Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow | part 4 (Pastor Jeff Shipley)

Now I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military size.

It wasn't the type of people. We're going to be in Daniel chapter 6 this morning.

Daniel chapter 6 and I'll be honest with you. I said this on the Facebook but in 30 years of pastoring,

I have never ever preached out of Daniel chapter 6. The reason why is it's one of those familiar nursery rhyme tales.

That's what it's been given over to. It's the little Daniel in the lion's den it's usually a little white faced guy with a little white puffy hair and the little lions are smiling saying hello to the kids and everything when really that is not the biblical understanding of it.

That's not the biblical understanding of it. The biblical understanding of it was this was a common practice in the

Persian Empire and others as well of mass execution. This was a grotesque way to be executed.

We're going to get to more of that in a second. Now I also want to point out this. The year is about 538 to 536

BC. And this is Darius. There are two other

Darius's within Persian history of course the most famous one was the last one defeated by Alexander the

Great in 331 BC. But this particular one only ruled two years and he was more of a governor than he was an actual king.

As he's ruling Cyrus and you can once again I think I put it on your notes

Cyrus Cylinder you've got to go back in history a little bit.

God said you people are going to be sinning against me. I'm going to have a kingdom come and take you prisoner you're going to be there 70 years and then you're going to get to come back.

And once again recorded in scripture and once again archaeologically historically we see that Cyrus from the king of Persia made a decree that all captured peoples could go back to their homelands and so I always loved seeing that and seeing

God work in his sovereignty. Daniel has been in Babylon now

Persia and he served the courts of kings as ambassadors, as counselors as wise men.

And as he's serving there he's about 80 years old. So older people while still dangerous behind the wheel can serve a purpose you really can.

And Daniel's one of those guys just because you're retired don't mean you're not supposed to be working for the

Lord. Now what I want to talk about today is how do we mature?

If you're a believer in here, if you're a believer in this room and you have the desire to hunt the desire to grow and mature in Christ, I'm going to tell you it's going to take some bad times.

You see faith cannot develop in the vacuum of opposition.

There is going to be things that come in that will cause you to have to grow.

And this development the problem with it is it's this it's like our fighters that we train.

If you don't sweat in the gym you're going to bleed in the ring. You have got to go through the crucibles of life as a believer to develop your faith.

Your faith won't develop in this petri dish that we call church.

It has to be under scrutiny. It has to be under opposition.

It has to be under trials and tribulations or to never grow. And I'll tell you if you're not faithful in the little things you're never going to be faithful in the big things.

I always love listening to a certain genre of Christians today. I call them prepper

Christians you know. These guys that every time you know there's my phone has been blowing up since the eclipse, the earthquake and what was the other one?

The what? Iran. Yeah the thing of Iran. And oh my gosh let's load up.

We've got to go live in the woods with our AR -15's because they're right around the corner.

Let me tell you something Slim. If you can't live for Jesus Christ in an air conditioning building and a 40 hour a week job you are on crack to think you're going to be able to live and survive in that type of environment.

It ain't going to happen okay. So dial down the Rambo. Now I'm all into Wolverine but the reality of the idea is you've got to be faithful in the little things before you can be faithful in the big things.

So let's look at some opposition. Daniel chapter 6 starting in verse 1. It pleased

Darius to set over the kingdom a hundred and twenty governors or satiraz to be throughout the whole kingdom and then over them three high officials of whom

Daniel was one to whom these satiraz would give an account so that the king might suffer no loss.

Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satiraz because an excellent spirit was in him and the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.

Guys let's talk about some types of opposition. Let's talk about first one that we deal with whether it be in our personal lives or even at work is and I know you women don't have to deal with us but us men have to deal with jealousy.

You know what I mean? We have to deal with I was sitting here and I saw

Robert Bond's shoes this morning and I was like oh my gosh you know and they go so good with his slacks and his shirt, his makeup and hair were done just right.

We have to deal with Christians with some jealousy now you're sitting there going oh that's not me.

Let me tell you friends if you have a home of peace if you have a life of peace people will be jealous about that.

Mark my words. We'll get to that more in a second. It says that Daniel became distinguished above all the other officials.

Let me tell you the other thing in dealing with people is skim.

Now you know why these guys did not like Daniel? You know why they didn't? Because the old days of hey you owe me twenty percent the king wants ten.

