In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of repentance and turning to God. He encourages listeners to not be governed by the negative influences of the world, such as news and violence. The preacher highlights the need to have a change of heart and to live a life of kindness and generosity towards others. He references biblical passages that instruct believers to be content with what they have, to work with their own hands, and to give to those in need. The sermon concludes with the reminder that Jesus himself demonstrated kindness and generosity by giving his life for humanity.

I have a word this morning that the Lord's given me for this congregation. It's from Luke chapter 7. Please, if you can go there, Luke chapter 7. And it's a simple title, Can God Speak to You? Can God Speak to You? Now, this message is going to an end that the title doesn't necessarily suggest, so bear with me as we get through this. Now, Father, I thank you for the anointing of your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love, and your strength, and your word. Thank you for your promises and your assurance that you will keep us in the coming days no matter what we have to face. Thank you, Lord, that your voice transcends everything. All of our fears, and our failures, and our frustrations, and our weaknesses. Your voice rises above it all and has the power to create and to cast down. We thank you, Lord, that we are safe in the hands of God. Lord, open our hearts today and speak to us. Help us not to resist you. Give us grace, Lord, that we need, Father, to hear this word today and give me the strength to speak it. Father, we thank you and praise you in Jesus' mighty name. Luke chapter 7 verse 29, And all the people that heard him, that's Jesus, and the publicans justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him. Now that's an amazing thing. This scripture is talking about two types of people who are gathered around the testimony of God in Christ Jesus. They're getting a very, very clear word spoken to them, but there's a line that divides the two groups of people. And it's described in these verses of scripture as the baptism of John. Those who had accepted the baptism of John could hear the voice of God and were able to justify God as it is. And those who had rejected the baptism of John could not hear the voice of God. Yes, he was speaking, but they could not hear what he was saying. Now, most of us today, if I asked you the question, can God speak to you, would say, of course he can speak to me. Otherwise, why would I be here? Why would I be in Times Square Church? Why would I be lifting my hands and worshiping? It's obvious that God can speak to me. Now, I suppose this could also be said of the opening text that we just read, where I already said there were two different types of people. They were both standing in the presence of Jesus, as you and I are today. Both knew that God was there and that God was speaking. They were both witnesses of the words which he spoke. There are many, many people today who are capable of hearing words and even repeating them, but there's a difficulty of an opening of the heart and allowing those words to live inside of them. They were all aware, both groups, that the one who spoke to them had power. In Luke chapter 7, verse 22, and Jesus said, go your way and tell John what things you have seen and heard, how the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and to the poor the gospel is preached. They're all in his presence. They can all hear his voice speaking. They're all aware that he had power, not just words, but power was behind those words. The reports in the crowd, some of them would have known the dead people who were raised to life again, the blind who were seeing, the imprisoned and those who were without power, given strength to do things that they could not do in themselves. Yet there was still a percentage of them that could not be moved from the place where they were to the place that Jesus was calling them to. And that's the way it is today. In the body of Jesus Christ, in the church of Jesus Christ, there are two types of people, all gathered around the word of God, but there's a certain line, there's a line that divides. I've seen this so many times now over the years, people sitting under the same word in the same presence of God and producing two different results. Some are growing into the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ. They are changing by the spirit of God from image to image and glory to glory, as the scripture says, and others are accumulating knowledge without change. They can quote the scriptures, they can study the Bible, they can attend conferences, but technically speaking, they're the same 10 years from now as they are today. There's very little change except that they have embraced knowledge, but the knowledge of course has not embraced them. Here's what Jesus said about this type of person. In Luke 7 verses 31 and 32, he said, Whereunto shall I liken the men of this generation? What are they like? They're like children sitting in the marketplace and calling one to another and saying, we have piped to you and you have not danced and we've mourned to you and you have not wept. Now there's two, he said there are two little groups of children. They're sitting in the marketplace and they're calling as it is across the square one to another. And the one group is saying to one group, well, we have brought you joy, but you refuse to leave the place of mourning. And on the other side, they say, well, we've brought you a presentation of mourning and yet you