but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one, and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are laborers together with God, ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. It's good to be in the Lord's house today. Logan, would you open us? and drumming, page number 27, Higher Ground. you. Then during scene page 102, he hideth my soul. He died in my soul for the temple of God, and shadowed the darkness he made. He died in my life in the presence of his love, O come, O come, O come, O come, O come, O come, to Bethlehem. ♪ Be with me, strength as I am here ♪ ♪ Be kind, my soul, in the breath of the Lord ♪ ♪ And shelter of mercy near ♪ ♪ Be kind, my God, in the bread of His word ♪ ♪ When God is in heav'n, he is with me. ♪ ♪ The Lord is with me, His love is in me. ♪ to see deeper as love. Lift me high, my soul, in a land of glory that shadows the dark past. ♪ And rose again in the spring ♪ ♪ And rose again in the spring ♪ ♪ With glory as bright as day's morning light ♪ ♪ After the sky ♪ ♪ His word is salvation ♪ ♪ His wonderful love ♪ ♪ How shall we love him forever? ♪ ♪ We ride, my soul, with the band of love ♪ ♪ In the shadows of darkness he lay ♪ ♪ Defying the light in the depths of his heart ♪ ♪ When darkness he met with his end ♪ ♪ When darkness he met with his end ♪ Yeah. We pray for blessings. We pray for peace. Comfort for family. Protection while we sleep. We pray for healing, for prosperity. We pray for your mighty hand to ease our suffering. And all the while, you hear each spoken need. Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things. Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you're near? What have trials of this life? Are your mercies in disguise? We pray for wisdom, your voice to hear And we cry in anger when we cannot feel you near We doubt your goodness and we doubt your love As if every promise from your word is not enough. And all the while you hear each desperate plea, you long that we have faith to believe. Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you're near? And what if trials of this life are your mercies in disguise? When friends betray us, when darkness seems to win, we know that pain reminds this heart that this is not, this is not our home. It's not our home. Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you're near? What if my greatest disappointment For the aching of this life Is a revealing of a greater thirst This world can't satisfy And what if trials of this life The rain, the storms, the hardest nights All your mercy's in disguise We're to be in the book of Joshua chapter 11, Joshua chapter 11. While you find your place there, I just want to thank you all for Loving on my wife and I the way you do. I know I'm not deserving of it. My wife is pretty amazing. We really are so blessed and thankful to be here getting to serve with you all and serve the teens. It is beyond words sometimes. So thank you all so very much for all the love you guys show us. Joshua chapter 11, verse number one. If you find your place there, if you don't mind standing in honor of reading God's word, Joshua 11, verse number one, it says, And it came to pass when Jabin, king of Hazor, had heard those things that he sent to Jobab, king of Madon and to the king of Shimon. and to the king of Aschaf, and to the king that were on the north of the mountains and of the plain south of Shinaroth, and in the valley and in the borders of Dor on the west, and to the Canaanite on the east and on the west, and to the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite in the mountains, and to the Hivite under Hermon, and the land of Mispeh. And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the seashore in multitude, with horses and chariots, very many. And when all these kings were met together, they came and pitched together at the waters of Merom to fight against Israel. Verse six says, and we've we've read this phrase quite a bit already, but here we are again, says verse six. And the Lord said unto Joshua, Be not afraid because of them for tomorrow about this time will I deliver them up all slain before Israel. Thou shalt thou shalt hew their horses and burn their chariots with fire. And we've read that phrase quite a bit. And here we are again. God saw it fit to come and encourage Joshua yet again. So I titled this message the key to victory or subtitle how to achieve victory against an overwhelming against overwhelming opposition. The key to victory, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Dear God, thank you so much, Lord, and for the great day you've given us so far, Lord, the music, the preaching, Lord, I just beg you, Lord, for you to use me one last time, Lord, and just give me the words to speak, Lord, and I pray you make the hearts receptive, Lord. I know I don't deserve to be up here, but I thank you so much for your grace and goodness in each one of our lives. In your name we pray, amen. You may be seated. If I can just remind us that way back when I started this series, I kind of talked about that the book of Joshua is an awesome picture of our life as a Christian going forth and claiming the promises that God has given to us. There are promises to claim, but as we all know very well, that there are also