Exodus chapter 2, Exodus chapter 2, and I'm returning once again to the same text I used a few Sundays ago, starting in verse 11. Exodus chapter 2, verse 11, as we try our best to expositorily preach through the book of Exodus. We're trying to do so line by line. Precept upon precept here, as we go here a little, there a little, that we might learn these things. We might learn doctrine even, and know the Word of God. It was so wonderful in Sunday school what Brother Ted said there, and I can't help but think once again how alive the Word of God is. Ain't it wonderful? You can reread it and reread it and reread it, and I guarantee every time you reread it, you'll find something that you didn't see before. And I'm glad that it is that way, because it sure keeps it at the very pinnacle of excitement, at least for me, and I hope it does for you, too. Verse 11 of Exodus chapter 2, And it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens. And he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren, one of Moses' brethren. And Moses looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man looking, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together," either they were arguing or fighting, I don't know which, and he said to him that did the wrong of the two, "'Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?' And the man said, Who may be a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me as thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared and said, Surely this thing is known. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. May the Lord add a blessing to the reading of his word this morning, and may we with open hearts and minds receive it. Two weeks ago, I spent considerable time preaching and teaching on the faith of Moses. We discovered that he would have an authentic faith, an absolute faith, an active faith, a resolute faith, a resistant faith, and finally, a resilient faith. Now, notice that I said and told you then that Moses would have these types of faith. would have, because just as anybody, when they grow in the admonition and knowledge the Lord does, he would acquire these things, or these faiths, if you would, these attributes of faith, as time went on. That's not to say that they weren't inherent in him. I believe that everyone who is saved is given these attributes for their faith. I believe if you're truly saved today, you have an authentic faith. And if it's authentic, it will be absolute. There is nothing you can do to lose it, and God won't take it away from you. It's as simple as that. And I believe that everybody who is saved will have an active faith. I don't believe you'll sit around and do nothing. that true faith will cause you to want to be busy for the Lord. Now, when I say that, I mean being vocal with your faith. I preached to you sometime during the year about having a vocal, visible, vibrant, if you would, vision of Christ with your life, wherever you go. People need to see that. If you have authentic faith, it's going to be active. Another thing, too, is that you'll have that resolute faith I was telling you about. A resolute faith is a faith that no matter what everybody else does, you won't. It's resolute. Now, Brother Darrell, isn't that like absolute? Well, absolute is a faith that stands the test before God, whereby that we are in his hand and nothing can plug us out. Resolute is you standing up and saying, I cannot receive it. Here I stand. I can do no other. I am a child of God. And then not only will that faith be resolute, it will be resistant. It will say no as much as it possibly can to sin, and then finally it'll be resilient. You might get knocked down for a little while, but you'll get back up again because the Holy Ghost will make sure of that. So everybody that's saved has those inherent to them, but it's up to us to make them work. You understand what I'm saying? That's not to say the Holy Spirit isn't working inside of us. He is. That's not to say that his word is not being revealed to us so we can. It's not to say that it's by our own steam, but by the grace of God, us being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, that these attributes will come to be. I don't see how they can stay dormant if you are in Christ Jesus. I mean, come on, if it's real, if it's real, praise God, I know it's real and it's settled, then you will have those attributes. And so Moses would eventually show these things. Moses did have faith in God, and that faith would be seen time and again as he leads the children of Israel out of Egypt and through 40 years of wilderness wanderings to ready them, and listen to that, ready them for entrance into Canaan. Might I just stop here just a moment? This is not my notes, but I thought I'd just say this to you, that we are kind of going through some wilderness wanderings ourselves right now. And in doing so, we're being prepared for the Kingdom of God, for that Canaan land that's waiting for us. By the way, you know, we're being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. We're being sanctified. We're being made holy and blameless before Him in love. We're being constructed, if you would, for life in another place. And it's coming. It's coming. I