A Cry From the Heart of God

Praise God. Oh, thank God. Thank God for his house.

How many saw the photograph of the police officer hugging a kid in Ferguson this week? If you haven't seen it, you gotta, you gotta see that. Just, just Google, I don't know, police officer hugs kid in Ferguson. Touches your heart.

You can't see a photo like that and not be touched by it. Thank God, that's the way things should be. Thank you, Lord.

I want to speak to you this morning about a cry from the heart of God, a cry from the heart of God. Matthew chapter 23, please. If you turn there with me, God bless you and welcome you this morning.

Those that are visiting a lot of family members this morning that are who's, how many are visiting from out town? Can I just see your hands? God bless you. Look at all the visitors. Praise God.

How many are scared to sit under the word and you wish you hadn't sat in the middle of the church? Praise God. Father, I thank you so much, Lord God, with all my heart for how kind and tender you are. I thank you, Lord, for how you come down and you encourage us when we're cast down and lonely, discouraged.

I thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, that you're constantly calling out to us, drawing us to something of yourself that we find it so hard to see. Help me today, God, to convey your heart. Help us as a people to be able to receive it.

We thank you for this in Jesus' name. Amen. Matthew chapter 23, beginning at verse 37, a famous scene that's been preached on, I have no doubt, many, many times over the years, where Jesus is staring at the city that was the center of his heart, representing his desire to dwell with you and with me, with those that are called by his name.

Beginning with his people, Israel, only to come, as the scripture said, to his own, but his own wouldn't receive him. And he stands there and he looks at the city. Now, he's the God who has the power to command this whole thing to turn to dust.

He has the power to send it into space. He has the power to to do numerous things, but that's not what's in his heart. There's a cry in the heart of the Son of God, and he says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her, how often I wanted to gather your children together as a hand gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

See, your house is left to you desolate, for I say to you, you shall see me no more until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Now, the human tendency in all of us is to see the negative side of this. I've heard it preached on, I've done it myself, where really we just focus on verse 39, the final verse or 38, your house has left you empty, I came to you, you turned your back, and I'm going to literally spiritually blind your eyes, you're not going to see me until you until you get it right.

But here is the Son of God, displaying the heart of God, as he calls out to people, created in his own image, that he loves passionately. The scripture tells us in John chapter 3, in verse 16, for the first six words are, for God so loved the world, and that is something in those words that is so profound, it's so deep. I could preach on those six words for the rest of my life and never ever touch the bottom of it.

I could only scratch the surface of, for God so loved the world. There should be something in your understanding and mine about these verses, but we are so slow to want to hear these words or to respond to the love that's in the heart of God. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

Now he said, he could have described himself as a, how often I wanted to gather you as a general, gathers his army, or as a ship master, a captain of a ship, gathers his crew, or as a corporate CEO fisherman, gathers those who are entrusted, or he's entrusting with this new liability, livelihood rather, of fishing. But that's not how he describes himself, it is God describing his own heart. And he says, how often I wanted to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you're not willing to come.

I wanted to gather you in tenderness. I wanted to gather you and protect you. I wanted to gather you and draw you close to my heart so that you could realize the depth of my love for you.

I wanted to nurture you. I wanted to keep you. I wanted you to know who I am.

I wanted you to know why I created you and why my heart broke from the moment Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden and sin entered into the human race. I want you to understand these things. But he says, I wanted to gather you but you killed the prophets and stoned those that are sent to you.

Something in all of us, there's something in our hearts that's resistant to the love of God. We don't mind if God sees us the way we see ourselves. We don't mind it if God was intolerant with us as we are or saw us as failures or sat on the throne with his arms folded, somehow just waiting for us to get it right.

And when people come and talk about the love of God, there's just something, especially in those who have failed or consider ourselves failures. There's something in us that wants to push away the love of God. We want to push away the message.

We want to push away the messengers. Even though the words of the prophets quite often were piercing and they were like a trumpet that was sounding, there was at the very core of them was this desire in the heart of God for you, for humankind, for people to know him, to turn. The reason the prophets were often shrill is because of the resistance in the human heart.

It's God trying, it's that desperation in the heart of God. Quite often prophets were animated by the Holy Spirit in such a measure to cause there to be at least a momentary attention given to their voices. Your resistance at my cry, he said, for you will leave you empty.

