"How Shall We Then Live - Panel Discussion" | KFW 2025

Well, it's a pleasure to be here with all of you this evening, and I want to welcome all of you to this panel discussion.

My name is Joe Kurtz, and I'm here with my wife, Doreen, and eight children, and we live in Granby, Massachusetts, and are part of the Disciples Fellowship congregation there. And my wife and I also have a breakfast and lunch café in downtown Amherst called Coronation Café. We'd love to serve you there at some point. So again, welcome here.

We welcome your contribution, and I'll tell you in a few minutes how you can do that. So as has been already mentioned, the title for this panel discussion is "How Shall We Then Live?" It's a question. How shall we then live?

What goes through your mind when I ask that question? This question echoes to us from the book of Ezekiel, chapter 34 and verse 10, almost word for word. Listen to what is written here. Listen to what God says through the prophet Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 34, verse 10: "And you, Son of Man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said"—this is God speaking to Ezekiel—"Thus have you said, Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we wrought away because of them. How then can we live? Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.

Turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?" In response to the Israelites' lament for their sin, God reminds His people that He does not take pleasure in the death of His people, and He invites them instead to repent and to turn from their evil ways and live. We have gathered here this weekend to reflect on the story of the Anabaptist, to pause and to consider where we have come from, and where are we, and where are we headed.

There is reason to rejoice. There is reason to give thanks for the good things that we experience. There is also reason to lament, to turn back, and to repent. What will be the story of the next 500 years?

You get to be part of it. And so this is the question that we raise on this panel: How then shall we live? So next I'd like to introduce the men and the topics and also the framework. So in an attempt to answer that question of how then shall we live, we have four men here and four short topics where they will have the opportunity to wrestle with that question.

We have chosen a verse taken from 1 Corinthians, chapter 16, verse 13. It's a short verse. It has four parts to form the framework for this conversation. And here is how it goes in the King James Version: "Watch ye.

Stand fast in the faith. Quit you like men. Be strong." For a little more nuance, I'll read it to you in the ESV. It says, "Be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Act like men. Be strong." We're using the KJV to form those subtitles.

"Watch ye. Stand fast in the faith. Quit you like men. Be strong." Now next I'd like to tell you a little bit about the panels here, the panelists that we have here, so you know a little bit about who they are and that they are human just like you. A few weeks ago we had a Zoom meeting, and we were talking together on Zoom and talking about some of these things, some of which we will hear coming out, I believe.

And what I did not realize when I was speaking with them there is that these men are all giants. We were meeting on Zoom. I was not aware of that, but when I stood here this afternoon, I think I was looking up to every one of them. So they're giants. That's the first thing I want to say.

And welcome here. Harold Troyer has the first section of that verse I read to you, and that is, "Watch ye." Brother Harold lives in Bellville, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Larissa, and seven children. He works as a communications director for All Nations Bible Translation, and he has written a book called Fatherless, which tells the story of his wife's life. He's also working on another book about a people group that's sometimes referred to as the Ukrainian Amish.

He enjoys flying and studying anthropology. So welcome here, Harold. We're going to have you come up here in just a few minutes and share what you have prepared. But next I have seated here to his left, Brandon Byler. Brandon Byler and his wife, Heather, live in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, with their five children, and they are part of the Shippensburg Christian Fellowship. And he does roofing and pole barn construction for his work. And the last time I spoke with Brandon, he was zooming in from Ireland, where he was teaching at a Bible school there. He also enjoys reading. So welcome, Brandon.

And your section here, if I didn't mention that already, is the second part of the verse that says, "Stand firm in the faith." So welcome here, Brandon. Next to his left, I have Brother Harry is here, and Harry lives with his wife in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he teaches part-time at the university. Not having children of their own, him and his wife minister to international students in their home. Think he may have mentioned that in his talk last night as well.

Harry is also involved in building a discipleship camp that is focused on building character in Western Virginia called Peaceful Meadows. He also enjoys sailing, swimming, running, and biking. So welcome here, Harry. We'd like to see you do some of that tonight.

