Shane Idleman emphasizes the need for men to rise up from their struggles and failures, drawing from Joshua 7 to illustrate how unconfessed sin can lead to defeat. He encourages men to confront their shortcomings, repent genuinely, and take action rather than wallow in despair. Idleman highlights the importance of God's presence and the consequences of sin, using the story of Achan to show how one person's actions can affect an entire family. He calls for a posture of humility and repentance, urging men to lead their families with strength and faithfulness. Ultimately, he reminds the congregation that true repentance leads to restoration and victory in Christ.

And just so you know, I don't really want to speak. It's not like a kid going to Disneyland when God puts a burden on your heart. And to let guys know, to be a little bit transparent. We all struggle as men with different things and how we were raised, and that father figure, or the lack of father figure, or being raised in an angry home, dealing with fear, depression, anxiety, and trying to lead our family, let alone being scared of what's going on around us. And these are real concerns with men. And so, I wanted to encourage you this morning, mainly just from Joshua chapter seven. It'll have a deep impact. The title is, Get Up, Get Up, Why Are You On Your Face? And God would often challenge people, such as Moses, or David, or Joshua. Get up, get up, enough of that crying, enough of that just wallowing in sin or failure, but get up, get up and win this race. Get up and take that rightful calling that I've given you. And so, we see in Joshua seven, verse one. But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things. For Achan took of the accursed things so that the anger of the Lord burned against the children of Israel. Shane, I thought this was gonna be positive. Well, it is, but first we have to get to the negative. Sometimes we have to get to the root issue of certain things and pull out that root and that cancer so it stops spreading. Now, what happened before this, many of you know, is there was this famous battle of Jericho. The walls came down and before, has God ever told you to do something and you don't do it? That's kind of where Joshua is here. He said, when you go into the city, don't covet, don't take of the possessions, whether it's gold or silver or garments, don't go in and covet what is of the enemies. And Joshua said, I'm sure, okay, we won't do that. However, we see here that they did take of the accursed things. And that was the family or the man actually, Achan, A-C-H-A-N, the man Achan took of the things of the city. And so obviously we can glean from this, the word curse is used often and cursings and blessings. And basically, without getting into a lot of information, blessings of God are when God favors you or blesses you or holds back the enemy or restores or blesses in a certain financial way or emotional or related. There's a blessings of God, you can feel that. And then there are the curses where it's basically not God saying you're cursed, but we're creating an environment in which a curse can flourish. We open doors like in Deuteronomy, blessed is a nation who does this, this, this, this, this. Cursed is the nation who does this, this, this, this, this. And then we also see a lot of times that even future generations were impacted by the decisions of certain people. And so the curse of coveting is coveting is wanting something that is not ours. Wanting that promotion, wanting that area of ministry or wanting that, I want what that person has. And don't we all struggle with that? You know, anytime, you know, I've got my Dodge Ram and I pull up next to a newer Dodge Ram and maybe a taller Dodge Ram or the diesel Cummings motor with the mega cab and 600 horsepower. I'm like, wow, now that is what I should have got. Tricked out, correct. Coveting, and I look back on my former self and I laugh because in my 20s, I think I was just out of high school and dad, I want the 35 inch gumbo mudder tires and I want the glass pack exhaust system. And within five years, I'm like, I just want a normal truck. I don't want to hear it and have it shake. I don't want to be able to not park anywhere. I just want a normal vehicle. And my dad told me that, son, that's going to be hard to park. That's hard to drive. You can't go to LA or LAX airport. It's just, you just, but I want that. Look at how cool that is. You don't think coveting still happens? Many of us buy things because we have image. We lift things, we race things, we improve things because we covet what someone else has. And we have to be careful because coveting can create an environment in which the blessings of God cannot flourish because it's not coming from a right heart and God blesses a right heart. And so we see this took place here. He took of these things and then verse three, and they returned to Joshua and said, do not let all the people go up, but let about two or 3,000 men go up and attack Ai. Do not weary all the people for the people of Ai are few. So to get you up to speed, Jericho has been defeated easily because God was in it. The blessings of God, following God, obedience to God. And let me just tell you on this as men, on this point of obedience, I talk about that a lot, right? Obeying, obedience, boy, Shane, you must be perfect. No, I disobey God. The key is quick to repent. How is David a man after God's own heart? How is David? Wait a minute, David? He's just should have been out to battle. He's like, what is that bathing on the rooftop? Same thing happens. What is that on the screen? That advertisement, that alluring attraction. I was just sitting