In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the story of Moses and the children of God in the desert survival series. The speaker highlights the verse where Moses expresses his concern that the people will not believe him when he tells them that the Lord has appeared to him. The speaker then goes on a tangent about a personal encounter with a barber who shared his testimony of coming to faith in Jesus. The speaker emphasizes the importance of having Jesus in one's life and living for Him. The sermon concludes with a reminder that God loved Moses and continued to pursue him despite his failures.

Exodus chapter 4. You know, as she was looking for her poem, trying to find her poem, she was flipping around over there. You know, I was over here flipping around trying to find my sermon. It wasn't in my Bible. I said, Lord, what am I going to do? And the Lord said, I'll take care of it. He did preach anyway. And as we were sitting in silence, you know, one of the things that's hard for an American to take is silence. When I was a teenager, I always had the radio plugged up in my ear. I didn't like silence, because when silence is there, you have to face yourself. It's you there. You have to focus on yourself. But it's good for us. Exodus chapter 4. I don't think I'll read the whole section this morning. Maybe I'll read the first verse, and then share a little bit on it. But in Exodus 4.1, And Moses answered and said, But behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice, for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee. And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thy hand? And he said, A rod. And he said, Cast it on the ground. And the Lord goes into this thing about this rod. He casts it on the ground. And it's a snake. And then he tells them to put his hand into his coat and pull it out. It's leprous. And then another thing, he tells them that when he goes down there, they won't believe that he has to take water out of the river and pour it on the ground. And the water will turn into blood. All of this God uses to teach Moses a lesson, and us too. And we're going on our series. This is our 11th session, I think, on this Desert Survival Series with Moses, his children, and God. And I want us to focus today on this first verse. They will not believe me. God said, Go. And Moses said, They will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice, for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee. Let's go through that verse. Now, Father, in these few moments this morning, such a spirit that speaks to us. Lord, we're in a different world at times. We're together. Our mind may be off somewhere else. We may be on a burden. We may be on a trip. We may be asleep. Let's pray to the Spirit of God to wake us up now. We give the Word of God. Father, I believe you have a message for each of us here this morning. You spoke to my heart when you spoke to me this week through this passage. Let's pray to the Spirit of God to show us the things that we need in order to be His friends. Amen. Remember, God told Moses to go to Israel to get him out of Egypt. And Moses comes up with these five reasons why he shouldn't go. Five excuses. And the first one, he says, I don't have any ability. And God says, That's okay. I'll go with you. And I will be your ability. And then Moses says, Well, I don't have any authority. And he says, Well, you just go and you just tell them that I am sent to you. And that's when you learn that that means that God is self-sufficient and that all that He is, He is for us. Well, then Moses, he comes up with this next one. Well, they won't believe me. They won't listen to me. They just won't pay any attention. Now, actually what we have is five fears. The first was a fear of ability, a lack of ability to pray that he didn't have the ability. God says, I will be your ability. Then He says, I don't have any authority. And He says, I'll be your authority. Now, today He says, I'm afraid they won't accept me. Can I go? And remember that Jesus in the Great Commission that He gave, He answered these five things also. God says, to the first one, my presence will go with you. The second one, He says, my name will go with you. You've got my name. And today, He's going to say, you've got my power. The rod was the symbol of God's power. And we probably won't get into it today for lack of time. The next week, we'll get into that rod. Very interesting thing. Moses, the rod of God. You know, Moses, Moses' hot rod. Boy, it was hot because when he looted, things happened. When he held out that rod, the sea would part. When he held out that rod, the lice would come. That rod of God represented power. I think it probably just represented the word of God. Because Moses would speak, and he'd hold up the rod, and boy, then they would just run for cover. Because God had said it. But we have to deal with Moses. God's having a little trouble. He's getting Moses started. He's got another fear. He says, Lord, I'm afraid they won't accept me. Do you remember last week when Jesus said that He came? He came to deliver us from the fear that's in our lives. That He would grant to us that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies might serve Him without fear. You know, our lives are continually bombarded with fears. I'm no different from you. There are things that come up that try to scare me, too. As soon as I walk in, Vicki said last night she's been doing real good. She's had the house all to herself all week and all the kids, and she's doing pretty good. But when I came in, she had done loads of stuff that