I'm sure you'll appreciate that song. Let's turn in our Bibles this morning to the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 11. We all know, I think, that the book of Hebrews in chapter 11 is a great list, a catalog of champions of the faith, examples. Many of them are named here, but certainly not all. And I'm just going to start reading this morning beginning with verse 32. And let's stand together in reverence to the reading of God's Word. The first 31 verses contain accounts all the way back to Abel and Enoch and Noah. and Sarah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and then Joseph and Moses and his parents. And they're highlighted because of their great faith. And then it speaks of Joshua and the children of Israel that followed him. The miracles that they saw in answer to their faith and how God was able to use them. And then it mentions this person here, the last person named is Rahab, rather than giving a place all to herself, is Rahab the harlot. Actually, the ex-harlot, the former harlot. And it says, by faith, the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believe us not when she had received the spies with peace. It talks about what she did for the Lord. And of course, there would be a lot more. She would wind up in the lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. But then in verse 32, the writer says, And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets, who through faith, subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead, raised to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Now, I want you just to look back at verse 34. In verse 34, right in the middle of all of this, speaking about all of these others, it says, "...they quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword." And look at this phrase, "...and out of weakness were made strong." That's what I want to preach on this morning, the Lord being my helper, being made strong out of weakness. This message especially would pertain to, in the most way, the biggest way, to anybody who feels especially weak this morning. I'm going to ask for a show of hands, but I wonder how many feel weak spiritually and in other ways. I know there are some here that do. Let's go on with the message and please be seated. May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Word. You know, when you look at this passage of Scripture, and I've been preaching a series on Hebrews chapter 12, and hopefully we'll finish up with that maybe this Wednesday night. But here, the Bible is talking about all of these people who brought glory to God. You know, that's why we're here, to bring glory to God. He saved us because He loved us. And while we were yet in our sins, He loved us. And gave His blood for us. And the Bible says we love Him because He first loved us. And Revelation 1 and 5 says, unto Him that loved us, and then He washed us. unto Him that loved us and washed us. When we're dirty and unclean and spiritually in a bankrupt state, under those conditions, He loved us. Unto Him that loved us and gave Himself for us and shed His blood for us. Now, redeemed us by His own blood. But the Lord saves us also because He wants us to serve Him. He wants all of us to serve Him if you've been saved. Every one of us. He wants us to bring glory to His name and give Him good service. Now, at this time of year, in a special way, I want to just point out that the Lord has three good words for us here, especially in this phrase in verse 34 where the Bible speaks about these people and makes this commentary on them and says out of weakness that they were made strong. Now when you read about these people, immediately things will come to your mind. I mean, you think about Rahab. She wasn't strong. She didn't have any might. She didn't have any helpers. She didn't have any sponsorship or support. And the same kind of thing could be said about a lot of these other people. I mean, you read these names here, and these are not stalwart champions on white steeds with everything it takes to be successful. For God, when you read this, quite the opposite of that. Now God has three words for us in this text. One is that He has a word of explanation for us. There's a word of explanation that's needed here. And also, there's a word of encouragement. And the older I get, the longer I stay in the ministry, the longer, the more I realize that people need encouragement. They need it all of their lives. We all need it. Every one of us needs that. We all need encouragement. There's nothing that people appreciate more than just a little bit of encouragement. One of our American humorists said years ago, he said, I can go six months on just one word of encouragement. And God has a word of encouragement here when He tells us that all of these people were made strong out of their weakness. They were all weak people, but they were made strong. And they wind up here in Hebrews chapter 11. These men and women who are named and a great host of them who aren't even named. But God knew their names and God knows their names. And their names are written in heaven And even though their names are not mentioned here in the latter part of this chapter, one thing they had in common with everybody from Abel