Shane Idleman emphasizes that the Lord will hear our cries, whether we are believers or not, and encourages the church to respond to the current public health crisis with love and wisdom rather than rebellion. He discusses the importance of prioritizing God in our lives, especially during stressful times, and warns against the influence of ungodly counsel from the media. Idleman highlights the need for desperation in seeking God, the importance of repentance, and the assurance that God hears our prayers. He calls for a return to the foundational truths of the Bible, urging the church to be a beacon of hope and repentance in a troubled nation.

The reason I want to do this is I was in the book of Psalms for many months and I was going to continue it, but of course a lot of different things happened, so I just want to kind of share with you what God's putting on my heart through the book of Psalms. As you know, it's an incredible encouragement to those who need encouragement. And the title, it's going to be a brief message. I don't want to keep you late on Wednesday. We've got a lot of people watching on the East Coast as well. It's eight o'clock there, five o'clock our time. The title, when I get to it, is The Lord Will Hear Your Cry. The Lord will hear your cry. As a believer or a person who doesn't know God, when you cry out to him, he will hear that cry and you can take that to the bank. But I want to talk about a few things that have been coming in from our local church body, from our national ministry emails and asking if I can answer. I can't answer all the questions, but we do want to look at some of these. I'm being asked, what is my view on some of the pastors who are being defiant in light of what's going on and still opening their churches? I know there's a pastor who got arrested. A friend of mine knows him and I want to be cordial. I want to be graceful. But I don't view this as a First Amendment right at this particular junction. Here's why. Number one, this is a public health emergency. So as a society, we are called to take certain steps to try to curb the infection rate and to minimize death, minimize people getting sick. So I think as a church that's loving your neighbor, you can take those steps, the six feet and the mask and staying at home. We should be setting an example of that. So I don't think this is a First Amendment right right now, because here's number two. This hopefully is short term. We're looking, I know the president said 30 days. It could go a little bit longer here in California and other states, but this is a short term decision that churches are making to comply with the government and help get this under control. It's not like this administration under the president is against churches and wanting to silence the church. Actually, the president wants to get the voice of the church out there. So you see all these dynamics working together and I don't think this is the time to be rebelling against the government orders. Not only that, it sends at number three, I think here at number four, it damages our witness. It damages our witness. It does not send a good message when the churches have a renegade spirit of rebellion and we're sending the wrong message across the landscape. Now I will say this, I don't necessarily say those pastors have that type of rebellion, but I think our faith can get really close to foolishness if we're not careful. I can be this really strong about faith but make some foolish decisions because I'm not taking, I'm not considering others. Also, we can still gather together online. Some groups, families are meeting and praying at their own home and different things. So it's not like the voice of the church has been completely silent. Maybe it'll get to that in the future. I don't know. But I say right now, I don't view this as a first amendment right where pastors are going to be rebellious and still have church. That does not resonate with me whatsoever. Number two, I look at those counseling President Trump spiritually. You've got James Robinson. You've got Pastor Jack Graham. You have Stephen Strang from Charisma. You have Jack Hibbs, Jim Garlow. I know all five of those men and I try to talk to them on a monthly basis if I can. All of those people are saying the same thing. So when you have godly counsel saying that the churches need to abide and respect that decision for now, I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. So again, that's why I don't agree with churches being defiant in this area. It does not send the right message whatsoever. We send a good message when we protect our neighbor and when we get our message out online. And then when we come back, we come back powerful. And I believe we're going to come back. I believe God is using this as a season, a season of pruning. And people are asking, Shane, how long is this going to take? What are your thoughts? Of course, no one knows, but the sooner we repent as a nation, the sooner the church repents, the sooner you see broken people, humble people crying out to God. I believe you'll see that plague being lifted even more. It's almost like, you know, we're fearful, but not yet humbled. We're anxious, but we still have our savings account. We haven't