This sermon emphasizes the importance of humility, prayer, seeking God's face, and repentance. It addresses the need for men to lead biblically in their homes, highlighting the destructive nature of pride and the call to die to self. The speaker urges a return to a fervent prayer life and seeking God with a passionate pursuit, acknowledging the critical role of humility in restoring marriages and families. The message challenges individuals to prioritize God above all else and to seek His face with a sense of urgency and desperation.

Let me just open in prayer, Tim prayed and just so much confirmation because my prayer really has been that we leave here different than when we arrived because I don't think you came up here to play church. I know I didn't. And once you surrender and commit and you make that decision, Lord change me. I want to leave here with a heart of worship. He'll honor that prayer if the heart's right. So let me open in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that you would be here tonight, tomorrow, Friday, of course, Saturday and Sunday. But Lord, let me not go beyond what you want me to say, but also change the direction of this message. And tomorrow, if that is your will, Lord, we pray that your will be done this place that hearts would be changed. The people have come up here broken would go back whole and restored and rebuilt. We're here because of you. We give you all the honor, all the glory, and all the credit in Jesus name. Amen. Boy, there's so many different. I have many, many things to say. So I've been praying all week to just help God help me with this to get it back down to where it needs to be and not going on so many different rabbit trails. You look at the direction of our nation. We need a wake up call. We are calling good, evil and evil good. And I'm not scared to talk about those things. Also, the direction of the church. But before I get to that, I actually really love men's conferences. That's where I started 2000. I believe it's 2002 2003. I began speaking a lot of different conferences, mainly Southern California, some different states. And it was men's conferences and men's conferences. And God was calling me to plant a church in 2010. And I kept ignoring that calling. Because you think of pastors, you know, you wear glasses, you smile a lot, you're just this nice guy. And I didn't really have that nice guy mentality. I had the john the baptist fire brewing in my like Jeremiah, his heart, his word is in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones. And, and I just didn't feel this calling to pastor. I like speaking because you could just go and speak and then you leave, go the next event. And especially men's conferences, you can have a truck cut in half. And I can wear a flannel shirt, you know, and some interesting socks that I don't get to wear on Sundays. And when I preach, I love men's conferences, also, because I can shoot you straight. I shoot people straight on Sunday, obviously. But as men, I think sometimes, we need to be encouraged. And I love encouragement. I love to be built up. But there comes a time when we also need to be challenged. A W Tozer said, and I would encourage you to read anything that man has written, he said that the same word of God that encourages us, we need to allow it to convict us. And what we are seeing, two things, my challenge, to be honest with you, always is to tell people what they need to hear versus what they want to hear. Because what we want to hear and what we need to hear are often two different things. And I was going to share some of this Friday, I guess, with my testimony, but I was raised in what you would call today, probably a fairly abusive home on my father's side, very angry, very angry man from the farms of Oklahoma, even though I loved him dearly. You know what that if you know somebody from the farms of Oklahoma or Texas, or it's a hard atmosphere, and I don't think I ever heard him say once that he loved me, and always trying to measure up and boy, you don't cry, you know, you get hurt, you don't cry, you know, it's just a very tough mentality. And you take that into a marriage, you can destroy the marriage. And, and as a boy wanting that dad's affirmation, dad, look what I did, dad, and always trying to, you know, people pleasing is it was a was, was what I realized that's what I was challenged with and wanting to make my dad happy and obviously going doing well in baseball and then having arm surgery and, and wanting to always please him. And now you take that into preaching. That doesn't work. Because when you preach, you leave here and you say, God, did I do what you called me to do? Whether anybody liked it or not? You're not pleasing men, you're pleasing God. As a matter of fact, you can't please men often and please God at the same time. So that's a challenge with preaching and the big push right now. Probably the last 1020 years, I've never seen anything like this before. The big push right now is to not offend. We don't want to offend anybody. We want to just tell me, tell me what I want to hear. And it reminds me of what Paul said that the time will come when they will not endure put up with sound doctrine, but they will look for teachers who will tell them what they want to hear. So we see this, this, this, this pushing in the church and in the media and different things, tell us what we want to hear. Don't talk about offensive things. God forbid we