Thank you, Brother Shane, very much. Thank you, Pastor Jacobs. And I always am appreciative of the opportunity I get to preach, and especially when I have the opportunity to preach at my wife's home church. And I want to praise the Lord for that. Brother Shane mentioned before the service that he said to wrap up roughly around 11.45 tonight. We're going to start in Genesis. We're going to work our way through. Now, praise the Lord. Honestly, while you're turning in your Bibles to 1 Samuel 3, I do want to say thank you to Pastor Jacobs and to Anchor Baptist Church. And while Brother Shane was reading the missionary letter tonight, The first one, I was just thinking about the fact that not only do you all support the Schmitz to Brazil, but he grew up here at the church. And that's just a fruit to your account. And I just want to praise God that he uses churches like y'alls to see the gospel go forward. I want to praise the Lord for that this evening. And I want to say thank you to my in-laws as well for granting me permission to wed their wife, or wed their daughter. That got awkward. I don't know what they were thinking, and apparently neither do I. So, if you're able to this evening, stand with me and turn to 1 Samuel chapter three, and I'm looking forward to getting in to the message this evening, and God's so good. It's Wednesday night. How many of y'all are a little bit worn out from the day? Anybody else? You're not alone, praise God. 1 Samuel chapter number three. We're gonna be looking at both chapter two and chapter three tonight, but I just wanna read the first three verses and then we'll pray. First Samuel chapter number three says this in verse number one. And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious in those days. There was no open vision. And it came to pass that at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see. And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. And look at this last phrase, and Samuel was laid down to sleep. Let's pray, Father. We do wanna come before you this evening and I want to personally ask Lord for your grace. And I am so thankful for your word. And I'm thankful that on a Wednesday night, we could be exhausted and our minds could be racing in every direction. Your word desires to meet our needs. And I praise you so much for how you desire to speak to us, Lord. I ask for your grace for those listening, that they'd be attentive in their hearts, that they'd seek to apply it to their lives. And I pray for myself, Lord, as the opportunity to preach. I ask that you give grace for preaching and that there would be clarity. I ask, Lord, that you'd use this passage as it's been used in my own heart. And I thank you for the opportunity to preach, Lord. And I pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. In an article entitled, America's Accelerating Decay, some may know a gentleman named Dennis Prager, and he wrote this article. And he describes the steeping decline that is evident in the family and in education and in morality and even in beauty and in art. And I just pulled a little bit out of that article just to begin tonight. And he writes the following words. He says, I write them in sadness. With few exceptions, every aspect of American life is in decline. He says the word decay is what comes to mind. He says that the decline of the family, and there's a lot more than what I'll mention, but he mentions this, that nearly half, around 48% of American children are born to a mother who is not married. And he mentions here that 43% of American children live without a father in the home. And he says in an increasing number of states, there are now more deaths than there are births. Let that soak in for just a second, that there are more deaths in many states across America than there are births. He moves on in the decline of education. He says, compared with nearly all of American history, the average American school teaches much less about important subjects such as American history, English grammar, literature, music, and art. Instead, schools are teaching much more about social justice, environmentalism, and even having to do with just a sexual education. They teach much more in regards to those things. He even says this, to the extent that American history is taught beginning in high school and often earlier. American history is presented as a history of an immoral nation characterized by slavery, racism, colonialism, and the list goes on. I mean, he lists off a whole bunch of stuff. Not of a country, he says, that more than any other has been the beacon of freedom to mankind. and the country that has spent more treasure and spilled more blood to liberate other people than any other nation. Then he moves on from education to the role of the male and the female, and he says that one must acknowledge that the core of the argument for the redefinition of marriage is that gender does not matter. Now, this might be boring some, but I hope they pay attention because it's gonna be really applicable to the passage we're gonna look at this evening. And he says this, whether children are raised by two mothers or by two fathers, it doesn't matter. A father has nothing unique to offer a child that a mother cannot provide, and vice versa. He says why, in the article he says why. Well, for the first time in recorded history, gender is regarded as meaningless. He