Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 14, 2016 | Route 66 - Zechariah

Transcript

February 14, 2016 | Route 66 - Zechariah · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hi kids.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: How you doing?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: You are so quiet.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, good to see you happy Valentine's Day.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Valentine's Day.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: At least when my wife wished me happy Valentine's Day this morning, I said I said it back.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that would be appropriate.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um I love the uh lines that uh what was it the little kids say when you ask them about Valentine's Day and about love and say things like love is when um a boy puts on cologne and a girl puts on perfume and they go out and smell each other.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Love is when you want to keep holding hands even though your hands are sweaty.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that the first time you went roller skating?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you're and you had the boy girl you never went roller skating.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, we're love is love is when daddy love is when mommy always gives daddy the best piece of chicken.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but that's that's not all I'm gonna say about love this morning, but it's all I'm gonna say about Valentine's Day, uh, because I have a a big, you know, I have a big problem today.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is the hardest book in the Bible, in my view, Zachariah.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, if you're just visiting, we're doing a Route 66 thing whereby we take one Sunday, one message for each book of the Bible.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are 66 books, so hey, Route 66.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we've come to the next to the last book in the Old Testament, and that's the book of Zachariah.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of, you know, find it if you can.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's the it's not as hard as like last week.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Last week Haggai's the shortest book, 38 verses.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is the longest of the minor prophets.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's no less than 14 chapters long.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: So stop looking at me for a moment, grab a Bible, open it, because you at least need to feel this book.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's tough, it's the toughest book in the Bible for me to preach.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but you know, we're gonna we're gonna go after it.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um and I'm actually looking forward to it, uh, even though I don't have all my voice.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've I prayed that I would completely lose it so I could cop out and give this give the job to Hunter at the last minute, but um couldn't do it.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So this is Zachariah.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Have you got it?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I think the theme is, I I'm titling it, or at least this is titled my message, if it's even if it's not the main theme of the book, is quit playing games.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I am going to um I'm gonna actually uh uh ask you a question, primarily at the latter part of this message.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here's where I'm gonna go.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go, are you playing games with God?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because as I read through this book, studied this book, you know, in the last couple weeks, that that's really where this book touches me.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that this book may touch you there too.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: You need to ask yourself this question Am I playing games with God?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and with that question in mind, let's go to prayer.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Father, God, we thank you we can call you Father.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you we can come here.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: We know that you don't like us to be in a church-going habit.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: You'd like us to come because we love to.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want us to be in a singing sort of habit or a giving habit.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: You'd like us to do it because of this personal relationship that you have with us.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we thank you that you're the kind of a God who really does care about us individually, really does love us, chases us, pursues us, jealous for us.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're so glad you are that kind of a God.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and we pray that we would uh not walk independently of you, not even this morning, not even during this message.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, just to review, okay, this is sort of a little Bible school moment or whatever.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Israel uh was uh a country that had been defeated horribly by Babylon.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: In 586 BC, the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar and so forth, had busted through the walls, burned down the city, including the temple, taken loads of captives, and and so, and taking them back to Babylon.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was the way the Babylonians worked.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: They like to, you know, sort of rape the countries and pull all the best people away and then resettle it with uh lowlifes.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so they did that, and so Israel and the best of Israel, Ezekiel, Daniel, and our guy, Zachariah, and and Haggai, his buddy, they're all in Babylon.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then by God's grace, a guy named Cyrus, king of Persia, conquers Babylon, thank God, 539 BC, and Cyrus had a whole different, he was a benevolent ruler.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: His view was no, uh, his view is more Machiavelli, actually.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing is to have your people like you, and then they won't rebel against you.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So he sent a sends everybody back to their home countries, including Israel.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: So in 538 B.C., he says, I'll even help you, I'll give you money, why don't you guys go back, rebuild your Jerusalem and so forth.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: 50,000 Israelites, uh, including Zachariah, our guy, and Haggai his friend, returned from Babylon to Jerusalem and Judea.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And their main job is to rebuild the temple because that's the center of Israel's religion.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's where, you know, God dwelt in the temple and all that.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so they start doing that, but then as we pointed out last week, there's a little opposition and other stuff, and so they just stopped.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And now 12 years later, Haggai says, and his friend Zacharias, Haggai first, gets on the stump.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Haggai is older, Zachariah's the young buck, and Haggai goes, get back to work.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, get back to work.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: What are you you you've renovated your own houses by now?