Shock Them With The Truth!

We find ourselves now in the prophets. How many of you have been following along on Sundays? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, we talked about the first five and then we went into Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st and 2nd Samuel, and the Kings and the Chronicles. And all of these things are, maybe we could get the exit, Luke? Close out if you could, that'd be great, because I hear a lot of the feedback.

Praise God, there's lots of kids going next door, it's a good problem to have, right? And so, these are prophetic books that we're into now. So, how the Bible's written, 66 books in the Bible, the Old Testament is what was written just like the name implies. Older books, so Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Moses wrote these books.

And then we get into people chronicling, chronicling? Chronicle? Let's say logging the history of the Jewish people, and that's what you got Ezra and Nehemiah rebuilding the temple. So, you can go back and listen to the last five or six messages to get caught up. But now we come into, I would say, one of the most important books of the Bible, the prophetic books of the Bible.

What I mean by that is a lot of times, I'm gonna talk about this more on Sunday, and that's always a challenge, I don't know how much to talk about tonight, and then hold for Sunday, because the prophetic voices are what God used from about 700 BC or so, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, some of them were in captivity, and then Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, the minor prophets. So, about 300 years, 700 to about 400 BC, Malachi was the last prophetic voice. He would use these voices to what? Call the people back.

They were not meant to be like a priest, and a king, and a friend. They were rugged. They were a little harsh.

They were edgy. They were prophetic voices, and we've seen a lot of those in our time as well. How many of you have heard of A.W. Tozer? Leonard Ravenhill? You can watch, just go home and Google David Wilkerson, and if you want to be specific, put in a call to anguish, eight minute clip, a call to anguish by David Wilkerson, get out the tissues, and not saying very nice things, right? Like your children are going to hell, and you're just sitting around watching TV, but is that not true in some cases? So what these prophetic voices, you'd see even George Whitefield, John Wesley, a lot of the Methodist circuit riders, have you heard of that term? Part of the Methodist organization back when they were solid, now they've completely went, well, let's leave it at that, ordaining gay clergy and different things, and so these prophetic voices, God would raise them up to go and to stir and to convict the people, and then right before the fall of Jerusalem that I read, I think, a week or two ago, God says, I sent My messengers to you, rising them up early and sending them, but you mocked at My messengers, despised His words, and scoffed at My prophets until the anger of the Lord arose against His own people, and the hard part is prophetic voices are not popular.

Okay? Carnal Christians don't wanna hear the message. Modern day Pharisees don't wanna hear it either, because remember, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees. The world hates the message that the prophetic voices would bring because it challenges them, and it's where the rubber meets the road.

It's where the soft candy coating is gone. It's just bare. It's just open.

It's thus saith the Lord, and then you get into the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, and the only reason they're called major prophets is because their books are long, and then Sunday, I encourage you to really be here Sunday. It's gonna be what God has just been putting on my heart, looking at these different prophetic voices. It's so important that they call them minor prophets, Joel, Amos, Obadiah.

Have you heard those names before? They are very significant, and they have, I would submit to you very powerful messages for America and for us today. When you read these guys, you're just like Amos. I mean, just like highlighting and highlighting, and Joel, Joel, look at what the locusts has devastated.

The land, call a sacred assembly. Come into the house of the Lord, and cry out, and God will save you. And so, what we're gonna do tonight is talk about the first part, shock them with the truth.

Shock them with the truth. Now, when it comes to prophets, well, you know what, I guess I should clarify this. So, we don't believe that there are prophets today like the Old Testament in the sense that they are writing Scripture, and what they say is equal to Scripture.

The Scripture's done, it's complete. Any type of, that's why the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets in 1 Corinthians. It sits underneath the Word of God.

So, you'll see a lot of these guys with titles, prophet such and such, apostle such and such, and I've talked about that before, but I believe today, God still raises up the voices crying in the wilderness. You could Google a Paul Washer as another example if you want. And it's a hard calling because it says things that people do not want to hear.

So, we believe that the gift, the prophetic gift is still for today in that God will put something burning in your heart. And if you're a speaker, if you do what I do, it's burning, you have to get it out. I mean, once it's in you, it's like you're not settled until Sunday's over.

That's when people ask me on Sunday, how are you doing? I say, I'll be doing good around one o'clock. You gotta get out. His Word is in my heart like a burning fire.