talk about the cross, what happened on the cross, God forbid we talk about repentance and the blood of Christ and judgment and all these things that the Bible is filled with. We're starting to avoid these things. Many times I think it's because pastors, and I can fall in this category very easily, are not truly humble and broken before the Lord. This sermon does not come from psychology or a computer. It comes from a prayer closet, spending time with God, allowing God to break my heart. He first prepares the messenger before I prepare the message. And I can fall into that trap very easily and telling people what they want to hear, not what we need to hear. And also with preaching, it's a challenge because some of you are older, some of you are younger, some of you are my age, some of you have kids, some of you don't have kids, some of you are walking vibrantly with the Lord, some of you have no idea what that means. So it's trying, but fortunately for me, if you just shoot the word of God straight, let the Holy Spirit convict and draw and rebuild and restore and humble and break. And basically they used to call him C.H. Spurgeon, called him the hound of heaven, the Holy Spirit, letting that spirit, the conviction loose on people. And there's different types of preaching. There is expositional preaching, expository, where you take a chapter, and I do it often, it took three years in the book of Matthew, I'm in Acts now, and expository preaching is essential. We need it. But we also have what's called topical, is where somebody pick a preacher or pick a topic and pull in scripture and talk about that topic. But I also think there's a third type where we need heart surgery, where like the Isaiahs and the Jeremiahs calling God's people back. It's not popular, it's not politically correct, but it is powerful. It takes exposition, but it also takes topic and it gets right to where men are at. And I know there's a lot of people, especially at men's conferences, you're struggling with things. Some of you don't know how you even made it up here, why you're here, and we have these things coming at us from pornography to the direction of our nation, to the disintegration of the family, to all these things. We are now a nation calling good evil and evil good. You realize that? Woe be to that nation who calls evil good and good evil. And in order to offset, when a culture and a church begins to go over here, what I call compromise, and not offending and not alarming anybody, what God usually uses is somebody to come back and call the people back to that area. Why can't we talk about purity and holiness again and God's righteousness? Yes, I love His grace and His mercy. If it wasn't for grace, I wouldn't be here. It's grace that's brought me thus here thus far, and it's going to be grace that leads me home. But let's not forget about the other attributes of God either. I mean, if you look throughout the Bible, the biggest attribute, the one that stands out most, at least in my opinion, is not love. Even though I thank God for it, it's holiness. The angels cry, holy, holy, holy. Paul said, come out from among them, be separate. The Old Testament is talking about being holy and being set apart. And as I was preparing, I thought of Isaiah 39. And again, I make no apologies for what I'm going to talk about the next few days, because we need a wake-up call. We need to sound the alarm, because the hope is not in the next presidential pick. The hope is not in Congress. The hope is not in Senate. I'm going to talk about where our hope is, and I'm hoping that we can leave here different. Isaiah 30, verse 9, this is a rebellious people, lying children, children who do not hear the law of the Lord, who say to the seers, do not see, and to the prophets, do not prophesy to us right things, speak to us smooth things, and prophesy deceits. Now, some of you know, Isaiah wrote at a pretty important time in Israel's history, the southern and northern kingdom were divided into two, and they had the nation now was blessed. Prosperity is a blessing and a curse. This nation now is blessed, and they are walking away from God. And that was the whole role. If you read Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Haggai, Malachi, you know what the whole role of that prophetic element was? To call the people back. The majority, a lot of the Old Testament was to call the people back. So he's writing in the setting, and the people, the children of God are saying, don't tell us right things, don't tell us smooth things, tell us easy things. And Isaiah had to go against that cultural shift. Because when I leave here tonight, it doesn't matter how many people say, oh, great job. It says, God, did I do what you've called me to do? Did I allow your word? Because I believe the word will penetrate our hearts and break us to such a point. Because see, it takes broken men to break men. If you want to go home a better husband, a better father, a better young adult, you've got to go home broken and humble. That's a major problem that we're seeing in our culture. First Corinthians 16, 13. Ironically, this is the verse I sent Jason that where I was going to take this conference, 16, 13, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong from the English Standard Version of the Bible. Be faithful, be watchful, stand firm, act like men, be strong. But I couldn't get this other concept off my mind. Morning, noon, and night, I felt that God