I preached a portion of this message Friday night down in Cahutta, Georgia.
A little old community church, Pentecostal Independent Church,
about six or seven churches in fellowship, and they like to preach to me to death.
Now the preaching took place after an old boy had had a devil cast out of him.
Yeah, and about 45 minutes an hour worth of singing.
Come on!
And then I preached a flat hour in five or ten.
Kathy said it was too long.
But you know how I know it wasn't too long?
Because when I...the Lord had already told me how many were going to respond to the altar call,
and when that one person did, prayed for her, turned it back over to the fellow that was moderating,
they had another altar service about 30, 40 minutes long.
So I know I didn't preach too long.
And then we went to the fellowship hall and had barbequed.
So you talking about a good Friday night.
But now my voice is spilling it.
It's not my voice, but now the Lord has given me something a little fresh for us with that.
And I'm excited this morning.
So good to see you.
If you're visiting with us today, thank you so much.
We are honored that you're here.
And pray that before you leave that you are blessed.
You say, well, you're talking a lot.
I'm letting you stretch your legs because you're going to be down a while.
And before you leave today, you'll go out these doors,
and you'll go to the circular booth there.
We've got something special for you.
Let you know how much we do appreciate you being here.
Hebrews 10, we'll start at 19.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
by new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil.
And that is to say his flesh and having a high priest over the house of God.
Let us draw near with the true heart in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering.
For he is faithful that promised.
Let us consider one another to provoke and to love and to good works,
not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner some is,
but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
For us this morning, I want to speak on this thought.
Critical, but stable.
As I say that, as we pray the blessing over the bread of life that's been broken,
I want you to remember Steve Ridge, Brother Steve Ridge in prayer.
He's had another stroke this morning.
Sister Cindy had sent word that they don't know what the day is going to unfold
and she may have to make some major decisions.
They wanted the prayer of the church.
And so we're going to do that as we pray. Amen.
Father, we love you today. I thank you so much.
We have broken the bread of life. It is the life to our soul and our spirit.
And I ask God this morning that you'd have your way in our hearts.
And we'd have ears. We'll hear what it is the Spirit's saying to the church.
Now, Father, as we come before you, Lord, we hold our sister up in prayer for strength.
But our brother's in that hospital bed and I see you.
You know what's going on in his body.
And I pray, God, that your will be done in his life today.
I do know this, that according to your word by your stripes, we are healed.
Your body was broken, bruised, and beaten for the healing of our bodies.
I know that you are able. I know you are able to touch and to heal today.
So your will be done in the life of our brother this morning.
To you be praised forever in Christ's name, the church said.
Amen and amen. You can be seated.
Critical, but stable.
Friday evening, the emphasis was on never let go.
But as I sat in the office yesterday, Lord began to burn in my soul.
Critical, but stable.
If we were to take an honest evaluation this morning and take a critical look at the conditions surrounding us,
we might possibly feel like the children of Israel must have felt being in exile in Babylon
or possibly if we understand some of the Roman oppression during the time of the first century church.
Some of the things that laid heavy on their mind.
Could they be possibly the next human torch that lights the streets of Rome?
Could Nero come for them?
Could they be the next meal to a hungry lion for sport and entertainment value for a perverse and evil society?
Sometimes in our culture and in our day, we stop to think maybe the pressure of life can feel as immense as that.
Although the lions aren't coming for us and they're not coming to feed us to literal lions.
But the lion that roars against us is seeking whom he may devour.
And the reality of the fact is the emotion is the same.
When in your heart and in your hearing and in your mind you hear the roar of the lion today,
it's no different than the roar of that lion.
If that physical lion takes hold, death could come rather quickly.
But the spirit of the lion that roars against you and I, many times there's nothing quick about it.
It's an agonizing struggle as we make our way through life.
And maybe in the life that you're living right now, the struggle is getting more intent.
The intensity of the attack of the enemy may seem to cause you to want to withdraw even more in your faith.
But child of God, you cannot do that.