to Moses and Abraham and all of these worthies of the Bible is that every single one of them received strength and were made strong out of weakness. Now here's the explanation that's needed today. A lot of Christians, a lot of saved people, The common thinking is that these people here in Hebrews chapter 11 and others that you read about, great preachers and missionaries and so on, the common thinking is that these people were just real special people. That these people that throughout Christian history have been famous for serving the Lord, they're just special people. They're not ordinary people like you and I are. They're people, maybe they were especially gifted or they were especially courageous or whatever. But beloved, what we need to understand, when we think like that, that kind of thinking about these people is just, they're nothing but assumptions about that and they're really presumptions because the truth is That God wants us to know this, and that's why He speaks as He does, and all of these others, without mentioning their name, is this fact that they were just like us. There weren't anything special about them. God didn't choose them from the foundation of the world and gift them in ways that, in other words, that there is just some people that are going to really be able to serve God, and there's others who just never will make the grade. That's not the truth. See, the Lord wants us to know this, and throughout His Bible, the teaching is that that these people weren't particularly brilliant. They weren't particularly brave. That's why I like that such a wonderful verse over there in James, the latter part of James, when it's talking about prayer. And the Bible used the example of one of the most famous men in the Bible, really, and that's Elijah, the great prophet. All of the miracles He did. I mean, here's a man who withstood pagan kings and queens and so on. And a powerful, powerful, powerful man of God. And encouraging us to pray. It says, "...the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." And we all need to be able to pray like that. Every one of us, beloved. Every one of us that's saved. needs to be able to pray effectually and with fervency in our prayers. And it tells the story of Elijah and about the time that he prayed and it did not rain for three years. Then he prayed again and it began to rain. But then it says this. It says in James 5 and 17, Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are. In other words, this great prophet was no different than we are, fundamentally speaking. And he prayed. Look what a prayer life he had. A powerful prayer life. Now, beloved, what that means is that there's not anybody here that can't have a prayer life as powerful as Elijah's prayer life was. He had a wonderful, wonderful ministry. Tremendous. He's one of those men that you just love to read about. And he performed, as I said, many, many miracles. But what God wants all of us to remember and appreciate this fact is that Elijah was a man subject to life passions as we are. In other words, he had his disorderly things in his life. He was subject to ups and downs and depression and all of the mood swings. You don't think that's true? You need to read the story of Elijah again. And he had a lot of these things, the same things going on in his life that you do in terms of these problems of life and problems with self. That quote ought to be remembered by everybody, and that is that the best of men are men at best. And as we go on into this new year, let's all of us remember this, that there is nothing super special about these people, except two things that I'll be mentioning in a minute that are available to every one of us. So there's a word of explanation here. Regardless of what you might think, the truth is There is no difference between these people mentioned in the Bible and people in our own times that are really serving God and getting great answers to prayer and seeing miracles happen. If you don't believe in miracles, I feel sorry for you. And we need some miracles around here. Amen? When Elijah was transported up into heaven, translated into heaven, Elisha came, remember that, and picked up his mantle that was laying there on the ground and smote the waters and says, where is the Lord God of Elijah? And he had already asked before Elijah left, he said, if I could have one prayer request answered, it would be that I might have a double portion of your spirit. And when Elijah was translated, Elijah was, Elijah picked up that mantle, smoked the water, said, where is the Lord God of Elijah? And from that point on, God began to show him where the Lord God of Elijah was. You know where he was? Same place he'd always been. Same place he is today. reigning on high and ruling as God Almighty over heaven and earth, answering prayer and interceding for His people on this earth. Elisha had asked for a double portion of Elijah's spirit. And if it's interesting, if you need it, get a calculator and just count up the miracles that Elisha performed, and they'll come out to exactly twice as many, at least that are recorded, of the ones that Elijah performed. And our God still reigns. He's still powerful. He still answers His people's prayer. And there's