Submit to God, Resist the Devil

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We're glad you're here. We're glad you're here. Fellowship sweeter.

Knowing you're here. It's so good to see you. We hope that it's clear.

Everyone loves you. Fellowship is sweeter, knowing you're near.

It's so good to see you. We hope that it's clear. Everyone loves you.

We're glad you're here. Reading from James, chapter 4, verse 7. Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

That is James 4, 7. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt His name together. It is Tuesday testimony.

Tuesday, August 11, 2026. I always get energized when I get to say testimony Tuesday because I know what God has in store for you. There's a blessing behind this individual in the studio with me.

In fact, it was recently at the BMIC gathering, the Businessmen in Christ gathering, this past Saturday in Springfield where I met him. And I always like to go to the BMIC gatherings because they always have gifted speakers and people that share a God-honoring faith journey or a teaching. And I said to Bernie, is this guy any good? Might he qualify for a testimony Tuesday gathering? Bernie said, oh, he's the real deal.

He's a good one. You're going to want to interview him. And so usually I wait till after he speaks.

But with Bernie's recommendation, he's like Bishop Franklin. If Bishop Franklin recommends somebody, I don't have to do much research or anything on him. Well, Perry Case is the senior pastor at The Chapel in Jacksonville.

He's going to share a little about that, some of his faith journey. And I'm hoping I can get him to come back for the Wednesday edition of Mark & Friends because God put on his heart this book called Know Your Enemy. And we'll talk a little bit about some special verses, especially Ephesians 6, 10 through 18.

But I asked him, on a testimony Tuesday, take us a little bit through some of your faith journey. And he said, there's so many scriptures I love. God can put different things on our heart this week or 10 years from now that maybe is different than what we thought was our all-time favorite verse.

And so he said, well, currently, James 4, 7 is a special one. So why don't we start with that. It's Testimony Tuesday.

I want to hear a little of your faith journey, maybe a little bit of that love story with Christi, and then The Chapel that God has raised up. How many years now? Just a year. Well, it's actually a year and three months.

Year and three months. Bernie said, I think your first message was like 700-plus people that were all over. Yeah, we had a big opening day, for sure.

So let's just start with James 4, 7, a little shout-out, introduce the First Lady Christi to us all, and some of your own faith journey. For sure. Yeah, I grew up in a very Christian home.

My parents, Steve and Pam Case, trained me up to love the Lord. And, you know, I don't really remember a time where I didn't trust or believe in Jesus, but I made Him my Savior when I was 11 years old. And then it took a few years after that before I like to say I made Him my Lord when I was 23.

So a big difference between those two. And when I did that, my father kind of started mentoring me and a group of guys, and as well my wife Christi. And we were married in 96.

We just celebrated 30 years of awesome marriage, took a little trip and celebrated that. My ministry and the reason I can write a book, sing a song, preach a message, the reason I can go out and do the things I do is because I've got the love of a wonderful, supporting wife who understands her role and I understand mine. And we've just been blessed with a great marriage and try to feed into a lot of marriages also in ministry.

So yeah, James 4-7 is what I chose. This book, Know Your Enemy, whenever I'd done a couple book signings, every time I sign a book, I put a little personal note in there. And then I always, after my signature, I put kind of down off to the right-hand side margin, I put that scripture reference, hoping people will grasp that and make that kind of a theme.

That's really what inspired this thing, that we can resist the enemy. And I think that the enemy has such a stronghold on so many people. But if we truly submit to God and resist the devil, he really does flee.

And I think Jesus exemplified that when he was in the wilderness fasting and Satan was directly tempting him. He just used the word of God. And that's if there's one thing that I always say to The Chapel family, that's how I always refer to my people, is the importance of the word of God and understanding that.

And that's how you know your enemy. And that verse, James 4-6, submit yourself then to God, resist the devil, and he'll flee from you. And one of my favorites is the next verse, come near to God and he'll come near to you.

But maybe in light of your testimony, and you shared about coming to meet Jesus, having faith in Jesus because of your father. And I think he led you and like eight others or 10 others at the same time. I mean, a man of God, not a preacher, teacher, and yet used of God like many people.

