O Lord, I Cry Out to You — Shane Idleman

Then trust can be one of the greatest forms of answer prayer. I want to just make a few announcements and my heartbeat is for this message. I've been fasting all week, like many of you. I've been crying out to God, we need You.

You see so much depravity, so much perversion. And it really gets to a point of brokenness. So we want to offer free copies. I just wrote a book, If My People, and it's based on 2 Chronicles 7 .14. If we cry out and turn from our sin and seek His face and humble ourselves.

So we've got free copies. We ordered a lot. Grab one when you leave. And the message tomorrow, we're actually opening the church tomorrow. The message tomorrow. And it looks like John MacArthur has won temporarily.

His case will go to court at the beginning of the year, go to trial. And I'm hoping a lot of this nonsense will be over by then because the church has got to be the church. So I'm going to preach a different message tomorrow at our 10 year anniversary service.

10 things that I learned in 10 years of ministry. All of you are welcome, but you probably all won't fit. So we've got overflow rooms available. You can get more information from the ushers. 9am and 11am.

And we're going on almost 3 years now. A group of maybe 20 to 40 people meet every Sunday morning at 6am. We just put on worship. We illuminate the cross. And we're at the altar. We're praying. We're fasting.

We're repenting. We're getting our hearts right for the service. And I believe that really drives the church. And something we're really excited about, we are keeping Saturdays in October at 6pm instead of 7pm.

So we will still be meeting here at the stadium Saturdays at 6pm. And then Sunday mornings on location. This has been an incredible outreach. Far greater than what we ever thought. And then finally, before I get into the message, many of you know, but for those who don't, my mother passed away this week.

And it was a rough week. I know she wanted to be here for the 10 year anniversary. It's the first time in 10 years I won't get a text afterwards encouraging me. Thank God for the encouraging moms. I've been working on her memorial.

That we're actually going to have here October 10th at 2pm. October 10th at 2pm. Many people wondered if I wanted to take this weekend off. And I said, not a chance. That's the last thing she would want.

She would want me to preach my heart out and honor God. And thank God. Thank God for the praying moms, right? Thank God for the praying parents. Parents, be encouraged. Your prayers will outlive you. Even when you're not here, your prayers will go to the throne room of grace and pull down the blessings for your children, the guidance for your children, the spiritual warfare that is coming against them.

The Call to Cry Out to God

Find yourself in the prayer closet this week. Doesn't matter if you don't see anything now, for faith is the substance of things not seen. We pray not because we see it, but because we trust in God. So, I had one objective tonight.

And one objective only. God made it clear to me. I won't get into the details how. But my job tonight is not to go into a long teaching or this or expository or topical. My job tonight is to motivate you to cry out to God, to remind you who we serve.

Sometimes I think we're more worried about the government than we are of God. And we've got to get back to fearing God Almighty. For whoever fears God does not fear man. And you can walk out boldly into the power of the Holy Spirit when you fear God.

So the title is, Lord, O Lord, I cry out to You. O Lord, I cry out to You. Let me tell you briefly the flow of the service. As you know, we went into extended worship. Extended worship. More worship than normal.

And if you don't like that, that means you needed to be in that type of worship. Because the heart's not right. The heartbeat of your soul should be prayer and worship. You should wake up in the morning wanting to pray and worship.

And the reason many of you don't is because you're putting garbage on at night. And you're not edifying yourself spiritually when you go to bed. So you're waking up depraved and discouraging. I would put on worship music and get into the Word and let that saturate your heart.

So a few weeks ago we called a sacred assembly and we've heard from people from Pakistan to Pennsylvania this week. All over wanting to be encouraged. And a sacred assembly basically is coming together.

There's one goal. There's one motive. There's one agenda. And that is to honor God and to remember who God is and to get our hearts right and aligned with Him and His Word and obedience to His Word. So before I talk about this requirement of crying out to God, before I tell you what it is, let me tell you what prevents it.

Because often, especially with my kids, I can tell them maybe not how something works, but show them how it doesn't work to have them better understand. And so number one, what's going to prevent revival in your own heart?

If you're dead, let me put it this way, if you're kind of dead to the things of God, you know, you've just grown distant and your marriage is kind of in turmoil, you have no relationship anymore, and you don't really want to read the Bible and someone dragged you here and you really had other things to do and there's no desire for God, it could be traced to one of five things.