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: You need to seek first the thing, the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about that last week.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't hear it, you need to listen to it.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that was last week.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a couple months later, Zachariah jumps in too.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's a different guy than Haggai.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've sort of explained that, you know, on your study sheet on the front page, that he's more of a literary type of a guy.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Haggai's more of the older guy who's more blunt.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But but so you got Haggai and Zechariah are the tag team, you know, who are urging them to go back to work on the temple, and they're successful.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: These two prophets are successful, Haggai and Zechariah.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you open the book of Zechariah, you find this book is so, wow, I mean, it's so hard to understand, but so interesting.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: It has so many famous verses in it.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've decided to do is to sort of follow the outline at the bottom of your study sheet.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: The outline is first, there are eight visions in chapters one through six.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: That should be one through six, not one through eight.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then four messages, seven and eight, and two oracles.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to take A first, then C second, and then end with the middle part.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I have three lessons from there, okay?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Will you go with me on this?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Chapters one through six tell us something really cool.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: They tell us that God's working out his plan in history, that God has a plan, which is which is kind of neat because as you know, America and the world feel like, wow, we don't have much of a plan nowadays.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many arguments.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: How do we solve the economic sort of crisis that the world's in?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: How do we solve the water problem?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: How do we solve the oil problem?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: How do we solve the ISIS problem, the Muslim radicalism problem?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have such division.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: We have division even in Washington, D.C.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm because it's only been what?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago that our administration said ISIS is now under control more than ever before.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's down 20%, or someone else said 40%.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly this last week, our two top intelligence chiefs in Washington, D.C.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: said, wrong, wrong, wrong.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: ISIS is stronger than it's ever been, and we do not see any way of stopping this move of Islamic radicalism with anything, you know, anything we've got.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we go, wow, what's the plan?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're in trouble.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: We we don't know what's going on.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, God is working out his plan in history, and that should comfort us, and that should help us to trust him.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got a practical illustration of that.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: High schools sometimes uh have uh around this time we've ever had things called singing Valentines, where they send out good singers, you know, their madrigals or whatever.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a way to make money for musical programs and stuff.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So on Thursday and Friday, this last week, care prayer of Alatin School send out their madrigals, and they, you know, you hire them, and some of you probably had them sing to you or something.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so it's a little embarrassing, you know, the guys are down, and you know, they came and sang to me, and you got these cute girls and they're singing to you as if they love you, and so it makes you blush, and so forth.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and so they're going here and they're going there, and they stopped and they went to a retirement home, and and you know, they just they just thrilled, thrilled the socks off of some of these people.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's a guy in the back there who's crying, and uh, you know, just it was just absolutely, you know, beautiful.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: These these singing Valentines, you probably recognize some of the kids in this picture.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh this is uh a Borchers girl, and she's singing, and this guy's absolutely taken with her, and so forth.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this woman couldn't be more happy with what's going on.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a 98-year-old woman who's feeling the cheeks of the boys as as they sing to her.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's just really cute.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd think that everything is hunky-dory and so forth.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: The melody is driving the band, you know, going from place to place, and she's up north of town, and she's on one of those country roads, north 30 35th, one of those country roads which should have a 45-mile and a 40-mile or a 40-mile-hour speed limit.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't speed limit 35 miles an hour.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's this big hill, and at the bottom of the hill there was a sheriff waiting, and he pulls her over.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: She's going 47 to 35.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: For shame.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: First ticket she's gotten in 30 years, by the way.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, um, so so he he he writes you this citation and so forth, and she's looking at this, and it's$165 and so forth.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: She gets this bright idea.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: She says, She says, sir, we're doing the singing Valentine thing.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Could we sing to you?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, and he's sort of a rookie, he's just Shawnee County Sheriff.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, but he's sort of uh uh well, yeah, I guess so.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: So they get out by the side of the road.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And while Melody's holding the citation in her hands, which is now sitting on her counter at home, you know, while she's holding the citation, they're singing, they're singing to him, and they're singing Mr.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful to him.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the best things is his deputy is splitting a gut.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, his deputy's trying to hold it in as as his young buck, you know, rookie, is, is, uh, who took forever to write the ticket, is getting sung Mr.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what is it that will allow you when when you find somebody's been waiting for you at the bottom of the hill to ambush you and give you 165, what is it that allows you to still keep a good attitude and sing?