refuse to leave the place where you are and join us. And here's what Jesus is trying to get across. He said, Whether I call you with a testimony of the fullness of joy that could be yours, or I warn you of the sorrow that awaits those who shun the voice of God, neither of these, for some people will cause them to get up from where they are and come over to the other side, where they should be. He's saying, it doesn't matter how, whether I come talking about the life that could be yours, or I warn you of the sorrow that awaits those who refuse to turn from sin, neither move you. It's a people in a sense who stay stationary where they are. They've succumbed to something. There's a reason why they can't hear the words of God. Now, the difference between these two groups of people is really quite simple. One group of people, those who had received and embraced the baptism of John, they saw that their lives had fallen short of all that God intended them to be. And others simply didn't agree with the counsel of God against them. It's amazing. They resisted change and instead they embraced a form of godliness, which left them outside of the power and the life that was freely being offered them. They simply didn't agree. Now, it was a harsh message that John, look at Luke chapter three with me, please, if you will. Luke chapter three, beginning at verse two, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Now, remember, remember that the group who rejected the baptism of John could not hear the word of God. It's amazing how many people in our generation who have come into what they think is a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ, but have never repented. I've never come to an understanding that of how other we are, how much of a nature that is corrupted we possess, how much we have, you and I have nothing to present. There's no, there's no bargaining on our part. We are completely morally bankrupt. We have no strength. We have no power. We have no resources. As Isaiah said, all of our righteousnesses are filthy rags in the sight of a holy God. Even the good deeds that we do, there's nothing of ourselves that we can present to God and hope to hold on to. And that was the difference. That's, that's why there were groups of people who were standing there hearing the same words as others, but yet not able to enter into the power of them because they had resisted this understanding that you and I have nothing to present to a holy God. We don't come to him with resources. We don't come to him with anything of ourselves that he should look at us and accept us. We've all fallen short of the glory of God. There's not one righteous, the scripture says, not even one among us. Now it says about John, he came into the country round about Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord and make his path straight. In other words, he preached the repentance. John offered the people a new nature that Christ was offering them. This agreement with God, this desire for change opens when he talks about this pathway. He says, prepare the way of the Lord and make his path straight. It's not a path for you and I to get to God. Repentance opens the pathway for God in Christ to come to us. That's what he's talking about. He's not saying repent and be baptized for your sins so that you can get through to God. The moment you have turned and received Christ as savior, you're fully accepted with God. And it's not about getting to God. It's about that open pathway of God to come to you and I. Verse five, he says, every valley shall be filled. Every mountain and hill shall be brought low. The crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways shall be made smooth. In other words, Jesus Christ will remove every obstacle. Everything that stands in the way of you and I knowing him in the way that he has longed to know us. He says, he'll bring down every place that we think is impossible. Every obstacle that stands between us and God. Every crooked way, every rough way, everything that life and circumstance has brought into your mind to tell you that God can't and won't come through to you. The moment you and I come to God with the humility in our heart. The moment we come and say, Lord, I'm nothing and you are everything. I have nothing to bring to you. You have everything to bring to me, Lord Jesus Christ. I don't come in in pride because the Bible says you resist proud, the proud and give grace to the humble. I don't have any accolades. I don't have any accomplishment. I don't have any reason that you should consider to use me apart from grace and mercy. And so Lord God, I come to you just as a vessel that says, Lord, I'm altogether other than you are, but you are willing to cleanse me, to wash me, to change me, to empower me, to let your life become mine. That's where John said, every valley will be filled. Every mountain brought low, every crooked place made straight in the rough ways are made smooth. And the pathway is created for the Lord to come to us. That pathway of the word of God, that pathway, you see, you won't change until you want to change. You see, the bottom line is that we don't bring part of ourselves into this kingdom and add part of Jesus to it. We bring nothing of ourselves and we add all of Jesus to that nothingness. That's where our life comes from. We don't bargain with God and say, well, I'll give up smoking, but I'll hang on to pride. There's no bargaining. There's nothing we bring to this table of redemption, but a heart that says, God Almighty, thank you that you have chosen to show your mercy to me. And you've chosen to call me into