Your section is Quit You Like Men. As I read in the ESV, it says, "Act like men. Quit you like men." That's Harry's section. To his left, we also have Kai, and Kai has spoken this afternoon here as well. Kai lives in southern Kentucky with his wife, Katrina, and their six children. He is a deacon at the Marrowbone Christian Brotherhood in Berksville, Kentucky. They raise chickens, and he also owns a company that builds and equips chicken houses. Kai enjoys singing a lot, and he has sung in the past with the Esch family. You may be familiar with the Esch family both before and after the tragic accident that claimed the eight lives from the Esch family.

So welcome here, Kai. It's good to have you part of the panel discussion. So how are we going to do this? How are we going to conduct this panel?

Just a minute. I'm going to invite Harold to come up, and he is going to present for he'll have about seven minutes to present the remarks that he has prepared, and then he's going to sit down, and Brandon will come up and give the remarks that he has prepared, and we're going to move through each one like that. So they'll come up here and share their piece that they have prepared, and then they'll sit down. And after each of those men do that, then we're going to engage in dialogue just among the panelists themselves. So again, we'll start here with Harry, and the panelists will engage with him around the content that he shared, and then Brandon and Harry and so forth, until we complete that with Kai.

Okay, and then there's one more part to this whole event, and that is how you can contribute. For the last 30 minutes, we plan to take questions that have come in from you all. So if you have a pen and paper or a device, you can submit questions with pen and paper. There's a box in the back, and I would suggest that you get those in earlier on. I don't know how late he'll check the box, but you can submit them online if you have a device. Just go to the website, go to the panel discussion, and you can select which panelists you would be aiming your particular question at. So I hope that that is clear, how that will be conducted, and at this time, I will sit down and invite Harold to come up here.

Who should be watching?

Every father should be watching.

Protecting his wife and his children spiritually, warning them of danger. Job watched. Set his sacrifice for his children just in case they sin against God. Every pastor, every church leader should be watching. The undershepherd to the flock. This is optional. If fathers and pastors don't watch, no one else will. Why should we be watching? Because we have enemies. 1 Peter 5:8 says that the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking who he may rebel.

But he also comes as an angel of light. Not just to cause fear, watching to see. That's my thought on the same deception. Satan's goal is to distract, to dull, to destroy, and to devout.

How do we stay watchful? I think a primary part is humility. It's through I fast, pray. I think that's a part of it. Knowing the word God, handle the real things so we can instantly spot character that's important. Knowing God Himself, walking with God, keeps awake to His signs and warnings. In abstaining, what dulls us? The world's noise and pleasures tend to dull us. So what do we watch at God? It's three things.

The world is not the problem. The world has always been immoral, ungodly, violent. Everything about the world has always been that way. But the problem comes in the church is the issue. Three things I think about this evening could be slumber, could be apathy, and it could be deception. Again, the thought of deception. It spells sad. Sad Christianity. Sleeping Christians. Now, what causes these things? One of the questions I ask sometimes is, how do you know you're awake?

How do you know you're awake? Are you awake this evening, or are you dreamy?

How do you know?

I had a vision recently of churches filled with people, and they're all sleepy.

Some causes for sleeping Christians, I think, could be non-resistance. Non-resistant. They don't resist evil. The scripture said, "Resist the devil if you will flee from you." Getting in the way of evil. Resisting ungodliness. We should be non-violent. We should not be non-resistant.

Materialism and wealth, comfort. Satan is rocking us to sleep with a comfortable lifestyle. Technology. Uncontrolled access to technology causing spiritual slumber. Apathetic Christians. The scripture says, "God will spew them out of His mouth." The causes for apathy could be the cares of this life. Business. We're very busy people.

Being fearful. I think fear is a part of the problem today. Years ago, it was a class. It was a workshop. It was north of your Penn Dahlia tree. I was sitting in that class, and Brother was sharing on the need for missionaries to brew. I had reached the country where people grew in the mountains there, and I was saying to him, "Let's don't remember everything you said." But I do remember that Brother Dale Fizzy was speaking of this and sharing the perhaps need to give your life for this, and perhaps even your blood, where this worked. But I remember walking out of that class, that workshop, and a young man beside me chuckled to himself and says, "You won't catch me going there."

