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The Wicked Will Not Win - Minister Max Lucado · Max Lucado Daily Sermons

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Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Way to go. Way to
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Speaker 1: be here. Way to be strong. Way to just keep
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Speaker 1: putting the oar in the water and paddling the boat.
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Speaker 1: Way to show up. Way to show up. May the
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Speaker 1: Lord give you strength and bless you today with steadfastness,
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Speaker 1: with energy, with resolve, with hope, with hope, with hope.
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Speaker 1: What crazy seasons we continue to weather through, right?
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Somebody said this morning that they were sure glad to
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Speaker 1: have an extra hour. And another person said, no, I
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Speaker 1: don't want one more hour of 2020. Well, we have it.
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Speaker 1: So here we go. But we're going to make it.
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Speaker 1: We're going to be okay. Selma Rivas told me to
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Speaker 1: tell you thank you for praying for her husband, Ray.
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Speaker 1: Ruben had a heart attack earlier this week, and Selma,
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Speaker 1: longtime minister of our church, called upon you to pray.
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Speaker 1: And through God's grace and the skill of a wonderful
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Speaker 1: medical team, Ruben is recovering well. And she wanted me
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Speaker 1: to tell you that. So way to go. Thanks for
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Speaker 1: your prayers. And speaking of prayers, this is an important
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Speaker 1: week for us to pray for our nation as we
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Speaker 1: head into a national election. Did you know we had
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Speaker 1: an election coming up? Sorry, just kidding. Of course you did.
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Speaker 1: And it's important that we vote. And it's even more
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Speaker 1: important that we realize that the most important vote has
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Speaker 1: already been cast. And that is God's vote in favor
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Speaker 1: of humanity and that he's on the throne. And regardless
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Speaker 1: of who's in the White House, the throne room is
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Speaker 1: occupied and we can trust in him. Amen. You know,
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Speaker 1: it was about a year ago. In fact, it was
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Speaker 1: exactly a year ago this weekend that during the middle
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Speaker 1: of a sermon that I was sharing on the theme
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Speaker 1: of revival. One of our elders stood up in the
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Speaker 1: middle of one of the services and began to sing
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Speaker 1: the song, Revive Us Again. The whole church stood up
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Speaker 1: and I took that as the Lord's desire for us
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Speaker 1: to be more serious about praying for revival. A group
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Speaker 1: of people began praying every Sunday afternoon at 5 p.m.
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Speaker 1: for revival. That's gone on for a whole year now. Initially,
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Speaker 1: of course, in person. More recently, virtual prayers. But it's
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Speaker 1: also expanded into a citywide prayer effort. Last summer, a
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Speaker 1: couple of times at the AT & T Center in
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Speaker 1: the parking lot, and then last weekend and this weekend
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Speaker 1: at San Pedro Springs Park. Today we're going to gather
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Speaker 1: with pastors and people from all over San Antonio and
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Speaker 1: the hill country to pray, to pray for healing, to
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Speaker 1: pray for help, to pray for protection over our city,
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Speaker 1: and to pray for the Lord's will to be done.
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Speaker 1: You don't need to register if you'd like to come
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Speaker 1: in person. In the past, we've requested registrations, but we
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Speaker 1: don't need that. Today, if you'd like to come to
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Speaker 1: San Pedro Springs Park and use this beautiful Sunday afternoon
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Speaker 1: as a time of prayer, we ask only that you
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Speaker 1: come and don't bring any virus with you. If you
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Speaker 1: have a virus, please stay home. You need to be
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Speaker 1: at home. And if you're cautious or concerned, as we
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Speaker 1: all are, if you're concerned, you can participate online by
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Speaker 1: going to praysa.org, praysa.org or maxlocato.com at 3 p.m. We're
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Speaker 1: looking at probably about a 90-minute prayer service if you'd
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Speaker 1: like to be a part of it. And now, Lord,
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Speaker 1: we turn our hearts to you asking for your presence,
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Speaker 1: your power, your word, your strength to speak to us today.
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Speaker 1: In a world in which so many people are pummeled
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Speaker 1: by the pandemic, by political seesawing, By personal issues, we
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Speaker 1: really need a word from you today. And we thank
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Speaker 1: you that you promised to give it. Through Christ we pray.