yesterday. I'm on the computer. We have it open looking. We're coming to sermon. My wife's back here on a couch studying. And I go on Facebook and here comes this ad pop for Playboy. I'm like, look at this, Morton. The enemy is not messing around. He just, no matter where you go, I guess Playboy has a Facebook page. I don't know. I'm not gonna click it. I'm gonna click hide, get rid of this. It's too offensive. And then they remove that ad from your computer. And so being vigilant. But David, back to this man after God's own heart recognizes his failure and he repents and he works on it. See God, in that perfect, I'm just gonna be perfect. Well, not on this side of heaven, you're not. But a man, a true man of God acknowledges his shortcomings, acknowledges his sin, repents of it, and he gets back up again, fights and keeps moving forward. The man that is not of God tries to hide his sin, act super spiritual. You ever seen those? They act super spiritual and they have the language down. It's like, but that guy, boy, he is just, he must walk on water because we give this persona. So a man after God's own heart isn't necessarily somebody who appears to be obeying the word of God, although that is wonderful. It's actually a man who obeys God's word, even in the midst of his failures. And he gets back up. He's a man after God's own heart because he's a man of repentance. Create in me a clean heart. Renew a right spirit within me. God, I am broken. I have sinned before you. Would you return to me the years of my salvation? God, I'm crying out to you. I'm repenting. And it's that forward momentum of repentance. And that's how it breaks this curse of coveting. They defeated, what city was it? Jericho, by worshiping, by being in God's will. And now there's sin in the camp. That's where that term comes from. Sin in the camp, in Israel's camp. There's sin there that's not dealt with. So now they get to this other battle, AI, and they say, just send us a couple thousand men. We, the problem with pride, I got this. You ever say that? Oh no, no, no, I got this. I got this. I can handle this. And so the problem with pride is, pride often doesn't allow us to see our shortcomings. It blocks those things from our sight. And that's why pride is so dangerous, especially spiritual pride, because we think we know the scripture, and we do. We've been a Christian for a long period of time. We've walked in obedience to God's word, and we become a spiritual hotshot. And so we're not open to constructive criticism. We're not open to feedback because of spiritual pride. We've got this. Who are you to lecture me? We're gonna just go in. They didn't even take it to prayer. I believe personally, if Joshua, like they've done in the past in the Old Testament, Lord, what is your will in this matter? Lord, what do you want? They prayed, they fasted for God's direction. God would have showed them, I believe, that hey, there's sin in the camp. But they were presumptuous and said, okay, we won this battle. Be careful. Be careful when you win the battle because the enemy's coming again. You've heard of mountaintop experiences followed by valleys of disappointment and despair. And so we won. We are victorious, and we got this. Just send a few thousand men. We're gonna embarrass this city. And actually, the exact opposite happened. The men were defeated. And then verse four, so about 3,000 men went up from the people. They're going up this area to go and fight. But then they fled. These mighty men of valor, these men of victory, these men, fighting men, men of war, Joshua, these men were men of war. They fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai struck down about 36 men for they had chased them from before the gate as far as She-Barim. And they struck them down on the descent. So they're going up to fight this battle. You know, we're going up. And then now they're turning around running because the enemy is pursuing them down the mountain. And as a result, the hearts of the people melted and became like water. Have you ever wanted to do something or going to do something? You think it's for God and you go in and then you just get completely annihilated and wiped out and you lose the battle. It's debilitating. It's disheartening because you lose strength. You lose willpower. You lose motivation. Now, it's not always the case, but a lot of times we lose the battle because there's unconfessed sin. There's sin in the camp. And we want to go out and get a victory for God, but we haven't dealt with the idol in our heart. And that will show itself in defeat. The blessing of brokenness. Men, you need to know something. God blessed the broken road that led me straight to Him. There's something about being broken and humbled before God. There is something about going out in your own strength and then coming back in weakness and defeat because God says, now I have you in a spot where I can use you. Now you're not thinking so highly of yourself than you should. Now you're not just trusting on your gifting and your ability, but now you can be used by me because I have broken you. I have humbled you. See, now they come back in utter defeat and in failure and in shame, and they're like crying out, God, what happened? How, what are we gonna do? And now he says, now I can work. See, now the soil of your heart is ready for me to plant the things of growth inside of you. And so I always encourage people, as hard as it is to see, and we don't like to live with our consequences, brokenness and pain can actually be a very good thing. It's the pain of my childhood to where God has used me to preach. It's the pain of growing up and the discouragement and the failures in life that God has turned that brokenness into an unbreakable force because now he's in it. And he does the same in all of your lives. If we do not become bitter, prideful, because pride likes to make excuses, doesn't it? Shift the blame, make excuses, and we never really change or grow because that's that pride in our hearts. And then, so this is an incredible response. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until evening. The ark of the Lord was there at this point. They just started the ark with Moses and the ark represents God's presence and God's power, and God said, take this with me. So he fell down in the holy presence of God. He tore his clothes, and that was much like us coming to the altar and saying, God, I'm sick of this, I'm tired of this. And there was a posturing. That's why I put the power of posturing. Now, posturing can be a negative thing. You've heard the term before, they were just posturing. In other words, they were just giving an impression of something, or they were posturing. It happens in Hollywood a lot. But there is a good posturing as well because our posture can reflect the heart. And so I think before men are really gonna see change in their hearts, there has to be a brokenness that is reflected in our actions. Because it's one thing to say it, but it's another thing to do it, or to live it, or to resemble it. Do you know repentance has a certain flavor? Repentance has a look. Repentance has a characteristic about it where there's a difference. And I've seen, I think one reason God had me speak at men's conferences before pastoring a church is because you get ready with the heart audience first. You go into battle with the difficulties, and the men, and the pride that comes up, and the excuses. And one thing that always amazed me was after I would speak, you could tell some men were completely broken. The altar's full. Man, lives are gonna be changed. Pray for me, I'm going home to my wife. She's not happy right now. And tears, and man, this brokenness is incredible. But then I'd always have a line, too, of these guys, they look like this. You know, I agree with what you said. Yeah, however, you don't know my situation. And I work my butt off trying to pay these, can I say that, it's okay here? Larry, just not on Sunday morning, right? So, and it's just this, hmm. But they give the words of repentance. Like, yeah, I hear what you're saying, and yeah, I see how that applies to me. But, you know, and see, there's no posture of repentance. So you can say the right things. In many cases, I think our wives are tired of us saying the right things. There has to be a posture of repentance. Not be fake, not be phony, but something has to break your heart in order for you to make a difference out of genuine repentance. There's something flows from genuine repentance. And I would tell, like, what's the difference between you, this guy like this, and that guy over there on the altar? Well, he just must be, you know, he just must be really hurt right now, or he must be really, you know, he really must have some deep work he needs with God. I'm like, no, you do, you do. Here's a mirror. See, so pride reveals itself too in the posture. Correct? Where's the term stiff-necked come from in the Bible, Old Testament? Stiff-necked. Because there's a posture of repentance and humility where they would bow themselves, they would, and humility, they recognize they're not a hotshot, they're not number one, and there was a posturing of humility where the stiff-necked people would say, I'm not going, I'm not going down because I wanna elevate myself. I'm stiff-necked. You're not gonna see the head bowed down because the neck in pride keeps it stiff and haughty. That's where it comes from. Or haughty eyes, it talks about the look of pride. God says, I even hate, I hate the look of pride. Did you know that in the Proverbs? I hate a proud look. Right there with I hate hands that shed innocent blood. I hate feet that are quick to running to evil. I hate those who sow discord among the brethren. And at the top of that list, I hate the look of pride. I will halt the arrogance of the proud, God says. I would shut the mouth of the prideful. I will not bless them. I will resist the prideful, but give grace to the humble. So the power of posturing. Now, you can't come up and fake it. You can't go home and, Pastor Shane said, I have to bow down. I have to get on the floor. No, I'm just saying there should be a, their brokenness and genuine repentance have a flavor about them. It's a sweet smelling incense to God almighty as a sacrifice. And then verse 10, so the Lord said to Joshua, so here it is, here's the key. Joshua is down on his face. He is fully repentant. He is on his face before God. He realizes that men have been killed because of the decision of whatever is going. He doesn't even know there's sin in the camp yet with Achan, he is down, he is repentant. And then God says, okay, get up, Joshua, get up. Why do you lie thus on your face? In other words, the time of mourning is over. I see your repentant heart. I see your brokenness. Now get up, kind of like stop crying and do something about it. And A.W. Tozer was very famous for this. He would say at conferences and speaking to men as well, he'd say, don't come up here and cry about it. Go home and live it out. Let that sink in. I remember when I first read that in his book, I just highlighted and put it down and said, oh my Lord, that is so true. Because here's what happens. When that type of position on the ground at the altar, that lowly position, if it goes too long, it becomes whining. It becomes a victim mentality. You can