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm suspecting that part of it is knowing that there's a bigger plan in history, and God's in charge, and he's working out this plan.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the interesting thing about God's plan is believe it or not, his plan is to come live with us.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: A year or two ago, I did a series on heaven, and one of the interesting things we learned about heaven in the Bible is that most of the time when the Bible talks about heaven, it's not about a place far away we're gonna go and live on clouds or whatever.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's about how God's gonna renovate the earth and then come live with us here with his headquarters in Jerusalem.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a mind blower that out of the hundreds of billions of galaxies in dark space, God would choose a second-rate planet where we've lived and come and live with us here.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you take history, you know, first year in college, the philosophy of history, you'll find there are several different views of history, but uh, you know, maybe four, depending on the textbook you look at.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: They sort of boil down to a pagan view of history and a Christian view of history.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: The pagan view of history, uh like Arnold Toynbee's view of history, you know, is that it's a cyclical thing.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a ball, and it keeps repeating itself.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, and it is astounding to see how often things that happen in 800 AD are happening again in 1800 AD and vice versa and so forth.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: But according to the Bible, according to God, there's a ball, perhaps there's a cyclical ball rolling, but it's rolling in a certain direction, and it has a goal.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that while they, shall we say, the evolutionists and the Marxists for whom it's a constant conflict, and so while they have this ball rolling and finally, you know, it rolls off the cliff and the sun dies, you know, sun turns black, and everything just ends.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: No, says God, no.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I have it, it's like an arrow and it's shooting for a goal.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and the and the goal that I have is I, my goal is I'm gonna clean everything up and I'm gonna come and live with you.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's astounding, and that's the message of chapters 1 through 6.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Primarily, he says, for instance, in 210, daughter Zion, shout for joy and be glad, for I'm coming to dwell among you.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Lord's declaration.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the next verse, he he repeats himself in a way.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I will live among you, and you'll know that the Lord Almighty, or the Lord of heaven's armies, literally, has sent me to you.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So God's working out his plan in history, and his plan is to come live with us.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And notice his favorite place in the universe is Jerusalem.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: His most favored nation is Israel, and his favorite place.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you find this so often in this book that I listed it on your study sheet as the key word of the book.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: It starts chapter one.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'll return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house will be rebuilt.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter 2, verse 5.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I says the Lord, I will be a wall of fire around Jerusalem, and I will be the glory in her midst.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: God's firewall.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, you know, out of all the nations, this is the book of Amos, he said, out of all the nations on the earth, when I was choosing them before time began and looked at the United States and the Germany and all the great nations of the world, I looked down, he says, upon Israel, a tiny little nation of Israel, and I set my love on her, and I chose her.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: She alone of all the nations of the earth.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why would God choose something so small?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then why would he say in chapter 2, famously, verse 8, He who touches you touches the apple of his eye?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: So no foe, no enemy of this tiny little nation in the Mideast can hope to succeed.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because Israel is the apple of God's eye.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so on through this book, repeatedly, the Lord shall inherit Judah, his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem, then Jerusalem will be called the city of truth, the mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the holy mountain.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the reasons I love so to go over there.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Melody and I go over at least every two years, and we take a tour.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're taking, we've got a full group, as usual, about 45 people, fill a bus.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: I love to do it because this is the only place on earth that God says He loves.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to assure you, most of you don't have, I mean, it's expensive to go and it's really cool to go, but some of you can't go, but listen, you're gonna be there one day.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you've trusted Christ as your Savior, don't worry about it.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be there, you're gonna go there.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lord, and it'll be even better then because instead of Netanyahu or whoever's running the show over there and with, you know, with danger, I mean, it's gonna be the Lord, Jesus Christ Himself ruling from Jerusalem.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that cool?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: So listen, God's working out his plan and history, his plans to come live with us, his favorite place is Jerusalem.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, the winners, he's telling us, the winners even now and in the end, are not gonna be the big shots, but the small fry who lean on him.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now you see this in one of the most famous uh passages in Scripture.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, don't worry about Jared's doing this.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: I need to tell you this because we we got people during the week, you know.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think they said, Who is that guy that's walking around?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you know, there we need some pictures for uh CNN.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's it for CNN, whatever it is.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I forget what it's for, but anyway, they're important.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I want you to say a verse with me.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to focus in on this verse.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's a verse everybody should know because it's so easy to say, okay?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: It starts with the words, not by might.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: One, two, three, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's the King James, Zechariah 4, 6.