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Speaker 1: And all the church said, Amen. In a 1962 episode
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Speaker 1: of The Twilight Zone, the story tells of a narcissistic,
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Speaker 1: harsh man He hunkers and bunkers in his apartment, convinced
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Speaker 1: that the whole world is one big conspiracy theory. He
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Speaker 1: and only he perceives the world for what it is,
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Speaker 1: and that is a planet inhabited by evil people. The
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Speaker 1: episode begins, as each does, with an introduction to the
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Speaker 1: Twilight Zone by, does anybody remember? Rod Serling. Boy, some
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Speaker 1: of you just showed your age. Rod Serling. In fact,
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Speaker 1: I saw that the Twilight Zone is one of the
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Speaker 1: hottest shows on television right now. He introduces the self-absorbed
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Speaker 1: man this way. That's Oliver Crangle, a dealer in petulance
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Speaker 1: and poison. And he proceeds to talk about Kringle's metamorphosis
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Speaker 1: from a twisted fanatic, poisoned by the gangrene of hate
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Speaker 1: to the status of avenging angel, upright and omniscient, dedicated
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Speaker 1: and fearsome. Kringle is a man of no empathy. He
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Speaker 1: rages against people he's never met. He demands that their
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Speaker 1: employees fire them. He calls upon law enforcement to arrest them.
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Speaker 1: In Crangle's world, only he is good. He sees nothing
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Speaker 1: but good in himself. And he ascends the judicial bench
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Speaker 1: of self-righteousness and declares a guilty verdict on everyone else.
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Speaker 1: He concocts a plan to purge the world of all
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Speaker 1: unsavory folk. And he informs the FBI that at 4 p.m.
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Speaker 1: that afternoon, The world's despicable and evil people will be
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Speaker 1: easy to identify because he is going to shrink them
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Speaker 1: all to the height of two feet. As the fateful
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Speaker 1: hour draws near, Kringle can hardly contain his excitement. Justice
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Speaker 1: will finally be served. Evildoers will be disclosed and he
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Speaker 1: will be seen for the hero that he is. So
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Speaker 1: at 4 p.m., he rushes to the window to look
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Speaker 1: out and to see who has been reduced to size.
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Speaker 1: But alas, he's not able to look out the glass. He, Krangel,
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Speaker 1: has been shrunk. He is two feet tall. You know him, Mr. Krangel.
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Speaker 1: Have you ever crossed trails with a small-minded, self-centered, despicable
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Speaker 1: despot who demands that everybody else subject themselves to him?
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Speaker 1: They have the audacity to think that they and they
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Speaker 1: alone have the world understood. Consequently, they abuse, they bully,
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Speaker 1: they scorn, they enslave, they even seek to exterminate. Haman
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Speaker 1: was a Kringle. The villain of Esther's story lived inside
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Speaker 1: a one-person world. Everyone else was called to bow down
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Speaker 1: to him. When one of them didn't, a man by
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Speaker 1: the name of Mordecai, Haman declared his fate as well
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Speaker 1: as the fate of his people. And that would be death. Death.
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Speaker 1: Yet his swagger was short-lived. His reign of terror came
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Speaker 1: to an end in the dining hall of King Xerxes.
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Speaker 1: So the king and Haman went to dine with Queen Esther.
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Speaker 1: And as they were drinking wine on that second day,
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Speaker 1: the king again asked Queen Esther, what is your petition?
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Speaker 1: It will be given to you. What is your request?
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Speaker 1: Even up to half of the kingdom. This is the
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Speaker 1: second banquet. Feast number two. And so much has happened
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Speaker 1: since feast number one. We talked about it last week.
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Speaker 1: Haman plotted the death of Mordecai, the Jew. King Xerxes, however,
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Speaker 1: chose to celebrate and honor the life of Mordecai the Jew.
