Hello and welcome to Choices for Life, the
radio ministry of Choices Medical Clinic.
Choices for Life is sponsored by Cooper Malone
McLean of Wichita, an investment firm that believes
in the sanctity of life and the healing
ministry of Choices Medical Clinic.
During this next half hour, we will bring
you up to date with current events of
interest to the pro-life community.
We will also introduce you to a prominent
pro-life personality.
Proclaiming the saving grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, this is Choices for Life.
For our Life Issues in the News segment,
Tim Wiesner has an encouraging perspective on the
nation's current trouble with terrorism.
He will also complete his two-part interview
with Jim Cimbala, the pastor of New York
City's Brooklyn Tabernacle.
I'm producer Brian Fitzgerald.
Now, here is your host of Choices for
Life, Tim Wiesner, the executive director of Choices
Medical Clinic in Wichita.
The House of Representatives has been closed for
the first time in history.
Cipro overtook Viagra as the drug of choice
on internet sites.
Donald Trump is reportedly buying parachutes.
Time Magazine reports that we are definitely looking
at a nation on the couch.
In an article titled, Anthrax Attacks Signal War
on Psyches by Geraldine Seeley, she reports that
experts say whoever is behind the recent anthrax
scares, and there is no known connection with
the September 11 attacks, may be accomplishing exactly
what they set out to do.
They are inducing confusion and psychological distress, a
good definition of terrorism.
In a recent ABC News poll, 65 percent
said they were worried about the anthrax situation,
with a third saying they were worried a
great deal.
And 54 percent said they were worried that
they or a loved one might become infected.
In waging psychological warfare, the bioterrorists are manipulating
our fears by posing risks of unknown and
potentially deadly consequences to a large population of
Americans, even if the actual casualties are limited
in number.
People are led to expect that disaster may
strike randomly and regardless of their ability to
prevent it or prepare for it.
Creating this expectation of random vulnerability is the
necessary condition for widespread hysteria.
Also necessary for widespread panic is making the
privileged feel as vulnerable as the lower rungs
of society.
We've had our sense of safety and security
profoundly shaken, says Dr. Donald B.
Colson, a psychoanalyst in Kansas City.
That's even more of a problem when people
have been previously severely traumatized in their lives.
One of his clients, a Holocaust survivor, is
suddenly having old nightmares again.
Another, a boy who was badly bullied in
an early grade, has his school phobia back.
Many clients are having dreams about being kidnapped.
The initial reaction had an overwhelming degree of
sadness in it, says Colson, but the fear
was there from the beginning and will be
with us for a long time.
Fear often leads to anger and that can
lead couples who are already fighting to argue
even more.
When depressed and feeling isolated, people can lash
out if they feel their spouses are not
reacting in the same way as they are
to the tragedy.
One individual stayed at home during the day
and was exposed all day to the TV.
Now, that could really be deadly, but when
the spouse came home and wanted to talk
about the news, she didn't want to talk
about it.
It created a serious problem.
Also abounding are rumors about the World Trade
Center, and the problem with dismissing all of
the World Trade Center rumors is that not
all of them are fiction.
Some stories that initially seemed ludicrous, such as
a downtown Starbucks charging frantic rescue workers $130
for three cases of bottled water the day
of the disaster, George Bush being targeted for
assassination at the G8 Summit, a pair of
bound and severed hands being found near Ground
Zero, those rumors turned out to be true.
The pace of information delivery has also created
serious misunderstandings.
The rumor that September 22nd would be a
Muslim Day of Terror and that Boston was
specifically targeted came from a good source, John
Ashcroft himself.
The Attorney General even called the mayor of
Boston and the acting governor of Massachusetts to
warn them of possible attacks.
The following day, the FBI rescinded the warning,
saying it was based on bad intelligence.
If you missed a beat in the news
cycle, you were misinformed.
As long as the news keeps happening quickly
and a sense of helplessness looms over the
culture, the rumors will keep coming.
Next, for a different perspective, I resume my
interview with Pastor Jim Cimbala of the Brooklyn
Tabernacle.
That's our host, Tim Wiesner.
Don't miss his interview with Jim Cimbala, pastor
of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, with good news of
spiritual revival among the people of New York
after the attack on their city.
After this...
You are listening to Choices For Life.
We are happy to again bring you Jim
Cimbala, the pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle.
He has some good news to share during
this time of crisis in New York City.
Here is Pastor Jim Cimbala.
Now is the time for preaching the gospel
because people are realizing that tomorrow isn't guaranteed.
People are realizing that you can be having
coffee and a bagel on the 85th floor
of an office building one morning and have
moments to live.
People are realizing that you can't take a
thing with you because it's obvious that those
who perished not only didn't know it was
their last day on earth, but they left
everything behind.
So thoughts about eternity, heaven, judgment, evil, the
existence of evil.
