Latest / Trinity Tinley Park Sermon Podcast / "The Supreme Question of Life" with Pastor Paul Strand | October 24, 2026

Transcript

"The Supreme Question of Life" with Pastor Paul Strand | October 24, 2026 · Trinity Tinley Park Sermon Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: There would be much of a connection between Martin Luther and the man I'm going to speak about in Acts 16.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: There is an enormous similarity between the two of them.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't mind, let me read a little bit here, Acts 16.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Paul and Silas, when they spoke about Jesus Christ in the city of Olippi, they got in much trouble.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: They cast a demon out of a girl who could tell fortunes.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And those who made a lot of money out of her demon possession.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: They were irate when the lady had the demon cast out.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: They seized Paul and Silas, dragged him into the marketplace before the rulers.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: The rulers brought him to the magistrates.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: These men are Jews, they are disturbing our city of Philippi.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: The crowd joined in attacking Paul and Silas.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: They tore the garments off of them.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: They gave orders to beat them with wooden rods.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And when they had inflicted many blows upon the thirty-nine that were allowed by Rome, there were many more blows than thirty-nine.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And when they were through beating them, they threw them into prison.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they told the jailer of the prison to keep them safely, for more things would be done to them on the morrow.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Having received this order, the jailer put them into the inner prison, the dark inner prison where there was no light.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he fastened their feet into the wooden stocks.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden they weren't praying, they were singing hymns to God.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the prisoners at midnight were listening to Paul and Silas singing hymns to God.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so the foundations of the prison itself were shaken.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: All the doors in the prison were open.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone's bonds were unfastened.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: When the jailer awoke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul cried with a loud voice to the jailer, the one who had treated him so brutally.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the jailer called for the lights, and he rushed in, and he saw that all the prisoners were still there, not a single one had left.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the jailer began to tremble with fear, because he knew the presence of God was in this place.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: He trembled with fear, and he fell down before Paul and Silas.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Sirs, what must what must I do to be saved?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they said to him, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be saved, you and your whole household.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they spoke the word of the Lord to the jailer and all who were in his house.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he took them the same hour of the night, and he washed their wounds.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: He bathed their wounds.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he was baptized at once, and his entire family was baptized.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Then he brought them into his own house, and he set his own food before them.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he, the jailer, rejoiced, along with his entire household, that faith in God had come.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And Martin Luther rejoiced when faith in his Lord had come.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: What must I do to be saved?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: The question was asked by a startled jailer in the first part of the first century AD.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was in the middle of strange and perplexing events.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: He had never seen anything like it before.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're beaten half to death.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: They're put in wooden stocks.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: The wood rubs against their back and their sides and their thighs and their legs, which are torn open by the wooden rods.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Their face is swollen shut.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Their eyes cannot see.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're put into the inner dungeon where there is no light.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's odors undescribable coming from the inner dungeon.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the rats are having their way in the inner dungeon.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he hears noise from them.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are singing.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: They are absolutely singing.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Never had he seen such a thing before.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then the earthquake came like it did when Jesus was dying on the cross.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: God was saying, I'm here, Jesus.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: God was saying to Paul and Silas and the prisoners, I'm here.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: The earthquake comes.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And every prisoner had their chains unloosed.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: By who?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: By angels, I dare say.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when the earthquake split apart the prison, and the prisoners could have run off into the darkness and not be found, they stayed there.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: The angels kept them there, I do believe.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: The angels kept them there.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the jailer realizing if one prisoner escapes, he's going to be tortured and tortured some more and tortured some more.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And his death will last days.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Better to take my own life than to risk that.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul, who had been treated so poorly, not just by the magistrates and the crowds, but by the Roman jailer himself.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Paul says to him, Do not harm yourself.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: They're all still here.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why he became terrified.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because God's presence was in that prison cell.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he asks the infinitely wise question, What must I do to be saved?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Same question that a rich young lawyer in Luke 18 had asked Jesus.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Same question that Zacchaeus 24 hours later had asked Jesus, what must I do to be saved?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Others came for healing.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Heal my issue of blood, heal my crippledness, heal my blindness, heal my leprosy.