Escaping The Taskmasters — Carter Conlon

Father, I thank you, Lord, with all my heart for one more time we have an opportunity to stand here as a free people and open your word and let you speak to our hearts. Lord, we don't want thoughts about you.

We want words from you. There is a huge difference between the two. And so I pray, God, that you'd always keep my heart and every heart that stands in this pulpit open to your voice so that you can speak to your people.

I thank you, Lord, that you are willing in this generation, in spite of our weakness, to take us from where we are to where we need to go. To deliver us from just existing to the place where we find again, we rediscover our purpose on the earth.

Lord, I pray, God, as we sang, there'd be a marvelous breakthrough. I ask you this morning that light would break into darkened places, struggles that people know that they have, and, God, they've hidden them even from others and believe that because of it somehow that they've been rendered unusable in the kingdom of God.

I ask you, Lord, to break all of these lies, all these strongholds, and bring us out into a large place in you. And, Father, I thank you for it with all my heart, in Jesus' name. Now Exodus chapter 1, if you'll go there with me, please, second book of your Bible.

If you open it at the beginning, it starts with Genesis, then goes to Exodus. And last week, I shared with you a message called, It's Time for the Weak to Rise, using the illustration of King David, soon to be King David, when the anointing on his life became unpopular in that particular moment, how he fled into a refuge of making peace, really with the enemies of God, trying to survive.

And in that place, of course, he eventually was rejected because the spirit of God was on him. I pray for the day, quickly, it's happening now, that there's a rejection of the church of Jesus Christ happening by our present-day society.

And I think it's a good thing, because it's going to send us back again to where we needed to be all along. And that's what happened with David. He went back to a place of prayer, not in strength, not in victory, he went back there knowing most likely that he had made a mistake, knowing that perplexed about what his future was going to hold, how he was going to achieve anything that amounted to the anointing that he knew was on his life.

And in his weakness, he began to pray. When you and I begin to pray, when we're praying in strength, we have a tendency to add our plans to the leading of God. But when we're in weakness, thank God, finally, we have no more plans.

And that's exactly what happened with David. There's no way forward without you, God. I'm not going to amount to anything without you. There had to be an incredible heaviness in his heart. The men around him, the 600 men around him, wanted to kill him.

They wanted to stone him. They were blaming him for their predicament. And in that place, he began to pray again. And when he began to pray, he began to move. And when he began to move, the strength of God came back into him and to the people that he was leading one more time.

And a marvelous victory was won that you and I talk about, we read about. But I thank God I can talk about it and read about it, but I'm preparing to live it now. I want to see this church age go into a victory that can only come from God.

And you and I recognize that we're not in a place of strength anymore. We might have, maybe the church was 50 years ago. I don't really know for certainty, but I do know today that we're in a weakened place.

The anointing of God that has been on his people that's brought incredible blessing into the nation is no longer appreciated. And there's the rising, the rising tide of an anti-Christ spirit in the nation against everything of God, everything that is godly, everything that you and I represent.

And so we find ourselves in this position that we're in today, saying, God, what is our hope for the future? So I'm going to speak part two of what I began to speak on last week. Last week, of course, was called it's time for the week to rise.

Escaping the Taskmasters in Exodus

And today I want to speak on escaping the taskmasters, escaping the taskmasters. Exodus chapter one, beginning at verse eight. Now there arose a new king over Egypt that who did not know Joseph. Now this was significant.

It's a type of history repeating itself. Now Joseph, you remember Joseph was one of the sons of Israel brought into captivity and in that captivity, the presence of the Lord was on his life and he gave him great wisdom and he had been used of God to spare the nation of Egypt at that time, as well as the rest of the areas of the known world at that time, a famine.

They would have died had it not been for Joseph. And so Joseph was esteemed. Joseph was a God given leader with God given wisdom. His family were brought into the nation of Egypt. They were given choice places in the land.

But as happens throughout history, people forget where the blessing has come from. They forget old allegiances. They have a tendency to forget we're in a season in America where we have people deliberately trying to erase the past, the formation of this nation, the godly heritage, where our laws came from, where did we get our social system and our social order?

