NEW “Keep the Faith” Interview with Dr. David Jeremiah

Message Description:

In this special interview with Sheila Walsh, Dr. Jeremiah shares about his recent personal battle and encourages us to trust God in all circumstances.

I love the words you assign to worry. I read this in the thought, yeah, this is good.
Worries inconsistent, irrational, ineffective, illogical, and irreligious. Why is that perspective so important?
I can’t get over how important it is learn how to live each day unto itself.
I remember reading a book about living in day tight compartments.
If we borrow trouble from the past it just adds to what’s going on in the present.
And if we worry about, like, what happens if I don’t get over this?
Well, that could possibly take place, but it’s not happening today.
Today, I got a job to do and some things I need to take care of.
I’m not gonna let worry destroy my life, and I’m not gonna be defined by my physical situation.
You can’t let that happen.
What does it look like to keep the faith circumstances invade our lives.
Even if the world seems turned upside down, god has a way weak and stands strong.
Finish the race and keep the faith. And now, here’s today’s host Sheila Walsh.
You’ve heard this saying, keep the faith, but what does that mean for us as Christians? Hello.
I’m Sheila Walsh, and I’m so excited about what we’re going to be learning today.
Doctor Jeremiah is here to share with us what it means to keep the faith even in the most difficult circumstances and seasons.
You know, maybe you’re watching today and you’re dealing with unexpected or unwanted circumstances, could be problems with your health, your career, your marriage, perhaps your heart, you’re discouraged, depressed, worried, and wondering if you even have the strength to keep going.
If you’ve been in that place, are in that place right now, Doctor Jeremiah would like you to know that your heavenly father isn’t watching impassively from heaven, He has come down.
He is close and his arm is around you.
He’s here to lift you up and ready to move you forward.
Well, Doctor Jeremiah exemplifies what he preaches, and he has experienced adversity himself, And today, he’s here to encourage us to keep the faith.
Well, thank you. I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad to be here.
I’m glad you are too. So we’re talking about keeping the faith. You’ve written this wonderful book.
But I want you to take us to that day September 3 2023. It’s Labor Day.
What was going on?
Well, uh, Don and I had just returned from Europe. We had gone there to celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary.
Wow. And we, uh, took a little cruise around Italy with so much fun. We’d come home.
Obviously, we were a little tired. I had preached a couple times.
And Labor Day morning, I went to get out of bed, and I couldn’t move anything on my right side.
My leg was just dead. I was scared. I didn’t know what to think.
I told Donna, I can’t get out of bed. I don’t know what to do.
So we called my son, David, and he had Bradley with him, and they came down and helped me get up and took me to Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, and I ended up staying there for over a month and was diagnosed with the disease.
From what I can understand, Sheila, it’s the inflammation of the sheath that goes around your spinal cord.
Scary stuff.
And it makes it impossible then for your spinal cord to transmit signals to your certain parts of your body.
The second day on Tuesday after this happened on it. Forget I had 4 MRIs in one day
Oh gosh.
Through my whole body, then they punctured my spine and took some fluid from that.
They gave me a scan, and, uh, then basically said the best they could tell I had this disease.
It’s very rare. No longer I’ve had it, the more I realized not very many people know much about it.
What I’m learning is it had a short on ramp, and it’s got a long off ramp.
So what did the process of healing look like for you?
Well, the first thing that they told me was I needed to try to walk, and I started to walk the best I could.
And, actually, we’re sitting in a room right now that’s in a building where I would come every day and walk in the warehouse, walk as much as I can with a walker to try to rebuild the strength in my legs.
I got to the point where I was able to be ambulatory some of the systems in your body don’t work, and you have to try to get them back.
And it was, many times, just on the edge of discouragement, you know, I’ve been working at this now for months.
What’s going on here?
So how are you feeling today right now.
I mean, to see you, I’m you walk in and to see you today, how are you feeling today?
Well, the first thing I’m feeling good about is I’ve been preaching in my church now for a couple of months 3 services every weekend, and god has given me the energy to do that.