Guess who the other ten comes to? Now here comes a man of integrity. Here comes a man of character who's going to be set above everybody else and if something's wrong in the account they don't know personally but because of the man's character and how he presents himself they know he ain't going to be down with stealing.

They know just by his reputation he's going to not want to join the boys club.

He ain't going to want a taste. He's going to want something different and let me tell you

Christian when you're different in this world when you are sitting in a room full of folks and you're living your life differently than the rest of the world they're going to be jealous of it and they're going to hate it.

I promise you this. Now look what they said in verse four. Now then the high officials and we're going to say governors sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom but they could find no ground or complaint or any fault because he was faithful and no error or fault was found in him.

Now it doesn't mean he was sinless. What it means was if he had this job to do this is the job he was going to do and he wasn't going to cut corners.

He wasn't going to play favorites. He was going to do what he was called to do. Then verse five

I want you to watch this. Then these men said we shall not find any ground or complaint against this

Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his

God. You know one thing I tell you my entire

Christian life my number one thing that I deal with is the insecurity of abandonment and and I don't like someone trying to punk me.

I just, you know what I mean? But there's this one phrase that will just man set me off.

I'll be ready to fight in a heartbeat. Watch this. I thought you were a

Christian. Have you ever had someone say that to you? Oh my gosh try being the pastor of this church.

We got Pastor Joe all the pastors we got folks come up and go hey man you know can

I have some money because I got to get some gas to go to my grandmother's funeral.

No man you tweak it. You want to fix right? No we can't give you no money. We'll feed you. We'll feed you right here right now.

We'll take care of you but we ain't going to give you no cash. Oh I thought y 'all were Christians. You know?

I mean not really but you know the entitlement just man just crawls all over me.

These guys sat there and they said we can't find any fault with Daniel as a man and in his job.

What we're going to have to do is find a way that his beliefs will contradict the world.

Now if you are a Christian that it should not be a hard job to do.

If you are a Christian there should be an abundance of evidence to convict you of serving your

God. Here's the other thing you're going to have to deal with. People's egos.

Oh my gosh. You know what I mean? No one else knows what I mean?

People's egos? Good lord. If I want to get developed in my faith one of the things

I'm going to have to face is the arrogance and ego of the world. What do

I mean by that? I mean this. And I want all my pastors who are watching this to focus on this.

We live in a world and some of you in this room believe this. Come here. We live in a world where we say follow the science which by default should be repeatable and demonstrable.

But we live in a world where every form of higher education all the way down to the nursery school teach that the universe came from nothing.

Y 'all are like, yeah? You cannot be that stupid. I'm a high school dropout.

I can take nothing and we can't even find nothing. You know what nothing is?

It's nothing. People think nothing is space. No, that's something. In the beginning there was nothing.

No space, no light, no time, nothing. Yet out of that came the multitude of creation.

I keep begging and asking the world just from a point of curiosity how in the world did all this happen?

Well, it just evolved. From what? Well, from a little. But where did that come from? Well, it came from.

But where did that come from? You see, our human minds cannot comprehend that before the awesomeness of creation, there was nothing.

You see, man's ego, ladies and gentlemen, we have to fight that constantly.

And loud voices. We have to struggle with the ego of humanity.

Now listen to me. Some of you people in here are trying to figure out whether there really is a

God. Some of you in here you want to believe, but you're like there's just not enough evidence.

Okay, cool. Explain the sentient reality that you're sitting there right now and this is real.

Explain just for a second that your thought processes are understanding the words that are coming out of my mouth and that language and that thought where did that come from?

Well, it came from. No! Because lions and tigers and bears ain't got it.

We were created in the image of God. And if you want to build your faith, understand this.

That the ego and arrogance of man saying there is no God is one of the things that we're going to have to fight and my friends, it's going to get bigger and bigger.

Yes, I said that on purpose. Here's the other thing you're going to fight. Look at verse 7. All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects, the satiraps, the counselors, and the governors are agreed.

You know one of the ways you're going to develop your faith through opposition is you're going to be in the minority.

Are you comfortable being in the minority? Oh, yeah, yeah. Bull. Bull. Man, we're a social structure.

That's how God created us. It's hard to be in the minority. It's hard to be able to say,

I must obey God rather than man. That's hard. You know what it takes? It takes faith.