battles that have to be fought. There's always battles that pop up that kind of standing between us and the promise that God has promised to us. And, as we learn from the book of Joshua, and even from our own personal lives, there's also going to be mistakes that we make along the way. These are all things that we can learn from and continue to move forward to claim those promises given to us from the Lord. And while for these people, this land that they're conquering is a physical plot of land, that is not what I mean when I say that the Lord has promises for us to claim. It's not a physical, literal land. As believers, I'm talking about a spiritual land, spiritual blessings and promises that we are to go out and conquer based on the promises we received from Christ Jesus once we're saved. This land or our promises, they have to do with our spiritual life while on this earth and even after we leave this earth. And here we are in the book of Joshua, chapter 11. We know from the previous chapters that Israel has succeeded in their campaign in the southern part of Canaan. They've succeeded in their battle versus a large confederacy of several kings that joined forces together to oppose them, to stop their moving forward. And this really was, I mean, if we look back and read it, it really was a great victory. It was awesome to see what the Lord did for the nation of Israel. It was a great victory against really a formidable enemy. Yeah, I'm busting out all the fancy words this week. It's a lot for me. We see in this chapter now, though, that this great army that they faced before was really nothing compared to what was about to stand in front of them. Well, the army they were about to face, it's beyond words. We see that King Jabin, he sends out a call to gather as many armies as he can from all these city-states. And together as a collective force, they come and move together to stand between Israel and the promises that God had promised to this nation. They come to stand between Israel and their road to claiming the promises of God. And this is absolutely beyond a doubt, I think, the largest force of opposition that Joshua would have faced up to date. Verse 4 tells us, it says, And to the kings that were in those forces, and they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the seashore, in multitude with horses and chariots were many. This was a giant horde of men. It was a lot of dudes. This was no small army. This was a great enemy that had come together now to oppose Joshua and the people of Israel. The Bible compares it to all the sand on the seashore. In other words, the Bible is using poetic language to show you this. You can't count how many men were there. It was a great, great, great opposition for Joshua and the nation of Israel. And can you imagine with me just looking out the hillside? And try as you might, you just try and find at least that one little patch of ground. But you can't find a patch of ground because it's all covered by enemy men there ready to oppose you. That is a great horde of enemy. That is a great opposition that Joshua was facing. It was probably scary. It probably made him a little uncomfortable. And it's pretty easy whenever you're facing a situation in life and you see nothing but this opposition, you see nothing but an enemy there waiting to cause you to do nothing but trouble and pain. It's pretty easy to focus on that, is it not? Can you relate with Joshua there? Have you ever come to a point in your life where all you see, you try to find hope in a situation, you try to look for the silver linings, you could say, but all you see is opposition. All you see is the enemy. All you see is this terrible situation you find yourself in and there's no sense of hope. You can't see it. Try as you might, you try to look for it, and it's just not there. There's no hope in this situation. We will, without a doubt, as we live our Christian life here on earth, come against some overwhelming opposition many times in our Christian life. And it's during times like this that we can very easily become completely overwhelmed. Man. We can easily become overwhelmed by great fear and anxiety, and we see the situation that we're in for what it is only through our human eyes. And we're overcome, and we even come into the Lord because we know we're supposed to turn to God whenever we're struggling. We say, God, I just don't see a way out of this situation I find myself in. God, there's no hope where I'm at. How am I supposed to overcome this enemy? How am I supposed to overcome this trial in my life? God, how am I supposed to do this? God, there's no hope. God, I understand that the promises, that you made me some promises, and that there's a way you want my Christian life to look like, but I just don't think it can make it past the situation I'm in. God, how do I do this? And yes, obstacles look very different from person to person, but they are obstacles nonetheless. And you may be facing obstacles that come in the form of attacks from Satan, right? From the great enemy. And he's just throwing stuff to your left and right. He's throwing temptation into your life and you just keep on falling for it over and over and over again. And you're held in bondage to this sin. And it's a