goes on to say, indeed, increasingly, gender does not even exist. It is merely a social construct imposed on children from parents as well as the society around them. It is biological happenstance that their genitalia happens to be what it is. And there's more that he goes into here. He even writes a little bit about the end of right and wrong. He mentions that at least two generations of American young people have been taught that moral categories are nothing more than personal or societal preferences. Recently, he mentions here that an incredulous professor of philosophy wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times titled, Why Our Children Don't Think They Are Moral, Why Our Children Don't Think They Are Moral Facts. In it, he noted, without fail, every value claim is labeled Well, that's your opinion. Well, here's mine. Well, that's your opinion, and here's mine. Then he doesn't finish the article, but for our sake now, for time, he focuses on religion for just a second. He says, there are no moral truths because there is no longer a religious basis for morality. More than the enlightenment, it was the Bible that guided the founders in other Americans' values. Not anymore. Instead of being guided by a code higher than themselves, Americans are taught to rely on their feelings to determine how they ought to behave. Instead of being given a moral guidance, their children are now asking, well, how do you feel about that? How do you feel about it? He concludes that if you acknowledge that American society is in decay, it is your obligation to fight to undo it. If you can't acknowledge that American society is in decay, you're providing proof that it is. And I read that article, I was so convicted. As a matter of fact, I think we could all say that America by and large has lost its way. Probably even by extension, our churches have lost their way here in America. My wife and I had the privilege a few years back to travel. Actually, you all mentioned it tonight. Heartland Baptist Bible College is a college that my wife and I had the opportunity to attend. And you all provided it a way for many students to come around the world to pay only a fraction of the cost it takes to go to a Bible college. And I praise the Lord that churches like you all would support that college. Well, we had opportunity actually to travel. My wife has the obvious ability to sing. I want to praise God for that and praise the Lord for that. But she traveled on music group. And because I couldn't sing after we got married, they asked us to sponsor a group. And so we got to be the couple that drove the group around and no and yes and no and yes. And so we were basically the parents, the group members. And so. We traveled around, actually, the Southeast. And my wife and I are now serving in Tampa, Florida, have the opportunity to serve as the assistant pastor under Pastor Kerry Nance. And we were traveling the Southeast, and it blew my mind, actually. I was quite surprised that as I met and talked with pastors, we'd go out to eat, or after a service, we'd spend time at the church and talk. And it would surprise me how often pastors would say something to this effect. we'd get talking, he'd be like, you know, there used to be a good church right down the street. There used to be this solid church down the corner we used to fellowship with all the time, but he, several times I heard pastors would say this, man, there used to be a man of God over there. And right here, there used to be a man of God. Man, I know a man of God who, and then he'd say what would happen. And we could hear about all the stories about Liberty University and about a lot of other places where men of God fall. It's interesting whether Satan has destroyed these churches or men of God, whether the world by way of entertainment and material possessions swayed their heart, whether it was even their secret sin that possessed them, individuals across our land have ceased to experience the power that God wants for them to have. As a nation, now listen, and then we're gonna transition to the text here in just a second. As a nation, we're falling away. And as I mentioned earlier, churches have lost their way. And I wanna say this tonight, that it's not just churches, because what makes up churches? Families, people. Families make up churches. And guess what? By and large, families across America have lost their way. Now we could end there, and that's great, because guess what? It doesn't deal with us, right? We could say families, but what makes up families? Individuals do. and individuals by and large across America have lost their way. We come to the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel, and man, there's so much here. I have the privilege, my wife and I do, to teach the college and career class at our church, and we're taking a break right now, but we've been going through 1st Samuel, and so what I'm hoping to share is not, I actually didn't get the opportunity to preach this to the class, but part of it is some from the study, and a lot of it's new for this evening, so bear with me. But 1st and 2nd Samuel takes place on the heels of, as a matter of fact, it's congruent with the book of Judges. And if we know anything about the book of Judges, a state that is very similar to our own conditions today, the book ends, the book of Judges ends with rampant and blatant