been through the furnace of affliction yet, and I'm crying out to God even now. Also, some questions came in, mainly from those reading too much media. Don't look at the media a lot right now. The death rate, they say, could reach a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, and it could. I'm not denying that, but also I checked some medical websites, and the majority of them warning, they're warning against making predictions. They said there are too many uncertainties. It's almost impossible to draw firm conclusions. So, I'm also on my Facebook page. If you're on my Facebook page, the church Facebook page, and I posted a video underneath this live feed that you can show. Todd Starnes with Fox News, a person I've been on a show a few different times. We email back and forth now and then. He took some video of supposedly chaos breaking out in New York at a hospital, and there was no one hardly there. Other videos of hospitals and places where they used a picture that was in Italy, they tried to make that hospital appear as it was in New York, and there's a lot of trickery going on by the media right now. So, you have to be very careful who you listen to. Now, is there some issues in hospitals? Absolutely. Is there a shortage? Absolutely. Are nurses and doctors putting their lives on the line? Technically, absolutely. There is a crisis. It's a pandemic, but there's a difference when the media is not biased, unbiased, and they are showing the facts versus using this, using the fear to draw people away from, whether it's the president, whether they want to crush the economy. We don't really know, but we know, we do know this, that the media, the mainstream media, many cases is not being straightforward. So, how do we know the death rate, mortality numbers? How do we know that this is, I mean, that's the world we live in right now. That's why they call it the fake news. So, my thought is be careful, use wisdom, you know, learn a little bit, but turn it off, spend time with your family, spend time with God, and we need to not be feeding ourselves on so much of this. Now, I'm preaching to myself right now because I have to go on and do a lot of research. I don't just take a video and say, oh, look what's happening. I research it and the mortality rate and different things, and even that, it feels like it's too much. So, those are some of the things I want to cover with our local church, and you also, they've been emailing us, and I did want to let people know that this is a very stressful time. I can't think of a more stressful time for me as far as dealing with church issues, budgeting issues, personnel issues, employees, wanting to keep, you know, staff, and also then dealing with the calls that come in, people we know with the coronavirus, people in the hospital, people, you know, it just, it's a very, and then, of course, you're in your house with kids, and you can't go anywhere, and if you do go somewhere, people look at you weird because you're not wearing a mask, or you buy too many groceries, but you have seven people you're feeding, and it's just a very, every place you go is stressful. You can feel it, you can cut the tension in the air, nurses being taxed and burdened, and doctors, and then you have those who just found out that they might not be going back to work, and then you have some businesses who are not going to make it very long, and you have churches that, you know, can't stay shut down forever, so there's just a lot of pressure, but it's a wonderful opportunity to look to God, and I want to encourage you to tune in Sunday. I'm actually talking about that first verse in the book of James. Call it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your patients, or testing of your, of your, all these tests develop your patience, and patience will complete its perfect work in you. Sorry, I know I butchered that. I didn't write it down, so tune in for that Sunday, but the Lord will hear your cry. I wanted to just encourage you this evening. The Lord will hear your cry. I was in the first nine chapters of the book of Psalms, and then a lot of things happened. I took a sabbatical. Oh, this is a funny thing. I was mean to tell you on Sunday, but I might tell you now. I was going, I took a quick sabbatical, didn't even get halfway through, and I was reading some books and websites, and they all said, now when you get off your sabbatical, make sure you don't go right back into work. You got to kind of, you know, just, you can't go from 100 miles, zero to 100 miles an hour, and I went from sabbatical to COVID-19 within one day, flying into Texas, and then having to fly home, and it was a very stressful time, but I wasn't able to finish the book of Psalms. It could take a while. I don't know how long I'm going to do this. I just know I have something in my heart today, but I want to just, before I go into the next Psalm, I want to recap what we talked about a few months ago, and chapters one through nine. I'm just going to pull out a few key things. Very first thing out of Psalm, blessed is the man, or you could say woman. The word man here is talking about mankind, a person. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, and that's what I just said about the media, and where we're getting our information from, and listening. Here's what happens. The media or ungodly counsel will begin to speak into your heart, into your mind. You're reading things, watching things you shouldn't be doing, and that ungodly counsel begins to influence you, and as it begins to influence you, you remove yourself from that shelter of blessing and covering that God wants you to stay in, and also blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, means he's not a gossip. He's not somebody backbiting and hurting. He doesn't sit in the path of sin. He's not going and encouraging sin, but what does he do? What does he do? Blessed is the man who does these things and who meditates on Netflix. Nope. Meditates on voodoo. Nope. Meditates on the word of God, and that's why I just finished Psalms last month. I'm going to be back in Psalms because during the season, I've got to be feeding my spirit. You have to learn how to encourage yourself in the faith and not rely on somebody or some person. Also, I want to talk about this. I know I talked about the media, but also influence right now. You're going to be seeing a lot of things coming out. Well, they've already been coming out. I've known about a few of these for at least the last year on conspiracy-type theories, and I'm not going to mention names. I don't want to give them any more credit, but you know if you're watching what they are and if you watch them, some of these conspiracy theories just have one letter in the alphabet. I'll leave it there. I don't know. There's a lot of truth behind these things. There's a lot of corruption in our government from the pedophiles and from Weinstein and Epstein. I mean, it's just amazing how much is going on, and there's a lot to it, but what I'm finding is those who get caught up in this and they watch it all the time. They're looking for these signs, and they're looking for this. They begin to foster fear in their own heart and the fear in their family. So my thought is this. Is it building you up spiritually? Is it edifying? Put it through the Philippians funnel. The Philippians funnel, I believe it's chapter four, where finally brethren, whatever things are pure and honest and noble and upright, meditate on these things. So when you watch these videos, big brothers against you, one world government, the Illuminati, and all these things, and look at these signs. Just be careful. Be careful because a lot of that I think you'll find shortly. Let's see what happens in April. But I think a lot of those things, you're finding that the enemy is also using that to distract you from your main purpose of serving God with all your heart, with all your soul, because you're so fearful. I mean, that's what it does in me. It creates this fear and anxiety. Plus, you know who's still on the throne. You know who's still in control. Why do we watch these things and act like the world's falling apart and they're coming to get us when you have to turn your heart over to God and God alone, and let him fill you with his spirit. That's actually who we should be really fearing. Fear God. Fear God. So what we find here, the first lesson from Psalms is the influence. Be very careful who is influencing you because also who's influencing you is also influencing your children. So we've devoted some time in our family, and we're promoting this locally at the church, to make a point to get through God's Word during the season. Whether we're in this for a month or whatever, begin to read God's Word every day. Talk about what you learned and begin to allow that to influence you. And if you pull off of the media for a season, and then you'll notice that you'll start to experience a lot of peace and a lot of joy because you're being conformed to what God's Word says. But then as I was reading through Psalm and recapping, I saw something that we don't have yet. I'm hoping we're getting there, but there's a desperation in the voice of the psalmist. There's a desperation. There's the blessing of brokenness, and I wish I could teach on that for the whole sermon. The blessing of brokenness. There's something about being broken before God and humble before God and desperate, because desperate people do desperate things in a good way. When they're desperate for food, when you're desperate for water, when you're desperate for shelter, but when you're desperate for God, oh, what a blessing that is. He said in chapter three, I believe it was, I cried to the Lord with my voice, and He heard me from His holy heel. Arise, O Lord. Arise, O Lord. Defeat my enemies. You are my only strength. My eyes were like rivers of water, and You uphold me. You put me back up on the pedestal. You saw me through. You are the righteous one, O Holy God, and He began to cry out in desperation, and He said that I cried to the Lord with my voice, and He heard me from His holy heel. See, there's a call. There's a cry. Some of you will remember I talked about this, those of you who go to West Side Christian Fellowship, is when you hear that cry of your child, you know, there's a little whimper out back, and it's like, okay, well, but when you hear that cry, that cry of desperation, Daddy, Daddy, help me. Mommy, Mommy, help me, help