It's shut up in my bones. And so, although we don't believe in the prophetic voices like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, we do believe that God will raise up certain people. And they're kind of rough.

They're kind of hard to hear. It's kind of edgy. It's kind of in your face.

It's kind of intense. That's the point. That's how they were created by God.

It's like us saying a knife, that knife is too sharp. Well, that's kind of the point. You ever try a dull knife? I did last week cutting a grapefruit.

I'm like, I'm about to borrow my in-laws knife cutter, sharper, you know, this is pointless. It's not, I can't use it for what it's supposed to be used for. And so with the prophets, some of them did miracles, but many did not.

Some wrote books in the Bible, but others such as Elisha and Elisha did not. They didn't. And we get caught up on miracles a lot.

And you'll see that signs and wonders and people are going places and traveling places and getting caught up in signs and wonders. And I love the miraculous power of God. I mean, don't get me wrong.

But Jesus said the greatest preacher who ever lived, the greatest prophetic voice who ever lived, to our knowledge, did no miracles. And Jesus said this was the greatest who ever lived. Who was that? John the Baptist.

And have you ever read his sermons? Ouch, you brood of vipers. Can you imagine the religious leaders coming down to the Jordan River and he's baptizing people. And he looks at them and he said, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come? In other words, people were coming to be baptized to avoid the wrath of God.

Why are you here? And don't say, oh, well, you're children of Abraham. We don't need to be baptized. God said He can raise up children of Abraham from these very stones.

Even now the root of the tree is being cut down. Repent. Repent and bear fruit worthy of repentance.

In other words, see your condition, see your pride, see your arrogance, and confess it before God and break underneath the hammer of prophetic preaching. Now what's interesting is their role. This is the role of the prophet.

They were statesmen. Very, very, this is very interesting. You know, we hear bad things about politics, right? Every king had a prophet.

Every king that was political had a prophetic voice. What would that prophetic voice do? Steer the king and the leadership back to God. Right? Ahab, Elisha, Manasseh, Isaiah.

I mean, you can go down the list. Nathan, David, Jeroboam and Rehoboam when they broke up in the southern northern kingdoms and Isaiah was about 700 B.C. Jeremiah came on the scene 550 or so later B.C. And you have these different prophetic voices speaking to the kings. Amos was a shepherd or sheep herder, I believe, or caring for landscape.

And God would call them up to go and confront the wicked leadership. Why? Because leadership matters. Leadership is what points a nation in a certain direction.

Now, you can get to a point where there's no good leadership. Okay, I understand that. But still, there should be those voices telling the leadership what to do and what not to do.

So they were statesmen. They were reformers, they were preachers, and they were authors. That's what the prophets of the Old Testament were mainly known for.

They sparked passion. Amen? So in their writings and their speaking, I mean, I wish we could go one prophet, maybe I'll do that sometime on a Wednesday night, one prophet per Wednesday. And it's just incredible that they were fearless.

I mean, I read some of these things like they would tell a king something and the king's like, go put him in the dungeon. And he's like, he told the king, if you come back, then God has not spoken, but surely you will die. And they tell the guard, go feed him with the bread of affliction.

Where does that boldness come from? The fire of the Spirit. Without that, you will not be bold. Without that, I will not be bold.

And I laugh sometimes. People, you know, I just talked to a couple from Ohio tonight, and different people call. And of course, thank you for your boldness.

Thank you for your boldness. But if you could see the real Shane Eidelman, you would not thank me. I'd go hide in the drum cage.

Don't let me preach. Don't let me preach. I don't want to upset people.

I don't want to upset people. I'll be back here. But what happens, right? We surrender our lives.

We're full of the Spirit. As a result of being filled with the Spirit, because of our surrender, what's the byproduct? Boldness. You can take a little four foot nine firecracker, and they'll be as bold as a six foot five bodybuilder who is not bold.

They'll be bolder, why? Because of the Spirit of God. Them plus God is the majority. So boldness is a byproduct of the filling of the Holy Spirit.

So the prophet would spark passion. They would rebuke sin. They would encourage surrender.

And they offered hope. This is where a lot of people get confused. You know, hell, fire, and brimstone preaching.

Christians are always against this, or always against that, and they just hate people. They don't realize that, yes, we say hard things in order to offer hope. Because the best way to give somebody hope is to get them on the right path.