There are people that are deliberately trying to erase that very much like this leadership that arose up in Egypt who did not know Joseph. And the king at this time in Egypt said to his people in verse 9, look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we.

That's an amazing thing. The king recognized something that the people didn't know any longer. Isn't that amazing how that can happen? Do you realize that 71 of America today still believe in God? They still believe that the Bible is a book from God, a book of, they might not believe every line, but it's a book of divine guidance.

It's a book that we should live by. Do you realize the majority of people in this country still believe that this is a holy book, still believe that the principles in here should be lived by? Do you realize, do we realize that as we're facing this onslaught of godlessness, that the people who still believe in God are more and mightier than the godless in our midst?

So the king said, come, let us deal shrewdly with them lest they multiply. And it happens in the event of war that they join our enemies and fight against us and go up out of the land. So the king is saying, we have these people in our pocket per se.

We have them convinced that they're less than what they really are. We're using them for our advantage. So let's now deal wisely with them. Let's deal shrewdly with them so that they don't rise up and escape our grasp.

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Python and Ramses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.

And they were in dread of the children of Israel. The more they afflicted them. You know, persecution is a good thing. I hate to have to say that, but it's a good thing. Because it drives us back to our power source again.

It brings us back to God. The devil himself knows that and fears that. Persecution will bring us back to that place of crying out to God again. So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor.

They made their lives bitter with hard bondage and mortar and brick and all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor. Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shippurah and the other was Fuah.

And he said, when you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women and you see them on the birthstools, if it's a son, you shall kill him. But if it's a daughter, then she shall live. And now go all the way down to verse 22.

So Pharaoh commanded all his people saying, every son who is born, you shall cast into the river. Now, darkness had a strategy. The strategy that darkness had to keep the people of God from rising up within their society was a fourfold strategy.

The Fourfold Strategy of Darkness

And the one thing I do know is that history does repeat itself over and over and over again. You'll see the same set of circumstances arise and you'll see God actually respond in the same way. This is why it's good to study the word of God.

Remember, the New Testament tells us that everything in the word of God is profitable for our instruction, for learning. And in the word of God, we see the patterns of people. Then we also see the patterns of God, how God deals with nations, how he deals with his own people when they call out to him.

Strategy One: Convincing God's People They Are Weak

Now strategy number one was through whatever means available, keep the people of God convinced that they're less in number and weaker in power than they actually are. So the first strategy was a type of media warfare, psychological warfare against the people of God, marginalize, ridicule, declare that they are less losing influence, churches closing down, like put this psychological warfare out against the people of God to convince them.

Now I know there are people here that you bought the lie. You are convinced that we are now a post-Christian society, which we are not. There are a lot of believers yet in Christ still in this society.

You are, you have been convinced by what you've heard in the media, for example, or by voices that have been raised up that represent godlessness, that what brought blessing to the nation is now bigotry.

It's now hatred that you're being name called. You're being brought down. You're no longer a blessing. You're no longer bringing the wisdom of God into society, into government. The church is no longer desired.

So this, this warfare, it was the first strategy of the king of that time to keep the people in subjection, convince them that they are less in number and weaker in power than they actually were. The second strategy is keep them focused on building things which are neither eternal nor in line with their actual purpose in the world.

Strategy Two: Recovering the Eternal Purpose of God's People

Remember now, God said, Abraham, I'm going to bless you. There's a people going to rise up through you and these people are going to be a blessing in all the world. God says, I'm going to make my name known through these people.

Now you and I are called to build the kingdom of God. Make no mistake about that. My purpose in life is to strengthen you so that you can go out and win the lost. You can be an influence wherever you work, where you live, where you walk every day.

You can be an influence for God. You can bring that savor of Christ. You can speak with the power and authority of God everywhere you go. Every believer should be multiplying so fast everywhere we go.

But there's a task mastery that comes into the house of God sometimes that causes the people to focus on building other things than what really matters and is eternal. I'm sure there were motivational speakers there as well, telling them, wow, that's just a real nice pyramid you just built.