know it is. I believe it is. But before Moses begins this process of having all these faiths become reality or these attributes of faith becoming reality, what we have here is Moses spending another 40 years in Midian, the deserts of Midian to be exact. Now, think about that. He's 40 years old when he starts to do what he does in chapter 2 here in fighting that Egyptian and killing him. And then he goes out in the desert and spends 40 years. So when God eventually calls him to lead the children out, he's 80 years old. That's unbelievable in itself. Now, I know you wonder where I'm getting these figures of 40 this and 40 that. But remember, I told you that Scripture always verifies Scripture. And in the book of Acts, we have this story reiterated by Stephen just before he's stoned. As a matter of fact, what he preaches that day gets him stoned. So hold your hand and Exodus 2, and flip over with me to Acts chapter 7. Acts chapter 7, that's in your New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts. And in Acts chapter 7 is the story of Stephen, and Stephen is preaching, and so in verse 22 of Acts chapter 7, And he says, And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. And then in verse 23, And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. So there's where I get that first forty. He was forty years old. Though Moses don't say that about himself, here is Stephen telling us that he was. Then look at that at verse 29 of Acts 7. Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons. Now look at verse 30. And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in the flame of the fire of a bush. So here we have it. He's a total now of eighty years old when he gets to the burning bush experience. So you see, we'll get those 40s. Now, let me just remind you this. That's not all that we see in the category of 40. If you'll look, verse 36, the children of Israel did eat manna 40 years in the wilderness and were there in the wilderness for 40 years. So then by the time he gets to the border of Canaan, everybody, he's now 120 years old. Now, think about that. Looking back now to Exodus chapter 2, You would think that at 40 years old, that Moses would be in the best shape of his life physically. I mean, think about this. At 40 years old, he was in the best condition of his life. I believe physically, mentally, and even spiritually to some sense, to undertake such a task of leading nearly 3 million people on such a lengthy trek. Think about this, folks. This is a long journey to go and do. It's going to be 40 years in the desert. So you would have to believe that God would want a young man like David or a young man like Joseph to do such a thing. And evidently, here at 40 years old in chapter 2 of Exodus, Moses is up to the task. At least fiscally, because when he comes to defense of one of his own brethren, he slays his attacker in Egyptian, in verse number 12 of Exodus 2. So he's in good shape, wouldn't you agree? He's in good shape. He fights off his attacker, and not only does he fight him off, he kills him. Stephen preaches in verse 23 of chapter 7, it came into Moses' heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. He's been watching his brethren be absolutely mistreated and savagely used up as slaves, and it probably grieved his heart. And at last, Stephen details how Moses, now in verse 24 of Acts number 7, saw one of his brothers suffer wrong and defended him, avenging him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian, killing him. So it appears by everything we read in Exodus 2 and Acts 7 that Moses was physically ready to take on the task of delivering the children of Israel out of Egypt. But there's a real problem, folks, and it surfaces here, and as it surfaces, many times it's overlooked. It's there, but folks just skip on by it and don't read into these chapters like they ought to. Now, it's normal for us to do that because we have lived in a generation of soundbites. You understand what I'm saying? short stories. This is the short story generation, I believe. Nobody likes to read a lot. I mean, they'll endure a little reading, but they won't read a lot. And see, you've got to do a little studying here and do a little bit of meditation on these scriptures to get the full brunt of what's being said. Moses appears to be ready to start the task of freeing his people. It appears, though, that though Moses had great intentions, his methods were all wrong. And more than anything else, it appears that God wasn't ready to send him. It wasn't God's timing. Moses had jumped the gun. You ever heard that before? Moses jumped the gun? I bet you haven't, because I haven't. I've never heard anybody preach about that. Oh, we talked about the baby in the bulrushes. That's cool. And we talked about how muscled up he was to kill the Egyptian. We talk about the Bernie Bush experience. We talk about his rod turning into a snake, and then he's picking it back up and turning it back into a rod or a staff. But listen. No doubt God providentially set Moses apart to be the leader of Israel's children. We know that for a fact. No doubt this has been applied to Moses' heart even at a young age as he sat upon Amran and Jacobed's knees. But God has