If My People Have 5 Minutes — Shane Idleman

A Nation at a Spiritual Crossroads

We're at a crossroads. You see, and a lot of those people last night, they know it, but nobody brings it to their attention. Everything's fine, right? Go back to sleep. So I said, we're at a crossroads.

We are now a nation calling, we've crossed that line. We're calling good evil and evil good. The prophet said, woe be to that nation, woe be to that group of people who call evil good and good evil. We've crossed that, we're at a crossroads.

Boldly Confronting Sin in the Love of God

There's something interesting going on, and we're looking, God, help, you've gotta do something. God, you have to move somehow. And any time, any time you'll see throughout church history, throughout biblical history, that any time God changes and revives and restores and break down and renews, it's out of boldness.

It's coming from boldness. What about the love of God? Yes, but it's the love of God that compels me to be bold. That's the whole point of boldness, the boldness of the Holy Spirit. Confronts sin, doesn't run away from it.

It confronts what's going on, doesn't turn its back. It's a loving confrontation. Jesus did it throughout the Bible. Oh, you cities, you did not turn Bethesda. You did not turn when I preached to you.

The five of the seven churches repent and turn to me. You whitewashed tombs. It was consistent boldness calling the people back out of their wicked ways. Now, and this whole movement to be silent, to not talk about that drives me crazy because God gives us a hope, does he not?

Humbling Ourselves Before God

He said, when I send pestilence, when I send famine, when I send all these things, Solomon, tell the people, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and seek my face and pray and turn from their wicked ways, if my people, I've gotta tell you up front, Hillary's not the answer, Trump's not the answer.

It's not found in Washington or Hollywood. It's not found in Lady Gaga or Katy Perry coming to repentance. It's if my people, God says, I just want you, you, you, you, you, you, probably you in the balcony.

If my people humble themselves. See, there's a humility that takes place. And there are a lot of pastors there last night and Morgan said, you might have stepped on some toes. I said, that's okay. I don't care if you have 4 ,000 or 40.

If you don't have humility, I don't wanna hear from you. Pride must die in you. Andrew Murray, Andrew Murray said pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you. See, that's a problem and we don't even know it.

I'm a good spotter of prideful people. Why? Because I look in the mirror often. But we forget this pride has to die in you. I don't care if you've been a Christian all of your life, if you're proud and arrogant, come to the foot of the cross and repent.

If my people, that's the first step that we miss. We're prideful, we're arrogant, we're judgmental and then we come say, but I pray and I seek his face and I've turned from my wicked ways. Well, wonderful for you.

You've missed the first step of humbly acknowledge. See, it's very hard to say I was wrong. That's why we come up with excuses. Even husbands, wives fighting. Excuses, excuses, excuses, excuses. But it's very hard to say I was wrong.

So God says, if my people, I'm assuming not everybody in here is perfect, that we come to God, we say, God, I'm a prideful man, I'm a prideful woman, I need you. That's the first step. And then if you pray, if you pray, this is not a quick little prayer.

Making Prayer the Priority

This isn't me coming up and just saying something. This isn't driving home saying, God bless our day and bless his food. This is a whole life of prioritizing prayer. Prayer becomes the priority, not the afterthought.

When was the last time, let's be honest, but don't raise your hand. When was the last time you prayed for over 30 minutes and actually maybe shed some tears over the condition of our nation? You don't have to tell me, because I know it's not many.

And this is the most disheartening part about this topic of prayer for me is I talk to parents all the time, prayed for some last night for their prodigal son, and they don't know the Lord, and they won't even spend 30 minutes praying.

They won't fast, oh, I've gotta work, I've got a schedule. Folks, prayer moves the hand of God. This is how you do warfare. You're not gonna send them little Facebook tweets and little scriptures all the time to convince them.

You need to grab down heaven and pull it down and say, God, save that child. I'm removing everything until I pray, until I fast, until I seek you. If my people humble themselves and pray and seek my face, not my hand, not what, how many of us are seeking his hand?

Seeking God's Face Above His Gifts

Finances, retirement, Lord, open. You know, I said, just seek my face. You parents, you know, how bad would you feel if you knew? The only reason the kids loved you is because of what you're giving them.

That would break my heart. I don't know about you. And the seeking, you all know, but I explained it last night. It's like if they lost their child at Grace Fest, and who's gonna say, well, I'll find him at 10 o 'clock when this is over, when things calm down?

They would stop everything. They would go, and that's what our life, that's just seeking God. We don't get this concept. When you truly seek God, nothing else matters. Yes, I'll go to work. Yes, I'll do this.

I've got responsibilities. But the primary purpose of my life is to seek God. See, here's the interesting thing. We're on the topic of Saturday service, Sunday service. If you wanna seek God, you'll move everything around your schedule to fit church and to fit God.

Refusing to Put God in the Back Seat

I'm tired of God taking a back seat. Oh, no, no, no, let me get started. I'm just getting started. I'm tired of God. I didn't even shave today. I'm that upset, or passionate, I should say, right? But I'm so tired of hearing God get the back seat.

If I can fit Him in with soccer and baseball and this silly potluck and this birthday thing and this and this and this, then I might squeeze Him in. And if the church could offer services every night so it's more convenient, so I can just fit Him in whenever.

See, the old saints used to say, God is my priority, and everything else will fit in. Then when He's the priority, then you're seeking. That's seeking God. If you want a user-friendly message, I can list about 10 churches, and they're closer.

But it's time, I don't know, I came with a mission to get the church seeking God. And first, He's gotta do this work in my heart before I can bring it to you. And then, of course, what's the last point, the one we just, actually, let me just act like I forgot it and move on.

Turning From Wickedness and Idolatry

Hmm, where was I? If my people humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked way. Wickedness is anything that we talked about before, anything that opposes God. So if there are things in our lives, I could read statistics on what pornography is in the church now, that it would alarm you.

Or maybe it wouldn't. Or all these other sins of the heart. The, just turn, you got these idolatry and idols. Anything you place before God is an idol. And so God says, you've gotta remove these things from your life.

If you humble, pray, seek, and turn from these things you know to be wrong, then I'll hear from heaven. And I will forgive your sins. The Bible says, is not my hand short that I cannot save, or my ear heavy that I cannot hear, but your sins, your iniquities have separated you from me.

Pride as a Hidden and Destructive Sin

Now that might not apply to everybody. I realize that. I realize there's some strong saints of God in here. But you've got a pride issue. You've conquered besetting sins, but you've got a pride issue.

You've got pride of the heart. And I can name many people. And I can name myself. Those of us who have learned to conquer some things forget that pride is the worst of all sins. We'll look down on the drug addict who can't give up heroin.

But we don't confess and repent of our prideful, angry, judgmental hearts. Think about it, how prideful have we been judging, even judging this church, judging ourselves about this or about that, or about we're so prideful and arrogant.