Correct? So when I tell somebody caught up in the LGBTQ agenda that wants to switch their sex, and say, listen, this is not a good path. The Bible is clear on this. You need to repent and turn to God, then experience the hope.

You hate me. No, I don't hate you. But I have to tell you some hard things.

Who's ever raised kids and had to say some hard things? So does that mean you hate your children? Of course not. Of course not. God loves people so much that He will send people to speak the truth in love.

I can't tell you how many times we've spoke the truth in love, and people get upset initially. I do, don't you? Like, ah. And then after a while, they realize, you know what? You know what? You were right.

Well, we weren't right. God's Word was right. And God has to wake them up later.

So don't expect results right away. Sometimes it takes a while. And they just hate everything you have to say if they're not ready to change.

Remember, I've said this many times. The Puritans were famous for saying the same sun that hardens the wax, I'm sorry, hardens the clay, will melt the wax. What's the difference? The clay and the wax are made up of different substance.

So when a heart is ready to receive, God can use that convicting message. So that was their job. They would spark passion in the hearers, passion.

They would rebuke the sin, encourage people to surrender to God. And so throughout Scripture, especially the ones we're gonna look at, Isaiah, Jeremiah, they would say, return to me, oh backsliding Israel, and I will return to you. So what happens is when we reject God and when we get caught in sin, like Isaiah I believe says, the Lord says, my ear is not heavy that I cannot hear you, but the reason I'm not answering your prayers and the reason you're coming under judgment is because your sin has separated me between you and me.

I want to hear, I want to help you, but that sin has created a barrier. So how do you break that barrier? You break it with the hammer of repentance. And people repent.

That was the main call of the prophetic voice. So one of my favorite, my top two favorite books of the Bible are coming up right now. Isaiah, Isaiah, he lived during a crucial time in Israel's history when the nation was divided.

They experienced financial success, but were dying spiritually. Hello, America. Can you hear me, America? America, you're confusing God's patience with His approval.

And so you have Saul, the kingdom is one. David, the kingdom is one. Solomon, the kingdom is one.

And then underneath Solomon, because of Solomon's sin, God broke the kingdoms into Northern, which would be Israel, and Southern, Judah. Okay? Rehoboam, Jeroboam. And then throughout the history of the Kings and Chronicles, you have the different kings.

You know, Asa, Ahab, Manasseh, Josiah. And you see this running down of these different kings. And Israel getting more corrupt and more corrupt.

And then a Josiah would come and he would bring back true worship to the temple. And then after Josiah, somebody evil would come. And how many of you read in the Bible? This will sound really familiar.

And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. You just want to slap your head. Sometimes.

What's wrong with these guys? And then every now and then, he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. Oh, amen. There's hope.

But if you weigh them out, there's a lot more evil going on. So Isaiah was going to a people who were succeeding financially, but were dying spiritually. And their apathy, and that's the hard thing about riches and success and blessing, which we experience in America.

Even the poorest person here is pretty rich. Go grab somebody that's homeless and with their phone and different things. Take them to Nigeria or any of the third world countries.

Maybe Nigeria's okay, but what's the one right now that's in turmoil? Venezuela. Well, that's a, yeah. That's a whole other topic on the political takeover there.

But so you plant them there and you'll see living in the dirt, drinking sewage water, fighting for their food every day and going to the dump. And so we see though that finances, like Jesus said, it's hard for a rich man to get into heaven. How's it hard for a rich man to get into heaven? Because the riches compete with my relationship with the Lord.

Isn't it true? I mean, if you literally have nothing, God is everything. But the more we add in, it can become a form of idolatry. And I've seen it over the years countless times where people will make certain decisions that actually hurt their spirituality, but they gain financial success.

And it actually draws them away from God. Remember, you can't serve two masters. I'll be loyal to the one, but then I'll despise the others.

And so this richness, this riches and things can draw us away. But that's why they said the love of money is the root of all evil. Not money itself.

God will use... Abraham was wealthy. David was wealthy. God would bless... Job was wealthy.

And that's one of the things with the prosperity gospel. What they do is they cling to a truth in the Bible. The truth is God will often bless people.

Correct? Watch, if you give, I will pour out a blessing that you don't have room enough to receive. But they teach that as the absolute. They teach that as if you're poor, then you don't have enough faith.

God wants you healthy, wealthy, and wise. Wise, yes. I don't know about healthy and wealthy all the time.