Never forgot that. Do you plan to give your life for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ? I do. The third thing I think of is deceived Christians. A person deceived doesn't know he's deceived. Causes for deception.

Cowitchessness. We label it godliness. Good stewardship. Christ-bought covetedness. And then tragic micro-shifts. Tonic compromises. Small course changes that over time lead us far off track.

And then I think of the results as being deception, the snare. He just has a map 24 that there will be a time or error. So deceptive that even if it were possible, that even the very elect will be deceived.

How to prevent this? Loving God with all your heart, soul and mind. Worshiping God, fearing God, obeying God. You need as yourself, the least, the fatherless widows and refugees, the least of these, having a deep love for mankind. And then number three, watching and praying always. Luke 21, verses 34 through 36. I'll read that yet. But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and the cares of this life. And that day come upon you unexpected, for it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore and pray always that you may be counterworthy to escape all these things that will come to pass when you stand before the Son of Man.

I'm sure I didn't cover all the aspects of this, so I'm writing a book based on this study. 20,000 words in seven minutes is not possible. So this panel isn't about clever answers. It's about waking the church. We need men who see the danger, who blow the trumpet in Zion, and say, "We're awake. We see what's coming, and by God's grace, we'll stand." Thank you.

Paul's statement is clear. He says, "Watch. Stand fast in the faith." Various Bible translations are also very clear. Be alert. Be on guard. Keep your eyes open. Stand fast. Stand firm in the faith. The scriptural warning is clear, and yet how do you know if you're standing firm in the faith at this very moment?

How do I know if I'm standing firm in the faith? Perhaps we're drifting. Perhaps we're shifting. Perhaps the current is already sweeping us away. What does it mean to stand fast in the faith in 2025? The main thought that I leave with you this evening is this. If you would stand firm in the faith, you must join a close, close in proximity, clear, countercultural community of Kingdom believers. If you would stand firm in the faith, you must join a close, clear, countercultural community of Kingdom believers.

I am aware that not everyone here this evening you would call yourself an Anabaptist, and you are welcome here. My remarks, particularly, and my application are for those of us who consider ourselves conservative Anabaptists. The rest of you are welcome to listen in and share your feedback as you wish.

There are three inferences that I made from Paul's warning here. The first one is connection. His statement is for those who are in the faith. He's presupposing that we are filled with the Holy Spirit and that we are walking with God in all the light that we know how as a disciple of Jesus Christ. We're connected to the Vine. This is non-negotiable.

He's also speaking of a current here. He's indicating that we will face constant pressures to slide from the faith, and that current is relentless. It does not stop. Where do the pressures come from? They come from the world, the flesh, our own desires, and the devil.

Popular culture, which is the dominant culture of North America, along with many churches, have dismissed worldliness, fleshly issues, and the devil in one fell swoop. What I'm here to tell you tonight, they are all alive and well. They are all presenting us with a current with pressures that are relentless.

Worldliness, of course, has always opposed godliness. And in that way, we are facing the same things that the apostles and the early Anabaptists faced. And yet the old worldliness shows up in new manifestations. And so the old godliness must respond with new applications.

What are some of the differences between the culture in which we find ourselves and the culture of the early church and the early Anabaptists? Perhaps the biggest difference that I would like us to think about is what I would call for the early church and the early Anabaptists, a persecution culture, where they lived expecting to be under definite, fierce opposition for their beliefs, versus we who find ourselves in what I would call a pleasure culture, a culture where we are tolerated, even celebrated, and people appreciate, by and large, Christianity. It's a very different culture. It's a very difficult culture in which to stay faithful. In a persecution culture, we do our best to blend in without denying the truth of God's word.

In a pleasure culture, we do our best to stand out with doing our best not to add to the word of God, but to be strong and stay faithful in this culture. The novelist Flannery O'Connor once advised, "Push as hard as the age that pushes against you." And I would add to that, "Push where the age is pushing against you."

