For the next boy, I tell you what, everything that we read in
the Old Testament is such a wonderful picture of what Jesus
Christ did for us in the New Testament when he came and died
on the cross, shed his blood. Well, I tell you, if you don't
know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you don't know what
you're missing out on. We get all of this is a
wonderful life. And it doesn't mean that that
life is is perfect, doesn't mean that there's no struggle,
doesn't mean that there's no hardship, doesn't mean that
there's not things that you're going to go through in this life
that are difficult. We have a wonderful life as
Christians and we get all of this and then heaven when it's
all over, what a wonderful thing that is, man, to know Christ as
your Savior, to not have to worry about death, to not have
to worry about what happens after this.
We have it all written down in God's word.
And you've probably heard this many times before, but I've read
the back of the book and we win. We win and that's all we need
to, that's all we need to know. Or you can make it through
anything. If you know you're automatically
going to win, right? You think about a basketball
game, you're playing the game, you're down by 20 points, but
you already know at the end of the game that you win.
What are you worried about, right?
There's nothing. You're not.
You're not fighting to, to, to
to save. Your life, you already know at
the end that you win. Then what do you have to lose?
Just get out there and play the game right?
And that's the way it is. Just get out there and live.
As a Christian, we already know that we've won.
And what a wonderful thing that is to know Christ as our savior.
Exodus chapter 3. This morning I want to read a
very familiar story to most of us.
But Moses, who found himself being raised in Pharaoh's house
as basically the son of Pharaoh and Pharaoh's daughter, took him
in. And you know the story of him
being found there in the bull rushes and his own mother being
able to be the one that took care of him until he was ready
to be brought back to the palace.
But then Moses kills an Egyptian and finds himself on the
backside of the desert. And the Bible says this in
Exodus chapter 3 and verse #1 Now Moses kept the flock of
Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.
And he led. The flock to the backside of the
desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of
fire out of the midst of a Bush, and he looked, and behold, the
Bush burned with fire, and the Bush was not consumed.
And Moses said I will now turn aside.
And see this great sight, why the Bush is not burnt.
And when the Lord saw that, he turned aside to see, God called
unto him out of the midst of the Bush, and said, Moses, Moses.
And he said, Here am I. He said, Draw not nigh, hit her,
put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place where on
thou standest his holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God
of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he
was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, I have surely
seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have
heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know
their sorrows. And I am come down to deliver
them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up
out of that land unto a good land, and a large, unto a land
flowing with milk and honey, unto the place of the
Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the
Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has
come unto me, and I've also seen the oppression where with the
Egyptians oppressed them. Come now therefore, and I will
send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my
people, the children of Israel out of Egypt.
And you know the rest of the story.
Moses said, who am I? I can't, I can't do this.
And God gave him the ability to do that.
But that's not exactly what I want to focus on this morning.
What I want you to see is that Israel was in bondage to
Pharaoh. They were not enjoying liberty.
They were slaves. They had no freedom of their
own. Their days were employed and
making bricks for the treasures cities of Pharaoh.
Their backs were bull's eyes for the, for the, the whips of the
taskmasters. And boy, they, they, they
whipped them and they beat them. And they got to the point when
they asked for a little bit of relief that they said, all
right, you want relief, We'll give you relief.
You're going to do twice as much work and you're going to you're
going to keep doing the bricks that you're going to keep making
the bricks that you're making. But now you got to go get your
own straw. You, you think that's hard?
We'll make it harder on you. That was not a wonderful life.
But God's, God's people, we find we're in a crisis.
The nation of Israel was in need of deliverance.
And on the backside of the desert, in the land of Midian, a
Hebrew fugitive tended the sheep of his father-in-law.
And as Moses was watching those sheep for Jethro, he noticed a
Bush that was burning. In the mountain.
And the longer he watched it, I'm sure there was not a whole
lot to do on the backside of the desert.