Pride as a Hindrance to Seeking God

Number one, I've talked about this before, I won't go into great length, but that is pride. Pride. Pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you. Proud man. Scoffer is his name, Proverbs would say.

You think a proud man is going to cry out to God? No, they don't need that. They're proud. They're arrogant. They're not going to cry out to God. They've got it down. They've got their eschatology and their theology and their pneumatology and their Bible index and all the Greek and the Hebrew and they're proud.

They know who God is. Pride will prevent you. Pride will prevent you from really going deep with God. I've known a lot of pastors over the years. Many of them are in ministry. It's a fact that about one out of ten stay in the ministry when they start out.

And a lot of times they think they can plant a church with a cookie cutter version of what they've seen before. And they go out in pride. And I struggle with this. The number one thing that a church planter will say and why they're proud and arrogant is we will say this, I'm going to go do things the right way.

That other church I came from or that other ministry, I'm going to do it the right way. And pride begins to prevent us. And God says, I will take that lampstand. I will humble you. So I just want to encourage you tonight, mainly men I think, because we can be so proud.

We think that a real man is strong and does this and the image that the world has of us. But that you must humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, and in due time, He will exalt you. I think that is for someone here tonight.

You need to humble yourself. You're wanting to exalt yourself, but you need to humble yourself tonight under the mighty hand of God. And then God says, in due time, I will exalt you. I will lift you up.

I will put you up. Because when God begins to raise you up, it's because you've been humbled. And then number two, another reason why we don't cry out to God. We have unconfessed sin. And unconfessed sin robs us of spiritual life.

Unconfessed Sin and Spiritual Bondage

And I believe that's why so many Christians, that my heart breaks for so many Christians. I know so many, and so do you. Maybe it's you here tonight. There's unconfessed sin. There's a besetting sin that keeps taking you down.

And you walk around like dead man walking. And the sin has got you bound and you can't cry out to God because you're bound in sin and it's unconfessed. It's not repented of. And somehow you kind of enjoy it and you hold on to it knowing it's destroying you.

And then number three that prevents us from crying out to God is there's uncertainty. Uncertainty. Well, I don't know, Shane. I'm not sure God does that anymore. I mean, all this talk of revival. I don't know.

That person will never receive from God in a powerful way. I believe, I've always had this from day one when we planted the church with ten people, ten years ago, that we need to come to church expecting God to move.

Where has that gone? The spirit of expectation. We shouldn't expect, well, an announcement, three songs, an offering, a final song, 30 minute sermon, a closing song, see you later. Where is the spirit going to move in that?

How is the spirit going to move? You've already got it down. You've already said, God, this is how we're doing church. So uncertainty and kind of having this idea of well, we don't want to be open to this and we don't want to be open to that.

I think it's a wrong view. And then number four, one of my favorite topics, I'm going to preach on it again shortly. I love to do it every year. A wrong view of the Holy Spirit. A wrong view of the Holy Spirit.

Many people don't want to cry out to God and get emotional because they say that's emotionalism and that's not real. Really? Wouldn't God give us emotion? Have you ever held your newborn child? That's pretty emotional.

There's something about our emotions being engaged. God has given us this wonderful experience that we can experience God. And then finally, of course, another reason why many people do not cry out to God is there is unbelief.

They do not believe in God. And I want to encourage you tonight. I don't know how you came in, but I know how you need to leave. You need to leave knowing God, but having a relationship with Him. So what I did, and I believe God directed me, is we were looking at Joel last week, correct?

The book of Joel. And Joel talked a few different times about crying out to God in chapter 1. And it's interesting, I began to look at it again this week, and each time, there's three different times, each time he mentioned crying out to God, that verb was used differently.

It was actually a different verb each time. It wasn't the same type of crying out. And I said, okay, Lord, what is this? And I began to study these words, and it was incredible. And let me just share them with you as we begin to stir our hearts for closing worship.

And my thought is during closing worship, we don't want to be in a hurry. If you need to leave, I understand. If you're bored, well, that's on you. But there should be a hunger for worship and a hunger for more of God.

And during closing worship, you can spread out a little bit and kind of loosen up a little bit and just get your heart right before God and get out of the seats and maybe be more engaged if you would like.