If you're from North Korea or Afghanistan or India, it's likely that you're going to have different cultural pushes than what we are facing as North American Anabaptists. What is the spirit of the age here in North America? Ken Myers notes that the spirit of popular culture, which is the dominant culture, continues to be the spirit of youth culture. It is suspicious of authority, of the past. It is allergic to formality. It is impatient with the limitations of propriety and fearful of being perceived as uncool. To be young today or stubbornly to think of oneself as young is to see life as all possibility and no necessity. When you think about the spirit of this age, there are so many things that characterize it of which we must be aware and watchful.

The whole matter of convenience, easiness, comfort. The reason why most of us choose to carry a smartphone. We can give all sorts of arguments for it, but they basically all boil down to one thing, and it is convenience.

The opposition to authority, the dismissal of institutions, the denial of responsibility to a larger group. These are the things pressing in upon us by the culture at large. Additionally, we are facing the challenges of social media, artificial intelligence, the 24/7 availability of entertainment and distractions of sinful material that's available on every hand. Feminism, transgenderism, expressive individualism. I make my own rules. I do my own thing, and you must affirm it.

In addition to overthrowing authority, there is the tearing down of institutions, conventions, traditions at every level, at the levels of government, at the levels of the church, the home, and yes, even the individual is under attack. We have worldly churches and worldly Christians, and this includes those who appear plain, but they are worldly in heart and have no place for brotherhood agreements, for wise application of truth to current issues.

Their language is legalism, heavy-handed authority, and you can't tell me what to do. I'd like you to take stock of just one of these pressures that is against us. Individualism is the acid that is dissolving the bonds of brotherhood in our churches.

And until we deal with that issue, we are going to have a hard time developing strong brotherhood. I think many of you have experienced that. You've struggled with that. It's been a grief to you.

And I express the need for us to see it for what it is, to call it out, and by God's grace, to deal with it. It is impossible to build a strong brotherhood where there is no appreciation for covenant, for community, for yieldedness, for submission, for tradition.

We've talked about connection, current. A third inference in this text is community. Paul was writing to a group of people, not an individual. Our best hope for remaining steadfast is with other people. 2 Timothy 2:22 says, "Flee youthful lust, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." Together. Together. Too many fathers are sitting off to the sidelines with their family because nobody out there believes just like we do.

And so we're going to have home church. I'm not against house church, but I am against home church.

Let me explain this or say this. It might sound a bit heretical, but I really do think that God would rather have you join a group who is doing things wrong by your standards than to sit off by your family and do everything right.

We have been designed to connect with a group, brothers and sisters. And what I appreciate about plainness is the power of plainness is that it is related to a group. We would see ourselves as simple people, people who love simplicity, and yet simplicity can be expressed in a thousand ways, and individualism can thrive in the midst of simplicity. But plainness is a function of a group. Plainness arose organically from a group response to worldliness in the past several hundred years, first through the Crakers.

Plainness is about a lot more than clothing, but it is certainly not less than that because clothing is vital, because it's the only thing we engage with more consistently than our cell phones. That's the power of clothing. Plain clothing, such as the cape dress for women and the plain suit for men, is genius for at least two reasons. Here's the genius of it. Number one, the expectation of this attire will surface selfishness and individualism faster than you can imagine.

Strong brotherhoods are only possible as we expose and deal with the ass of individualism as quickly as possible. And I know of nothing that will surface it more quickly than plain attire and the expectation and requirement of it. I'm not judging anybody. I'm not here promoting a personal agenda. Plainness is a group agreement.

No single church, no single individual decided what plainness was going to be. But there is a group understanding.

I know of nothing else that touches individualistic self-focus faster than plain dress. And there may be some things. I am open to the fact that the plain suit is not necessary to surface individualism, but I want to hear what it is, and I want to see you implement it in your church.

The second genius of plain dress is that it is powerful for shaping and reshaping our identity in a wholesome way. And that is why the people in groups who disregard the power of plain attire almost all go on to demonstrate how powerful it is by adopting for themselves all sorts of other expressive individualistic clothing, which is largely from the culture.