great obstacle. God, I don't know how to find my way out of this. Maybe it might be that Satan uses the world to maybe send somebody that Satan influenced to try and attack you at work or at school, wherever it may be. It may even be discouragement, depression, distractions, even grief. You find yourself facing a great, great opposition and there's just no way out. There's no way through, there's no way around. God, what do I do? I can't see any hope through this, God. Maybe you might be facing the opposition in your life is brought about by your own doing. You're now facing the aftermath of the decisions you made. And man, there's no hope for me. There's no future for me. God doesn't love me. My family will never accept me once again. There's no hope for me. You find yourself caught in bondage to sin, or maybe you find yourself overweighed with shame and guilt from your past, and your past becomes this obstacle in your life that won't let you through to the promises God has for you. And you really might just be facing what every single human being faces, which is a hard time of life with no glimpse of hope from the situation you find yourself in. Whether you lost somebody you love recently, and that grief and heartache you face far overshadows any future joy or happiness you can see in your life. Maybe there was an injustice done to you, somebody betrayed you, and this hurt and pain in your life is something you just can't get over, and it's standing between you and the promises that God has for you. Maybe it's just one of those situations in life that we can't explain why it happened, we just know that it's standing in the way of living the life that God had planned for you. Whatever it is, we all get to the point that Joshua did, facing great opposition. We find ourselves in a situation, every single one of us, that just seems to be no hope in this situation. How do we do this? God, I can't move forward. God, I don't know what to do. We all get to the place eventually where we become completely overwhelmed by this opposition that's come to attack us. Verses six through eight though, here's Joshua finding himself looking over and seeing a great host of men, so much so that the Bible compared it to the sand on the seashore. This is a great opposition. And here comes God in verse number six and says, And the Lord said unto Joshua, Be not afraid because of them. For tomorrow about this time will I deliver them up all slain before Israel. Thou shalt hew their horses and burn their chariots with fire. So why does God tell Joshua not to be afraid? Why is it that Joshua needed to hear this? Well, I mean, it doesn't take a scientist, it doesn't take a smart man to figure this out, right? Because Joshua needed encouragement from the Lord. It can be very tempting for Joshua to look at this giant horde of men and see no hope, to see no way through this. And you would think, after all the victories Joshua has already faced by the hand of God, this probably seems like no big deal to him, but God still saw it fit to come and encourage Joshua and say, Joshua, I know this has the potential to make you fearful, I know this has the potential to scare you, but don't be afraid, Joshua. Don't be afraid. We can relate with Joshua, can't we? We've all experienced, you can raise your hand if the Lord has brought you through many great victories in your own personal life. We've all experienced those, right? And yet, no matter how many experiences of victory we have, we still all get to a point where it's a hopeless situation in our eyes. And you would think, after all the victories God has brought you through, man, you find yourself in a hopeless situation and you say, wow, I can't wait to see how God gets me out of that. You would think, but no, that's not what happens, does it? We can experience victory after victory after victory, but it takes that one thing. The last thing that broke the camel's back, right? It's just all of a sudden, I know God's helped me through all these situations in my past, but I don't know how I can make it out of this. And we lose sight of that. And this is true for every single one of us. We have a great example in the Bible, right? We have the prophet Elijah. Elijah just had one of the greatest victories of his entire life, really, recorded anywhere in the Bible. He slew 400 of Baal's prophets. 400 men by himself, he killed them all. He slew them. Right? And the victory that he experienced wasn't even 24 hours old and he got a mean letter from Jezebel threatening his life and what did Elijah do? He ran for his life. He just experienced an incredible victory 24 hours ago and here he is running for his life from a crazy woman with pen and ink. And we find ourselves in the same position. Elijah found himself in a place where he was crying out to God saying, God, it's better that I wasn't even born to God. It's better that you just take me home already. He just experienced victory and he finds himself crying out, God, God, take my life. There was no hope in the situation, he told himself. But God says, Joshua, don't be afraid. By this time tomorrow, this great army, this great horde, look out at this hillside, Joshua. And this opposition that just seems so hopeless, by this time tomorrow is