agreement with you. Remember it says they couldn't hear him because they resisted the Lord's counsel against them. They refused the baptism of John and the baptism of John is a baptism of repentance, a baptism where we acknowledge I must die and Christ must live. All of me has to go and all of Christ has to come that God in his mercy has decided to come and indwell this body that has nothing of itself to present to him other than a heart that says, come Lord Jesus, come and embrace me in totality and let your life become mine and let your will become mine and let your word become mine and let your heart become mine and let your mind become mine and let the pathway of my life not be my path that I'm asking you to endorse, but let the pathway of my life be your path that you've chosen for me and God, you'll never send me where you'll not give me the grace to accomplish what you've called me to do. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. All flesh, every one of us can have a clear view of Jesus once we are out of the way, once I'm no longer holding to anything that God says don't hold to it anymore. I'm often stunned at the numbers of people that I've met over the years who sit under this kind of truth, but won't embrace it. Don't agree with it. Still have a sense. I knew a man one time who was a proficient minister, but he had a problem. And he'd been in the church for years and years and years, and he was a very contentious man. Everywhere he went, he seemed to cause contention. One day I spoke to him and I said to him, I said, you know, brother, only by pride comes contention according to what I read in the scriptures. And I said, when I go to a Bible study, if you get there before me, you've got the room in an uproar before the Bible study even starts by always infusing and introducing some chicken and egg spiritual theory that there's no answer to. And I said, don't you think you should repent of this? And he looked at me, that's incredulous. This man was probably at that time in his late sixties. He'd been in the church for most of his life. And he said, he looked me right in the eye and said, I've never had to repent before. Why would I have to repent now? Now he'd been a public figure and you wonder what kind of a Christ had he embraced? You know, that man died in a cult. You see, if we won't let God touch us in every area of our lives, that little corner that you think today you can hang on to, we'll get you one day. The devil doesn't need, he doesn't need, he just needs a little crack in the window. He just needs a toe in the door. And he'll save it. He'll save it for when it will do the most damage to the kingdom of God. And he lets you go on in this delusion for 15 or 20 years sometimes. And then suddenly he'll just pull the plug on it, open the door wide and a flood will come into your mind because you knew, you knew that this needed to go. You knew that you could not hang on to this in your life any longer. It was clear. It was evident, but there's, there's something in the human heart that rejects this counsel of God, that rejects this baptism of John, that calls for unconditional surrender, no negotiating. There has to be this season in your life. And in mine, we're saying, Lord God, if your word says it's wrong, it's wrong. If, if, if, if, if you tell me that I need to forgive, no matter, there are no excuses for this. It doesn't matter necessarily. And I'm not making light of this. What somebody has done, there's a higher law than what they have done. And that laws forgive, because if I don't forgive your, your word says a root of bitterness will get into my life and it will defile the whole testimony of God inside of me. Just a root, not a forest, just a root, just something where the door is still open. Just as that little indulgence that, that, that aspect of character that God is after in you, but you simply, you will not hear, cannot hear, no matter who speaks it. It requires a humility of heart. It requires you and I to simply line up and come into agreement with God. And I'm not speaking this to be harsh this morning. I'm speaking it because I care. Think about this for a moment. John is, is preaching outside of Jerusalem and other places. These are holy places. These are people given to attending the temple, to praying their prayers that they become used to, to reading the texts of scripture that they had available to them. And in great measure, they, they loved, I suppose, the presence of God. But as they come streaming out, and I, I can see it in my mind that the people are pouring out of these cities, these places, but it's, it's not the religiously proud that are coming out. It's the publicans, the tax gatherers, it's the common people, it's the ordinary people. They don't necessarily have something of pride to hold on to that is blinding them. And as they're coming out to be baptized of John, he says this word to them, O generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Imagine that. It's like me today, giving an altar call and saying, all you snakes come down to the altar. Really? That's exactly what he was saying. It was as if you would think the people are coming out. Why insult them now? Why say this? And it was almost like it was a last test before they went into the waters of repentance for the remission of their sin. And the last test was simply, do you agree that apart from Christ, you have the nature of Satan in you. You have the reasoning of the serpent inside of you. That reasoning that wants to exalt itself above the knowledge of God, that reasoning that says that wants to say, this is good and this is