Unity is more than uniformity, but it does require a basic measure of uniformity for any sort of ongoing credible witness of separation from the world. And it's ironic, but I have heard men deride uniformity and then go on to decry the divisions in conservative Anabaptist world.

Brothers, we can't have it both ways. Okay? I am here to laud the individual local brotherhoods who choose to be plain and separate in their unique way, whether you're German Baptist or River Brethren or Old Order Mennonite or unaffiliated Mennonite.

You have to build the kingdom within a cultural context. And so why not choose the conservative Anabaptist context? Unity is much more than uniformity, but it will never have less than a basic uniformity of some sort, especially at the brotherhood level. And so I'm talking about appreciating our differences as various brotherhoods and yet maintaining a clear credit, not perfect, but a credible separation from the world in our lifestyle, our money, our materials, our clothing, our cars, and everything.

Maintaining that for the glory of God. We must stand firm in the faith. And yet, as the next verse says, Paul tells us that all that you do be done with love. In closing, if you and future generations are going to stand firm in the faith, I believe that you must join a close in proximity, clear countercultural community of Kingdom believers.

Well, my word is quit you like men, that portion.

In the Greek interlinear, I use it quite a lot. Just to rephrase that statement, just interlinear passages, be vigilant, as we've heard, stand firmly in the faith. In mine, the word Andre Zisto.

The Greek is be manly. If you look at it, one way of saying it is man up. Now, what's interesting is I went through translations of the scripture, lots of translations for the scripture, and I found about 50% of the translations for the scripture don't use the word man there. Even the New King James, I sort of surprised, doesn't use the word man.

Something happened over the last couple of centuries to take this word of God. It's it's it is manly. That's the word that's in there. Be manly. Something happened where we have translations now that avoid that word man. Well, what happened? Well, it has to do with worldview influencers. Now, worldview is the lens through which a lens it's almost like a lens for your eyes or your glasses. The lens through which we observe the world and the lens through which we engage the world.

What we take in and we're interpreting the world through our worldview, and then we engage it in what we think. We have this way of thinking how we're going to engage it. One of the problems of worldview is that as you both observe the world or engage the world, your own worldview gets changed. It gets shaped by what you take in.

Now, we've been under quite an influence. We have lots of worldview influencers. Of course, a word out there now are internet influencers or YouTube influencers or all these influencers, lots of these, you know, 22-year-olds with all the wisdom they have. They're out there influencing the world on the internet.

We just touched on a couple of the influences that the church has had to deal with, these worldview influences. Right at the time of Christ, we had the Roman imperial system, basically a pagan state worship. Jesus is Lord was punishable by death because the creed of that imperial Roman Empire was Caesar is Lord and moved to the Holy Roman Empire, which was a Christianized, basically pagan state worship. We can I don't have time to outline each one of these. It moves on to the regaining of a biblical worldview and in a larger sense with the Reformation and what we have our roots in here, temporary, if you I would say, where theological logic, theologically and logical uh justification is important.

That goes out there and along right tailing that, we have the Renaissance as they translated the Bible and brought forth the um the Reformation. They started translating the classic documents of the Roman and Greek era. And we had the Renaissance, which was a return to paganism, a return to pagan worldview comes up to this day. Renaissance festivals are pagan wildness. But on the tails of that and overlapping that, we have the Enlightenment worldview influencing everything in which everything had to be logical, uh scientific, methodally proved, and so on. And we move into the modern era, which lasted up until the mid-1800s-ish, that time frame, and starts to go into decline. And then we um but but in that time, we have one more popped up, and I I call it the revolutionary worldview, starting with the in the late 1700s, primarily with the French Revolution.

And that is a cast-off authority, overthrow, in fact, execute authority, this mob rule that went into effect. And uh then we have uh on the tail end of that, in the reducing of modernity, we have this now post-modernity that we're in, this post-modern worldview. Now, my argument is that a lot of that came from the entertainment industry because in the entertainment industry, you can fake everything. You can break all rules, every rule, sociological rule. Gravity is broken, cause and effect thrown out the window. And it grew up this worldview of of cast off all sorts of logic, fact and logic and reasoning almost out the door, almost out the door.