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Speaker 1: The king publicly applauded the man whom Haman had sought
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Speaker 1: to destroy. Haman was so angry and upset that he
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Speaker 1: nearly missed the party. Just like banquet number one, the
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Speaker 1: wine was abundant, food aplenty. And the festivity helped Haman
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Speaker 1: forget his miserable day. He was just about to pour
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Speaker 1: himself another goblet of wine when the king asked the
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Speaker 1: queen what she desired. You might recall he's asked this
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Speaker 1: question twice. And both times she has deferred, but now
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Speaker 1: the time was right. I'm thinking that her heart rate
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Speaker 1: was at triple digits when she said, if I have
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Speaker 1: found favor with you, your majesty, and if it pleases you,
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Speaker 1: grant me my life. This is my petition and spare
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Speaker 1: my people. This is my request for I and my
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Speaker 1: people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated.
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Speaker 1: If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves,
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Speaker 1: I would have kept quiet because no such distress would
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Speaker 1: justify disturbing the king. Now, the important words are the
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Speaker 1: small words in this text. The queen said, we have
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Speaker 1: been sold. I and my people to be destroyed, to
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Speaker 1: be killed. If we only had been sold to slaves, we, I, my, we.
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Speaker 1: Esther links her fate to the fate of her people. Remember,
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Speaker 1: up until this point, Xerxes did not know that she
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Speaker 1: was of Jewish heritage. And now she discloses that she
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Speaker 1: is not just Esther the queen, but she is Esther
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Speaker 1: the Jew. Silence certainly fell on the room like a curtain.
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Speaker 1: The king's head was surely spinning, struggling to connect the dots.
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Speaker 1: You're a Jew? Somebody's plotting to kill you? Somebody's plotting
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Speaker 1: to kill the Jews? He asks, who is he? Where
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Speaker 1: is this man who is there to do such a thing?
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Speaker 1: Here it comes, folks. Esther said, our enemy and foe
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Speaker 1: is this wicked Haman. Then Haman was filled with terror
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Speaker 1: before the king and the queen. Haman, all two feet
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Speaker 1: of him, began to tremble. He had no recourse. Both
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Speaker 1: his jaw and his goblet dropped. Xerxes stormed out of
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Speaker 1: the room, livid, fuming, seething with rage. He was angry
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Speaker 1: at Haman for playing him the fool, angry at himself
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Speaker 1: for being one. The blood drained from Haman's face and
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Speaker 1: unless he acted quickly, it would soon drain from his body.
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Speaker 1: He threw himself upon the mercy of Esther, literally. He
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Speaker 1: fell onto her couch, begging her to help him. Xerxes
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Speaker 1: reentered the room and saw Haman groping in the direction
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Speaker 1: of his queen, and that did it. Haman, who wanted
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Speaker 1: to kill a Jew for not falling down in his presence,
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Speaker 1: was caught falling down before a Jew. Oh, the ironies continued.
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Speaker 1: the guards took Haman in custody. One of the officials
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Speaker 1: looked out the window at the 75 foot gallows that
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Speaker 1: Haman had constructed for Mordecai. And he said, well, if
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Speaker 1: I may make a suggestion, your majesty. And he pointed
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Speaker 1: toward the execution instrument. Xerxes gave the nod and Haman
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Speaker 1: got the point. There's much more to be resolved in
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Speaker 1: the story of Esther. Namely, a decree to exterminate all
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Speaker 1: the Jewish people in Persia. But we're going to press
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Speaker 1: the pause button right now and pick that part up
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Speaker 1: next week because we need to make sure we make
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Speaker 1: a very important point that appears throughout scripture, but clearly
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Speaker 1: here in the book of Esther. And that is our
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Speaker 1: God is a good God and the wicked will not win.
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Speaker 1: The wicked will not win. We live in a day
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Speaker 1: that even says there are no wicked people. Everything's relative.
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Speaker 1: Intolerance is the virtue. And nobody's really wicked. Scripture's clear. No,
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Speaker 1: there are wicked people. There are wicked people. There are
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Speaker 1: wicked people to tell God to leave them alone and
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Speaker 1: disregard his teachings completely. And the teaching of scripture is
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Speaker 1: the wicked will not win. Nothing escapes God. I wonder
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Speaker 1: if you have time for another example. Scroll back on
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Speaker 1: your timeline 150 years into the nation that preceded the Persians,
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Speaker 1: the Babylonian empire. And look at the story of Belshazzar.