had come in. To place a burden on it. Then after she did it all, she watched my reactions, and she said, well, you did pretty good on that. Most of the time, I come unglued. No. And she said, well, you did pretty good on it. I guess I've been away and I've come back enough times I've known. You just brace yourself and you'll find out what all happened, you know. What all broke down and all this. What extra bills came in and what you expected. But God said, I sent Jesus to deliver us to deliver you and me out of this life of fear. And as I got along, after Victor said that, I said, Lord, you prepared me for this. I didn't know what I was looking for, but you prepared me. And the thing that God had been ministering to me on was that he was just sovereign. And this is extra. I'm sure he gave me extra. In the life of Job, it's illustrated the sovereignty of God. Do you know that nothing could touch Job unless God allowed it. No pest can enter into my life or your life unless God allows it. Nothing. And so I said, Lord, you have allowed this new test to come in. I recognize your sovereignty. It's not going to rattle me. I'm going to keep my eyes on you and see what you're going to do now. Very good, isn't it? If we believe he's sovereign, we'll never act like it. Well, Moses says, I've got a fear. I don't have any ability. God says, my presence will go with you. And the great commission, these five things are answered that he answers here. His presence, his name, his power, his spirit, his substitute. Well, he says, I don't have the authority now. I have this fear. I said two weeks ago I was sharing with you what the heart of fear is, and last week I forgot. Any of you remember? Well, I did. I don't always remember, but I told you I was going to do this. You know what the heart of fear is? The Bible tells us that the heart of fear in 1 John 4, 18 is a lack of love. The depth of love is trust. Love and trust go hand in hand. Whoever you love you can trust, right? And whoever you trust with your very life, like in our case, we trust in Christ our Savior, we can trust him. Love and trust, they go together. And the Bible says in 1 John, maybe I'll turn back there and read it to you. It says, Here it is, our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. And then verse 18, it says, There is no fear in love. It's a good passage to go back and meditate upon. There is no fear in love. Now why is there no fear in love? It says, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear hath torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love. We've not matured in our love for our Lord if we let a fear interfere in our life. I didn't mean to say that like that just came out. But if a fear comes in, it interferes in our relationship to the Lord. It squeezes out some of that joy that we have, right? We get to focus on ourselves. We get afraid. It says, Perfect love casts out fear. There's no fear in love. Amazing passage here, but perfect love casts out fear because fear hath torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love. You see, Moses offers that excuse of why he should not go down there and deliver the Israelites because he was afraid of the reaction that he would get. And that's going to be the heart of our message this morning. You might just remember this. Whenever you get afraid, and you get to worry, realize that that thing that you're afraid of is going to torment you. The evidence of fear is torment. And when I am worrying about something, or you're worrying about something, then we're not living by faith. We're not trusting God. And it shows me that there's a flaw in my love for my Lord. Interesting thing. It's just like a little child. He said, Honk! Dad is gone. And he hears the car come banging into the driveway and hit the tree or run up on the porch. And then he hears the car door slam. And he hears a staggering and a thud on the porch. And the little kid runs to a closet to hide somewhere because he knows that his alcoholic dad is coming home. And that he may get beat again. There is something wrong in his relationship there. He is afraid. But yet he will even love his dad. But he is afraid of his dad. So there is a flaw in that relationship. Perfect love can't stop fear. If he had a perfect love, he would be afraid of his dad. He would run and open the door. But because his dad has a problem of spending his life, he is afraid. Now, remember last week we said that fear is focusing on my ability? When I'm afraid, I'm focusing on me. That sudden thing comes in to test our lives. Maybe we get a symptom of a disease or something. We get afraid that we've got something bad. That fear is focusing on my ability. Well, what am I going to do? How am I going to face this? How am I going to pay this? Or that or that? Fear is focusing on me. And faith is focusing on God. Fear is focusing on my ability. Faith is focusing on God's ability. Now, Moses, remember he started off getting himself into trouble because he thought that God wanted him to deliver Ezra. Well, that was right. But it wasn't at this time that he wanted God that God wanted him to do it. So he went out and did it on his own. And the energy of the flesh he slew the Egyptians. Remember that? And then it came out. They found out about it. And it says he was afraid. Anytime we get out of the realm of faith, we get into the realm of fear. Many fears that will hit our life. Well, he was focusing on himself and he got into this trouble. And so this fear came and he ran. He was afraid. And we're learning our lessons on survival now. Today, we're going to look at why