going to be dead. I'm going to take care of it. Here's Joshua. And God says, look at this great army. Look at this impossibly large opposition that you yourself can't find your way out. Look at them standing between you and the promises that I've given to you. Look at them. Because tomorrow, they'll be gone. Destroyed. What do we see Joshua does? Verse 7 says, So Joshua came and all the people of war with him, against them by the waters of Mirim suddenly, and they fell upon them. They attacked this great horde, this great army. And the Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel who smote them and chased them unto great Zidon and unto Here we go. Now, I love verse 9. You might just read it and say, yeah, Joshua did what the Lord said he was gonna do. Yeah, he killed their horses, he cued them, you know, he killed the horses and he burnt all the chariots. Why is that a good verse? Well, pastor kind of, he preached part of my message this morning, which is incredible. Joshua goes out, they fight this army, and Joshua does something that the rest of the nations would have looked at and said, why would you do that? You see, horses and chariots for an army back then would have been a superpower. You know the way that nations nowadays have nuclear weapons? For an army back then, if you had chariots and horses, man, you were powerful. Man, you were an army not to be messed with. Whenever you came up against an army that had lots of chariots and horses, you got scared, right? You were shaking in your boots. And what does Joshua do? He destroys the chariots and horses that he could have easily just added over to his army. This was what their world defined as strength and power. And Joshua destroyed it. He destroys the horses, he destroys the chariots. Joshua, rather than holding on to what his society defined as strength and power, destroys it, separates itself, rejects it. He rejected what his society viewed as strength and power. And man, the world does a good job at defining things for us, doesn't it? The world tries to define for every believer what strength is. The world tries to define what happiness is. The world defines what fulfillment is. The world defines what pleasure is. The world does a good job trying to redefine all these things for us. And here it is, the world defined these horses and chariots as a source of strength and Joshua said, burn them, kill them. We don't want nothing to do with that. And in fact, we know this is true because in Isaiah 31, when the prophet Isaiah comes and he's prophesying to the tribe of Judah, to the nation of Judah, this is what he says. Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many, and in horsemen, because they are very strong. But they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord. Here we see Joshua completely rejecting what his society deemed as strength and power and turning to God Almighty. And we know that, right? As believers, we get that preached to us left and right. Pastor just lit it up this morning and told us, don't rely on Egypt, don't rely on what this land deems as strength and power. Rely on God Himself. God alone is the one who's in control. And Joshua does just that. He rejects these horses and chariots. It can be very easy for us as believers living in the sinful world to rely on what the world defines as strength whenever we face great opposition in our life. We know we're saved, praise God for that, but then a hard time comes into our life, and for some reason we fall for the lie, and our first search leads us to what the world says is the way through this situation. We fall for it all the time, don't we? And it's creeping into many churches nowadays. You can call them that. We saw that relying on what the world saw as a source of strength in Isaiah led Israel away from the Lord. Now, if God spoke to you the way he spoke to Judah in Isaiah, would he say to you, Christian, woe to you for turning to the world to define strength in your life? Woe to you? Pastor read from Psalms this morning as well. I'm gonna read it real quick. I loved it when he read it. Psalms 20, verse seven. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. Joshua rejected what the world said was strength and power. Joshua was facing a great opposition, but he rejected what the world would have said was the solution to that opposition. Let's keep on reading here. Verse 10. And Joshua at the time turned back and took Hazor and smote the king thereof with the sword, for Hazor before time was head of all those kingdoms. And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them. There was not any left to breathe, and he burnt Hazor with fire. And all the cities of those kings and all the kings of them did Joshua take and smote them with the edge of the sword, and he utterly destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the Lord commanded. But as for the cities that stood still in their strength, Israel burned none of them, save Hazor only. That did Joshua burn, and all the spoils of these cities, and the cattle and the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves. But every man they smote with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them. Neither left they any to breathe. Now verse 15, here we go. Pay