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Speaker 1: He became king of Babylon in 539 BC. Again, 150
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Speaker 1: years before Xerxes. In a fateful feast, he invited about
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Speaker 1: a thousand of his gentry to join him in his
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Speaker 1: banquet hall that was reportedly 1,650 feet wide and a
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Speaker 1: mile long. Along the walls of this banquet room were
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Speaker 1: pillars carved to look like elephants, some 450 of them.
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Speaker 1: There was music, there was dancing, and you guessed it,
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Speaker 1: there was much wine. While Belshazzar was drinking wine, he
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Speaker 1: gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets
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Speaker 1: that Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken from the temple in
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Speaker 1: Jerusalem so that the king and his nobles, his wives
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Speaker 1: and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought
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Speaker 1: in the gold goblets that had been taken from the
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Speaker 1: temple of God in Jerusalem and the king and his nobles,
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Speaker 1: his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they
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Speaker 1: drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver.
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Speaker 1: of bronze, iron, wood, and stone. So when Nebuchadnezzar overthrew
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Speaker 1: the city of Jerusalem and he destroyed the temple, he
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Speaker 1: took all the artifacts and brought them home with him.
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Speaker 1: All those artifacts from the temple, every utensil, the menorah,
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Speaker 1: the table of the showbread, every spoon, every fork, and yes,
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Speaker 1: every cup, every cup. And these utensils stayed in storage
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Speaker 1: for 50 years, going untouched until this party of Belshazzar.
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Speaker 1: And he called for those cups that had been used
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Speaker 1: in the temple, holy utensils to be used in a
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Speaker 1: pagan celebration, a drunk wine fest. Now, why would he
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Speaker 1: do this? Were they out of cups? Were they out
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Speaker 1: of glasses? Did their dishwasher break? Did their kitchen staff
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Speaker 1: go on strike? No, this is a targeted move on
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Speaker 1: the part of Belshazzar. He wanted to blaspheme the God
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Speaker 1: of Israel. He wanted to make a mockery of Jehovah.
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Speaker 1: So he used these holy utensils in a drunken pagan celebration. Friends,
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Speaker 1: his irreverence did not go unnoticed. Out of the sleeve
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Speaker 1: of the knight, a mysterious hand came into view. Suddenly
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Speaker 1: the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on
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Speaker 1: the plaster of the wall near the lampstand in the
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Speaker 1: royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote.
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Speaker 1: His face turned pale. He was so frightened that his
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Speaker 1: legs became weak and his knees were knocking. Can you
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Speaker 1: envision this moment? A hand disattached from a body appeared
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Speaker 1: out of thin air. It hovered in the glow of
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Speaker 1: a lampstand and a finger, the finger of the hand
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Speaker 1: began to carve a message into the plaster of the wall.
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Speaker 1: Silence fell over the entire room. All thousand people deathly silent.
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Speaker 1: King Belshazzar shook so much that he fell down And
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Speaker 1: his proud sneer became a troubled frown. His boast became
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Speaker 1: a whimper and his heart pounded like a kettle drum.
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Speaker 1: The people could not decipher the writing. Belshazzar called for
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Speaker 1: the astrologists and the diviners to come in. Interpret the message,
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Speaker 1: he said, and I'll make you rich and powerful. None could.
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Speaker 1: The wife of Belshazzar overheard the commotion. and stepped into
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Speaker 1: the banquet hall. When she saw the king, she said,
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Speaker 1: don't be alarmed, don't look so pale. There is a
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Speaker 1: man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the
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Speaker 1: holy gods in him. Call for Daniel, and he will
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Speaker 1: tell you what this writing means. Daniel's an older man now.