It could be as though you may feel as those Israelites and we get a insight to what they were going through.
If you'll turn with me to Psalm 137 for a few moments and let's hear the report of the Israelites in captivity.
It would be the declaration that they would declare by the rivers of Babylon.
From there we sat down, yay, we wept when we remembered Zion.
It could have been the Euphrates, it could have been the Tigris or one of the tributaries that feed those.
But it was there in Babylon that they are sitting by the bank.
And as they are sitting, they are remembering Zion.
Something important for you and I to take note of this morning, when an Israelite remembers Zion,
he's not just remembering the city, but he's remembering the God of the city, not just Zion,
not just Jerusalem, not just the nation, not just the countryside.
But for them, Zion is the very essence of the presence of God over them.
And so as they are in Babylon, they are remembering Zion, the house of the Lord when they could go.
Maybe even as the Psalmist would declare in 91 under that shadow of the Almighty and that secret dwelling
when the presence of the Lord would cast about him.
But it was there that they were remembering Zion.
They are remembering the goodness of God.
It would be the other Psalmist who would declare, I remember at Holy Day when I used to gather
and we would go up and we would go up singing and we would go up rejoicing on Holy Day and we would worship.
But there was no going up because they are in captivity in Babylon and by the river they are sitting there
and they are remembering the goodness of God in the city of God.
We hanged our hearts, they declare, upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song.
And they that wasted us required of us, Mersaing, sing us one of the songs of God.
Sing us one of your worship songs of Zion.
Oh, you've got to remember and take note that the people of God were noted as a singing and a worshiping people.
And their exuberance and their worship spilled over into the dance that they offered up before the Lord.
And the Babylonians had heard about the worship of the Israelites and here they come.
And they are demanding that they sing one of those songs and be happy.
Look, you're not happy in the midst of your captivity.
And they are declaring to them, we can't sing you a song.
You wasted our city. You raised it to the ground.
And here you come with the audacity to ask us to sing one of the joyful songs of Zion.
We couldn't sing if we wanted to. We've hanged our hearts in the willow tree.
We don't even have the music to come about with a melody that we may lift our voice.
And as they are remembering Zion and now they are being asked and almost charged to sing,
they're saying we don't have a song in us anymore.
But as I looked again at that yesterday, they could have said we've broken our hearts and cast them in the river.
But they didn't do that because there was a promise that was hanging over them.
There was a prophecy that was hanging over them.
They're saying we've hung them up because in about 69 years we're going to need it because God is going to come after us
and he's going to get us out of here. We're not going to be here forever.
I'm not going to be in this captivity forever.
He's got us here for correction. He's got us here for alignment.
But he has promised, oh, where is that promise? Well, look with me as we begin to hear it.
Jeremiah 29 and 10 as he makes that declaration, 70 years and I'm coming after you.
But here toward the end, possibly they are being demanded to sing.
We've been here long enough, but there's a time coming that we're going to tune our hearts and we're going to rejoice over you, our enemy.
My God, somebody in here needs to know you may be critical, but you're still stable.
You may be living in a critical situation, but you're stable and being stable gives me hope.
They were in captivity. It was critical, but they were stable because they had a prophecy hanging over their head.
I'm coming after you. I'm going to come and get you. You go ahead.
Shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange way?
But then they begin to speak to themselves with encouraging words.
If I forget the old Jerusalem, I don't know how long I got to be here.
But he's telling himself, I can't say if you can't forget.
For if I forget, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth and may my right hand lose its cunning.
May it lose the skill to play the harp.
If I forget, somebody in here needs to know you may be in the wilderness.
You may be feeling like you're in captivity right now, but wherever you laid that harp down,
it's almost time for you to start tuning the harp up because God has not forgotten you in your dilemma.
He has not left you in your captivity.
He's not led you in a wilderness so that you may wander about forever.
But God is about to come and get you.
He's about to come and redeem your situation.
And don't forget the cunning and let your lips remember to sing the praises of the most high God because he is going to require.