That's how it grows. That opposition comes against you and you've got to at that moment say,

I'm going to choose God rather than man. And you're going to have all the arguments, and listen to this, all the lies.

That very statement that they said to the king, that very statement was a lie. Daniel was one of the governors.

He was one of the head guys in there, and they said, oh king, everyone's in agreement with this.

Daniel's like, not me. Not me. Let's keep reading. I want to just say this to you in 6 and 7.

It says, verse 7, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh king, verse 6, then all the officials and satirets came by agreement to the king and said to him, oh king

Darius, live forever. All the high officials, kingdoms, the perfect satirets, the councils, the governors agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction.

Wow, that sounds familiar. Wear a mask. That whoever makes petition to any

God or man for 30 days, except to you oh king, shall be cast into the den of liars.

Liars. Lions. You can't trust them lions, man. They'd be like, I got four gazelle. No you didn't.

Guys, here's something we've got to understand. Here's something we've got to understand.

For 30 days. You know one of the oppositions that I have to struggle with is the enticement of sin.

And here's the two lies sin will tell you. Number one, that you can do it and stay in control.

That's a lie. And here's the second one. It's only for a little while. Let me tell you something.

Sin will cost you more than you want to pay and keep you longer than you wanted to stay.

It will rape your soul and make you hollow and devoid of a life of peace.

You will be waiting constantly for the other shoe to drop because you know you're living in rebellion against God, but instead of going and repenting and finding that peace, you're going to keep doing it and hiding it.

I know what I'm talking about. I bear the scars in my life for the failure of repentance.

Then the question becomes, what do you do about it? Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.

What is repentance, pastor? I feel sorry for what I do. That's not repentance.

Repentance is stop it and turn away from that sin and by default turn towards God.

You're not in control. I promise you. How many of you the first time you did,

I'm sure we don't have any people in here who did drugs. Yeah, right.

How many of you sat there I can remember the first time I smoked a rock. I'll never forget this.

I was nervous but I wanted it. You know I was nervous but I wanted and this

I promise you this went through my brain. I'll just do it once and I'll put it down. Nope!

It don't work that way. How many of you are in recovery? You go, well

I'll just drink this one time. This is what I had a guy tell me. Pastor, I don't want to drink all the time but every once in a while to calm down and to be part of the crowd just have fun.

You're playing with it. You see, your ego is the problem to actually think that you can control something that nobody else in the world can with an addiction problem.

You're that great. You're falling down a road. Well, and you'll do this. Well, I won't drink anymore.

We have a lady in this room. I wanted to smack her silly. She said, well yeah, I'm not going to drink anymore.

I'm just going to smoke. So that way, because weed's not my problem. Alcohol is.

You cannot be that stupid. You cannot be that stupid. You actually think that trading one sin for another is going to fix the sin problem?

My friends, the only thing that fixes the sin problem is this. Reject every call of the world and follow

God and God alone. To build your faith, you've got to face these adversities.

So how do we face them? How do we face them? And this is the last point. How do we face these things to grow our faith?

Well, I'm going to tell you. It's going to take those moments. Do you know what

I'm talking about? Some of y 'all, especially you young 'uns, you don't really know what those moments are.

Those moments to you are as little Johnny didn't like your valentine heart you gave him. Or, I'm sorry, that showed my age.

Didn't respond to your text right. Or someone dissed you on the

Instagram cart thing or whatever that thing's called. You know, where you take the pictures and they go away.

You know? Whatever. By the way, if you're an older man and you're doing that stuff, okay, dude.

Stop it. Grow up, you Nancy. Good God. Well, I mean, you know, chicks are different, you know.

But anyways, verse 10. Read with me, verse 10. So here's what's going on.

They convinced the king to sign a law that you could not ask, you could not seek, you could not do anything to find help or peace from anybody other than the king.

But just for 30 days, what's it going to hurt? Here's what

Daniel did, verse 10. You see, it was one of those moments. He was there.

He was there. When Daniel knew that the document, the law, had been signed, watch what he does.

He immediately got to the First Baptist Church. No. Immediately he got angry and no.

Immediately he said, I have rights. Nope. When Daniel knew the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had his windows in the upper chamber open towards Jerusalem.

He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his

God as he had done previously. Guys, you know how you in those moments win?

I'm going to tell you. Parents, number one word you need to know. Christians, number one word you need to know to grow.