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Speaker 1: His hair is silver, his back is stooped. He spent
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Speaker 1: his life in Babylon. But his mind and his faith
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Speaker 1: are as keen as honed nails. steal belshazzar offered him
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Speaker 1: money and power he dismissed them both he reminded belshazzar
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Speaker 1: how god had humbled and disciplined his father nebuchadnezzar with
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Speaker 1: a season of insanity belshazzar he says should have been
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Speaker 1: paying attention but he wasn't but you belshazzar his son
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Speaker 1: have not humbled yourself though you knew all this instead
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Speaker 1: you have set yourself up against the lord of heaven
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Speaker 1: That's the definition of wickedness. Someone who sets themselves up
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Speaker 1: against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from
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Speaker 1: his temple brought to you and you and your nobles
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Speaker 1: and your wives and your concubines drank from them. You
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Speaker 1: praise the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood,
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Speaker 1: and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But
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Speaker 1: you did not honor the God who holds you in
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Speaker 1: his hand, who holds in his hand your life and
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Speaker 1: all your ways. Therefore, he sent the hand that wrote
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Speaker 1: the inscription. This is the inscription that was written. Many,
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Speaker 1: many tekel parsons. This is what these words mean. Many,
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Speaker 1: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought
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Speaker 1: it to an end. Tekel, you have been weighed on
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Speaker 1: the scales and found wanting. Paris, your kingdom is divided
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Speaker 1: and given to the Medes and the Persians. That very night, Belshazzar,
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Speaker 1: king of the Babylonians was slain and Darius the Mede
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Speaker 1: took over the kingdom at the age of 62. At
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Speaker 1: the precise moment that Daniel was speaking, the Medes and
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Speaker 1: the Persians were creeping through the underground aqueducts, ready to
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Speaker 1: take the city. Belshazzar never saw it coming. The takeover
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Speaker 1: was swift, total. The mighty nation of Babylon collapsed. Belshazzar
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Speaker 1: was killed. And we are left with yet another sobering reminder,
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Speaker 1: and that is our God is a just God. Our
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Speaker 1: God is a just God. Now what are we to
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Speaker 1: do with stories like these? What are we to do
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Speaker 1: with stories in which an evil anti-Semitic crangle of a
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Speaker 1: man comes to an end? In which Belshazzar, irreverent, disrespectful,
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Speaker 1: who had a regard for nothing as being holy, comes
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Speaker 1: to an end. Where do we go with these stories?
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Speaker 1: I think of two directions. Number one, for some of you,
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Speaker 1: this is a word of caution. It's a word of caution,
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Speaker 1: a reminder that God will render to each one according
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Speaker 1: to his deeds. Do not think, my friend, do not
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Speaker 1: think for a second that That God will turn a
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Speaker 1: blind eye to a life or acts of rebellion and
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Speaker 1: deeds of malice. The scripture says, therefore consider the goodness
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Speaker 1: and severity of God. Goodness and severity. We love to
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Speaker 1: consider the goodness of God, do we not? How many
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Speaker 1: songs have been written about the goodness of God? How
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Speaker 1: many sermons have been preached about the mercy of God?
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Speaker 1: How many books have been written about the grace and
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Speaker 1: wonderful grace of God? And yet how many songs have
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Speaker 1: been written? How many songs do we sing that acknowledge
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Speaker 1: the day of reckoning that awaits all evil people? Not
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Speaker 1: so many. Out of curiosity, I pulled a concordance down
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Speaker 1: off my shelf. looked up the word wrath of God,
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Speaker 1: looked up the word mercy of God and just tallied
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Speaker 1: up the number of references of each just to compare.
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Speaker 1: The number of references in the Bible to wrath of God, 108.
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Speaker 1: The number of references in the Bible to the mercy
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Speaker 1: of God, 48. It's good to talk about the goodness
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Speaker 1: of God and nobody wants to talk about the goodness
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Speaker 1: of God more than your preacher today. But to discount
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Speaker 1: the severity of God, the just nature of God, to
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Speaker 1: present God as a teddy bear who is blind or
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Speaker 1: ignorant or indulgent toward the wicked and the evildoer is
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Speaker 1: simply not a fair presentation of the characteristic of our
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Speaker 1: holy God. Somebody needs to hear this today. Somebody is
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Speaker 1: in a cycle of sin. And somebody has been led
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Speaker 1: to believe that they can continue to do what they're
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Speaker 1: doing and God doesn't see and God doesn't care and
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Speaker 1: that there will be no punishment and that there will
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Speaker 1: be no consequence. That's the culture we live in. Now
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Speaker 1: do what you want as long as nobody gets hurt, friends.