And, uh, it’s been such a blessing because that’s the joy of my life. I’m trying to stay up.
I mean, there’s lots of doctors’ appointments. I have to go see a rehab guy twice a week.
And I
work with my trainer and trying to build strengthen your upper body.
And but god has given me some tremendous friends, some wonderful friends who’ve hung in there with me and helping me do this.
I think one of the things we all love about you is that we see you as a strong godly pastor committed to the unchanging word of god and ever changing times.
And yet you’re honest enough to be transparent Yeah. About when it’s really hard.
Let me text up my red written by spurgeon. Here’s what he said.
God never puts heavy burdens on weak shoulders.
Oh, wow.
And I took that as a compliment that God had trusted me with this.
I didn’t have to have this. God could have kept me from it.
People asked me if I was upset, and, you know, I said, you know, god is not unfair to me.
He doesn’t owe me a perfect, healthy life, and I’m learning things from this.
Believe it or not, so many wonderful things happen while this was happening to me.
It was kinda hard to believe.
I wondered, obviously, you know, Barry and I, my husband and I love you so much, and we were praying for you.
Could you feel the prayers of 1000, probably millions around the world.
I got prayer calls from people all over the world, and I knew people were praying for me.
When you are and and you go through something like this.
The one major thing you realize if you think about it is you’re not alone. I never felt alone.
Even in the hospital, at 3 o’clock in the morning when there was no nurses around or anybody.
I felt the presence of the lord, and I remembered verses of scripture that I had memorized was kind of in the process of trying to memorize the book of Philippians, and I was kind of halfway through it.
So I was rehearsing that and that just gave me such hope and confidence.
It’s interesting that we would be that book. Yeah.
A book dripping in joy while he’s in prison and experiencing all
made me feel like I wasn’t doing anything. You know, he was really in a bad way.
You know, one of the things you kind of briefly touched on is with everything you were going through, amazing things were happening at turning point.
Yeah. I felt like god said to me one day, Okay, David. Uh, you show me what you can do.
Let me show you what I can do.
I had written a book called The Great Disappearance, and that book shot to the top of all the charts.
Yeah. I’ve never had a book that made it to the top 10 on Amazon,
and stayed there.
And stayed there for many days.
And that book, because of the incredible social media things that our team did here and the videos they created.
We had 100
Christ because of the book and the videos, and we aren’t really sure how many, but many, many we sent out so many copies of our follow-up book.
And so here I am feeling kind of useless and being used in a way I never could have dreamed uh, through that book.
And then we had the movie. The movie came out during that season in other languages.
Ocean
Kushika Masumi.
In India, in Telugu and Hindi, touch the whole nation.
And, Sheila, 275,000,000 people watched that film in India.
But god used that movie and many people came to Christ with the movie.
It just seemed like I’m in the back room and I can’t do a lot, and god is just moving So, you know, looking back, it wasn’t a a bad time.
It was just a hard time
What did that feel like the 1st Sunday that you were back in the pulpit?
Well, you know, I had to walk across the stage with a walker was so humbling.
And, uh, but I I did and I got through it, and I never fell down.
I I always thought, you know, the the the only thing left for me to do is for me to fall down in front of all these people, and I even hesitate to say it because I still have some more walking across the platform, but The day I didn’t have to use the walker anymore and I walked to the pulpit without it, I got a standing Ovation.
It was so encouraging to me to know how much the people in our church had been pulling for me.
It’s been a really interesting journey.
I have a lot of issues I’m still dealing with, but I kinda look at it this way.
All those issues are in a car and the whole car is moving forward.
Some of these things I have to keep working on the cars moving forward, I am getting better, a little better all the time and getting stronger and, uh, still fighting some of the issues.
But what a gift you gave to everyone that day.
It was like a physical example, a god show and tell of my strength is made perfect in weakness.
You could have stayed off the platform, but you didn’t do that.
You don’t need your legs to preach.
I could still teach and the guys, uh, built me a pulpit seat that looks like I’m standing up almost.