There's different things that happen. We're at certain places in life, aren't we? I mean, I'm pretty sure if I would have stayed with what I was doing, like many of you, you could make a lot more money. But where God has us and where we're gonna live the rest of our lives, we might not be in that high area.

And that's okay. It's whatever God will do. And one of the reasons I think He's blessed His church so much is because we do have a giving heart and we help a lot of families and we do different things.

And so, but that was Isaiah's dilemma. He was caught in between success financially, but they were dying spiritually. Tradition holds, because it's not in the Bible, but tradition holds that he was sawn in two by King Manasseh.

Why was he sawn in two? Because he was telling the king what he did not want to hear. I guarantee there are many people out there who would love to take out bold churches. I have no question in my mind whatsoever.

You should see some of the hate mail. You would change your mind quickly. And that's why Isaiah would famously say, woe to those who call evil good and good evil.

Isn't that what we're doing? Today, we're calling good things evil. Family values, oh, that's Christian nationalism. Whatever that is, I don't know what that is.

It's like, oh, you know, we want to just be open and you can be whatever sex you want and two men can raise a little baby. And who are you to say that this is wrong? That's, you're evil. Wait a minute, where do we go wrong here? But those opposing God, because either you have the Spirit of God in you or you are, I mean, there's no other way to say it, you are a pawn of Satan.

Did you know that? There's only two individuals on the planet. Well, what about this middle? There's no middle group. You're either full of the Spirit of God or maybe quenching, grieving the spirit of a still believer.

You're either a believer or a Christian or you're in a different kingdom. You're in the kingdom of darkness. And that's why a lot of people in the kingdom of darkness hate the power of the light.

So a couple of key verses, but your iniquities have separated you from your God and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear you. I'm gonna give a lot of practical applications Sunday, but let me give some this morning, this morning, this evening. If you are dealing with a besetting sin, turn from it tonight during closing worship.

Just come forward, deal with it with the Lord. We're gonna do some baptisms if you need to get baptized. But often there's a connection with God that if there's some besetting sin and God's convicting you and we're in rebellion against it, it's hard to hear His voice.

Have you ever been there? You just don't want to read the Word as much. You're not hearing from God. You're just kind of depressed.

Well, because you know there's that thing lingering. And I mean, I could stay here for a while and go over the different reasons, but I've seen people completely break free of envy and jealousy. Like it just eats them up.

Where some of us don't struggle with that. My struggle's not your struggle. But other people just anger, anger, anger.

And they just don't care and they're explosive and they carry that around, they hurt people. Or a critical spirit, anybody ever dealt with that? That will put out the Spirit's fire really quick. Critical spirit.

And then of course, in the age we live in, we're just perverted, ungodly stuff is just a couple clicks away. A couple clicks away. That's a good sermon title.

And they're latched on to it. And they know they want to break free and they come to the altar and they cry out to God, but then tomorrow or the next day, and they fall again. And your sin, I want to do more in your life, God's saying, but that your iniquity is hiding My face from you.

And of course, this could apply to an unbeliever, a person who has never repented and believed in God. That disconnect is keeping God from hearing them. There is a prayer that God will always hear and that is help.

Have you ever prayed that prayer? Help, Lord, help me. Help me, Lord. It's in those moments that we cry out to God.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they will be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, uh-oh, pause for a minute here.

There's conditions. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land. So God's telling people, hey, I'm warning you, stop confusing My patience with My approval.

There's the good things in the land and I will have to take those away from you to wake you up. And of course, also from Isaiah, I don't have these Scriptures up for unto us, a child is born and the government will be upon His shoulders. You know this verse at Christmas time, wonderful counselor, Prince of Peace, everlasting Father, that comes from Isaiah as well.

And I love this verse from Isaiah. We quote it often when we're talking about revival. It's when Isaiah quotes God saying, for this is what the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, this is what He says, I dwell in a holy place with Him who has a contrite and humble heart.

God will dwell with those who have a contrite and humble heart. And then we go right into Jeremiah. Again, he was about 150 years later.

So God is patient, isn't He? Jeremiah lived in the final days of the crumbling nation of Judah. And actually, Jeremiah was taken captive by the Babylonians. He also would encourage, imagine this, he would encourage Israel to surrender to the Babylonians.

It's like me encouraging us to surrender to China. Obviously, the setting is a lot different and Jeremiah knew, hey, listen, the Babylonians are coming. There's nothing you can do about it.