he was afraid to go. Why he was afraid to go and tell them that God is going to deliver them. And why he was afraid to tell them is an interesting thing. Because he gets right down to where I live. God began to show me some things about my past life and my present life in this passage. You know what? He was afraid of acceptance. He was afraid that they would not accept him again. He went the first time and what happened? They rejected him. They were rejecting him. He knew it at heart he was supposed to deliver them and that was true. But it wasn't at this time. And so he was rejected. And he has a fear of a lack of acceptance from being rejected. You know, one of the reasons I did some crazy things as a teenager and maybe you did too, but we're focused on me, because I might get in trouble if I focus on you. You know, we were dressed weird sometimes. And it wasn't weird to us because everybody was doing it. You know, if I dressed like I did when I was in high school today, I'd be a weirdo. I'd have these white paper pants with some what do you call them? Penny loafers on. And I would have a real short haircut and maybe a flat top. If I went walking down the street, I'd get beat up. But I dressed like that because that was the way they all dressed. And I did not want to be rejected. And so I did that. And this is why we do things wrong. We act strange, we get into the wrong crowd, we drink, and we do these things because we don't want to be rejected. But when we trust Christ as our Savior, He teaches us that, I will be your standard. They cannot be your standard anymore. All the crowds want together because they're afraid. And I will be your standard. And you don't have to worry about being rejected because I will not reject you. Now, I don't do all that. I didn't want to be rejected. I always felt inside my mind anyway that I wasn't accepted. That's the way a lot of us felt. It was a problem that we had within ourselves. When Christ comes in, He begins to straighten things out. We don't like rejection. Moses was thinking about that. And he says, Lord, they will not believe me. Now, we can focus on unbelief. You know that if Christ is presented to you as your Savior, and you do not accept Him as your Savior, you reject Him. So the unbelief he's talking about here is really a rejection. Moses is saying, now look, I fell once. I fell once. And what are we doing? Changed the principle? Where was Moses living? He was in the desert, right? Where was his mind? Do you know where his mind was? His mind was 40 years behind time. He was living in the past. Have you ever done that? Living in the past? When we live in the past, it robs us of the present. Where was Moses standing at? Very moment. Do you remember? He was standing before a burning bush. He was standing before that burning bush, and that burning bush was the symbol of the cross. It was death to Moses. It was over, Moses. Your old life was over. It was resurrection to a new life. He says, listen, Moses, that's in the past. And Moses is learning this stuff, and we're learning it too. He says, don't live in the past. You're saying this to me, and I'm giving you some inflection here, some thought reading into it. You're saying that to me, because you're living in the past. And this is why God answers everyone who excuses with a promise. God always meets our spirits with a promise. Next week we'll get into the promise. But Moses was saying that because he's living in the past. He has failed. The key to failure is to come to the cross, die to your failure, get up, and go on again. The key to failure is never to let it become fatal. And because God loves us, he will not let it become fatal. He will deal with us. And Moses is being dealt with by God. Come on, let's go again. Well, Lord, I already failed. Let's go again. And he gives these excuses. Have you ever looked at somebody and go, boy, I have. Man, I'm going, man, Lord, everything I was trying to do, I did it backwards, you know. Instead of trying to get them to receive me, you know, I just blew up. I'll never believe in you if I do that. And then you get another opportunity. And what? You don't want to say a word. The hardest thing to do is to go back to where you failed. And that's what God's doing to Moses. God is teaching him, you've got to die to yourself and go back. The key to failure, man, is that we don't let it become fatal. We went over that. God just said go. Now, one of the things that is hard for us to do is face the fact that we made mistakes. You know why? Because we're proud. I was thinking up here on the platform of my life back 20 years ago when Bill Stewart would come over to the barracks and he would say, let's go to a Bible study. I can't believe I would tell him some of the things I would tell him. I said, well, I don't think I have time tonight. I think I'm going to go down to the movies. Now today, I wouldn't consider going to the movies. I'm too busy to go to the Bible study. But I was telling him, I was talking to him, and I was learning. And some of the things I did were in sin. I just can't imagine. But God loved me and he continued to work with me because he wasn't content for me to live my life like that. And so he'd come back like he did to Moses. He came back to me and he kept giving me these second chances. Well, God said go. Moses said, well Lord, I don't want to go because I'm a failure. But God was saying to Moses, listen, that's why I'm sending you back because you've already learned by your failure that you can't do it. Now I'm going to send you back because you will do it my way this time. One of the