He will require. I don't care what the enemy requires.
I don't care what the enemy has charged over me and tries to declare from me.
But this one thing, God will not have to require of me a song.
When he gets me out, I'm going to tune my own harp and my lips are going to sing because I have remembered
and I have not forgotten that the God of Zion is a God over my soul.
And the Christ of Calvary is the Redeemer and the Deliverer of my life.
Just think, we're still in the introduction phase.
How are we going to sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
You stop and take note of the circumstances in which you're living and the issues of life that we are now having to deal with.
Maybe you're saying, how can I live in this ungodly world?
How can I maintain my faith? How can I keep trust? How can I keep hope in God?
How do I even know that God even cares because you're still here?
That's how you can tell. Well, it sure isn't reflective.
Sometimes what we determine as deliverance is not deliverance in God's eyes.
What we see is deliverance is being taken out of the mess.
Sometimes what God sees is deliverance is adding grace in your mess.
My God! And we'd rather be out of than rather to be in His Christ.
But no, no, no. You need to take His grace in the midst of your mess
and know that the grace is what's taking you out of the situation.
He may not just pick you up and carry you over, but He will enable you to go through.
You're going through, child of God. You're not going to be bound forever.
Your captivity will not last forever. There is a demarking agent.
There's a line that has been drawn. And when it comes to it, God will come for you.
Much has been said in recent debate concerning our own nation's roots
and distinct Judeo-Christian values.
The laws of this land are distinctly based on the moral truths initiated in Scripture.
Why do you think there's such a thrust to get away from it?
Because you can't even read the laws on the books that not be convicted.
Because they are driven by the principles of the Word of God.
That's what's so unique about the Constitution of the United States.
It's not just a mere intuition of man's heart,
but somewhere and somehow in the room as they're gathered,
the Spirit of God begin to move on those old boys' hearts.
I'm not saying it's all right. I'm not saying it's all even saved.
Who knows? Only God. But I do know this.
Their hearts somehow were still pliable enough to know that they had to be dictated,
and the dictates of law had to come from the only law that is truth and straight and just and right.
And that would be the law of the Word of God.
And somehow and some way, evil men were instruments of the Spirit of God.
How do you say so? Because the hearts of man are in his hand.
Dr. Chris Thomas used to make a quote and use a quote often as he would open service from time to time.
He would say, God writes straight with crooked lines. Hallelujah.
And I'm so glad that the lines of those hearts, he began to pen.
So now even in our nation, we can't get away from God's law
because God's law was instituted in the law of our nation and the laws of our land.
John Adams said the highest glory of the American Revolution was this.
It connected in one indesirable bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
It's bound together. It's woven together.
They had enough to sense to see it early on.
But look at where you and I are today.
The distance between us and God, the distance between the moral fiber of our government
and it's driving morality and sin is so much further away than that statement.
But they still can't get away from it. I've said it before.
Why do you think criminals and evil men want the laws of God taken from courtrooms?
Because when they're sitting there in idles waiting for their case number to come up
and in boredom, they're looking around the room for something to occupy their mind.
But their eyes fall upon words that are written on the wall and they begin to read the law of God.
And their hearts are convicted because God is still over them.
So if it's not present, then they're not convicted.
But there's still the moral agent of the Holy Spirit that still convicts men's heart of wrong.
Theologian Christopher Dawson said this.
Christianity is the soul of Western civilization.
When the soul is gone, the body putrefies.
When the soul is gone, the body rots, decays, wastes away.
Can I tell you when the moral fiber of the soul of this nation is gone,
it will putrefy like every other evil nation that has ever risen to power, dominated and wasted away.
Where is Rome now? Where are the Greeks now? Where is Genghis Khan now?
Where are all these other? They've wasted by the wayside.
And so will this nation if our heart turns away from God and the righteousness and the holiness and the morality of God.
This body of this nation will also putrefy.
But the reason it won't putrefy just yet is because the soul of this nation is still living.