I'm not forcing that. I just want to offer that to you that a sacred assembly often is not pretty. It's not well polished. It's messy. When God moves among a group of people, there's emotions, there's engagement, there's crying out to God.

Crying Out in Joel: Distress, Proclamation, and Longing

So in Joel 1 .14 we read last week, he said, Consecrate a fast. Call a sacred assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants into the land. Gather them into the church and cry out to the Lord. So that's where I got this title from.

Cry out to the Lord. And that word there, that verb in this case means this, it's an utterance of anxiety and alarm and distress and sorrow. Well, that doesn't sound very encouraging. He said cry out to God.

In other words, the situation that you are in, the anxiety and the alarm and the distress, how'd that motivate you to cry out to God? And God's Word is very clear. We need to be real about what's going on.

Look at the laws that are being passed in Sacramento. Look at the direction of pedophiles. And look at the uptake of the LGBT community and all these different policies and procedures and groups and things that are anti-God and anti-God's Word and anti-holiness.

We need to wake up. Look at what's going on around us. So this word here, this verb, cry out to the Lord, it's an utterance of anxiety and alarm and distress. And isn't it interesting that false prophets throughout the Old Testament, do you know what?

One of the number one traits of a false prophet, the number one trait, you can test me on this, go throughout the Old Testament, it was to tell people peace, peace, when there was no peace. And if you wonder how are some of these pastors embracing this, or how are some of these Christians embracing all of this, be careful, they might not know the Lord.

Because a false prophet, I'm not just using that loosely, but I truly believe that true spokesmen, women and men, for God will call things out, they will point things out, they will tell you what's going on.

Yes, the times are dire. Yes, this is devastating. Yes, what's going on is not pretty. If we're not careful, we need to wake up because there are groups infiltrating our nation that want to cause a rebellion from the inside out.

I hope you know that Antifa and all of that is funded by people. Funded, paid by people to cause an alarm in America. And that's why in something like this, what they did here, he said, come and cry out to the Lord.

There's an alarm, there's a distress, there's a sorrow. Oh God, there's a desperation. God, we call out to you. And I was so concerned when Sacramento passed that law about the age of the pedophile act.

I don't want to call it that, but that's basically what it is. Where are the prayer meetings? Where are the prayer meetings? Where are the crying out to God? Where's the fasting? It's like, well, that's too bad.

Let me post something on Facebook like God's going to see that. There's no desperation, and that's why this word here, it's call out and alarm and distress and sorrow and say, oh God, if You do not move, we are lost.

If You do not intervene, we are lost. If You do not bring us back from the pit of destruction, oh God, we are going down and we cry out to You in distress. And then he switches the word. In chapter 1 verse 19, Oh Lord, to You I cry out, for fire has devoured the open pastures.

Amen? I cry out to You, Lord, fire is devouring our land. The flame has burned all the trees in the field. And this word in the Hebrew is karah. Karah. It's to call, to proclaim God's word. So see, there's a distress and there's an anxiety, but then he says, don't give up.

Don't give in. Don't be discouraged. Don't stay there. Recognize your situation, but then cry out, call out, proclaim God's word like Jonah did. Oh, Nineveh, in 40 days, God's going to destroy you. And the people repented.

Jeremiah called out and the people did not repent. There was a crying out, a proclaiming of God's word, and I believe that sometimes God's word needs to be proclaimed forcefully and boldly. Oh, His word is in my heart like a burning fire.

Shut up in my bones. I'm weary of holding it back. Why? Because the Spirit of God is wanting to draw people, convict people. So he says, cry out to God. And you see him going down the list. There's anxiety.

There's alarm. There's distress. There's sorrow. And then once you get to the people, I believe he does that in verse 14, to get the people to realize this is dire. This is dire. Do you all agree that we need to wake up?

We are in a dire situation. Look at the place. I just sent my wife another video. The people are just grabbing kids from Costco parking lots. They're just grabbing them from their parents. When in the world has that ever happened?

And more laws are being passed. Don't do it. Just take my word for it. The sex ed curriculum in our schools is perversion. It mocks the holiness and righteousness of God and the beauty of marriage and the beauty of sex, the way God designed it.

They're mocking at God. They're perverting His justice. They're shaking their little fists in the nostrils of God. And I'll tell you, that's a battle you can never win. So he said, come into my house and understand how bad it is, how distressed it is.

