Shane Idleman emphasizes the transformative power of God as an all-consuming fire, urging believers to fully surrender to Him for healing and freedom. He shares personal testimonies of miraculous healings and the necessity of desperation in seeking God, highlighting that mere attendance at church is insufficient in today's world. Shane calls for a revival of prayer, fasting, and a return to the foundational truths of Scripture, warning against complacency and the dangers of a lukewarm faith. He stresses the importance of brokenness, humility, and the need for the Holy Spirit's power in the lives of believers to combat the spiritual apathy prevalent in the church today.

We believe in the God of the Bible who still does the miraculous, who still convicts. Could He still heal? Set people free? I mean, it's just amazing what God can do when we surrender. I know, Mark, you've got a great story. You know, briefly, I got here early yesterday. He was here. He felt that God had him come here early and get prayer and he would be healed. He's been in bed for like 10 days and he's 95% better tonight. Feels that everything's been totally lifted. And I believe in that. I believe in God can heal and set people free. And that's basically why we're here, what Rend the Heavens is. If I could, if I had one wish tonight, it would be for all of you who were not here last night to listen to that message. Because I poured out my heart on being desperate for more of God and what that looks like. And I don't know, maybe Mike will upload it to their YouTube channel. It'll be uploaded to our YouTube channel probably in the week or so to come. So definitely check that out, send it to friends and family who need hope and encouragement and also conviction. And just to recap, what we're doing, we have church every night. It's called Rend the Heavens. And I pastor a church in the Antelope Valley called West Side Christian Fellowship. And you can hear our sermons on the radio here at 88.5 and then down at my area, 91.9. And we've done it about four times now. We have church every single night for a week. The first one we did was for two weeks. And we realized that especially where our nation is now, there's no plan B. There's no backup plan. We're not waiting for 2024. Let's see if it gets better. It could get a lot worse. God is the only plan right now. And we pray, oh God, would you rend the heavens, Isaiah 64, would you rend the heavens, rip them open, come down and visit your people. And there's a call of desperation. There's a call of anguish. There's a brokenness and humility because I truly believe that just going to church on Sunday is not going to cut it anymore. Yeah, we get our three songs in, pastor gives a 30 minute message, one song to close us out. Let's go to the buffet line. That's not seeking God. That's not desperate for more of God. So we were so desperate at our church and we had a lot of people, up to 300 people coming every single night of the week and just worship for an hour, hour and a half. Sometimes the services went three hours and just people hungry at the altar, demonic strongholds being broken, families restored. And I want to be careful not to explain too much of what I said last night because I don't want to be repetitive. But some things are very important and you need to know my theology is, I love theology. I love sound doctrine. I love the truth. Times change, truth does not. Truth is not flexible. Truth does not yield. Truth does not bend. The truth about God, the inerrancy of scripture, the essentials of the faith, you gotta have that. That's the foundation. But you have to have the power of the spirit as well. Because if not, you'll be a cemetery. If all you do is shove the truth down the throat of people. The truth, the truth, the truth. You've got to have the power and the anointing, the unction of the Holy Spirit. But if you have just this, then you're a circus. Cemetery or circus. We want to find the middle. It's not, this site says, if it's odd, it's God. No, that's not true. It doesn't line up with scripture. Put it through the filter of God's Word. And so that's what I want to do. I want to have theology marry the power of the Word, the power of the Holy Spirit. And that's biblical. The Bible talks about the unction of the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, the anointing of the Spirit. These are all biblical terms, but because somebody does something weird on YouTube, we don't want to have anything to do with it. And I would just encourage you, be careful who you follow on YouTube. Some of these places are heresy hunters. They, if you believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you are false prophet number one, target enemy number one, and that shouldn't be. You can believe in the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit and still have sound doctrine. How do I know that? Because that's what the Bible teaches. Jesus said, don't go and minister. Go ahead and wait for a while until you've received power from on high. Then go out and be my witness. And I talked about it last night, and again, it's so important that I truly believe you have all of the Holy Spirit at conversion. But does He have all of you? That is the missing ingredient in the lives of so many people. The Holy Spirit, the triune nature of God, I believe in the Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. I'll let Him sort out the details. Here, O Israel, I, the Lord, your God, am one. But He says, let us create man in our image, Elohim, the plurality three. And then I can't fully understand it. I just know the Bible teaches it. So we believe in the Trinity. We believe in the Holy Spirit. They call it the person of the Godhead. And you have that at conversion. But does He have all of you? That's why full surrender is so important. We repent. We repent enough to be forgiven, but do we surrender enough to be changed? And I know in my own life growing up, and I believe I committed my life to the Lord, I repented at 12. But then got on the broad road to destruction. Anyone ever been there? It's called the prodigal son story. And I'm convicted. I know, Lord, but I'm kind of enjoying this stuff. And I'm a Christian, but I don't really know. I like God on Sunday. Really not on Sunday. How about on Easter, Christmas, maybe a few other times. And it's not really popular. It's not really cool to follow God. And so I was quenching and grieving the Spirit. But when I finally surrendered everything, I'm going to talk about that more tomorrow night. I'm going to share my story. The title of the message tomorrow is Hope for the Hurting, Broken Yet Unbreakable. And you need to get those who are addicted here. You need to get those who are prodigal sons here if they'll come. I know it's hard. Don't tell them it's church. Tell them there's free chili and books or something. Don't tell them it's a church necessarily. And I had to be dragged into these many times. And so I can relate. Thank God for praying moms that even when I was living in sin and just blaspheming God, she was praying for me and contending for me. The power of prayer. Did you know that your prayers will outlive you? They speak into eternity. They speak into the praying for that son that you might not see come back to the Lord or that daughter. Those prayers outlast you. And so I just have a desire now because once I fully surrendered everything, God, you broke me. You humbled me. And now the Word of God comes alive. Now worship. I love worship. I got to turn off my great American country. I love George Jones and getting drunk and Metallica. I had a weird mixture there. My flesh liked it. Don't get me wrong. But the Holy Spirit was wanting me to go deeper with God and putting on worship. And my heart's changing. Now I'm feeling this boldness to go out and witness where does this come from. It's the power and the anointing, the unction of the Holy Spirit. Without that, I don't know how a person gets through life to be honest with you. How do you get through life without fully surrendering to God? And that's what I talked about last night. And that verse was Isaiah 64. Oh God, would you rend the heavens? There has to be desperation. There has to be desperation. God hears the cries of desperate people. And many of you that have children, you know if your child cries, you know that cry you can ignore. And you know that cry where you're putting down everything and you're running to that child. Why? Because there's a cry of desperation. There's a, Daddy, Mommy, help! Help! And God hears the cries of His people through brokenness and humility. So tonight though, I want to keep going with a different theme. Now that we have that desperation understood, that brokenness, that humility, the title tonight is, He's an all-consuming fire. Let Him burn. He's an all-consuming fire. Let Him burn. And at this point, the negative Nellies like to come up and say, you know Shane, fire's not good. It's not good for the unbeliever. But it's very good for the