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the point is that it's not by being super powerful or big, or I mean, if your goal in life is to become the biggest or the most powerful or the richest or whatever, that's not God's, you don't want that goal.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because God says, no, I I'm into small things and I'm into helping small things.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's small people who lean on me, he says a few verses later, you know, they were all worried the temple is so small.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, Don't despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begun.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you know this is true, don't you?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't be sitting here.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your seat right now would be taken by the whole by the mighty and powerful in this world, except that you know what?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: You and I are weak and small and we're foolish because God's chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the way God has arranged it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you come to Jesus Christ by saying, No, I'm not powerful.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: I trust in you, God, I rest on you, Holy Spirit, because it's not by might, not by power of my own doing, it's by the Holy Spirit.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you you come to him falling down in humility before him, you trust him, lean on him, his son's death in your place, and you come to him as your savior.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then you need to keep that in mind during life so that you, you know, your goal isn't to become Donald Trump.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday we had in some ways a tragic death.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Supreme Court Justice died yesterday.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think only the second Supreme Court justice ever to die in office.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Scalia.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful man of God and a brilliant man.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Died at the age of 79.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's in heaven now.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe my my favorite quote from him ties in with what I'm talking about.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: He once said, God is in a speech he gave, God has assumed from God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools, and he has not been disappointed.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: If I have brought any message today, it is this have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Be fools for Christ, and have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Can you say amen?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what God's saying in chapter 2.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Down on earth, people think the winners are the biggest, the most famous, the most powerful.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I love, didn't you love?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was a few years ago when the champion, world championship of monopoly was in Berlin.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they have world championships, and 28 national championships, including the USA champ, went to Berlin.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: They were fighting it out.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: The USA guy is about 50.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: He was a banker, he wore a gold Rolex, he wore a gold necklace, he wore a gold pinky ring, and by round three, he owned both boardwalk and park place.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know, you won't understand this, but he owned both boardwalk and the most expensive, best properties on the board, you think.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And over here of the other 28, here was a guy from Holland.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's 15 years younger, worked for Manpower, this temporary, temporary job agency.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, his token, the token of the American was the race car, the token of the Dutch guy was a wheelbarrow.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what he went after was the low price property.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: He got Baltic, Mediterranean, Oriental, Vermont, Connecticut.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: The USA guy finished 14th.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Holland guy finished first.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Just a game, isn't it?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: God says, you know, for me, the winners are going to be the small fry who lean on me because it's not by force, it's not by strength, it's by my spirit, says the Lord of Heaven's armies.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: The winners won't be the big shots, but the small fry who lean on him.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's chapters one through six.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want to jump over to chapters nine through fourteen, which tell us that to accomplish his plan, it just doesn't come by evolution, it doesn't come by people getting better and better, you know, by one nation, let's say the United States getting more powerful and blessing the world.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: It comes only when God breaks in from outside, breaks in to bring about his plan.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in these final six chapters, and by the way, Zachariah is one of the four top uh in times books of the Bible.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Eschatology is the word for it.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what's the number one book of eschatology in the Bible?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Starts the letter R.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation, right?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's two that we've already covered: Mr.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Ed, E and D.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: What are they?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel and Daniel.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: They have eschatology end times.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now we get to Zachariah.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the top four, and it's quoted more than Ezekiel or Daniel in the New Testament, quoted more than any other book in the Old Testament except for Isaiah.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's full of stuff, and if you ever want to read about end time stuff, go to these six chapters, to the first coming, chapter.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Chapters 9 through 11, 2 coming chapters 12 through 14.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Famous, famous verses like this one.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna uh rehearse this verse just in three weeks on Palm Sunday.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Shout, daughter of Jerusalem, see, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the full of a donkey.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Predictions about the first coming.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter 9, 16.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord will save his people.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's why Jesus came.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they will sparkle like jewels in a crown.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, you do, right now.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it'll happen again at the end of time.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: This final salvation.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And will sparkle forever like jewels in a crown.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Chapters, whoops, chapters 12 through 14 is the second coming.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Chapters.