And then we have sort of in the tail end of that, as a summary, and we're living in the summary of this. This uh postmodernism is this critical approach. It's it's this um we had higher criticism in the 1800s when where we were criticizing Revelation, using the Revelation, not the Book of Revelation, the Revelation from God, criticizing it using our modernistic techniques. Now we throw everything out. We criticize everything, the critical approach to research, challenging existing social power structures and uh meta equalities by questioning knowledge, assumptions, and dominant ideals, a method of the names to transform society and promote social justice, all these things. A lot of it's gobbledygook. You hear about it, but it's taken root, came from from the Frankfurt School, and these bunch of pointy heads, I guess.

And uh one book called The Social Construction of Reality by a guy named Peter Berger, which just turned things upside down. And someone mentioned it, this, this, well, how do we know anything? Are we a brain or a vat? All the things that command and actually everything we know is just socially constructed, all rules, everything we have. And so we're we're in that phrase, which really leads to deconstruction. It's a deconstruction of everything, everything we we're we're we're throwing out. Now, coming back to that word, uh why we didn't use man in that, in these 50% or so of the translations. Well, there's this assault on manhood. We're in the middle of this assault on manhood.

This thing called feminism. Now, in who I forgot to bring them over. Can you bring those two books that are there underneath the bible? I was just teaching. We're we're teaching through um First Corinthians and First Corinthians 11. Read two books, started with one very interesting book, um a cover for Glory by Reformed Guys Discovering, lo and behold, the head covering.

Getting interesting. This happens now and then. And uh it's all it's good to read these people, to listen to them going through this. Wow, how about that? And then they look in history and going, hey, how about that? Hey, what happened here? What happened here? How come we lost it? Why is it gone? And these guys come up with they aimed at feminism itself. They aimed at it as uh this overthrowing, throwing off something that started in the French Revolution, feminism, and then throwing a casting off as all authority. They're the the roots of really the the fullness of what we have in feminism started in that era, not in not in France, but in that era of throwing off.

And in that, I got interested in pursuing it later. And a recent book just came out, The End of Woman. We're in this era now where what's a woman? Everybody know what I'm talking about? What's a woman? And people can't answer what a woman is. And a scholar it's only been out about a year and a half went through it. Catalogs the worldview influencers of feminism catalogs unbelievable one by one by one. And the goal of this, of course, our time is short here. The goal of this is actually destroy the patriarchy.

Be be I'm I'm leaping through there. I don't have time to go through it. Destroy God's order. Destroy God's order. And in that, take aim at manhood. Now, I quit you like man. Let's not talk about men. The big challenge we have here, how then do we live is how are our young people that understand the true God-given nature of man, the true God-given nature of woman? If there's nobody out there living it out, the best I've seen of the of the true nature of man and woman being lived out is in the plain community. It's this best. It's perfect. No problems. Yes.

Problem is under assault, under assault. And the more our young people are on the Internet, on any entertainment, it's in I'm it's in virtually every bit of entertainment. These worldviews are in it. Many of those worldviews I listed down in the entertainment, deconstructing, throw structure out. Structure is an evil word. Now, where did that evil word come from? The influencers have taught us structure bad, structure bad, structure bad.

It is bad for the darkness. Our being structured is bad for darkness under assault. Okay, comes down to this question. What type? What are we going to do with our men, our young men? We can teach them, teach them, teach them. We've got to take our young men. We've got to build our young men to men of character, men who understand responsibility, men understand what it means to man up. We need men to man up, take responsibility, look forward to being the provider, look forward to being the protector, look forward to being those leaders. And we have to quell this assault on our women to think we need to throw off God's structure.

So I'm going to I'm going to end right there and we'll leave it for questions. Thank you.

Good evening. My assignment is be strong, watchy, stand fast in the faith. Quit you like men. Be strong. Strength draws us. Men like strong trucks and strong muscles. Even the ladies like strong soap and powerful vacuums.