believer. John said he's going to come and baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with stagnant water. Stagnant water? Fire. Fire consumes. It explodes. It burns. It eliminates. It annihilates. It's destructive in certain areas. And it can destroy the works of the flesh. It can get rid of the carnality and you can have the fire of God in your life. It's a very good thing. The passion, the desire. And I would say that's what most Christians, especially in America, are missing. The reason many Christians in China, we support some churches and underground church in China as far as getting Bibles in there and third world countries. And you're not playing church there. You're desperate. You've made the decision and there's not much lukewarm carnality in those churches. Because if you're lukewarm or carnal, you say, I don't want anything to do with that. I value my life too much. But in the American church, there's this idea we can kind of get by with just a little bit of God. I don't want too much of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul. Just a little. Not enough to disrupt my schedule. But he is an all-consuming fire. We need to let him burn. And I picked up, I left off last night, Isaiah 64 went through verses, I believe one through six or so. But what's interesting, and this is heartbreaking, this is verse seven. After Isaiah cried out, oh God, rend the heavens. And that was a prayer. Think about it. He's praying. He has a desperate prayer for God to rend the heavens. And I don't know if you know what that means, but that means to rip open the heavens and come down and visit your people. Let the mountains shake at your presence. Let our enemies flee because the spirit of the living God is here. And if you're like me, I have a lot of questions. As I'm, you know, years ago, I was like, okay, I understand all this, but God is everywhere. So how is this any different? Well, as I explained last night, electricity is all throughout this building. It's everywhere. Go ahead and pull a plug out though and stick a knife in there and hold it. Now you'll experience that electricity, big difference. It goes from non-experiential to experiencing and feeling, oh wow, that is, that's like, yeah, that's God. Not that itself. You know what I'm saying? That the analogy is there's something incredible when the tangible presence of God hits a place, hits a life, hits a family, hits a church. They want to worship. They're not in a hurry. God is an all-consuming fire. Let Him burn. I don't want this fire to go out, Lord. I've been lukewarm. I've been carnal. I haven't desired the things of you. I've desired the things of the flesh and I've been lost to God. I want to come back. And so he cries out, rend the heavens. But then he goes on to say, and there is no one who calls on your name. There is no one who stirs himself up to take hold of you. It was almost like he was building up, but then he realized there's no one. And I don't know if you know the prophetic books of the Bible, but Isaiah, Jeremiah, they wrote at incredible times. The nation of Israel was broken up in the northern and southern kingdoms and they had succumbed to idolatry. God has blessed them financially and they were just abundant and rejecting God and drunkenness and lasciviousness and all kinds of things were going on. Sound familiar? USA. You want me to be clear? But that was the role of that prophetic voice. And the same call goes out today. Would you turn back to God? Wake up, nation. Turn back to God and that He might relent. He might turn back to you. And I believe that scripture, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek His face and turn from their wicked ways, He will heal their land. Now, the context of that is dealing with the nation of Israel. And God was giving a promise to Solomon. Absolutely. I love context. Without context, you can make the Bible say whatever you want. One of the most famous scriptures, I'm going to take a lot of rabbit trails, by the way, is, you know, when the scripture, I know the plans I have for you, plans of hope and a future. And well, they just went into 70 years of captivity. They were not experiencing that verse. But he says, when I bring you out in 70 years, after my plan has been fulfilled, I have a promise and a hope and a destiny for you. Now, if that scripture leaps out, if that scripture ministers to you, if God speaks to you through that, I believe that the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any double edged sword, but we can't just apply it to anything. What about the famous scripture that Hollywood loves to apply? Shane, don't you judge? Don't you judge me? Haven't you read the Bible? I did, but you forgot to keep reading. As soon as I remove the plank from my own eye, which means as soon as I'm not judgmental, I'm humble, I'm broken before God, I actually have a biblical obligation to judge according to God's Word. I have an obligation, according to God's Word, Jesus said, judge with righteous judgment. And John, that we can say, this is what God's Word says, this is not right. These ungodly agendas that are trying to be pushed in our nation, especially in California, we can say by the authority of God's Word, this is not right. I'm actually called to judge. I'm not being judgmental. But I'm called to say this is what God's Word says. And let me give you a quick history lesson. Did you know that for many decades and decades, I can go back to, I've got sermons, I mean, obviously in the 1600s, but 1700s, America was being formed. Did you know that the pulpit used to set the climate, the spiritual tone for the nation? Did you know that? I'm going to get controversial, I knew it. Dang it. Now, let me exhaust this a little bit. But the pulpit was actually very political. They would say, this is what the Bible says. This is what the legislation is. They would have election day sermons. They would preach on what is righteous, what is not righteous. If you look at every king in the Old Testament, every one of them just about had a prophet. So is a prophet political? Because he's telling the king what he shouldn't, shouldn't do? The problem is they don't want us to voice God's truth in the political arena. That's the problem. So they'll try to silence you, shut up, Shane, you're a homophobe. You're a white racist, you're a white nationalist. You're, I mean, you throw wokeness, political correctness, doxing you, gaslighting you, all these new terms, all of them to shut you up, to silence you. And I love when all these people, if I'm a racist, white supremacist, let's do this. It's $300, I'll pay for it. Let's take a lie detector test and find out who the real racist is. Nobody's taking me up on that. Because they know. They actually are. They are promoting racism. They are stirring these things. And so the pulpit used to set the tone for the nation. They would say, this is not right. What the Supreme Court justices are doing, this is, they would say, this is what God's word says. The Supreme Court is not the law of the land. God's word is the law of the land. They're to submit to that. And it was around the 1800s, a man by the name, at least it's attributed to him. I can't find the court exactly, but it's Alex de Tocqueville. He came to America because he wanted to know why America was so great. Now, of course, there is sin in our past from what, with, with how they handle slavery to Native Americans. I mean, there's a list of things, amen. We can all find something. But in the midst of that, God is working. And then also evil is trying to stop plans. So he came to America and he said, why I searched everywhere. I looked in her boundless prairies. I went to her fertile, her fertile mine or fertile fields. And in her, in her, her vast world commerce, I went to her gold mines and I could not find it. He said, it was not until I went to the churches of America. And I heard the pulpits of flamed with righteousness that I understood the, the secret to America's success. America's good, great because she is good. If she ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. And so what I do, I don't elevate a nation. I elevate God's word. That's the key. So basically now all these terms of Christian nationalists, I thought, I love my country. I love God and I love my family. I'm a Christian nationalist. What is this junk? Label you to silence you. And many pastors are falling for it. And without the power of the anointing, the unction of the spirit, I would too. Oh, I don't want to upset people. You think I want to upset people? The Holy spirit does. He, he's a wrecking ball. The word of God is not a soft, gentle pillow, folks. It's not a, it's not a gentle feather that falls upon your face. Jeremiah, my word, God says, my word is like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. My word is like a fire that devours. My word is like a sword that pierces the heart and the soul. See on one hand, it can, it encourages when we submit to it and it convicts when we fight it. The