evil. No matter what the word of God says, I choose to believe this is good. And this is evil. And even if it's against the text of scripture and there's a wrath against that folks, nobody's going to get away with that. You get away with it on the earth, play religious games your whole life. But there's a day coming when you and I stand before the throne of God. Nobody gets away with playing games with God. Nobody gets away with it. Nobody can do despite to the spirit of grace and get away with it. It is assumed the promises of God are for those who have a heart to embrace Jesus Christ and to walk with Christ. It is assumed that as a Christian, you have an honest heart and I have an honest heart. It is assumed that God can speak to me if I'm going off track. If I'm harboring something that is wrong, it is assumed that I am tender to the word of God and to the Holy Spirit of God. John said basically this, before you go into these waters of baptism for the remission of your sin, reckon that you have within you, as Paul said, no good thing. I am convinced, Paul said, that within me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing. Reckon yourself dead. Reckon yourself, the seed of the serpent was sown inside of us. Every one of us have that inner sin nature that wants to be as God, that wants to declare this is good and this is evil, that wants to somehow define an acceptable level of service to Christ and to his kingdom apart from the word of God. Who warned you to flee? It was the last test. It was the final moment when people were going into the water agreeing with God as it is that I have a corrupted nature. My old self has to be put away. That's why the scripture says, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things are passed away and behold all things have become new. Now before things become new, you and I have to agree that the old things should pass away. Old attitudes, old ways of thinking, old ways of doing things, we can't bring them into the kingdom of God and sanctify them. You can't do it. You can't live with somebody in fornication and come into this house today and lift your hands and justifiably worship God. You can't do it. We have a nature that needs to be changed. Verses 8 and 9 says, bring therefore fruits worthy of repentance and begin not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father. For I say to you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. In other words, don't come here and think that attending Times Square church is enough to sanctify you. It's not. God is able to make the seat under you sing if you won't. He's able to do that. Bring fruit worthy of repentance. And you and I of course can't do that. It's only Christ in us that can do that. And Christ can't and won't do it. He's a gentleman. Even in the last book, last church he speaks to in Revelation, he stands at the door and knocks. He will not force himself on you. He will not force himself on me. And now also the ax is laid to the root of the trees, verse 9, and every tree which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. No more excuses, no more justifications for the things that we've neglected to do. Our old nature needs to go and God has the right to take the ax to every root of every tree inside of you and I that needs to go. It is his right to do so and it is our privilege to invite him to do it. Do you agree that your life and mine is to be lived as a demonstration of the kindness of God and the earth? The people asked him and they said, what shall we do then? And he answered and said to them, he that has two coats, let him impart to him that has none. Isn't that what the Lord did? We had no covering but yet he had sufficient for both of us and so he took of his own garment and gave it to us. He's not asking us to do anything that he was not willing himself to do. And he that has no meat, let him do likewise. In other words, be kind, give of yourself, start to look outward instead of inward. Then came also publicans to be baptized and they said to master, what shall we do? And he said to them, exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him saying, and what shall we do? And he said to them, do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely and be content with your wages. Be content with what God's given you. Be kind to all people. Now this is all in the New Testament as well. Let every man work with his own hands. Let him steal no more. Let him work with his own hands that he might give to the one who has need. All of these things are in the New Testament and very, very clearly outlined to you and I. Exact no more than that which is appointed you. Now back in Luke 7, Jesus gave a testimony of John in verse 24. He said, what did you go out in the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind. What did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft clothing. Behold, those who are gorgeously appareled and live delicately are in King's courts. What did you go out to see? A prophet. Yeah, I say to you much more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. For I say unto you among those that are born of women, there's not a greater prophet than John the Baptist, but he that is leased in the kingdom of God is greater than he. Now this verse troubled me for years. I didn't fully get, what does that mean? Now there's a lot of interpretations of that, but I want to give you what I feel God's been speaking to me along the lines of this verse. He said, what did you think? Now John is in a season of perplexity. He's in a season where all hell seems to be against him. He's in prison. His