In fact, I love the calling that you have and many pastors have. They're to pour into us so that we can go into our world and share that good news message of Jesus. And so your dad wasn't formerly like a pastor, but he poured into men and women and children to know about Jesus.

But you mentioned coming to know Jesus, having faith in Jesus, but with our 21 frequencies, that can be a foreign concept to many people. Like, what do you mean a relationship with Jesus? Isn't he just like a historical figure or a rabbi that some say healed people? But what do you mean son of God or that God loves me? So maybe share a little more of the personal insight. Like, what does it mean to have faith in Jesus? Why have faith in Jesus and not faith in yourself? Yeah, for me, I was 23 whenever I finally surrendered.

And I made Jesus the Lord of my life. And I knew right away that stepping into that light out of the shadows, that I had spent my young life really running from him and running from a calling. Even though I was saved at 11, it was those high school years.

You get a lot of testimony built out of that. Spent a lot of time doing things I shouldn't go in the opposite way and really felt called and led to ministry. I can remember even being intoxicated when I was young, doing things that I shouldn't.

And then laying there by myself, just knowing that I was in rebellion to God. And I certainly knew that I needed to surrender to him. When I finally did, he called me directly into ministry.

I knew it. I knew it when I was probably five years old that I was meant for ministry. I really got into the word of God.

I wasn't a big reader. I wasn't a big academic guy. I wasn't real great in school.

I asked God. I asked my dad, actually, if he would. I said, I need to figure out how to read this Bible.

I know I'm supposed to, but I hate reading. And my dad taught me early on. He said, what you need to do is you need to get that Bible in your hands.

You need to say a prayer and say, Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray that you guide me in this. Shine a light and illuminate it and let the Holy Spirit reveal and help me to glean what I can, what I need to from it. Help me to hear your voice and help me to develop a passion and a hunger and a thirst for your word.

I said that prayer and he told me, open up your Bible, whatever book it opens up to, go to the beginning of that book and that's your first book you're going to start reading. For whatever reason, I opened to the book of Acts. Exciting adventure there.

I was pretty much biblically illiterate, even though I grew up in a church. I knew some buzzwords, but I read the book of Acts and I was somehow just moved. The Holy Spirit moved and I was blown away.

I went back and called the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Then I got all the letters, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, on down. Got all the way through Revelation, went back.

I read Genesis, Exodus, the Pentateuch. I truly was on fire for Jesus and I was truly hungry. Every waking moment for more of the word of God.

Pray that prayer and man, he will answer. I've spent now, since that time, all these years, almost 30 years entrenched in the word of God and it spoke to me. And I'm going to bring you back to that age of 11 when you kind of had the conviction or the recognition of Jesus as Savior.

Because there's a listener today that has tried to read the Bible and it hasn't made much sense. Or they just say it's interesting literature, but they don't get it because maybe they've not made that surrendering. You had talked about that this past Saturday, about surrendering to Jesus.

You know, that lordship issue, but also the Savior issue that we can't earn our way into heaven. We can't measure up. I mean, we evaluate, well, I'm better than that guy, so I should get into heaven.

It's not about what we can do. It's about recognizing what Jesus did on the cross. He died for our sins.

So as an 11-year-old, was there a tendering of your heart, the recognition that I'm heading towards hell, I'm sinful, I need Jesus? So how do you make Jesus relevant? How do you help that listener recognize the great need for Jesus? You know, when I was a young man, if my dad was in here to share with you, if my parents could tell you, I was not a good student. I was a kind young man, and I was reverent, and I was nice, but I just struggled so much with school. I had a sister who was four years older than me, and she excelled at a lot of things, and I had a younger brother who was under me who was athletic, and he excelled.

I knew I liked you. You're a middle child. I'm a middle child.

So am I. We're not the firstborn, and we're not the baby, so we have to kind of work hard to get recognized. Okay, I knew there was something I liked about you. Yeah, and I struggled in school.

I think right before we sat down here, Mark, I asked you about the sound going on in the other room, if there's any way to cut that out, because I'm, to this day, very easily distracted, and in school I struggled. And I think what a lot of that did is it really made me realize how fully dependent I am on God, and not just in those ways, but for salvation, that I knew early on I cannot save myself, and I'm in need of a Savior, and my parents did a great job of making that message real and known to me, and they were passionate about their faith. My dad was an atheist, an alcoholic, and he was fully depressed.