So when you see a Bush on fire, you watch it and you keep
watching it. And he kept watching it, and it
just wasn't burning. And I'm sure that, you know, on
the backside of the desert, it's probably a very dry place at
times. And a Bush that catches on fire
was probably not all that uncommon, but it would have
been. It'll burned up quickly because
everything was dry. And yet Moses, he keeps seeing
this Bush and it's still burning and it's, it's just not being
consumed. And finally to catch his
attention to the point where he says, I need to go over and look
at this Bush and see why it's not burning.
Something's weird about that. So he goes over there and God
realizes that he has Moses his attention.
And as Moses approached that Bush, he heard a voice.
God spoke to Moses from within the burning branches of that
Bush, and as God spoke to Moses, he gave him some very valuable
truths concerning God himself and concerning his relationship
to his chosen people and within the divine dialogue of Exodus
chapter. Three, we can find some very
encouraging truths for a nation that was in crisis.
There's no debating the fact that our state, just like Israel
in that day, is in crisis. And maybe you can even say our
nation. I think we have a little bit of
a relief right now, but this nation is in crisis politically,
socially especially, and definitely spiritually.
And I'll say this, so many people spent the better part of
an entire year, hundreds of hours campaigning, hundreds of
hours knocking on doors trying to get people to vote, hundreds
of millions of dollars spent on on ads and campaign literature,
only to be completely defeated across almost every ballot.
In this state. And I'm not saying that we
shouldn't be involved politically.
I think we should be involved politically.
I think we should be out there voting.
I think we should be out there trying to get other people to
vote. But what if those same people
spent those hundreds of hours and hundreds of millions of
dollars trying to lead people to Christ?
Do you think that we would have made an impact for eternity?
Do you think that people's minds and hearts would have been
changed if they come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior?
What if we'd spent half of that time doing all the political
stuff and half of that time sharing the gospel?
Do you think that we would have amounted to far more than what
we have to show for our political exploits in this
state? I'm not saying that we shouldn't
do it. Don't take me wrong.
I'm not. I'm not preaching against
political involvement. I think as Christians we ought
to be involved in politics and the separation of church and
state. That they talk about all the
time does not mean that we cannot talk about what the state
needs to do for Christ and in that direction and how the state
needs to turn back to God. It just means that we cannot
have an official state religion. That's the separation of church
and state. That's been taken completely out
of context and, and, and made to say something that it was never
meant to say. But at the same time, if our
efforts had been put into trying to reach people to Christ and we
had 13456 people for Christ. In that same amount of time, do
you think that we would have made an impact not only on this
state, but for all of eternity? I think we would.
Yesterday this state installed into office the first woman
governor who, though she may be a nice person, has shown that
she hates God, hates the morals of the Bible, opposes everything
that the church and Christians stand for.
Yesterday we installed into office the first Muslim
Lieutenant governor who was sworn in on a Quran.
Yesterday we installed into office the first black attorney
general who spoke openly of killing his opponent's children.
Who has very openly defied the Bible, Who on his first day in
office already announced sweeping changes that are going
to undo many of the conservative policies that protect Christian
schools and churches, in addition to many other things.
We installed Democrats into 80. Five out of the 140 legislative
seats that we have available in this state, and already they
have proposed things as radical as making abortion legal all the
way up to birth. They proposed denying care to a
baby who survives an abortion attempt.
They've proposed eliminating parental permission or
notification for a minor seeking to get an abortion.
They've proposed automatic voting rights to be restored to
convicted felons when their sentence is up.
They've already proposed marriage equality, which will
enshrine homosexual marriage rights into the.
Constitution of the State of Virginia Most Christians have
their heads in the sand when it comes to these things.
And most Christians say, well, those are political issues, we
need to stay out of politics. Those are not political issues.
Those are moral issues. Those are Bible issues.
And if we allow these things to go through in our state and we
don't stand up and fight against them, and these things are
codified into the state constitution of, of, of the
state of Virginia, we are going to find a wrath of God, I
believe on this state like we have never seen before.
We're going to lose any kind of opportunity we have at the
blessing of God. And yet all the while, churches
are not moving in a direction that are taking us closer to God
and to his word. We're moving in the direction
that's going the exact opposite because we want to be liked, we
want to be popular, we want to be big.