My wife thinks She says, you’re a lot better sitting down. It’s like you’re giving a fireside chat.
I said, well, people are getting saved every week.
It’s just amazing to see how in the midst of weakness, god is strong.
Absolutely. I think one of the things that people struggle with most is fear.
How do we combat that giant of fear?
People asked me, was I afraid during this time? Absolutely.
First of all, I was afraid when I didn’t know what it was.
Yeah. That you
know, it could have been anything and still a lot of questions.
All of the stories of the Bible that tell you that you don’t, you know, fear not for I’m with you, be not afraid for I am god.
All of those scriptures. So wonderful.
I always love the fact that it’s fear not for I am with you.
It’s not fear not because there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s because god is with us.
And, you know, the absence of fear is not courage. It’s love. Wow.
And that’s a really interesting expression, uh, you know, you’re not filled with fear, but with love and a strong mind.
And so love means you reach out to other people in the midst of your being afraid you know there are others who are afraid and you reach out to them.
And that’s kind of one of the reasons why I think preaching’s been such a great therapy for me I told somebody the other day, I said when you’re, when you’re a pastor and you’re a public figure and you’re doing good, people listen to you.
When you’re doing bad, they watch you.
And so I’m doing more by what I’m doing and people watching me than if I were talking about it all the time.
What about discouragement. Um, did you face discouragement in this journey?
Yeah. And I’m gonna confess that of all the things that can get to me, that’s one that has a little bit more of an upper hand than some others.
What I’ve realized, Sheila, is every day is a a challenge for me.
And there’s some good things and some hard things.
And I try to do my best to meet the challenges of the day sleep at night and take the next day and realize I was just telling Don of this today.
You don’t get to do just the things you feel like doing.
You have to do the things that need to be done.
That’s a good lesson for every single one of us.
It is indeed.
Yeah. One of the things that Barry and I prayed for you and for Donna was this area of worry because I thought, I know Donna has to be worried about you and knowing you, I know you have to be worried about Donna.
Yeah. How
did you deal with that?
You know, I gotta tell you, she’s one of the most incredible people.
She is.
I’ll be honest with you. I’ve never met anybody like her.
She, um, takes care of me, and I constantly am saying, honey, I wish you didn’t have to do that, and she keeps telling me it’s a privilege.
She said, you took care of me when I was sick, now it’s my turn, and you need to let me do this.
Yeah. I don’t think we worry a lot about each other now.
We just help each other the best we can.
We are going through this like we have done everything in our life. We’re going through it together.
What a beautiful example of 60 years Yeah. Of married Yeah. Committed one to the other. Yeah. It’s beautiful. Right.
I love the words you assign to worry. I read this and I thought, yeah, this is good.
Worries inconsistent, irrational, ineffective, illogical, and irreligious.
Why is that perspective so important
I can’t get over how important it is to learn how to live each day unto itself.
I remember reading a book about living in day tight compartments, if we borrow trouble from the past, it just adds to what’s going on in the present.
And if we worry about, like, what happens if I don’t get over this?
Well, that could possibly take place, but it’s not happening today.
Today, I got a job to do and some things I need to take care of, I’m not gonna let worry destroy my life, and I’m not gonna be defined by my physical situation.
You can’t let that happen.
I love the promise that his mercies are new.
Every day. Every day. Yes.
Right. And the way you sum up in the book, you say that there’s 6 words of wisdom for warriors this is good.
You will love this. Worry about nothing and pray about everything.
Yeah. That’s Philippians where he says, you know, and everything by application, let your request be made known unto god.
If you do that, so what are you worrying about? Yeah.
You know, god understands, and he knows Now do we ever have fleeting moments of worry?
Uh, we might like to clean that up and say it’s a concern. Yeah, we do.
It’s not wrong to have those moments, but what it is wrong to do is to live in those moments.
Yeah.
Because if you do that, it’ll ruin your life.
One of the great lines in that hymn amazing grace that John Newton wrote, um, through many dangerous toils and snares, I have already come.