me, help me. There's that desperation. You get up, you go out, and you take down that enemy or whatever it is, and you lift that child up, and you begin to help that child. Why? Because there's a desperation, and God wants to hear that desperation in our hearts. I truly believe that God does ask the question, how bad do you want it? How bad do you want it, America? Do you want it bad enough to turn off the TV and seek me again with all of your heart? Do you want it bad enough to restructure your church so that the prayer meeting is the priority? How bad do you want it, America? There's a desperation, a holy indignation for what is taking place, and that drives us to our knees, a desperation for our children and our grandchildren, and out of that desperation, you begin to really seek God with all your heart, with all your strength, and the psalmist was clear in this area. I mean, there's a difference, and a five-minute prayer is fine, a quick little devotional before you go to bed, it's wonderful, but there has to be a desperation, and that word to be desperate is nothing else is going to matter. In other words, God, I'm so desperate for you, you're now going to become the priority, you're now going to become the focal point of my life, okay? If I lose my job, see, most people wouldn't, you wouldn't be so stressed out and have so much fear and anxiety and worry if you looked at this way, Lord, even if I lose my job, if I have no income, you will provide for me, but I'm desperate, I'm so desperate for you that you're the priority, and then that leads me to the next point, the priority we see in the voice of the psalmist, my voice you shall hear in the morning, my voice you shall hear in the morning, there's a priority that has to take place, what are you doing in your mornings? I've talked about this last week, but many of us wake up and we look at the news, we look at the death rate, we look at the mortality rate, we look at all these things, and there's not a priority, and the psalmist would cry out, my voice you shall hear in the morning, my voice you should hear in the morning, other writers in the Bible, they would say in the morning hour, they would say in the watch, the morning watch, Jesus would get up early in the morning, why? Here's what, because when you get up, your mind will go to that which is your priority, what do you gravitate towards the most, and there's a priority, so as we're being influenced the right way, as there's a desperate call going out from our heart, then God becomes the priority, and he's put again back on the front burner, we don't say, we don't, we say God, I don't care what happens to the finances, what happens to this in my house, or in my job, we begin to say, I want you and nothing but you, and he becomes the priority, and then through those chapters, there is the reward, the reward, the psalmist said, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping, the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping and crying, so that, there's a reward, you need to know that, kids, if you're watching, watching parents, if you're watching, we serve a God, if you know him, if you have a relationship with him, you have to make sure you don't have religion, religion is just going through motions, if you, if you belong, here's, here, let me just give you a test, this is often, often, off the sermon notes, if you're trusting in your baptism, let's say you're baptized when you're a young boy, or you're baptized, or what, young girl, or well, I was baptized, or if you're trusting in a certain religious system, well, I belong to this organization, I belong to this church, I belong to, you name it, if you do that, then you have religion, or if you say, but I'm a pretty good person, I'm a good person, I do good things, I'm not an evil person, I belong to this, I was baptized here, and see, it's all these rules, or all these regulations, and we have to go to confessional, we have to go through this, we have to get, even the Pope, I told you Sunday, just declared, hey, because of coronavirus, you can just go directly to God through Jesus Christ, I want to say, I could have told you that 2,000 years ago, that's what the Bible teaches, you don't have to go through man, so if you're trusting in a religious system, you need to repent of that this evening, and say, God, I repent, I want to have a relationship with you, not religion, and that's the reward, the reward, the Lord has heard my weeping, so if you are a child of God, God will hear your prayers, doesn't mean he answers right away, I've learned this lesson the hard way, God hears my prayers, and he says, Shane, I heard you, just wait, just wait, I want it now, Lord, we need answers now, just wait, and it's that waiting time that your strength is rebuilt, now also, though, if you don't know God, the reward, God will hear that cry, there, I believe that when a person is in not right relationship with God, he doesn't know God, the only prayer that God is really bound to answer in his word, is the prayer that says, God, save me, a sinner, so when a person cries out to God, God will hear their prayer, and let me tell you this, if you're going through tremendous anxiety, you don't know what's going on next