greatest ways to learn is through our mistakes. It is. The best way to learn is through other people's mistakes. The second best is through our own mistakes. The Bible tells us in Proverbs that a wise man will learn from somebody else's mistakes. So we see we're not too wise sometimes. I'm not. What really gets us is when we make that mistake once and then we make it a second time and then we make it a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh time. Then we really begin to feel, hey, I'm not learning too fast. But the point is, somewhere we need to get the victories in that area. And that's what the Christian life is. We continually get the victories in our life. Maybe we struggle with one area for years before we finally learn to get victories in that area. Maybe one time is good enough. This is why he brings us together to minister to one another. Well, that man of Moses, I can use you now because you'll do it my way. And he says, listen, by the way Moses, we're going to see this develop in his life. The unbelief of the people is not your problem. Whether they believe you or not is not your problem. That's their problem with me. Your problem right now is to get out of here and get going. And when we get done, God's going to really, I think the bush is going to glow when he says his last excuse is to send somebody else. And it says the anger of the Lord was kindled. You know how you kindle a fire? I just wonder if maybe Moses didn't get burnt a little bit. Go! Okay. And he goes. But it says the anger of the Lord was kindled. But Moses is learning these things. And later on, he's going to respond properly to unbelief. One of the reasons I don't like to talk to people about Christ is because they may not believe me or they may laugh at me or they may reject me. When I am thinking that, I am focusing on self. That is self-consciousness. The Christian life is Christ conscious, God conscious. And I give them the message of Christ, I tell them in a very careful way, present it, so I am not offensive. And then if they reject, they reject the message. And I haven't been the offender. Really, when they reject me, I feel they are rejecting God. It should break my heart. But the unbelief is their problem. The Bible says in John 3.36 and 8.24, it goes all through there, how an unbeliever, one that does not believe, answers to God himself. They answer to God themselves. Well, another thing here. And I think we need this. How do we have victory over rejection? This is such a key area. I was down there in Omaha at our state meeting. In the bookstore downstairs, I saw a book on rejection and I bought it. A book by Dr. Solomon. Tremendous counselor. But I bought it. Boy, while I am preaching on this, maybe I will find something in there. But how do we handle rejection? I had time to read it. You can borrow it if you like. How do you handle rejection when somebody rejects you? Very hard, isn't it? Very hard. Most of the things I have learned, I think I have had to learn by way number two. My own mistake. But I have learned to handle rejection by this way. The Bible says, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That means, you have become more Christ-like by renewing of your mind. Putting the word of God in there. So what do you put into your mind when you are rejected? What do you do when your parents reject you? In some form, or a friend rejects you? We have all gone through different types of rejection. What do you do? Here is what I think we should do. This is what I do now. I say, God accepts me. They may reject me, but God accepts me. If I had never got this concept down, that God accepts me even when I sin, and you may think that you are the worst sinner in here, but I think that I am. I never put myself above you. I think that I am. Continually, this is a battle for many, many creatures, most creatures, for us to get up in the pulpit and preach the word of God. We are totally unworthy to do this. We are just like you. We are sinners, saved by grace. But I have learned that God accepts me because of the one Christ. I am accepted because I accepted Him. The Bible says, but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the Son of God. If I have received Christ as my Savior, then God received me. And when I sin, and when you sin, God does not reject you. God does not reject me. He still loves us and accepts us just as much as when we don't sin. The thing is, He has to come and deal with us. He has to deal with me. He has to get out of that so we can get back into that proper relationship with conscience and enjoy that relationship. But He doesn't reject us. When my son sins, when my daughter sins, I do not reject them. They grieve me when they do that. But I don't reject them, and God doesn't reject you. God is not in the rejecting business. The Bible says that He does not condemn us. When the blood of Christ turns to sin, we will never be rejected. We will never be condemned. The Spirit of God will convict me of sin, but He will not condemn me. Condemnation has to do with damnation. That's what the devil will do. He will condemn us. But He accepts me. Now, why does He accept me? The Bible says in Ephesians 1 section, this is beautiful, that He made us accept Him in Christ. He accepts me in Christ, because Christ is in me. I have accepted Christ as my Savior, and Christ dwells in me. He accepts me. So when someone rejects me, I say, Lord, is there anything that I did, and if the Spirit of God doesn't convict me of something, maybe I was offensive. It's very easy to be, because I have a strong flesh nature, and you just see it. And that's what it is. It wasn't me. If it was me, then I've got to deal with that. But if it wasn't, then I say, Lord, You have accepted me. And because You have accepted me, and You have not rejected me, I will operate on that principle, and not on the principle that they have rejected me. If you operate on that principle that someone has rejected you, you go around feeling inferior, feeling like you're worth nothing. It destroys you. We have to live on a different level. Look at what David said. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Who shall appear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Not the acceptance of others, but the Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? See, one of the reasons that we fear to talk to other people about crisis, we're afraid they're going to reject us. And I blew it yesterday. And I just blow so many opportunities. I had some opportunities that I couldn't share yesterday. It's too big of a hurry, isn't it? But I was just thinking to myself. And when I'm thinking to myself, I'll share a crisis that will not be a problem when I get an opportunity, because I think, well, what are they going to think about me? That is a sin. I am not living in spirit at that point. So Paul says, I'm not going to live like that. The Lord is the strength of my life. The acceptance of others will not be the standard of my life. But the acceptance of the Lord is what he said. So I'm afraid of that. So Moses is being taught, graciously and very patiently, and we are too, by the Lord. We've got to die to self. This is at the bush. He's at the bush. That's his cross. He dies to self at the cross. It's all over. That past life is all over. Out in that desert, he says, Moses, I'm raising you up. That burning bush is his cross. You're being raised up to be a new man with a new mission. And that's exactly what happens when Christ comes into your life. You're a new person with a new mission. But we're being trained as we go. It's like when I went into the military. On-the-job training. Get a little schooling. And most of it was learned out on the road. Die to thoughts of self. And if I don't die to thoughts of self, you know what happens? If others reject me, then I will go to a point of self-rejection. And if I go to a point of self-rejection, then I go to the point of being discouraged, depressed. And all of that is just a downward road to destruction. God doesn't want us down on that road. This is why he says, you keep your mind here and your thoughts on me. Continually. That will keep him in perfect peace and his mind will stay on me. We get off of the Lord and we're into the Lord. Well, Moses, he says, Lord, I've got this feeling they don't like me back there. That's self-consecration. The Lord, if I could just imagine him, he says, look, the Lord said, Moses, they don't even know you exist anymore. They forgot about you. But Moses, we still live in 40 years in the past. I wonder if some of us don't still live 40 years in the past. We're letting a past experience, maybe it was last week or last year or 10 years ago or whatever, but we're still letting that experience dominate our thoughts and just destroy it from moving forward. And God is telling Moses, look, that's over. And then next week we're going to get into what he does and he says, listen, forget that thing of being rejected in the past. What's that you got in your hand? He says, a rod. And God gets him off of himself. He gets his mind off of himself and he gets him onto that rod. And Moses gets to swing around with that rod and he does some amazing things. Pretty soon, he's not even concerned concerning himself anymore. Isn't that good? He's on that rod. You know what the rod represents to me? The Word of God. If I was into the Word of God and stay focused on the Word of God, meditate upon it, think about it, dream about it, sleep on it, I wouldn't be occupied with myself. This is why Joshua, Joshua 1a, Joshua, God told Joshua, you know, look for him washing out his heart out of that mouth because I shall meditate therein day and night. And he goes on and you'll be prosperous, you'll be successful to do that. Well, he's closing down. Moses, because he fell in the past, he's trying to bring that up and it's going to cost us a fell in the future and God wouldn't accept it. It's not going to work, Moses. That's over. He's teaching on the crucified life. He says, listen, Moses, you're dying right here at the cross. You die at the cross. Your life dies. Your past failures, they're all over. You're going to go on to be a new man with a new mission. And so I die. It's a new moment now that God's sending forth with a new mission. And so God says in 2, 3, 9, here's the new things you're going to do. You know, I like this. Who specializes in fixing up failures? God does. Who else does? I haven't found anybody that can really deal with me like God can. Even when I've gone to two pastors sometimes, they don't see where I'm really at. And I've failed to see where you're at many times. But I can always go to God and I know He understands when I get into His Word and I let Him minister to me. And He just somehow has a way of getting the spot. You know what I like? The old prodigal son, you remember I'm going to have my loot and I'm going to take out of here and I'm doing my inheritance. And he went off and he spent it all and ended up in the caves and I like that part that says when he came to himself. I have discovered that when I come to myself, I had better get back to God as soon as I can because self ain't nothing here that's going to get me