That's a real nice temple. Could hardly wait to see the next one. And so here they are out hauling bricks and building buildings. And this is not their purpose on the earth. Their purpose on the earth is to bring glory to God.

Their purpose on the earth is to be a people who are wondered at. A people that would cause others in society to say, who is their God? And how do they get to be that kind of a people? You remember, that's exactly what happened on the day of Pentecost when God's people in their weakness turned to prayer again and his spirit came and the very thing that they were supposed to be on the earth suddenly burst into view again.

Strategy Three: Threatening God's People Into Silence

The next strategy is to threaten them. Exodus chapter five, verse 14 says, and the officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, why have you not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and today as before?

Do things our way. Do it the way we tell you. Do no more than we tell you to do and do no less than we tell you to do or it will get very, very hot for you. You know exactly what I'm talking about because many of you have to live in a work environment that's just like that.

Keep your mouth shut and everything will go fine. If a discussion about marriage comes up in the lunchroom, do not, do not share your biblical worldview or you will be beaten basically. It will be hard on you.

So keep the people, threaten the people. Remember in Acts chapter four, the disciples, when they went into the prayer meeting, they said, Lord, behold the threatenings of this present time. It's always a strategy of darkness to threaten the people of God.

And they said, in spite of the threatening, stretch out your hand to heal and let mighty signs and wonders be done in the name of your holy child, Jesus. And lastly, and the worst of all, go after their children, go after their future, go after their source of strength.

Strategy Four: Attacking the Next Generation

If killed them as they're coming out of the womb, that's what the midwives were told to do, kill them. And for those that succeed in being born, now the decree went out to the people of Egypt. If you see a child that has survived being killed, coming out of the womb, throw them into the river.

That's what we're living with today, our children being thrown into the river of confusion. I don't know about you, but I'm sick at heart at looking at drag queens, reading stories to our children in kindergarten.

God help us to recognize the evil of this moment. God help us as the people of God to rise up one more time and call out to the Lord and say enough of this. And when we begin to cry, something happens in the heart of God.

When we were having communion today, I heard a lady cry in the sanctuary and immediately my heart went out to you because I sense that that cry is a cry of pain. It's a cry of sorrow. It's a cry of saying, oh God, oh God, I want to believe that you're going to take me through this struggle and through this trial.

And immediately I found my heart going out to that cry. How much more does the heart of God not explode with a desire to show himself powerful and compassionate again when you and I begin to cry out to him?

When his people cry, God's heart is a hundred billion, billion times greater than mine. And if my heart can be drawn out by a cry, can you imagine when the cry of God's people begin to come into his ears?

God Responds When His People Cry Out

And it's exactly, of course, what happened in Exodus chapter three, verse seven. The people began to pray again, oh God, help us to pray. Help us to care. Help us to get out of our stupor. Help us as the people of God to recognize that we still have access to the throne of God who created the heavens and the earth.

Help us to recognize one more time that we have power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt us. Help us to escape living lives of trying to preserve ourselves and help us to fight for our sons and fight for our daughters, fight for our families, fight for our children.

And ultimately and more so than the rest to fight for the testimony of the glory of God in this generation. That's what made David a warrior. That's why he could take on and defeat a giant. It wasn't just about surviving and being famous or preserving himself.

I see young David walking through the camp and says, how come nobody's fighting this loudmouth giant that's threatening to take the armors of God into captivity? This is about the honor of God. That's what David said.

This is about God's honor. This is about the word of God. It's about the power of God. It's about the mercy of God. It's about the warrior heart of God. In Exodus 3, the Lord said to Moses, I've surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and I've heard their cry because of their taskmasters for I know their sorrows.

God's saying to Moses, I'm not distant from their struggles. I'm not far away vacationing somewhere and a rumor, a report of their cries come to me. I've heard it. I'm familiar with it. So I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, a land flowing with milk and honey to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

In other words, somebody else is where you're supposed to be. Some power of darkness is occupying the place where you're going to bring glory to God. God says, I've heard your cry. I'm going to raise you up and you're going to drive every last one of them out of that place and you are going to become, you're going to become the man, you're going to become the woman, you're going to become the person that I've called you to be.