idolatry, with sodomy, with other depraved forms of sexual sins that abounded. And the country was on the brink of civil war and it was being torn apart culturally. It was very clear, according to the book of Judges, that the nation of Israel had lost its way. Now the question for Israel back then and now America today is this, is there any hope for a nation that has lost its way? Is there any hope for a nation that has lost its way? We come to chapter three and just prior to chapter three, we find that a nation that has been so blessed by God. I mean, the nation of Israel, I'm talking about the nation that had Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and so on. We can go down the line of how God used different people to bless the nation of Israel. And yet we arrive at the state that it's in here at the end of the book of Judges and correlating here with 1 and 2 Samuel. And the reason that the nation of Israel was in the state that it was, and catch this, listen, this is really important to move on tonight. Chapter two, you can go back and read through it, is that the nation of Israel was mirroring the state of its spiritual leadership. You catch that? The nation was mirroring the state of its spiritual leadership. There was a contrast, if you go back to chapter two, and we're not going to for sake of time, just want to make a couple few points to set the foundation for chapter three. But there's a contrast in chapter two between Samuel and Eli, the priest. Now, not just Eli, including his sons, which we'll talk about here in a second, while Samuel, he was ministering before the Lord. You can go back to chapter two and over and over and over again it says that Samuel ministered before the Lord. He grew before the Lord, he ministered before the Lord, and so on. Eli, while he was ministering before the Lord, Eli and his sons were causing the nation to abhor the offering of the Lord. What they were doing was despising the offering of God. You might be thinking, well, that makes no sense to me because guess what? We don't live in a time where we sacrifice animals, all right? Well, here's what they did. You can go back in chapter two and verses 13 and 14 deal with this, but they took more of the offering than they were supposed to take. Not only did they take more, but they also took other than their share. They were taking parts of the offering that were meant for God and consuming it themselves. Not only did they do that, but they took their share before God got his. The self-interest and disregard for God was a great sin in the Lord's sight. You look at verse 17 of chapter two and it deals with that. Eli, awesome parent that he is, he half-heartedly confronts his children. He's like, hey, This is embarrassing to me. I want y'all to stop this. The Lord's gonna judge you, you know, and so on. And that was the end of his confrontation. And guess what? God sends an unnamed man of God. I mean, he didn't even have a name. They just called him the man of God in chapter two. And he goes and he confronts Eli with a judgment from God and warns him about what's gonna happen if he doesn't deal with his sons. And you'd think that Eli would get things right, but as we come to chapter three, we find out very quickly he didn't. Now listen, we could talk a lot about that, but God will challenge parents all the time to confront their children and deal with sin. And there's consequences, so to speak, when parents don't. So just a side note, parents, deal with your children. Okay, moving on, all right? We come to chapter three, and Samuel, he's faithfully ministering to God. It says over and over again, look at verse one, and the child ministered unto God. But while he was faithfully ministering to the Lord, Eli's, his eyes, the Bible uses his eyes to point out a couple things. His eyes were waxed dim. And so while Samuel is ministering to the Lord and serving the Lord and doing what he should, Eli's laying down and his eyes are waxed dim. And all the while, the regular things that he was supposed to be taking care of weren't being done. And at this time, so you got Samuel ministering unto the Lord, Eli's eyes are waxing dim. The Bible points out that the word of God, look at verse number one again, that the word of the Lord was precious in those days. There was no open vision. In other words, God very rarely in those days revealed his mind to people. There was no public acknowledged prophet. Now listen, it was Eli's responsibility to be the spokesman on God's behalf. And guess what? At that time there wasn't. He points that out. There was no publicly acknowledged prophet whose word came to all of Israel. and we find out in this passage very quickly. So we're gonna move through his passage, and then we're gonna step back and look at the broader scope of scripture, and then we're gonna come back and apply it to us real fast, okay? So Eli is here, and the passage points out that his eyes were waxed dim in verse number two, and it came to pass that at that time when he was laid down in a place, his eyes began to wax dim that he could not see. Now, I want you to catch this because it's really, really important to what we're gonna talk about when God called Samuel three times. If you're familiar with this passage, if you've been a Bible reader, you know this passage where God says, Samuel, and he says, here am I, Lord, and he does it three