And I don't remember that dad. That was shortly after I was born. He came to Christ in a very radical way, and he was a studier of the Bible.

But to know that testimony from my dad of his radical transformation, I knew that God has power, and that the gospel message is vitally important. They preached it, and I followed. And listening friend, I wanted to have that shared, because you may be struggling with your identity.

You know, what is the meaning of life? Why am I here? Well, first and foremost, God created you. You have unique gifts and abilities and talents, and they're not just yours to spend on yourself. God has created you to have an impact in the world, and he's demonstrated his love for you.

The Bible says, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So you can't earn your way into heaven. You can't say, I'm better than this person.

You can't say, well, I give to the church, or I help out at the soup kitchen. Hey, that's great. That's wonderful.

That's a way that you can demonstrate to God that you really do love him and care. But Jesus died on the cross for your sins, for my sins. He was the one and only way for us to have a relationship with God the Father.

But it begins with understanding who Jesus is, who God is, and reading the Bible and understanding it. So if it's maybe dry or foreign, take Perry's advice and ask the Holy Spirit. Ask God, hey, reveal truth.

Help me understand you. I want to know you. That James 4.8, draw near to God, he'll draw near to you.

It's a promise in God's word that if you seek him out, and you can even seek him out, God, I don't even know if you exist. I don't even know if I really believe in you. These two guys, they're kind of interesting to hear their story, but reveal yourself.

He will, maybe through nature, maybe through circumstance. A Christian's going to come up to you today and say, hey, do you know Jesus? Or you're going to see something on TV or on the radio. God will validate himself.

He's done it through nature. I don't know how you can look, I don't know how people like atheists or agnostics can look at the sky and the stars and all the handiwork and think it just happened over time. I was just in Destin, Florida for our wedding anniversary, and I do not like sitting in sand.

My wife loves it, and she loves the sun. I tolerate it, but what I do love is being out in the water and just the power of God. I'm a pretty good-sized guy, and the power of the waves to just pick me up and move me, I feel the presence of God in that, in those waves, that he's that powerful.

And just to know that I'm in his favor because of what Jesus did on the cross, the God of the universe, the all-powerful, all-knowing God of the universe loves me enough to send his one and only son to pay the debt that I just could not pay, and I'm thankful for that. Well, listening friends, I'm going to offer a phone number because there's trained counselors. It's a free call.

They'll talk about how to have a relationship with God, how to know Jesus in a personal way, how to have your sins forgiven. You can call 1-888-NEED-HIM. That's 1-888-NEED-HIM.

You can show up to Jacksonville, The Chapel. When do you preach on Sunday? What's the service time? It's at 10 o'clock in Jacksonville. We're on 428 East College, so it's an old college chapel building.

McMurray College shut down in 2020. Unfortunately, they just couldn't sustain things, and those buildings all went up for auction. A year and three months ago, we were able to get in that building thanks to some good friends and partners, and we were able to launch The Chapel on May the 4th.

Yeah, Bernie said it's a beautiful... May the 4th be with you. Yeah, Bernie said it's a beautiful facility or chapel. Me and a few guys got together, and we prayed for a solid six months.

God, would you permit us to plant something here? We thought it'd be down the road a bit, and then The Chapel building was handed to us, and I never imagined starting off in an old... Built in 1948. It's all white and beautiful and beautiful pews, and about everybody and their dog has been married at The Chapel, the formerly Annie Murner Chapel. We just call it The Chapel, but yeah, it's a beautiful place.

10 o'clock on Sundays, my son, Isaiah, is the worship pastor there. He's the American Idol guy. I heard you mention that on Saturday.

He made it maybe the top 25 or was right in that place. Yeah, he just got cut right before the top 24, and he did really well and has a lot of favor. So he's the worship leader.

He's our worship pastor, and we've got my other kids, Max and Sophia. They also are involved in the worship team. My girl Sophia is getting ready to turn 18, so I got three adult children, four if you count my plus one.

I got Anna, Isaiah's wife, and then I've just got one little girl at home who's 11 years old. That's Lillian, but they're all involved in that. We started off, and this is pretty rare for a church plant.