Now therefore behold, verse nine, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me and I've seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them. Come now therefore and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Victory Begins Where Human Strength Ends

Now when they cried, what happened is God one more time was about to show them the way back to victory. Remember it's not by might. It's not by power. It's not by our strategies. It's not by our successes.

It's not by our resumes. It's not by our high profile preachers or anything like that. It's by the spirit of almighty God that this victory is going to be won. That's why I am convinced that this last day awakening is going to be the whole church and not just a select few people.

The whole church is going to rise up. Men like you and me, women are going to rise up and say, God, I want to glorify you in the earth. I want my life to count. I'm sick of being under the voice and the influence of taskmasters set to keep me in captivity sent to keep me from becoming everything that God's called me to be.

I'm tired of this and I'm calling out to you Lord and I'm asking you to do what only you can do. So God once again shows the way back to victory. And I love the illustrated sermon he gives them. Two old men come to town.

Come on now. You got to catch it. You've been a hundred years, hundreds of years in captivity. You're being marginalized. You're being ridiculed. You're being made to serve with rigor. You've got taskmasters over you.

The psychological warfare is being launched against you and you call out to God. And here comes one day, here comes the answer. Comes walking into town, an 80 year old man, an 83 year old brother, a stick in his hand and a one line sermon.

That's all they had. Let my people go that they may serve me. They may serve me in the wilderness. Here's the illustration. God was showing them and he's trying to speak to us again today that his strength begins when our strength ends.

When we have come to the place of recognizing without you, Lord, I go nowhere. Without you, I become nothing. Without you, nothing is going to happen. Without you, nothing is going to last. Every effort I make will just, you imagine any one of these children of Israel at that time rising up and trying to take on the Egyptian army without weaponry, with no strength in the position they were in.

Paul’s Teaching on Strength in Weakness

But listen to what the apostle Paul said in second Corinthians chapter 12 verses nine and 10. God said to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you and my strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore Paul says, I will most gladly boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Paul discovered this key and then Paul is essentially saying in second Corinthians, God preserve me from becoming strong in myself.

Save me, God, from rising up with my own plans. Keep me in this place of dependency and weakness and reliance on you because it is in this place that your strength is made known in my life. And so for those that are here today and you feel weak, you wonder, can God ever use me?

Can my life ever amount to anything? I'm telling you in that place of weakness, when you call out to God, your life will become everything that God has intended it to be. There's no mountain too high for you to climb.

There's no wall too thick. There's no valley too deep. There's no river too far to cross. When God finds an honest heart, when God finds somebody like you and I that knows our weakness, knows that we have a battle ahead of us that we're never going to win in our own strength, there's no chance, and we start calling out to him, then history repeats itself again.

The question is, I suppose, do we believe it? Do we actually believe this? Do we still believe that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever? Or is the Bible just a history book to us? Are we going to just read it and clap our hands at what God did for Moses and David and the children of Israel and never live it in our generation?

Are we going to let our children be taken captive, killed, thrown in the river, our families destroyed? Are we going to continue to let evil be called good and good be called evil? Are we going to let the unrighteous, in a sense, rise up and begin to dominate our future and further marginalize and further oppress the people of God?

Or are we going to start to pray, as David did, and when we start to pray, God starts to speak. When God starts to speak, we start moving with the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit starts moving, it's like a hurricane on steroids, there's nothing can stand in its way, nothing, nothing.

I've lived it, I've seen it, I've known it, and it's given me courage for this season in my life. I'm 66 years old this month, it's a time when most horses should be put out to pasture, but I feel like I've got another race left in me, I really do, with all my heart.

Lord, the psalmist, one of the psalmists says, oh God, don't take your spirit from me until I've shown this next generation your power. Not talk to them about it, until I've shown it to them. That you are a God who delight to take the weak, you delight to take those things that are nothing in this world, to bring to nothing things that stand in their pride and arrogance against the hand of God.