times. And we might miss this subtle point that the author of this passage is making when he says that Eli laid his head down and his eyes waxed dim. What he's pointing out is this. It wasn't just that he was becoming physically blind. Eli had a spiritual blind problem that was gonna reveal itself when God began to speak to Samuel. So Eli's blindness actually mirrored the situation in Israel under his and his son's leadership. Prophetic visions are rare. There's a contrast between, now listen, this is so cool, and you can do more study on this, but we're just gonna hit a couple points here. What was interesting is that the Bible describes how Samuel's laid down near the presence of God in the temple. And while he was laying down near the presence of God, do you all know where, flip back to chapter 22, you don't have to, but if you look down there in verse number, I wanna say it was, or verse number 22 of chapter two, that Eli's sons, do you know where they were? They were at the entry, the doorway to the temple. You might be thinking, oh, they're so spiritual. They're out there shaking people's hands, inviting them into church, into the temple, I mean, sorry. No, they weren't doing that actually. The Bible points out, matter of fact, I'll just read it really fast because guess what? It's a little convicting. He says this now, Eli was very old. He heard that all his sons did unto Israel and how they lay, listen to this. Here's the picture, Samuel's laying near the presence of God. Eli's sons, it says in verse 22 of chapter two, that they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. You see the contrast that's being made in this passage? while Samuel is laying near the dear presence of God, Eli's sons, the priests of the day that's supposed to be making intercession on the people's behalf, his children are literally laying with the women at the entryway of the temple. What in the world? Are you kidding me? So literally he points this out. And so now he goes into verse number three here. It says, So we pointed that out. But when he talks about the ark of God and the temple of the Lord, it went out in that. where what he's dealing with here is he's dealing with a figurative way of explaining, and a literal, but figurative way of explaining that there were dark spiritual times to come. That there were gonna be dark spiritual times, it was dark, and it was only gonna get darker. And not only that, if you go back to Exodus 27, which I'm not asking you to, but back there, it actually refers to the responsibility of the priest to tend to the lamps until sunrise, or just before dawn. And the idea that not only was the lamp in the temple of God going out, it's representing two things. One, Eli wasn't doing his duties. And two, the spiritual state of Israel was this, I was getting darker and darker and darker. And so we are in this place where Eli's blindness is revealed. And it revealed a couple things. I want to deal with this now so we can move on. Eli's blindness revealed his inability to perceive God working in Samuel. Eli's blindness revealed his inability to perceive God working in Samuel's life. And you can look down in verses four through nine, where it describes the first two times where Eli's called by God. And let's just read the first one just so we can get an idea of how it's working. Verse four says this, that the Lord called Samuel and he answered, here am I. And he ran unto Eli and said, here am I, for thou calledest me. And he said, I called not, Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, And he answered, I called not my son, lie down again. Now, if it ended right there, you might be tempted and I might be tempted to think, man, Samuel's got a serious issue with hearing who's actually speaking to him, right? We might be like, man, this guy, he cannot understand that it's the God of heaven speaking to him. And we might be tempted to think that way, but I'm thankful because the text makes provision for the state that Samuel was in. Look at verse number seven. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him. So you know what the text is doing? It's taking the burden off of Samuel and placing it squarely on Eli's shoulders, okay? He's pointing out this. Samuel doesn't even know the Lord yet. He doesn't know the Lord. He hasn't sensed the Lord speaking to him. He hasn't sensed the Lord revealing his word to him. And so the responsibility for someone to understand that was squarely on Eli's shoulders. And we already found out where Eli's state was, right? He was blind. We do well to note that. Although that is the case, I love this quote and I put this in here just because of how sensitive God was to Samuel. He says this, the dying lamp of the tabernacle, the glimmering dawn, the silence and awe of the holy place were in strict accord with the boy's attentive ear and open heart. The rug or couch on which he lay, Samuel lay, was not too lowly for the eternal God to visit. Stooping from his high heaven, he came and stood and called. He was not angry because the child did not understand, nor did he, impatient of the delay, close the interview because he was not recognized. He knew that. He knew that once he understood, Samuel's heart would be eager to obey the call. I find that so fascinating, that while God in this passage, a mix of judgments about to take place, and God's about to deal with Eli, but