future doesn't look very good. He's in a season of personal upheaval and turmoil very much like many of us are going to have to face not only today, but in the days to come. And folks, I believe that what God's given me today is a preparation in the heart for these days. It's a preparation to be able to stand when everything around us seems to be failing. When we have difficulty understanding God and the ways of God, when there are voices everywhere, even inside of our own heads that are even challenging the authenticity of Christ. Here's what Jesus said of John, though he's in a wilderness and seemingly attacked on every side, yet he will not be overcome. He has an inner confidence and he has been a man of truth. He's not only preached a baptism of repentance of sin, he has lived it. And there's a deposit of the life of God in the spirit inside of this man that will keep him even if he has to die in the days in which he was living, which of course you and I know he did. There's a deposit that God is willing to put in inside each one of us to get us through these coming days that we're going to have to face, but we are going to have to be people of truth. There is no game player who will ever know this deposit of the life of Christ. This strength that God is talking about. He said, there's no greater born of women than John the Baptist, but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he is. That's an incredible statement. Here's how I interpret that. John had a measure of the spirit given to him for the calling that was upon his life to announce the coming of Christ. No greater man perhaps as Jesus said up to that point, but we today have not just a measure of Christ, we have access to the full life of God in Jesus Christ. He could point to him. We can know him. We can embrace him. We can have the fullness of his life inside of us, carrying us. That it's not a message for those who are strong in themselves, but the least, the weakest, the seemingly most frail in the kingdom of God, Christ said, we'll have the power to get through an even greater power than John had. We'll have this power to get through fire, flood, trial, difficulty, collapsing economies, wars breaking out and famines and diseases in the world. The least among us who opens his or her heart and says, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, bring every mountain down, bring every valley up, straighten out every crooked path. And oh God, I open my heart and I ask you Lord to come into my life. I ask you to be the Christ of my life, to be the God of my life, to be the power of my life, to be the source of my life, to be the strength of my life. Jesus said there was no greater man till that point, but the least in the kingdom of God will be greater than John. The least in the kingdom of God will not fall, will not fail, will not falter, will not be thrown aside by the struggles and trials that every one of us are going to have to go through. These are going to be extremely difficult days, the days ahead of us. I can't minimize what the Holy Spirit is speaking to me. They're going to be perhaps days like none of us have ever known. And perhaps other than in some places where there's been unspeakable difficulty, many in our generation can't relate to what we're going to have to go through together. World economies are going to falter. Wars are going to break out. There may even be rioting in some of our cities. This is not a generation that is going to line up for soup, folks. That ethic is long gone. This is going to be a difficult time and many of us are going to need this strength and God wants to give us strength, but it doesn't come without walking in truth. It doesn't come, we can't hear the words of God if we reject his counsel, if we reject what he is trying to speak to our hearts, that we cannot retain any measure of our own righteousness, our own sense of self and still come into the fullness of that which God would give us in Christ Jesus. There's got to be a willingness to walk it clean and to walk it straight. I had a young man approach me one time behind the platform in this church and he said to me, oh pastor, I've been here, I think it was two or three years. I love this church. I love the worship here. Oh, I said, it's just been life changing for me. And I was just listening to him and suddenly he said to me, but there are certain things I have to do and God knows and God understands. And I remember it kind of threw up a red flag and I said to him, what does God understand? What are those certain things that you have to do? He said, well, I have to pay the bills. You know, the bills have to be paid. I've got an apartment, I've got food. I said, well, what are those things that God understands? He said, well, I'm a homosexual prostitute. He was in this church sitting where you are, singing the songs that you sang this morning, experiencing the glory of God, sitting under this kind of preaching and still going out and doing what homosexual prostitutes do and somehow bringing that into the house of God and saying, God understands, Lord, you understand what I have to do to pay the bills. And that's a glaring example of so many things that, you know, you and I know, because we look at that example and say, well, it's obvious he's outside the kingdom of God. It's doubtful he's ever had a full conversion experience. He's been awakened perhaps to how wonderful God is. But as Jesus said, whether you pipe to him and talk about joy or whether you warn him of the sorrow, he's not moving from the place that he's in. And there are so many people, that's a glaring example, but