The Passover Pattern: Feeding on the Lamb

The instructions that were given to the people of God of this time is very similar to the instructions that God would give to you and I, and you'll find them in Exodus chapter 12. Now, he was doing all of the work, I want you to understand this, he was doing all of the work.

The plagues that were coming down to cause this nation, this godless nation to let the people of God go were all the hand of God, God was doing it all. The people had no part in this, they're still out there just hauling, trying to make bricks and doing their thing.

And so God sends through Moses an instruction to the people. And here's what he tells them to do in Exodus chapter 12 and verse 3, speak to the congregation of Israel saying on the 10th of this month, every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.

And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of persons, according to each man's need, you shall make your count for the lamb.

In other words, you have to start eating of the lamb in your own house. That means you and I have to get into the word of God. I am the lamb of God. Jesus Christ is the lamb of God. He is the bread of life.

He himself said to his own disciples, if you don't eat of my flesh, he said, if you don't eat a partake of what the victory I'm winning for you, you'll have no life in you. So our choice is to get back into the word of God in our homes.

Don't rely on tapes. Don't rely on somebody else's revelation, some old time messages somewhere. Get into the Bible yourself. Start reading the Bible. If you have a hard time to read, ask God to give you the ability to read.

You can get the Bible on tape. You can put it on headphones or an earplug or anything, whatever, and listen to it. But get into the word of God. That's what these people, this is a type of what they were being given.

Sharing the Word and Living in Community

The next thing that we're told to do is reach out to your neighbors. If you have too much, share with somebody who doesn't have anything. Reach out to your neighbors. When you start getting into the word of God, you'll find a supply.

You'll find promises. You'll find vision and hope for the future. It'll begin to overflow. And so do what God told these people to do, is reach out to somebody who has nothing and invite them into your fellowship.

Get into community. Then take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where the lamb is being eaten. Get the blood on your door. Set yourself apart for God. Don't live in mixture any longer.

Don't live with one foot in the church world and one foot outside of the church. Choose this day whom you will serve. Not only start eating of the lamb, get the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of your house and say, I don't know if Joshua said to the people one day, he said, if it'd be too hard for you to serve the Lord, then choose who you will serve.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Get the blood on the doorpost of your house and say, God set me apart. God sanctified my thinking, established my direction, established my going. And then after that, he says, then eat the flesh on the night, in the sense you're going to be delivered.

With unleavened bread and with bitter herbs, they shall eat it. In other words, Levin always speaks of hypocrisy. Eat the word of God without hypocrisy and eat the bitter with the sweet. Eat the things you like and eat the things you don't like.

So don't just become one of these pocket promise people. Do you understand? Read the whole Bible. Read it. Read the things you want to read and read the things you don't want to read. The things that make you feel sweet and the things that make you cringe.

The things he said, eat the whole thing. Remember, get the lamb in your house. Start eating of the lamb. Get the blood on the doorposts. Eat it without hypocrisy. Eat the bitter with the sweet. And verse 11, he says, and thus shall you eat it with your belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand.

In other words, if you're going to do this, get ready for a journey. Get ready. I can see the dads in their houses that night, Papa, where are we going? I don't know. But I have a feeling if we have to go through the wilderness, God will feed us there and keep us.

If we got to run, flee from armies, God will drown them behind us. If we got to go through rivers, God will part them before us. He said, I'm taking you to a place that belongs to you, a place I've ordained for you, and I'm going to give you power.

And you're going to be able to conquer all of it by the presence of God that's going to go with you. And so I want to challenge you, if you're going to do these things, folks, get your shoes on because we're going on a journey.

A God-Appointed Journey Into Supernatural Victory

Your life is going to change. Your future is not going to be like your past. You're going to live a life that brings glory to God. You're going to have a breakthrough, and you're not just going to sing about it.

You're going to live it. It won't be a future song. It'll be a past song. I had a breakthrough in my mind. I had a breakthrough in my prayers, a breakthrough in whatever all that stuff was on the screen.