week, welcome to the club, by the way, and you're just like, Lord, I don't know, he will give you peace that surpasses all understanding, as you cry out to him, make him the priority, now, that peace will come in, but then here comes the fear later on, too, it's a battle, let me tell you, this, A.W. Tozer said, life is a battleground, not a playground, and I didn't know what he meant 20 years ago, when I first came back to the Lord and read his book, but I know now, life is a battleground, every day, you are battling against the fruitful works of darkness, we need to expose those fruitful works of darkness, but here's the good news, then we do have the assurance, I could take you so many scriptures between Psalm 1 and Psalm chapter 9, the psalmist says, I will both lie down in peace and sleep, now, he was going through a tremendous difficulty, he had rivers of water, he'd say, if my eyes were rivers, they would be crying out, it reminded me of Jeremiah, in the book of Lamentation, I wouldn't recommend reading Lamentation right now, because he's lamenting, Lamentation's lamenting over the fall of Jerusalem, and as a prophet, he was caught in the middle, and he had to suffer with the people, but there was hope, even in Lamentations, and I might get to that on Sunday, but the psalmist said, I will lie down in peace, and I will go to sleep, for you alone, oh Lord, make me dwell in safety, see, you can lay down in peace, ultimately, our president is not in control, did you know that? China cannot do anything more than God says, God allows, Russia has no power, Iran has no power, these enemies are not a threat, compared to God Almighty, He holds the kings in the palm of His hand, the Bible says, He raises one king up, and He pulls another king down, that is God Almighty, and that's the God we need to serve, we need to get our hearts back to that assurance, and the psalmist prayed, the Lord will be my refuge for the oppressed, He's a refuge in times of trouble, for you Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you, God, if you seek Him, you will find Him, yes, it might mean we get sick, it might mean you lose your job, it might mean things are, chaos breaks out, but if you seek Him, you will find Him, and when you find God, that's all you need, so we see the influence, we have to be careful of the desperation, the priority, the reward, the assurance, I want to read that again, the Lord will be a refuge for those who are oppressed, He will be a refuge in times of trouble, see, times of trouble are everywhere, and God is that refuge, and He's that strong tower that you can run to, and then finally, I want to say kind of positive, but this final point is a little, it's a little difficult for some people to hear, but that's okay, listen, pastors need to get back to saying the difficult things, you want to see America change, you want to get through this COVID-19, you're going to have to get to the wonderful, back to the wonderful truths of repentance, and holiness, and the justice of God, and the fire of God, and the holiness of God, and you see the church revived again, we can't go three points to a powerful financial breakthrough, and your best life now, and 12 steps to recovery, and all those might be wonderful, I don't know, but I know that we need to get back to the old truths of the Bible, the truths that Jesus used to preach, He used to say that man must repent and believe, so the last point is the judgment, there was a judgment, and in Psalm, the Psalmist says, the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and the deceitful man, the Lord upholds, I'm sorry, abhors, that's a strong word, the Lord abhors, He hates the bloodthirsty and deceitful men and women, that's exactly what's happening right now, the bloodthirsty, when some of our elected officials can try to push, push abortion money into the stimulus bill, when you see them rejoicing over the murder of children, folks, we've got the blood of innocent children on our hands, and America needs more intercessors, like Nehemiah interceding, like Ezra interceding, like Daniel saying, oh my people, we have sinned, like Jeremiah saying, oh God, we have sinned, get off your high horse and repent and become an intercessor for your nation, God abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man, God is a just judge, for the righteous God tests the hearts and tests the minds, there is a judgment coming, I don't know how this will all play out, I don't know if this is a judgment of God, I think 40 percent of all evangelicals surveyed said it was, and if you look at scripture, you can definitely see that this could be a judgment of God, we have to remember often when God would judge people throughout the Old Testament, we have 1,500 years of recorded history in the Old Testament, only about, depending on when you think Revelation was written, we only have about 90 years in the New Testament, so you see this big section of time in the Old Testament where God's, even godly prophets would have to go through the judgment, even Daniel was carried away captive, even Jeremiah went through the fall of Israel, and God said, I sent my messengers to warn my people, I rose them up early and they send them, but they scoffed my