was challenging me and wanting to change the entire direction of the sermon series. And I don't like that. I've already got everything lined up. I got it dialed in. I've got the points. I've got some poems. I've got all this wonderful thing. I did my hermeneutics and my homiletics. I've studied some pneumatology, eschatology, all these wonderful things. The sermon's ready. And then God says no. And what, how I usually sense that is there's a burning passion in my heart that lines up with the Word of God. And it's something that I have to change. There's this unrest. And before I get to the main point, I just want to, all of us to remember one thing. As men, this is interesting. As, if you look at the culture, you look at the media, they are portraying, they've been portraying men as, as idiots for the last 20, 30 years. Just this idiot, just they let the kids rule, let the wife push you around, and let this, oh, dumb man who doesn't know anything. And that's what we've promoted. And as we watch, that's what we become. But the Bible says something quite differently. The man is called to lead biblically, to be the leader in the home, to lead. You initiate prayer. You initiate worship. You initiate the heart of God in your home. But what happens is this. The enemy sidetracks. He goes after the leader every time. And a recent statistic, 7% of saved children will help lead their parents to faith in Christ. 23% of saved wives or mothers will help lead their husband and children to Christ, to Jesus Christ. But 94% of saved husbands and fathers will help lead their entire family to faith in Jesus Christ. 94%. Why? Because it's God has called us to lead. And that's why you don't want to. That's why I don't want it's a challenge. I'll be honest with you. It's a challenge to lead. It's a challenge to because our flesh, it's the war against the spirit and the flesh is real. The flesh wants to be lazy display. But you've got to fight against that and get back and leave this mountain different and say, I'm going to leave my house. I don't know what it looks like. But with God's help, I'm going to leave my house spiritually. And that's where the shelter and the safety and the protection comes in. If we do not teach our children to follow Christ, the world will teach them not to. And in a group this size, there's always a lot of single guys. And let me remind you, I'm going to give you some great advice that I wish I had many, many years ago. You do not say I do and then become a man of character. If you have a problem with pornography, which I hear all the time, Oh, yeah, but it won't be a problem once I'm married. Oh, yes, it does. You just turned a little fire into a blazing inferno. If you have a problem with anger, now you will be a volcano ready to erupt in marriage. So you don't say I do and become a man of character. God calls young men to become, become who they're seeking to become that godly person. Many young people are not concerned with this. And my best advice is follow Christ and see who keeps up. If you're looking for somebody, I don't know who to date, I don't know who to follow Christ and see who keeps up make him the primary focus of everything else. And this is interesting. What I've noticed at men's conferences, especially with worship, but we're not worshipers. We're not worshipers, are we most of the time, I used to poke fun at worship. We said, Well, I'm just not emotional. Well, it's not anger and emotion. You express that very well. The problem is, God has got to humble and break us to such a point that a true worshiper worships out of their brokenness and other humility, you will not see a see a prideful man truly worshiping God. Let me just quote a few things. The average. This is the average in different statistics. These are actually older, old statistics. Now, obviously, these have changed about fatherless homes. 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. That's 32 times the average 85% of all children who show behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes. A per 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes. 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. Now, here's how most guys get out of this. Well, I'm not an absentee father. And let me remind every man in this room that you do not have to leave your home to be absent. You can be absent physically, spiritually, emotionally, you can be checked out mentally, and not leading your family. Now this I still want to research because I don't believe it. But a lot of good reputable places that take polls have said something along these lines. And I don't I don't know whether to laugh or cry. But the average American father spends only seven and a half uninterrupted minutes per week with the children, but 32 hours a week watching television. Well, that's not true. Who knows exact number. But that is very true. Not not watching the NFL and then go, huh, that's not spending quality time. Proverbs 27, eight, like a bird that wanders wandered from its nest is a man who wanders from his place. As a bird as a bird wanders from that nest. So is a man that wanders from his place. What is my place and Shane wandering is sitting under that covering that protection of God's will and being in the center of God's will being the man that he's called us to be. And I believe that a funeral actually needs to take place this weekend. A funeral needs to take place, we need to die to self there's another