We want to have all of these things that that everybody says
that we have to have. And, and, and the things that
are being proposed that I just mentioned are just the tip of
the iceberg. And I think that the tendency
many times is for us as Christians to be discouraged to
think, why do we even do this? Why do we even try to stand up
against those things? And there is a temptation.
It seems like anything that we try to stand up against is not
going to happen. Seems like everything that they
want to propose is going to happen.
By the way, all of those things that I mentioned, almost every
one of those is actually. Going to be.
Brought to a vote by the people in November, An amendment to the
constitution of the state of Virginia has to be voted on by
the people. They can, they can vote it in in
the legislature all they want to.
It's going to be on the ballot this November.
And we're going to have to have people stand up against abortion
rights in this state. We're going to have to have
people stand up against the homosexual rights in this state.
I'm not against people, but I'm for God's word.
We need to do what the Bible says.
We need to stand up for what the Bible says, not what makes
people feel better about themselves.
That's not even to mention all the transgender issues where a
man can walk into a woman's bathroom anytime he wants and
just call himself a woman and be fine.
They want, they want to make it possible for anybody to do any
of those things. Women meant to be in women's
sports. All of these things are things
that are going to be enshrined in the state of Virginia if we
don't stand up for the truth of God's word.
Skip politics. Take all the politics out of it.
These are Bible issues that the church needs to stand up for.
Our state needs to hear from Christians.
We have the answers in the Word of God.
We have what this state, We have what this country needs.
And yet most Christians are too afraid to stand up and say
anything about it. Listen, those who are pushing
for all those things have no problem telling you exactly what
they think about it. They have no problem showing it
all over social media what they stand for.
They have no problem telling you that you ought to be willing to
let people have an abortion all the way up until that child is
born. By the way, Ralph Northam, if he
had his way, would have allowed children up to two years old to
be killed. That's what they want.
That's where they're going. They're just taking little
pieces at a time. And when we don't stand up to
it, we're going to lose it. And the next thing you know, if
your baby has got a special needs issue and it seemed seems
to be a a detriment to the state, they're going to be able
to come in and just take that baby and put it to death if they
if that's what they want to do. You think it can't happen?
It's it's happened all over the place in the world.
Oh, this is America. Yeah.
It's America that's losing freedoms.
It's America that doesn't have God's blessing on it the way
that it used to have, because we have abandoned him.
He hasn't abandoned us. We've abandoned Him.
And how do you expect to have God's blessing on a nation?
And how do you expect to have a God's blessing on a state that
is turning their backs completely against Him?
We know what this state and what this nation needs.
So I want to consider some encouraging truths.
From Exodus chapter 3 this morning, and I know it doesn't
sound all that encouraging, but I want to preach to you about
our message for a state in crisis, our message for a state
in crisis. Let's pray and then we'll look
at a few things here this morning.
Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.
I thank you for the fact that we can live in this great state.
It has been a great state. It's been a state that you've
blessed. This nation has been a nation
that you've blessed. But God, we're quickly moving
away from that because we're moving away from you.
May you help us as a church. May you help us as churches who
still claim to stand upon the Word of God, that we would stand
up for the truth of God's Word, that we would put you back on
the throne, that you belong on the throne that is yours.
God, may we put you first place in our lives, and may we see
your blessing because of it. May you help us this morning as
we go through some of these verses in your Word that it
would point us to Christ. May you help us.
We thank you again for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.
I want you to understand first of all, that a state in crisis
needs to hear that God is alive. A state in crisis needs to hear
that God is alive. Exodus chapter 3 and verse #6 In
fact, if you'd get a ribbon or a bookmark or something and put it
in there, we're going to keep coming back to Exodus chapter 3.
We're going to jump around to a few different places.
But the Bible says this. Moreover, he said I am the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
See Moses discovered on that. Say that the God of the past was
alive and well in the present. I don't know what Moses's
situation on the backside of the desert was in detail.
I don't know exactly what Moses was dealing with on a day-to-day
basis, but I can imagine that he felt abandoned by God.