word of God has to be let loose. And I believe that could, I believe that could shift our nation. Can you imagine pulpits throughout America preaching the truth of God's word with the power of the Holy spirit? There are churches in my area who would take out worship songs if they mentioned the blood of Christ in them. Don't talk about repentance. Don't talk about judgment. I don't talk about hell. Oh my goodness. Don't ever have that word come in. Not nothing that offends. The only problem I have with that is you're, you're, you're removing everything that put Christ on the cross. Why he died. I died to release them from judgment. I want them to know about the blood of Christ. I don't want them to be condemned. I want them to be convicted and turned to me. Repentance is the only way I am the only truth, the only life. Nobody comes to the father except by me. Jesus said, these are foundational truths and they cut like a knife. They're designed to wake up. Have you ever had a cold glass of water thrown in your face? That's what the word of God does sometimes. Whoa. Did he just say that? Did that bald guy just say that? I can't believe, you don't know how many times I've had people tell me, you know, at first you really ticked me off. I walked out, my wife dragged me on, but I started to listen and God starts to work in my heart and I realized that I'm the problem. But if you don't shoot people straight, how are they going to change? Do you know that millions go into church tomorrow? They'll come in with their porn and their addictions and their adultery and they'll leave justified and encouraged because nobody challenged them. And that's what the word of God does. And something that's very interesting, if you read the Old Testament, how many of you have heard about the fire upon the altar? It's a very important part of the Old Testament that God called them to build a tabernacle. And what they would do is they would put the sacrifice on the altar and they would burn that sacrifice. And of course the blood and the Holy of Holies and the priests and make atonement for the sins of the people. Temporary covering. It was just a temporary covering. But it's so interesting when that fire got started in the tabernacle that burned, I don't even know how many years, a hundred and some years possibly. Did you know that God started that fire? The fire of God came down when the sacrifice was ready. The fire of God came down when the sacrifice was ready. There's something there. The fire of God comes, oh Romans 12, present your bodies as living sacrifices. When that sacrifice, the fire of God falls on that sacrifice. And again, I don't like reading things into Scripture and making up stuff, digging out of the context, but there's a lot of truth to that. The bottom line is God started the fire and the priest had to keep that fire going. Had to keep that fire going. Bring in the fuel, bring in the kindling, bring in the wood, keep that fire going. And the parallels are amazing because if you were here last night and if you've surrendered your heart, surrendered your life, or maybe you're seeking that all consuming fire, there are things you must do. Here's why. If you do nothing, you will drift. Go jump in the Owens River and do nothing. Watch what direction you're going to go. South, with the current. So that's what happens to believers. Hey, I'm just, I'm not going to do anything. Guess what? You drift from God. It's a fight. It's a battle. It is warfare. Isaiah 57, 15, for thus says the high and lofty one. Think about this. This is God speaking. How profound is this? And you can say all of the Bible is God speaking, amen? But when it stops and it says, thus saith the Lord, explanation point, that's when you sit up straight. You look at that Bible, you highlight it. Man, this is profound and powerful. God is saying this. Can you imagine if we just ponder that for a minute? The God of the universe, the living God, Yahweh, Elohim, he is speaking to us. He is telling us, this is what I say. Here's where he, God isn't playing. Let's make a deal. He's saying this is the deal. So when people want to make a deal with God based on that game show, I'll do this. If you do this, oh, and I don't want to give up this. If you do this, God doesn't play games. He says, this is the deal. So God says, here is the deal. I'm saying this. I dwell, God says, I dwell in the high and holy place. I dwell where no one exists. I am high and lifted up. I am with him though. I dwell with him who has a contrite and humble spirit. God says, I will dwell with the person who is broken and humble. No negative Nelly's or judgmental Jerry's are allowed in this place. This is a humble broken. God says, I will revive the heart of the broken one. I will revive the spirit of the humble. I will draw them back to me. I will give them a passion for my word. Do you remember? Have you ever had that passion for God where you couldn't get enough of God? You got up hungry for God. You went to bed hungry for God. Where did that passion go? God doesn't leave folks. God doesn't leave. We drift and we've got to keep that fire burning. How do we do that? First point here is through brokenness and humility. What's the difference between contrite and humble? Contrite is an attitude of the heart. Humble is walking it out. We have to have both of those. Now, before you jump to conclusions, I am not talking about perfectionism. Praise God. Because if we were, I'd have to do this. I can't stand up here. But see, it's not about perfection. John MacArthur would say, it's not about perfection. It's about direction. God, I can't measure up, but I will die trying. The problem is that we raise our standard and miss it. It's what we lower and we hit it. And I love these people. I pray for them. This topic often upsets people. And they say things like this. Shane, that's legalistic. We live under grace now. Yeah, but obeying God is not legalism. Legalism is I'm doing all these things. I am so special. God loves me more than you. I don't go to the movies. I don't cuss. I don't hang out with those who do. I read my Bible every morning for an hour and a half. I get through it three times a year. I fast every Wednesday and Friday. Measure up to that hot shot. Legalism. God, Jesus plus works. Measuring my standard by my works. But wisdom says, I don't want to watch things that pull me away from God. I don't want to lust after women that are not my wife by what I watch, what I view. I don't want to be taken captive by the darkness in this world. I'm going to act and live a different way because of my relationship with the Lord, drawing me to him. See, it's out of a loving relationship that you do these things. But to remove obedience, you might as well take out a plethora of scriptures. Make no provision for the flesh. Make no provision for the flesh that you might plan ahead to sin. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Put on the whole armor of God. Take away this. Don't do this. I mean, it's just throughout scripture. And so what I found is people who don't like obedience love to challenge this point. They don't want to obey God because that's really where the rubber meets the road. And really, you shouldn't have to force someone. If you don't want to obey God, you really have to look at your heart. Do I truly have genuine faith in God? Leonard Ravenhill, how many of you have heard of him? He said, everyone wants my mantle. You know what a mantle was? Metaphorically speaking, it's when Elisha passed on his mantle, his calling, his gifting, his anointing to Elisha. And he's waiting for that mantle to fall upon him. He says, everyone wants my mantle, but no one wants the sackcloth and the ashes. Everyone wants the limelight. Oh, I'll serve in church if I can speak. I'm so glad, you know where God started me? Cleaning toilets as an usher. And then one day the pastor said, hey, do you want to give a message? I'm like, I guess so. Why not? The Holy Spirit's burning inside of me. If he's burning inside of me, see if the pulpit's burning, the pew will too. That's how this works. You set the pulpit on fire, the pew will be on fire as well. It's a contagious fire as well. It's a consuming fire, contagious fire. People, they either want more of it or they want to get out of here. And if you don't like what I'm saying, it's probably because you need to hear what I'm saying. Acts 1.8, many of you know, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And again, I think it's so important because there is a big divide in the church from conservatives and charismatics, probably a mixture here. And that's why I avoid labels often. What does the Bible say? The Bible says you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Sounds like a good thing to me. 