think about this. Why are you, your wife, why are you always, get up and do something, lead the family now. And so this initially, this brokenness, this pain in it, it leads us to a posture of repentance. If we stay there, it's gonna turn into guilt. It's gonna turn into shame. It's gonna turn into whining and complaining. And oh, whoa, whoa, it's me and I can't believe this. And see, that's why if we're not careful, we have to get up and now make a difference. Because the word repentance, the Hebrew word, the Greek word for repentance is very clear. It's not only a changing of mind, it actually leads to a changing of direction, a changing of action. You can change your mind but not change your action. And then you're hearers of the word and not doers and you live in deception. So when somebody is, and we watch for this, I can't even tell you how many times in the prayer room here over the years, people have said the right things, repentance, but there wasn't fruit. Oh, I'm so sorry, oh, I gotta work on that. Boy, you really hit me, pastor, at that message. Oh my goodness, okay. Talked to their wife a week later, nothing's changed. See, you can be sorry but not repentant. And many men are sorry when they're caught. That's not repentant because, oh, my reputation. That's embarrassing, I am so sorry. No, you're not, you're embarrassed that you got caught. I can't tell you how many over the years, I don't do it as much because the time is so limited now, but when I was able to meet with men going through separation and divorce, not in all cases but a lot of times, a lot of times, boy, there would be tears. They could not believe it. And then if you just let somebody talk enough, right? You sit and you listen for a while. Whether it's me, I'm kind of a words guy, I can see. People begin to reveal their heart to me and to just, I have discernment that way, I believe. Looking for key words and they would often say, things like, this divorce is gonna cost me so much. Not this divorce is gonna cost my kids so much. And they would tell me to the dollar what alimony is gonna cost. Remember a fireman, he said, Shane, I can't let this get to my workplace. I'm a captain or I'm a whatever. Reputation, that's not repentance. How it's gonna hurt me financially. How it's gonna hurt in this area. Repentance says, repentance is actually all about fixing the problem and there's a cost to you. I broke this, I'm repenting, I'm gonna fix it. It's not guarding self, guarding income. Most people are upset, men are upset when they get caught or they'll confront something, say it's about pornography. Oh, I'm so sorry. No, they're embarrassed. They're embarrassed because they got caught at work. But so many over the years, Pastor Abram would probably attest to this as well. But let's say for example, you have it to wear pornography and sometimes the wife is ready to leave. I mean, it's that bad. And so what is causing this? Can you get a flip phone for a while? Get rid of your iPhone to show how much you trust and want this to work? Dude, I can't do that. Can you just take computer off for a month and just devote yourself to your wife and to God's word? No. Well, wait a minute, hold on. Why are you crying but you don't wanna make the changes? Because I got caught and it's embarrassing. So be careful, tears are not always a mark of repentance. Actions, genuine actions. And the word is restoring what was taken or repairing what was damaged. That's what repentance does. I damaged this, now I'm going to repair it. I broke this, now I'm going to restore it. I hurt these people, now I'm gonna build them back up. So repentance actually comes with a cost to me, to you. And many of you know, many of you are in a great spot. You have repented and you're rebuilding your family, amen? You're being the father again to your children, amen? I've been there too. I can, I'm just as susceptible as anyone else to get drifting off of course. And so he says, get up Joshua and now deal with the sin. Israel has sinned. Israel has sinned. And they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. I told you don't take of the accursed things. And they have taken some of those things and they've deceived the people and they have hid it in their own stuff. Boy, boy, that's, that can, I could stay there a little while too about how we hide sin. And we think, well, I haven't got caught in a while. I haven't got caught in a while, so I'm good. We hide the sin and eventually God, it'll be brought to the surface. And I encourage guys all the time, listen, at least bring it to the light with God. If you're not sure what your spouse will do with it, bring it to light with God. Bring it to maybe a brother in Christ. Bring it to the light so it loses its power. Sin's power is in its, when it's unconfessed. Because now we give it strength to exist and live in our lives and grow. That's why they say unconfessed versus confessed sin. Saying I have to own this. I repent of this. And so he says, get up, now deal with the sin. And what is clear here is that faith fights. Genuine faith fights. You will fight as a man of God. Get over it. You will be a fighter. I don't like that. I don't either, but it is what it is. Think of Braveheart. That's you right now in this culture. Faith will fight. First Corinthians 16, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like Bambi. Act like a bunny rabbit. Act like a coward. Be watchful, so discerning, you're watchful. You're watching your home, your marriage, your church activity. You're watching your spiritual health of your family. Stand firm in the faith and act like men and be strong. See, there's a point now, and that's what