elected these people to be his special covenant people, talking about Israel. And as a result, the great exodus of these people will only come about at the appointed time God has determined and only by the methods that God will or has established. Let me say it again. These people are only going to get out of Egypt and out of this bondage as God has determined and appointed and by the methods He's determined and appointed. And so, we review this episode here in Exodus, and what we find is that Moses, in a sense, second-guessed God. And that's the title of this sermon this morning. Second-guessing God. He took it all himself to act when God had not given him the command to do so. So before you start worrying about Moses' fidelity, faith, and his fervor, let's look at the man personally And let's decide then whether or not that we want to follow His leadership here or we want to wait upon God. I believe that we all could say forthrightly this morning that we want to obey God. We want to follow Him. But you know what? Our stinking flesh won't let us do that sometimes. Do you know that? We want things when? Now. That's real good. Did you notice who answered? We want things now. And let me say to you that there is no doubt in my mind that Moses had a genuine case of all those attributes in him. And I believe he was trying to be faithful when he went out there and protected his Hebrew brethren by killing that Egyptian. And I certainly believe that the next day when he went out there and tried to break up the fight between his two Hebrew brethren, that his faith was such that he thought for sure he was being faithful to doing what he believed that call in his heart was. I believe that primarily by his actions here, which makes me believe that the Spirit of God had put these things in his heart, that he was acting and thinking he was doing the right thing. But there's a verse here that kind of tips us off that he's not doing the right thing. Look back at Acts 7, verse 25. Stephen asserts there in Acts 7, verse 25, that Moses supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not. Now listen, it's evident that Moses had believed for forty years before the burning bush experience that God had called him to the task of delivering these folks. Stephen would have never said that Moses supposed that his brethren would understand that God, by Moses' hand, was going to bring these people out. But it's not the time God has purposed for this. And we can discern this for ourselves when we look at the terminology used in the recording of how he goes about trying to deliver these people. We can see by what Moses does that this ain't God's time. This ain't God's ways. And as a result, Moses second-guessed God. First of all, look at Acts 7, 25, and look at the first thing Moses does wrong. The first thing Moses does is Moses supposes. That's the very first wrong move. Moses had decided to do this thing in and of himself. It doesn't say it, but he might have thought, since God has put it in my heart to deliver these folks, I suppose that I'll go do this. And so rather than it being an act of God, it's an act of Moses' will. But though God may have put it in his heart that he would be used, God hasn't spoken a thing to him as of yet or commanded him to do anything as of yet. He just put it in his heart. That's it. But Moses supposes that he ought to get out there and do something. I mean, it's 400 years. He knows the history. He sees how they're being treated. He sees how they're even having to go get their own straw now to make their bricks. He sees how the Egyptians beat them and caused them to serve with rigor and in rigor, and as a result, these people are wasting away. And he just absolutely looks at it and says, well, it must be for me to get on with it, even though he's not heard a word. God hasn't commanded yet. I've got to do something. See, that's our biggest fall down. We suppose too many times that God isn't operating when He really is. And we'll go off and do things that we shouldn't do because, well, I suppose God wants me to go ahead and act anyway. Oh, brother and sister, you better pray a little hard before you do anything. We don't want to jump the gun on God. Now, here's the next thing that comes up. Secondly, Moses, looking back at Exodus chapter 2, now verse 11, Moses sneaks. First, Moses supposes. The next thing he does is sneaks. Looking at verse 11, when Moses went out to his brethren and looked on their burdens in spite of an Egyptian spy and a Hebrew, one of his brethren. Verse 12, which is written by Moses himself now, says that he looked this way and that. Look here. Look here, everybody. He's looking this way and that. See if anybody's looking, then he lunges forth and he sneaks upon that Egyptian and kills him. He's looking to see if there's anybody looking. And when he sees that there's no one looking, he does that deed. Now, you have to know that this isn't the way God does business. God does not condone murder, folks, in a case like this. When God commands an individual to do something, there's no sneaking about. It is done. You understand? There's no reason to sneak. Remember Peter being sneaky? Peter sneaked up there to where they were trying Jesus in that