Could you imagine that this Moses the, the one who saw
himself and if you, if you look through and, and, and read
through the story of Moses, when Moses was in Pharaoh's house,
he, he was puffing his chest out and he said, surely God's going
to use, use me to bring this people out.
And the next thing you know, he finds himself tending sheep on
the backside of the desert. 40 years, 40 years is a long time.
I know it goes quickly. I'm 42 feel like I've been, I've
been alive for a lifetime. Literally 40 years goes by
quick, but not when you're standing on the backside of the
desert watching sheep. That one that's your every
single day. Wake up, take the sheep out, sit
there and watch him take the sheep back.
Wake up, take the sheep out, watch him take the sheep back.
What a what a life. What a life.
The Moses, who more than likely was a powerful, powerful man,
and I'm talking about physically, had been trained in
Pharaoh's house. He would have been trained in
the art of war. He would have been trained in
everything. And he probably was a pretty
physical specimen to look at. He would have been a powerful,
powerful man, which is one of the reasons why he walked out
there in Egypt and had no problem killing an Egyptian and
then burying his body in the sand and going on about his life
as if everything was all right. That Moses on the backside of
the desert probably felt abandoned by God.
God was going to use. Me.
And I don't know if he's sat there thinking.
I made a mistake and now God can never use me again.
I don't know if that's what he thought.
I don't know if he sat there thinking, what did I do wrong?
Where did I go wrong? I made one little mistake and
God sends me to the backside of the desert.
Is this where I'm going to spend the rest of my life?
I don't know. But I can imagine that Moses
felt abandoned. I can imagine that he felt that
God had let him down, brought him to the.
Backside of the desert to drown in obscurity.
The circumstances and the hardships that the people were
were in did not mean that their God was dead.
The God of their forefathers was still alive in Moses's day.
And he says that I am the God of thy father, I'm the God of
Abraham, I'm the God of Isaac, I'm the God of Jacob, and I'm
your God too. Moses hid his face because he
was afraid to look upon God. And I can imagine that that's
the way that most people are going to look on God when they
find out he's still alive. You and I as Christians need to
be quick to to pocket the pessimistic reports about our
nation and our state and promote the truth that our God is alive
and well and he's still on the throne.
By the way, everything that just happened in our nation, in our
state, did not take God by surprise.
I think sometimes we get to relying on Donald Trump as if he
is God. I appreciate a lot of the things
that he does. Some of the stuff that he does
is just stupid and it goes against what the Bible says.
And you cannot expect that God's going to bless it.
I don't care who you are, if you go against God and against his
Word, God is not going to bless it.
And I appreciate him. I appreciate the fact that he's
willing to stand up for a lot of the things that he does stand up
for. But when we get to relying on
Donald Trump as if he is the ultimate power instead of God
being the ultimate power in our life, and because Donald Trump
is on the throne, everything's going to be OK in this nation.
When it's not about Donald Trump, it's about God being the
one that's still on his throne. When we turn back to him and we
put him in the place that he belongs in, that's when we're
going to see God's blessing again.
And I think many Christians have been lured to sleep because we
don't need God. We got Donald Trump right now.
You laugh, but it's the truth. And we're relying more on that
than we are on God's power. And that's why I believe we're
seeing a lot of the things that we're seeing in this nation.
Why do you think so many people across the board lost to people
that they never should have lost to?
Because God's judgment, God takes his.
God removes his hand of protection and God removes his
blessing. And he gives us a little glimpse
of what life is like when we don't have his power.
And I don't like it. I don't like life without his
power. I need his power.
I want his power. But the only way that we're
going to see it is we put him back on the throne that he
belongs on. He's alive.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that the same God
of Peter and Paul and Moses and Elijah and DL Moody and Charles
Spurgeon and Billy Sunday is the same God that we serve today?
He's still alive and well. Whether you believe it or not,
I'm here to tell you that He is alive.
Turn over to Isaiah chapter 59. We get so pessimistic with it.
Oh, God used to do things in this nation.