That will be your song. It won't be like something that might happen someday, somewhere in the future. No, but I had this. I heard it. I had it. And God gave me the power to escape the taskmasters. We are being called of God as the Church of Jesus Christ in this nation to rise up and take a God-appointed journey.

We are. I feel in my heart like Moses must have felt. He walked in the camp in weakness, and he had nothing around him that would indicate that there was any power to do the things that he was telling them they were going to do except that he could say, God has spoken to me.

And I can honestly stand here today with no apology and tell you that God has spoken to me. He's spoken to me since I was in my 20s about a day coming of hardship in the nation, but a day when there would be a sweep of God bringing people into his kingdom, the numbers would be uncountable that I would live to see.

He spoke to me about a great awakening before I knew what that was. He's spoken to me all my life, and I feel like this old horse has been prepared for this race. I really do with all my heart. So how many here would like to escape the taskmasters?

That's what Moses had to ask the people. I'm not Moses, but he had to ask the people, how many would like to escape the taskmasters? And with one accord, with one accord, the people said, okay, we're in 400 years of captivity, 400 years of bondage, marginalized, told that they're nothing, beaten, laughed at, scorned, mocked, but suddenly they rose up.

All the week of that time, they rose up. Something of God's spirit got ahold of them and they rose up and said, I'm going with God. I'm going with God. I'd rather die in the desert than live in this place.

I'm going with God. The fervency of these people was such that even the mixed multitude in Egypt, many came with them. People who had never knew the God of Israel got up and left with them. May it be, may it be that many, many people in this generation get up and go with us in the days ahead.

What a great day to be alive. This is a marvelous day to be alive. And so I want to give you an altar call. And it's just along the lines of everything that you've heard spoken today. I'm getting up and I'm going with God and you watch what God will do.

He's going to start fighting your enemies. You don't have to fight them. He'll fight them. You do what you're supposed to do and he will do what he's supposed to do. And you watch what God will do. You watch the strength that will come into your life.

The vision come into your eyes, the compassion into your heart, the sense of authority he will give you as a believer. The will to fight, not just for yourself, but for others now. You watch what God will do.

A Supernatural Life of Mercy and Grace

So Father, I thank you that you have given me the ability to bring this message to your people. I thank you, Lord, with all my heart, God, that you're going to do something so far beyond us in this generation that we will stand back one day and say only God could have done this.

Only God could have done this. We will sing that song that the children of Israel did sing on the other side of the Red Sea. So I thank you with all my heart, God, for men and women, young and old, who will get up and run this race that you've set before us now to be a people who bring glory to your name in the earth and make a difference for this generation.

I thank you, Lord, that it will be so beyond us that we can only stare behind and wonder and say, God, now I see where you were taking me. And so I thank you for it with all of my heart in Jesus' name.

Beloved, I know we are responding this morning to the Spirit of God who says, my mercies are brand new today and I will cover your weakness and I will cover your failure every day and every time you ask me to.

You and I don't have to be ashamed that we need him so much. We don't have to be ashamed that he is that good. We don't have to be disappointed in ourselves. We need to hope in the living God who loves us, who says we, there was a beautiful line on the screen that says, my life is his love being lived out.

And he's going to give us that strength to live a brand new life that's given us because of what Jesus did for us. It's supernatural. We've got to leave today convinced I go forward because it's supernatural.

It's not because what I'm determined to do. Beloved, there's a place for that after we become determined to hope in God, where we become determined not to give up because he's not giving up on us. He never grows tired of us.

He never grows tired of our cries. He never even grows tired of our failures because he knows he's raising us up and his life is in us and his life in us will be enough if we don't give up. It is his life in us.

It's his forgiveness. It's his grace. And the more that we focus on him, all our fears and doubts, they can try. They can try to dominate us, but he is greater and he is stronger every time. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. So I say it is a new horizon. I say every day it's the privilege of a Christian to live in new mercy, new mercy. It's an old devil, but it's new mercy that overcomes him. It's new mercy that overcomes his old lies because our eyes are fixed on you, Lord Jesus.