He says your house, everything you're building is going to be empty until the day you say this cry of God's heart for me is a good thing. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Until the day you say God is good and his mercy endures forever.

Until the day you say it's not my effort, but it's his kindness that brings me back into right relationship with him. Until the day you say I have nothing to offer God, I have nothing to bring to him. I have no litany of success.

There's no reason he should want me other than the fact that he loves me. He loves me with a love so deep, so profound, so powerful that there's no way I can ever fully understand it. I can only receive it and I can only let myself come close to it and let God begin to shower me with the depths of this love.

This cry in the heart of God is all through the scriptures. The prophet Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 30 tells us that God cried out to those who were seeking help from places where true help could not be found. Listen to the verses two and three of Isaiah 30.

You walk, go down to Egypt and have not asked my advice to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of Egypt. Therefore, the strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame and trust in the shadow of Egypt shall be your humiliation. He says, I'm not going to let you find satisfaction anywhere and that's the mercy of God.

It's the mercy of God that has you here this morning and you might not know him very well, but it's the mercy of God that has left your heart troubled. It's the mercy of God that has caused this question to be inside of your heart that says surely there has to be more to life than this. I remember years ago I was invited to speak at a gathering of CEOs and executives from executives from numerous companies throughout North America.

I was simply supposed to take an offering for impoverished children in Africa, but when it came time to speak I had a stirring come into my heart and the man who was as a friend of mine who was organizing this event and he understood when that stirring comes you back away and follow God and I got up that day and I said folks I want you to put your checkbooks away. I want to talk to you today about a debt that you owe that you can't repay and I began to talk to them about those that are on the second and third rung from the top in their industry. I said you're almost there.

You've almost hit the pinnacle, but there's a gnawing question in your heart and that question is if if I get to the top and it's no better than this then what is life worth? Is life even worth living? And I talked about the fear that is in some. You've made it quite high in the success ladder as the world sees it, but it's left your heart so empty and it's left you with a deep and abiding fear that if I do get to the top and it's not better than this and life is not worth living and I still remember one person sitting at a table burst out crying right in front of me. People who have it all together as far as the world sees, but there's a cry coming for them.

There's a cry that comes from the heart of God for all men, all women, all young people created in the image of God and God's mercy will leave your house empty until you respond to that cry and I thank God for that mercy with all my heart. I do thank God for it. I thank God that he will not let us be satisfied with other pursuits.

He will cause this cry that comes from his voice. Zechariah chapter seven after the Babylonian captivity and when people came back out of Medo-Persia, Babylon became Medo-Persia and they came back into the promised land to try to rebuild the temple of God. God cried out through the prophet Zechariah in encouraging the people to build again.

He said, I cried out to you when you thought you were prosperous and secure. I saw something ahead of you that you were not aware of, but you turned your ear away and would not listen. I feel that cry in my heart now for this generation.

It's burning deeper in me than it ever has before. There's a cry for this season we're living in for this time, especially for the people of God thinking that we are secure, but not aware of what's coming ahead of us. And he said through Zechariah, so your house was left empty until the day you heard about my longing to bring you home until that day when that cry came again into your ears.

In John chapter seven, the scripture tells us in verse 28, he said Jesus cried out as he taught in the temple. He said, you both know me and you know where I'm from and I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true whom you do not know. He's talking now to people who are attenders, church attenders, but they're casual attenders.

They just come at festive times during the year or they do come because they feel some obligation to worship God, but they've never ever fully understood the heart of God. They've never ever seen where a relationship with God can lead. They've never understood the kindness of God, the power of God, this majesty of God, the covering of God, the nurturing of God.

Maybe they see him as a hard task master as some do in the scriptures or did in one of the parables. Maybe they see him as somewhat aloof, a God who can't be reached, but must be pacified. Maybe they see him as a God who's satisfied with the casual relationship.

I don't know how they see him, but he said to them, you know me and you know where I'm from. In other words, you have a physical knowledge. You know a lot of details about me.

You know my stepfather, you know my mother's name, you know my siblings and my relatives, you know what street I live on, you know the things I used to do, and if people were to ask you, you could historically recount it all. But he said, but I did not come from myself, but somebody sent me. And this side of me, you don't know.

You know the religious side, but you don't know the heart that's behind it. All you can do is recount verses of scripture like Martha did at Lazarus' grave. And the scripture is true, but you don't know my heart.