not popular term, you're not going to hear die to self. Die to self the Bible is crystal clear that we must die to self Jesus said he who seeks to save his life will lose it. But he who wants to lose his life for my sake will save it. It's all about dying to self. And this is why people don't like what I'm saying. And I have to bring this up here as well. Sundays, if you don't like what I'm saying, it's probably because you need to hear what I'm saying. God doesn't call preachers to be popular. He calls them to be confrontational. Guys, I just I guess shoot you straight. In these dire times that we're living in, in these dire times that we're living in, we're one court case away from this we're one we are living in some very dire times we're aborting children, we're we're all these things are terrible. And Joel Osteen type sermons aren't going to cut it. In these dire times, I'm not putting down and I'm just saying there comes a time when men of God have got to stand up and wake up and say not on my watch. Suicide now is an epidemic. 10 year old girls to 14 are killing themselves, overdosing hanging in themselves. In the last two and a half years, I've prayed for three young adults in the back of my church after prayer. After worship, they're going through more hell on earth than you can even imagine because their fathers are not leading them to are gone to a heroin overdose and another one on bills. I had to meet the coroner at a hotel and hold her little three year old daughter out in the grass while they took her away. So we can't we be positive? Yes, there's a time for that. There's a time to Joe for joy. But there's also a time to cry. There's a time to be wonderfully encouraged. And there's a time to be challenged. And that time is now the church is drifting up course we need that voice in the wilderness. It's so upset you that you leave here and you say I don't like what he said, but God, I need to know if that's true. Here's the solution. There is hope, don't worry, I'm not gonna leave you hanging. There is hope act like men how Second Chronicles 714. If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face. And he's gonna say it, here it goes, and turn from their wicked ways. We can say that in church, you know, they used to preach that in church. They used to preach that in church. I remember it was I don't know, I was reading, I think it was Alex de Tocqueville, I never can pronounce his name. But he I read something and stood out 10 years ago. He said, he wrote, I think, in the 1800s, he went to America, to understand why in the world was she so successful. He said, I went and searched her boundless prairies and fertile fields. And it was not there. I went and looked in her vast world commerce, and her gold mines, it was not there. I searched everywhere. Why was she so great? And here's what he came back to say. It was not until I went to the churches of America. And I heard her pulpits of flamed with righteousness, that I understood the secret to her success. She is great because she is good. And if she ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. I mean, that's a whole nother rabbit trail. You understand that America is not evil, right? It's just a condition that it's a reflection of the character of her people. I can take you back to the conception of the pilgrims of Puritan 1620, the Mayflower Compact to the advancement of God in the Christian faith, I can take you to the Supreme Court. Actually, John Jay, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court said to him who's the author and giver of all good, I render sincere and humble thanks, and especially and especially through the grace of his son, Jesus Christ. John Jay, separation of church and state. No, they didn't have that back then. They proclaim God boldly and confidently. The pulpits were flamed with righteousness. They didn't care who they offended as long as they didn't offend God. Have we ever stopped to consider that we may be offending God in our politically correct culture that doesn't want to upset anybody? The gospel is offensive. Sinners on their way to hell without Christ, that might offend some people, but that's where the grace comes in. But for the grace of God, there go I. See, it's an interesting concept. We want to focus just on the good things. That's all they want to hear, but it's the bad things that convict and challenge. I've never seen a man turn from his sin without being convicted and challenged. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land. Now the context is interesting. God is talking to Solomon. Everything's fine right now, but God says, I know when the people drift for me and when I bring pestilence and when I bring famine, when I bring drought, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves. And I can't get any farther than looking at this first part. If my people, if you catch that, not Washington, not Hollywood, they're not coming. They're not coming. If I preach this message in Hollywood Boulevard, I'll be dead by tomorrow. That's if my people, if my fathers, I spoke at a pastor's conference this week in Southern California and actually could say, if my pastors, see if I could just get pastors and preachers and men to fall on their face before God. You see, I remember when the church wasn't in a hurry. I remember when we would weep after sermons and praise and worship would break our hearts. We would turn the clock around. Who cares what time