There's so much anxiety and fear. Recognize it. But do not live there. I think that's for someone as well tonight. You're living in fear. You're living in fear too much. You're looking at the media. You're worried about what's going on around you more than what's going on inside of you.

You're allowing fear and these COVID mandates and what's going on. You're allowing fear to control you and you're not trusting in God. That's a sure sign that you're on the wrong path. Because then fear begins to control us and grip us.

One thing I can tell you now, I probably wouldn't say it if my mom was still here, but I don't know if I ever saw her with the mask and she would put it on when she needed to, but she just went about living her life.

It's like, well, if I die, I die. God's got my back. Now, we don't just willingly walk into things. I know that. But at some point, you've got to say, Lord, I trust You, because the safest place You can be is in the center of God's will.

Anytime I get on an airplane, sometimes I think, all these people are very safe right now, because if I'm in the center of God's will, there's nothing that can happen. You're trusting in Almighty God and we've been trusting in too many things.

We've been trusting in politicians and watching their feeds and uh-oh, here goes the death rate. Did you know that many of those numbers are manipulated and skewed and altered to bring fear and anxiety into the hearts of people?

The enemy is working overtime. So you need to release that tonight and say, God, I've been fearful. I've been anxious. I've been trusting in everything but You. And tonight, I make a decision to cast off fear and put on the Spirit of the living God.

God's Word says He doesn't even give you a spirit of fear, but of peace and of a sound mind. What is a sound mind? A sound mind that concentrates on God and focuses on God. And then He said, when you come into My house, you call out to Me.

You proclaim My Word faithfully. You remind the people who I am and what I've done. And there's such a huge movement, it kind of embarrasses me in the church that so many Christian pastors... I want to be careful.

I'm not here to put down anyone. I can slide down that slippery slope just as quick as anyone. I've got to stay anchored in God's Word or else I'll do the same thing. But they go to the pulpit almost like they have to be apologetic.

I know God's Word is kind of tough. I know. I don't like that blood stuff either. The hell. It's apologetic. No wonder people are being converted. No wonder lives aren't being changed. No wonder marriages aren't being restored.

No wonder prodigal sons aren't coming home. Because God doesn't say, make My Word palpable. He says, make it powerful by the preaching and proclaiming of the truth and all of the Scripture. Paul said, Timothy, preach all of the truth.

Warn, exhort, rebuke, encourage. Preach the difficult truths and preach the wonderful truths. Preach heaven and preach hell. Preach grace, but preach holiness. And you'll be amazed at the lives that are changed when a man or woman is filled with the Spirit of God and they simply proclaim God's Word faithfully.

It's amazing. It's amazing because you really don't have to do a lot. You need to spend a lot of time with God, know His Word, and proclaim it. And then the Spirit of God convicts and draws and leads and quickens the spirit of another person and begins to work in their heart.

A Soul That Pants for God

I better take a drink before this next one. I like this next one too. Verse 20. Chapter 1, verse 20. I also wondered why is there so much crying out? Because that's our only hope. When we cry out to God, it shows how desperate we are.

Correct? When you cry for something, when you cry about something, there's a desperation in your heart. Now you can't manufacture it. Don't take some water and splash it on your face and say, I'm crying.

Or get weird and cry. This cannot be manufactured. It comes from a broken, humble heart where the Holy Spirit of God is breaking and breaking and breaking. And you get to a point of total submission and faithfulness to God.

He said something interesting here. Even the beasts of the field, even the beasts of the field cry out to you, God. For the water brooks are dried up and the fire has devoured the open pasture. And that word, cry out, is to long for, to pant.

Even the beasts, and I thought instantly of Psalms, as a deer pants after water. So my soul pants for you. And he said, when you cry out for me, it can't be superficial. It has to be a longing for or a panting or a strong desire.

And if you don't have that tonight, say, God, I want that. I don't want to leave here. I don't want to leave here just normal and lukewarm. I want my soul to pant after you. As a deer pants for water.

I knew I wrote it down. So pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the one true and living God. There's a desire. There's a thirst. And this is what non-emotional people don't like.

They want to say, well, can't worship just be nice and tidy? That's great for your house, but that's terrible for worship. Because God says real worship and real prayer is travail. Did you know that? When you're worshiping and praying, biblically speaking, a lot of times it's travail.