You don't know what I can do. You don't know what I long to do. You don't understand.

And in John chapter seven, verses 37 and 38, he says, on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. And he who believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. If you're still thirsty, if just casual church attendance hasn't been enough, if you've not found in Egypt what you're looking for, if simple scripture memorization is not doing it for you, if you still have that thirst inside for God, come to me and drink, he said.

If you do, there'll be a source of life come into you and flow through you that you've never experienced. Somebody else has talked about it, but you've never experienced it. You never walked in it.

It's all just been a casual religion. But I want you to know there's a cry in God's heart for you, for you. It's not about numbers with him.

It's about people, individual people. He knows so much about you. The scripture says he knew you before you were even formed in your mother's womb.

He knows how many hairs are on your head. He knows everything about you. It's not about numbers.

It's not about volume. It's about you. That's the cry.

I believe that when he died on the cross, the scripture says he let out a loud cry at the end. And it was so profound that a centurion there who was used to people crying, he was used to them dying in agony. He was, he was used to the despair, sparing cries of agony and hardship and loss, but he had never heard a cry like this in his lifetime.

Nothing like this cry. This cry was, was not human. This cry was part human, but it was also part coming from the heart of God.

It was that same cry that came out of the voice of God when he came into the garden and said, Adam, where are you? Adam, where did you go? My friend, the one I created in my image, that man, that woman that were created for me for fellowship, for all of eternity. I lost you, but I'm going to get you back. I'm not going to let the devil have you.

I'm going to pursue you to the ends of this earth. I'm not going to let you go. Though you resist me, I'm not going to let you go.

I'm going to send prophets and though you stone them, I'm going to send more. And though you resist the message, I'm going to send another. And though you banish Christians from your presence, and though you won't listen to your family, I'm going to bring you from place to place, time to time and season to season until you finally realize that I love you.

Jesus didn't die for you because he felt obligated because of your failure. He died for you because he loves you with the love that we can't fully understand. We can receive it.

We can let it embrace us. That's why I said to Jerusalem, I just wanted you to come to me and let me embrace you. Let me draw you close to my heart.

Let me give you the protection you need and the strength and the resource and the covering and the future. It would all come from me if you would have come to me, but you didn't want to. Some people find it so hard to receive the love of God.

I was one of those. It was hard for me to receive love. It was harder to give it.

I remember one night laying in bed as a new Christian, a new believer in Christ, just crying. And that's not something I did very often. I remember Pastor Teresa said to me, why are you crying? And I said, I'm reading about the love of God.

But to me, it's just a word. I don't feel it. I can't give it.

I don't understand anything about the love of God. But Jesus said, if you ask, it'll be given you. If you seek, you'll find.

If you knock, it shall be open. And more and more as I've walked on this journey, he's opened my heart to the fact that he just loved me. There was nothing I could do to earn that love.

I didn't deserve it. He just loved me. He didn't need a reason because he is love, according to the apostle John, says God is love.

He who doesn't love doesn't know God, for God is love. And the gospel of Luke chapter 15 talks about a young man who just went his way. He had a father who loved him.

He had a father who wanted to provide, wanted to care, wanted to draw him close to himself. But for whatever reason, maybe he misunderstood his father. Many young people leave the house of God because they really don't understand who God is.

And sad to say, God may have been presented to them as harsh, vindictive, picky, difficult to please. And for whatever reason they said in their heart, I'm out of here. I can't handle this.

I'll take the life that I've been given and the resources I have. And I'm just going somewhere else. I don't believe that boy for one minute ever denied that he was his father's son, but he was just far away from him and his heart.

How it must have grieved his father. How difficult it is for those of us on Thanksgiving day, when families come together and we look and we see, and even members of our own family who don't fully yet understand the love of God. How, that's how I understand it now, because I am a grandfather now and I am a father and I understand the love of God.

I understand what's in the heart of God. I can feel what that father felt as he stayed on the veranda waiting, looking down the road, just waiting for his son to get up and come home. I understand what that feels like.

The son was living far, far away, thinking he was going to find fulfillment in all this life and all this world and everything, all the imaginations of his own heart had to offer him. But suddenly one day a famine came into the place where he was. And I thank God for that with all my heart.

I thank God for the famines. I thank God for the hard times, because most of us wouldn't have come to the Lord. If you were raised in an ivory tower, if you had it all handed to you on a silver platter, do you think you'd be sitting here today, many people? No, you wouldn't.

