 And let's open Amos chapter 3 verse 12, and if you do not have a Bible with you, we're just going to read it straight from the screen, if you can pull the screen a little bit closer. Amos chapter 3 verse 12, this is what the Lord says, as the shepherd rescues from the lion's mouth only two bones and a piece of an ear, so will the Israelites living in Samaria will be rescued with only a head of a bed and a piece of fabric from a couch. I'm going to talk to you for a few moments about a topic that I will title two bones and an ear. Two bones and an ear. This is a very unique scripture. Amos is one of those books in the Old Testament that sometimes it's very hard to find and has a lot of different prophecies. But in here it has that very unique verse which reveals to us many things about life. And I'm going to highlight just four simple lessons from this verse you can learn about life, God and the reality of the world. It says there that as the shepherd rescues a sheep out of the mouth lion, and what's left of that sheep is just two bones and an ear. That's how God is going to rescue people who are taken hostage by the devil and he is not going to let the devil take everything from them but still rescue them. Let's just highlight few simple lessons. One is that this is a lesson of a ruthless lion, a ruthless enemy. We must understand is the reason the shepherd has to rescue the sheep is because the sheep has gotten on a territory of a lion and the lion has taken advantage of the sheep and he has not only roared at the sheep, not only he frightened the sheep, not only he intimidated the sheep and not only he took few bites of the sheep but he started to devour the sheep until out of the sheep was only left two bones and piece of an ear. My friends the reality of life and you saw a little video when Lilia was presenting of a demons coming out of people. The reality of life is this is in this world we have an invisible world and an invisible world that is the devil. Devil is not a hollowing custom. Devil is not just a myth for evil. It's not just a name for the evil that is happening in the world. He is not just a cool theme for the Hollywood films. Devil is a real enemy that is responsible for all the evil that is in this world. He is as real as you and I actually as real as every evil heartache pain that is in this world and this devil he's not just a lion that walks around roaring. We see in this scripture this lion is ruthless. This lion has no feelings. This lion cannot be negotiated. This lion cannot be simply convinced or you cannot cry to him to let him know to leave you alone. This lion is an alish. This lion has an assignment and this assignment is to kill, destroy and steal. I like what Saint Augustine said about the devil. He said the devil is like a mad dog that is chained up. He is powerless to harm us when we are outside of his reach but once we enter his circle we expose ourselves again to injury or harm. A long time ago in Ukraine I had a teacher who was helping me with math and this teacher she was one of the either nurses or the doctors in the medical hospital and she was very brilliant and bright with math. She had a dog and this dog was an alish. It was one of the most vicious dogs I came across to always barked at me and barked at anything that moved and I was never afraid of the dog. I got used to his barks and these barks didn't intimidate me and I would go to her house upstairs. She would help me with homework and she would teach me math and I will go back home except this time I didn't think the dog was there and so instead of just simply walking I knew where I had to walk where that dog will not reach me. I actually took my liberty and I walked in the places I should have not walked and lo and behold that dog not just barked at me. It launched on me and it took a bit a piece of skin right out of my skin until that doctor had to stitch me up and ever since then I have a very interesting respect for chained dogs. I've learned that there is something very important. The dog that is on the chain can bark at you all day long. It will intimidate your ears but it won't hurt your body. But the moment you cross unto his territory he will no longer bark at you, he will bite you. My friends that's exactly about Satan. Satan will bark at every person on this earth but he can't bite every person on this earth. When you step on his territory and his territory is sin you expose yourself not just to Satan's temptation you expose yourself to his assault and to his attack and to his curse. Can somebody say amen? That's why we stay away from sin, not because sin offers us pleasure. Sin offers a certain appeal of pleasure but sin also has a dog that is ready to attack you and take advantage of you. Not just bark at you but attack you and destroy your life. We stay away from sexual sin. That's why we stay away from alcohol. We stay away from drugs. That's why we stay away from lying. That's why we stay away from stealing because by not staying away from sin what you are doing is you're stepping on the lion's territory and he will attack you. You know it was not that lady's fault what happened to my leg. It wasn't that lady's fault what happened to me. God is not responsible for what happens to us when we step into the enemy's territory. God will still rescue us, God will still help us but you cannot blame God for what happens to you when you live a life that is not committed to the Lord. Can somebody say amen? In this lesson we learned there is a ruthless enemy and he's out to roar and also to bite. He's out to bark and he's also to attack and to assault our life. We see also from this story, from this verse is there is a relentless Savior, a relentless Jesus, a relentless shepherd that is out to rescue us. She didn't look at me and said you know what Vlad you should have never stepped into that part. She didn't look at me and say you know what you got what you deserve. She didn't just look at me and say you know what let the dog finish you up so you can learn a lesson. The teacher did not roll her arms and was looking at it or took her phone and was snapchatting that story. No the teacher she quickly actually her husband and her they quickly ran and they beat the dog and they pushed me away they took me to their house and I wasn't this wasn't my mom this wasn't my relative but they were the ones that helped me and recovered me