I wanted to encourage you with, that you have to wake up. Get up. Okay, you've been complaining, you've been crying, you've been in a state of difficulties. I got it, but there comes a point when you say, okay, Lord, enough is enough. The enemy is pushing me down. The enemy is hurting my family. The enemy is harming me, and enough is enough. I'm gonna stand up, and I'm by the grace of God, I'm gonna step out in faith. Because here's the thing that really impacted me this week is that Achan's sin affected his whole family, his whole family, his little ones, his livestock. They were stoned to death because of the sins of the father. And we have to own that and say, God, if God has called us to lead, God has called us to lead, we have to own that our choices will affect those underneath our leadership. I'm well aware of that as a church, well aware of that as a church, that my choices will affect the spiritual health of the church, and our families as well. Our choices will affect the spiritual health of our church. That's why I talk about being men of prayer, men of worship, men of obedience, men of holiness, because those decisions, that spiritual health will flow into those we are leading. Isaiah 51, awake, awake. Isaiah 52, awake, awake. Put on your strength. First Corinthians, awake to righteousness and sin not. See, there's an awakening that has to happen within men. Something deep down inside of us must say, I was born to fight. I have been called for such a time as this. Enemy, you have got your foot on my neck, but I'm about ready to do a flip and turn you back on this side. And by the grace of God, I'm gonna get back up and fight again. See, you have to strengthen yourself in the Lord. Sometimes I have to come up here and preach when I don't even feel like it. I don't even wanna be here, but I said, God, I've gotta step out and be faithful because your word is so powerful that we step out in faith and just proclaiming your word, even though I don't feel sometimes when I'm preaching, God's word is so powerful that it'll hit right to the heart. If you get a chance, if you get a chance, listen to the message I gave Wednesday night. It was the hardest one I've given in a long time. I could feel the pressure of God. I texted my wife, I said, this stinks, I'm leaving when it's over, because God, the pressure of God was on me. I was trying to clean it up and make it nice and neat, and I just had to just let it out. It was difficult. I didn't enjoy one minute. I didn't even like the worship. Because if you've ever carried the burden of the Lord, and you know, God wants me to do this, and this is gonna be hard. And that burden you carry until it's released. And then I start getting text messages from a pastor in Los Angeles. That service just wrecked me. We're redoing our church. Another group in Canada, shame, that just wrecked me and my wife. We've gotta make some changes. This one kind of, this one broke my heart in a good way. Dad, let me just tell you, tonight was amazing. God moved in my heart like never before. It hit me deep. Ministry has become an idol, a platform because my focus is not on God, and I was designing my own calling. These things seemed good and worthy of God's blessing, but they were far, far from worthy. Ministry was becoming idolatry. So one of the hardest messages I've given, not feeling it, letting God's word just speak to people. When ministry becomes idolatry. And those of you in ministry, all of us can relate because we get caught up. You know, the worship leaders see those big mega churches. We see Maverick City and Hillsong Elevation. Oh, if I could just be there. Let me tell you, some of those bands are not going in a good direction. They're not healthy spiritually. It's vain glory in the pursuit of men. They love to hear, they love to lead the crowd, the Babylonian crowd, but they won't reach out to the blind beggar. What about pastors? Right, we see, whoa, man, look at that. I remember a couple of months ago, Jack Hibbs texted me, he said, hey, we're gonna have to go to another service now on Sundays. 10,000 people are here. I'm like, whoa, that must be arriving, right? That must, that covet, that, and then I realized, no, it's faithfulness. And I'm happy, I'm very content because new levels bring new devils. We got enough going on as it is, right? 10,000, oh my goodness. But covet, or you know, you're head of a men's ministry or ush, or, oh, if I could just get there, if I could just have that platform. Shane, could I have this? If I could just, and the more God breaks you, the more you realize it's just faithfulness. It's dying to self, there's no glorified position. There are pastors right now that I could name that you would know my age that are going off the deep end because of pride. They've got tens of thousands of followers on Facebook and they're picked up by the media, but I know what's going on the back end. And people have encouraged me, Shane, you should reach out to them. I, yeah, they're not gonna listen. But see, we see that in all of us. The potential's there, the idolatry's there. How many of you led, have led any type of ministry? Any hands or helping? It's quite a bit. You get more excited if 1,000 are gonna be there or 10? Numbers, numbers, numbers. Now, numbers can show spiritual health, but I knew, thank God I knew this week with so many, I've never seen anything like it before, so many people out, I knew the attendance was gonna go from 150 to probably what it is today and I was excited. I was genuinely excited because there's men this morning that need to be touched by God's presence and that's why we're here. Isn't that why we're here? Rick put in