God's patience has run its course. The Babylonians are coming. Their horses are fierce.

Their chariots are chariots of iron. And if you just surrender to them, then you can stay in the fields, you can work your land. But if you fight against them, many of you will die.

And of course, they hated Jeremiah for this and of course, he was 100% accurate. He was the last prophet that God sent to preach to the southern kingdom which comprised of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin. And of course, we get from Jeremiah the story of, well, not the story, but when we talk about abortion and things like that and God forming the baby in the womb when life begins at conception, when that life begins at conception.

And God said, before I even formed you in the womb, Jeremiah, I knew you. And what did He do? I called you to be a prophet to the nations. So God is calling Jeremiah to be a prophet to the nations.

And Jeremiah said, but I'm only a youth. And God said, don't worry about that. I will put the words in your mouth.

Your words will be fire and the people are going to be stubble. See, that's not very secret sensitive messages because it has to awaken. It has to alarm us and shock us.

And I'm not going to name names and I'm not going to name them right now, but I'll give you a good idea of things. Sometimes, you know, if they're preaching on TV from a large place and we're sitting in our living room, right, we can just sit for 30 minutes and oh, that's good, you know, positive thinking and say nice words to your spouse. Don't get the last word in.

And you know, it's positive, it's motivational. You know, you're just sitting there relaxing, but if you get a Jeremiah on the screen, you're going to get up out of your chair. What did you say? And so God will sometimes use those Jeremiah's to wake us up.

And through Jeremiah, God said, break up your follow ground. In other words, break up your heart. It's time to seek the Lord.

Ask for the old paths and you will find rest for your soul. Some of you, you need to get back to the old paths of God's Word. You need to get back to obedience and prayer and fasting and surrender and holiness.

And then you'll find rest for your soul. Nothing new has changed. I mean, there's nothing new under the sun, right? The old truth is still the truth.

And one of the key verses, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. How many of you have heard this before? Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.

Now, before you claim it today and use it today, you have to put in context. Actually, the children of Israel are going into captivity for 70 years. And they're going to live in Babylon.

And they're going to be slaves. So like, what is this all about? God, I don't like this. But see, sometimes God will speak into your life for something in the future.

Sometimes there are consequences for our sins and mistakes. And we have to live with those consequences. And that's why He said, but even though you're going through this difficulty, there will come a time when I will prosper you and I will not harm you.

There will be still a future and a hope. You're going to have to go through this, but there will be a time coming where you will go back to your land. And then another famous verse, the human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? Did you know that? The human heart is deceitful. So be careful of those people who say, I trust my heart. God knows my heart.

Oh, yes, He does. Now, sometimes that's valid, right? We can, you know, if you're going through something and people just don't see it the way you see it and you know, you're doing everything you can do. You know, God knows my heart.

And I've said that many times because I can't defend my God knows my heart. For example, when people call me homophobe and all these terms and racist and all these stupid things that are not true. God knows, I mean, God knows my heart.

He knows I'm not. But a lot of times we say that when we want to excuse sin, right? We get confronted, we're in the wrong. Well, God knows my heart.

Be careful. Heart might be deceiving you. And then such a sad book of the Bible, actually, Lamentations.

Jeremiah, many believe, of course, wrote Lamentations. And now this, this book, it's a collection of poetic laments, hence the word lamentation, for the destruction of Jerusalem. So Jeremiah, can you imagine? He sees this great city of Jerusalem.

King Solomon built the temple. The wall around Jerusalem. This great city, the greatest city on earth.

And he saw it now in ruins, so he laments. But he still wrote, because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for His compassion never fails. They are new every morning.

Lord, great is Your faithfulness. Jerusalem had sinned gravely and it had become vile. The false visions of the false prophets, I think I spelled prophets wrong.

I don't know if you've got that on there. I probably didn't put this screen up. I just wrote it down this morning.

The false visions of the false prophets have been uncovered. And this is very important. In Lamentations, in Jeremiah, they talk about how the false visions actually led the people astray.

Did you know that? It wasn't that the people weren't listening to anybody, they were listening to the wrong voice. Be careful what voice you listen to. False prophets.

True prophets. And maybe I'll get into that a little bit more Sunday. But the false prophets were basically, when Jeremiah is saying, turn to God.

Turn to God. Repent and turn to God. His judgment's coming.