and nursed me to help. That's exactly what our relentless shepherd does for us can somebody say amen. He became a shepherd so he can rescue you. I love this about Jesus in John chapter 10 he describes himself he said I am a good shepherd. You know what makes him good? It's not the fact he has good sheep. It's the fact he is willing to die for the bad ones. What makes Jesus great is not the fact that he is holy. It's not the fact even that he is powerful. It's that when you step into the enemy's territory Jesus doesn't forsake you and doesn't simply clap his hands and says ha I hope you learn a lesson. That is not Jesus. That is not God. Jesus goes and fights with that lion. He goes and he wants to push you out from the enemy's grip and save your life. So many people think Jesus is only there to give us rules and when we break him and those rules broken rules break our life Jesus stands there warms his hands and says you know what you deserve that. That is not Jesus. That is not the Lord. Our God he loves us and he wants to rescue us. He is relentless in his love for us. He loves us and he wants to help us. No one is outside of the reach of God. Another lesson that I learned from this verse is not only the ruthlessness of the devil the relentless of my God but I also learned the redemption that exists when I respond to Jesus. When I connect myself to Jesus in the middle of my mess when I come to God when I surrender to God in the middle of addiction in the middle of a crisis in the middle of my mess of my own making in the middle of mistakes of my own creation when I turn to God no matter how much I have lost no matter how much things have went down and no matter how deep in the hole I found myself in Jesus Christ always always picks up the call and he reaches out and lifts those people there has never been a case in the Bible where somebody came to the Lord and Jesus said you have committed too much sin no one has come to the Lord in the Bible and Jesus said you have way been too far we see a guy hanging close to Jesus who was a thief and he was this close to dying and he asked Jesus remember me when I go to the when you go into your paradise and Jesus didn't say hey dude stop bothering me you're a thief okay I'm about to die and you're gonna go die and you're gonna go to hell leave me alone I'm suffering Jesus never did that when he was suffering Jesus doesn't suffer today if he was suffering and he helped people can you imagine what he could do when he's not suffering Jesus always always reaches out to help you can never ever do something where God will completely block you off of his number completely abandon you people say well you know I'm afraid of committing unpartable sin if you ever commit unpartable sin you won't know the use unpartable you'll never even come to God if there is a heartbeat inside of you to know God or there's a heartbeat to come to God you have never committed an unpartable sin God loves you and he will never outside of the reach of him and his redemption amen there's a guy named Nicky Cruz and Nicky Cruz has a very interesting story he grew up in a very large family it was a Puerto Rican family in New York and his dad would lock him in the dark room and like let pigeons come and just there were pigeons in this room and he would turn off lights and throw his son into the room and so he would get scared that pigeons would scratch him and he would hate his dad because the way he disciplined him his mom on the other hand she had a better way of disciplining him she would beat him until he would go unconscious and his mom on the top of having 16 or 17 kids she was a open witch she cut the animals she drank the blood she did seances and she would talk to the dead and she would practice witchcraft and beat him mercifully in an interview Nicky Cruz said he said in that day he says if I would stab my mom to death I wouldn't feel the pain he said I wanted her dead I couldn't stand her he says the pain she caused me the pain I've seen in my family and so what he did in return he went on the streets of New York started a gang and it was one of the most fearful gangs at the time where they claim people's lives they did very terrible things to that point where police at their block that was managed by this gang police didn't even enter there it was one of those things the murders that happened there they didn't even investigate because it was its own country and its own territory but something happened if you can turn on the clip in your life and start cursing loud you come near me and I'll kill you I spit on his face and I hear it and I don't believe in what you're saying and you get out of here Nicky never expected what he heard Wilkerson say next you could cut me up into a thousand pieces and lay them in the street and every piece was still there it did damage good in my brain and in my heart I began to question and for two weeks I could not sleep thinking about love Nicky and his gang showed up at one of Wilkerson's rallies and one by one they gave their lives to Christ it was the crucifixion Jesus death on the cross that grabbed Nicky I never heard it and I fell for him when he died on that cross he was a man like you you're the same fears and the same feelings that you have that little boy began to think about where I was hurt I was choked up with pain and my eyes were fighting and tears began to come down and more tears and I was fighting and then I surrendered and then I let Jesus hug me unless I let my head rest on his chest okay I'm sorry forgive me and for the first time I told somebody I love you and I told, I love you Jesus the love Nicky got in return radically changed his life and when I opened my eyes I got a new heart I have been born again I'm a child of the Lord Nicky left the gang scene at Bible college and met Gloria the two married and moved back to New York City where they ran Teen Challenge a program to help troubled teens since then, Nicky has raised four girls and traveled all over the world as an evangelist and head of Nicky Cruz Ministries I am the most happy human being because I have reached thousands or perhaps millions of people that have come to Jesus through my message but the greatest success of my life it was when I brought my mother to Jesus my father and my brother Nicky chose to forgive his parents and he asked them to forgive him a young man in the grip of witchcraft a young