it is. I got to seek God and I have to find him. Now we want to get our services down to an hour, a quick song, a quick announcement. Let's get out of here. That's not the church. That's buying into the cultural mindset. Because when God's word is boldly proclaimed, lives are changed, marriages are restored, prodigals come home. I don't know about you, but I look at the culture and I look at even in my church, we've got, we've got divorce, we've got adultery, we've got pornography, we've got same-sex attraction. We've got all these things that are coming at people and they need hope. They need answers. If my people, you, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. Interesting thing, I spoke on this last week. It's not by my might nor my power, but by God's power. So as I submit and surrender and fill with the Holy Spirit of God, that's where change takes place. If my people, let's look at these real quick. If my people who are called by my name will, what's the first one? It's one nobody's going to want to talk about. Yeah, let's just, let's just, let's just roll right over that one. But that's the foundation. That's so important. You know what humility is? I actually wrote this down two hours ago. You don't always have to be right. By the way, I'm preaching to myself right here. Are you unteachable? Are you proud? Are you eager to dispute? Are you argumentative? You always have to get the last word in. Man, pride, rebellion is as a sin of witchcraft. Pride is a sin we don't talk about in the church. And God says, I won't even, I won't even, I won't even hear your prayers. If you're prideful and arrogant, you're holding on to the sin. It's not my ear heavy that I cannot hear, my hand short that I cannot save. But your iniquities, your iniquities have separated you from God. See, that's the thing again, we don't, Shane, you're talking about sin and repentance. Yeah, so did Jesus. So did Jesus. He said, go out and preach repentance. John the Baptist comes on the scene. He said, you brood of vipers, repent. Peter, his very first sermon, what was it about? Really nice and cozy and loving? No. He said, you put Christ on the cross, repent, repent. I can show you repent back in Noah. I can show you repent throughout Abraham's time. I can show you repentance throughout the prophetic books of the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament, all over the scripture, calling people back to God. But it takes humility and brokenness before God. You see, I'm passionate about this subject because I used to, I would come in and laugh at this group. Worshiping like a bunch of sissies. Back when I was taking steroids, bench pressing 400 pounds, beating people up, drinking beer. That's a real man. Right? Is that a real man? That's a definition of a man. I was dying inside. I destroyed my marriage. I destroyed so many different things. Why? Because of pride. You see, pride is the soil in which all other sin grows. With the Pure Desire Seminar, they'll tell you. They'll tell you that at the heart of pornography is pride. At the heart of sin is pride and arrogance. I want to break free, but, but, but, but. And pride is destructive. Andrew Murray said, I encourage you to read his materials well. Most of these guys are dead, unpassed, many years ago. But he said, pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you. James 4, 6. God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. He opposes. Do you want God opposing you? Do you ever feel that he might be opposing you? God's against me. He's opposing me, right? He, he poses the proud and gives grace to the humble. On this issue of humility, I remember a story. I think it was the 1970s. Muhammad Ali. Remember him? Some of you know him. Some of you don't. Hopefully most of you do. But he was on an airplane and he wasn't going to put a seat belt on. What's the point, right? But the stewardess came by and she said, Mr. Ali, put your seat belt on. He said, Superman don't need no seat belt. And she looked at him and said, Superman don't need no airplane. But isn't that pride? That's, we're blinded by pride. Guys, please hear my heart. I'm not angry. I'm passionate. I'm wanting, I've seen, I've seen men break before God. I've seen marriages transformed. I've seen lives change. But it's not until this area of pride is dealt with. God has to break a man before he can use him. You ever enjoy olive oil? Do you know what happens to the olives? Where do they get perfume and fragrance from flowers? They crush them. And God wants to crush our hearts, break our hearts. Because a broken and contrite spirit, I will not cast away. Thus sayeth the Lord. It's brokenness and humility. Because then when you're broken and humble, you enjoy worship. You love worship. You love because God's breaking your heart and rebuilding and restoring. It's all about humility. First Peter 5, 6, humble. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. Interesting scripture. He says, humble yourself or God will humble you. And I don't know about you, but I don't want a spanking from God. I don't want him to humble me. The Bible says, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. In due time, he will exalt you. He'll put you up. He'll give you that respect in the home with your kids and with your wife. He'll give you that respect on the job. He'll do it. But you must humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. Humility is not thinking nothing about yourself. It's thinking lowly about yourself and not being a doormat, but saying, God, I'm broken before. I need you. It's very hard for a man to say, I need you, or I'm sorry, or I'm wrong, isn't it? Because of that pride element. What will humility cost me? It will cost you absolutely everything. Everything. You might say, Shane, you're disrupting my entire evening. I plan on disrupting your entire weekend. In a good way, in a very good way. Humble yourself before God does. Humble yourself before God does. There's a long poem I wasn't going to read just the end of it. Dad, the lessons you give me may be very wise and true, but I'd rather get my lesson by observing what you do. For I may misunderstand you and the high advice you give, and there's no misunderstanding, Dad, how you act and how you live. See, it's not what we say. I got your high advice. I got your high advice. I understand that. So this portion of humility is so important because I don't know where you're at in your walk. I don't know if you know God, but the first step to knowing God is humbling yourself. The first step to knowing God is saying, God, you're God and I'm not. I humble myself before you. I need you. I need more of you. And you humble yourself. If my people seek, and if now we're going to get, and I'll let you go in just a minute here, just a few thoughts on this. If my people humble themselves and pray, pray. Seek's coming up. If my people humble myself, if then people humble themselves and pray and seek my face. And this issue of prayer, I'll talk about a little bit tomorrow, but this should not be the most boring thing on the planet. This should actually be one of the most powerful things in your arsenal. I'm going to leave you with this thought. I came from the fitness industry. I was a district manager of 24-hour fitness. It was family fitness centers. Many years in the 1990s, they got bought out. 24-hour Nautilus became 24-hour fitness. Now they're all over, as you know. I worked my way up. I was a district manager making really, really good money. And unfortunately, alcohol, anger, and addiction took its toll. My wife left, affair, all these different things. I was totally released biblically, but God used that to break me. And I didn't realize how prideful I was until he broke me. Then his word came alive. Then prayer was my, I needed prayer like I needed oxygen. Prayer is the most powerful thing you possess. God is saying, I want to talk with you. I want to answer your prayer. It doesn't matter if it's two o'clock in the morning or up here. God, we have a God, an all-sufficient Savior, an ever-present help who hears our prayers. But back to 24-hour fitness. Most of you know that hunger, right, is a sign of health. If you're hungry, you're healthy often. If you're not hungry, many people, we have a ministry where we go and visit a lot of hospital homes, and these people are terminal, and they're not hungry. They have to be fed intravenously and with IVs. But hunger is a sign of health. So if you're not hungry for prayer, how hungry for God are you? If you're not hungry for the things of God, you're dying spiritually. Take from the physical, put it into the spiritual. If we're not hungry for the things of God, then we are dying spiritually. And it's going to take resuscitation, spiritual resuscitation, to humble ourselves, to pray and seek his face. Robert Murray McShaney died at age 29. A very famous preacher in Scotland said, a man is what he is on his knees before God and nothing more. Who we are really is who we are on our knees before God and nothing more. Think about it. Who I am all week is who I am when I come to this pulpit. I'm not going to say a quick little prayer and hope God blesses the message. If I'm filling my mind with tons of garbage all week and I expect to come up here and speak boldly through God's word, I will be gravely mistaken. Because what we put in is what we get out. Jesus said, my house will be called a house of preaching, a house of worship, a house of entertainment, a house of benevolence, a house of all these things. They're all good. We need them. But he said, my house shall be called a house of prayer. And guys, maybe it's just my perspective. And I'm going to close on this. I know we're short on time. But the hardest part, the hardest part about pastoring I'm going to share with you is not sermon preparation. It's not a counseling appointment. The hardest part about pastoring that I have to deal with every single week is watching people die spiritually with living water just steps away. It's the hardest part. We've got a half dozen marriages going to divorce court. We've got kids hooked on everything from oxy to crystal to heroin. We've got kids 10 years old don't know if they should be a boy or girl because their dad doesn't there's no leadership in the home. And I have the answer. I have the answer to all of that. God has the answer. God has the answer. So I see people dying spiritually, which is living water steps away. Would you take this water? Would you humble yourself? If I have to counsel another husband in the counseling session who says, yeah, I know I'm addicted to porn, but, but, but no, no, no, sir, you need to humble yourself before God stop making the excuses. A prideful man makes excuses. So that's the hardest part. I see people dying spiritually with living water just steps away. And it makes you wonder, Jesus said, if you believe on me, as the scriptures