even in the midst of it, God is so gentle in how he deals with Samuel. And it's just such a sweet point in how he deals with his people on both sides. Now, Eli, was neither so inexperienced nor so lost to all sense of Jehovah being the immediate ruler of Israel, but his perception was lacking that it was not until the third interaction that he could determine that it was God speaking to Samuel. Now listen, this is really, really, really, really important because it just, Added to what was happening in chapter 2 that that Eli had no clue What God was trying to do with the nation what God was trying to do with Samuel he had no clue whatsoever it took three times and the Bible uses a word that an Eli a Perceived that the word had the child word perceived literally means to discern to understand, to separate or distinguish things as this. Something would take place, and he would think through what happened, and it came all the way down to this third opportunity, and he finally realized, whoa, it's the Lord speaking to Samuel. So he tells Samuel to go back, and guess what? Samuel being a godly young man, he obeys Eli. The Lord speaks to him for a third time, and guess what? God's speaking to him. Guess what happens? He literally reveals. his judgment for the house of Eli. Well, this is really, really encouraging, amen? He literally, Samuel's first word from God was literally judgment from God to Eli's house. All right, no one's finding that funny. Okay, moving on, verse number 13. Look down at verse 13. Listen to what God is telling Samuel. Samuel, for I have told him already. This is God saying this. I've already told Eli. I've told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knoweth. Hey, I'm not judging him for something he doesn't know. He already knows what's gonna happen. Then he says this, because his sons made themselves vile and restrained them and he, Eli, restrained them not. Advice don't restrain your children. I promise it'll work out for you not according to this passage you won't anyway, so moving on God would judge Eli and his house for the sins of his children and Not just that but Eli's lack of response for what his children had done the text points out that Eli knew exactly what the Lord was talking about and And what's interesting is God made it clear that his cup of mercy his cup of mercy and grace had been full for Eli in his house and He had given him an opportunity in chapter two. His cup of mercy was full and he was about to deal with these issues that Eli neglected to deal with. Verses 15 through 18, we can read, but could you imagine? I mean, think about this. God visits this little young man who's serving under spiritual leadership, Eli, the priest, and God comes to him and he says, here, Samuel, I want you to tell Eli that I'm going to finish, cut off. I'm gonna end his family lineage. Samuel was not a sage, as we pointed out. There are sages in Christianity, and he was not one of them, all right? He was not an older gentleman. He was a young lad. He was a boy, and his first ministry, his first preaching assignment, catch this, his preaching assignment was to confront the spiritual leadership of the day. I mean, could you imagine? He's laying in bed. The Bible says he's laid there all night, and it says he literally, he creaked open the door, and the Bible says he feared to go and tell Eli what the matter was. I mean, could you imagine? I can't imagine having my three-year-old child come up to me and say, Daddy, God's gonna end our house. We're not gonna have any more kids. Now, praise to God. I don't know if many know, but my wife and I are expecting a third one. I praise the Lord for that publicly because God is not judging us right now, okay? Praise God for that. But could you imagine? Some who've had their father in their life would, and if you've had a stern father, I had a stern, very stern father, especially when we weren't in church, and I could never, ever, ever imagine walking up to my father and say, hey dad, here's God's judgment. Boom! And then all of a sudden, this boom was actually his hand on my rear end as he slaps me into the bedroom. That's exactly what would have happened. I mean, look at what it says. Verse 15, Samuel lay until morning. He literally laid there until, oh man, I'm so thankful for the Bible, it's awesome. And opened the doors of the house of the Lord and Samuel feared to show Eli the vision. I can't imagine. His first responsibility was to confront the spiritual leadership of the day. You know what? Even in spite of his fear, you know what Samuel did? What'd he do? He told him everything. And in case you weren't sure if he actually told him everything, look at what the Bible says in verse 18. And Samuel told him every wit and hid nothing from him. Look at Eli's response. He finally gets it. And he said, it is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. The rest of the passage in chapter three, even down into the verse number one of chapter four, the first part there, God would use Samuel to begin to restore Israel back into a relationship with him as Samuel would faithfully proclaim the word. Now, as we step back and kind of look at this, because you have Samuel over here who's being used by God, God calls him. And I want you to think about this because we're kind of dealing with this just a little bit in our nation, but Samuel's literally about