People who don't believe in evil believe in
evil now.
People who said God and prayer are not
words to be talked about must be hiding
under some kind of rock now because everybody
is praying and talking about God.
In my interpretation from the Bible of these
events, this is a very special moment of
harvest, not just in New York, but in
Kansas and every place else where churches want
to arise and do God's work.
Well, you're giving us quite a spiritual lesson
there.
Before I ask you my next question, would
you tell our listeners a little bit about
the makeup of your church?
It's an inner city church made up of
every nation that you could imagine, every color.
Predominantly minorities from America or from the West
Indies or Puerto Rico or South America or
Taiwan and Caucasians, but it represents the melting
pot that is called New York City.
Since we're downtown in a poor area, it
represents the inner city in an outstanding way.
So in a day and age when a
lot of churches are trying to leave the
inner city, you're more than happy to be
there and really finding a ripe harvest.
Yes.
Any of those people who come to our
church, some African American cleaning lady who let's
say is very poor, she's just as precious
to God as President Bush is.
That's right.
So yes, we count it a privilege to
be there.
One of the signs of the impotence of
the Christian church, the modern Christian church in
America, is that we have fled the inner
cities where sin is abounding instead of believing
that grace would even more abound, we've just
bounded out of the area and said, well,
our little church systems and our comfortable American
lives can't really be carried on in such
an environment, so let's go where the grass
is supposedly greener.
That's sad because what is produced is huge
inner cities and all of the world is
becoming more urban and citified.
It's produced these new mission fields of downtown
Chicago and Boston and Philadelphia and so on
and so forth where instead of the gospel
being preached by Christian churches that are powerful
in their witness, New Age and cults and
every other kind of thing are dominating.
A lot of these New Age and cults
are moving into the churches that have been
fled by the Christians that used to attend.
Exactly.
I think I read in your first book,
Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, that your church was
comprised as well of homosexuals and transvestites and
gang members.
Oh, yes.
My wife has a four time Grammy award
winning choir made up of 275 members, although
she's never studied music and can't read or
write music technically.
In that choir, which represents kind of a
microcosm of the church, you name the problem,
you name the sin, doctors and lawyers standing
next to people who have served time in
jail or have been drug addicts or came
from homosexual lifestyles, but all celebrating the freedom
and salvation, peace and joy that we find
through Jesus Christ.
So tell me then, with such a wide
diversity there and so many people of varying
degrees of faith or their relationship with Christ,
I assume there must have been a large
number as well that were angry and that
were wondering where God was when this tragedy
occurred.
No, I haven't even felt that among unbelievers
in this city.
To this moment, there's still a wounding.
All these weeks later, there's more a sense
of sadness and remorse and shock and stunned
kind of silence, more than retribution and let's
go over there and wipe out people in
Afghanistan and so on and so forth.
And among the believers, I haven't felt any
of that.
Hey, these are facts of life.
We were attacked in Pearl Harbor, you know,
in World War II.
We were dragged into World War I.
There will be wars and rumors of wars
and it's unfortunate we cry with those who
cry, but there haven't been a lot of
thoughts of retribution and vengeance.
Ken Wiesner will return with Pastor Jim Cimbala
of the Brooklyn Tabernacle after this important message.
Choices Medical Clinic at 538 South Buckley in
Wichita, Kansas is the only pro-life medical
clinic in the nation located directly next door
to a late-term abortionist.
Choices Medical Clinic specializes in providing alternatives to
abortion through the delivery of prenatal medical care,
counseling, education, adoption assistance and practical support, all
at no charge to women facing unplanned pregnancy.
Whether you keep your baby or whether you
have an abortion, it's your choice.
But make sure it's an informed choice.
Choices Medical Clinic is available to make a
variety of presentations at your church, school or
classroom.
These interactive discussions range from the definition of
true love, life, choices and consequences, STDs, the
lifetime partner and many other subjects.
Choices is open daily Monday through Friday and
until 12 noon on Saturday.
Our phones are answered 24 hours a day.
That's our area code 316-687-2792.
This is Choices for Life.
Jim Wiesner continues his interview with Pastor Jim
Cimbala of the Brooklyn Tabernacle.
Well, I was looking at an article in
a recent issue of Time Magazine.
It was called The Crisis of Faith and
it talked about a pastor 15 miles north
of Manhattan who said that he learned the
hard way that the needs of people are
so intense at a time like this, so
different, I'm quoting now, that there's almost nothing
you can say or do that can be
right.
And that does not sound like your experience
at all.
No, not at all.
Well, that doesn't add up to the Bible
either.
I mean, obviously for every situation God has
an answer.
So I'm not saying I know the answer
for every situation or that you do, but
there is an answer.
There's something to say that will be edifying.
And of course, if people are living carnal
lives, although they're Christians, they will have carnal
reactions.