Consistency. Consistency. Well, I don't know why my kids are in rebellion.

I brought them up in church. Stop being stupid. Okay? God never said bring them up in church.

He said bring them up in the admonition of the Lord. Well, there are three they can't read. Right. They're seeing

God's word through your life. And when you're inconsistent, they're going to be inconsistent. When you're rebellious towards God's word, why are you shocked when they're rebellious?

School didn't teach them to talk. You did. School didn't teach them to eat. You did.

School didn't teach them how to act. You did. Well, pastor, but I can't deal with the public schools.

Listen to me. If you're being a consistent godly parent, eight hours is not a threat to the sovereignty of my

God and the consistency of the Christian life in my home. It ain't. You have to be consistent.

If you're not doing it before the trouble, you're going to fail when the trouble shows up.

It's in those moments right there where the whole world can go to chaos.

Where everybody's running down the street saying, oh my God, the sky has fallen. That the child of God can show the integrity and consistency of a life past to stand up and say,

I'm still going to follow Jesus. That no matter what happens, I've already sown the seeds of faithfulness in my life.

Now, here's how most Christians, the three ways you can choose to react. Number one is panic.

You ever seen those kind of Christians? Let me be honest with you. We've all been at some point in our

Christian life, those kind of people. They're just panic. They're fearful, okay? Just plain fear.

And something happens like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Call the pastor. Do that. We got to...

It's chaos running everywhere. Dogs are sleeping with cats. It's total pandemonium.

Then we're sitting there going, why is the world scared to follow us? Well, I promise you, if this building is on fire and Cody Buckler, who's a fireman, goes, oh my

God, we're all going to die. That's not going to inspire a whole lot of leadership, okay?

You can roast dude, but I'm finding the back door or I'm making one. But I'm getting out of here, right?

Guys, we can react with panic. Here's a big one, guys.

Walt Disney supports gay rights. Who didn't see that coming?

They make cartoon animals, right? I mean, it's a little fruity. They support gay rights.

What do the Christians do? Let's boycott them. Why? Why?

Well, we're going to make a stand. We're going to make a statement. No, you're going to look like an idiot. Why are you surprised and panicked when the world acts like the world?

When lost people behave as lost people, why do you go into a panic?

There is not a need to be panicked. Here's the other one people do. They go pride. Let me explain.

Not that kind of pride. The real pride. Here's what people do. Christians.

They ain't going to make me bow my knee to no God other than Jesus Christ. I'm going to keep my 1611

King James Bible and I'm going to put sandbags in front of the door and ain't nobody going to tell me and my family what to do.

I gave my life to Jesus Christ. I'm voting for Donald Trump and I'm just going to tell you that's the way it's going to be and ain't nobody going to tell me different.

You know, here's what's funny. A lot of people sometimes associate that with faith but it's really not.

And I'm going to tell you how you know the difference. You see, you can sit there and go I'm going to choose to follow

Christ. I don't care what anybody says. Or you can choose to say I'm going to follow Christ.

I don't care what no one's going to say. What's the difference between the pride and the reality? It's the prayer that comes along with it.

If you sit there and make a declaration that nobody's going to tell you what to do that's more rebellion than it is obedience.

But you see when you bathe it in prayer when you encourage your brothers and sisters in Christ, when you have a kingdom mindset that the glory of God is more important than your rebellion in what you want to be known for, when

God is first and you're second, that's the difference between good and bad. And then, last one's prayer.

Guys why is it and I'm hitting me too, not just y 'all, why is it that we want to react first and then pray second?

Daniel just got set up by the majority by everyone.

What did Daniel do? Well, he was 80 so he was probably like, what?

Huh? Huh? Oh, you signed it in. Okay. And he goes up and he ain't scared.

He opens up his windows so everybody can see. Now, he ain't sitting there going come at me, man.

No. He's going to consistently be with the same kind of godly character he already has been and he's going to open the windows and pray.

Guys you got to control your fear in those moments.

Now, let me explain this to you. And I'm almost done. Hang in there. The goal for the

Christian is not the absence of fear. Okay? It's not the absence of fear.

You don't win no battles without the absence of fear. Is Mike in here? What a

Nancy. Who's Sharquita? We got a lot of people out. Sharquita's gone.