mock trial with Caiaphas, and stood by the fire there, and a little girl asked him, she said, you're one of them, aren't you? And he cursed and denied Christ three separate times. That's being sneaky, isn't it? He wanted to see, but he didn't want to get caught. So what did he end up doing? He went out and cried bitterly. And Jesus said he'd do the thing. Jesus saw it in advance and said, I pray for you that when you're converted that your faith will remain strengthened in brethren. Now, the third thing that Moses did wrong is Moses slays. He slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. God would not indulge a blatant murder. And certainly if this was a godly act, Moses would not have had to hide the body in the sand. He would have stood up over that Egyptian, put his foot right direct in the middle of the Egyptian's chest, and called out to all Israel, let's go to war. This day, this ends here now. But God wasn't in it. It kind of makes you wonder sometimes when you read this story why it is that He didn't go ahead and intercede for His people another way. He was the heir apparent. I mean, He could have climbed into the throne after Pharaoh dies, and Pharaoh's going to die not too long after this. And he could have ruled over Egypt and brought those children out of their bondage. And you have to wonder, why is it that God didn't have them do it that way? Seems to be more simple to me. But here's what I have determined by reading all this. The answer is that God is going to make these people a unique people. by blessing them, first of all, with a name, and then blessing them with a nation, and then thirdly, blessing them with a holy nationality. And to do that, God has got to perfect them. Plus, not only that, God is going to separate the wheat from the chaff. and the goats from the sheep, because if you remember the story, when they get out there in the wilderness, and they're getting ready to go in, that God has Moses send spies into the land of Canaan. And they come back, and two of them, Joseph and Caleb, says, man, we got this. Those people in there, they're weak, and they're heathens, and God will put them right in their hand, and that place is flowing milk and honey. But 10 of those spies said, yeah, it's full of milk and honey, but there's giants in that land. We better not go in. And it angered God, and God had them march around in the desert for 40 years. And during that 40 years, everybody over the age of 20 died off and didn't go into Canaan. Everybody under 20 years, the Bible says that their clothes didn't even get tattered or wore out, neither did the leather on their shoes. It's an amazing story. So here we are, God's doing this thing, and he's going to do it his way no matter what anybody says. Fourthly, when Moses goes out the next day and sees his two brethren arguing and fighting together, Moses then succumbs. First remember, first of all, he supposes, then he sneaks, then he slays, now he succumbs. What does he succumb to? He succumbs to fear. Looking back there in Exodus chapter 2, look at verse 14. And the Hebrews said, Who made thee a prince and judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me as thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared and said, surely this thing is known. If God had directed Moses' action, he would not have cared who knew it, and would have chastised his Hebrew brothers for acting like they were acting, and took authority over them, which he will do eventually forty years later, but now he is in fear. And so, we have this scenario of him not only supposing, sneaking, slaying, and then succumbing to fear, He also does one last thing that is really, really, really bad. Moses sits down. Look back at Exodus chapter 2 if you would. When he finds out that Pharaoh had found out about what he had done and sought to slay him, he fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian. I don't sound like a leader to me, does he to you? As a matter of fact, I believe that all the fight has gone out of him now. And the last words of verse 15 of Exodus 2 indicate what we've read. And he's set down by a whale. So think about it, folks. He second-guessed God. He supposes. And then he sneaks. And then he slays. Then he succumbs. And lastly, he sits down. That's what happens when we decide in and of ourselves That we are going to do things our way. That we're going to jump the gun on God. I believe God had me do this thing. I've heard a voice. It ain't heard a thing. You're not bathed in prayer. You're not done anything to see if God is in it. And at the last minute, when you're sitting at the well, then you'll see where you've gone wrong. So, he's not ready to lead. He isn't hardly ready to be a good follower. He ended up paying the debt of second-guessing God, and you might say he is guilty of something he should have never, never, never done. He's guilty of committing presumptuous sin. Presumptuous sin. Let me give you the definition of presumption. A form of self-confidence which makes overconfident assumptions concerning one's own importance and right. Think about that. Think about that this morning, if you would, just for a second. overconfident assumptions concerning one's importance and