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing verses in here.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'll make Jerusalem, chapter 12, like an intoxicating drink that makes nearby nations stagger when they send their armies to besiege Jerusalem and Judah.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: So he said, I'm gonna make them like a cup.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they'll think it's got Diet Coke in it.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna turn out it's got uh 40%, you know, proof bourbon or something, and they're gonna get drunk as they drink the cup of Jerusalem.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna start staggering around.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Next verse, he compares them to a heavy weight.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: He says, On that day, I'll make Jerusalem an immovable rock.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: All the nations will gather against it to try to move it, but they'll only hurt themselves.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: You see, all of these nations, 23 Arab nations, are raided against Israel and Jerusalem today.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: God says, I'm on Jerusalem's side, it's not gonna work.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually he says, 14, 1 through 5, I'm gonna gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then Yahweh will go out and fight, and all the holy ones with him, and on that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Great prophetic verses.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then here, this wonderful verse.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they, speaking of the Jews who rejected him, they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning repent.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's quoted by Paul in Romans 11 to say, and all Israel will be saved.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: I can't help thinking of the story of King Arthur.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: He had this young man.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody believed he was qualified or worthy to be their king, but he pulls the sword out of the stone.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And all the people gather.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden the people start shouting.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Arthur shall be our king, Arthur shall be our king, and the trumpet sound, and the governor of London comes forward and hands him the key, and all the people bow, they anneal.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Arthur takes the key, and he takes the crown, and he becomes their king.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And one day what will happen?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is the Jewish people will change their tune as well, having rejected the one whom they pierced for so many years, all of a sudden they will see him in the air and they will mourn and repent and say, Jesus shall be our king, Jesus shall be our king, and the trumpets will sound in the air, and the people will bow and kneel, and all will call him Lord and King.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus will take the key to the city of Jerusalem, and he will sit on the throne.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's just a wonderful, wonderful prophecy.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when he does, living water, chapter 14, verse 8, will flow out from Jerusalem.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Half of it toward the Eastern Sea, that would be the Dead Sea, and the other half toward the Western Sea, that would be the Mediterranean.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And on that day, Yahweh will become king over all the earth, Yahweh alone, and his name alone.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be a wonderful day, and that's God's plan.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's working everything toward that, and it's going to happen.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to talk to you about in the meantime.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Chapters 7 and 8.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say something rather blunt to you.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say, if you want to be part of his plan, then quit playing games.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Grab your Bible.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, this is a really interesting story in chapter 7.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Starting in verse 2, you have this group of people coming from Bethel down into Jerusalem to ask a question.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: The people of Bethel, not all of the returning Israelites, had settled in Jerusalem proper.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Some had settled 12 miles north in the town of Bethel.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they sent a couple of guys together with some others to entreat Yahweh, verse 3, by asking the priests of the Lord, of the house uh of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, shall we mourn and fast in the fifth month, as we have done these many years?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why would they mourn and fast?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the fifth month, in the fifth month and in the seventh month, these two times, these were the months in which Babylon in 586 BC had broken through the walls and burned the temple and burned everything.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And ever since then, the Jews had mourned.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: When it came to that time, they thought they had mourned their sin early on.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: They thought, it's our sin that caused us to happen.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they thought about their sin and they repented and they mourned and so forth.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And for a while it was a good thing, but as it went on year after year after year, it became a religious ritual.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: You understand what I'm talking about, a religious ritual.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, just did it because it was the thing to do.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's very interesting is that same month, today, every single year, the ninth of Av, that's the very day that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down in 586 BC.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Also happens to be the very day in which the walls of Jerusalem were broken down by Titus of Rome in 70 AD.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's the very same day in which the king of Spain brutally killed and cast out all of the Jews from Europe in the 1500s.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: That day is a horrible day on the Jewish calendar.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Five absolutely catastrophic events and more, some say, have happened on that day.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so every single year, on the ninth, that's uh Tisha Bah, Tisha means the ninth, uh of Av, the month of Av, on that day, and three weeks surrounding it every year, the Jews get together and they camp out before the wailing wall, the western wall, the night before, and just and they mourn and they fast.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing they were doing clear back in 520, 519, 518 BC.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: So they're except you can tell what's happening.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now they're coming and you can tell they it says they're entreating the favor of the Lord.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why would they be doing that?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's because they've gotten a little tired of it.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you saying in your kitchen to your husband or to your wife, you know, we've served so long in that ministry.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: You think by now it's enough?