People used to be able to get a hold of God, and they used to be
able to see God do great things and answer great prayers for
them. But apparently God's lost some
of his power. Apparently it's not the same God
that we have today. No, he is the same God and he
still has the same power. He just doesn't have the same
people available to him that he used to.
Have Isaiah 59 and verse #1 The Bible says, Behold, the Lord's
hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, neither his ear
heavy, that it cannot hear, but your iniquities.
Have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid
his face from you that he will not hear.
As I've told you many times before, and as we're made very
aware of in the Bible, the most of the fault lies at the feet of
Christians in this country and in this state.
We've sinned against God and we've moved further and further
away from Him, most often without a care or concern of
what it's done to the heart of God.
What's happening in this state is the judgment of God upon
churches who used to be strong but are.
Quickly moving toward compromise, quickly moving
toward ecumenism, quickly moving toward contemporary
Christianity, softness against sin, a laid back approach to
evangelism, and complete, nonchalant attitude toward
church. You wonder why this state is
going the direction that it is. It's because the churches are
going the direction that they're going in.
It's so sad to me that even in this area, there used to be a
lot of churches that were strong.
There used to be a lot of churches that were standing for
the truth. There used to be a lot of
churches that were focused on evangelism and focused on
getting the message of the gospel out and where politics
could fit in, will fit politics into it.
And we'll try to get the message of conservatism out there.
But it's not about conservatism, it's about Christianity.
I am a Christian first and foremost, and then I'm a
conservative, and then I'm a Republican.
But I'm a Christian and my responsibility is not to a
Republican Party. My responsibility is not to a
governor or to Donald Trump or to anybody else.
My responsibility is to God first and foremost.
And. When I take Him off of His
throne and put other things in its place, how can you expect to
have God's blessing? You live as if it all depends on
you. It doesn't depend on you.
It depends on God and your reliance on Him and His power
working through you. We can change this state.
We can, we can put the conservatives back into into the
positions in this government that they need to be in, but
only when we put God in the position that he belongs in
first. That's how we're going to see
this nation and this state come back to God.
Oh, they've talked about Virginia, Virginia, Fornia,
California and Virginia. I heard somebody say that word
yesterday. And that's a sad thing because
this used to be a, this used to be a, a, a stronghold of
conservatism. And blame all you want to on the
fact that they're bringing all these people down from the from
New York and all these other places to move into these big
city centers. That has a lot to do with it.
But you know what? The church has lost its power in
those areas. And if the rest of the state
still had strong churches in all of those areas, it wouldn't
matter what Northern Virginia is doing.
It wouldn't matter what what what they're doing out on the
Far East. It wouldn't matter because there
would be so many other Christians that are willing to
stand up and fight against those things and for the things that
God is for that it wouldn't matter what the rest of the
state does. But we're.
Losing it in all those little. Towns and villages across the
state, because the church has stopped preaching what it used
to preach. And where people who used to be
in these little towns and, and these little cities across this,
this state used to be very conservative because they went
to church and the church wasn't afraid to preach the truth.
And they heard the truth and they knew what morals were
because it was being preached. They heard it in Sunday school.
They heard it at VBS. Now it's all God is love and he
loves everybody. And love is love.
And you can marry whoever you want to marry and you can do
whatever you want to do because love is love.
That's what the churches are preaching.
And so we've lost any of that influence that we have across
the state because the churches have lost their influence.
I know I've told you this, this story before, but a husband and
wife, an old couple were driving down the road in their car, the
pickup truck, one of those old bench seats.
And the wife got reminiscing. She said, you know, we used to
ride down the road and you would have your arm around me and you
would you would play with my ears and we would just have such
wonderful conversations. And I felt so close to you.
Then he said, now we sit on opposite sides of the car.
And he looked over at his wife and he said, honey, I'm not the
one that moved. That's exactly whether we treat
God. Oh, God just probably doesn't
have the power that he used to have.
God just isn't doing things like he used to do things.
We used to be so close, we used to have a relationship with him.
Morals used to be in every part of our society.
Now they're not anymore. And God looks at us and he says
I'm not the one that moved. The Lord's hand is not
shortened, that it cannot save his ear, is not heavy, that it
cannot hear. Your iniquities have separated
between. You and your God.