And the soul of the nation is the remnant of the church of the living God.
And as long as that remnant is here and that remnant has a repentant mind and repel,
I'm not saying God won't lift his hand from time to time and allow judgment.
Just like he let Israel go into Babylon, towers may fall, wars may have to fall until this nation again turns its knees
down to the earth and lifts its eyes toward the heaven and call upon the God of their salvation.
Oh, we may have to go through some trouble. You may have to go through some trials.
You may have to go some distant time. But know this, God is still there.
And as long as the soul is alive in this nation, there's hope.
How are we going to live?
We're not the first to pose the question. I'm trying to get to the points of this message.
So many ask, as before Ezekiel 33 and 10, how shall we then live?
Apostle Peter addressed the same subject in the early church,
2 Peter 3 and 10, but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night,
seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved.
You hear him? What manner of persons ought you to be in a holy conversation?
And God led us. What manner of conduct should we live out?
What manner of lifestyle shall be protruded before us?
We cannot be as the world or the world will never see the difference.
You got to be different. You can't laugh at the dirty jokes.
You can't tell the dirty jokes. Hello? You can't coexist with that.
You have to come out from among it and be separate. Amen.
I'm not talking about being a freak, but what I'm talking about is this,
that when they see you, they know that there is a difference in your life
because it isn't pleasing to God when trash and filth goes over your ears
and into the avenues of your heart. But you have decided, my, my, my, my,
that you're going to be something different.
And the world must see the distinctness and the difference.
But our church is critical, but stable.
There must be a response. We have to have a response.
When we say critical, but stable, it means that the vital signs are within normal limits.
I mean, medical professionals we have in the room, you hear these terms.
It means that the vital signs are within normal limits.
The patient is stable, but possibly unconscious.
Their condition is life threatening.
Critical. Injury or illness in life threatening.
Can we see our church in the condition of being critical today?
I'm not just talking about hope. Well, I'm talking about the body of Christ at large.
All those under the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ.
We know our culture. We know our world is in jeopardy.
But I think it's high time we wake up and realize that the church is also in jeopardy.
As I began to do a little bit of research, I found some things,
many issues facing the church and the church has to deal with today.
But I've just picked out five, just go over very quickly before we get into our response.
The first, it is the cultural issue within is that of authority.
The church issue is biblical authority. Our world is natural authority.
People don't want to be under subject into anyone.
No power, no authority. That's the reason people think they can just walk in grocery stores,
load up buggies and walk out the door.
And worse, without consequence, because they're not feeling as though
and understanding as though that they are under any authority other than self authority.
And it bleeds over to the church because the church is beginning to feel like
there's no longer any biblical authority over them.
How so? Let's look. We deal with the culture of corruption, abuse of power.
Not only in our world, we see it every day, scandal sales.
There's a scandal on every news channel. It seems like that's all you can get.
That's why it sickens me so much to try to watch the news.
You see scandal after scandal, then you see the abuse of power within the scandal.
You know, and I know there's a two tier form of justice in our nation.
Critical, but stable.
Inflation's high, prices are going out the roof, but we're within the limits.
Oh, it's critical, but the nation is within the limits.
We may be about half unconscious, but we're stable.
Critical, it's life threatening. Come on now. Eggs, four or five dollars a dozen.
I thought in my mind the other day, I'm thinking ahead to October when we have our outdoor service,
Brother Sam's coming back, we're going to have food on the ground.
And I thought, well, what could we do to kind of just make a good time of fellowship together?
And then I thought about an egg toss.
Then I thought, well, we'd have to take up an offering to do that.
Used to save the nine cents a dozen, you'd throw three, four dozen.
Laughing folk getting yolk all over them.
My Lord, we'd have somebody out there scraping up yolks to get them home.
Five second rule, five second rule.
Five dollars a dozen preacher.
Unless we get some of these folks with 30, 40 chickens to donate a son.
But they can't do that because scratch is 12 dollars a sack.
Critical, funny, but critical, but stable.