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Speaker 1: Somebody's going to get hurt. There are consequences to our actions.
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Speaker 1: God is gracious to those who trust him, but he's
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Speaker 1: dead serious about correcting those who rebel against him. Today's
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Speaker 1: adultery is tomorrow's divorce. Today's indulgence is tomorrow's addiction. Today's
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Speaker 1: laziness is tomorrow's poverty. Most supremely dismiss God in this life.
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Speaker 1: And he'll dismiss you in the next. Spend a life
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Speaker 1: telling God to leave you alone. And on the day
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Speaker 1: of judgment, he will do just that. Actions have consequences.
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Speaker 1: Has this pandemic had a negative effect on your life?
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Speaker 1: Has it caused you to engage in some behavior that
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Speaker 1: you know is irreverent or rebellious against God? If so,
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Speaker 1: The reason God has you listening to this story is
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Speaker 1: to tell you, he sees. And you will not escape. Return,
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Speaker 1: return to your heavenly father. For some of you, this
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Speaker 1: is a word of caution. For some of you, oddly,
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Speaker 1: a bit strangely, this is a word of comfort because
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Speaker 1: you have a Haman in your life. You have a
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Speaker 1: Haman in your life. He was the boss who demanded servitude.
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Speaker 1: She was the teacher who played favorites. He was the
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Speaker 1: uncle who abused his niece, the husband who womanized his
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Speaker 1: way through marriages, including yours. The pastor who was more
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Speaker 1: arrogant than reverent, who used the pulpit as a way
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Speaker 1: to be seen, not as a way to serve. Hamans
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Speaker 1: snake their way into our worlds. And when they do,
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Speaker 1: victims feel their calendars flip to January and they are
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Speaker 1: left in the chill of the consequence, searching for springtime, wondering,
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Speaker 1: does God know what this Haman is doing? Does God
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Speaker 1: care about my suffering? Will Haman ever meet justice? Or
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Speaker 1: to borrow the words of the psalmist, oh Lord, how
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Speaker 1: long will you look on? Or Jeremiah who asked, why
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Speaker 1: does the way of the wicked prosper? Do evildoers get
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Speaker 1: a free pass? Do oppressors walk free? Do Hamans and
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Speaker 1: Hitlers and lynch mobs and porn peddlers get away with murder?
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Speaker 1: The resounding answer from scripture is no. No, the day
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Speaker 1: is coming when God will forever balance the scales of injustice.
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Speaker 1: God has set a day. It is set. He has
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Speaker 1: determined a day in which he will judge the world.
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Speaker 1: The louse who took advantage of you, God knows. The
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Speaker 1: seductress who divided your home and wrecked your marriage, God knows.
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Speaker 1: The racist who raged. The misogynist who raped. The bully
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Speaker 1: who bullied. God knows about them all. God is a
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Speaker 1: just God. And God is angry with the wicked every day.
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Speaker 1: To be clear, friends, the door of repentance is wide
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Speaker 1: open right now for anybody, regardless of how wicked they are.
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Speaker 1: It is not his will that anyone perish. But the
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Speaker 1: fact that some will is simply a marker of his justice.
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Speaker 1: Satan knows this. I didn't tell Satan anything new as
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Speaker 1: he listened in to this sermon. The demons are not saying, oh,
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Speaker 1: I never knew that. They've known it from the beginning
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Speaker 1: because they realize that the real battle is against the
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Speaker 1: devil and his forces. The scripture says, we do not
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Speaker 1: wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
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Speaker 1: against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against
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Speaker 1: the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. The
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Speaker 1: devil placed the anti-Semitic hatred in Haman. The irreverence in Belshazzar.
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Speaker 1: He is the Hitler behind the Hitler. The pimp behind
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Speaker 1: all pimps. And the pillager behind all pillagers. But his
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Speaker 1: days are numbered. And he knows it. He knows it.