And your sin has hit his face from you.
We're the problem. We're the problem.
God is still alive. He's not resigned, He's not lost
his power, He's not lost his hearing.
He has not abandoned us. And this state needs to know
that. This state needs to understand
that God is still alive, and the message is only going to come
from the church. A state in crisis needs to hear
that God is alive, but #2A state in crisis needs to hear that God
is attentive. Turn over to Exodus chapter 3
again and verse #7 look what God said.
The Lord said. I have surely seen the
affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard
their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know their
sorrows. There's several wonderful truths
about God in there. God saw the Israelites.
God heard the cry of the Israelites.
God knew their sorrows. God was interested, and He was
in tune with the needs and the conditions of His people.
They might have felt like God was distant because they moved
away from Him, but the truth is that God was very near.
He was very attentive. Turn over to Psalm 34.
While you're turning over there, let me read to you first.
Peter chapter 3. It's very similar to Psalm 34.
The Bible says, For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous,
and his ears are open unto their prayers, but the face of the
Lord is against them that do evil.
The face of the Lord is against them that do evil.
Psalm 34 and verse #15 The Bible says the eyes of the Lord are
upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.
So why is God not hearing the cry of the righteous?
Is it because he can't, or is it because we've stopped crying
out? God is attentive.
He's there, He's just waiting. And I think often a world in
crisis, a nation in crisis, a state in crisis, feels that God
does not want to hear from them. Many of them know that they're
living a wicked lifestyle. They know that it goes against
the laws of the Bible and they feel like God would never listen
to a cry for help. Of course we know that to be
false, but they don't know that and they need to hear from us
that God is attentive. God wants to hear from them.
God wants to forgive their sin. God wants to heal our land.
But we've got to turn to him. He's listening for them to cry
out to him. God told Moses that he had heard
the cry of those that were under the torment of their oppressors.
And I think we've only touched the tip of the iceberg of the
torment that we're going to face from our oppressors.
And I know it's a different scenario.
It's a different situation. But they're in in the Congress,
in the legislature of the state of Virginia with all the power
in their hands, they can do anything they want to do.
And I think they will. They're going to take every
advantage of everything. And, and hey, good for them that
that's what they should do if they're in those in those
positions of power. I wish the Republicans would do
that more when we have those positions.
Weren't you afraid to stand up, too afraid to stand up to the
people who are opposing God in a lot of a lot of situations?
But it's great news for a state that's being oppressed by the
avowed enemy of God that God is still attentive to our prayers.
The harder truth for us is that God told Moses so that he could
go deliver that message to his people.
That's why God told Moses all of those things.
Wasn't so Moses could say, wow, yeah, you're right.
Yeah. Yeah, God, you still do have
power and you do still hear. You do still know what's going
on. He told Moses so that Moses
could go take that message back to God's people honestly, that
what would be the point of God sharing that information with
Moses if the whole point was for Moses to just keep it to
himself, right? Our message to a state facing a
spiritual crisis is that God is attentive and he'll hear their
cry and he'll save them. And may I add that he's waiting
to hear our cry for mercy. You know, I, I think it's sad
that, that so many people and, and by the way, lest you think
that I'm just hammering on the people who are involved in
politics, I was involved in a lot of things myself.
I did things on the backside that that a lot of people didn't
see when it came to politics and trying to get people elected and
try. I was, I went to many meetings.
I met with a lot of pastors and we did a lot of different things
to try to help get the word out that people need to vote.
So I'm not, I'm not preaching against that today, but what I
am saying is I wonder how many people who are so involved in
politics and so involved in the political side of things never
once got on their knees and begged God on behalf of this
state. You know what that says?
You're trying to do all of it in your own power.
You think that by getting out and being busy, you're going to
change this state. Only God's power is going to
change this state. And I learned that very early on
when we were getting ready to start this church, we had 25,000
John and Romans that we printed out and put in little bags.
We put a little invitation to the church.
We put a tract in there and we passed those things out across
this entire area, 25,000 of them.