Thousands of years ago, God gave superhuman strength to a man named Samson. With his strength, he carried away city gates, killed lines and men and pushed down a temple. Is that the strength that we desire? Today, there's a competition where big hulking men lift heavy stones and pull loaded sunlights with their teeth and complete other strange tasks that would be impossible for any of us here.

Is that the strength we desire?

Friends, tonight, if we're satisfied with six-pack stomachs and bulging biceps, we're satisfied with weakness. If we're satisfied to win foot races and ball games, we're satisfied with weakness.

As Felix Mons was was being led to his death along the Lamar River, his mother followed on the other side. And it is said that she called to him, Felix, be strong. What did she mean? Did she mean that he should rip the ropes binding his hands and tip the executioner into the water and swim for the other side?

Because we know that moments later, Felix slipped under the water and his life slipped away. Was he strong? 2000 years ago, another man hung from a rough Roman cross. His body was beaten and disfigured. Blood oozed from his pierced feet, blood clotted and then was tore loose and resumed flowing from his beaten back. Blood dripped from his nail pierced hands and his head, and he was dying.

And as he died, he opened his mouth and with his last breath, he uttered three words. It is finished. And friends, tonight, that's what strength looks like. That's what strength looks like. Too many times we're satisfied with strength that stops, that falls, falls short of the exceeding greatness of his power to us, where to who believe according to the working of his mighty power.

True strength is measured by our ability to finish the work that God has for us. How should we then live? We should stop treating God's power as a limited resource. We should begin treating the power of God that is available to us as an unlimited, endless, infinite source of strength. That it is. That is how we should live.

How do we become strong enough to finish God's work? Have several points. God's presence brings strength. Moses realized the strength of God's presence, and Moses told God in Exodus 33, verse 15, he said, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up. Hence, later, talking to the children of Israel, he said, Be strong and of a good courage. Fear not, nor be afraid of them. For the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

You will never attain strength unless you learn to keep yourself where God is.

Secondly, God's words bring strength. When Jesus was tempted by Satan, he did not respond with men's wisdom. Rather, he responded with strict Scripture, and Satan's attack was foiled. The psalmist said, Thy word have I hid in my heart. Why? That I might not sin against thee. It is the word of God hidden in the heart of young men and young women and older men and older women that will keep us strong and victorious. The psalmist also said a few verses earlier, Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.

Tonight, it is the word of God that brings strength and clarity to our lives. Thirdly, communication with God through prayer brings strength. Jesus, even with his close connection with the Father, still sought him in prayer. It came to pass in those days that he, Jesus, went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God.

If we are going to be strong, we must exercise prayer that reaches God. We must seek God and his will in prayer. The fourth source of strength is putting away anything that distracts us from God. Putting away anything that distracts us from God brings strength. And we usually call this fasting. Isaiah 58 is not this the fast that I have chosen to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke. Yokes are meant to contain the power of those that are in the yoke. Yokes are meant to harness the power of those that are in the yoke. And the yoke of Satan harnesses us and it binds us.

And it's meant to be greater than our strength. But it is a fast. It is the fast that pleases God that breaks the yoke of Satan. That is strength. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor and our and the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh. I'd like to emphasize that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh.

Fasting that reveals our own life to us, fasting that reveals our own sinfulness and weakness and undoneness strengthens us. Fifthly, joining ourselves to the body of Christ strengthens us. Joining ourselves to the body of Christ strengthens us. The work of God, finishing the work of God, is a greater task than any of us will ever accomplish alone.

God does not intend for his people to be alone. He calls them into his body. He calls them into oneness. And in the oneness of the body of Christ, there is strength. Ephesians 4:2 We all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The man incorporated, the woman incorporated into the body of Christ is a strong man, is a strong woman. The man who helps the body of Christ attain to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ is a strong man or a strong woman.

It is the body that lifts up hands that hang down, and it is the body that lifts up the feeble knees, and it's the body that makes straight paths for feet, and it is the body that weeds out the roots of bitterness, and it is the body that many, many times strengthens the man of God.

It is, friends, tonight, it is the body that can attain to the fullness of Christ and his exceeding power. It is the body of Christ that will finish the work of Christ on the earth. God bless you.