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 14, Paul says these gifts have been given to the church because you need a little help. Okay, that sounds like a pretty good thing. What does the Bible say? Strong theology with the power of the Holy Spirit. And power is related to the connection. Whatever you're connected to is what you will resemble. The outflow, what is flowing out of me is related to the filling. What is going inside of me? And I talk often, we have a lot of pastors who follow the ministry. I've got a podcast, Pastors Unplugged, and I reach out and talk to a lot of pastors. And a lot of questions come in. And one is obviously about how do I prepare a sermon? And they think you sit down Saturday night and you prepare a sermon. The sermon actually begins on Monday. Because who you are all week is who you'll be when you step to the pulpit. You don't write some things down on a piece of paper. It comes from travail. It comes from the prayer closet. It comes from seeking God. It comes from studying his word. And what God's downloading in your heart, you begin to download to others and you come out of the prayer closet on fire for God. It's who you are all week. What does it have to do with the Christian? Same thing. The infilling, what you're putting in is what is going to come out. And I would say this, pride must die in you before God can truly fill you. So back to this whole concept. He's an all-consuming fire. Let him burn. Did you know you must fight for the fire? You must fight for the fire of God. Folks, it's time to pull up our pants and put on the spiritual armor and understand the enemy is coming against your family. This is the time, dad, to where we need to not start. We need to stop hearing thank God for praying mom and start hearing thank God for praying mom and dad. The dads are the spiritual leaders of the home. That's why the condition of our nation is in this condition. It's because men have forsaken their God-given roles as spiritual leaders in their home. I know it's tough, but we've got to do hard things. John Piper said the evidence of being a Christian is not that there are no tactical defeats in the war, but that you keep fighting till the promise victory is given. That's why we fight for our families. We fight for the truth. We fight for the innocent. The pulpits fight when we preach sermons. We are fighting for the truth. We are exposing the unfruitful works of darkness. We're trying to make a difference in all areas of life. And I did an interview recently with Erwin Lutzer. Lutzer, I believe it's pronounced. And he made a great point that evil never retreats on its own. Hmm. So for all those people who don't want me to get political, evil never retreats on its own. What happens? A greater force has to restrain it. So all the evil that we're seeing coming to our country, it is not going to retreat. It has to be exposed. And you know how I fight my battles? Like we're doing tonight. This is how I fight my battles. This is how you need to fight your battles. On your knees. Hands lifted up in your prayer closet at home. You go to that secret place. You go to, I talked about last night. There is a place where God will meet you. Did you know that Jesus said there is a God, there's a place where God will meet you, the living God. He said, go to your prayer closet and you're going to shut the door and begin to seek God like never before. Could it be that we're not seeing measurable results because we're fighting with carnal weapons? And I also want to remind you what Leonard Ravenhill said, there is no such thing as a painless Pentecost. There's no such thing as a painless Pentecost. There is a price. There is a cost. So how do we keep this all consuming fire burning? Number one, I talked about last night, the fuel of desperation. That is the main fuel. If you've got a fire going, what happens when you pour some gasoline on it? Don't do it unless you have a little cup or something. I've seen bad things happen. But that desperation is a fuel that begins that fire. And then follow with that. You have to have brokenness of heart and humility and actions. I'm going to talk about more about that tomorrow, but I want to share that verse with you. I just did in Isaiah 57. God says, I dwell in a holy place with those who have a broken and contrite heart. See what happens when I come to God broken, now he can fix me. When I come to him humble, now he can lead me. And when I come to him empty, now he can fill me. And something I've noticed over the years is profound. The proud think they are broken, but the humble know they are not. And here's another log to throw on the fire. The fuel of prayer and fasting. The fuel of prayer and fasting. Did you know that fasting used to be part of the early church? They used to talk about it a lot more than we do now. Now King's stomach is on the throne. We don't want to talk about this. Let's make my prayers comfortable, convenient, get right to the point. Why are prayer meetings boring or we rarely have them when it's the most important thing in the church? Because that's what moves the hand of God. When people pray, God moves. When people pray, God moves. You look all the famous people you love to read, all the famous Christians, they were men and women of prayer. All of them. The revivals that would spark up all began because of prayer. James 5.16, confess your trespasses to one another. Pray for one another that you may be healed. And then he goes on to say something profound. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. But first we can learn a few things. The power of confession. Confess your trespasses. Maybe some things you don't confess to people, but confess it to God. I think what's stopping many people with having that deep relationship with God is unconfessed sin. I liken it to a time my son turned on the water hose all the way. He was only three years old. Nothing was coming out. So I had to research how many kinks were in the water hose. Three kinks. Open those kinks and he couldn't even hold the water hose. Now parallel that with our own lives. That besetting sin. That unconfessed sin. It will stop the power of God. It will hold it back. That's why many people church is boring. God is irrelevant. You don't like to read the Bible. It doesn't mean much. It doesn't make sense. You don't like to pray. Because something is stopping that flow. That's why I came here tonight is to help unkink those water hoses. Metaphorically speaking. He says something here. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. Effective. What is that? It's energizing. It's energizing. You turn the power on. My goodness. Could we turn the power on in a prayer meeting? Fervent. Heat. Desire. Righteous. Clean heart. Right standing. So he's basically saying if you come to God with an energized heart. A fervent desire. A persistent desire. With a clean heart. God hears that prayer. Because that's a man who says I'm going to lay hold of God and I'm going to never let go. The old saints a hundred years ago would come out of a prayer meeting and say we held on to God and we never let go until the answer. We travailed. We persisted. We got to that altar. We clung to that promise. And they pulled down heaven. But today if we don't get our answer in 10 minutes we're out of here. I'm bored. I'm hungry. That's not persevering. That's not that's not travailing in prayer. The power closet is the link between Christ's private life and his public ministry. And I found that prayer is not as much about getting answers as it's me getting to God. That's the thing about prayer. It's not just about giving God our checklist and what we want. It's about me getting to God. Hearing the heart of God. Understanding the heart of God. When men pray God moves. When men pray and women pray God moves. He'll bring that prodigal son home. He'll draw that wayward daughter. It might take take time. God says he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. He's a rewarder of those who diligently. Not sometimes. I prayed last week. So many times I've talked to people and they come they they say my prodigal son my prodigal daughter. I'm like have you set aside a couple hours for prayer and fasting? Oh pastor I'm too busy. Or my favorite one all my blood sugar levels. I can't do that. That was my excuse for 10 years. Come to find out I was just addicted to sugar. Fix that problem and everything else falls in place. Form without fire quickly fades. So many people have form without fire. Did you know often powerful prayer meetings powerful prayer meetings sometimes don't have a lot of words. There's there's there's there's there's just waiting on God. They're seeking oh God if you don't move there is no plan B. God we are desperate to hear from you. Oh God we need to hear. I don't even know do you sometimes not even know how to pray? I don't even know how to pray for the wickedness that is going on. And the agendas and the false narratives and the the craziness in our country. God I don't even know how to pray. But I do know this. What army can stop God? What king can defeat God? What problem can God not solve? Nothing can stop God almighty. And when people pray that's what I said yesterday when Martin Luther prayed he shook Germany. When