Guess what the false prophets were saying? He's full of it. Peace, peace. It's gonna be peace, peace.

God's good, man. God's good with all this. So it's actually not too hard to discern the true from the false.

Is the false prophetic voices, false preachers today, are they encouraging sin? And that's why I say all the churches with the rainbow flag up are false prophets, false churches. I can say that without any stuttering or stammering, that's a false message, clearly a false message. That's a false prophet.

And all the pastors saying it's okay, don't worry about it. God is love. False, false, false.

And they're leading millions astray. And that's basically the difference. The false prophet encourages you in your sin.

Man, just keep doing it. The true prophet convicts you of your sin. It's not too difficult.

And if you guys want, I think it's still on there, but if you put it in Shane Isleman Fox News, you can watch the hour debate I did in New York with a pastor who embraced, he was Cary Underwood's pastor. And he embraced the LGBTQ agenda and the church shrank down to nothing. I don't even know what he's doing now.

But Lauren Green asked him, so if somebody comes to you and they're like, man, I'm convicted, I'm in a same-sex relationship, what should I do? He wouldn't counsel them to continue in it. He says that on the audio. Like my jaw dropped.

He would, because who am I to judge? Just love people, let them do what they want. That's a false prophet. Probably not even converted, correct? Many false prophets are not converted.

Matthew 7, many will come to me in that day and say, Lord, Lord, we did all these things in Your name. He'll say, depart from me, I don't know You. You who practice lawlessness.

You practice lawlessness. And even those who are very, what we call woke, right? I mean, the original term for the word woke is okay. The original, what they're trying to accomplish.

But what it's taken on now is become political correctness. And you can't say certain things. You have to basically, have you heard the term candy coat? So, I have to candy coat the hard truths.

And in candy coating those truths, I give out a false gospel. And so many churches will not talk about the blood of Jesus Christ, judgment, hell, all these terms that are like, oh, that's controversial. They'll avoid them.

So in essence, that can be a false prophet as well. Because they want to tickle the ears and not challenge the hearts. And that's what happened.

Jeremiah said, they listened to the visions of the false prophets. And then we get right into Ezekiel. He was trained in his youth as a priest, but he was also carried away into captivity, into Babylon around 597 B.C. Ezekiel records his vision of Israel's restoration after the exile.

See, God is speaking through these prophets saying, hey, I'm going to restore things in the latter days. And the Lord promises to gather the Israelites from captivity, return them to their promised land, and renew His covenant with them, and reunite the kingdom of Israel and Judah. So, I'm in bondage.

I'm in Babylon. And God says, that's okay. These things are gonna come in the future.

I'm gonna restore the kingdom. And then we can get into things that are very interesting, which we will in Daniel. But the key verse of Ezekiel, I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you.

I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. His message was similar to Jeremiah, that Israel must repent and return. What's wrong with these guys? They're saying the same thing.

Isn't that like us? We need to hear the same thing a lot. You don't know it as much, but I see it all the time. I'll be preaching the same thing, right? Couple years, couple years.

And finally, the guy gets it three years later. All right, I'm giving my life to the Lord. I want to get baptized.

It's been three years. Yeah, at first, I hated what he had to say. My wife drugged me here.

And then finally, I was kind of open up to it. And he fought it for three years. But that's why God says and calls the nation to repentance, so there's no excuse.

And of course, Ezekiel, another famous verse, I sought for a man from among them. I sought for somebody who would build a wall, stand in the gap, but I found no one. And then the final prophet, how many of you like Daniel? I wish I had time to go through the book of Daniel, because there's a lot of things there.

But Daniel was a prophet who prophesied during the time of Israel's exile in Babylon. So he was also in exile. You got Jeremiah going there.

You got Ezekiel going there. And you've got Daniel going there. But Daniel, his book takes a future view of history and the end times.

Talks about God reigning and ruling and the future resurrection of the just and all these different things. It's interesting. You really have to go through it methodically.

The key verse, in my vision at night, I looked and there before me was one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His presence. And of course, with Daniel, there's so many great examples.

Lion's Den, correct? Trusting in the Lion's Den and the three Hebrew boys in the fire. Many people get the Daniel Healthy Eating Program from that as well, right? The Daniel Fasting. Oh, you guys are quiet on that point.

Maybe I should stay there for a while. And Daniel was so prolific as well. He talked about, he actually talked about the Messiah coming and that the wall and the temple would be rebuilt in turbulent times.