Where's Stephen Carter? He's gone too. Alright. Well, it's a young church.

Labor Day. Everybody's gone. Whatever. These people, every morning at 630, they show up at our gym and they're lifting weights.

Putting on squats. Doing the deadlifts. You know. Now, they've been doing this about 6 months and they've gotten stronger.

Ask Sharquita. She'll go, look at my muscle. I'm like, yeah, that's great. Here's how they've done it.

They've lifted the same weight for the last 6 months and they've gotten stronger.

They've increased it. Guys, if you want to grow, you're going to have to increase.

And here's the scary part. The fear gets worse. The fear grows.

The more you mature in Christ, the more the fear, if it costs you more, grows.

And it's scary. I ain't going to lie to you. It's scary. I had little kids and everything

I'm sitting there watching them. I'm going, oh my god. It's a larva. And it's ugly.

That was Pastor Josiah. It's a larva and it's ugly. And there's child molesters out there.

It's ugly and he's going to have to face this world.

I had fears about that. Wait until you have a daughter. Oh my gosh.

I should go out to play. I'd have a 308 sitting out the window going, is that little kid talking to her? You want to protect them, right?

I never shot a little kid that you know of. You want to protect them, right?

You get scared. Guys, here's what you've got to do. You've got to face that fear.

I had a dream when I was a little kid, a reoccurring dream. And it was this white pasty looking dude with all these hypodermic syringes stuck in him.

And every night, he would just follow after me. And I'd be like, now

I'm sitting there going, he's sick. What's he going to do? He's got syringes on. But back then, it was the scariest thing in the world.

I was like 11, 12 years old. And I remember I was dreaming and I was sitting at the kitchen sink doing something.

There was a window right there. And I looked up and he was facing me on the outside of the window.

And it scared the fire. This was still while I was asleep. And I can remember going, what?

Like that. And I woke up and the hair, I'd never felt this before, the hair on the back of my head was stiff.

And my heart was beating and I was sweating. You know, I never had that dream no more. When you're afraid of something, sometimes

Christians in those moments, you've got to sit there and go, do your worst because I ain't moving.

Sometimes you've got to face and you've got to quit using emotions and manipulation and brash talking.

Something you've got to do. Here I stand. I don't know what's going to happen, but I ain't moving. And in those moments, when you have that moment, you start to grow in your faith because the resistance gets a little bit more.

I'll go down to verse 16. Here's Pastor Jeff's biggest weakness.

Yes, I got one. So Daniel sits there, says,

I ain't going to bow down. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do the same thing I've been doing. So they all go tattletale on Daniel.

Oh, King, we found a guy. You know that Daniel of Judah who you liked so much?

Yeah, he's praying to his God. The king's like, oh my gosh, that's not good.

And he was actually, he didn't want to throw Daniel in there. But in verse 16, the king commanded,

Daniel was brought and cast into lions. Then the king declared to Daniel, may your God whom you serve continually deliver you.

I'm scared to be abandoned. You know, some of y 'all don't have that fear.

We call it abandonment issues. Whatever. I don't, you don't have to put a title on it. I don't like being left behind.

I don't. It's happened by a lot of very important special people in my life, starting with parents.

You know, I feel insecure by myself sometimes, unless I'm in the woods, then

I'm happy. But I feel insecure being by myself. I'm sure no one else in here struggles with that, but I do.

Daniel was abandoned as a righteous man.

Not just to his death, but to a horrible death. And the Bible says there in verse 16, he cast him in a lion's den, and he said, declared to Daniel, may your

God whom you serve continually deliver you. Here's what one thing I do to help me.

When I'm abandoned physically, yeah, it hurts.

But I'm abandoned from this world to the hands of God. Even the heathen

Persian king knew that. He said, may your God whom you serve continually delivered.

He's my safe space. You know? I know you generation, whatever it is nowadays, need a little closet with carpeted walls and a bunny rabbit to pet for you to feel safe.

God, if there's ever a dude that goes into one of those Bellevue's right down the street. But guys, we sit there and we have abandonment issues from the world, from people we love, from people we care about, but you're really not abandoned.

You're abandoned to God. You're being left behind, and you're gonna let

God show you how much he loves and cares for you. Then this. So Daniel's in there.