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the rich young lawyer didn't come for healing, there's nothing wrong with him.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Zacchaeus didn't come for healing, there had nothing wrong with him.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: They came because they had a question.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: You have nothing, Jesus, ready old robe and sandals.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: You got 12 people following you, but somehow or other, you've got 10,000 following you.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there's something about you, Jesus, I've never seen it anyone else.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: What must I do to have what you have?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus told the rich young lawyer, and he said, I think I'll skip it for the time being.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: But when he called Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus bought it hook, line, and sinker.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because the Holy Spirit had come.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thief on the Cross asked the same question.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: What must I do to be saved?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Father forgive them, they don't know what they're doing.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Spirit comes to that thief on the cross.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about you, my friend.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Prodigal son extraordinaire.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about you.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then the jailer, the thief on the cross for the first time, sits and thinks, I'm about to die.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: I always assumed that when I died, that would be the end of me.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: But not the way this man is speaking next to me.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: What must I do to be saved?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what the jailer asked.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout all the centuries, the question is the same.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Every nation, every tribe, every tongue.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: The rich and the poor ask the question.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: The educated and the uneducated ask the question.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: The healthy, the sick, the strong, and the weak, they ask the question, What must I do to be saved?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: The cultured Greeks, they tried to answer the question by building altars to many gods.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then one of the wise ones said, What if we're missing a God?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: What if we build altars to ten different gods and we're missing the God?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: So they said to him, That's a good idea.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: We should build an altar to an unknown God.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the Apostle Paul is there on Mars Hill, and he said, The God you don't know is the God that I know.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he began to speak about the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: In an effort to answer that question, if you were a worshiper of the God Molech, you sacrifice your own children to him.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And there came an Augustinian monk.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: He died some 500 years ago.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: He was searching the scripture for one thing.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: The answer to that question.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: What must I do to be saved?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he bumped into a verse, Romans 3.28.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: A man is saved by faith apart from works of the law.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he bumped into another verse, 1 Peter 1.18.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: You are not redeemed by things that rot away, Martin.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: You are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he bumped into another verse, 2 Corinthians 5.21.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: God made Christ who knew no sin to be the sin offering for us, that we might be declared righteous in God's sight.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he bumped into another verse, 2 Corinthians 5.15.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Christ died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Christ who died for them.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he's scrolling through and he sees Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus and why it's there in that letter.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, by grace are you saved through faith.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: That faith is not of yourself, it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you are asking, how do I know my sins can be forgiven?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: God would say to you, I've told you 800 times.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: 800 times in the Bible, I've told you.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I could tell you 801 times, but I already told you 800 times.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you were to ask God, can you tell me why I shouldn't be afraid of what's going on in my life?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: He would say, I told you 365 times.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: I told you 365 times.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid, I'm with you.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the funeral that I had yesterday, and the 30-year-old that died this morning.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the person who knows that person said, Oh, I only wish that we could know for sure that there's a heaven.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, My goodness gracious.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: 1 John 5, 11 through 13, whoever believes in the Son has everlasting life.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I write these things to you so that you might be certain that you have everlasting life.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you touch a tree, is your hand gonna go through the tree?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or is your hand gonna meet the tree and stop because the tree is solid?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at your body and ever came to understand how many bones and blood vessels and organs were in your body, if you stop for one moment and said, who put them there?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: The same one who put the sperm and an egg together.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Fred Fellendorf is the most intelligent human being I have ever talked to.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: IQ sitting there around 170.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: He said they'll never understand the human brain because God has done such intricate things with the human brain, they'll never understand it.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sins forgiven.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your loved one, your loved one, 153 times, he tells you, your loved one is in heaven.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I guess guardian angels aren't all that important because he only mentions it once.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Not 800 times, not 365 times, not 153 times, one time.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I say at every funeral, y'all believe in a guardian angel, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic Baptist, y'all believe in the Guardian angel based on one verse.