no difference between these people and us today. And so there's a word of explanation. It's also a real strong encouragement. A real strong encouragement. Here's what we need to remember. We need to be encouraged by this. Encouraging to me that God still wants to use us in His work on earth. He wants to use every one of us here as much as He wanted to use these people recorded in Hebrews 11. You think of any famous evangelist or pastor or preacher or missionary or hymn writer or anything like that, you think about the best Christians you've known or you've ever read about or heard about, and you know what? God wants to use every one of us as much as He wanted to use them. He wants to use us. During our ten days of tarrying, and thank God for everybody that was able to come out. Boy, we had some brutal weather, but we still had people, goods showing every night. It was great. But somebody brought up one night, Luke 10, verse 2. Now you talk about prayer requests. Why don't you just turn there. Luke 10, verse 2. It's also recorded in another Gospel. But you know what? This is a real, kind of a unique passage of Scripture. And it's so interesting. And it ought to be convicting. But here is a place where we're told that Jesus Christ Himself made a prayer request. Now we took lots of prayer requests every night as best we could. We've written all those down, typed them out, We'll have them out in the foyer for people to get those. All the prayer requests, physical, spiritual, salvation, financial, whatever. All kinds of prayer requests that were taken. You know, when people make prayer requests, when you make a prayer request, don't you just hope that people will pray? Follow through? No, we want to be careful about that when people say, would you pray for me? Or when we say, I'll pray for you about that. To really follow through on it. Try our best to follow through on it. Because when people ask for prayer, nobody asks for prayer just to kill time. You know, to make some kind of conversation. But think about this. Jesus Himself made a prayer request. I'm telling you this morning, I'm just like you are. If I asked you to pray, if I said I want you all to pray about this for me, I believe this. I believe that probably everybody here that's a Christian, if you heard my prayer request and there was a way that you could answer that prayer request yourself, you'd be using God to answer the prayer request for me. You'd do it. I really believe that. The same here. You know, sometimes I hear people making a prayer request about something that maybe they need a job. And I'm thinking, boy, if I just owned a big business, if I just had the connections so that I could be used of God myself to answer that prayer request and put this person to work in a good job, well, of course I'd do that. But what about when Jesus makes a prayer request? What if it's something that we could all make happen? Well, in Luke chapter 10 and in verse 2, He's speaking to His disciples. Therefore said He unto them, the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that He would send forth laborers into His harvest. Think about that. Jesus just recognized the fact that it's always been around. He said the harvest is great. All of these billions of people that are in the world now that need to hear the gospel and be saved. All of the people that are floating around out there that have been saved, but they've never been able to get into a good flock, a fold where they can learn and hear the gospel and get spiritually mentored and discipled, and they're just drifting and floating around out there like sheep without having any shepherd. Jesus said, the harvest is great, but here's the problem, the laborers are few. And He said, I've got a prayer request. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He would send laborers into His field. Now there's a lot of people who are saved who aren't laborers. You know, it would be like if you went down into your basement early one morning And maybe you heard your wife praying and just praying for something and you thought, I could do that. I could take care of that myself and take care of it. And then you went ahead and you said, this is something I can do it. I'm going to do it now that I know what she wants. Well, here's what the Lord said. He said, the laborers are few, but the harvest is plenteous. Pray ye therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that He will send laborers." And see, there's a whole lot of Christians who hear this and know the Lord has made this prayer request. And we could be the laborer. We could say, Lord, like Isaiah, here am I. Send me. I'll be the answer to that prayer request. Count me in. Here I am. Now, that's a wonderful thing to me. The Lord is even praying that His people would be laborers in His harvest. God wants us to serve Him. He wants to use us. He wants to. And not only does He want to use us, but He will use us. You know, this could be the best year of all of our lives, this year as Christians. could be our very best, best year by far. It could be a transforming year for us if we could just get what God has for us just in this message alone. In Isaiah 64 and in verse 4, there's something that's quoted in the New