Oh, yeah, it's stable. That's the world we're living in.
We at least think it's stable.
So we've got cultural corruption and abuse of power.
Then there's the loss of truth that we're having to deal with.
The loss of truth. We live in a.
We live in a society that declares just follow your own heart.
Well, you just you do you.
I'll do me. You you do you.
Huh?
You know what that leads to?
It leads to a it leads to a golden corral style of religion.
That's what that does.
I call it the hog trough.
Can't get to go anymore.
Don't know who touched the spoon.
Well, who cares who touched the spoon?
Can't even go to the crowd.
But you get whatever you want in the crowd.
You just roll up to the trough and dump it on.
You do you.
That's why people are trying to get into the religious world today.
Well, you read it and determine what it says for you.
And I'll read it and determine what it says for me.
And I'll just follow the truth that I determine is no honey.
It don't work that way.
According to its own dictate, the Bible says that the word is for no private and personal interpretation.
It means the same for you that it does for me.
It's just that your conscience don't want to receive it the way that he has dictated it.
So there's a loss of truth, not just in the world, but I'm talking about in the church.
Because people want to drink.
They want to smoke.
They want to keep doing all that junk they did when they were in sin and ask God to sanctify it.
Woo!
Honey, it don't work that way without holiness.
No man, since we're in the culture we're living in today, slash woman, will see God.
I have to be careful right along in here.
Still in the introduction.
We're going to get to the meat in a minute.
Loss of truth.
Thirdly, crisis of knowledge.
We are in a society that has revolved back around to the dictates of scientific discovery.
We're almost back to Gnosticism all over again.
It's knowledge.
Knowledge, knowledge, always thinking for knowledge.
I don't have time to get right there, but the knowledge you need to search out is the knowledge of the Word of God.
And that the power of the Word be revealed into your heart.
It will lead you straight into truth and you'll be under the authority of the one who is in charge.
Fourth, expressive individualism.
These are things that are coming against the church.
Issues.
Human beings are defined by their individual psychological core.
Well, let me tell you something.
Some of you, if that's what you're going by, you're in trouble.
Because some of us, our psychological core is shaky at best.
Come on.
You know if you're about half a loop headed.
Your mama told you.
So come on, hang in here with me now.
So if I'm dependent upon my own psychological core to dictate my salvation.
Honey, I'm the first one in the wagon that's in trouble.
And don't make me tap you on the shoulder to get in the wagon with me.
Because some of your psychological core is warped.
Oh, I am.
In other words, people try to get in touch with their authentic self.
The last time I read the book, the book declares from the words of the Christ himself.
You must take up your own cross, deny your individual psychological core self.
And follow it to him.
So honey, it really ain't about what you think.
It's about what he has said.
Man, I told you it's different.
Authentic self and that the purpose of life, listen,
is aligning that core to find social expression in relationships.
Anything that challenges it is deemed oppressive.
Oh, boy.
I heard somebody say, shake that bush.
But this expressive self idea, nope.
You must be transformed into the image of the Son of God, into his likeness.
So it really doesn't matter.
But this is some of the stuff you're hearing in churches.
They say, well, and then if you stand up and preach like I'm preaching,
it becomes oppressive.
Would you rather me be oppressive or him tell you to go straight to hell?
Oh, he wouldn't do that.
Oh, yes, he will.
You're going to come up and say, well, Lord, didn't I go to church on Sunday?
Didn't I give $5 in offering?
Didn't I do this?
Didn't I do that?
Didn't I help with the backpacks?
Lord, did you not see me the day I liked a heat stroke at the yard sale
that Sister Erica picked the date for?
I like to heat stroke at the church.
Pastor had to tell me to go in, sit down, cool off,
because they just slave driving them.
I said, Lord, get here and sit down.
She's ready to pickle me.
I did that stuff.
He's going to look at you in your expressive human self.
Depart from me, you worker of iniquity, for I have never known you.
And so he's going to point you to the direction opposite of where everybody
hopefully is going.