tremendous effort, Phil De La Tova, I mean, you guys, Levi back there, Joe, I mean, you guys, I mean, I just wanna come along and help. And people even mentioned, I don't know who it was, a couple people texted me, why don't we just counsel it all together? I'm like, no, there's people. I think I told you, there's people coming who need to be encouraged. We're going for the 10 people, the 20, the 30, 60, I don't know how many, we're going for that Jesus. I believe personally, he doesn't say it exactly, but he believed, he said, I must, actually the King James is interesting, I must need go to Samaria. I have to go to Samaria. There's gonna be a woman at the well who I need to minister to and she's gonna go back and testify to me. It's probably the beginning of him revealing himself as the Messiah. He stopped this whole journey to go and meet with that one woman. And when you get your heart like that, you are on fire for God. Depression can't pull you down. Anxiety can't sidetrack you because a lot of that comes from I'm not getting my way. Where is the crowd? Where's the ministry? Where's the accolades? When you say dying to self, he must increase, but I must decrease and truly mean it, not just say it, truly mean it. God will work behind the scenes. God will so fill you with the spirit that there is a joy of the Lord is your strength. You don't care if there's 12 people or 1,200. Listen, I've spoken to events are 6,000 people. And it doesn't matter because God's not in the numbers. He's in nearness to him. And he's got to get us to that spot of brokenness. But so important for you guys to know that. I was, I'm genuinely excited knowing the turnout is gonna be minimal. Just why even have it? Well, because there's one or two or three or four that you're gonna need to hear what Damien has to say. You're gonna have a life transforming experience at this altar if we pray for you. That's why we're here. And I've seen actually, this is amazing. I've seen God move more in settings like this than the big venues. I spoke at a mega church. I'm not gonna name the names. But they say, okay, Shane, you got exactly, right now you're down about 30 minutes. And here's a timer right there. I don't not like this. There's a timer right there. So once it hits 30, you're done. Okay, where's the worship team? Can I go to worship? No, you can't go to worship. It's too hard to get to the pulpit, go back in the green room. Didn't even have a chance to meet the worship team. They had everything dialed into the minute. And I just left there going, well, that was great. I don't know if anybody was touched. There's no time to enter in God's presence. There's no time to seek him. There's no time to open up the altar. There's no time for prayer. It's get them in, get them out. And so I feel right now, I feel the power and presence of God just as much as that place. Because it's not in numbers. Matthias, I hope I can say this, right? A lot of people don't know, but where do you play violin now and then? Once a month? Oh yeah, at another location. At another location. We'll leave it there. A big, a big location. Thousands of people in attendance. And yet he'll still come and volunteer his time here with the violin. And that's why I believe the worship sounds so sweet with the worship team that we have here, is the hearts are right. I can tell you, I know a lot of worship leaders, and so do you guys. And you know, and pastors, all of us, that spirit of self-exaltation and pride. And we have so many people here that are really here just to serve God, just to serve God. I told, I don't know why there's so many rabbit trails, but hopefully this will help. But I told Brant, I said, when we do rend the heavens, rend the heavens, I'm gonna take Monday night, it's probably gonna be 50 people, not 250 people. Thursday night, 360, right? And again, numbers aren't, but it's interesting to see the hunger of God, those hungry for God and where God's moving. Often numbers follow. So there's nothing wrong with the numbers as long as your focus is not on the numbers. Like we didn't, Brant didn't say, oh, there's only 50, let me get somebody else to do it. Or, you know, he wanted to be there three nights a week and others wanted to come in. It wasn't, so it's just wonderful to see that. And I wanna encourage you, if you get focused on, Lord, what do you want me to do? Remove my agenda, my goals. Many men are miserable because their financial goals are not being met. They're not retiring when they thought they would retire. All these plans that they had are not working out and they get miserable. It reminds me of King Ahab who cried to his wife, Jezebel. Oh, I have everything, but I want that vineyard right there. This man won't sell me his vineyard. Jezebel went behind the scenes and was very sneaky and had the man killed. And here's your vineyard, crybaby. So let's pick up verse 12 and I'll be done. Therefore, the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies because they had become doomed to destruction. God said, neither will I be with you anymore unless you destroy the accursed from among you. The importance of presence. What I mean by that is the importance of God's presence. Neither will I be with you anymore. Wait a minute, isn't God everywhere? We've talked about this before. His omnipresence, He's everywhere. He's not just up in heaven looking down, the presence of God, the power. But there's something different when the atmosphere changes, which what they will call the manifest presence of God, the glory of God, the Shekinah glory of God. That's where that word comes from, the Shekinah glory of God. When the presence of God is there, the