say, out of your belly, out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water. Jeremiah said his word is in my heart, like a burning fire shut up in my bones. John the Baptist said he will baptize you with spirit and with fire. So begs the question, where's this fire? Where's this passion? Where's these rivers of living water flowing out? They should be flowing out of the men that flows into our family, that flows into the government. That's how we change a nation. You got to stop blaming everything from God and the government. Look in the mirror, look within. That's living water just steps away. Shane, you're being too tough. Really? Let me just share with you just some of the emails I get with permission from the wife, of course. I'm at a loss. My Christian husband is verbally and physically abusive. Ironically, he thinks that I'm the problem. He sees no need to change. He'll quote scripture about submission while yelling and cursing. His anger is also destroying our children. A home once filled with laughter and joy is now filled with fear and depression. We walk on eggshells and cherish the times when he is gone. He also loves his porn more than his family. I can no longer bear it. I've never thought of divorce, but now it's a daily struggle. What do you do? Quote Romans 8 28. Oh, all things work together. Just get over it. This is sad, folks. The spiritual condition of your home depends on your humility and your spirit and your prayer life. I mean, if you were game, I was game. I would step here another hour beseeching and begging. And guys, turn, turn to the one true and living God. Seek Him with all of your heart, with all of your strength. And we got if you humble yourselves and pray. Do you know what seeking means? That bakash in the Hebrew language, it's very interesting word. It's a pleading. It's a begging. It's picturing losing your child or your grandchild in Disneyland. They're gone. What would you do? I've lost my at the fair before for a split second. And your world has changed. You don't care if you're hungry. You don't care if you have to go to the restroom. You don't care what time it is. What do you care about? All you care about is I've got to find that child. I've got to find that child that is lost. That's what the root word means in the Hebrew language. Bakash to seek God like that. When was he the priority, not the afterthought? When was it an all-consuming passion? Not perfectly. I wouldn't be up in here. But there's something wrong when our heartbeat isn't beating for God. Lord, I want to restore my marriage. I want to restore my family. I don't know you like I want to know you. But God, would you change my heart? Would you break me this weekend? I'm tired of being a prideful, arrogant man. That's the first step. If they humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn, I will hear and I will forgive. And we have to, like I love what Tim said, it's two things. God is not a doting grandfather and he's not a cosmic ball of love. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord. A.W. Tozer said, I love him because he's my savior. But I fear him because he's my judge. And we need to start giving people both sides of the coin. Because you don't sell Christianity like a sales pitch. You proclaim the truth and let the chips fall where they may. Through the power of the spirit, God working in the hearts to radically make a difference. So I'm going to leave on that note. And I think Tim's going to come back. We're just going to do a song to close out. And I what I often do at conferences or on Sundays, I'm going to be actually available over by the truck here. And I'm going to ask guys, if you want to take a step of humility, you want to pray. I need to be a better leader. I need to be a better father. I don't know God. Anything. I want to pray with you. I want to agree with you. I used to hide in that back row. I would come in right when worship was over and hear a little bit of message and get out of here. I didn't want anything to do with God. And it wasn't God until he humbled me and he broke me that I have to worship him. I have to. So with this type of environment, I want to just ask if there's people here who want to humble themselves and get back on track. It's a loving father. It's God saying, come home, come home. You have to come home. I need to hit you with the hard stuff so you understand the severity of what we're doing. What I said earlier, do you realize that it's an epidemic now? The highest suicide rate is girls 10 to 14. God help us. What's wrong? Where's our heart of compassion? Where's our heart of compassion? We've lost that. We've become an arrogant nation. But these things that should not amuse us are being out. These are major priorities that are happening in our lives and in the lives of our children and family. So let me close in prayer. God, as we go forward this weekend, Lord, start with me. Just break me, humble me even more. God, we need your presence. We need your power. We need humility in our lives. Lord, I pray for marriages who are on the brink of divorce, that you would restore and rebuild, that men would leave here. They would be fathers to their children. They would turn off Facebook, get off of the media, kill their porn habit, get rid of their ungodly friends, and start to focus on you and seek you, Lord, with all their heart, with all their strength. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.