to change the entire political structure of the nation. He's gonna become a prophet and a priest and a bunch of other duties as well. And literally, the structure of the political system of the day would be changed because God loved his people so much. Can I recall, what's the verse in Judges at the end that we all know? Everyone did what? That which was right in their own eyes. It ends that way. The book of Judges ends that way. And Samuel, God loved his people so much that God would raise Samuel up. He would raise him up as a preacher, a prophet, one who would proclaim the word because he wanted to restore his relationship that had been broken by his people. God graciously did that. But I want you to know that not only did God raise up Samuel to preach and proclaim his word to the nation, but he also would have to deal with Eli's sin. So there's these two elements taking place, and as you step back in the broader scope of scripture, as far as the Old Testament goes, God's working really hard, taking initiative. Listen, taking initiative to restore His people back to Him. to restore his relationship with his people. On the one hand, you have Samuel, a boy that honors God and that God plans to use to bring revival to the nation. His first preaching responsibility is to confront Eli. And on the other hand, you have Eli, who God was going to judge for his sin and cut off his family from working in the temple and to cut him off from service to him. Samuel will be used to proclaim God's word to the backslidden Eli and his family and by extension to all of Israel. Eli would be the recipient of God's judgment. God dealt with Eli and his family. But can I tell you this, in chapter seven, because what's gonna take place over the next couple of chapters is Israel really messing up. The ark's gonna go away from them, the ark's gonna eventually come back. And in chapter seven, they finally get to this place. Now, Samuel is not gonna be mentioned or even speak in the next several chapters. It isn't until chapter seven that Samuel comes back into the picture and actually speaks to the people and he leads them. And what happens is ultimately Israel would repent and get right and actually receive the help of God. But can I tell you and remind you again that God is the one who took initiative to reconcile his people back to him through the preaching of the word. And that's really important to our passage tonight, because now we're gonna transition And what blows my mind, what is so amazing to me as an individual, and I hope it's amazing to all of you that know the Lord, is that God would take initiative when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God took initiative there. When we who have been condemned by sin and our nature was a sinful nature, God took initiative and throughout all of time, God's plan was to redeem fallen man. And you know, there was a man that was sent. Anybody know his name that would ultimately pay for our sin debt? Jesus Christ. And can I say, we're taking a big step back. Now, if you had a ladder here, we've been dealing in the passage on the bottom rung, and then we just went right to the top rung, all right? We're looking at the overall view of the whole Bible here, that God would take initiative when man sinned and send his only begotten son, that we might be reconciled and redeemed with him. It's amazing. It blows my mind that your sin and my sin, that Jesus would love us enough to pay for it. And now can I remind you what John chapter one describes Jesus as? What is he? He's the word. He's the word. I mean, literally, in the literal sense, the proclamation of the word is what caused the people to be reconciled back to God. Well, actually, a proper response to it, which we'll get to in just a second. But Jesus, the literal word, the physical manifestation of the word of God bore our sin. Jesus was the one who would pay for our sin debt. We could be reconciled back to him as we trust. Now listen, tonight, I pray on a Wednesday night that most people would be sitting in this auditorium in a right relationship with God, reconciled before God. And if you are, you should say amen to that. Because it is awesome that we get to be in a relationship with the creator God in heaven. But there might be someone here tonight who've never placed their faith in Jesus Christ, never dealt with their sin, and they're ridden by guilt, they have no meaning in life, no fulfillment in life, and you might be sitting here tonight thinking, man, I don't even know what I'm gonna do with my life. Teenager, tonight you might be thinking, I have no clue, I never trust in Jesus Christ. I wanna encourage you tonight, please submit to the man, Jesus Christ, and be reconciled to God. There's no fulfillment, no meaning in life until you do that very first step. Now, if we ended there, all of us Christians would be safe, right? We didn't deal with us. So anyways, if you're a child of God, I wanna say just a few things as we close. We are so prone. We're so prone as God's children. I mean, we are so prone as God's children to breaking our relationship with Him. Over and over and over again, by doing whatever's right in our own eyes, right? Whatever's right in our own eyes, as the book of Judges points out, we are the ones who do what is right in our own eyes. And over and over and over again, as children of God, we break our relationship