Hopefully, if we're living close to Christ, God
by His grace will help us to have
spiritual reactions, which at this time, at this
point in time, I don't believe should be
condemnation or anger or frustration because that won't
change anything.
And we have leaders in our country who
we can pray for every day and ask
God to help them make right decisions.
But listen, there's a verse that says in
the Bible, don't boast about tomorrow for how
do you know what a day will bring.
That's one of the truths that God is
really accenting to everyone now.
I've been counseling for almost 30 years and
a lot of people never live for today,
never make the most of the present day
that God gives them because they're hung up
and paralyzed by the past, who did what
to them, what went wrong, who walked out
on them, what a boss did, what a
father or mother did, you know, all that.
We all have our war stories.
And they miss today.
And they miss today because they're hung up
with resentment and bitterness and frustration and inner
rage.
And then there's a bunch of people who
miss today because of anxiety about tomorrow and
about the future.
And the Bible clearly tells us in the
book of James that it's an evil thing
to say next week or tomorrow we're going
to go to that city or this city
and make money.
And how do you know what a day
will bring?
Your life is but a vapor.
And now everyone in the world who doesn't
even believe in God realizes that tomorrow is
not guaranteed.
In other words, we can worry and be
anxious about a day that God says we
have no right to expect to see.
And today has, each day has enough of
its own problems.
We have to live for today.
And that's a message for us Christians too
because we can get caught up with the
past and the future and miss today.
In other words, today is the only day
you can tell your wife or husband that
you love them.
Or do something constructive for your children.
Or do, work out God's will.
Find out God's will and do it.
The only day that exists for our lives
is today.
And we don't live like that.
We live hung up by the past, rehashing
and replaying old videos in our mind.
Or worried, you know, and anxiety ridden by,
but what about the economy?
And what if there's more terrorist attacks?
Or what if we hit Afghanistan and there's
counter-terrorist attacks?
And then what if, I mean, and now
God has brought front and center this truth,
is that today if you hear his voice,
God has chosen another day, Hebrew says, which
is called today.
If you'll hear his voice, you can enter
into his rest.
So, we're finding here in New York City,
a lot of people are saying, hey, no
more talking about mañana, tomorrow.
I only have today.
And that's good because God, I believe, is
getting us refocused on heaven and eternity and
today and life and death and evil and
righteousness rather than just being consumed by temporary
material things.
I have gathered from your books that you
have a very large emphasis on prayer in
your church, unlike most churches today, at least
the ones that I'm familiar with around here.
Could you tell us a little bit about
your prayer meetings?
How long do they go on?
And is it multiple people praying at one
time loudly or is it one at a
time?
It's hard to kind of describe.
Yeah, there's times of vocal worship and praise
and everyone praying for a country or a
special need or we'll bring up, let's say,
one of these widows is going through something
in the whole church.
Someone will lead out, but other people will
be praying vocally.
Then sometimes it can be very, very quiet.
There's no model way to have a prayer
meeting, and we're not a model church, but
we know this, that my house shall be
called, God said, a house of prayer for
all people.
And not a house of preaching, although we
need preaching, not a house of teaching or
music and worship and praise, but a house
of prayer.
So it behooves all of us, not only
individually and daily, to find our place along
with God, but collectively the power of a
church, like Charles Spurgeon, the great preacher, said,
the engine that drives a church is the
prayer meeting.
I remember in one of your books you
had lamented the fact that some pastor had
told you the reason he didn't have a
midweek prayer meeting was that he was afraid
nobody would show up.
You commented that it's a sad thing that
God can't draw a crowd even in his
own house.
Well, that's true, isn't it?
A lot of churches don't have a prayer
meeting.
Well, a lot of pastors have never been
to a prayer meeting in their own denomination
or their own background, so they then feel
insecure about leading a prayer meeting.
And then they are embarrassed because if they're
running, to use that phrase, running 400 on
Sunday, how are they going to feel if
eight or ten or twelve people show up
for a scheduled prayer meeting?
But then, of course, that should tell us
pastors something about the job we're doing that
people don't want to take time to exercise
one of the greatest privileges God has given
us, which is to come to the throne
of grace, to receive mercy and grace in
our time of need.
So, somehow, someway, and I'm not saying, as
I mentioned before, that we're any model of
it.
Somehow or someway, there has to be a
revival of prayer in our churches if we're
going to get back to a powerful witness
and a powerful expression of Christianity on the
earth.
Well, I know this particular pastor that I
was quoting from the article earlier, he said
that one thing he was going to start
doing was focus on educating his congregation about
Islam and helping the families who have lost
loved ones.
It sounds like you'll probably do the latter
part of that, but the primary part you'll
still be focusing on the word of God.
Right.
We need to talk about Jesus.
Well, it's certainly been a pleasure to have
you on.