are still doing, living. I'm not talking about the struggling Christian. That's a different thing. I'm talking about the person who's willfully still engaged in certain practices that God's word says, you cannot do this anymore. And in a sense, rejecting the counsel of God and shutting off the supply of Christ. Amazing, just absolutely amazing how spiritually blind people can be. Folks, I want to challenge you with everything that's in my heart. Get right with God. Get right with God. I feel ofttimes like Noah, standing outside a complete place of safety as people are passing by every day, many even agreeing with him, but won't make the change, won't make the commitment. To see losing something of what they do and how they're practicing certain things in life as a loss, when in reality they're losing the kingdom of God and everything that is offered to them through Jesus Christ. Folks, I challenge you with everything in my heart. I plead with you as a pastor, as a father, as a brother, I beg you, get right with God. You're not going to be able to stand in the coming days if you don't get right with God. Give him what you need to give him. Call out in repentance. And God's word says he'll bring the mountains down. He'll raise the valleys. He'll create a clear path between you and him. And you'll be able to hear his word. And you'll not be governed by the news. You'll not be governed by the incivility of this hour that we're living in. You'll not be shaken and shattered by the senseless violence that's going to be on the increase in our society. When you wake up one morning to realize the stock market is falling all through the world, it's not going to shake you because your confidence is not there. The season, the writer of Hebrews says, the season of this ignorance God winked at, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. Commands us to have a change of heart. Commands us to agree with God and to turn from what we need to turn from and turn to the life that God freely offers us in Jesus Christ. There was a man sent from God. John's gospel says it this way, whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness to the light that all men through him might believe. He was not the light but was sent to bear witness to that light. That was the true light which lights every man that comes into the world. He was in the world and the word was made by him and the world knew him not. He came to his own and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe on his name, which were born not of blood, not calling themselves the children of Abraham, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but born of God. Those who received him were born of God, born again of God, given new life of God, made strong of God, brought out of prison of God, healed of God, made straight by God. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God, born of God, born of God, born of God, born of God, born of God. I must decrease. He must increase. Born of God. Born of God. There's no other life to be lived. There's no other song that can be sung. There's no other future that gives certainty but to be born of God, to walk with Christ, to love his word, to every day be able to say morning by morning, new mercies are erupting in my life, to have a hunger and thirst for this righteousness that God freely offers in Jesus Christ, to be set apart for God, to glorify God in the earth, to have a life that is lived in this world where the testimony is nothing of myself, everything is of Jesus, everything you see, everything I have, everywhere I've gone, everywhere I will go, it is all of Jesus Christ. It is nothing of me. It is all of Jesus. I have been born of God. I have died and Christ has come to life inside of this human body. As many as received him, he gave them the power to become the sons of God. Isaiah the prophet speaks of a last day when there'll be fires, but in the midst of those fires, there'll be voices of praise raised up to God. There'll be a people unshakable, unmovable who are not of this world, although we live in it. I'm born of God. You know, I find I even have to stop listening to the news now because it's easy to get bitter. I just am so fed up with the incivility and the lies of even those who are supposed to lead us. I'm tired of it. I can't take it anymore. And the Lord says, well, don't take it anymore. As many as received him, he gave them the power to become the sons of God. I don't resist God's counsel against me. You know, remember that Jesus said in the New Testament, agree quickly with your adversary when you're in the way, lest you be cast into prison. When the adversary is God, you and I better agree with him quickly. When the adversary is, is standing before us as he stood before Josh was, Josh was going into the promised land and the adversary says, who's God says, no farther. This is as far as you go. The strength and the resource and the victory is not yours. It's mine. Take off your shoes. This is a holy place. You cannot present anything of yourself. I cannot present myself. I've been praying this last couple of weeks, Lord Jesus, help me. If there's something in my life, that's going to lead me astray, help me to see it and to put it away. I don't want to stand in a place where I reject your counsel, even if it's against me. I don't want to set my judgment or, or start presenting the record of past victories and past faithfulness as, as wonderful as those are. They are no guarantee of the future. The guarantee I have of the future is that my heart stays open and God can speak to me because he knows the end from the beginning. And he