When Zion travails, sons and daughters are born and He likens it to a pregnant woman giving birth saying, Oh God, I need to hear from You. You need to save my children. You need to rebuild my marriage.

You need to strengthen my faith. God, I cry out to You. I'm travailing and I want You to answer, Lord. My soul thirsts for You. How many of you are thirsty for God tonight? Do you know how you can tell?

What does your spiritual diet consist of? Are you feeding your mind with the things of God? Or the things of the world? Is there a hunger for God? And what I like about being hungry for God is it's contagious.

What I mean by that is the more you hunger and desire the things of God, the more you read His Word, the more you worship, the hungrier you become. This isn't like a natural appetite. You eat too much, you're full, you're done.

Oh, with God, it's the bursting of the seams. It's this living water that Christ talked about. That's why when people fast, they often have a deeper, more intimate relationship with God during that time because the flesh is starved and their hunger for food and the things of the flesh has been minimized and the Spirit is being lifted up and built up and they begin to pant after God and they begin to hunger for God and desire after God and I think those are very healthy things.

I want to teach my children how to hunger and thirst after God and pick themselves back up when they fall. Prayer and worship. That's what we're going to go into when we conclude this service. Prayer and worship.

The two primary ways that we express longing for God. Did you know that? It's not necessarily in our words. Although that's wonderful. But when we pray and when we worship, that's how we express longing for God.

Prayer as a Source of Holiness, Power, and Revival

I'm going to just briefly talk about prayer. I'm actually going to remind you about the power of prayer as we go into that in just a little bit. I borrowed an excerpt from tomorrow morning's sermon. I hope that's okay.

So you're going to hear a snapshot of tomorrow's sermon. And I've read this before to members of Westside. I think back when the pandemic started. And I want you to remember this. When you go into prayer tonight, that prayer is a great sin killer.

Amen? It's a fear quencher. It's a power bringer. It's a victory giver. Prayer is a holiness promoter. It's a lust eliminator. It's an obstacle remover. It's a time changer. It's a life sustainer. It's a demon slayer.

It's a wisdom giver. It's a peace promoter. It's a depression lifter. It's an anxiety demolisher. It's an anger suppressor. It's a weakness remover. It's a strength booster. And it's a revival stimulator.

When the church gets on their face before God and cries out, when Zion Travail's sons and daughters are born, God bursts things in your heart. But when you start to pray, those things become a reality.

Prayer moves the hand of God. Prayer will do anything that God can do. You receive not because you ask not. Jesus, how do we pray? Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. You are glorious.

You are great. You are lifted up on the throne. And when you get a glimpse of God, you have to pray. When you see God and you experience God, prayer becomes your heartbeat. That's why I don't know why so many people are confused when they ask, well, what did Paul mean to be praying all day?

That's impossible, Shane. No, it's not. He's not stopping praying. You've got to work. But there's the heartbeat of prayer. It's the fragrance of prayer. It's the atmosphere of prayer. That God is an ever-present help in time of need.

It's the life you lead. You're breathing the essence of God and you're taking in that throughout your day and your prayers are throughout the day and it's a life of prayer. And when you experience God, He will change you.

It will change your heart. I just read this week and it just leaped out at me. I love this story. When Isaiah, when he had a vision of God, he said it was in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up.

The train of His robe filled the entire temple and the cherubim covered their face and covered their feet and they flew and they cried out, Holy, Holy, Holy is our God. Holy, Holy is our God. And the temple, the foundation of the temple began to shake.

And when you move the foundations of this temple, Almighty God is moving among you. And he said, Oh, I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell among the people of unclean lips. And God began to remove that uncleanness.

So let me encourage you tonight, even though you don't see the prayers being answered, they will be answered. At my mom's memorial, there's coming a few ladies that have been praying with her every week for 20 some years.

And the power of prayer, many of those prayers were not realized. I tell you this story, I know some of you have heard it before, but I just, I love it. I would go out, I'm getting ready, I probably already had a few drinks.

And my mom would just, I'd say, Don't pray for me tonight, I want to have some fun. Don't pray for me, I want to have some fun. And she would put that Bible over those ACD albums, they had albums back then.

And Judas Priest and Metallica and the darkness and the sin. And she would say, Devil, you can't have my son. I'm going to pray, I'm going to intercede on behalf of my family and you can do the same thing.