Okay, well, thank you very much, all four of you, for uh for sharing what you had prepared there. And uh in just a moment here, we're going to look to to uh Harold and uh thank you for bearing with us in that interruption that we we experienced there. And um so Harry uh excuse me, Harold, uh you shared you shared first, and uh we'd like to engage with you a little bit around that that content that you that you shared with us. And so I'm going to look to you, panelists, are any of you ready to pose a question to to Brother Harold?

I do. Uh Harold, you spoke about the, uh in a sense, the sleeping watchman, I think, along those lines. Uh One of the aspects of the problem is not being vigilant. So what do we proactively do? You described you described a lot of the things that are out there causing this. What do we do proactively to reawaken our vigilance, uh my standpoint, especially in the men, or reawaken something that we tangibly do to reawaken that?

Yeah, thank you for that that question. It's an excellent excellent question on how we reawaken in ourselves. I'm assuming you're saying this other, and he said other.

One of the first things I think of in my own journey, and we didn't have enough time to express everything in what we were presenting, but but it comes down to a desire within our hearts. If we don't have a desire for it, you probably won't get it. But if you have a desire, a hunger for that awakening, I think God will give it to us. One of the things I do is to actually seek for that, actually ask God for that awakening. Um One of the things that fast forwards as, it was mentioned by, I think, Brother Kai, is is fasting and prayer, is that it seems like it clears away things that are in the way and then brings about this clear vision of God and a um a connection of God uh to to God.

I You know, God speaks when we begin to really desperately desire for him. Thank you for the question. Okay, thank you for that. Wouldn't would there be another question for uh Brother Harold here? Brother Harold, how do we how do we wash away that is alert as to nature and uh it isn't the pseudo-nature? And you probably read the probably most respected book, People Housed in the Woods, When Falls Walking Out at Night, and he sees a bear and he pats with the bear. It turned out to be its spouse while I'm not a hunter, but uh I remember my ear, the tailor, and while I was down there at every tail, it was like fear.

But another sponsor happened up in there all summer that turned in the ear of watching. So how do we how do we watch without uh making unnatural?

So the first thing I think of is that um we have we see things as we are. Uh And so whenever you I'm speaking spiritually now, thinking of taking the physical, you mentioned, it is we see not always as what we see, but as who we are, our worldview. And so the closer that we stay to the Creator of all things and to the the King of Kings, that that proximity to him allows us to see things as they are because we've come we become like him.

I really like your uh thought about tragic microshifts. Would you like to say a little more about that? What does that mean? Yeah, I was afraid that would come up. So um I'll just give you an example of of quickly of what I think about when I think of a tragic microshift. There's a lot of them, but one of the things I thought of was that for, uh what, 80 years, we've withstood the television in our homes as as plain people. And I don't know if it was the craft of the enemy or not, but he decided to go after these little dumb phones and and have designers design them to make it possible we can get the television not only in our homes, but in our pockets.

That was a tragic microshift over time, I think, and now we have them in our in our in our pockets. That's one thing I think of. Thank you for the question. Thank you for that. Is there any other questions I would like to raise here?

So, Harold, maybe I would ask you, you know, as you as you consider this this whole subject of of watching and and being awake as men in our homes, you know, watching the watching the influences that come towards our families as leaders of churches, watching the influences that are coming to us, you know, from from wherever they're coming from, is there any a particular area that we as a people are especially prone to? Uh I didn't say that we're that we're gullible, but is there any areas that you know that we're especially prone to? So the first thing I think of is that we as hardworking Mennonite people or plain people, we have the ability to make money quickly.

We're we're we're genius at that. I think we heard about that today by the Chester Weaver. And so that that strength that we have becomes a weakness. And I think of we're prone to take that wealth then because we have it and we use it on ourselves. And we we that wealth then becomes a detriment to our spiritual life because we're prone to that to that gain. Does that make sense? So I think that's a part of it is that we have that. And that's why I said I think covetous today is actually tagged godliness because we think, well, God has given us this and we are good stewards of this. And so we just keep it for ourselves.