with Him. And what I'm so thankful for is in doing that, God takes initiative. Matter of fact, he took initiative a long time ago when Jesus started the church. In every single service, God takes initiative as the man of God stands behind this pulpit. and he proclaims the word of God to you. You might be thinking, oh yeah, he's preaching. No, he's proclaiming the word of God to you personally. God is in heaven calling a man of God, your pastor, to stand before you and to preach the word of God. And guess what? His initiative was taken and he sent the man to preach in every single service you sit here. with all the sin that you've committed throughout the week, with all the wrong thinking, with all the attitude problems. And we can go to, I wrote a few things down here. Every day we make decisions, we space, we have thoughts in our minds, we watch things and listen to things that are contrary to what God has revealed in his word, and we come to church every single service, and God took initiative to reconcile you to him, or in this way, he already took care of that, he wants to restore fellowship with you. And guess what his means of doing that are? The preaching of the word of God. Every single service is used by God to begin to restore his relationship with you back to him. Every service. Come to church week in and week out, hearing God's man proclaim God's word. Maybe, just maybe even tonight on a Wednesday night, a faithful few, right? Maybe like Eli, you don't respond. Maybe God's been dealing with something in your heart. You've known for a good while that you need to get right with God. And your pastor and brother Shane preach single week, every service, every service, and God's using his word to call you to repentance. He wants an awesome relationship with you, and over and over and over again, you just don't respond. And you know the iniquity in your heart, just like Eli had, You know there is. And that's what's interesting is that we know when we're not right with God. The passage said, Eli knew what he was talking about. And we know. I don't need to go around and point out all your personal sin or my own personal sin to know what God has been trying to deal with us about. But how long till God's cup of wrath pours out upon you? Now, it might not be eternal wrath because by God's grace, we already dealt with that with Jesus. But I fear that someday when we stand before God, He's gonna call into account every thought you've ever had, every idle word you've ever spoken, every decision you made, every piece of music you decided to allow to enter into your heart, every movie and video game and graphic on the television or in a magazine will be called before Him. And we live so deceived that we think we get away with it. Nah, it's not gonna be a big deal. God will deal with every little thing. Or, like Israel will do eventually in a few chapters, we can humble ourself in submission to the man of God that preaches to you on a weekly basis. And it's really not submission to the man of God. It's submission to this book. It's ultimately submission to the Heavenly Father that loves you desperately. I wanna close this statement. I want you to think about this statement. Is hope. There is hope for a nation that has lost its way. When God's people respond appropriately to the preaching of God's word, by the man that God has called to stand behind His pulpit. Think about that. How does that affect, how does the preaching here at Anchor Baptist Church affect our nation? Well, the nation will be restored to God when its churches are restored to God. And our churches will be restored to God when our families are restored to God. And our families will be restored unto God when you as an individual are restored back unto God. God initiates that restorative process every time you come to church to be under the preaching, under the preaching of a man of God, under the preaching of your pastor. He initiates that every single time. So will you do your part in that restorative process or perish with Eli in Christ? Father, I pray this evening, Lord, that even just for a moment, on a Wednesday night, and we're supposed to come be encouraged at church, Lord, that you might work in somebody's heart tonight, Lord. And I ask that you speak to us, those who are listening spiritually would respond appropriately. Come to the altar, do business with you, and receive and just enter back into that sweet relationship with you. I just thank you, Lord, for your grace. Thank you for the man of God who preaches behind this pulpit every week, every service. I pray we'd respond appropriately. In Jesus' name, amen. Brother Shane. As we stand to our feet with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, the message is very clear tonight. As the piano begins to play, if God spoke into your heart, why not respond? Why not take a moment? Just let God know you're listening. God wants to have a relationship with us. God wants to have a sweet relationship with us. That's why Jesus came. The problem is not on God's end. The problem is our hard, rebellious heart many times. We close God out. Don't do that. Be open to God. Let Him work. Let Him have His way in your life. Cry out to Him for forgiveness. Get that relationship restored. Have a sweet life with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what He wants. you Alright, we'll bring it back up.