attention to this verse. If you've been sleeping, if you've been zoning out, this is the verse that you need to pay attention to, okay? Verse 15. This is the key to victory. As the Lord commanded Moses, his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses. You wanna know what the key to victory is? When you find yourself with this great opposition, and it seems like it's hopeless, it seems like there's no way through, around, under, over, whatever it may be, and the world is telling you this is how you deal with that situation, you reject that, the true key to victory is one simple thing. Obedience. Obedience. We saw in the history of Israel how disobedience led them to a lot of loss, but obedience always led them to victory. Joshua was victorious against this great opposition before him because he simply obeyed the voice of the Lord. Obedience was the key to Israel's victory in the past, and obedience was still the key to this victory. Obedience is the key to spiritual victory over this great opposition in our Christian lives. Obedience, if you look back to all the things that God has brought you through, all the things that God has done for you, and you say, praise God for this great victory in my life. If you boil it down, it all landed on one decision you made, to be obedient to God and what He told you to do. Obedience was the key to the spiritual victories you already experienced. And let me tell you something, that obedience is still the key to the situation that you find yourself in right now. Obedience is the key to victory. The key to overcoming any great oppositions we face has always been and will be obedience to the Lord. And the enemy in the world wants nothing else than to convince you to rely on what they define as strength and power and the solution for this terrible situation you find yourself in. They'll work as hard as they can to convince you that what they define as strength is the only solution to this thing you face. Satan's very good at mixing in just a little bit of truth, just enough for you to fall for the lie. He's good at that. And man, the world has convinced many Christians to rely on their definitions of strength and power. But it's still the same key. It's obedience. That's what we're supposed to be relying on. Obeying the word of God. That's the key to victory. We must learn to reject what the world defines as the way to deal with the situation we find ourselves in and turn to what has already led us to experience victory in our lives, obedience in God's word. The word's definition of power and the solution to the situation you find yourself in completely opposes or is at odds with God's key to victory. And you say this, you don't understand, Lalo. You are a baby. You're just turning 25. I know, I'm a baby. I don't know much about nothing. You don't understand, Lalo. I've been trying to obey. I obey every day. And I'm still battling this situation. It's been years. It's been months. Lalo, you don't get it, man. This can't be the key, because I've been obeying what God wants me to do, and yet there's no way through this. The horde is still there. In verse 18, as the chapter continues, we see that Joshua keeps on moving on. This is what it says in verse 18. Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. The battle Joshua fought didn't end overnight. And the key to the victory that they just faced was obedience. That was the key. And the key to all the battles that Joshua found himself in for the rest of the chapter, guess what the key was? Obedience. He was obeying the voice of the Lord. And that's why when you finish reading the chapter, it gives you a list of what? Victory, after victory, after victory, after victory, after victory, after victory. The key here was obedience. The key here was obedience. And the key here, guess what it still was? Obedience. So yes, I understand that some of you have been battling something, have been opposed by something, probably longer than I've even been alive. But you've experienced victory in your life already, and you know the key to that was obedience to what God had said. And let me tell you, this isn't coming from me, because I know nothing about nothing, but I do know what the word of God says, to obey the word of the Lord. That's the key to victory. Finally, we see in verse number 23, Man, that's what we want in our lives, don't we? We want rest. We want peace. We want fulfillment, satisfaction. That's what we want. Many times we come across this great enemy, and it seems like this is what's standing between me and the rest that I so desperately want, that I so desperately need. The peace that God's given me, the fulfillment that He's promised to me. Let me tell you, the only way to get to that point is by obedience. Obedience. The road to victory is not an easy one. I'm finding out, I'm young, but many of you definitely know this fact that the road to victory in a Christian life is not an easy road. It's hard. There's gonna be many times whenever you find yourself coming face to face with the great opposition standing between you and that which God has promised you. There's going to be situations you find yourself in that make you feel as if there's absolutely no hope or way out of this situation. If you