people shake in His presence, lives are healed, things are being restored in the presence of God. So God says, I'm not gonna be with you anymore with my power, my presence, my anointing, my blessing, unless you destroy the sin that is in your camp. Now, I don't know if that's for anyone, take it to the Lord, but that could be very relevant to where some of you are at and the depression you're dealing with, the fatigue, it seems like God's not moving. Could it be? Could it be there's sin in the camp, unconfessed sin? Not always, sometimes it's a spiritual attack. Spurgeon dealt with depression big time with a spiritual attack. And sometimes it's chemical imbalances, I've talked about that before, and what we consume, what we take. And sometimes though it is a result of sin, I would start there. The importance of the presence of God, Ezekiel 7, 13, this is so, this verse I memorized 20 years ago, and it comes back to memory often. No one will strengthen himself, who what? Lives in iniquity. In other words, you're not gonna be able to strengthen yourself in the Lord or get back up and fight again or have victory in God's name and be able to go out and do things. No one strengthens himself yet lives in iniquity. So if you're practicing sin, if there's besetting sin, and it's interesting, anytime I talk about this, the emails would blow your mind. People, I found you on YouTube, I've never heard things like that in the church before. I'm like, what are you talking about? Well, no, they don't mention sin, they don't mention repentance, they don't mention the blood of Christ or the judgment of God. They don't mention any of that stuff. It's not good to the, tickling the ear. But see, that's where the breakthrough comes. The breakthrough comes when we are real about the human nature of sin. So he said here, get rid of the accursed thing, get rid of the sin. You will not be able to strengthen yourself if you're living in iniquity. Have you ever done that? Like, I'm gonna strengthen myself, I'm gonna go to church, I'm gonna get into the word, I'm gonna try, I'm, oh, Lord, this isn't working, what's going on? Deal with the sin, get rid of it, repent, get rid of that. You can't bring that with you. You won't strengthen yourself when you know that there's besetting sin that you're holding onto. And again, what follows is very disheartening. His whole family paid the price. His whole family paid the price, the sin of Achan. Joshua had to make a hard decision and he took Achan. And why the whole family was involved is a thought for another time. But even his cattle, his livestock, there's some Old Testament things there to this, and getting rid of the sin of everything. The father affects the sin, the guilt of the father's passed down to the children. And at that time, Ezekiel, God kinda seems to change on that, saying, I will no longer pass on the sins of the father. And that's that whole scripture on the fathers eat sour grapes but the kids' teeth are on edge. It's no longer going to do that. Each one will pay for the sins of his own heart. But at this point, Achan's whole family was stoned. Can you imagine picking up stones? They went little rocks. Sometimes you'd have, it was like, and people would be like there and they're stoning them. They're stoning this whole, because of the sin of the father and they had to deal with this sin. Now the Lord said to Joshua, now the sin has been dealt with. It's been cleansed. It's been removed from the heart of the people. Now, because of this, Joshua, now. See, there's a word some of you need to hear. Now, once you get rid of that, once you deal with it, once you get refreshed, it's as if God is saying, now I say to you, do not be afraid, nor be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you. Rise up and now go to battle. Now go against Ai. Now you will defeat them. Instead of them defeating you, now my power and presence is going to with you and you will defeat them. You reestablish victory. Reestablishing victory. You've got to get back. See, we think that I've fallen. Now I'm a failure. No, you fall because it's part of our fallen nature. Get back up and fight again. Yes, you fell. Although a good man will fall, the Lord will uphold him by his hand. See, it's not the fall that hurts you. You've heard that, now it hurts. Don't get me wrong. But it's staying down in that defeated position. So many men stay in that defeated position. But you've got to get back and say, okay, enemy, you got me with the right hook, Mike Tyson. You got me. But now I'm getting up and I'm fighting again. That's why there is a call to anguish, a call to desperation. Joshua was the worshiping warrior. He was a worshiper and a warrior. You have to have both of those. And I'll close with this thought. We often hear this in church. Men, you've got to lead your families. Okay, we know that. Now there's a lot to that word. I would take a whole sermon. But it's interesting, as I was doing a word study, this word lead can also mean a route of access. In other words, open that door, it leads to the back. So you men, we are actually a point of access for our family. Let me lead you to the Savior. Let me lead you to obedience to God's word. Let me show us the way out. Let me take control and authority in the situation and pray for my family. Let us get access to the Father again. But we don't want to. We sit at home, we let the wives go to Bible study. When God says no, you've got to reverse the order of the headship. You lead and you access that point of access to the Father. It also means to organize and direct. You organize your family. You direct them. And then the woman is supposed to respect. Now, what's