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther, how many verses do I need to put in front of your eyeballs before you understand that you can beat yourself, you can lie naked on a cold stone floor, you can go on your knees up the 400 steps of that church?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can starve yourself for weeks on end, harming yourself in such a way it'll end up causing you your death.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: But Martin Luther, how many verses do I need to put in the Bible that you know so well before you understand that you're saved by grace through faith?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Told you many times when I do a funeral of someone I don't know, my first question to the family when I meet with them is this Was your loved one a believer?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Their answer.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they hadn't been to Mass in 20 years.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: They cussed quite a bit.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Overindulgent in beer and wine.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: By grace are you saved through faith.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: That faith is not of yourself, it's a gift of God, not of works, as any man should boast.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I always get to share with the family that primary truth.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was a moment ripe with the greatest tragedy ever, if he took his life.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: He was married, had kids.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or it could be the greatest blessing he had ever received.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: That moment.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: So would his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, so would his brothers and sisters.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: One person believes, and how many are affected?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: 200 people in Sikar's village.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: How many within a 10-year period were affected by the woman at the well?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Twenty thousand.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's the primary moment of his life.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: The preachers have come to Philippi.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: They've been thrown in prison.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's put them in stocks.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're singing in the middle of the night.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: But they don't start singing, they start praying.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: They do not lose hearts.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: You have to understand their situation.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: They were beaten with many stripes.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's how it's worded, many stripes.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Rome said you can only beat them 39 times.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus received 39 lashes.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: When it says many stripes, it was beyond 39.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at what a wooden rod was, it has lashes connected with it.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: They are naked and they are beaten nigh unto death.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're beaten in the face, so their eyes are swollen shut.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And when they come to the prison, there's no treatment preferential.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Into the inner dungeon, into the stocks, with a wooden splinters rubbing against their back.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: What do they do?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: They pray.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: They pray.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when they pray, they bring God's presence into the dungeon.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when God's presence is in the dungeon, they're not praying secretly very much longer.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're praying out loud.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Then with God's presence in that dungeon, they start singing.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: First time the prisoners had ever heard anyone singing.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: They had heard moans and screams and curses, but they had never heard anyone in prison singing.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Prayer from the heart.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: It always makes things different because it brings God's presence.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 7, ask and it shall be given you.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you say to me, I ask for the cancer to go away, it didn't.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Seek and you shall find.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I sought God for deliverance and never got it.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: I knocked at his door, but it didn't appear to be opened.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Have to understand this one thing about Matthew 7, 7.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Ask and you shall receive.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: What are you asking for?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're asking for God's presence in the circumstance.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're not asking, though it's wise to do, and everyone does, myself included, Lord, can you please get rid of this cancer?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Can you please save my job for me?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: But from the heart, when you're praying, you're praying for one thing, God, come into this circumstance.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I won't limit you.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you answer it the way I wanted answered, God be praised.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't, I won't limit you.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: My memory's not good.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know whether it was a year ago, two years ago we did the Lord's Prayer.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thy will be done, not mine.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thy kingdom come, not my kingdom getting bigger.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Paul and Silas are not praying for deliverance.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're praying, asking God's presence in this prison cell.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he comes.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when you and I pray, he comes.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when we knock on his door, he comes before the echo of your knock is finished.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer brings a consciousness of God.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And not just the consciousness of God, it brings God Himself.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: What were they singing?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: They were singing the 23rd Psalm, I I do believe.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: They were singing the 23rd Psalm.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Written by David 900 years earlier.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: You make me to lie down in green pastures.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Even though I'm walking through the valley of what might be my death, I'll fear no evil in this dungeon, because God is with me.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I believe they're singing the 23rd Psalm, or maybe the 40th Psalm.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth be removed and the mountains be carried into the depths of the sea.