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Can we kind of quit now?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: We made God happy finally.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Have we done enough?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's what they're doing.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're entreating his favor.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, can we stop now?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And notice notice what they say.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: As we've done for so many years, you get this?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh wow, it's sort of done our stuff.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: We've done more than most people in volunteer work and in charity and at the church.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can we stop now?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Notice God's answer.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: He blasphemies.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me, ask all the people of the land and the priests, when you fasted and when you mourned in the seventh, fifth, and seventh months of these seventy years, was it actually for me that you fasted?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or was it for yourself?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: You go, wow, I don't know.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if any of you celebrate Lent.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Started this last Wednesday, Ash Wednesday.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Lent's a good thing to celebrate.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's the 40 days leading up to Easter and so forth.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Ashes on your head.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Supposedly ashes of repentance this last Wednesday.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let's be honest.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: May not have much repentance, may not have been going on with some people who had ashes on their head.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: But you've heard about it, giving up stuff.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Some people say I'm gonna give up Facebook.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: One guy kid, you know, I said, I'm gonna give up swearing for these 40 days.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a friend of mine.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: I go, really?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why not give it up for the rest of the year or two?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Someone said to me about Lynn, say, I'm giving up chocolate.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: I said, uh, that's not probably not one I'd give up.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'd give up alcohol because I don't drink that much.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: But so, but the real question is, why are you giving up?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you give up stuff?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you do what you do for Jesus Christ?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Who is it for?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, really, who is it for?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, quit, would you quit playing religion?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I hate that.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: I hate it when people play religion.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we're in a we're in a uh uh uh uh election campaign today, and there are no non-religious candidates on either side.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because everybody knows the prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, who was an irreligious, not secular type guy 500 years ago.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: But when he listed the requirements for becoming a, you know, for ruling, he said there's nothing more important than appearing to be religious.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what God says in this chapter, and you know, I won't have you read all the verses.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: He said, My hypocrisy meter is running, God says, and you're peeking out because you're not showing faithful love and compassion to one another.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're so big on the religious ritual.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you to stop oppressing the widow and the fatherless, the foreigner and the poor, and quite quit plotting evil in your hearts against one another.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm looking for, he says, is integrity.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of chapter 8, he repeats himself.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I want you to do: speak truth to one another.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Don't plot evil in your hearts against your neighbor.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Don't love perjury, for I hate all this.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's saying what he's saying is, you know, not only did you not do it for me, but the whole thing's hypocrisy.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can tell a lot about a person by who they choose as their friends and who they choose as their enemies.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at who Jesus chose as his friends and who he chose as his enemies when he was on earth, it's as though he was saying, I'd rather spend time with a rough around the edges sinner than a well-polished hypocrite.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm guessing most of you are like that too.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: You would much rather spend your time around somebody who's going to Alcoholics Anonymous three times a week, right?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Than around a well-polished hypocrite, than even around one of those, I think we've got eight now, TV evangelists, who are each worth well over$40 million a year.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: One brags down in Oklahoma, he's worth a billion dollars.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: We all hate that.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, we don't hate it as much as God does, because God speaks out.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Would you quit playing games?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, you know what, you don't have your$40 million.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're not that kind of a hypocrite, but you need to ask yourself a question.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: You need to ask, why do I do what I do in my service for God, in my charity, in the things that I'm proud of?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I do those things?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Was it actually for me that you fasted?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Who is it that you really live for?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Can you say, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 14, none of us lives for ourselves, and none of us dies for ourselves.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: If we live, we live for the Lord.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: If we die, we die for the Lord.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he says elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 10, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: My goal in life is to get to where St.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick was, who could say, Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want to live Christ, live the life of Christ constantly, because that's reality, instead of living for myself, not living for myself when I do Christian service, but living for Christ alone.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, that's I'm desperate for that, because I'm desperate for you.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want you.