Testament. I'll mention that in a minute. But in Isaiah 64 and in verse 4, the Bible says, "...for since the beginning of the world..." Now it's interesting God puts this in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Since the beginning of the world, men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him." Eye hath not seen. Since the beginning of the world, nobody has ever been able to see in full what God has for them that will wait upon Him, who will trust in Him and who will look to Him for guidance and surrender to Him. Now, nobody's ever been able to fully grasp how wonderful that is. You say, I have not seen, you have not heard, neither then and in the heart of man. I thought that was talking about heaven. Well, that's included in it. But during this lifetime, beloved, none of us have ever begun to really scratch the surface of the great potential that every one of us have. And I hope you young people are listening. None of us have begun to scratch the veneer off of the surface to see how much God will use us. Now, 1 Corinthians 2 and 9, Paul said, As it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of a man the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him. Them that wait upon Him Them that love Him. God wants to use people like that. Now, let me give you the last word. You've got a word of explanation here. None of these people any different than us. And a word of encouragement. God wants to use us and He will use us. You'll begin using anybody today that really wants to be used of Him. And then here's the last thing. There's a word of instruction. Now, these people in Hebrews 11, verse 34, here's what it says about them. It says, "...out of weakness they were made strong." That's the secret. That's their secret. It's the secret of that mighty man Moses, and it was the secret of whoever one of these obscure, unnamed people are here. that served God and brought glory to His name and wind up even recorded in the Holy Scripture. You know what their secret was? Out of weakness, they were made strong. Now, they were just ordinary men and women, but they all had two things in common. Here's the two things they had in common. The first thing they had in common is that they did not rely on their own strength. None of them did. Some of them tried it. But they didn't do very well when they relied on their own strength. Moses tried it. Remember that? Moses relied on his own strength. He said, I'm going to be a champion for God's people and I see this Egyptian here beating a Hebrew and I'll just sock him one. And he did. And he socked him so hard he killed him. Tried to bury him in the sand. to cover up what had happened. And now he's cast into a state of fear and apprehension and winds up going on the lamb into the wilderness for 40 years. You know what he learned? He learned not to rely on his own strength. You and I are Christian people. We're not lost people. We're not people like 2 Corinthians 2 talks about. about those who are the natural men and they can't understand the things of the Spirit. They can't understand them. We're not there. We were there, but since we've been saved, we're not there. So we can't understand the things of the Spirit. We can't understand this, that we cannot rely on our own strength. This is one of the secrets of these people. Yesterday afternoon, I listened to a man. Some different speakers got up to speak and several of them were candidates for public office. And the very first one that got up, I mean, it was a shock. There was probably six or seven hundred people there. And when he started to speak, it was instantly apparent he had a terrible speech defect. Now, you can understand him, but you had to really listen hard. He was probably in his 50s or late 50s maybe, but he, I mean, a terrible speech defect. And I found out that he had, somebody told me, leaned over and whispered and said, that man, I think they said has muscular sclerosis or something like that. But he had, you just, I mean, it was just a struggle. And here he is in front of all these people and he's speaking and, but as he spoke, found out And down there in Poplar Bluff, other people mentioned that he was a successful businessman. And he built a very successful businessman. He'd been raised on a little poor farm. They didn't have anything. They were really poor. I mean, they were the kind of poor that the poor people called poor. And he went into the military and he got out still having this bad speech defect. It got worse and worse and worse. And he got into business and built a great business and then sold it. And here he is running for Congress. And you know, I'm sitting there listening to this. And a Christian, by the way, sure gave a good testimony about his Christianity. But you know, to me, as I sat there, it was just a reminder that Little is much if God is in it. And if somebody will get right with God and stay right with God and trust in themselves, it doesn't really matter about how weak that they are physically. And things like that. You know, it really doesn't matter how much education a person has. It doesn't matter, well, just a lot of things that people sometimes can use as excuses. Sometimes people talk about their physical shortcomings. When