The Young Man And His Hut

Ron Susek: I want to address today a certain young man whom I saw in Ghana, West Africa some years ago. I never met him, but upon seeing him, my worldview was radically changed. Stay with me. I'll be right back.
Guest (Male): Finding and knowing God is a faith walk. The Bible says that without faith, it is impossible to please God. Our hope lies in the coming Messiah who will establish God's peaceful kingdom on earth. This is FaithWalk with Ron Susek. Dr. Ron is an evangelist committed to encourage and equip your faith walk as we pass through these turbulent end-times days awaiting the soon coming kingdom. Here again is Ron Susek.
Ron Susek: Not too many years ago I was speaking in Ghana, in West Africa, and I was addressing pastors in Northern Ghana. We were having a conference, and then I and my team were driven south to address another group of pastors in Southern Ghana. It was a hot day, a blistering hot day. No air conditioning, windows wide open, we're all drowsy, the guys in the back seat were asleep and I was kind of just leaning my head on my hand and bouncing along on a pretty rough road. And we were about to enter a village. Now you have to get this in your mind, villages in Ghana, many of them have a dirt road going right through the village. Which means when traffic goes across that road, it creates a tunnel of dust right through the village. We were about to enter one of those tunnels of dust when I happened to glance to my left and I saw a young man with short pants and flip-flops and a t-shirt walking past his ramshackle hut. Just a sad, dilapidated, unpainted building. I got the most profound, literally physically painful sense of pity for him. Knowing that I live in a little more comfort back in America, I just was gripped with a sense of pity. We entered that tunnel of dust, and I can still remember a herd of sheep came down a bank and ran across the road in front of us. We had to stop and wait on them to go by. And we were not more than a few moments into that tunnel of dust and entering into the little village, and I remember if I've ever heard the voice of God, it was that day. It was painfully rebuking me. Think about this: rebuking me. And the message that was almost audible, it was so strong, was this, "Who do you think you are to pity that young man? What do you have that you think he doesn't have? Oh, you live in a little more comfortable home back in America. He has a ramshackle hut, but of the things that matter in life, what do you have that he doesn't have?" I thought about that for the following hours as we drove to Southern Ghana, and I've thought about that ever since. And what became very clear to me is this: what could I do for that young man? What could I do for the millions of young men like him all across Africa, across India, across China, all parts of the world? Oh, my friend, that is when it became very clear. I don't have a thing that is not available to them. Not a thing of value that's available to them. They have the same access to God that I have. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, I want to talk to you now personally who are in that situation, He died to present His blood to His Father to buy for you the exact same right and access to God that I or any other believer on earth has, no matter what our material state, no matter where we are, no matter what our position. Jesus Christ died to present His blood to His Father as the payment for your sin and mine, to give us the right of access to God to the point that the Bible says in the book of Hebrews, we are to come boldly before God. Now, careful now, not arrogantly, boldly. What does that mean? We are no longer being restricted by the sins we've committed. They've been removed as far as the east is from the west. We are free. Jesus said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." So you are free now to literally walk into the presence of your Heavenly Father who is absolutely pure and holy. And when He looks upon you because you have come to Him in the name of His son Jesus, He so forgives you, He so loves you, that He declares you to be holy and blameless with every right, the same right as any other believer on earth, no matter what their position is in the church, no matter who they may be, famous, not famous. It doesn't matter. You have complete freedom to address your Heavenly Father. Isn't that something? That young man that I saw some years ago in Ghana, maybe in his 30s today, and I hope that perhaps by an act of God, knowing that what I'm saying right now is being carried to many, many parts of the world, I'm amazed at how rapidly this network of communication has grown. You may be watching and you don't even know who you are because you never met me, you never saw our van go by. But it may be that God has planned a divine appointment. You may be sitting in a computer cafe, or you may now even have a computer in your own ramshackle hut, or you may have been able to find an education and you may be in a rare position. I don't know. But if you're that young man, and somehow the spirit of God says to you, "You're the man he's talking about," I want to talk to you directly because you are a living example of millions of young men around the world who are born into poor economic systems, who are born many times in very deep poverty, and there is no one to lift them out financially or academically or job opportunity-wise, and many have had to settle for a very limited life economically speaking. But here's what I'm trying to say to you. Your position in life, whether it's living in a ramshackle hut, whether it's living in a mansion or something in between, please hear me. I've traveled the world enough, I've lived long enough to know very well what really matters in life. And Solomon, the son of David, a man who inherited extraordinary wealth, first of all because of his father's obedience to God, King David, and then because when he had the opportunity as a young man to ask God for something, he didn't ask for wealth or fame, he asked for wisdom to guide Israel. That teaches us a lot. Because James chapter one, verse 17 says that God, this loving Heavenly Father, loves to lavish good and perfect gifts upon us. Then He says, "You ask, but you receive not because you ask amiss to consume it upon your lust." Oh, my friend, when you come to God not to consume, not to become wealthy because you think that gives you importance and luxury, oh, my friend, listen. Listen. Wealth has destroyed more people than has poverty. Wealth has destroyed more people than has poverty. In poverty, you can achieve more than the wealthiest man in the world who is caught up in thinking he is important, secure, can enjoy pleasures without consequence. And you're saying, "I can't afford that. I don't have the opportunity for that." Don't worry about it. All the great values of life can be yours through Christ as you are in touch with God. May I get a little bit angry for just a moment? I do get angry when I hear the false prophets and false teachers coming out of America and other nations that may have a better economic status trying to tell the whole world that if you just believe strong enough and give your money to their particular ministry and you have the right now to command in Jesus' name, you will have money fall out of surprising places. My friend, don't fall for it. Please, don't get enamored by it. Don't get caught up in that. If you will commit yourself not to even give thought to wealth, not to even give thought to importance, to begin to think, "Oh God, how can I serve you where I am in my present state? How do you want to use me?" There is nothing on this earth that can stop you and God from achieving the impossible. In Psalm chapter 138 verse 8, this is a favored verse of mine. I want to read it to you. It reads this way: "The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me. Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands." Pause there. There are over seven billion people on earth. Please hear what I'm about to say. If there were none other but you, you were the only one on this planet, the same sovereign God that has a purpose for every single person on this planet has a purpose for you. Your situation does not determine that purpose. God's purpose is high and holy and mighty and sovereign. And my friend, what I'm challenging you to do is this: don't begin to pray, "God, here's what I want. Here's what I need. Here's where I want to go. Here's what I want to be." No, no, no. Begin to pray, "God, what is your purpose for me? I will give myself to that purpose, and I know that you will fulfill that purpose." That purpose may require millions of dollars. God will take the responsibility of how to get millions of dollars for you to fulfill that purpose. Your purpose may only demand two, four, five, ten dollars a day. God will take the responsibility of taking care of that. The big thing is this: when you stand before God in the end of it all, you want to be in the position of having fulfilled or let him fulfill his purpose through you. You didn't fight it, you didn't run from it, you didn't flood yourself with greed. You humbly fulfilled what God showed you to do with your life. Mopping a floor in a hospital, helping people, whatever that may be. Oh, my friend, when you stand before God, that is the only day that true wealth will be realized. It is only when Jesus says, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." It is only when Jesus hands out the rewards for how we invested our lives. Only then will we know true wealth. What you see on earth is a passing momentary illusion. People that have the biggest, best yachts on earth, the wildest parties, they have mansions, they have bank accounts that are suffocating, oh, don't envy a bit of it. What will really matter for that person and for you is what comes from the lips of Jesus Christ when you stand before him in the judgment. And if you are in the first judgment when he judges his people, what I am fighting for today, men, young men around the world trapped in poverty, listen carefully, you're not trapped. You have all the power of God upon you and you can do things that are unimaginable as you serve God as he leads and directs and empowers you. And the day will come, I will be in the audience watching and cheering on that day when Jesus says to you, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." One of the most powerful scenes of my life happened in Costa Rica. It was a blistering hot summer night. I was speaking in a church in one of the mega-cities in Costa Rica. The doors and windows were wide open because of the suffocating heat, and you could hear the cars passing by and the high-pitched beeping horns. You could hear people talking as they walked by. The church was packed to capacity. And I remember speaking on the subject "You must be born again." That night when I ended the message, it took several men in front of me to clear a path through the crowd. It was just thick with people. And as I was departing, I saw a woman to my right waving her handkerchief in the air toward me, wanting to communicate with me. And so I asked them to kind of plow through the crowd and get me to her, and they did. And when I got to her, she was fumbling through her purse. And I asked the interpreter beside me who was the head of a seminary, I said, "What is she doing?" He said, "She wants to give you some money." And she finally pulled out some money and handed it to me and asked me to pray for her. And I said, "No, I can't take your money. I can't pray because you pay me. Keep your money. I'll be thrilled to pray for you." And my translator said, "No, no, you don't understand her. You need to take that money. She's not giving it to you. She's giving it to God." I took the money and prayed for her, and I gave the money to the president of the seminary for his seminary. And as I was being driven back to my hotel room, I asked him, "How much did she give me?" He said, "For her, she gave you one month's salary." One month of salary. It wasn't much, but for her, it was enormous. It was a month. I've never forgotten that scene. I've never forgotten the scene in Jamaica, West Indies, when I was walking through the hills. I was there for meetings to speak in a couple of small country churches many years ago. And as I was walking along this road up in the mountains to kind of get cool, I remember seeing a woman sitting alongside the road, and she had burned wood down to charcoal. They do that under the ground and then they sell the charcoal for cooking. And there she sat along the road with a rather tattered and dirty dress and her hands were dirty from the charcoal, and she sat there with the charcoal stacked beside her. And as I walked by, I said to her, and she was smiling at me with the sweetest smile, I said, "Ma'am, I really don't have anything of this world to offer you, but what I do have I would like to offer you. May I do that?" And she smiled and nodded yes, and I sat down and I began to explain to her how to come to God through Jesus so that she will be in the coming great kingdom of God. As I was talking, she looked up at me and in the softest voice and the sweetest tone and the most wonderful smile, contentment in her disposition, she said, "I know. That's why I live." Think about that. Think about the young man in Kenya, in Ghana, in India, the ones that I've seen and met over the years. How important that we have our values completely aligned with the word of God. This world is constantly trying to yank us into a different set of values. And you watch movies and you think, "Wow, if I could only be like those stars in the movie, wealthy and famous and important." Forget it, friend. Forget it. If you want to see greatness, you look at Jesus on a donkey preparing to enter Jerusalem to go to his death. There is greatness. If you want to see greatness, see Jesus getting off his donkey and going into the temple to bend his knees before his Heavenly Father. If you want to see greatness, see Jesus coming out of the temple, one of the poorest men on earth. No bank accounts, no retirement benefits, no medical insurance policies. To stand before his accusers and say not a word so that they would crucify him on your behalf. You want to see greatness? See Jesus coming out of the tomb.