It's the famine that brought you home to God. It's the hardship that God allowed into your life. I know many that are here today.

Your, your home was not ideal. Relationships let you down. You feel like you've got the short end of the stick and here you are in the kingdom of God.

Do you ever stop and just thank God for what he allowed into your life that brought you home to him that caused you to get up and head home? Talk about thanksgiving. Our human tendency is we're just so aware of what we don't have and we forget what we do have and where God has brought us from and what he has taken us out of. Oh, thank God.

Thank God. Thank God. I knew a man who was very, very wealthy one time, extremely wealthy, and he went bankrupt.

And to his dying day, he would tell me, oh, thank God that I went bankrupt. If I hadn't gone bankrupt, I never would have turned my life forward to Jesus. Christ is my Lord and savior.

And he told me I wouldn't have the peace I have today. I wouldn't have the song in my heart. I wouldn't have the hope for tomorrow.

I wouldn't have a reason to live. And if I hadn't gone bankrupt, no, God's mercy will send a famine. God's mercy will shut the rain.

God's mercy will cause Babylon to invade Jerusalem. God's mercy will send the Roman army in to destroy those things that people have been trusting in God's mercy, because ultimately it's all about you. It's all about you.

It's all about God coming for you. The scripture says that one day this boy came to himself. A thought came into his heart.

I remember as a young police officer just walking the beat one day and stopping into a church, sitting in the back. I took my hat off. I didn't, I didn't know why, but I just felt you stood in the presence of God.

And I remember praying out loud, said, if you are real God, I wouldn't mind knowing who you are. Not much of a prayer, but he answered it. It was sincere.

Remember when our marriage, when we were young in the Lord, or before we knew God, rather. One night I was talking with Pastor Tresha and things weren't going very well. And I said to her, maybe I need God or something.

And she said she almost fell out of her chair. I don't know where the words came from, but there's a moment in everybody's life where you just come to yourself. There's a moment of awakening.

There's a moment of where I am, I don't want to be. And there's an inner sense that God has something for my life that I've not laid hold of yet. That casual church attendance, anything I've ever done, it has not given this to me.

And he came to himself and he said, how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare? And I perished with hunger. Remember he said, you'll not see me until you say blessed to see who comes in the name of the Lord. You'll not see me until you realize the depth of my love for you, until you realize that I have everything you need and I'm willing to give it to you in full measure.

You'll not see me. He said, I will arise and go to my father. And I'll say to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Make me like one of your hired servants. And he rose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

Can you imagine as this boy is heading home, just as some of you are trying to do now, he made a mess of his life and he knew it. He wasn't even trying to hide it. Didn't care anymore.

Didn't try to clean himself up to come home. He knew where he'd been. He knew what he'd done.

He knew he'd taken his life and wasted it. He knew that what he'd achieved didn't satisfy. He knew that there was no lasting love or friendship to be found anywhere in this world.

And so he got up and he just headed home. In his heart, he was saying, there's blessing in my father's house. I may not fully understand it, but I know it's there.

And I know those that are drawing close to him are well-fed and I'm perishing with hunger. So I don't care what I look like. I'm just getting up and I'm going back to him.

He said, remember, he said, you'll not see me until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And this boy just gets up to go home. I'm going home to my father.

I'm, I'm not going halfway. I'm not sending a letter. I'm not making excuses.

I'm just going home and I'm going to live in his house and I'm going to do what he tells me to do. Because I know that those who dwell in his house are satisfied. I know they're fed.

I know their deepest hunger is met. I know there's safety there. I know there's provision.

I know there's nurture. It's as if in my father's house, it's like a hen gathering her chicks under her wings. And he got up and he started to head home and he looks and the scripture says he's far, far away and he can't see his father yet, but his father can see him.

No matter whether or not you can see God, I tell you today, God's eye has been on you. God has been looking for you. God has been longing for you.

God has been waiting for you. He's not sitting in some distant throne with his arms folded, waiting for you to get it right. He loves you with an everlasting love.

He passionately loves you and he sees you coming to him in your heart long before you ever see him. I don't know what this boy expected. I don't know if he expected a stern father.

