipulated by His brain to put
these things into sounds and syllables to utter
forth words and sentences that communicate the truth
of this Jewish carpenter from Nazareth dying on
this cross.
And such things begin to happen in these
people.
Such recreative forces begin to operate new hearts.
People are born again.
People are made new creations.
And all the forces of hell cannot resist
this.
Paul comes into Ephesus and what happens?
Magic books start going in the fire.
What's all this about?
How could the powers of darkness be so
broken?
These people are witches.
These people are warlocks.
These people are involved in the occult.
These people are doing magic.
These people are involved with demons and familiar
spirits.
And here they come in and the Gospel
is preached and it happened wherever He went.
I'll tell you, what nation but the United
States?
Not China.
Not Rome.
No nation has withstood it.
Oh, over there in China, they can throw
those men in prison.
But what's going to happen?
Then prisoners get converted.
Paul's in prison.
He's talking about those of Herod's household that
are converted.
Brethren, at another time he talks about those
of the imperial guard who are converted.
Brethren, you can't put Christians, no matter how
weak, no matter how disdained, throw them away
into the prisons, and then the people in
prison start getting saved.
And the people that are over the prison
start getting saved.
You remember at Philippi, it was the jailer
who got converted.
I mean, you can't stop it.
Brethren, there's no religious power on the face
of this earth that has been able to
resist it.
Catholicism.
In their inquisition, they sought to wipe true
Christianity off the face of the earth.
And the more they killed, the more it
multiplied.
And you know what's going to happen?
It's going to be exactly the same with
Islam.
Islam will never wipe out Christianity.
Why?
Because the power of God is in this,
brethren.
Islam will be no more successful than Catholicism
was.
Mark my words.
Mark God's words.
Power, brethren.
I'll tell you, Abie Keneser saw something in
a dream.
A stone that was not cut out by
the hands of men.
And this stone, he sees this thing.
And this thing comes flying in there and
the kingdoms of this world that are represented
through iron and clay and bronze and silver
and gold, it just smashes them like chaff
on the summer threshing floor.
It's just blown to the wind.
That's the power of this Gospel.