messengers, they rebuked my counsel, and the anger of the Lord arose against his own people until there was no remedy, and so you do see that, I don't say that to scare you, but I do tell you to prepare you, I tell you that the judgment hand of God can look like something like this, I don't know if it is, I pray it's not, but in God's judgment, there's mercy, and when you cry out to God, there is mercy. I'm going to just leave you with a closing story about the prophet Elijah, many of you know who he was, he was an Old Testament prophet, and he would prophesy against wicked King Ahab and Jezebel, and it was something interesting, I love these guys, I mean, I love Elisha, Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, and Jonah, and Micah, and Nahum, and my heart beats with them, and they were just, they would shoot you straight, they would tell the king what the king needed to hear, not what he wanted to hear, so Elisha is calling the people back to God, he pronounces a drought, no rain, and Israel is suffering, because Elisha pronounced that great call of God, and that judgment of God upon the people, and the king had the audacity to say this, he told Elisha, oh you troubler of Israel, oh you troubler of Israel, and all Elisha was doing was preaching repentance, and see that's how many people in the media are going to take this type of message, we need to have pastors being called, oh that troubler of America, boy if anybody emails me and says, Shane you are a troubler of America, I know I'm doing something good for God, because you have to wake up the sleeping church, you have to confront and convict a decaying nation, and you have to call out sin, oh you troubler of America, oh you troubler of Israel, and we have to get back to the difficult truths, I believe, because no matter what this is, if this is a judgment of God, if this is not a coincidence, but something that is just allowed within his sovereignty, it really doesn't matter what it is, why? Because the remedy, remnity is always the same, the cure is always the same, return to God, he says, and I will return to you, call on me, and I will hear, seek me, and you will find me, trouble the whole nation by preaching repentance, and that's what's good, now America is getting closer to wanting to listen, how do you know? Well I know one mainstream TV outlet just asked a nationally known pastor if he would pray on live TV, and you're hearing different things happen, and different people praying now more, and we're not there yet to that state of brokenness, and I hope God brings revival before we get there, but you have to know that these types of troubling messages on judgment, and repentance, and the holiness of God, God uses those types of messages to draw us to a much more deeper relationship with him. So that's what I wanted to cover on the first nine chapters of Psalm, I want to recap a lot of what we've already talked about, God willing I'll be back next Wednesday, I want to keep doing this as long as I can, as long as we're allowed to, and I want to just, what God's been putting on my heart in the book of Psalm, and then on the weekends, just a normal teaching, and really to encourage you, because I think people, we need to stay together, we need to stay connected, and I believe, I don't know how long this will last, it could be 30 days, it could be a little bit longer, depending on what they're going to watch for, let me just end with this, I'm not prophetic that I know of, but here's what I think they're going to watch for, they're looking for a spike, like they saw in China and different places, there's a spike, so you will see the mortality rate increase, you will see the death rate increase, especially as more people are tested, you go from thousands to tens of thousands more who have it, so obviously there's going to be more deaths, because there's more people being tested, so once you see this kind of hit a peak, and then begin to go down, that's when I believe some of the reins will be, the tightness, the stringency will need to be released, because we got to get the churches back to what they do, we got to get back to the way things were, and not run out and be foolish, but I believe the economy is vitally important to the health and stability of our nation, as well as fighting this virus, so I don't know, I'm praying that God would do a miracle, that God would just, but some of these governors, interestingly enough, it's Democratic governors who are not allowing some of this proven medication to be used, it's a big word, I don't even know how to pronounce it, so I won't say it, but you know, they're not allowing that to be used in their states, and so there's a lot of funny business going on, there's a lot of things that just don't look right, and I know there's a spiritual battle going on behind the scene, I would say that 2020 is probably going to be the important election that we have ever seen in our generation, you're going to be seeing the Democrats calling for voting online, not going in person, there's a reason behind that, I don't want to get to that right now, but a lot has to do with rigging the system, and a lot of tomfoolery, so we just have to be in prayer, and I'm going to call things as they are.