I don't know if he expected to have to crawl to the throne when he got there on his knees. I don't know if he expected the door to be closed. I just don't know what he expected, but in his heart, he knew it was better in the father's house than where it is right now and he got up and he started to head home and then suddenly in the dim distance, he begins to see this and I have this vision in my mind.

I've had it for years with this old man. His robes are flowing. His beard in the wind is flowing and he's running as fast as he can down the road coming to meet his son.

Have you ever seen God like that? Have you ever understood the depth of his love? Have you ever seen his desire to have you back to him as a son or daughter? No matter what you've done, have you ever heard this cry in the heart of God? Have you ever seen this cry in the heart of God? Down the road, he comes and the scripture says he fell on his neck and kissed him. That boy smelled like a pig. That boy had made a mess of everything.

That boy had taken his life and gone far away from his father and his father just embraced him and fell on his neck. Do you know when Jesus went to the cross, he took all of our smell. He took all of our filth.

He took all of our mistakes and he put it all on himself. He took it all on himself for God so loved you that he gave his only begotten son. And then when the son and the father would part, the smell of the son would now be on the father and he didn't care because he loved his son.

Then he commanded the robe to cover him, the ring to empower and protect him and the shoes to invite him on a journey as a hen would cover her chickens under her wings. This boy found himself in the embrace of a loving God. I pray with all my heart for you this morning that you would stop resisting those that are sent to you.

You'd stop pushing away the message of God's love and the fact that there is fulfillment beyond your deepest dreams in the presence of God. Stop pushing away the fear of all you will lose to come home to your father. And as this prodigal son did, this son that was far away from his father, I encourage you with all my heart.

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I long to gather you as a hen would gather her chickens under her wings but you wouldn't come. You stoned the prophets and you killed those that I sent to you. Behold, I'm going to leave you empty until the day that you say this is good.

The one who came in the name of the Lord is worth me coming to and giving my whole life and giving my whole heart to. Not in part measure but the whole of my being. I'm going to give my life to God and I'm going to walk with God from this day forward.

Not in my strength but in his. Not in my works but in the work he did for me on that cross. I'm going to let him cover me, cleanse me and give me the power to live with him all of my life.

The scripture says if you can hear his voice don't harden your heart. Every time you push him away it gets easier to push him away the next time. There can come a point in your life where this message will never touch you again.

You can harden yourself to it. There's something inside of you that knows that what I'm telling you is the truth. You were created by God for God to eternally walk with God.

There's a plan for your life not just for time but for eternity that your mind and mine can't even begin to comprehend the wondrousness of it. It grieves God to think that he might lose you for eternity. There's a cry in his heart.

That's what the centurion heard on the cross. It was your name. It was my name.

It was the person beside you, their name. It was people around the world. It was every name of every person, every created I believe was in that cry.

That's my belief. That's why the centurion said this had to be the son of God. Whoever cried like that.

I've never heard that kind of a cry. It's the cry of God's heart for you. Oh Jerusalem, how about substituting your name for Jerusalem? Oh John, how I've longed to gather you, hold you, and show you who I am and protect you and keep you.

But you wouldn't come and you keep pushing away the messengers I send to tell you. You won't see me until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Until finally one day in your heart you're going to say this is God speaking to me through just a messenger.

But God is stirring my heart and by the grace of God, by the favor of God, I'm going to get up today and I'm coming home. I'm just coming home. No matter where I've been, no matter how far I've been away from God, no matter how dull my understanding or what kind of a mess I've made, I'm just going to come home and I'm going to let God love me.

And I'm going to yield myself to his embrace and let him cover me and cleanse me and bring me to his house. And little did he know there was a party about to happen in his honor this boy. The Bible says that when we turn from that which is wrong and turn towards God, that heaven breaks out in shouts of praise and glory.

Because every created being in heaven understands this cry in the heart of God. I beg you, I beg you, in Jesus name come home to God. Don't wait for tomorrow.

Don't wait for another time. Come home to him now. Unashamedly, unreservedly, because in your heart you know these words are true.

You know it's true. No more searching is necessary. No more examining.

No more studying. You know it's true. God's own spirit bears witness with you that this is true.

In a moment we're going to stand and when we do, I want to invite to the front of this auditorium everyone within the sound of my voice that could say pastor you have just spoken right to my life. You've spoken right to my heart. I'm going to get up and I don't care who's with me or who's beside me.