we sing these hymns that we sing here, you know, many of the really great hymns were written by two women. One was Frances Habergow and the other one was Fanny Crosby. Now most people know Fanny Crosby was blind. She was blind from the time she was a little bitty girl. And Frances Habergow was... throughout her life was just wracked with pain. And she was almost always sick and suffering physically. But she had such a tremendous spirit and attitude, and she just wanted, through writing these hymns, to give glory to God. And you know, out of her weakness, she became so very strong. And that's what the Lord wants us to learn. Now Moses in Exodus 3 and in verse 11, when God spoke to Moses and called him, here's what Moses said. He said unto God, Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? He said, Who am I? I'm nothing. I can't do it. That is too big a task for me. I can't do it. I'm not man enough. How in the world could I? See, there was this objection. Do you remember the story of Gideon? Now Gideon wasn't the bravest man in Israel. He was one of the most timid men in Israel. And when the Midianites had overran them, and put them under tribute, the Israelites got to the place where they had to go find a little patch where they could raise a little wheat or something in secret and try to till it to keep the Midianites from knowing about it so that they wouldn't grab it before the Israelite could take that and make some food out of it for his family. And the Bible presents Gideon like this. He's out in one of these little secret places he's found. He's scratching around trying to raise a living for his family. And he's out there on this threshing floor trying to get the harvest of the little crop that he has. And probably every little twig that breaks, he's jumping and wondering if there's some Midianite or somebody else that's going to find what he has and tell on him. Then he'll get that taken away and maybe punished by the Midianites. And all of a sudden, he hears this great voice saying, O thou man of valor. Do you know why God said that? Because God saw him, not as a little peon scratching around trying to raise something in secret, scared from the soles of his feet to the top of his head of the Midianites. God saw what he was going to be. And you know where it started with Gideon is when he admitted that he was weak. He admitted his weakness. He wasn't relying upon his own strength. He said, O Lord, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." An Evangelist friend of mine down in Alabama said, Gideon told God, said, my tribe is the runt of all of our nation. And he said, my family is the runt family of the whole nation, and I'm the runt in my family. I'm just a runt." And my friend said, God just showed how much he can use a runt. You know what? We need to learn this lesson ourselves. Our strength has nothing to do with it. We're not to rely on our own strength. I've got a lot of examples here. Some of the great Baptist preachers like John Hall and Charles Haddon Spurgeon and others that were just, and not a Baptist, but D.L. Moody and people that were constantly dealing with adverse conditions physically speaking, and yet God used them. But you know why He used them? Because they weren't relying on their own strength. In 1 Corinthians 15 and 9, here's the Apostle Paul. Now if anybody could make a bunch of excuses, Paul could have. He said, I'm the least of the apostles. Now, one thing he did not do was rely on his own strength. He didn't think about his college education, his postgraduate degrees. He didn't think about his reputation among the Jews. He wasn't thinking about all of those things. You know what he was thinking about? He was thinking about other things and just how weak that he really, really, really was. He said, I'm the least of the apostles. I'm not meet to be called an apostle. Because I persecuted the church of God. He said, I've got all of this baggage in my life. Talk about baggage. Now he had some. In Ephesians 3 and 8, Paul's talking about his call into the ministry and he says, unto me who am the less than the least of all saints. First he said, I'm the least of all the apostles. Now he said, I'm the least of all of the saints. Is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ? It's almost like Paul was zeroing in more and more on his own weaknesses. Bringing that up again and again because he learned something. In 2 Corinthians 12, I think, and in verse 10, he says, therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities. in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. Now listen to this. Hebrews 11.34, Paul said, for when I am weak, then I am strong. He learned that. He learned not to rely on his own strength. The famous evangelist, D.L. Moody, said this one time. He said, we might easily be too big for God to use But we're never too small for God to use. I want to read again in 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 27. Paul said, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. This is God's doing. This is the way God works. He wants to work through people who aren't relying on their own strength. And God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty. and these