I'm talking about the church right now.
I'm not talking about the world, people.
I'm talking about goats that's in the pen.
Oh, here it comes.
Just because you're a goat in a sheep pen don't make you a sheep.
I've got to get to my main points.
So, people, you know, what I'm just declaring to you is hate speech
according to the world's dictates, because it's oppressive
and it's against the dictates of their heart.
And what they feel is their right.
Well, if you want to get right down to it, every man or woman
has the right to go to hell.
Yeah, you have a right to go.
But let me tell you what you've got to do to get there.
You've got to tread over the threshold of his sacrifice to do it.
Who for the joy for our rotten souls?
Who for the joy for the sin that's in our life?
Who for the joy endured the cross?
He didn't just endure it, but he'd done it with joy,
because in doing it he knew that he would be the redemption
for all those who would call upon his name.
He's not going to force it on any, but all that call,
confess and believe.
You've got to tread across his blood to go.
You've got to cross the prayers of people who love you to go.
You've got to offend those who love you the most just to get to hell.
You've got to forget every word that you hear me say just to get there.
Why do you think I preach you with so much passion?
Because I don't want you to go. It's not hate speech.
It's speech full of love, because there is grace for the wretchedness of our soul
through Jesus Christ and Christ alone.
Number five, and we'll get to the rest of this.
Digital distraction.
Now how many of you would be honest with me if I asked you
how many of you have been playing on your phone in this first 30 minutes?
Would you raise your hand?
The Lord is starting to do some work in my heart
about this digital age that we're in
and this over exposure to the media of the world.
The driving force probably for 90% of you in this room
to have some of the social media that you have
is under the guise of, well, I can see what my family's doing.
They post stuff and I want to see it.
Well, can't they send you that picture in a text?
I mean, they've got to go through all that to get it posted.
Can't they get in our family, they've got this little thing
that's all in the family?
So we all get it.
If they want you to have it, they'd send it to you.
What I have found for me personally, I struggle with it.
Sometimes I like to see what you've got on there and sometimes I don't.
What you have for supper is not appealing to me.
But it appeals to others.
True.
We must be careful in this digital age
because what it does is it formulates a distraction from God.
How so?
It develops hyper-personalization.
The amount of social media being consumed by personal preference
leaves what's called a digital footprint.
And a new generation wonders why
shouldn't reality conform to their preferences?
Why shouldn't sexuality conform to their preference?
Because you evidently can go through and filter what shows up.
I couldn't get my filter to work.
It must have been half clogged up so I just had to erase it.
I've tried on three occasions to be a part of that.
I just, well, you're old, thank you.
Like one fellow told me the other day, he said, well, you're just a hard tail.
Well, he told me, that's another pastor.
I said, yep, but I'm the same hard-nosed individual all the way across the board.
Harder on myself because just so happens I think we've got to live what it says to get there.
And if saying it the way it's written is offensive and oppressive to your personal influences
and if it draws away from your digital distraction, oh, Lord,
if we just put a third of the time in his word and on our knees.
Man, I got convicted. I stopped and it red lights.
I said, my God.
This was not my list. I just discovered the list.
And there's a whole facet of other things.
So how are we going to live?
How are we going to live in this world?
What manner of life should we live?
I really don't have time to dig in.
So I'll just give you the Cliff Notes.
You must have a response like Daniel.
I'm not saying that he was right, but Daniel purposed in his heart
that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat
nor the wine which he drank.
What is the wine of our age?
What is the intoxicating factor of our age?
I think I just touched on it because it got deathly quiet in here.
Well, that's your conviction.
You're not going to bring it to us all?
Well, yes, it is.
But I'm your shepherd and I'm trying to help us.
I'm not trying to only preach out of my own personal convictions,
but can I tell you, he aligns me before I'm allowed to align you.
Would that not be a hypocrite of me?
You must have a Daniel response.
There must be an affirmation of your life as Joshua affirmed in 2415.
At the end, he's about to disperse all the children of Israel into their inheritance.