We got out, put them on doors everywhere.
Two months, almost two months solid.
We were out many, many times during the week putting these
Flyers out. We had groups of churches that
came in. My thought is we've done all the
work that needs to be done day one.
What are we going to do for space?
We can only fit 75 people in the in the in the conference room at
the hotel. What are we going to do?
And guess how many people showed up?
The 10 that we started the church with?
Nobody came. You know what that made me
realize I can do all the work I want to.
And I'm not saying, I'm not saying that we didn't pray and
ask for God's blessing and ask for God's power and ask for God
to do something. But I tell you this, I was
relying way more on my own strength and I was relying on
God's power. And I think that had to happen
for God to make it plain to me, it ain't about you.
It's not about all the work that you put into it.
Oh, God uses your work, but it's work and prayer.
It's you do the work and you beg God to bless that work or
nothing's going to happen. And I think we've done that in a
lot of cases, but only by prayer in God's power are we going to
accomplish anything that's going to make a difference.
Yes, God is attentive, but it counts for nothing if we're not
reaching out to him. If we're not crying out for His
mercy, it does not count for anything.
OK, God's attentive, He hears, but if you're not crying out,
what is he going to hear? A state in crisis needs to hear
that God is alive. Back on Exodus chapter 3, A
state in crisis needs to hear that God is attentive.
And lastly, a state in crisis needs to hear that God is able.
Verse #7 The Bible says this. And the Lord said, I have surely
seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have
heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know
their sorrows. And then he says this in verse
#8 And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the
Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good
land, and the large, and the land flowing with milk and
honey. As this discussion between Moses
and the Lord continues, the fact is made very clear that not only
did God know about the situation surrounding His people, but He
intended to do something about it.
God declares to Moses that He was come down to deliver them.
God was able to turn their bondage into liberty and their
sorrow in the shouting. A state, a nation, a world in
crisis needs to hear that God understands, but also that God
is able to undertake the things that he says he can do.
If he says, call into me and I will answer the and show the
great and mighty things which thou knowest not.
He can do it. He says, if my people, which are
called by My name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek My
face and turn from their wicked way, then will I hear from
heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land.
He can do it. He's able.
He's just waiting for us to do
our part so he can do his. He's able.
God can change a life. Do you believe that God can turn
this nation and the state back to himself?
Do you believe that God can send a revival?
Do you believe that God is still in the soul saving business?
And until we believe it with all of our hearts and the way that
you prove that you believe it with all of your heart is to get
out there and do it. Act on what God said.
Get on your knees and beg God for this state.
Get on your knees and beg God for this nation.
Get out knocking on doors and sharing the message of the
gospel. Take every opportunity that you
have to tell somebody about Jesus.
If you say that you believe it, then let's share that message.
In 1847, Frederick Douglass, who was a eloquent fugitive slave,
but he was addressing an anti slavery convention just over the
Ohio the Ohio line in Salem and his own sufferings and those of
his people in the slow progress that that that the great reform
as they called it was making had some people depressed and he was
depressed and it came out in his speech.
It was a very. Angry speech.
And it was, it was one of those speeches that just it it was, it
just had bitterness all the way through it.
And an old slave by the name of Sojourner Truth, maybe you
recognize that name, interrupted him in the middle of the speech.
She said, Frederick, Frederick, stop, She said, is God dead?
I think that's a good question we need to ask ourselves this
morning. Oh, the.
State. Oh man, it used to be so strong
conservative. It used to.
Have a Republican governor and Lieutenant governor and attorney
general and we had all the Senate and all the House of, of
Representatives. We had everything.
Oh, this state, we've lost it. Is God dead?
God's still on the throw. God still knows and maybe we
need a wake up call to help us understand.
It's not about us. It's not about politics, it's
not about who's in office. It's about us putting God back
on the throne that He belongs on.
It's about us getting on our knees and begging God on behalf
of this nation and begging God on behalf of this state and
begging God for revival in our own lives.
Begging God for revival in our church.
Begging God for revival in our churches so that God will do
something again. We have a message for a state
that's in crisis. Number one, they need Christ.