anywhere. When I come to myself, why? That in myself can produce no good things. I come back to God and I said, Lord, what you produce in me, that's what you want. And that's what this whole series is about. Letting the trials of our life bring us to God. And when I came to myself, to myself as a 19 year old, miserable teenager. Into my life, Lord, I don't see any purpose in all of this life. I'm living for myself. I came to myself, Lord, there's nothing here that you can take what I am, which is nothing, who I am, and you can do whatever you want to with me and send me wherever you want to, I just give myself to you. I am tired of me. That's when God said, let's go. And he moved in my life. And I didn't know what I was praying for. God gave me the most exciting life I've ever found. I found that for me to live is Christ, who died himself to gain, who lived himself into death. And that prodigal son, when he came to himself, where did he go? He went back home, where he belonged, back to his father. And I think maybe that's what we need to think about too. I just wonder if you've been running from God. You know, if you don't have Jesus, you don't have nothing. Really. That's not too profound. But if you don't have Christ, you don't have anything. It's definitely nothing. You say, well, I got a fancy sports car. You don't have nothing. It's not true. You Christ. You don't have Jesus. don't have Christ. You don't You don't have Christ. don't You don't you don't Christ. You don't have Christ. You have Jesus. don't have Christ. to go to hell, and it really bothered him, and it was in this big church, and the pastor came by. And he said, Pastor, can I talk to you? I need to talk to you. And the preacher said, not now, I'm busy. And he went on, and he says this just cracked me. I thought, well, maybe this isn't that important after all. He doesn't think it's important. And he says, I went on without crying, until I was 31 years old, 31 and 32 years old. He says, I went on because of that experience. I really didn't think it was anything, but I'm telling the truth. The preacher didn't think it was anything. Then I didn't either. He went off, and he says it was real rough. But by the time he was 31, 32, he came back to the front. And I got to thinking about that. He was rejected. He was rejected by a man that could have been me or you, that was too busy with his own plan to realize he needed somebody else. And that's exactly what God is telling Moses, listen, you don't be focusing on yourself where you were 40 years ago. Listen, I need you to go out there there's people that need me, and I'm sending you. But you've got to get your mind off yourself, and your plans, and your ideas, so that you won't ask up that little boy, or that little girl, and they can beat you. God is not, no such thing. Father, thank you for reminding me of my share of, oh God, I've done so many times, I've done so many times, but I thank you that, as David said, your mercy and compassion is always there. And Lord, I thank you for sending Jared and I by in that little ice cream shop there on Maple Street, Omaha, the Benton area, to talk to that farmer. And Lord, it's no wonder to me that he has dedicated his whole life to working with the Obama program, to his church, to working with his kids. Because he knows what it's like to be passed by, to be rejected. And Lord, I just pray to you to help me not to be passed by folks, but to realize and reach out to me. And I thank you Lord that you sent a man by there, that caught me when I was living in sin and running away from you, and he had enough courage to come and knock on my door week after week and invite me to Bible study. Even if I tell him, no, I don't have time, I've got my sin to go through. But because you love me, you sent me. And I thank you Lord that you do things for us like that. And I just pray that as we go together, you'll realize that if we're not living for you and letting you live in our lives, it's an amalgamation, it's a calculation of how many poor boys and girls and men and women need Jesus. They're so miserable, their lives are so shattered, and we don't even have the time to tell them about Jesus. Lord, thank you for your forgiveness. If it wasn't for that, I couldn't even stand here this morning and cry. But I know that you're great. You'll continue to help me, and you'll continue to forgive me. And I just pray that you take this message today and use it to really get into our hearts. Moments, we keep talking about the unbelief of Israel, but it was his own heart, God, that filled him with their heart and showed him his worth. Lord, I thank you that you began to show moments of self and your power. And you're telling them, don't focus on yourself, don't look at yourself. Let's move forward. I've got my word here, and I'm going to give it to you. You take this rod, you take the word of God, and you go out there and you tell them, I've come to set you free. Now it's your responsibility, Lord, how they respond. It's your responsibility to go. Lord, you told us today, when we go out of here, our responsibility is to reach out to others, and not be worried about how they respond. Stay objective, it doesn't matter. You're just dead. This is why Luke Paul says, I am crucified to Christ, by God. Nevertheless, I live, yet my eyes are cracked within you. Lord, you can't send a dead man, you can't hurt a dead man. You're just dead to Christ. And I thank you for the passage you've given us today. And I pray for someone who needs Christ, here today, that they would respond to this message, and not turn away from it. Amen.