And he predicted the crucifixion. It was just amazing, the 70 weeks of Daniel and things like that. But let me end with this question.

Why do many people despise preachers today? Those who have been called to preach much like the prophets of the Old Testament will confront compromise, they will condemn moral digression, and they will powerfully denounce sin in the hope of reconciling man to God. They speak the truth in love. The world and carnal Christians despise them because they challenge the sin that they enjoy.

Be crystal clear, carnal Las Vegas Christians do not like to hear messages of repentance. In a sense, a preacher is called to break the heart and a pastor is called to mend it. One concentrates on repentance.

The other focuses on restoration. And although there can be a mixture of both preacher and teacher and preacher and pastor and a person, there is often a clear difference. Pastors and teachers aim for the mind.

Preachers aim for the heart, the will and the emotions to stir and to convict. Let me give you a list here that I've mentioned before. The pastor builds, and God uses both of these.

And again, there's often a mixture, of course. But the pastor builds, the preacher tears. The pastor counsels, the preacher convicts.

The pastor rejoices, the preacher weeps. The pastor plants, the preacher uproots. The pastor teaches, the preacher preaches.

The pastor mends, the preacher breaks. The pastor is full of hope, the preacher is full of fire. The pastor loves to listen, the preacher needs to speak.

The pastor sees the good in others. The preacher sees the depravity in man. The pastor desires to be among the people, the preacher desires to be alone with God.

There is different callings in the body of Christ. That's why people are different. And maybe this will be helpful to those listening.

Maybe your pastor doesn't do what other pastors do. Well, I wish our pastor did this. Well, maybe he's not designed to do that.

Maybe God didn't create him to be a voice crying in the wilderness. Maybe He designed him to be like the balm of Gilead. The gentle giant, the encourager, monotone, never upset, to be an encouragement.

God uses us differently. And it does beg the question for our church and any other church out there, does the world love the way you do church? All pastors should ask this question, does the world love the way we do church? Do they appreciate that our church never calls things into question, which of course we do, but our other churches don't. Many good churches out there, but I think it's down to like 6,000 based on a Barna research study years ago, down to about 6,000 true Bible-believing churches preaching the totality of God's Word in our nation.

Out of a quarter million churches, down to about 6,000. So if the world loves the way you do church, right, you see these guys on TV and the world just loves to go to their church. I just love the music.

Sometimes they play Eminem before I come in. Sometimes they've got Beyonce as I walk in the door, right? Sometimes they got, I just love this church and they're never convicted. Well, we might wanna be careful because Jesus said true disciples will be hated by the world because they speak the truth.

Now we don't try to be hated, right? As soon as people walk in the door, I want you to hate me. I'm gonna be mean. I'm gonna be nasty.

What do I often say? Our attitude should not offend. A posture of love, gentleness, humility, meekness, quick to listen, slow to speak, but the truth I speak will offend and I will not apologize for the offense because that is the point of the truth. That's what it's supposed to do.

So here's the key to all of this. The key calling of that prophetic voice, that prophetic edge. What does the Lord say? That I must speak.

What does the Lord say? That is what I must speak. So what a pastor is supposed to do, a preacher, whatever you do, you spend time in God's Word. You ask the Lord, show me, let me unpack this.

What is the practical application? What is the historical references? What is the writer trying to say? What is the hermeneutic approach? And what is the homiletic approach? Right, but at the end of the day, Lord, what is burning on your heart? What do you want to say to your people? And then you don't go through and go, you know what, that's not gonna go over well. Well, I don't think of that. No, no, no, no, no.

Oh no, no, no, no. I'll lose a couple big tithers on that one. Yes, this certain political party is not gonna be happy with this statement.

This isn't gonna work. Yeah, yeah, let me edit this down. That's not preaching.

Woe be to you when all men speak well of you. If you're pleasing men, you will not please God. So if the heart is broken and contrite and the Spirit of the living God is residing in you, that fire bubbles out.

And one thing I do, I thank God for this church more than you guys realize because I have a lot of friends who were hired by a board, pastor for hire. We've been here 40 years and we're hired you and you're gonna do what we tell you to do. And they've got a very difficult job.

Fortunately, from day one, we planted this church with the same message, the same tone, the same grounding. Pauly, you know, you've been here a long time. Yvette, you've been here the whole time.