John Knox prayed he shook Scotland. When when when William Tyndale prayed he was able to translate the Bible. When D.L. Moody prayed it brought America to her knees. When when Whitfield prayed he experienced revival. When Jonathan Edwards prayed it brought in the great awakening. When men and women pray. When Oswald Chambers prayed oh my goodness if I could take you to his journals or Adonai Judson or Hudson Taylor. Oh what about David David Brainerd? Oh the prayers of David Brainerd. They would call down heaven. Men and women would be captivated by the power and presence of God and lives would be changed. Often throughout the Bible prayers talked about labor, travail, endeavoring, struggling, striving, anguish. David Wilkerson once said when God begins and wants to recover a ruined situation he will literally take a man and baptize him in anguish. And that anguish turns into a prayer. My best prayers are when I'm in anguish and desperation. Folks I don't want to get too graphic but do you really do you understand what is going on in our country? Sex trafficking. They want to protect pedophilia. Call it minor attracted. Men dressing up as women. Pole dancing. Having little kids put money in their g-string. Folks when are you going to wake up? The church is asleep. Well I don't care. Let me put on Netflix. Let's see what's on Netflix. Let me go on a Netflix binge. That's for you pastor. No that's for you church. That's for you. My job is to equip the saints not go out and do it all myself. If the church of the living God would wake up and take the rightful place and begin to be worshipers again begin to pray and seek God with all of their heart and all of their strength you would see God move in a powerful way. Why am I so excited? Because I should have been dead long ago. God should have buried me long ago. I was on a highway to hell. I love to sing that ACDC song. As I was drunk as can be I don't even know how I got home. As I'm a highway to hell and I would cuss and curse out God. And he said I will save that young man that he can be a voice of truth. So I don't care if I offend you. Maybe you need to be offended. Maybe you need to wake up and look at the direction you're going. Somebody needs to speak the truth to you. It wasn't until somebody spoke the truth to me and said you're on the broad road to destruction. You need to wake up because that's true love. Is it not? Not wanting to tell someone the truth because you don't want to offend them is not love. It means you're a coward. Thank God I don't have to go home and say I hope they like my message. I'm being serious. I didn't go home and say God did I do what you called me to do? Did I back away? Was I too cowardly? Lord please show me. I want to please you. I don't care if I upset half the room. That's not my goal. But that's what happens sometimes. When God's word comes alive. And then I mentioned earlier fasting. I won't talk too much about it. I've got books out there you can read on that. Basically what it is, it's not a work. Let me tell you what this is. Bodily appetites obviously are not all bad. Correct? When it becomes too much it's called gluttony in the Bible. And if all we're doing is feeding King's stomach, we're caving in to those desires. I don't know about you, but he's loud. I get up in the morning. I want a large coffee and donuts. I want some chocolate now. I want to take a nap. I want to look at things I shouldn't look at. I want to go here and do this. I don't want to go to church tonight. I didn't want to come tonight. My flesh didn't, but I'm speaking. I have to be there. I told Mike to have a backup message just in case. My flesh would have loved to stay home tonight. Can we just be honest? Can we be honest in the church? People sometimes say, Shane, why are you so transparent? You know, pastors are supposed to be. No, they're not. If you don't ever idolize a man up here, all our job is to point you to the cross and get out of the way. That's our job. Don't follow me around and think I'm perfect. I'm a broken man just like you. God wounded me deeply, but I will point people to the cross. That's the answer. He must increase, but I must decrease. And so the flesh leads me around, eat too much, drink too much, watch too much. And fasting says, shut your mouth, flesh. Shut your mouth. I'm going to give my desire for food, a greater desire for God. And I'll just give you a little tidbit up front. Fasting is really not that hard. You know what's hard? You're all withdrawing from your favorite addictions. You're going through withdrawals like a heroin addict goes through withdrawals. No more caffeine, no more nicotine, no more sugar. I'm going to explode. It's not the food. Your body turns into ketosis and goes into fat burning. If you're designed to do that, it's a withdrawing from addictions that make fasting so difficult. But what it is, it's a neglecting kind of pushing this away. And I can tell you some of the most incredible times with God have been when I fasted and sought him and denied the flesh. And there's something that comes a fullness of the spirit. A man by the name of Winky Prattney. I don't know why his parents named him that, but that's his name. He said, when body appetites rule, when there is a lack of self-control, man becomes earthly and sensual. If you're not the master of your appetite, you are its slave. The love of eating destroys self-control. Uncontrolled appetites always lead to backsliding and spiritual apathy and a loss of function. Now, notice he didn't say, and I'm not saying that food is bad. We're supposed to take it with Thanksgiving. God created it. It's for fellowship. You need it. You don't have it after a while, you're going to die. But for most of us, it's going to take quite a while. Don't believe the doctors say, don't fast for more than two days, you'll die. Did you know I have enough reserves energy for like 40 or 50 days? Reserved energy, it's called fat, adipose tissue. We won't die. Now you want to be strategic, you want to talk to your doctor, you want to seek God, you want to just do what's right. But there's this love of eating, love of fulfilling the lust of the flesh. I need that Vente Starbucks. No, you need the 500 milligrams of caffeine. I call it Christian crack. That's a whole other story. I'm not going to upset too many people tonight. But Jesus also said, I believe, some translations, depending on where, NIV versus New King James and Texas Receptives, Vaticanus and Sinaticus and where they got all the different manuscripts, that's a whole nother teaching. But there's two different manuscripts, and one of them doesn't have this part in Mark. One of them does where Jesus said, this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting. And I believe that's a biblical principle, that there are some demonic strongholds that are intense, they are deep. And if you've ever been waging war against the demonic, sometimes it's very difficult, very challenging. And so he said, this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting. Fasting is prayer on steroids. Fasting is that I'm going deep. I am serious. And I don't think it's a work at all. It's mentioned throughout Scripture. Somebody by the name of, who fasted 40 days? Who was that? Let me just go here for a minute. Jesus had nothing better to do than to go walk in the wilderness and not eat, just for no reason, even though I think three accounts of the gospel, maybe even all four accounts of the gospel have nothing better to do. I think it's ironic that no miracles, 30 years of no really miracles at all, baptized by John. John says, I'm not going to baptize you. Jesus said, suffer it so that all righteousness might be fulfilled. The Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness for 40 days of prayer and fasting. He comes out, the Bible is clear, he comes out in the fullness of the Spirit. And then his ministry starts. Coincidence? Those who don't want to fast say just coincidence. And what people don't like in the Bible, they call legalism, so they don't have to obey it. Jesus fasted, Moses fasted, David fasted, Ezra fasted, Nehemiah fasted, Esther fasted, the disciples fasted. Paul says, I was in much travail and fastings often. The didache or didocte, however you pronounce it, early church writing, say you're to fast before you're baptized. Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Ignatius, fasting, fasting, fasting to buffet the flesh. And I'm instantly reminded of what Paul said, I discipline my body. And I don't know about you, but I've had a problem over the years. Overeating was one of my struggles. I was chubby in high school. I made fun of it. That's why I got involved in steroids. I'll talk about that tomorrow night. Then became just a big body builder and could beat people up. And now I'm satisfied, right? Now I'm successful. Bench and press and 400 pounds. And oh man, but I was dying inside. All because of low self-esteem. And so I know it's a struggle. But do I give into the pull of the flesh? Am I not telling you the truth? If you constantly give into the flesh, go get that wine, have another glass, go get that, eat another piece, go get that, eat it. And we're just constantly giving in the flesh. It makes us very weak spiritually. That's just a spiritual truth. When Paul said, I discipline my body, I bring it into subjection. So when I preach to others, I myself should not become disqualified. Was he saying, I discipline my body by working out? I discipline my body by rejecting the pull of the flesh. My flesh says, yes, I say no. You are created to discipline your body. It doesn't disciple you. You disciple it. You spank it. You tell it no. No temptation is overtaking you. But what is common to man? But God who's faithful will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able to bear. But with the temptation will make the way of escape. And to say no to the flesh. I know it's not a popular topic, but I don't care. It's a powerful one. Here's what's ironic. The church has become so weak that when we talk about New Testament Christianity, they think we're extreme. Let that just sink in. The early church, couple hour prayer meetings, they were in a hurry. They would go out, they would actually pray for people to be healed. The gifts of the Holy Spirit were operating. They were turning the world upside down. Now we come into church and the power of God has vanished. Where's the New Testament church? What would Paul say? Hey Paul, hey Shane, that was a pretty good message. Is that it? Like where's the demonstration of the power? Where's the spirit? Where's the lies being changed? Where's the addictions being broken? Where's the demonic strongholds? Some of you have demonic strongholds that you need to deal with tonight. I didn't say that. Jesus said it. You will cast out demons. Now of course, I don't believe a Christian can be possessed, but we sure can be demonized. We can be harassed. A messenger of Satan was sent to Paul. Satan went after Jesus. Make this stone into bread. Cast yourself down. God will raise you up. Demonic strongholds. And we do make a mistake. If we think there's a demon under every rock and we get too caught up in it, we're not in a good direction. But if you just act like, nope, nope, nope. None of that spiritual stuff matters. It's not gonna happen to me. Are you sure? Basically a demonic stronghold, I'm completely off track here, is when you open the door to something that is demonic. So all the emails I get, Shane, there's nothing wrong with me smoking marijuana all the time. Are you sure? It's called a gateway drug for a reason. Medicinal purposes, that's maybe for one percent of a hundred, one percent of a hundred. Come on. I smoked a lot of it. I did a lot of crystal meth. I'm not stupid. I know how the game works. That's a demonic stronghold. That's why it's hard to give up. That's why you get angry when you have to give it up. Alcohol, oh, opens a door. Pornography, witchcraft, the occult. I've talked to people where they've just played with tarot cards or Ouija boards or opened themselves up to horoscopes. So you open the door. Come on in, enemy. And now there's a stronghold. Now it's got a hold on you. It's called spiritual warfare, spiritual battle. I don't quite understand all facets of it, but I know it's real. I know prayer and fasting can knock it down. And then the fuel, we're talking about keeping the fuel of God's fire going, the fuel of worship, the fuel of worship and devotion. I love that song right before I came up. The more I seek you, the more I find you. And the more I find you, the more I seek you. Let me tell you, that's a secret to the Christian faith right now. The more you seek God, the more you find him. The more desperate you are, the more you'll find him. I'm not going to take a survey. I don't want to embarrass people, but how many of you are going to go home straight from here and put on something that is ungodly and fill your mind with it and wonder why you wake up not hungry for God? As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Fuel of worship and devotion. The Lord, the more I seek you, the more I find you, the more I seek you. Worship expresses our heart, it changes it. In the word of God, through devotion renews our mind. That's why it's so important. And there's got to be a, find what type of music you like or find what type of turning off everything and just sitting before God. There has to be a worshiping, adorning him and meditating on the power and presence of God and letting him change your heart. And then obviously look to the word of God. Praise God for that. That keeps the fire going. Did you know first Timothy said the church of the living God is to be the pillar and foundation of the truth. So to keep the fire of God going, you have to look to the truth of God's word. It is the truth. It is the inerrancy of scripture. Truth is not flexible when it comes to absolutes. It is solid and unyielding. And then also to keep the fuel of that fire going, the fuel of faith, the fuel of faith. Don't worry. I'm not talking about name it and claim it. You know what that is? Oh Lord, I want that Mercedes. I want that Mercedes. When I get home, I have an effect. Praise God. It's going to be in the driveway. I'm naming it and I'm claiming it. That Rolex, that hundred thousand dollar account. I know there's a hundred people here and give a thousand dollars tonight. We're going to name it. We're going to claim it. That's not, that's not the right, that's not biblical faith. They take, they take fractions of scripture and they make it into a false doctrine. Faith is believing and trusting in God, even in the difficulties. God's sovereignty is my sanity. The opposite of faith is a critical spirit, a complaining spirit. That and faith cannot co-exist in the same body. I can't come in here and go, Lord, I trust you. I have faith in you. Oh God, thank you. Your sovereignty is my sanity. I don't know what's going on, but you do. I look to you and you alone. I have faith in God. I'm just trusting you. And then I come in and go, oh yeah, whatever. This guy's too loud. I don't like what he's saying. My marriage sucks. I just want to get home and do this. And look at, look what Biden did again. 2023 is going to be worse than 2022. Look what Newsom's doing. Oh my goodness. We had over 200 people move out of our church from California the last two years. 200. I stopped keeping track after I got depressed. Deacons, elders, friends. I don't know what that's about, but it just kind of fit in there somehow. Oh, my point was negativity can really, oh, they might be watching this. I better not go there. But sometimes God moves us on. Of course, right? We can all agree with that. And maybe I would if I could. I don't know. I'm not in that position. But what I'm seeing in the Christian community is so much negativity. And there's a lot to get negative about. Let me tell you, I won't go over the nine ridiculous laws in California that take effect tomorrow. Oh, don't get me started. Especially on doctors. If they recommend any other protocol than the COVID vaccine protocol, they could lose their license. Everything from releasing criminals. It's just ridiculous. So there's a lot to be upset about. But that can't outweigh faith and trust in God, because that will weigh me down and prevent me from having that faith in God. Faith moves mountains. Faith is the thing that propels Christians in the right direction. As a matter of fact, without faith, it's impossible to please God. It's impossible to please God by faith. By faith, Noah built an ark. By faith, Abram moved on. By faith, David fought the Philistines. By faith, kingdoms were brought down by the power of God. By faith, they marched around Jericho. It goes throughout all Scripture. By faith, by faith, by faith. It's a trust in a sovereign God who knows and has your ways. Nothing again can defeat God. What can stop his plans? What areas do you need faith in tonight? Again, the opposite is doubt and a critical spirit. Faith. Folks, some of you need to change your mind tonight. Change your attitude. Yes, life is difficult. Life is challenging. You might be going through a lot, but it's time to put those negative thoughts aside. The Bible said, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Take your thoughts captive. He told the church, is it in Philippi? Finally, brethren, whatever things are dark and ugly and demonic, meditate on these things. That didn't even sound good, did it? So when I'm going to quote that verse, I hope I can remember it. I didn't write it down. I want you to think about what are you putting into your mind. Finally, brethren, Paul is leaving the church with these words. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true. There goes CNN. Sorry. I'm not perfect, okay, up here. I say some things that are not God. Maybe it was, I don't know, but the things that are true and honest, noble, upright, worthy of praise, meditate on these things. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's why your flesh hates this topic. I don't want to make major changes and get rid of these things that are comfortable is a good word. And I did an interview a while back. I don't know who it was for, maybe Pure Flix, but we were talking about young adults and the suicide rate and the depression. It's alarming. But did you know the top things that they are watching has to do with the occult and darkest witches, vampires, that's what they're gothic. That's what they're watching. So to me, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Get the light of the gospel into the rooms. Oh, they don't like it. That's right. They don't like it. That's why you're the parent. They're not outside that house yet. If it was up to my kids, it would be chaotic, of course, right? Most of my kids, not all of them. One of my daughters here, so I have to be careful. But as parents, we have to make sure we're monitoring what goes into their minds. And there's fascination for the darkness and the occult and all these things. And that's what's causing the depression. And now the big movement, of course, many of you know, with transitioning, you know, for a boy wants to become a girl and a girl wants to become a boy. And if you're following other stories, you're all those people. A lot of those people are saying, don't do that. There's no fulfillment there. See, there's no fulfillment outside of God. There's no fulfillment outside of God. We have to point people to the cross. You let them know you might struggle in sin. You might. We all struggle with something. Let's be open and honest. Anybody perfect here tonight? Well, I'll wait. I'll wait back there. You get the point. But thank God for a Savior. Thank God for Jesus, who says, come to me all who are weak and heavy laden. I will give you rest. There might be a struggle. You might. I walk up to this pulpit with a limp that will not leave, spiritually speaking. God broke and hurt me at a very deep level, like he's done to many of you. But through that brokenness, through that pain, you hold on to the shepherd. Now you know him as healer because he has set you free. Now you know him as redeemer because I was blind, but now I see. Now you know him as Jehovah Nisi or Jehovah Jireh, my provider. My God has seen me through. Although the waters were coming over, he pulled me up out of that water. He walked me through those difficulties. I didn't go around the storm. Sometimes I had to go right through the storm, but he held my anchor in place because he was a solid rock on which I built my life. Oh, it's a hard audience tonight. A lot of spiritual warfare. You should get excited about God. As I mentioned last night, they have something called, you've heard of it, dead man walking. Not in California, of course. But they let people go. But in places where somebody's been convicted, they've been tried. They're genuinely guilty and they're heading for, years ago it was the electric chair, but it was too brutal or things. And now they'll inject them and they'll kill them. It's death row. And they call it dead man walking because they're walking down that hallway to their death. What about if somebody came in and said, hey, the governor just pardoned you. Grab your stuff. Your wife's out front. You think he's gonna go, oh man, thanks. Thank you. Good job. Where's my stuff? Really? Wake up, folks. Saturday night crew's supposed to be excited. God's, they've been set free. They've been set free. How much more ought we be excited that God set us free? But see, that's why there's no excitement because there's no deep relationship. Oh, I just don't like to worship. I'm not emotional. Will you express anger real well? We've got handcuffs on during worship. We're bored when it comes to church because we're feeding on things that are not of God. We're feeding on things that are dark and demonic. And then finally, I've talked about this earlier, so I won't go into a lot of detail. The fuel of obedience and holiness. Oh my goodness. Did you know holiness is a very good thing? Holiness does not mean I'm up here wearing a funny hat and I'm so holy I've got a gown on. Holiness is coming out from among them and be separate. God says, come out from them. Look different. You are a child of God. You should look different. You should watch things a little. You should watch what you're watching a little bit more closely. You should treat people differently. You should put into your mind things are godly and glorifying. There's a difference about you. Come out from among them. Be separate. Let us worship the Lord and the beauty of holiness, they would say in the psalmist. We worship the Lord and the beauty of holiness. There's something intimate about God. There's something precious about purity. Something precious about purity. The innocence of a child. That's what makes me most upset. I get so upset sometimes I could hit somebody. The old shame comes out. Don't you? When you're talking about little kids, it's perversion. It's child abuse. Innocence is gone. Oh, they don't care. It's good for them. They're seven years old. Funny story, but it's not really funny. Somebody told me, might have been Michael. I was here in August and there's some hot springs up there, right? Hot springs by Mammoth. So we're up there and this lady and her little son, I think he was, little kid, and like, oh yeah, we've never been here the first time. She goes, oh yeah, you know, sometimes people come up here and they're just naked. They just sit in the hot springs naked. She goes, yeah, and I just, you know, I just explained to Johnny, it's no big deal. This is how people are made and she's from Los Angeles and she's, you know, it makes sense, but there's no, there's no blushing. There's no, come on Johnny, let's go. It's just, it's just dumbing down a society and there's no call to holiness. There's no, there's no love for God and for purity. God is pure. God is holy. And that's why, that's why all the writers of the Bible experienced God. That's what some of you need. Isaiah experienced God. He said it was in the year that King Uzziah died, he saw the Lord high and lifted up. His entire robe filled, his train of his robe filled the entire temple and the seraphim were flying and Isaiah said, I've seen the King. You can look it up. He has said that, he said, I saw the King and I fell down in the holy presence of God. Oh, I'm, I'm a man of undone lips and I dwell among the people of undone lips. I am a sinner. Oh my God, I stand before a holy God. And God touched his lips and cleansed his sin. And Jeremiah, God called Jeremiah. Jeremiah said, I'm only a youth. And he just said, don't say you're only a youth, go who to I sent you. You will root out, you will pull up, you will pluck out, you will destroy. They've experienced God. Paul experienced God. He was going to persecute Christians and God knocked him off of his, Bible says his beast. We don't know exactly what it was. Horse, camel, I don't care. He experienced God. The disciples experienced God. That was the upper room. Some of you need an upper room experience where God becomes boring to on fire for God. Something you might do to now an all consuming fire. He's an all consuming fire. You got to let him burn. Oh, I don't want to, I don't want to just play church. I don't know about you. You just want to play church and go through the motions and be depressed all the time and not have a relationship with God. If you talk to most Christians, I'll ask them how long, when it was last time you witnessed to somebody about your faith. Oh gosh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't. And I understand I went years, a decade without anybody knowing because I was embarrassed to be a Christian. But once the fire of God comes, there's nothing you can do. Psalm says, who may ascend until the hill of the Lord, who may ascend until the hill of the Lord or stand in his holy place. He who has a clean hands and a pure heart and has not lifted up his soul to an idol. And let me just remind you to encourage you. God uses us not because we are perfect, but because we are forgiven and we are surrendered to him. All of these things keep the fire of his presence burning in his heart and your heart actually. So what I want to do, I'm winding down. I'm just going to shift gears closely real quickly. So if you're about ready to fall asleep, I encourage you to wake up. If you're ready to head out of here, just give me a second. When I came back to the Lord, there was, and I read it last night, there was a scripture that frightened me. And it said, not everyone who says, Lord, Lord will be able to enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my father. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, we did these things in your name. He'll say, depart from me. I never knew you. Wait a minute. But then I thought, well, of course God knows me. That doesn't make sense. But here's what it's like. What about if Billy Graham, when he was alive, if he was sitting right there, I would say, Mr. Graham. Oh, I've read all your autobiographies. I know when you walked the sawdust trail, you gave your life to the Lord under the preaching of Mordecai Ham, all the presidents you've met. I know what your, I know your sermons, many of them by heart. I saw that in New York on YouTube when you were there and I visited. And I know all about you. What's he going to say to me, young man? I don't know you. True. I don't know you. There's no relationship. So that's what Jesus means when he says, depart from me. I don't know if he'd have tears in his eyes. I don't know. But he would say, depart from me, Shane. I don't know you. You knew about me. You, you went to a Christian school. You were, you were, you were raised in America and aren't Americans Christians. You guys owned a couple of Bibles. You went to church when you could. You said you're a Christian if somebody asked you, but I don't know you. I didn't have a relationship with you. And that's why the Bible is crystal clear that all men, I'm going to say something that's not easy to say. I have no time, no, no problem saying it, but a lot of churches tomorrow, you will not hear this, especially on TV because it's building an audience. Did you know that? I've watched surveys on how to build a church, how to, how to get more members, how to get more likes, how to get more followers. It's very simple. Don't offend. Don't offend. Only encourage. How many people are we encouraging to hell? Because the gospel offends. It offended me so much that I hated it. I hate, I told you last night, my mama put her Bible on my ACDC albums and Judas Priest. Get that Bible off of there, mom. Don't pray for me. I want to have fun tonight. I hate church. I hate God. Bunch of garbage. Don't tell me to pray. I hate the light. I love the darkness. Am I not just speaking the truth? Many will come to me in that day. Say, but Lord, Lord, Lord, I knew all about you. You died on the cross. Yes, shame. But even the demons believe. Did you know that? Did you know that folks? The Bible says the demons believe and they tremble. They don't believe for salvation that leads to repentance. What it means is they know who Jesus is. When he started his ministry, they'd say, we know who you are, son of God. And they had no authority over him. We know who you are, son of God. Please throw us into, don't throw us into the abyss, throw us into the swine. We know who you are, son of God. And he would cast them out. And they go to arrest Jesus. And they said, why didn't you arrest him? And they said, we couldn't arrest him. Nobody ever spoke like this man. The spiritual authority to cast out demons, the spiritual authority to call the Pharisees, you hypocrite, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? You whitewashed tombs. See, you got to get this picture out of your mind that Jesus was just some nice, smiley, quiet guy who didn't do anything. He overturned tables in the church. Get out of here. He even had time to make a whip. Get out of my father's house. It's a house of prayer, but you've made it a den of thieves. And they said, the disciples, it says, I believe it's John 2. And they said, zeal for his house consumes me. Jesus was consumed by a passion for God in the church. Jesus called them out. He loved the sinner, but he would call it out. And so it woke me up. Oh, God, would you say I don't know you? And so what I'm about to say is this, all men, all men without Christ are judgment bound. The wages of sin is death. That's Bible. You're not going to hear it on YouTube much, but that's the Bible. All men are judgment bound. The wages of sin is death. And people say, but Shane, that's so negative. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about it. I want to think about it. I've had people tell me, I don't think about it right now. I don't think about it right now. That's too. No, but see, there's good news. Hold on. There's good news. Yeah. In order to understand the good news, though, don't you have to understand the bad news? To me, the good news makes no sense without the bad news. And that's why they call it cheap grace. And that's why people don't take this topic seriously, because they don't know about the bad news. The wages of sin is death, but eternal life is through Jesus Christ. And again, I didn't come here to be popular. I came here to be faithful. I came here to challenge people. I hope you go home and don't like what I had to say. Man, I don't like what he had to say, because that means you're not going to sleep well. And that means you're going to pray, God, if you're really there, if you're really speaking to me, would you show me? I'm restless. I'm restless. God loves a restless soul. And with God, I'm going to leave with this. There is no peace until there is something they call unconditional surrender. Unconditional surrender. Many of you know the story, some of you, maybe you don't, but of General Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. I read Grant's biography actually up here in June Lake a couple years ago. And Grant had Lee surrounded. And it was time to surrender. And General Lee said, no, these are my terms. And Grant said, you are surrender. You are to surrender. Unconditionally, there are no terms. And I thought about the wonderful parallels with God. Unconditional surrender. God, you are Savior. You are God. I'm not. I come to you broken and humble and repentant. The Bible says that you cannot come to salvation without belief and repentance and faith. Faith and belief are tied together. I believe that Jesus died for me. I have faith. And I repent of my sin. That's why belief isn't enough. You can ask Ray Comfort. You ever see his videos? He spoke at our church a few years ago. Incredible man. But he goes around and asks people, do you believe in Jesus? He died on the cross. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, they don't know him. What's the difference? They've never repented. Repentance is to change their mind about sin and see it as God sees it. Matthew 11, final verse, come to me all you are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And why I get so excited about this is because living water is just a step away. Some of you I will never ever see again in my life. Ever. Some of you. The Bible says three times in the book of Hebrews, today when you hear his voice, harden not your heart. Harden not your heart. Harden not your heart. Make that decision tonight to repent and believe in Jesus. In the I will reach out my hand. I will seek your face and here I'll find heaven on earth. Here I'll find grace. There's something keeps coming to mind. I want to share it tomorrow, but maybe I should tonight. I understand that these are some difficult things, but you also have to understand that the love of God is real. It's grace that's brought me here this far. It's grace that's taking me home. Thank God for the love of God. And a verse where I remember I literally wept reading it. I remember the house I was at. I remember the year I think it was 1999 on the couch. And the verse, I didn't write it down because I'm just now remembering it, said something like, even while I was in my sin, Christ died for me. And I had this vision even when I'm mocking him. I won't show you a finger I would put up, but when I say a fist, I'm mocking God. You leave me alone. I want to do what I want when I want to who I want. Even in my rebellion, Christ died for me. God loved me and he loves you. The love of God. You have to have the love of God. If all we have is hard truth and not the love of God, we'll become unbalanced. But if all you have is the love, you'll become very unbalanced as well. And there's a story I heard of a mom and a dad, and I close with this, I promise I say that twice now, but some of you need to hear it, I think. It's this father and this mother, they're in their 40s, and their son, he's 20 years old. He's just rebellious. He's coming home drunk again, using drugs. And the dad's like, we got to kick him out of this house. We've got to get him out of here. We're done with him. So you tell him, if I'm asleep, you tell him when he comes home. And so he heard him come home at two in the morning. And the dad heard the mom get up. And he's waiting at the door like, I hope she tells him off. And he doesn't hear anything for a while. And he goes down the stairs. And she's holding him. He's passed out drunk. She's holding him on the couch, just caressing his head, remembering when he was just two, her little boy. And the dad said, why aren't you kicking him out? She said something profound, I'll never forget. He wouldn't let me love him when he's awake. So I will love him when he's asleep. Folks, that's God. Rebelling against him gets you nowhere. Rejecting him gets you nowhere. Fully surrender tonight. And the Bible says, you'll experience times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Joy unspeakable. Life's not, don't get me wrong. Life's not easy. But now I've got a loving father walking me through every step of the way.