could just get over the situation or problem, you can finally live the life that God has promised for you. But there's just no way through. It's obedience. Obedience. So what are we to obey? It's good to say obedience, but what is it that we're supposed to obey, right? Two things. You obey that which the Lord has already commanded in his word. He's given every single believer things to obey in this book. And if you don't know what those things are, then you need to read this book, because he's given us a lot of commands in this book. You need to obey those. And secondly, as you grow closer to the Lord, he's going to begin moving in your own personal life. You obey. You obey His word and you obey what He tells you to do in your own personal life. Obedience is the key. You do not have to worry about if this plan makes sense. You don't have to worry about how it will all fit together. It's not your job to try and make sure that it all makes sense and how it's all going to work out. The only job that you have given to you from God is to obey. But Lalo, I'm crying out to God and I'm obeying what he's told me to do in his book. He hasn't told me what to do through the situation yet. Well, sometimes for those people, for you, what you have to obey is this, wait. Keep on doing the things I've told you to do already and you wait for my answer. That's obedience. Pastor talked all morning about turning to God, relying on Him, and trusting in Him. In my mind, I put that all under one word. A phrase, I guess. Trust and faith. Right? Faith. You're placing your trust in God, you're relying on Him to help you through situations, in your time of trouble. But the evidence of faith is obedience. That's how you know when somebody truly has faith in the Lord, they're obeying what God told them to do. Faith is always evidenced by obedience in the things to God, in the things God has told you to do. And I understand, I've said it a lot already. I've experienced some things in my life, some things that have made me feel this way, this great opposition that I just don't feel there's a way through, there's no hope. But some of you have stories, and maybe you're facing things right now, an opposition, an enemy, a situation, that's just no hope through. And I just wanted to remind you today that the answer for you in your past victories was obeying what God had told you to do. The answer for this situation you find yourself in was obedience. And the answer, the key to whatever situation you find yourself in in the future is still going to be obedience. Because God Almighty, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, wants nothing but the best for you. And you think that God Almighty can't handle the situation you're in? Many times we fall for the lies of this world and Satan and start relying on what they deem is the solution to our problem. Right? Whenever we start struggling financially, our minds start spinning and we start turning to what the world says is a solution to all your financial problems, right? You gotta work more hours, you gotta start up a business, you gotta do this and that, and the whole time God's saying, why don't you just trust and rely on me? Keep on tithing, keep on giving, I'll take care of you. Christians do it all the time. Christians come to a point where their marriage is struggling. You say, I don't know how my marriage is going to survive this situation we find ourselves in. You turn to counseling from the world, and they say, well, try to make it work, and if it can't work, you know what? Divorce is still an option. And God says, no, no, no, no, that's not the answer. Obedience. Obedience to what? Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church. Wives, submit to your husbands. That's obedience. And you thought, I don't know how to raise my kids. Let me see what the world says is the right way to raise kids. Oh, OK. This Instagram post said that the way I'm supposed to raise my kids is by letting them do whatever they want. I don't want to hurt their feelings and kind of let them make their own decisions because I don't want to be that parent that's overbearing. And God says, no, no, no, that's not how you raise your child. And now you find yourself in a place where there's no way for you to fix your relationship with your child because they're off living in sin. All because you failed to obey. And the world has tricked so many Christians into relying on their source of power and strength. And all God says is, no, just obey. I've already got it figured out. Turn back to the book. Turn back to your walk with me and obey what I tell you to do. Just a reminder on obedience. There's a story, I'm closing with this, there's a story about a man who worked in one of the great forests of the south. He came back one day, he used to take his dog with him every day to work, and sadly he came back one day to find that a great fire had swept through the area of the forest he was at and had sadly burnt his dog alive, burnt to a crisp. I know it's sad. And this man said that the reason this little dog found himself under the fire was because as they were working, he set, the man set down his lunch pail and he told his dog, guard my lunch pail, I'll be back, you stay. And the dog stayed. He