You guys know. I mean, from laying, I don't know if much has changed. I mean, they said my heart softened up more, so that's good, right? I hope so because I've been broken so much, right? It's just life breaks you and breaks you, but this is, and those people who are coming, I never have to worry about, man, we're not gonna, we're gonna lose a lot of people.

You know, for example, I know, if you guys ever watch Andy Stanley, I know for a fact that he won't say a lot of things because he will lose half of his audience. In Atlanta, Georgia, he has certain political parties in there. He'll lose half his audience if he's bold about the truth.

Steve Furtick, you lose thousands of people. Joel Osteen, thousands of people. They'll leave.

Everything you built is gonna fall apart, but if you build it on God's rock, on His Word, let Him bring the people, let Him bring the revenue, and then you just continue to do what He's called you to do. I mean, I couldn't even live like it. Could you imagine worry, like you're gonna preach God's Word, but be worried about what everybody thinks? I mean, it's like, I'd rather just go sell shoes.

As a famous Puritan, Richard Baxter once said, I preach as a dying man to dying men, as a dying man to a dying nation. The church and our nation desperately needs to hear the voice crying in the wilderness to awaken and convict and restore. The power came from their passion.

So let's talk about the final closing point. I think I said closing three times, didn't I? Pastors get three closings, right? I just learned that at a memorial service. The power, because you often wonder, how are these voices so powerful? I mean, Spurgeon came to faith just by a pastor preaching out of Isaiah.

I returned to the Lord in my late 20s hearing these strong, prophetic voices that now I was ready to listen. It cuts to the heart, it all cuts to the heart. And like, where does their power come from? Their power comes from their passion and their pursuit, their longing, and their waiting on God.

They are emptied in order to be filled. And the key with all of them, I don't have time to go through it even Sunday, but at least the ones we can record is all of them experience God. All of them experience God.

When you experience God, you're not the same. When I came back to the Lord and I experienced His Spirit and I experienced His power, the old chain's gone. He tries to draw me back sometimes, right? Amen? Come on, remember? Because you're a new creation Christ, but the flesh isn't.

You're still dragging that dead stuff along. And sometimes it wants you to go back to the old man, to the old life. The Bible talks about the old man, the carnal life.

But once you see God and that's what they, they saw God like even Isaiah. He said, I've seen the King. It was in the year that King Uzziah died.

I saw the Lord high and lifted up and His train filled the whole temple. And the angels cried out, holy, holy, holy. Remember? And the whole thing shook.

Holy, holy, holy is our God. And He said, I'm a man of unclean lips. And when you're crying out, holy, and I can't stand there.

And the angels came in the chair of Him really. And they touched His lips and He was made whole. And He said, I have seen the King.

The Lord of glory. And I will never change again. I'm on fire now for God.

And Jeremiah said, oh God, don't. I'm just a youth. He said, Jeremiah, I'm gonna put my spirit upon you and you will root out and you will tear down.

Ezekiel, don't worry. I've called you to confront the people. Daniel, stand as a rock.

Joel and Amos and Obadiah. Let me tell you about these men who stood for God in their passion and their pursuit. And they knew God.

They experienced God. And from that relationship came the fire of God. Without relationship, there is no fire.

So the main message was repent. Repent. Maybe some of you need to hear that tonight.

Repent. Repent. It's time to repent.

We don't hear that word often enough. Repent. And that equals restitution.

Spiritually, you're reset and you are renewed. I love the word repentance. To me, it's a cleansing word.

It's I'm going in the wrong direction. I repent and now God gets me in the right direction. As a result of going in the right direction, now I have peace and joy and purpose and passion.

Oh, life is still challenging. Life is actually harder now than when I was 20. Because Satan said, I got him.

I don't need to mess with him. Let's let him enjoy life. But when you switch teams, sometimes life gets challenging.

And we need to tell Christians that. I don't know if we've ever experienced a victorious Christian life. Just walking on clouds, everything's good.

It's a battle. It is warfare. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they're mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

Therefore, pull out your sword. Get on your breastplates. Get to war.

You are a soldier in the Lord's army. Who called you? God did. Don't sit down.

Stand up and fight. Fight for your nation. Like Nehemiah talked about, fight for your family.

Fight for your children. Not with physical weapons. Have to say that nowadays.

Spiritual weapons. Worship. Worship and prayer.