man who didn't choose a family when his mom beat him unconsciously a young man who didn't choose a life of rage and hate he was thrown into it, it wasn't his choice see, a lot of times we make choices but he was a part of a choice that someone else make and being in that kind of a lifestyle nobody ever told him, I love you nobody ever told, nobody ever showed any of that and then when he came to church one particular time he met this pastor, David Wilkerson and he received this message of love and forgiveness and Jesus' death, he surrendered his life and he was tougher than anybody that you probably will come across with and as he surrendered to that message something happened, God took that broken peace God took that man, in the beginning of the testimony he said of himself, people didn't call him Nicky they called him an animal the way he treated people he said the only place where people get or things get treated is in the animal kingdom he was completely ruthless and Satan destroyed his life like that but with an encounter with somebody who was relentless with Jesus Christ, something else happened he changed this gang leader not just into a good boy but into a powerful evangelist where thousands of people are saved today and not only that, but we see that he has a family, he has a ministry and he eventually brought his very mother who abused him, who caused him so much pain who served the devil, he brought her to the Lord and he brought his father and his brothers and now they're all serving Christ let's put our hands together for the Lord Jesus Christ we can never get so far sometimes in our life the enemy takes certain things away from us sometimes we lose virginity people can lose maybe a certain years of their life or people maybe lose their freedom or lose certain portions and they feel like the only thing they have left is just two legs and one ear just a little bit left and everything else the enemy has taken sometimes single moms they feel like I was able to go to school but all of that was taken away I lived my life partying and then I made some mistakes and they caught up to me and today I have children and though they're a great blessing from God but at the same time so much of my life has already been wasted and it's already been taken I have a message for each person in this room today there is a lion that's out to take but there is someone else who's greater than that lion and it is your shepherd and he's not able to just pat you on the back and says I understand what you're going through and forgive you but he's able to pull you out of the grip of that lion so you hope and to give you future and to give you tomorrow can somebody say amen you know we have a group we have a group of men today from Teen Challenge and if you listen to each one of them they'll tell you a story that this verse is their life story if we pick person after person today as we already heard the testimonies we will find out that the young girls and young guys some of them in the grip of alcohol some of them in the grip of just immorality others in the grip of drugs that they were literally the enemy taking their life and some of them wanted to end their life at the age of 20 they fell hopeless until the shepherd showed up and that shepherd pulled them out and yes they lost some things and yesterday they have certain regrets but they will tell you one thing is that though I have scars where the enemy bit me I also have scars where Jesus healed me where Jesus showed his grace where Jesus showed his mercy and Jesus showed his power can somebody say amen I want you to remember the fourth lesson of this verse the fourth lesson is the responsibility not only God gives us redemption not only we see that Jesus is the one who wants to help us not only we only see the devil wants to attack us but God teaches us a very powerful lesson from this verse and the lesson is this whatever you have left is more than what you've lost what God wants to teach us today is this is that whatever you have left today is so much more than what you have lost you know I came across a story of our president we had president Abraham Lincoln and if you check Abraham Lincoln at the age of 21 he failed his first business at the age of 22 he was defeated in the legislative race in the age of 24 he failed again in the business at the age of 26 overcame death of his sweetheart at the age of 27 had a nervous breakdown which explains at the age of 34 he had a congressional race and he lost it at the age of 36 he lost another congressional race at the age of 45 he lost a senator race at the age of 47 he failed in an effort to become a vice president at the age of 47 he lost a senatorial race and at the age of 52 he became a president you read that and you're like this guy definitely has a big curse on his life I mean anything he picks up it fails it fails it fails it's either people die around him and you know most of us don't know this story we know the man who brought the changes in our country we know a man who was a great president we know a man who was a revolutionary movies are made about him books are written about him people today honor him and respect him but you have to understand this is the man who at the age of 52 had to realize is my life just two bones and one ear can God take this that is left 52 only fail fail fail fail can God do something with this and listen shepherd can do something with that maybe no one else can do it but God can you know a golf a golf club in my hands is just a stick in Tiger Woods hands it's not a stick it's a tool to win championships a basketball in my hands it's a brick in the hands of Michael Jordan it made him in who he is that everybody knows about him in the world and that's how it is with two bones and piece of an ear in my hands it's just the remaining of somebody's really really bad luck and you bury it and you say you know what I'm sorry for what happened to you but when those two bones and an ear goes in the hands of Jesus he can make a masterpiece out of it he can create a change out of it can somebody say amen we look at the life name Moses where Moses at the age of 80 80 is the time for your exit you plan to die you prepare your family you get a life insurance at the age of 80 40 years he was in a palace 40 years in a wilderness running from his past and you would think life is lost but see when you bring your two bones and