obeyed. And this man said that, he said, he was heartbroken, of course, and through tears on his eyes, he said, I always had to be careful what I told him to do because I knew he would do it. And yes, this was a sad story that led to this dog's death, but that's not how our God, that's not what happens to us when we obey God. No, God wants nothing but victory in our life, and success and fulfillment. God wants nothing but good for us, all we have to do is obey. There was a pilot one day who was flying his private plane, he was excited, he had just gotten his license, and he was really pumped to finally fly his own private plane. He took off that morning, and really excited for it, and just kind of snuck up on him without any warning. It got pretty cloudy. And soon, those clouds developed into storms. And he was caught up there, flying his plane. Sadly, he was still new. He was not very experienced, and an instrument landing. In a desperate plea for help, he calls over, he radios over to the control tower. And when the control tower finally reached back to him, they said, OK, we're going to get you down, OK? And he was freaking out. He was scared. He didn't know what to do. He was shouting over the speaker. And the control tower was trying to talk him down. And then eventually, a stern voice came from over the radio and said this, listen, you just obey instructions, and we'll take care of all the obstructions. Whenever you find yourself facing a great opposition in your life, and you just don't see a way through, you just follow the instructions, and really, God's already taken care of the obstructions. God wants nothing but the best for every single one of his children. And the world wants nothing else than to have you rely on their sources of strength and power. And all God wants from you is this, obedience. That's the key to victory, obedience. Let's go ahead and pray. Lord, thank you so much for this day, Lord. Thank you so much for... The fact that you love us, Lord, and that you care for us, and that you didn't just leave us down here alone to fend for ourselves, Lord, but you have a will for us and you guide us, Lord. And we're so thankful, Lord, for the great victories you've brought in each one of our lives, Lord. I just pray that you give us the strength and help us to remember the fact that we are still required to obey you in everything you tell us to do. I pray you speak to people's heart. Maybe there's somebody who's not willing to obey in a certain area of their life, Lord, and maybe they just don't see it, Lord. And that's the key, Lord, to victory in the situation they find themselves in, Lord. And for those who have been obeying and fighting for a long, long time, Lord, and the fight sometimes gets tiring, I pray you encourage their hearts and lift their bodies, Lord, and help them to keep on fighting the good fight and obeying, Lord, what you have given them to do. I just pray you work in hearts during this altar call. In your name I pray, amen. Stand with me as Jay's gonna lead us in a song, and if there's something you have to give over to the Lord, go ahead and deal with it. Maybe it's something the pastor preached this morning, and it convicted you to truly rely on the Lord and His strength. ♪ Loving for you and for me ♪ ♪ See the portals translating and watching ♪ ♪ Watching for you and for me ♪ ♪ Come home, come home to me ♪ The earth is sweet and early, Jesus is coming, calling us in earth above. Why should we tarry when Jesus is near? We yearn for you and for me. Why should we linger and heed not his mercies? Mercies for you and for me. Come home, come home. We who are weary, come home. Amen. Just some things from the bulletin here. We have a team cleaning this coming Saturday. My wife and I will be out of town. uh... for the james and jillian agreed to take that over for us thing before that uh... youth rally will be not this saturday but the next saturday of the off to change the time on here the rally itself is from eleven to three buses we have to drive over there i'm asking the teams to be here at ten in the morning and will have him back by four p m Um, so I'll change that on there again, have them here at 10 in the morning, Saturday, October 19th. There's no cost for this youth rally. Uh, we have a youth activity, an all-nighter. Please be in prayer for us. Also, supplication and fasting wouldn't hurt. Uh, October 25th, uh, drop off at 9 p.m. Do not, we're not, I'm not unlocking the doors till 9 p.m. Uh, and then pick up between 6.30 and 7 in the morning. Please and thank you. Uh, fall praise festival will be October 26th, so the Saturday right after, um, the day right after we have our all-nighter at 5 p.m. here at the church. There's a sign-up sheet in the back already for you to sign up to bring food and drinks and such things. Patch program October 27th during the afternoon service. Then we have a ladies' retreat. They're going to be going to Wichita November 1st to the 2nd. There's a sign-up sheet in the foil already, and registration is due next week. Ladies' Thanksgiving also there November 9th. It's been a great day in the Lord's house today. Love and thankful for every single one of y'all. Brother Savage, do you mind dismissing us in a word of prayer?