It’s interesting that the doubts and the snares are in the same hymn about grace.
How do we find the grace of god in the midst of those?
You know, I remember years ago, somebody said about being a preacher, god can never greatly use a man until he crushes him.
Wow. And I actually prayed that day lord. I wanna be greatly used, but I don’t wanna be crushed.
And I didn’t hear any verbal ad from the lord, but I knew in my heart that I’d ask something that was impossible.
If you just stop and think about it, you know, a lot Christian people, guys that god is using, I don’t know any of them that haven’t had
No. So
true. A tough time, sometime in their life.
And I think it’s important when people listen to you as you speak and teach that they know that you’ve been crushed.
Yeah. When people know you’ve been through something, they listen to you. Yeah.
The Bible says we comfort others with the comfort we’re with. We ourselves have been comfort in.
And if we’ve never been through anything, we have really been robbed, um, one of the tools god gives us to strengthen other people I got a letter from a lady about a month ago, she said, I just found out I’m gonna have to walk with the cane for the rest of my life, and I’ve been crying and complaining about it.
Then I saw you come across the platform with your walker, and I felt so embarrassed.
And I said, lord, never again. So that’s what happens.
You’re talking the book about the gift of perseverance. Most people don’t think of perseverance as a gift.
I would probably use the word determination perseverance, staying with it. You know, we always quit too soon.
Yeah. There’s a statistic that when you think you have exercised to the limit of your ability to exercise, you still have 60% left
Oh, wow.
And and and I haven’t tested that, but but the issue there in the physical realm is the same in the spiritual realm.
We say lord, we can’t take anymore. Well, yes, you can.
You can bear up under a lot more than you think you can with the strength of God.
And I think here, I’ve been doing this now for 55 years. I’ve been preaching.
I never think about not doing it people keep asking me, when are you gonna quit?
I don’t think about that. I think about what we’re teaching next week and how we go forward and teach that.
And god has given me a great sense of determination.
You know, if you’re in front of people like we are, and it’s live on the internet.
Every week, you you face a challenge. What what if I can’t do this?
What if I don’t have the energy to do this? Yeah.
But every day, you go forward to do what god has called you to do.
You put your foot in the water and god shows you that he’s strong enough.
And he strengthens you to do what you determine to do in response of obedience, and that’s wonderful.
There’s something you say that’s kind of tucked into that.
Almost does what does god expect from us in adversity?
Because you could have just sat back and said, you know what? I’m tired. I’m not ready.
We have a role too, don’t we? And stepping into what god has called us.
You know, I think I alluded to it earlier in when I was in the hospital suddenly dawned on me that the one thing God wanted me to be in that hospital was a man of god.
So I talked to some of the nurses about their faith.
I gave copies away of books that I had just written.
I had a whole little stack of stuff that I was given out to everybody.
I wanted to be a man of god in the midst of that.
What does god expect of us? Yeah.
He expects us to stay strong in the midst of adversity and not be affected by it so that we lose our testimony to the watching world.
What have you got to offer people if the only thing you can do is show them that life is good and you can manage that.
When life isn’t so good, you gotta be able to is that.
And by the grace of god, you can do it, his grace is sufficient for every day.
What about the idea that you can almost embark with god.
I’ll do this for you if you do that for me.
Well, you can do it. It doesn’t work. God doesn’t bargain with us. We can make promises, and that’s good.
And the Foxhole Christianity you’re talking about is, uh, very popular get me out of this hospital bed, and I will serve you the rest of my life.
One of the things I know that God knows is that we don’t have very good memories.
And we don’t remember what we say, and we don’t often do what we say we’re gonna do.
So take god at his word. You can make commitments to him.
You can make a vow before the lord, but make sure you keep your eye.
Yeah. One of the things I found really helpful in this book you had 5 principles about having fortitude during times of trouble.
So principle number 1 is this. I found this fascinating, disruptive moments are often divine appointments.
Yeah. That’s true. Prosperity is not a good teacher.
No.
But adversity is a great teacher. I’ve learned so much when I had cancer.