He lines them up and he begins to talk to them at a place called Shechem.
He lays that dictate before them, who are you going to serve?
Are you going to serve the gods of Egypt and your fathers before,
the gods of this land?
Who are you going to serve?
But choose you who you're going to serve.
Then he makes his own personal affirmation.
I said, for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.
We're going to serve the Lord.
Me and my bunch.
We'll serve the Lord.
And they had a good answer that day, they said, let the Lord be our God.
He recorded it all as a statute and he raised up a large stone
there that day that he dedicated it as a covenant renewal with the people at
Shechem where they decided to affirm that God is who they would serve.
Some point in our way in that society which you and I are living there has to
be a Daniel response. You have to choose to not compromise for the whims of the
world. Daniel is in Babylon. He is in captivity and they came to him. He was
in their court in their land with their king and he still said no.
Joshua lays it all out. God delivered you. God brought you over. God fought battles.
He parted the Red Sea. He parted the Jordan and here you are. He helped you win.
He took down Jericho. He did that for you and all he asked in return is your
devotion.
Joshua said you do you but as for me and mine we will serve the Lord.
We will serve him.
So you got a Joshua affirmation then you got to have a David declaration. The Lord
is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?
That's not all he declared. David had a whole lot to say.
23rd Psalm is one of my favorite. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
Right? He declared it. I'm quitting. You're about done anyway.
We must have a Jesus confession. Stand with me and I'll be sure and wind it down.
We must have a Jesus confession to live in this age. What's that?
Your and my victory was not won at Calvary. I know we sing those songs and I
know we declare it. But your victory and my victory was won in Gethsemane.
How so pastor? Well at that great stone in Gethsemane's garden as he's knelt to
pray and he's asked his disciples to pray with him he gets up he comes back
and they're goofing around. He goes back to pray. Can you not tell him of one
hour and on the third trip they're asleep and he said sleep on. He goes back to the
stone of his prayer and he prays until his sweat becomes his great drops of
blood and victory is sealed. When he declares father if there be any other way
let this cup pass from me.
But nevertheless not my will but thy will be done. Hey look
Calvary was a formality after that. Calvary was just a formality when he
surrendered to the will of the father everything else was formality. Victory
was sealed in Gethsemane. Lived out at Calvary sealed at the confession of not
my will but your will be done. Is that you? That's the only way you're gonna live in
this life. That's the only way you're gonna make it through this. It's not your
will because see some of your conditions are very critical. Critical but you're
stable because of his grace. You may feel like you're numb and going through life
unconscious and wondering where is God? Well he's carrying you through in the
midst of your unconsciousness and the numbness of your life with his grace.
Critical but stable. Your vital signs are strong. Things may look because it is very
life-threatening. Your condition is life-threatening because you don't know if
you're gonna make it or not. But can I tell you you're plugged into the greatest
life source, life support that you could ever be plugged into because his power
never fails and he will not fail you in the midst of your greatest struggle. So
what are you saying? I'm saying don't fail him. Don't fail yourself. Never let go.
Never give up. So then with all of that you will end with a proclamation as the
apostle Paul. You better learn it now for me to live as Christ and to die as
gang. 2nd Timothy 4 and 6 for I am now ready to be offered and the time my
departure is at hand I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith and I
have finished my course. That's my proclamation. He would say but none of
these things move me. He would pin to the Roman Church in the 8th chapter. All
things work together for good. Those who are the called according to his purpose.
I don't see any good. Well you've not seen the end of it yet. The reason we don't
see the goods we give up before we get to the good. Critical. Stable. Father I love
you today.
Church may be critical but we're stable because the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. We are the overcomers. According to that same 8th chapter of
Romans we're more than conquerors through Christ. None of these things are
going to move us. Who shall separate us from the love of God? Trial, tribulation,
distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, soul, or peril. I am persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I committed to him against that day. Simple altar call.
Not going to belabor the point. If you're critical but stable and you need a touch
of his grace I want to pray for you today.