It's not how profound your prayers are, it's how powerful they are because they're going to God and God alone. The power of prayer moves the mountains. The power of prayer will shape your destiny. The power of prayer will restore your marriage.

The power of prayer will bring your prodigal sons home. Get into a life of prayer. Be hungry for prayer. Go to bed praying and wake up praying. Watch the difference that it makes. And now I want to remind you, here is who we are crying out to tonight.

The Names and Authority of Jesus Christ

You can do this yourself. Google all the names for Jesus and you're going to get real excited as you go through the list. Almighty One. Alpha and Omega. The Advocate, it means He goes before you. The Final Authority, there is no one greater.

The Bread of Life, there is no nutrition that will fulfill you more than Christ. He is the Beloved Son of God. He is the Bridegroom. He is the Chief Cornerstone. He is the Comforter. He is the Conqueror.

He is the Commander-in-Chief. He is my Deliverer. He is the Faithful and True Witness. He is the Good Shepherd. He is the Great High Priest. He is the Head of the Church. He is Emmanuel. He is the Ultimate Judge.

He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Christ is Lord. He is the Lamb of God. He is the Light of the World. He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

He is the Victorious One. As a matter of fact, He is Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father. And you begin to see who Christ is. All hail King Jesus. That's why we came here tonight.

All hail King Jesus. We came to worship you. Did you know, it's okay, I did this in our church many months ago. And I got a little bit in trouble for it, but I'm going to do it now. Did you know it's okay to take a knee?

And you take a knee and you say, All hail King Jesus. That's the kind of knee you take. And you say, God, You're on the throne. I lift You up. I bow my knee to Jesus Christ. You are the Head of the Church.

Oh God, have mercy on us. God, have mercy on our children. Have mercy on our nation. We have shed innocent blood. We have murdered the guiltless. We have called sin good and called good evil. Oh God, would You have mercy on us.

Intervene on the state of California. There's a song we sing. There's power in the name of Jesus. There's power in the name of Jesus. I don't know why you're here. I don't know your spiritual condition.

The Power of Jesus to Break Sin and Bondage

There's people all the way down this way and down this way. But I can tell you by the authority of God's Word and by personal experience that there is power in the name of Jesus to break every sin, to break every bondage, to break every addiction.

Yes, you might have to fight a little bit. God's Word never said you don't have to fight. As a matter of fact, Jesus said, You will fight. You will pull down heaven. You will go into spiritual warfare.

You will cast out demons. You will conquer sin. It's going to be messy, but you will not leave defeated. There's power in the name of Jesus. Break every chain. Break every chain. Have you heard that song?

I hit rewind on my computer 15 times this morning and I got to a point of total desperation and hitting rewind and hitting rewind and hitting rewind and saying, Jesus, break every chain in this place.

Let me remind you, what demon can beat Him? What power can overcome Him? What force can discourage Him? What agenda can stop Him? What army can defeat Him? What ruler can control Him? What nation can ban Him?

What king can dethrone Him? I've got more if you want them. What king can dethrone Him? What law can hinder Him? What plan can thwart Him? What disaster can discourage Him? What situation can confuse Him?

All of that God just poured into my heart this morning and He said, Shane, remind the people that I'm still on the throne. No one can overcome my plans. Nothing can beat me. And I'm going to leave you with this question.

What sin, what sin can limit Him? Nothing. No matter what you're dealing with tonight. No matter what struggle, depression. Shane, you don't know what I've been through. I don't, but He does. When He paid that price on the cross in those famous words, Tetelestai.

Tetelestai in the Greek. It is finished. It is finished. In that point in history that the wrath of God came upon the Son and Jesus cried out and said, Eli, Eli, lama sabachini. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And at that point in history, the sin of heredity fell on the cross. That's why we worship. Do not leave here tonight without knowing who Christ is. So we're going to go into a time of worship. I'll come back up and remind you about baptisms and prayer.

I want to baptize you tonight if you've been lukewarm, if you need to recommit your life, if you need to come to Jesus for the first time, it's okay to get a little wet and a little cold for someone who died on the cross bare naked, the Son of Man.

He could have pulled down the armies of heaven and they would have conquered all of Rome with the breath of God's nostrils. He would have wiped out that entire city. But He stood there. And every Easter, every resurrection day, I'm reminded that the nails, the nails didn't keep Him there.