rights." Now, everybody who knows anything about the Word of God and thinks about presumption automatically looks through Scripture and sees things they ought not to have to deal with, but yet God puts them there so that they can learn enough to wait upon the Lord. And see, that's where the big fall down is. We don't like these instances that point out exactly what we're doing wrong in being presumptuous. But believe me, Moses doesn't know enough about God. He doesn't know enough about God's ways. He doesn't know about God's methods. He doesn't know enough about the teachings of God to go on for God. So he presumes. that since it's in his heart to be the deliverer of the children of Israel, and God has put that in his heart, that since God hasn't acted just right now, that he ought to go do it anyway. I can tell you another story of that happening over in Genesis. We won't turn there because of time. But here we have Abraham and Sarai. Abraham had rushed home and told Sarai that God had said that he's going to have a child for an heir out of his own loins and out of her loins. And she said, well, how can that be? How can that be? You're 100, I'm 90. How's that going to ever happen? He said, I don't know, but God has promised. Well, God don't do it the next day. She doesn't come up the next day or the next year. As a matter of fact, time goes on and she still hasn't conceived. And so she gets worried. First of all, she don't want her husband to look bad. And she don't want God to look bad. She's going to help both of them out. And so she tells Abraham to go on in to Hagar, her hand servant, and have relations with her. And then that baby, there would be seed of his seed, loin of his loins, and it will become the heir. But God had said that it would come from their loins. And she second-guessed God in the matter and did this thing. And boy, the things that happened next are horrific. First of all, she begins to despise poor Abraham. and give him a hard time. And now she thinks that Hagar, her handmaiden, is mocking her, and she starts giving Hagar a hard time to the extent that Abraham says, do what you will with her. And so, he has to tell her to leave, and she leaves with that little boy Ishmael, and goes down there and puts him under the bush, getting ready to die, and God appears and tells her to go back and be on the authority of her masters, and she does, but boy, it's always a bane in Shariah's sight. Oh, by the way, she would go ahead and conceive. Eventually, God would bring that time around when he was ready for her to conceive, and she gave birth to Isaac. even though she's well up in age. What a fascinating story of second-guessing God. Scripture emphasizes the importance of a true knowledge of God and makes such knowledge available to us. Our problem is, is that we think that we can get this by osmosis rather than reading the book. And as a result, there is an ignorance of God. That's my first point. An ignorance of God. We are finite human beings, and we cannot know God completely in and of ourselves. I see him move through the trees, and I see him in the trees and the grass. I see him in all of nature working out to will and do his good pleasure. Hey, I even see him working my life, but that doesn't mean that I know him fully or finally to the extent that he can be known. And I certainly don't know his mind and heart apart from the Word of God. And Ecclesiastes 11, verse 5, you don't have to turn there, but it says, As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God, who maketh all. And we don't. We don't. We only can see what we see and know in part. Paul says we look through a frosted glass and we see the shadows behind there, and we know God's working, but we don't know all the details of it. Oh, Job was down there and ate up with boils and sitting in a sackcloth and ashes and was having one of the most horrific times of his life. as he's been persecuted by the devil. His kids have all been killed. His cattle and stuff has all been stolen. And his servants have all been killed. And his wife is saying to him, curse God and die. And he's beginning to say, hey, why is this going on? And God says to Job, out of a whirlwind. Who is this that darkened the council by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man, for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. If you thinkest so smart, you tell me how I created everything." And he couldn't. And so, the biggest problem we have that causes us to second-guess God is an ignorance of God. And Moses shows that finite man can know nothing of God. unless the Spirit reveals it, and then only in part, for our tiny brains cannot stand such revelation." Secondly, there's the ignorance of the future. Folks, we don't know what's going to happen the next minute, let alone the next day, the next week, the next year. None of us are prophets in here. I hope none of y'all are clairvoyant or have ESPN. Does anybody in here have ESPN? I think Brian has it on TV, ESPN. But folks, think about it. Moses presumed the people would act a certain way toward him. In his self-confidence, he's thinking, I am their deliverer. They have to accept me. But when he gets out there in the mix, he found out quick that what he