things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are. Every Baptist knows the name of William Carey. William Carey lived back in the 18th century. In England and Britain, the churches just weren't interested in mission. And William Carey started promoting missions in the Baptist church and a group of Baptist churches there where he lived in England. And he got them interested enough to consider sending a missionary to India. And one night this group of prominent Baptist pastors and others in their churches – city church, country churches – they were there. William Carey asked that he might go to India as a missionary. One of the men in the council, in an obvious attempt to put Carey down, said, Mr. Carey, correct me if I'm wrong, but he said, aren't you a shoemaker? And Carey said, no. He said, I'm not a shoemaker. He said, a shoemaker makes shoes. He says, I'm just a cobbler. He said, I'm a shoe cobbler. All a cobbler does is fix shoes. I'm just somebody that fixes shoes. I'm not even big enough to be a shoemaker. And God used William Carey more than he's used tens of thousands of people. that would rely on their own strength. They used Him in a great way. The same thing still applies to men and women and boys and girls today. So, number one, these people whose strength was made perfect out of weakness were made strong out of their weakness. They didn't rely on their own strength. And here's the second thing, and I'm going to close the message with this thought. Second thing they did not do, and this is the way we have to be, beloved, to be used of God. Every one of us. Not rely on our own strength and not resist God. Not resist God. Oh, how happy so many men would be today and so many women would be today in the service of God and as Christians. How happy they would be compared to what they are if they had not resisted God when His calling was on their life. When they thought about their own strength, their own incapabilities, their own shortcomings, and so on. Remember Moses and Gideon and these people. In the beginning, they tried to resist God because of that. And Jeremiah did. When God called Jeremiah, listen to what Jeremiah said. Jeremiah said, He said, then said I, O Lord God, behold, I cannot speak. He meant he couldn't speak good. He said, for I am a child. I'm too young. He said, I'm a child. But the Lord said unto me, say not I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Now here's something that I think that I've learned. that a lot of people, you know, when I was a young Christian, I used to hear many times, I'd hear preachers say, give their testimony about how they were running from God. God called me to the ministry and I just ran from God. Sometimes they'd say, I ran from God for years. And I'd hear about other people that would, they were just resisting God. God had something for them to do. They wouldn't do it. Other people could see, but they would resist God. Now, do you know what I've learned? I believe this is true. I believe I'm right about this. I don't believe that God's people resist Him, resist His calling on their life. I'm talking about for the most part. There's always exceptions. But I don't believe that God's people will resist the Lord's will for their life. And to really get in the harness and serve the Lord, that they resist that because they're selfish, I don't think that's the main reason they do it. I don't think it's because they're just rebellious and don't want to serve God. I don't really believe that's the reason a lot of them have done it. And a lot of them have done it to their own peril and to their own regret today. But I don't think they did it because of those bad, bad reasons I just mentioned. Because they were rebels or self-centered and heartless just didn't want to serve God. Here's why I think people do it. I think they do it, number one, because they don't feel worthy. I don't feel worthy to serve God. It could be because a whole bunch of things come to mind. I don't feel worthy to really take a hold in the church and really get busy and serve the Lord. I just don't feel worthy. Well, you know what? That's a good thing. You know why? Because none of us are worthy. In and of ourselves, there's not one of us that's worthy. And I think a lot of people have resisted the Lord's call on their life where service is concerned. And He's called all of us to service. In fact, I believe I know this is true in some cases where people have said, I'm not educated enough. I don't have any education. I've had a man or two tell me that. You know, I felt like God would want me to preach, but I just don't feel like I'm educated enough. If I only had the time, I'd introduce them to a whole bunch of men that I know. that hardly have any education at all but how God has used them. And most people would never know they didn't have any formal education if somebody didn't tell them. A lack of education is no reason. My wife's grandfather on both sides, both of her grandfathers, but I'm thinking about the one that I knew, had hardly any formal education. He had maybe a little bit more in grade school than most people did then. But he sure had the education in the Word of God. He had the education his good parents had given him about how to