They need Christ above everything.
You want to. Change Abigail Spanberger's
mind. Give her the gospel.
You know what? If God changes her life, I can
promise you that she's not going to push an abortion and
homosexuality and transgenderism and all of those things later to
Christ. It's easy to mock and point out
all the flaws, and there's plenty of them.
Obviously, we don't have to. We don't have to just roll over
and let them walk all over us. I'm not saying that, but but you
want to see Hashmi, our Lieutenant governor, who was
sworn in on a Quran, change her opinions, change her views.
Let's give her the gospel. Let's pray that she'll accept
Christ as her Savior. Hey, there's nobody better than
us in this area right here. We're only a hand a stone's
throw away from the state Capitol.
We can have some interaction with them.
You want to see the attorney general change his mind and all
the things that he's trying to push through already?
Let's lead him to Christ. They may not get saved.
We sure can try. That's what they need more than
anything. They need our prayers, they need
God's touch on their lives. That's what they need.
That's what we all need, our message to them.
You need Christ. We love you, God loves you.
God wants to save you. And what you're doing is against
his word, and it brings shame. To him it brings shame to God's
word. It brings shame to this state.
You need to accept Christ as your Savior.
Our message to the state in crisis.
And we need to proclaim it loud and clear.
God's alive. God is still alive.
He's not dead. He hasn't lost his power.
He didn't go somewhere else. He's still there.
He's just waiting for us to call.
He's attentive. He's attentive.
And the probably the main thing that we need to understand is
that God is able, God wants to use you.
And maybe it isn't a political side of things.
Maybe it is to help get some political change in this state.
But what we have to understand is this, it's not us.
It's not us. There's a good handful of you
that are doing a lot of good things when it comes to
politics. I'm thankful that we have people
that will represent us in that way.
We need it. We need it, but it's not us.
It's him working through us. It's his power in us.
Because it's not. Let's do all this stuff
politically. It's let's put God where he
belongs. Let's beg him to do something in
this nation, and then let's get busy.
Our priorities have to be in the right place.
When our priorities in the right place.
All of these things work. Why do you think God used Moses?
Because Moses had put God where
he belonged. Moses was humble.
Moses was not. No wonder God finally came to
the backside of the desert and asked me to do it.
Been waiting for you, where you been?
That's not what Moses said. He started stammering.
I can't. Not me.
There's no way that I could be the one to do that.
A very, very different Moses than the one who went into that
desert came out. And I've said it before.
Moses spent 40 years learning how to be a somebody.
Then he ended up on the backside of the desert and he spent 40
years learning how to be a nobody.
In the last 40 years of his life, Moses realized what God
can do with a somebody who thinks he's a nobody.
That's why God used Moses, and that's when God is going to use
us. Oh, he's, he's still alive, he's
still attentive and he's still able.
It's just a matter of what we're going to do with that.
That's that's the message that our state needs to hear right
now. It's a message that our churches
need to hear right now. Are you going to tell him?
Let's pray.
Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.
We thank you for the opportunity that you've given.
As I mentioned, a good handful of the people in our church, the
ability and the position to work in a political realm.
We thank you for the the efforts that have been made.
But God, may we understand that the things that have happened in
this state and even in this nation are because you've
allowed them. And I believe in a lot of ways,
it's your judgment upon the church for not doing the work
that the church was called to do.
God, may you help us. May you help us to not only live
in a way that's pleasing to you, but do everything we can to get
the message of the gospel to those that are right here in
this community, to those that we work with, to those that we come
across. God, may you help us.
May you help us to be bold in proclaiming the truth.
May you help us to be bold and standing up for the truth.
And may you turn the tide of the wickedness that's flooding over
this land. Give us mercy.
Please, God, May you help us to see a revival in this nation.
May you help us to see churches get back to what churches are
supposed to be doing. May you help us to see lives
change to the point where we will get out and share the
message of the gospel with everybody that we can.
And may it result in people getting saved, minds and hearts
being changed. May we put you back on the
throne. Thank you again for all that you
do for us. In Jesus name, Amen.