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Speaker 1: He's angry because his days are short. He's angry because
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Speaker 1: he knows that the tables have been turned. Just as
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Speaker 1: Haman died on gallows that he made for Mordecai. Satan
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Speaker 1: was defeated on a cross that he designed for Christ.
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Speaker 1: God raised Christ from the dead and seated him at
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Speaker 1: the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule,
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Speaker 1: authority and power and dominion. And after he did, he
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Speaker 1: made it clear. God's plan was made known to the
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Speaker 1: rulers and authorities in the heavenly places everybody in the
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Speaker 1: heavenly places saw it the devil saw it and that
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Speaker 1: is the very cross that the devil had hoped would
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Speaker 1: be the end of Christ became the beginning of life
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Speaker 1: for billions of people Don't you know, every time Satan
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Speaker 1: hears us celebrate our Christ who died on the cross,
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Speaker 1: he kicks himself. Had he known that an instrument of
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Speaker 1: death would become life for us, he never would have
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Speaker 1: been a part of the cross. Had Haman known that
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Speaker 1: the gallows would serve to bring his own life to
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Speaker 1: an end, he never would have. created those gallows for Mordecai.
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Speaker 1: But Satan, Haman, Belshazzar, Crangle, they don't see it coming.
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Speaker 1: It's hard to see anything when you're two feet tall.
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Speaker 1: Gracious Father, these stories that you gave us today, they're sobering.
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Speaker 1: They are. But they're a reminder. They rightly adjust the
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Speaker 1: lens of our eyes so that we see what's happening. Father,
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Speaker 1: we pray for mercy for those who have turned from you,
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Speaker 1: who have fallen into a state of wickedness. Those who
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Speaker 1: worship Satan, those who worship alcohol, those who those who
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Speaker 1: indulge in every type of evil behavior, we beg, O
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Speaker 1: Heavenly Father, that you would please awaken them. Even as
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Speaker 1: we pray, names come to our minds of people that
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Speaker 1: we know. Have mercy, please. And have mercy upon us
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Speaker 1: that we might rightly divide the word of truth and
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Speaker 1: understand where you are taking us. Thank you. In Jesus' name.
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Speaker 2: You don't have.
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Speaker 3: To be near me.
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Speaker 2: You don't have to stay close. As long as you're
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Speaker 2: somewhere out there, that's enough for me.
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Speaker 4: I don't need to hold you near me.
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Speaker 2: Don't need promises to keep.
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Speaker 4: Just the thought that you are breathing Somewhere in this
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Speaker 4: world I see Even if I'm not beside you Even
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Speaker 4: if you never know There's a quiet kind of comfort
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Speaker 4: Just in knowing you still glow I don't need forever
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Speaker 4: I just need you to exist.
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Speaker 1: You don't have to.
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Speaker 5: Stay with me You don't.
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Speaker 4: Have to feel the same Just as long.
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Speaker 5: As you're still out there.
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Speaker 6: Calling softly through my days.
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Speaker 4: You don't have to look my way.
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Speaker 6: You don't have to be my home It's.
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Speaker 4: Enough to know you're living In a world.
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Speaker 1: I'm not alone.
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Speaker 6: I won't chase you through the distance. Won't disturb your
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Speaker 6: chosen life. I'll just keep you in my silence like
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Speaker 6: a star that shines at night. Through the dark and
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Speaker 6: through the blue.
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Speaker 4: I still think of you.
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Speaker 6: Me you don't have to feel the same just as
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Speaker 6: long as you're still out there calling softly through my days.
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Speaker 5: You don't have to look my way you don't have
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Speaker 5: to be my home it's.
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Speaker 3: Enough to know you're living in a world.
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Speaker 5: I'm not alone.
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Speaker 2: I don't need to be your light.
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Speaker 3: I don't need to cross your mind All I need
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Speaker 3: is just the truth That you're somewhere Still alive You
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Speaker 3: don't have to stay with me You don't have to feel.
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Speaker 5: The same Just as long as you're still out there
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Speaker 5: Calling softly through my days You don't have to look
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Speaker 5: my way You don't have to be my home It's
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Speaker 5: enough to know you're living
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Speaker 4: In a world I'm not alone