interesting, another definition for that word is not to interfere. So as you're directing, as you're opening the access to God through the word, through worship, through these things, you're leading. She then wants to step back and not interfere with your leadership. It's respecting your direction. And many times you say, she does not respect me. Are you leading? Are you loving her as Christ loved the church? Now, there are challenging women, I got it, and personalities, right? Not everyone's little house on the prairie. There's some fighters, there's some contentious in this, and men are hard and women are hard. It's part of our sinful nature. But ultimately, the man leads and says, this is the route of access, and then she doesn't interfere and respect that decision. That's the flow of God, but we've got to give them something to respect. And that's why I talk about prayer often. Men, you've got to become men of prayer. John Bunyan said this, 12 years in prison for the truth. The truth that I know now and that I know best, I have learned on my knees. I never know a thing well until it is burned in my heart by prayer. Did you know that your worship, I think, I don't remember who said this. Worship changes the worshiper into the image of the one being worshiped. The worshiper, you, you are changed into the image of the one you worship. What you worship, you turn into that image. What happened in Texas this last week at that concert? 50,000 people, and that guy had a tunnel on there. See you on the, see you at the other side. And that demonic presence was so thick, they were worshiping that, and that you look like what you worship. Men who worship entertainment, worship sports, they become what they worship. They become that image, because what we worship is who we are. And so remember that, worship changes you into the image of the one you're worshiping. Begin to worship God like never before. And I've been talking about revival a lot, personal revival, of course. Spurgeon said this, if we want revival, we must revive our reverence for the word of God. There must be a revival of reverence, of respect for the word of God. So with that all as the backdrop, a couple things. I'm gonna have Damian come up and share his testimony briefly, it's amazing. Psalm 66, 16 says, come and hear all that fear God, and I will declare what he has done for my soul. I was asked last night to share my testimony. And when you're asked, you have to believe it's for the purpose of God, for his glory, and for maybe that's somebody here today. So let me just go back eight years, and I decided to take on this thing called Christianity. I attended a church down in the slanted clear valley. I had a rockstar atmosphere, lights, smoke, the whole thing. But there was no fear of God there. There was no repentance, and there was no conviction. It wasn't until I fast forwarded four years from that point, we decided to get Westside Christian and try. And that's where conviction and repentance really set into my life. Since I was 12 years old, I was battling with alcohol. It took my mom's life at age 38, took my brother at 39. And there was a point in my life I didn't think I was gonna make it to 40, but by the grace of God, I did. Three years ago, Labor Day weekend, I was being myself, and I let alcohol take me to that point of I didn't wanna live anymore. I don't know how much I drank that day, but I was well beyond my means and well beyond any thinking. And I was literally this far from death. Because in all my pride, I started an argument with my wife. She took the girls, and she went to her folks. And so I was left by myself, the king on his throne. And that night, it began to take me to places that I'll never go again. And I ended up at the foot of my bed with a loaded shotgun. And my thumb was sitting this far from the trigger. And everything in my mind was telling me to do it, because there was nothing in this life that was good. I was no good for my kids. I was no good for my wife. They're better off without me. And that's when I came to the end of myself. Then I cried out, God, help me. I can't do this on my own. Take this from me. And that's when everything went dark. And I woke up the next morning. Thank God I woke up the next morning. And God did what he can do. When you surrender your heart, and you give whatever you're fighting with to him, he will take it from you. He took any desire, any thought of wanting to ever touch alcohol again away. Just like that. Just like that. Praise God. The other half of the coin was during all this time, my wife was obviously dealing with this issue that I had, this struggle, this bondage that I was stuck in. And it would cause a lot of arguments at times. But she got to the point where she wasn't gonna, she couldn't battle this anymore. So, and my thought was, okay, she's finally given in. I'm gonna do what I want. She gave it over to God. And she went home to her parents that night and she prayed. She prayed like she'd never prayed before because she knew that she couldn't get me out of this bondage, that it was only God that could do it. God is good, guys. If you want him to work in your life, fully surrender. Fully surrender yourselves to him and to his ways. And he will do it. Because his hand will come down from on high and he will pull you out of that water. He will pull you out of that mire. He's in the fire with us. He's with us. He's just waiting for you to come to the end of yourself and give your life to him. So I'm just asking anybody that's here today, if you're struggling with anything, come forward, brothers. Come forward right here. Let us lay hands on you. Let's pray for you.