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when they sang it, the earthquake came.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: When they sang it, the earthquake came.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: God said, I'm here.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And on Mount Calvary, when it became dark at noonday and there was an earthquake, it was God saying, I'm here.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: He invaded the prison.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't need a single angel to come with him.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't send Michael.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: God invaded the prison.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: He stormed the prison.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he took the shackles off all the prisoners.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: The angels, I believe.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when the prisoners said, Let's get out of here, I believe the angel said, nah, stick around.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And when the jailer saw it, he trembled in fear.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: I get goosebumps, you know.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: You guys tell when you tell me stories about something happening in your life, and you and I sit down and say, It had to be God.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just had to have been God.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: It always gives me goosebumps.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's my earthquake when I get goosebumps.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because I always think God's presence is in this story that's being told right now.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why was the jailer trembling with fear?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not because he thought of prisoners had escaped.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: He saw these miracles one after another, and he knew he was in the presence of a being that he could never imagine.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And out of his mouth comes those words.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: What must I do to be saved?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: He'd heard the singing of the 23rd Psalm.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: He had heard the singing of perhaps Psalm 46 that we just sang, that we just read.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: He heard it and he said, What must I do to be saved?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a chapel on Wednesday.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm already putting it together in my head.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm going to get a big chain over at Menard's, and I'm going to ask first graders to come and try and pull apart the chain, and then the fourth and fifth graders, seventh and eighth graders, I think I'm going to ask them to pull apart the chain.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not going to be able to do it, even though I offer$500.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: They won't be able to do it.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: What's your chain?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: What's your prison?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Is it grief?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Your baby died 30 years ago.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: What's your prison?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Is it fear?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Someone you love has been diagnosed with a grave illness.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: What's your prison?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Is it worry?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Losing jobs?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: What's your prison?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is it shame and guilt, some sin from the past still haunting you?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's your prison?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is it guilt?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: The addiction that seems so easy to conquer.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can just stop drinking.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can just stop taking the drugs.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: But that addiction is stronger than your love for your family.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's destroying your family, it's destroying your job, and you can't seem to grab hold of it.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is it guilt?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: 23rd Psalm says to you and me, as it did to Paul and Silas in the prison, as it did to Martin Luther.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord God Almighty is your shepherd.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord God Almighty is with you.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Closing word.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Recant what you've written, or you'll die.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Here I stand, I can do no other.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: The emperor said, You're a dead man.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're a political enemy, you're a religious enemy to the church.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're a dead man.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone can take your life, and there will be no charges against him.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Frederick the Wise of Saxony, Luther's good friend, who Luther had helped with the matter of faith.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I gotta save him.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: He was kidnapped on the road, he was put in Wartburg Castle when you sang a mighty fortress castle in the background, Wartberg Castle.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why did Frederick the Wise put him there to save his life?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: He was there for 11 months.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: What did he do in the 11 months?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: He wrote Psalms.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote sermon series.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote lectures for the students at Wittenberg if he ever got back.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the mightiest thing he ever did, it took him eleven weeks, because that's the miracle God can work.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Took him eleven weeks to translate the entire New Testament from the Greek into the German so that the common people could read it.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And God himself opened up to them every promise he ever gave.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he did in his prison.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: He sang hymns and he prayed and he wrote.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the earthquake of him being in that prison, five hundred years later, still singing the songs he could have written yesterday.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: The devil is still against us, God's children.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: He seeks to destroy and to take everything.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: His main enemy is the church.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: He will do anything to destroy the church.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And here is Martin Luther in the hymns you just sang.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: We have a mighty champion.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus, you have a mighty champion.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Jaylor, you have a mighty champion.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Every one of the 3,000 biographies in the Bible, you have a mighty champion.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord God Almighty.