I'm going to get up and I'm going to come to the front of this church and I'm going to give my life to Jesus Christ. I'm going to give my life fully to God. I'm going to let him love me.

I'm going to let that cry and God's heart for me be released. Maybe you're with family members or friends. You could even turn to your friend and say if you want to go, I'll go with you.

But I beg you in Christ's name, let God cleanse you. Let him forgive you. Let him change you.

Let him make you into a new person. In your heart come home. Father, I thank you Lord that you have allowed me to share this word today.

I do ask oh God for every man, every woman, every young person in this auditorium, North Jersey, in the annex, oh God and at home, help us Lord Jesus Christ to come home to you. To let you embrace us that we may experience the depths of your love. I thank you for this in Jesus name.

Could you stand please if you will and as we worship just slip out wherever you are and just come. Just make your way here. Those who just want to come home to God, you know you're away.

Maybe you've never done this before. Please just come. Slip out of your seats in the balcony.

Go to either exit in the main sanctuary. Just slip out. I think some whole families need to be here.

You've just been through Thanksgiving and you realize without God you're not, you're going to have a hard time to make it. Please, please just come. Don't be ashamed of him.

He's not ashamed of you. Hallelujah. Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

I was blind but now I see. I want to just take a moment because there's still somebody up in the balcony in particular. You're just, you're swaying back and forth between this this fight that's going on inside your heart.

Oh God could this be real? Well come and taste it for yourself. Come and let God prove to you that it is real. He does love you.

He did die for you. He can cleanse you. He can change your life and make you into a new person.

I can only tell you about it. Now you could either stone me or you can come towards the message you've heard but I challenge you with all my heart. You let God prove it to you.

Let him prove to you that this is true. We're going to sing another song and as we do just slip out of your seat. Make your way down here.

Same in the sanctuary. Don't lose what God has for you. Don't choose death when you can have life.

He'll change you from the inside out and I know many that are here your families have been telling you about God and you've become proud of your resistance to the message and you become entrenched and it's a whole pride issue being entrenched in your position but for God's sake you know in your heart what the truth is. Slip out of where you are and humble yourself before God and watch what he'll do in your life. Watch the new song, the new joy, the new strength in your home and in your family.

I'm speaking to a man here in particular. You prided yourself on resisting truth but you know in your heart this is right and this is the moment when God has come to you. Said I want to gather you and I want to help you to understand my heart and I'll change you from the inside out if you'll just come.

As we sing it one more time. Please have the courage sir. Have the courage man.

Have the courage to step out. Have the courage to let God embrace you. Have the courage to just declare I need God.

I can't do this in my own strength. I need God. I need him in my life.

I need the cleansing of Jesus. I need the strength of God's spirit. I put up a big front.

I did a mouthy a wedding one time and at the reception they got in a big fight over who was more godly and the the godfather of this family he came to me and he took me aside and he says you know I'm a fraud. He said I hate myself but I can't let these meatheads know that. That was his exact words.

I can't let these meatheads know but he said I hate myself. I hate everything I am. I hate what I've become.

I hate how I live and he was the he was on the top tier in this family and he came to visit me several times in my office and he'd be on his knees and he'd be crying like a baby but he found it so hard to give up an old lifestyle. I pray to God he did but he knew it was all a fraud. He was empty inside.

That's my point. No matter who you are how long you've lived or what you've accomplished if you know inside you're just empty you're bankrupt the whole thing is a fraud. Just step out and come and give your life to Jesus.

Just as we sing one more time whoever that is just please step out wherever you are. God bless you. God bless you sir.

Thank you. God bless you. Thank you.

Praise God. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Lord.

Praise God. Praise God. I'm going to ask you just to pray a simple prayer with me those that have come.

Lord Jesus thank you for loving me for coming to this world and dying for me so that I can take all of my smell all the wrong I've done and put it upon you and you have declared me clean and you have forgiven me. You put your arms around me today and you've loved me and called me home. In my heart I say yes Lord.

Thank you for coming for me in the name of the Lord. Open my eyes to the new life that you have for me the new home the new future and eternity with you. Help me to follow you to walk with you and to not turn back.

Give me the courage to leave my old lifestyle behind me and to accept your covering your love your protection and the future that you have for my home my life my family. I give myself to you Jesus unreservedly. I ask you to guide me now.

Guard me. Give me the help I need. Lord thank you for loving me in Jesus name.

Amen. Praise God.