I’ve learned so much with the other issues I’ve had in my life, I don’t like them.
Here’s the deal. I don’t even get to vote on them. You know, they come and god sends them.
I like to say, uh, a little prayer, lord, help me to, understand and learn what you want me to learn so I don’t have to ever refresh your course.
But you have to understand that when adversity comes, it’s not an enemy. Yeah.
God is up to something. He may show you later on, and he may not, but he’s up to something.
Your principle number too is this. Progress without pain is usually not possible.
No. You know, that’s true in the sports world too. No gain without pain. Mhmm.
You know, you have to train your muscles with muscle memory, which is done in a gym where nobody’s cheering and behind closed doors and you’re working hard and I find myself even doing that now.
One of the things my doctor told me was make sure you stay strong in your upper body, get a trainer, and keep working, and Is that fun?
No. Do I want to do that? No. But you can’t let your body tell you what to do.
The wisdom that you have gleaned and are gleaning from this season is just it’s priceless.
I get to principle number 3. The promise of god is the provision of grace.
Right.
So that’s what we can kind of talk.
Really to me is god hasn’t promised us the full healing of our disease or the full answer to our question.
But he’s promised as he did to Paul my graces sufficient for you, and it is.
Yeah.
Day by day. Don’t get too far ahead of yourself. But his grace is sufficient for every day.
Yeah. Principal number 4, disruptive moments produced dynamic growth.
I believe you’re seeing and will continue to see that in your preaching and writing and teaching that the growth that occurs in those painful places is significant.
Well, I’ve heard your stories, Sheila. So I know that you believe that personally too.
And, um, so many of the people that I know who are doing what I do they have their stories and the things that have happened to them and how god used the hard places to prepare them for the good places.
Unfortunately, most of us, we want the one without the other.
But as in in that chapter you’re quoting, there is no such thing.
At least if it is, I’ve not seen it. It’s a very rare thing.
Final principle principle 5. What we receive from disruptive moments Interesting depends on how we respond.
We don’t get to choose the things that happen to us.
We do get to choose how we respond to the things that happen to us.
And that’s a lesson that gets seared into your soul when you go through something like this.
You know, I’ve had asked people ask me, when we started this interview, well, why did this happen?
How did it happen? I don’t know. I’ve talked to some of the smartest doctors in Southern California.
They don’t know. They don’t even know very much about this disease or what causes it or how it happens.
I can’t do anything about that, but what I can do is say, okay, I got this thing and I’m gonna deal with it the best I know how every day with all my heart, getting better as I can, doing what they tell me to do, and stay out of the weeds of why did it happen and who’s up who’s after me and is is god upset with me, or is the devil mad at me?
Oh, you know, all that stuff that people go through Look, I got a disease.
I gotta get up tomorrow and get my clothes on and go face it.
There’s not a single person on this planet.
Who loves you and has been blessed and touched by your ministry, who would have wished this upon you.
But I believe this single one of us who will not be touched by how you have responded in this situation, and the way you’ve shown us a shining example of You know what?
You can keep the faith even in the most difficult moments. Talk to Jeremiah on behalf of your worldwide family.
Thank you. You’re welcome.
If you would like to experience the hope that can only come from knowing Jesus Christ in a personal way, Doctor.
Jeremiah would like to send you 2 resources. The first is a booklet called Your Greatest Turning Point.
Which will help you begin your relationship with Christ. And the second is our monthly devotional magazine, turning points.
To give you encouragement and inspiration throughout the year.
These resources are yours completely free when you contact Turning Point today.
Next time on Turning Point.
And the Bible tells us that we’re to look at what Satan is trying to do to us how he’s trying to attack us, where we know we seem to be vulnerable, and where to take the shield of faith and hold it up in that particular place of our vulnerability, and we’re to take the sword of the spirit, which is the rhema of god.
And that means find the scriptures that deal with the issue that Satan is trying to destroy you with.
Thank you for being with us today.
Join Doctor Jeremiah next time for his message, the shield of faith.
Here on Turning Point.