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm jealous for you.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord Almighty says.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is chapter 8, verse 2, but he says the same thing in chapter 1.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: I am very jealous for Zion.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm burning with jealousy for her.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: What does he mean?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're part of Zion, you're part of Jerusalem, says the book of Galatians.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you've trusted Christ as your Savior, you get embraced by this.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: So God's saying, you know, I love you.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: I burn with love for you.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm jealous when you go elsewhere, when you forget me, when you start working for me, but really are doing it for yourself.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when I ask you to repent and you don't do it.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's why he says in this chapter, chapter 7, when I called, they didn't listen.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when they called, I wouldn't listen.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Says the Lord Almighty.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: You want me to listen to your prayers?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, take the first step for heaven's sake.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Look up.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you living for?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, for my own sake, since this was the most convicting stuff in the book for me, I came up with four or five questions that I asked myself, and I'll just share them with you.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they'll help you.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: The first question is do I get more worked up about church traditions than about biblical truths?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mentioned an illustration in the first service, and Millie came up.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I bet you offended some people is about I said, honey, nobody has talked, nobody has said this to me in 20 years.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is, come up and they were angry this years ago, you know, because I hadn't ended the service with an invitation, calling people up.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Where do you find that in the Bible?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Can you use something like more like, you know, that remember that time where we had somebody who was mad because we didn't have an American flag on the stage, or the other person who was mad because you didn't use a pulpit anymore?
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Or how about that one time where so she's mentioning ones that wouldn't offend people.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: So she said, and one I know won't offend people, is she said, remember in the early days that there was uh up here at the up here at the front, we had this attendance sort of a board, you know, that listed hymns and how much people had given and how many and so forth.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, Remember when you took that down and you moved it and they got really mad at you, and so you had to bring it back in, but you you were rebellious and stuck it at the back of the auditorium?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Yeah, I remember that.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: She said, That won't offend anybody.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: But so, so I'm not gonna mention, I'm trying to avoid church traditions that you really care about.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm not mentioning the organ, you know, for some of you or anything like that.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: But but you know, the question is do you get worked up about church traditions rather than the biblical truths related to it?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do I make a big deal about things that God has never said are a big deal to him?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Question three, am I more worried about how I appear on the outside than how I am on the inside?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Don't raise your hand.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm guilty.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: For am I critical when others slip up and I make excuses for my own sin?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, at least I'm keeping the ninth of Ave, man.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've got the fast in the morning, I've got that thing down cold.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, my volunteer service, my service for the Lord.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Am I doing it for the Lord, really?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or for God says, Would you would you quit playing games?
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, and perhaps the key verse of the book, this is what the Lord Almighty says, return to me, declares the Lord Almighty, and I will return to you.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Notice he doesn't say, return to my rules, return to my regulations, return to my standards, return to my you know, schedule.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: You have to do the quiet time first thing in the morning, you have to give exactly that amount of money.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: You have to not only come on, you know, to church a certain number of times.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: One time a guy, a guy came in, it's just the most amazing thing, and he said, I didn't know him.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Jim, I need to ask you a hard guy, I need to know if the Lord would have me back.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I left God, I left church years ago.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up grew up in the church, but I I left him years ago.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've done some things I'm ashamed of, and then he started listing him for me.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I go, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you should be ashamed of that.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you should really be ashamed of that one.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, I'm just done, I just wandered far, and I just I just wonder, would God could I come back?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is it too late?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it amazing that the Lord says, come back to me and I'll come back to you.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been playing games with God, if you've been doing the stuff for yourself rather than for him, talk to him about that.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you, he wants you.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, I do pray for my friends, I pray for brothers and sisters, for people who are seeking you.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: I pray for all of us that we'd understand how much, amazingly, how much you love us.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in this great big, huge plan you have to bring all things toward this gorgeous, this brilliant, this amazing, this regal ending that at the bottom of all of it is that you want to come and live with us and you want to start living with us now in the meantime.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: But we've got to get serious about this.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to care about what you care about.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to care about you and not the impression we make on other people.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bless us, Lord, as we do that this week in Jesus' name.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, folks.