thought would happen did not. He's seeing events a certain way. He is looking in his finite mind at what he believes the future holds. And see, that's our problem. We're ignorant of the future. Human beings are ignorant to the extent that in every way, shape, or fashion, they cannot even dictate an answer for the next second. If God was to cut off your air supply, you would die instantly. Listen, you could be riding down the road in your car in the bright light of day, and absolutely in every way there's nothing out there that can harm you as it appears, and then suddenly you hit a chunk in the road, it flattens your tire, you get a blowout, and you run off the road, hit a tree and get killed. There is nothing about the future that is set in concrete except for the coming of Christ, but we don't even know the day when that's going to happen. I guess we can be this way. There's two things we do know. We're all going to die, unless there is a rapture, and we're all going to pay taxes next year. Someway, somehow. Ecclesiastes 8, verse 7, 8 says, For he knoweth not that which shall be, for who can tell him when it shall be? There is no man that hath power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit, neither hath he power in the day of death, and there is no discharge in that war, neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it." In other words, it's a pointer and the man wants to die and then a judgment, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. no matter what you rehearse. Ecclesiastes 9 verse 12 says, For man also knoweth not his time, as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in a snare, so are the sons of men snared in the evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them. When it falleth suddenly upon them. Moses probably had thought for sure that all those Hebrews were going to wrap him up in their open arms, hoist him upon their shoulders, and march through the streets and say, our Deliverer is here. Instead, they say, who made you a prince and judge over us? All the things he thought would happen, he supposed would happen, didn't happen. He was ignorant of God and God's ways and methods, and then he was ignorant, if you will, of the future. But he also had an ignorance of doctrinal matters, and I won't go far into this, but let me just say this. I get castigated by some folks in other places because I lay so heavy on doctrine, and that I say that we ought to stick to doctrine, that how people learn about Christ is to know about him and his doctrines. One of the things that Moses needed to know more about is why God was going to deliver these people. And I believe this is what he's going to find when he gets to the burning bush. But that's still 40 years away. And so, without the prior knowledge of what God's doing and why God's doing it and where God's going to go, he decides that he's going to facilitate God here and do these things. He doesn't know enough doctrine. Turn to 2 Timothy 3.15. You can let go of Acts 7, and I won't hurt you any more, and I'm almost through here. We'll come back on another day and talk about these things. Preaching you this morning hoping that you would pick up on these things and it'll help you When you have a hard time waiting upon the Lord I want you to look at the second Timothy chapter 3 and we beat these scriptures to death when we were preaching through this book But look at me there Timothy is told by Paul that he's known from a child the holy scriptures and which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Now look at verse 16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable, and everybody say it with me, for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Moses needs more than anything is doctrine. He needs the reproof. He needs the correction. He needs the instruction in righteousness, verse 17, that Moses may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. He hasn't learned enough yet. By the way, when he gets down to Midian, and we'll get into that in the next couple of weeks for sure, when he gets down to Midian, he's going to find the priest of Midian down there. And when he gets down there with old Jethro, Jethro's going to instruct him, teach him some things. And even after he leads the children of Israel out of Egypt, Jethro's going to show up one day and teach him some more stuff about delegating the work. Good story there for sure. But here he is, he's second-guessed God and he doesn't have the knowledge to do so. Listen folks, study to show thyself approved. A worker who doesn't need not be ashamed because he's rightly divided, the word of truth. You've got somebody facing you and it requires some big jumps by you, but before you do, You read the Word of God, and you pray, and you see God's face and say, God, would you have me do this thing? God, what do you want out of my life? I can't tell you how much and how many times my wife, and I'm going to give her all the kudos on this because she's been the one who has been willing to stand and wait and say, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, let's think about this, let's worry about that, and saved us time and saved us money. Daryl Ierfeld is a knucklehead. I've got all kinds