We were able to start off by faith with three on staff making full-time salaries, and that third guy is Pastor Joshua Beckman, and he is the... You know, we call him the production pastor. The all-purpose. He does all the production.

He does all the website, all the online stuff. He does the live sound. He does the lighting, but he takes care of everything, building it.

I mean, he just handles so much of it, but the three of us, and then with another guy, Ryan Turner, who kind of acts as an elder for us, we sought the Lord, and the Lord heard us, and he answered boldly. Yeah, our opening day was 700 people. Of course, I knew that was, you know, opening day, and you know, we averaged probably 350.

You know, it kind of just kind of depends, but it's been a blessing. That's The Chapel in Jacksonville, so if you live in and around the area or want to drive in, 10 o'clock service. I know some people... This is what I do sometimes.

I start at CU Church at 9 in the morning, and that's done by 10, and then I can go to another different church. Because of the radio station, I visit a lot of different churches, and I love... I usually get in two different messages on Sunday, but The Chapel, 10 a.m. in Jacksonville, Illinois. Now, does Christi, the First Lady, have a different role or just supportive? Sure, yeah.

You know, I was a worship pastor for a lot of years, and for the past eight years, Christi was in the sound booth with my buddy Joshua, and she was running my screens so I could see what lyrics I needed to sing. When we started The Chapel, she just knew the Lord spoke to her and said, she was saying, what's my role here at The Chapel? And the Lord said, be by his side. And after the first song, Mrs. Christi, the First Lady, comes up on stage with me.

She doesn't talk a lot on stage. She doesn't like to do that. She's not quite the speaker that I am, but she comes up with me, and she's by my side, and she does a lot of counseling with me.

I do a lot of counseling, of course, when we counsel couples or we counsel ladies. I like to have Christi with me, and she also just ministers to me tremendously. That's how God many times unites couples, you know, with different gifts and skill sets, and we balance each other off.

My wife's very similar. Behind the scenes, doesn't want to be on the radio, doesn't want to be known or out there flashy. She's prayerful and full of mercy and gift sets.

So, well, listening friend, there's so much more to this story, and Lord willing, we'll have Pastor Perry Case back for the Wednesday edition of Mark & Friends. We want to talk about his book, Know Your Enemy, and we're going to talk about the importance of knowing these scriptures, especially Ephesians 6, 10 through 18. I think we'll open up tomorrow's program with those verses and know that there are six aspects of that armor of God that we're going to want to put on.

So we want you to come back to this. Same broadcast at the same time, 7.32 a.m. and p.m. Central Time for our great Indiana listeners. That's 8.32 a.m. and p.m. I guess we haven't resolved we're all in the one time zone.

But anyways, we'll return tomorrow at the same time. If you missed a portion of today's broadcast, want to hear it again, want a transcript or listen to it or pass it on to a friend, the talking points, some of the scripture that's been mentioned, all those resources are available at greatnewsradio.org and wluj.org under the Mark & Friends tab. I've been excited this last month of providing a little bio on Pastor Perry Case along with some talking points.

And it can turn actually into a Bible study because there's things to think about and action steps and even a closing prayer for you. Stop by our website and look under the Mark & Friends tab. Well, we began with James 4, 7 and I'll close out with that just as a reminder to all of us, submit yourselves then to God.

It all begins with us surrendering ourselves to God, recognizing we have a need. That need is the Lord Jesus Christ. He paid the penalty for our sins.

It's because of the finished work he did on the cross, the suffering he did that he submitted and surrendered to God to pay our penalty, sin, on the cross. But it doesn't stop just there. We also need to take an active role on resisting the devil.

It doesn't just happen naturally because our tendency, our propensity is to sin. I mean, sin many times is fun or it's convenient or it's what we fall into. Well, we need to resist the devil.

And you know what? When we do, because we've been submitted to God and receptive to God, he'll flee from us. And so listening friend, we're going to talk about the book and the importance of putting on the full armor of God tomorrow, Know Your Enemy by author Perry Case. I hope you can join us again.

And I think there's a blessing that's in store for you. So thanks for listening. Thanks for being a part of our radio listening family.

This is Mark Burns and Pastor Perry Case with the Ministry of Great News Media. God bless you and have a great day and night.