an ear and you feel like you lost everything to someone who is a shepherd he takes those two bones and an ear as he did with Moses and he said Moses you feel like you come to an end you feel like it's over Moses actually I'm about to start and Moses movie TV series will be written books will be written sermons will be preached when you thought your life was over from that point on you will bring such a change that a nation they will become the center of earth's conflict will be born because of what I'm going to do through your life my friends God is not done with you God has a plan and a purpose for you this is what I want you to remember God will use what you have to give you what you need God will use what you have to give you what you need when God created human body he used the dirt he didn't ship men through phoenix or UPS he didn't form him in heaven out of the material in heaven God used the dirt when man was made God wanted to make a woman God didn't use the dirt again he went and took what man had to create what man needed he used his bone we see later on when a woman comes to Elisha's and says Elisha my husband died he left so much dead and we have just this big problem could you help us I think this woman secretly was hoping that Elisha will write her a fat check because that's what people do today when Elisha needs nobody's expecting for the pastor to give them a business idea everybody's expecting to give him a check you coming to a prophet you know he's loaded you know he's connected to the kings and so she's coming and says listen he was a prophet he was with you he had a lot of dead he didn't help the family help me out and the prophet asked this ridiculous question what do you have in your house and if I would be here I would answer didn't you hear me he says what do you have in your house he says I don't have nothing except a little bit of oil and the prophet said God will use what you have to give you what you need God is not going to do something from heaven he's going to use what you have to give you what you need and that little bit of oil why does God do that because God is not interested in just meeting our needs he is interested in growing a partnership in developing within us a relationship and God supplied her needs but what you had we see the same thing with Jesus when they needed to feed a lot of people and disciples came to Jesus and said Jesus we don't have anything to feed these people with and Jesus says what do you guys have and they said this we don't have anything but five loaves and to fish maybe that's how you feel today I don't have anything but it's what you have after Jesus what you're looking at that is insignificant because you're looking at what you can do with it but you have to look at what the shepherd can do with it you're looking at two bones and an ear and you said this is nothing this can never change anything you are right but if it's in the hands of God it's everything and it can change the world your life can make a difference at this age with that testimony with that personality with those gifts with those weaknesses in this city you can be the person that God can use to save thousands you can be the person whose hands will heal thousands you can be the person or you can be the person who simply will say there's nothing God can do don't be like that somebody say amen and I tell you about another young man and it's another nick most of you have heard this testimony when he was born his father saw him for the first time when he was coming out of the womb and he saw him without arms went into a shock until the nick came out completely out of his mother's womb and he saw that not only his son didn't have arms his son didn't have legs and his father fainted in the hospital mom couldn't hold him for four months because she was so uncomfortable with having a baby without limbs they questioned God so many times why and what happened and then they came to the realization that the fact that he doesn't have arms and he doesn't have legs he's no less human and God does not love him less and he does not have a lesser destiny as every person who does have limbs at the age of 10 he said though my parents fell in love with me and they cared for me he says I couldn't grasp around my mind how could a person like me ever fit into this world or fit into God's plan or God's goal he asked his parents to put a bath for him so he can take a bath but he wanted to drown himself right before drowning thoughts started penetrating his mind he started imagining his funeral he started imagining his funeral and he started seeing how much pain his parents will go through if he will commit suicide and he said something out of the respect for my parents I decided not to end my life at the age of 15 he meets Christ and Jesus begins to touch his life he asked God why have you let this happen and God replied back do you trust me anyway he gave the answer to God yes at the age of 17 in a school assembly they had a whole 300 students they gathered together and they asked somebody to motivate them and they brought Nick and put him on the table and they gave him few minutes to inspire people and in few minutes there was now one dry eye in the whole auditorium and afterwards people lined up and they take pictures hugged him and they said your story has impacted my life to the degree that you don't know how at the age of 17 years of age he recognized that honestly that maybe God can take two bones and an ear and make something out of it maybe he can at the age of 21 he finished his bachelors in financial wrote a book a movie he can play most of the sports that probably all of us combined here don't play and it's been to over 60 countries and reached over 3 million people and over half a million people have given their lives to Jesus Christ married, has two children and if you look at him today and if you go to his office today you will recognize that to have him speak in the assembly there's 10,000 people in front of you to have him speak dignitaries, presidents, pope and different people in the world today ask so he will come and grace them with his presence a man who has no limbs is a man who discovered a shepherd who can use a man with two bones and one ear can somebody say amen God can use you God can help you whatever you have left is enough God will use what you have to create what you need can somebody say amen