of shortcuts that lead nowhere. No joke. I was going to go see my cousin over in South Carolina one time. We were living down in Huntsville, Alabama. And I looked on the map, and I noticed that there was roads going across North Alabama that would go straight to my cousin's house. And I thought, well, goodness gracious, that's got to be faster than taking I-75, going to Chattanooga and taking I-75, or going to Birmingham and taking I-20 to Atlanta to his house. This has got to be faster. So we took off. All night long, we wandered around in the mountains of northeast Georgia. Oh my goodness, a couple of times up those mountains, I'm sure that I met myself on the road. All those curves and things, and Debbie says, you should have went the other way. We came back that way. I got news for you. Not all shortcuts. If it causes a straight line one way, doesn't mean it's a straight line other ways. We need to be knowledgeable. We need to know some things. And finally, ignorance always leads to presumptuous plans. And folks, these need to be avoided. We should never presume upon God for anything. So I prayed over this building, standing out there with Brother Sammy Evans that day. I came inside and I looked, if you'd seen this place, what it looked like before, what it looks like now, inside here, you would just be blown away. And I stood amongst all the junk that was in this room, the ceiling was gone. The floor had a big ol' hole in it where you girls were sitting right there. I mean, I just thought to myself, this can't be right. This can't be right. The phone rings at Dean Hall. We've been praying for y'all building. Brother Terry says, that sounds like it's this one. I said, I don't know. I kept praying and kept praying. I said, God, if you want us to have that building, I'm going to wait till you show us the money. I bet you it was in two, maybe three weeks, $60,000 rolled in. $60,000 and we bought this piece of property. That's building on it. That's how God works. James gives us a warning about presumption of sin. In James chapter 4 verse 13 says, Go to now ye that say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain. For as you know not what shall be on the morrow, For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanished away. For that you ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now you rejoice in your boastings, and all such rejoicing is evil. Isaiah 55, 8 says this, God tells the prophet Isaiah, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. In verse 9 of that chapter, he says, For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. You presume upon God. What you're doing is you're doing your own thing. The proverb writer says, There is a way that seemeth right to man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death. And folks, you can jump the gun so badly, you can second-guess God so badly that it can end in death. Oh, Brother Darrell, no, I'm telling you so. Right here in Exodus chapter 2, there was a death, remember? He went out there and killed that Egyptian. He supposed, he snuck, he slayed. And then of all things, he succumbs to fear. And then he thinks of himself of no use. And he goes to sit down. Nothing worse than a used-up Christian. One who's always jumping the gun. In the final end, he thinks that God ain't going to use him anymore, and he sits down. Do you know that still happens today, don't you? Too often we believers refuse to wait upon the Lord. Oh, we talk a good line. But we tend to operate more in the flesh than we do in the spirit, and we think we know better than God. God may indeed speak to us and give us vision of a great need to be supplied, give us a vision of a person to be helped, give us a vision of a building to be built. Who knows? Maybe even give us a calling that needs to be fulfilled. But too often we forget some very important things about God. We forget that God has His own methods. God has His own schedule. And God does things in His way and in His time. You know, one plants, another waters, another prunes, and another weeds. But remember, it's always God that gives the increase. Waiting upon the Lord demands that you trust Him. and His promises, and that He will do exactly what He says He will do. Don't second-guess God. Pray for the ability to trust God, and know for sure in your heart that He knows what He's doing. You may be going through a little valley right now. You may be going through a financial struggle in your life. You may be going through even a terrifying health crisis in your life. There can be a million things going on, but wait up on the Lord. Isaiah chapter 40 verse 31 has one of the greatest prescriptions for our need that you'll find anywhere. It says, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint." And folks, human beings are ignorant like you won't believe. Sometimes you can walk from room to room and forget what you went to the room for. Huh, Ted? You know my miracle baby story is as soon as it cries, I'll let you see it. When we find him, don't second guess God. Human beings can trust God, whose knowledge is complete, and He will guide their every step. Do you believe that today? Say Amen. It's the truth. Don't second guess Him. Wait upon the Lord.