Is there anything you'd like to say that
I haven't covered?
No.
Thank you very much for taking the time
and thinking of me and having me on.
I just pray God will bless you and
everyone who will hear this broadcast or this
tape.
I pray that God's will will be done
in their lives.
Tell me one more thing before parting.
I know you have conferences, at least for
pastors, on Freshmen, Fresh Fire.
I think you have another one coming up
in October and November.
No, that one is not going to be
going on.
One thing I can mention is I have
just completed, even as I'm speaking, a book
which has been written, I felt, about a
week after September 11th, in prayer, I felt
impressed to write a book with some of
the scriptures that I've just mentioned and some
of the messages I've preached in the aftermath
of September 11th because I was so kind
of saddened by some of the remarks by
so-called religious leaders.
I've finished a book which is going to
be in bookstores the beginning of December.
It's an awfully quick thing but I've given
myself totally to it and went away and
my co-writer has worked with me and
it's called God's Grace from Ground Zero.
My book, The Life God Blesses, has been
out for about a month and that's a
shorter, smaller book that I pray might be
a blessing to someone.
But beside The Life that God Blesses, God's
Grace from Ground Zero, you could be looking
for that if I may make a plug.
All the royalties and all the monies go
into our church for our move to a
new building so I get not a dime
from it.
But God's Grace from Ground Zero, I trust,
will be an encouragement and a blessing to
people who are maybe bewildered a bit by
what's going on.
I'll be standing in line for that one.
Good.
Tell me, are you going to have any
more of these conferences next year?
Yes, probably next year in our new site
and we'll be advertising them and having them
in New York where pastors and leaders and
wives can not only come and we can
look into the Word of God together, but
they'll be a part of our Tuesday night
prayer meeting because we'll have a new 4
,000 seat auditorium which we'll be able to
do so much more in.
Well, I look forward to being one of
those people.
Good, we trust you can.
This is Choices For Life.
You have been listening to an interview with
Pastor Jim Cimbala of the Brooklyn Tabernacle of
New York City and his testimony to God's
faithfulness in time of need.
Now here's our host, Tim Wiesner, with the
Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ladies and gentlemen, as Pastor Cimbala quoted the
Bible and said, there will always be wars
and rumors of wars.
There will always be those who seek to
terrify, whether it be with sarin nerve gases
in Japan or cyanide in Tylenol capsules or
people such as a Unabomber sending their threats
by mail or those like the son of
Sam who pray upon the unsuspecting.
However, the Christian need not fear.
Jesus Christ said, Lo, I am with you
always, even until the end of the world.
And whether it be our particular world or
the world globally, the promises of Christ are
unchangeable.
Our trust is not in man.
Our trust is not in riches.
Our trust is not in peace treaties, promises,
or assurances.
Our trust is in the Lord God, and
we take comfort in the fact that the
Lord knoweth those who trust in him.
This should be words of comfort, as the
psalmist said in chapter 27.
The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life.
Of whom shall I be afraid?
God himself said to Isaiah in chapter 41.
Fear thou not, for I am with thee.
Be not dismayed, for I am thy holy
God.
I will strengthen thee, yea, and I will
help thee.
I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness.
The epistle to the Hebrews says, The Lord
is my helper, and I will not fear
what man shall do to me.
Ladies and gentlemen, if true, the headlines do
not look good.
Politically, economically, militarily, the world is certainly in
a state of turmoil.
One glance at the headlines confirms the sinfulness
of man and our need of a savior.
In one newspaper, I read these headlines.
Anthrax attacks signal war on psyches.
U.S. continues attacks on Kabul.
U.S. special forces in Afghan.
Taliban stand firm.
Bush administration tries to calm anthrax fears.
Consumer prices rise on gasoline spike.
Microsoft profit drops.
New fighting in Israeli army raids.
Bethlehem being attacked.
Postal carrier contracts anthrax.
Federal smallpox plan is ready.
But the good news is that God, the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the
Father of all mercies and the God of
all comfort.
While Saddam Hussein may attempt to wage the
mother of all wars, it is an assurance
to know that our God is the Father
of all mercies, for the earth is the
Lord's and the fullness thereof.
But what about the people listening to this
program who know not the Lord Jesus Christ?
Who are strangers to these promises?
Who cannot partake of the comfort God provides?
Who do not have the assurances here before
mentioned?
There is hope.
You see, our sin has separated us from
God, for God is holy and in Him
there is no sin.
And the really good news is that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
For the Bible tells us that God so
loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life.
And he that believeth on Him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned
already because he hath not believed in the
name of the only begotten Son of God.
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting
life, and he that believeth not the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of
God abides on him.
I know there are people out there listening
to this program, people who are troubled and
distraught by today's events.
I urge you to make the most important
choice for life you will ever make.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Don't delay.
Trust Christ today.
Even so, amen.
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