treat people and comport himself in society. And when God called him, he used him immensely all the days of his life thereafter. Some people use that excuse. Some people will say, you know, I've had these failures in the past. Some of these people I've named already, they sure had their failures in the past. Abraham had them. Moses had them. A whole bunch of them had them. Rahab had them. Amen. But here's one that people will use a lot. They'll say, I'm too old now. Well, let me just ask you this. How much older are you going to be tomorrow? Here's the answer. A little bit older than you are today. Some people say, I'm too old. Well, history bears this out, the Bible bears this out, that's really not an excuse. Don't let the devil use that on you. And some people say, I'm too young. Now, I don't know why, but this is a particular concern that I have. That our young people really get it and get it really, really good. That God wants to use you. There's no reason that the Lord won't use you. Don't think I'm too young. When I get to be 30, Don't think like that. Find some place to serve the Lord and be used of the Lord now. Too old, too young. Even though people make those and they're sincere about it, they're not good excuses. People say, I don't have an outgoing personality. Well, sometimes that can be a good thing. Some people say men who've been called of God into the ministry have resisted God at first, and I know some, and said, you know, I'm not an eloquent speaker. I can't believe God would call me. I've heard Him say this. I'd be afraid when I got up there in that pulpit that I would embarrass the Lord. God doesn't call people that are going to embarrass Him. Who He calls, He also equips. Somebody says, my health is poor. Well, we're not relying on our strength. And so therefore, we shouldn't resist the Lord. Here's what he says. He says, it's not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. Now Paul had bad health. He had apparently bad eye problems. And it tells us in the New Testament where other people testify he's not a good speaker. He's just not eloquent. In 1 Corinthians 2, listen to this. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 1. Here's Paul. He's got all this education, but like everybody else, he's got his downsides, his weaknesses. And apparently, he wasn't a very good-looking man. were disparaging him. He was getting disparaging comments made behind his back about how ugly he was, I guess. And he knew about it, because he tells us about it in the Bible. But listen to this. He got it. He understood. It's not in our good looks. It's not in our education. It's not in our personalities. It's not in any of this. And as soon as we get that and thank God for His strength and Him wanting to use us and His willingness to use us, here's what Paul said. He said, and I, brethren, when I came to you, to the Corinthians, He said, I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Because one time before that, you can read about that in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and in verse 9, Paul said, Lord, this thorn in my flesh. We don't know what it was, but he had a thorn in his flesh. He had a hindrance in his flesh. And he was asking God, could you take it away? If he'd been like some people, he might have said this, boy, howdy. Lord, if you took this away, what a power I would be. But anyway, the Lord listened to Paul and then Paul said, he said unto me, my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, Paul said, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me." I guess next to William Carey, maybe the most famous missionary that there is, or he'd be right up there in the top three or four, would be Hudson Taylor. Toward the end of his life, people were talking to him about his upbringing and his background and all of that kind of thing and how greatly and mightily God had used him in his life. And Hudson Taylor said, He said, the Lord was looking for a man weak enough to use. And he found me. See, we've got to be weak enough for God to use. Isn't that a great qualification? To be weak enough? I mean, how many of us could say, hey, I think I could go right up to the front of the line or close to it. I'm weak enough. That's not a disqualifier, that's a qualifier to trust in the strength of the Lord, to use us this year. In personal witnessing, in personal soul winning, in any kind of work here in this church, to be used of the Lord is to constantly be reminding ourselves that we're not relying on our strength. That would be discouraging and disappointing. In the Lord's work, God's work has to be done in God's power. Not to rely on our own strength at all, and surely not to resist God. I'm telling every one of you here this morning that's saved, God wants to use you. You say, who would believe that? Maybe there would be somebody that would say, who that really knows my life and knows my situation right now? I mean, how could that be? Well, it's the truth. God wants to use you as much as He ever wanted to use Abraham or Sarah or Moses or Gideon or Sam, any of them. Amen. Isn't that a wonderful thought to go into this new year? I mean, we all need to be the very best we can be in this church. Let's all stand together.