The king, it says, is scared to death. He's feeling guilty. He's feeling remorseful. He doesn't want

Daniel to be eaten. You know? He didn't want him to be a kit kat. And so he goes up to his room and he's like going, oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh. Please, please, please. Whatever God he was praying to, please don't let Daniel get eaten.

So he goes up the very first thing in the next morning. He goes, hey Daniel! Are you in there?

Verse 22. My God sent his angel to shut the lion's mouths and they have not harmed me because I was found blameless before him and also before you king.

I have done no harm. I love that. Found blameless.

What's a doctrine? What's that doctrine? Found blameless. Rendered innocent.

And justified. Guys, in those moments it may seem that you've lost and the others have won.

But if you think about it just for a second. Just think about these people. The wise men who had framed him probably were all up all night partying.

The king was worried up staying up all night worrying. Daniel's friends were probably up all night praying.

The angel of God was all up all night protecting him. The only one that got a good night sleep was

Daniel in the midst of the lion's den. Because he had come to a point that in those moments it didn't matter what it cost him he was going to choose to follow

God. And the last thing is this. In the music people can come do their things.

There's a testimony to be involved here. When we lived when we moved to Wyoming my church that called me up there said they'd pay me $25 a week to be the pastor.

$25 a week. So obviously you know, Jeremiah, Josiah, I'm going to need some more money because they eat like pigs, right?

So I had to go find a job. Now I'd been a transmission mechanic, but there wasn't a whole lot of those jobs up there.

So I went to this place and they worked on hydraulics. And they said, do you know anything about hydraulics? I'm like, yep.

Sure do. Never worked in a hydraulic thing before in my life. But my kids needed to eat!

Now it wasn't a lie, I knew how hydraulics worked, I just didn't know how to work on them. And so they hired me.

Every day at lunchtime I would go in the break room and I would open up my

Bible, I'd eat my lunch, and I'd read. Oh, man. Dude, they hated my guts.

Nobody liked me. Nobody liked me at all. I was all alone.

Right, I was sitting at the loser table at lunch. Yeah, all the cool kids, you know, like him, they all was sitting there like being all cool.

No one wanted to talk to me. Sorry. So I kept working there.

And you know what I did? I tried to do everything better, faster, and more complete than everybody else.

And I didn't do it to get a raise. I did it because I was thankful for the job.

But here's why I did it. I knew that I was never going to overcome those folks with my words, but my actions would speak volumes.

Within a year, my table was the biggest table in the lunchroom.

You know why? Because there were 12 people, including a Jehovah's Witness, that were sitting there every day while I opened up my

Bible and I preached to them. Every day. A couple of them got saved.

And I was able to minister to folks that I wouldn't have been able to minister to in an air conditioning little church building.

Hey guys, don't be afraid of those moments. Embrace them.

And if you embrace them with faith and consistent loyalty towards God, He's going to reward you with the greatest gift you've ever seen.

And that's watching someone else come to know the peace that you've got. If you're in this room and you're not a

Christian, you're not a Christian. I ain't talking about you walked in some stupid building and prayed some stupid prayer.

I'm talking about you truly are not sure or do not know where you're going to go when you die.

I can show you in Scripture where you can know for sure. First John 5 .13 says, These things have

I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know you have eternal life.

It's not a guessing game, a roulette wheel. God wants you to have the peace of knowing that you have a life everlasting.

If you're not sure or you're struggling with what that even means, come down and talk to fat pastors, right?

I'm the only fat one. But come down and talk to us. Number two, if you're in this room and you're struggling with a sin that faith is so weak you just can't end.

Those moments you fold up like a cheap Walmart lawn chair. Hey, welcome to the party. You're not a scum.

You're not a whore. You're not a loser. You're not any of that other garbage that your mind self abuse wants to tell you to somehow equal the scales.

All you're doing is abusing yourself with guilt. That is not God's plan for your life. If you need help with overcoming something, the accountability of brothers and sisters of Christ who have been there, some of them are still there, but are willing to love you and help you and pray you through it with you, that's why

God invented the church. It wasn't to judge how stupid you are. It was to help you bind your wounds.

Maybe you're in this room and you need to join something so you'll have a level of accountability and authority other than your thought process because it hasn't worked out well so far in your life.

Whatever it is, if God has spoken to you, if you're a believer, minister, someone, I'm going to ask you to stand, and if God has spoken to you this morning and you have business with him, you come this morning as God leads.