knows where Satan could have his toe in the door of my heart and he can speak to me. And that's the cry of my heart. At the most, I've probably got 20 years to go at the most. And I, I'm so desperate to finish this race. Honestly, I have a vision in my heart of getting in my bed on the last days of my life with my hands raised, blessing my grandchildren, blessing my children, speaking words of faith to them. None of that will happen in my life if I don't agree with God daily. If I, if I refuse this baptism of John, if I refused to walk in truth and to humble myself before God, none of this will ever belong to me. But if I make the choice to do this, he has promised to make me a son of God. He's promised that I would be born of him and carried by him and sustained by him. I want to have something to say to this generation coming. And I know you do as well. The title of my message was, can God speak to you? Can God speak to you? Can God go after that issue of the heart? Can God go after that practice in your life? Can he, or will you reject his counsel and end up locked out of his power? That's the key. That's the question. Throughout the years of my life, there've been things that he's gone after that were hard to hear. Attitudes that I had embraced, which I thought were acceptable, but they'd fallen short of what Christ should be. Some practices that were obvious and some that were not. But I believe the one thing that has kept me to this point in my life is my heart has been opened. When my wife speaks to me, I don't defend myself. That wasn't always that way. It was about probably 20 years ago now that I realized that the safest place I could be in is that people close to me should be able to speak to me. And so I don't defend myself, not even internally. I just simply hear what she has to say and then I take it to God. If I don't see it and I ask him to make it plain and visible to me so that I might put it away in the strength of Christ. It requires a humility, but God promises not only to keep us, but to give us power and joy and victory in the coming days. I would like to give an altar call this morning for everybody here today who wants to repent of something that God is putting his finger on right now. If the Holy Spirit is in this message and in this meeting, he's already speaking to you about something in which you can't push away. Now your inclination will be to push it away. That's rejecting the counsel of God, but now it's come back to you. That phone call you need to make, that relationship you need to get out of, that practice you need to stop, whatever it is. If you can hear his voice, don't harden your heart today, because it is the promise of the safety and strength that we need for the future that we're going to have to go through. Open your heart to him. Now I'm just going to ask for those in the annex, if you could make your way between the screens in Roxbury as well, and here in the main sanctuary as we stand, balcony, you can make your way to the exits in the main sanctuary. For those who just simply need to repent, you need to get right with God. You need to trust Christ for the strength to start doing what you should do and stop doing what you're doing. Nobody needs to know what it is. That's between you and God. And as we stand, please just make your way here. Let's stand in the sanctuary. Father, we have a vision this morning of people coming out of that water and living a new life that was promised to them by God. A life of promise. A life that is supernatural. And Lord, they could hear your word. And we're reminded this day, Father, that this church was built on that foundation 25 years ago. And you have walked with us for 25 years. Lord, renew us. Restore us. Give us the grace to turn from our sin. Things that we know in our heart, and you've spoken in your word, that are not right. We agree with you, Lord. We agree. And this day, we choose to walk with you. We choose to let you be our God and give us the strength that we need to represent you on this earth. Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, that you will place us in the Father's hand and nobody can take us from that hand. Thank you for the security that belongs to the true believer. Thank you for the hope and the help for today and tomorrow. Thank you, Lord, that when the storms rise and the waves are raging, we will not be afraid. For God is the strength of our lives. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Lord Jesus Christ, Lord, you so love these people. You said, oh, Jerusalem, how I've longed to gather you. Gather us. Living Christ, gather us. We say to you, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We won't resist your word, O God. Guide us, lead us, change us, empower us. Thank you, Lord God, that the banner that you placed over this church is love. Lord, cause us to move to that love. Cause us to walk in it, O God. Give us the strength, Lord, that you promise. Lord, I pray for every person at this altar today, O God, that you give everyone the strength to walk out of where we shouldn't be and to walk into where we should. Lord, let this be a day of transformation, a day when we'll not be the same again, because we have died to our practice. We've died to our own attempts to get out. And we've trusted God who raises us from the dead. Lord, we thank you for it, and we praise you in Jesus' mighty name. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You know, I just have something in my heart this morning. It's been 25 years very shortly this church has been here. I think we should give God a shout of glory for that this morning.